Whilst in most countries people are panic buying toilet paper, bottled water, tinned food etc., in that bastion of liberty and justice (really?), the good old USA, they’re panic buying even more guns and ammunition!!! 
I just wonder how long before the place descends into anarchy. 
The decline of the USSR was relatively peaceful, the decline of the USA could be in a mass of tribal/gang conflicts. 
Far from ensuring the survival of the state when they adopted the 2nd amendment it could be that the founding fathers sowed the seed for its destruction!
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1957 Chinese flu was followed by the far worse 1968 Hong Kong flu.
Its wrong to say governments have learned and implemented nothing since. Taiwan learned and implemented loads since SARS, and implemented effective measures suitable for Taiwan, but probably not applicable elsewhere.
Project Nightingale is not something done on the hoof. Its the implementation of a Pandemic Response plan developed in 2009.
The developments at NHS Nightingale are pretty impressive. Queen’s Gurkha Engineers hard at work.
I have a developing theory; countries without a unitary healthcare system, suc as Germany, have hospitals in competition with each other for patients, and that leads to duplication of facilties. Which is handy for times of surge, but wasteful elsewhere. Countries with unitary healthcare systems, such as the UK. Italy, Spain France, get hit hard, because there is less duplication.
Some might wonder about the colours used in the government message:
Mmm, inspired by inverted RAMC colours (with red instead of cherry, though red is cometimes used in some RAMC colours)
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I defer to your accepted professional expertise Saz.
I’ve lived through two plagues.
As far as I recall, 9 million in the UK got it in 1957 and there were 14,000 fatalities.
My mother was one surving victim, was put into isolation at home, lost her hearing & her hair turned white.
This Co-vid is my third experience in bug dodging.
One can only wonder what the relatives of those already deceased in the Uk feel.
Not to mention the estimated thousands of families with family members most likely to succumb, and dread the day as well they may.
They would perhaps be entitled to hold the view that NHS Nightingale is a month or two too late, together with the sudden raft of control measures. I’m no expert in the matters of logistics & public epidemic management, I only know what the official Government edicts tell me what is best.
I’m aware of the '68 plague as well. I worked it. It also ended up in the long run indirectly killing my Father. So far, this Cov-id seems to be just warming up to it’s evil task in terms of fatalities by comparison. My father was still in practice in '68, and had 3 surgeries in very deprived areas where all the well known industrial lung diseases were rife. In some pocket areas in the early 60’s the life expectancy of a child getting to 5 was 1 dead out of 5. Rickets, malnutrition etc was abound.
It ravaged the UK in a lot of hot spot areas. My point was…nothing substantive had changed much but the UK was probably a bit better prepared? I don’t really know…I was only 16.
In many ways, the whole family in '68 was involved in social support efforts. my Mother ran soup kitchens, and myself ,siblings, and able bodied patients delivered to Father’s most wanting older patients which given the poverty stricken pre-slum clearance areas with 5,000 patients was a considerable effort. On push bikes with baskets, and address lists.
I do not know how many in Scotland died, but I think he lost 3 figures.
I think the UK death toll was over 30k.
That one ('68) wore Dad down to a shadow of his former self, and in August 1970 he took his own life following a devastating mental collapse. Civvy PTSD I suppose.
RIP Dr Jimmy
I trust in Lady Luck I’ll dodge the bullet for a third time because thanks to a massive chest infection 3 years back plus a medical history from birth of bronchial asthma , I would not really fancy my chances much.
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How do you do a seemingly impossible task in a ludicrous time scale? Bring in the Ghurkhas.
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Believe me, these guys are utterly epic. My son worked with them at the Infantry Battle School in Brecon for 4 years in producing & testing explosives for “those who do not exist” They are simply on another level in terms of work ethic.
He remains very good friends with a couple of them.
I’d settle for a V6 transplant! 
