Infection rates dropping?

There’s a scheme that you can sign up to that matches you to farms that need fruit and veg pockets. For those of you who prefer to question why students don’t sign up, my 22 year old student tried to sign up in between completing his Master’s in engineering and waiting for the job market to open up again. The nearest farm was over an hour’s drive away and the scheme is actually closed at the moment because they have enough pickers for April.

Exactly! I have a 22 year old student son too. He's still working on uni assignments and has been told that there will be a formal assessment at the end of the year. He's still paying his £9,250 pa fees, so he wants to get the most out of the remains of the course - not pick fruit.

And he doesn't live anywhere near any fruit farms.

Planes are still flying but far fewer.
This satellite film shows differences before and during the lock down.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYc7mRdFbSk

We live under the flight path for Newcastle airport (about 20 miles away). I haven't seen a plane for about 3 weeks. Usually there's at least one, if not two or three, flying around at any time of the day or night.

Slightly OT, sorry...

I dont know the name of the politician who was on the podium today but he tried dodging the question put by a journalist about him staying at his country home when his registered home is in London where his wife works and children attend school. Apparently ( according to him) ITS ALL FINE !! Its allowed because he has elderly parents near there ! Well my elderly MIL is 40 miles away and we're not supposed to travel that far.One rule for them and another for us,worryingly he's just given a lot of people the right to do what he's doing despite the advice ,watch for the queues to holiday homes and caravan parks again.This will never end when the Tory government are handing out mixed messages to justify their own wrongdoing .

Why do the figures in the chart above the UK differ so much from the figures for the UK on the Worldometer?

582,640 current cases as of 16th April.

114,217 total cases to date according to the Worldometer chart.

I can understand a small discrepancy but that seems extremely large.

One of them is onciouslynwrong.

Obviously wrong

Perhaps there is a difference between the chart ((Guys and St Thomas research). and the Worldometer for UK because the later is including ALL cases. The (Guys and St Thomas research) is only recording 20 - 69 year olds as noticed by other GN comments.

A large number of of our own people have applied for jobs picking fruit and veg but it seem that most of them would be unable to take the jobs when they learned of the conditions. They had to work for a contracted time 3 or 6 months. Many were asked to live on site which was not possible as they had family. Some could not work the number of house required. I believe, The Guardian is the source, that 6,000 were eventually taken on and they will have training from those flown in.

The app chart is based on people reporting symptoms, most of whom won't seek medical help.

So it will pick up very mild cases. If you have several of the symptoms, I guess it will assume you have it. Equally, of course, you could have a cold. Or hayfever.

PamelaJ1, some foreign fruit pickers in the fens (where I used to live) were expected to live in hovels, with bunk beds with multiple people to a room. On one memorable occasion, it was reported that a farmer was housing some of his pickers on bunk beds in a transport container on site (no facilities in it, not one of the posh converted versions!).

I'm sure those aren't the conditions now, but they WILL be living en masse.

The Romanians who were flown into Stansted will be working locally to us for one of Europe's largest fresh salad producers.

They are experienced workers and will also train people who have signed up for the season.

Do you have a lot of inside information about this, *Gagajo? Or rumours and local gossip?
Would they return if conditions are appalling?

WOODMOUSE In which case there is an even greater discrepancy in the numbers.

Callistemon I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't make much sense of these statistics. Unfortunately, I suspect the truth is that the figures aren't reliable and anybody would be foolish to rely on them to make plans.

Thankfully, deaths do appear to have stopped increasing exponentially, but knowledge about what's actually happening in the community and care homes is still woefully lacking.

It was reported in local media when I lived there. Fast workers, earnings were ok, but living conditions were appalling.

Whereabouts did you live, GagaJo?

I've just had an email asking me to take part in the research in the OP.
I am over 70.

It seems to be reliant upon people reporting in online any symptoms they may have, whether they have been diagnosed with COVID19 or not.

I can understand some discrepancies growstuff and obviously we will never know the true extent but those figures are vastly different; as I say I've just been asked as part of a group to join in if I wish with daily updates

Lived Ely. Worked Soham.

Weren’t there some on here a while ago saying we didn’t need foreign farm workers and everyone could pick their own? They were honestly suggesting that everyone could get on a bus after work and go down to a farm to get their own fruit and veg. Where are all those Brexit voters why aren’t they out there picking lettuces?

I'm not sure what point you're making Gagajo. It's well known that the living conditions of fruit pickers isn't good, but hopefully have improved and could easily be inspected.

As for UK residents picking fruit …

Ely/Soham is a relatively sparsely populated area of the country and I know from experience that transport links to Soham are bad - and even worse to some of the other Norfolk towns/villages.

Farmers want pickers to commit to three - six month contracts and there's no practical alternative to living on site. The people who have lost work through Covid-19 don't want to/can't do that. Some of them have families and could have children/other relatives they're looking after. Many will be hoping to pick up more local work or to go back to work themselves within six months. They don't want to be unavailable for opportunities for six months and the farmers don't want them breaking contract. The idea of students doing the work is ridiculous. They're paying thousands of pounds to do a course and shouldn't be made to leave it while still being forced to pay.

Mind you, it is strange there are thousands of people wanting the work, considering it was allegedly the pesky foreigners who were stealing "our" jobs. I suppose they stole the jobs of the dead care workers and NHS staff too.

Not making any point really. Just a comment. Frankly, I think we’re lucky foreigners are willing to come and do the work considering the conditions and also the UKs high virus rate.

Fruit and veg pickers are working in an isolated community all their supplies are being brought in for them. They will be social distancing from any local workers like tractor drivers and managers, so there is very little risk if virus spread.