Pedestrians Get More Space In Dalston
I took these pictures in the Kingsland Road in Dalston this morning.
It will be interesting to see how this narrowing works out.
Not just for pedestrians! But for politicians as well!
There has been a certain amount of drivers against the narrowed roads. Who will they vote for in the next election for London Mayor?
What Happened In Hackney On Friday?
These are total number of lab-confirmed cases of COVOD-19 in Hackney over the last few days.
- 9th May – 622, 0
- 10th May – 623, 1
- 11th May 624, 1
- 12th May – 624, 0
- 13th May – 624, 0
- 14th May – 626, 2
- 15th May – 626, 0
- 16th May – 637, 11
What happened on Friday?
You have to go back to the 21st of April to find a larger figure.
Could it be that the COVID-19 testers raided an illegal gathering, care home or a house with large numbers of people living in it, in close proximity?
Or could it be the fallout from the parties in Hackney Marshes and London Fields, last weekend, that were reported in Monday’s edition of The Times.
So do you reap, what you sow?
The Flexible Train For A Pandemic
Anybody, who believes that COVID-19 will be the last pandemic is an idiot!
The virus has shown, those with evil intentions to take over the world, that a pandemic, started by a weaponised virus, whether natural or man-made, can be a useful tool in your arsenal.
We must prepare for the next pandemic.
So how will we travel by train?
Current Train Interiors And The Need To Social Distance
The need to social distance will remain paramount and some of our current train interiors are better than others for passengers to remain two metres apart.
These are some typical UK train interiors.
Typical London Overground Interior
These pictures show a typical London Overground interior on their Class 378 trains and Class 710 trains.
Distancing at two-metres will reduce the capacity dramatically, but with wide doors and common sense, this layout could allow social distancing to work.
Siemens Desiro City Suburban Interior
These pictures show the interior of the two Siemens Desiro City fleets; Thameslink‘s Class 700 trains, Great Northern‘s Class 717 trains and South Western Railway‘s Class 707 trains.
As with the London Overground layout, as the trains are fairly spacious with wide doors, social distancing could probably be made to work at reduced capacity.
Four Seats And A Table
These pictures show a selection of trains, where you have four seats around a table.
Trains include Greater Anglia’s Class 379 trains, Class 745 trains, Class 755 trains, and a selection of Class 800 trains, Class 377 trains from various operators and a superb reconditioned Class 150 train from Great Western Railway.
Could these be made to work, if there was only one person or self-isolating group living together at each set of four seats?
Designing For A Pandemic
These are my thoughts on various topics.
Seating Layouts
Consider.
- As the pictures show, maintaining social distancing will be difficult on some trains.
- Could the number of seats in use, be determined by the avert level of the pandemic?
- Could seats have lights on them to show their status?
- Will companies insist on reservations?
As to the last point, some train companies are already doing this!
Luggage
Will there be limits on the luggage you can take?
Entering And Leaving The Train
Would someone with a dangerous infectious disease be more likely to pass it on, when entering or leaving a train, through a narrow doorway?
I believe coaches with narrow single end doors make social distancing impossible.
- Passengers get stuck in the bottleneck that these doors create.
- Passengers are entering and leaving through the same crowded door.
- Anybody in a wheelchair, pushing a child in a buggy or dragging a large suitcase, will make the bottleneck worse.
They are not fit for purpose in a post-COVID-19 world!
It might be possible to make the doors work using a traffic light system, which allowed passengers to leave, before any passengers were allowed to enter.
But any safe system, would be likely to increase dwell times in stations.
These pictures show the doors and entry and exit for Greater Anglia’s Class 745 and Class 755 trains.
These trains have been designed to be able to run London and Norwich services over a distance of more than a hundred miles, so the trains could be considered InterCity services in all but name.
Note.
- All doors are double and lead into a wide and spacious lobby.
- Entry and exit is level, as there is a gap filler between train and platform.
- Entry and exit in a wheelchair, pushing a buggy or wheeling a large suitcase doesn’t
Greater Anglia’s new trains would appear to be better in a post-COVID-19 world.
I also think, that these trains are better designed for the disabled, those with young children, and the elderly and just plain worn-out.
Finding A Seat
If you watch people entering a train, they often take forever to find their seat and sit down. Especially, if they’ve got a massive suitcase that won’t fit in the space provided.
Rules on boarding a train and how much luggage you can bring will be developed.
Toilets
Will visiting the toilet still be allowed? Or will toilets even be removed?
Flexibility
I think a degree of flexibility must be built into the design.
I mentioned lights on seats to show which could be used, that could be lit up according to the threat level.
Conclusion
Travelling will get more complicated.
Piers Corbyn Among Those Held In Coronavirus Lockdown Protests
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article in The Guardian.
This is the introductory paragraph.
The brother of the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was one of several protesters arrested on Saturday, as small demonstrations against the coronavirus lockdown took place across the country.
And this paragraph describes what he was saying and doing.
Corbyn’s brother, Piers, was taken away after using a megaphone to declare that 5G and the coronavirus pandemic were linked and branding the pandemic as a “pack of lies to brainwash you and keep you in order”. He also disputed the need for a vaccination.
According to his Wikipedia entry, he denies the existence of climate change. He must have interesting discussions with his brother, if this report on the BBC is to be believed.
Roche To The Rescue?
This article on the BBC is entitled Covid Antibody Test A ‘Positive Development’.
This is the introductory paragraph.
A test to find out whether people have been infected with coronavirus in the past has been approved by health officials in England.
After false starts with dodgy and unreliable Chinese tests, this certainly is a positive development.
Personally, I trust Roche and their technology, as I regularly use one of their Coaguchek devices to test my INR.