Superheroes to a man. As you say on another level for work ethic and they actually produce the results. As we know they haven’t always been appreciated as much as they should be. Superhuman but sometimes treated as subhuman.
I’m in admiration of your son for having two of them as friends. I would love to just have one.
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They were Afghanistan vets together.
Good bonding mechanism.
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Yup. That would do it!
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It just goes to show how much personal experience affects our memories. Obviously Rob (Scottishfiver) had intensely traumatic and disastrous personal experiences in 1957 and 1968 which have stuck in his memory. I on the other hand and being some 10 years older don’t even remember the epidemics because they didn’t have any serious effects on anyone we knew. From what Rob says about them we were very, very lucky! A good, brave man your Dad Rob!!!
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As I see the crisis of this savage flu bug sweeping the country, i have seen the best and worst of our nation.
The volunteers for “helping” the NHS/etc… is great to see, the “OP’s” problem at first post and others is poor.
Our nation is now owing to the liberalisation of society has meant now that people just do not have discipline or any way of understanding that at times we have to do as we are told, owing to their “rights”.
I have a back ground of being a child of a man who was in the RAMC for 26 years. Being an army “Brat” and travelling the world as a family having to obey military law, and that of the countries we lived in, taught us a little of what is right and wrong. When I was old enough I joined the Marines for a few years, again understanding what was the right thing to do, and wrong, people got hurt and worse if “sop’s” were not followed. I then joined the police, and found at first that there are thousands of shades of grey between Black and White…and that “society” does not like following the way of what is best for the majority of society. Those that think they can do as they wish, do so, knowing that little in the way of retribution and punishment will come their way.
Well this time it might do so, fatally in some cases…
For those of us trying to do the right thing, may well slow down the infection rate, and help in the long term. Those that will not, and the families of those that won’t, will never give a S£%t about others anyway.
Best bet is to let it go, don’t get upset about things you can’t change, but, do what you can to do what is right
Maybe get out in the garden?drive way and polish that MX5 up 
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There is now a new breed of idiot emerging out there - those who are taking advantage of the reduction in traffic and blatantly speeding through our town and its outskirts. No doubt on their way to another bout of panic buying.
I don’t really buy that. A little too glib, if I might say so.
Yep your right there, they are hammering along our road through the village i live in, i find it hard to believe the traffic news…how come they are still having traffic jams and road closures owing to fatals?
Are we the society we deserve?
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I did see a snippet elsewhere saying traffic casualties are down 90% in (I think it was) LA. That’s the kind of effect that will really help to free up hospital intensive care beds.
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Yes, I’ve heard that expressed that trauma surgery is down. But I am also hearing that the NHS effectively stopped all surgical procedures 2 weeks ago.
There might be an uptick in accidents around home; falling off ladders, running over feet with a mower etc. In a normal year, 50,000 people end up in A&E seeking help.
A flyer for every occasion it seems
I rest my case!
Freddie would have loved it I’m sure.
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Quite.
I’ve never underestimated the crass stupidity of Joe Public for decades Nick. Do so at your peril.
Now, can I fit 265 x18" slicks to my Mk1 legally? 
Comments appreciated mate.
Suffice to say, Dad was a hard man from Govan but with a heart of putty.
Man of the people.
Kept my Papa’s Police nightstick under his surgery desk for the ship-yard post week end wasters coming in “for a doctors line”. Out came the nightstick " I’ll give you a real headache". Out they went to work. 
During the '68 plague, he became infamous in Partick for having a good Glasgow fisty cuffs up a tenement stair-well with a Catholic Cannon (of all posh people) doing his rounds collecting money from families ( soup kitchen patients) who had not been to Chapel and deserted The Mother Mary. I kid not. Police called on our house later. I recall eaves dropping…seems the “priest” needed some stitches. No charges as I recall.
I could probably write a small book.
This was the Anderson surgery in old Argyle Street.
On his patch. being destroyed.
Some of it needed gone, but not all.
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