The Daily Blog Open Mic – Tuesday – 31st March 2020

1. A licence for driving a vehicle is required, so that people understand more than the rudiments of it all.
   What do we require politicians to know? Where is there expertise? In talking confidentially, giving an impression of a good, knowledgeable and capable person? Not enough!
   Talking about Rudimentals – this is very enjoyable, the musos really build a good sound, bit different.
   (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci4LluhefS4

2. Radionz Mar.31/20
   Politics business
   Government books in surplus before Covid-19
   7 minutes ago
   The government’s finances were in a healthy position before it rolled out a raft of emergency measures to support the economy because of the Covid-19 virus.

   We know whose pockets that surplus didn’t go into. How they think in Labour that their poor relations with their supposed constituency can be bettered while the peeps are being treated as poor relations I can’t fathom.

3. https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO2003/S00329/ceac-govt-must-charter-airlines-to-fly-stranded-kiwis-home.htm

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   CEAC – “Gov’t Must Charter Airlines To Fly Stranded Kiwis Home.”
   Tuesday, 31 March 2020, 2:13 pm
   Press Release: Citizens Environmental Advocacy Centre
   NZ Gov’t must charter airlines to fly stranded Kiwis home just as British Gov’t has agreed to do here today; https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-52099252
   Quote;
   BBC 30th March 2020.
   Coronavirus: Foreign Office links up with airlines to fly stranded Britons home
   Dominic Raab said charter flights will be arranged for countries where commercial flights have stopped.
   Tens of thousands of Britons stranded abroad by the coronavirus pandemic will be flown home under a new arrangement between the government and airlines.
   BA, Virgin and Easyjet are among airlines working with the government to fly Britons back to the UK.
   The government has also pledged £75m to charter special flights to bring home UK nationals from countries where commercial flights are unavailable.
   The number of people who have died with the virus in the UK has reached 1,408.
   Speaking at the government’s daily coronavirus briefing, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said an “unprecedented” number of UK travellers were trying to get home “from young backpackers to retired couples on cruises”.
   “We are talking about hundreds of thousands of people travelling around the world,” he said.
   Under the new arrangement, airlines would be responsible for getting stranded passengers home where commercial routes remain an option.
   Where commercial routes do not exist, government financial support will enable special charter flights – operated by the partner airlines and others – to fly to priority countries to bring back UK residents.
   Mr Raab said priority would be given to the most vulnerable – including the elderly or those with pressing medical needs – and also to countries where there are large numbers of British tourists trying to return to the UK.
   Labour’s shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry criticised the plans as “just more of the same”, and called for “a fresh, comprehensive and fully-funded strategy to bring our British nationals home”. Un-quote;
   CEAC message to Jacinda; – “Let’s do this” for our decency and compassion.

4. Sweden and the UK. Sweden is toughing it out, just about everything is open. They are on about Level 1 Alert.
   And there is no mention of testing which others have decided is the only way of gauging the health of the population. And a nasty thought in my head, Sweden didn’t reject Germany in WW2, and chose to remain neutral. It wasn’t easy but easier than the surrounding countries situation.
   The advice has not changed despite a surge of cases in Stockholm in recent days which led the city’s health chief Björn Eriksson to call for any help he could get handling the influx of coronavirus patients.
   “The storm is here,” Mr Eriksson said, announcing that 18 patients had died in the region in the preceding 24 hours, doubling its total death tally in a single daily update.
   Sweden 42 Deaths 2,510 Cases

   The UK is not a barrel of laughs either.
   Officials are braced for an increase in deaths, but expect a far sharper rise in the coming weeks because even Tuesday’s figures have a time lag of 11 days from the point a death is officially registered.
   The development comes as the number of people being treated in hospital for coronavirus doubled in less than a week. Sir Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS, said on Monday that more than 9,000 patients are in hospital with Covid-19 – up from 4,300 on Thursday…
   It comes after an email to staff at King’s College Hospital Trust in London disclosed that 31 patients had died from Covid-19 over a six-week period, but that official figures had only recorded 11 of them.
   The deputy chief medical officer, Dr Jenny Harries, said there was a time lag in the number of deaths tallied up as officials firm up the numbers and speak to families.

   It raises the prospect that Britain could be following the deadly trajectory seen in Italy, which has now seen more than 10,000 deaths.
   https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/30/britains-coronavirus-death-toll-bigger-official-figures-show/?li_source=LI&li_medium=liftigniter-rhr

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