Toilet Paper Calculator
Have you ever wondered how many toilet rolls you need to buy?
Those clever mathematicians at Omni, have now come up with a Toilet Paper Calculator.
It’s just one of their suite of Coronavirus Calculators.
I use their other calculators regularly.
This suite of calculators have a slightly humorous edge, that I find acceptable in these troubling times.
Are Coeliacs More Risk-Averse?
I am coeliac, which means, that I am allergic to gluten!
So I have to be very careful about what I eat.
I have perhaps been glutened two or three times in the twenty years since I was diagnosed. With me it is nothing serious, but it does mean being close to a toilet for some hours.
If I look at my behaviour generally, I sometimes wonder, if I have become more risk-averse since my diagnosis.
I think too, that I’ve probably become more risk-averse since my stroke, after which, one of the world’s leading cardiologists told me, that if I got the Warfarin right, I’d never have another stroke.
I intend to prove him right! So I watch my INR like a Control Engineer would monitor reactor temperature in a nuclear power station.
I would assume that my risk-averse behaviour is fairly normal.
So if you have had a serious illness or near-death experience from which you have been able to almost fully recover, are you doing your best to make sure that you avoid COVID-19?
The Government’s Terrible COVID-19 Statistics
In an article in The Times today, Sir David Speigelhalter lambasts the Government over their collection of COVID-19 statistics.
I have been involved in the analysis of several very large databases and four factors improve the quality of the answers you get.
- The more records or in this case tests you have, the better. So I back David Speigelhalter! We should stop people on the street and test them!
- The more fields or pieces of data in each test you have, the better. So perhaps each test should be linked to your NHS record.
- The quality of the data is important. In my experience NHS scores about two out of five for quality as a lot of medical staff, often fill it in badly. In one case, I was looking for reasons for low birth weight babies and in many cases, the field was filled with 9.99 Kg.
- And then there’s the output of the data. I was taught how to display data for idiots, by the former Chief Accountant of a FTSE 500 company, who was working as the Chief Management Accountant of a Clearing Bank. He had found showing scatter diagrams with each branch as a single point on a large sheet, really got Branch Managers to think about what they are doing, if they weren’t running with the herd. These diagrams made problem branches stand out like the sorest of thumbs!
So where are the scatter diagrams for all of the Health Authorities in the UK, so everybody can see how their area, is doing against everybody else?
By the way, I trust Sir David, as we have the same birthday and share it with James Cameron, Jeff Thomson, Katherine Hamnett, Lawrence of Arabia, Menachem Begin and Madonna.
Braving The London Underground
I took these pictures today, in a short Underground trip between Angel and Kings Cross St. Pancras tube stations.
It’s not very busy! Is it?
- There was no-one else in the tunnel as I walked between the escalators at Angel station.
- There was only two other people in my carriage on the train.
- There were few people in the tunnels at Kings Cross.
Isuspect that I travelled during lunchtime helped.
What Percentage Of Over 65s In England Have Tested Positive For COVID-19?
On the official government web site, they now give a breakdown of lab-confirmed cases in England by age and sex.
This is their graph.
Note.
- From 0-60, there ae more female cases.
- From 60-85, there are more male cases.
- Over 85, there are more female cases.
I do find this unusual. Could it be that more healthcare, teachers, nursery and care home workers are women under sixty.
I’ll now look at the individual figures.
Male
- 0-4 – 356
- 5-9 – 157
- 10-14 – 167
- 15-19 – 310
- 20-24 – 938
- 25-29 – 2256
- 30-34 – 2549
- 35-39 – 2493
- 40-44 – 2986
- 45-49 – 3782
- 50-54 – 4457
- 55-59 – 4725
- 60-64 – 4473
- 65-69 – 4121
- 70-74 – 5064
- 75-79 – 5816
- 80-84 – 6598
- 85-89 – 5703
- 90+ – 3929
Under-65 – 29649
Over-65 – 31231
Over-75 – 22046
Female
- 0-4 – 274
- 5-9 – 129
- 10-14 – 178
- 15-19 – 501
- 20-24 – 2303
- 25-29 – 4756
- 30-34 – 4546
- 35-39 – 3842
- 40-44 – 4160
- 45-49 – 5038
- 50-54 – 5538
- 55-59 – 5018
- 60-64 – 3729
- 65-69 – 2684
- 70-74 – 3359
- 75-79 – 4266
- 80-84 – 5792
- 85-89 – 6387
- 90+ – 6622
Under-65 – 40012
Over-65 – 29110
Over-75 – 23067
Total Under-65 – 69661
Total Over-65 – 60341
Total Over-75 – 45113
Note.
- In an earlier analysis, I thought these were UK figures, so discount those.
- There are no figures for other parts of the UK.
I can now calculate the percentage of Over-65s, who have had lab-confirmed cases in England.
- According to Age UK, there are 11,989,322 who are over 65 in the UK.
- As England is 84.3 % of the UK population according to Wikipedia, that means there are 10,106,998, who are over 65 in England.
Using the total number of over 65 cases in England, this gives a figure of 0.6%.
I can now calculate the percentage of Over-75s, who have had lab-confirmed cases in England.
According to Age UK, there are 5,400,000, who are over 75 in the UK.
As England is 84.3 % of the UK population according to Wikipedia, that means there are 4,552,200, who are over 75 in England.
Using the total number of over 75 cases in England, this gives a figure of 0.99%.
I can now calculate the percentage of Under-65s, who have had lab-confirmed cases in England.
- Using the previous figures, there are 45,870,180, who are under 65 in England.
Using the total number of under-65 cases in England, this gives a figure of 0.15%.
The Anonymous Widower 