COVID-19

I did a stock take at my bar on the weekend. I’ve got 65 different bottles, only 4 of them are out of date. The next ones up are at the end of June. Being a “craft” bar, most of these beers are pretty strong in alcohol, which gives them a longer shelf life. Keg wise, out of my metal kegs, I’ve got Pilsner Urquell with a July BBD running out first. My plastic key kegs will last well up til August. All unopened mind. I’ve had to pour 120L of opened kegs away as they’ve been open for three weeks and already on the turn.
As mentioned, I’d definitely make sure you trust your landlord on the first day of opening. My lines are now full of water, but I bet there’s some places that will only clean briefly the day before, if not at all.

 

Ps. Here’s one that I hope doesn’t go out of date!

 

Good.

Shows most people are more normal than I feared.

I didn't vote for Boris and wouldn't vote for many of his policies, I don't like quite a few things about the way he behaves and handles his business, but I hope he makes a full and swift recovery and gets back to doing what he was elected to do.

 

At what point is what I'm hoping for is the last thing on people's minds.

 

Whilst on the topic, someone posted a letter on a Brighouse facebook page thanking a Sainsburys member of staff for the way she was dealt with whilst having a bit of a panic attack at the tills, not realising it was my wife who was the member of staff. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things when people are dying but meant a lot to my wife after being verbally abused on regular ocassions over the last wek or so.

 

Sorry in advance for the long post, but this was very interesting - it comes from an MMA fighter and coach who has lived in China for many years but is an American and recently returned to China. What do you think of how China is handling this compared to, in this example, the USA and Canada?

Also posting because if anyone is like me, they might not have any idea what's happening in China or the steps still being taken.

 

Thats a good write up. What i can take from it is that the Chinese are more used to a totalitarian regime thus instigating steps to ensure lockdown is a lot easier to undertake as the people are used to being told what to do. Over in the west we've had generations of people used to less state control and more freedom of movement, suddenly locking everything down is somewhat alien to us. When your way of life has been dictated to you to varying degrees its easier for the state to impose control, theres less of a back lash.

 

Blah Blah Blah.

 

Get sum balls. Pillocks.

 

Get sum balls. Pillocks.

 

In there at least once every week RT great staff working through adversity wouldn't fancy their job at the minute Will wear the colors on Friday when I go in hopefully make Mrs RT feel at home

 

I'm still trying to work out what this means. Anyone?

 

He's drunk and ready to kick off the rest of the fixture list by himself?

 

Means home schooling doesn't work

 

He’s had a lot of corona, and I’m not talking the virus.

 

re JB's post above. Mentioned someone flying back this side of pond day before me. I can confirm I flew on a packed United flight from Heathrow, on arrival in Newark, CBP boarded with a questionnaire for us all to fill in, mainly wanting our flight number, passport number, cell phone. On leaving the plane it got a bit odd. Bear in mind we've been 8 hours in petri dish, all the people waiting were asking us to stay 6' apart. We were also given CDC Quarantine booklets and told to self quarantine for 14 days. Also asked to record temp and pulse etc 2x daily, not a problem but wife is a nurse so that got looked after. Also had to report and register with State health department. Clearly there was never going to be any kind of monitoring, pretty much all voluntary. Anyway, quarantine finished today. I feel fine.

 

To some extent they seem to be massaging figures a bit with regard to how many new cases they're getting - to be expected given how they covered up the initial outbreak and are economical with uncomfortable truths generally. I would say they've definitely got a better handle on it than we or the US have for that matter however, which given how much advance notice we had compared to the Chinese literally being ground zero, is fairly shocking in some ways. I think the time for the inevitable inquiry after this crisis will be the time to ask a LOT of questions of both this govt and it's predecessor (May's Govt and even Cameron's, as they both made decisions that have impacted on our ability to respond to this).Until then though, the focus needs to be on unity and actually getting through it. By all means question the govt where necessary (PPE shambles for example), but a witch hunt leading to a GE is the last thing we need right now.

 

13% ?!? Yeah, that'll keep!

What a waste of 120L of good beer though.

RCB

 

As RT mentioned above, China, being an authoritarian state, can do things which other states would find difficult to stomach.

Overall Canada is, to date, doing well, so I think the measures taken here have been generally appropriate. So far the country has avoided the exponential growth rates of new cases seen elsewhere, and the illnesses per million and deaths per million stats have been very good indeed. The health system has held, so far, but there is little slack left. We are still in the critical period, barely a fortnight after the impositions of stricter controls on people and businesses. There is also a great danger if the virus gets into the more isolated Indian reserves, especially those without road access. They have been taking extra measures to keep their people safe, but nonetheless I think there has been at least one case in such a reserve.

Testing has been a bit behind in places, such as this province (Ontario), and maybe some of the restrictions on businesses, movements etc. could have started a touch earlier. Certainly access to seniors' homes / nursing homes should have been more tightly controlled, as those places have been, as elsewhere, death-traps. The supply of PPE is getting tight, but as I mentioned in an earlier post, the provincial government here did try to stockpile PPE after the last epidemic, but the gear deteriorated before the next, i.e. this, epidemic arrived. You can't win either way!

It seems that the majority of people, whether returning travellers or symptomatic, who were expected to comply with the government's requests to self-isolate etc. did do so. The stereotype of the well-mannered well-behaved Canadian is spot-on; step on a Canadian's foot and they're likely to be apologising to you before you get your apology in! So you can use the honour system here, especially outside some of the big cities.

Still, there have been enough idiots around that the requests have had to be reinforced with sterner measures, such as invoking the Quarantine Act and its associated fines for people who don't follow the rules. Various of the provinces have brought in their own laws and fines too, for those who just can't behave themselves. The cops have been handing out tickets where needed. And various nature spots have been closed off, as people couldn't stick to the rules about keeping their distance from one another.

So the problems are those we see everywhere; the strengths have been an excellent healthcare system, a generally healthy and co-operative populace, and governments at all levels that haven't been too slow to act/react. It's going to be tight for another couple of weeks though; then we might be through the worst.

RCB

 

I honestly haven’t seen anyone wish Johnson dead.