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3 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

Just come back from shopping; still seeing ( young apparently healthy ) people walking round shops wthout masks, and one bloke at a checkout explaining that he was shopping on his own because his wife is at home self-isolating.

Not sure what the issue is with this, apart from the crazy system we have in place that doesn't make any sense...

His wife may have been informed by test and trace that she has to isolate as she is a 'contact' of someone who has tested positive, her husband is presumably not a contact of that person so won't have been informed to isolate.

Not saying it makes sense, just pointing out that he was potentially not doing anything wrong.

My daughter (and the rest of her year) was told to self isolate for two weeks because a kid in her year (that she has never even spoken to in nearly five years of secondary school) tested positive.  Mrs WSS and I (and the parents of all the other kids in the year) were not told to isolate.

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5 hours ago, badgerx16 said:

Just come back from shopping; still seeing ( young apparently healthy ) people walking round shops wthout masks, and one bloke at a checkout explaining that he was shopping on his own because his wife is at home self-isolating.

Exact opposite to where I am. Very rarely see anyone without a mask in the shops.

We've had another 2 members of staff test + today and bubbles sent home. It's running riot through tertiary. 

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On 25/11/2020 at 09:36, aintforever said:

Plus you have all the people of other religions who were not allowed to celebrate their religious festivals who will just say fuck you and do what they want for the whole of December.

Without wishing to trigger the usual futile 17 page MLG Vs Turkish debate... Christmas is far more than a religious festival in this country (amongst others).

Besides, Christians were under strict lockdown restrictions during Easter so, all things considered, playing the religion vs religion card might conceivably come across as trying to seek an argument for arguments sake...

IMHO of course

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10 minutes ago, trousers said:

Without wishing to trigger the usual futile 17 page MLG Vs Turkish debate... Christmas is far more than a religious festival in this country (amongst others).

Besides, Christians were under strict lockdown restrictions during Easter so, all things considered, playing the religion vs religion card might conceivably come across as trying to seek an argument for arguments sake...

IMHO of course

Personally I believe Boris should have cancelled Christmas this year. For most people all it is is a day to meet family, eat and exchange gifts. They can do that any day of the year so they could all have waited until the vaccine. I really don’t understand the national obsession with doing all this on the one day of the year which by coincide happens to also be the biggest religious festival in the Christian calendar when it’s has nothing to do with religion. 

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7 hours ago, Turkish said:

Personally I believe Boris should have cancelled Christmas this year. For most people all it is is a day to meet family, eat and exchange gifts. They can do that any day of the year so they could all have waited until the vaccine. I really don’t understand the national obsession with doing all this on the one day of the year which by coincide happens to also be the biggest religious festival in the Christian calendar when it’s has nothing to do with religion. 

Money!  Without Christmas and the excesses that it brings, most retailers and hospitality venues won't survive a normal year, let alone one with lockdowns.  If Boris cancelled Christmas this year he would certainly be condemning many businesses to the scrap heap.  At least this way he is giving them a glimmer of hope and some might make enough money to survive.  Then there's the added bonus of tax revenue to swell Rishi's coffers a little.

No coincidence that the second lockdown happened when it did (they could have waited at least a couple of weeks for most areas as hospitals weren't really under pressure if they had turfed out the 'non-covid' patients), so we are back up and running again just in time for the Christmas madness and shopping glutiny.  The hospitality industry is still fucked though as Christmas parties will be a non event this year.  They may make enough money with people deciding to 'do it themselves' and ignore the rules...

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I think should cancel Christmas and just ask everyone how much money they have lost as consequence. Submit a claim and collect payment from the Government. Could help pay for that by closing down a few libraries and cutting bin men’s pay, and teachers with their 15 weeks of leave that none of us get.

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4 minutes ago, rallyboy said:

Serco could handle the payments - just give them another blank chequebook.

I’d give eduction to SERCO. Sort out the lazy wasters. Exam scores would go through the roof when they get paid more for A stars. Could do it all remotely without even teaching the little fuckers

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8 minutes ago, whelk said:

I think should cancel Christmas and just ask everyone how much money they have lost as consequence. Submit a claim and collect payment from the Government. Could help pay for that by closing down a few libraries and cutting bin men’s pay, and teachers with their 15 weeks of leave that none of us get.

Great points, no one really uses libraries anymore, they can get them all on devices or to listen to on audible. As for bin men we could actually get rid of a few by doing what they do in Portugal where wheelie bins have sensors on them connected to the offices, the wheelie bins are only collected when they get to a level of capacity, we could probably reduce the work force by about 40% if we did it that way rather than a weekly round. 

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4 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Great points, no one really uses libraries anymore, they can get them all on devices or to listen to on audible. As for bin men we could actually get rid of a few by doing what they do in Portugal where wheelie bins have sensors on them connected to the offices, the wheelie bins are only collected when they get to a level of capacity, we could probably reduce the work force by about 40% if we did it that way rather than a weekly round. 

I know we are taking the piss but libraries are one of those things that people get emotive about but aren’t being used. Other than public wanting the internet.

robots will take all our jobs eventually 

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On 23/11/2020 at 19:49, Lighthouse said:

If a vaccine kills 10,000 people in Britain, it’s still a hell of a lot safer than actually catching the virus.

Does your logic include under 50s?

Under 1,000 under 50s have died of/with it. A large % of those will have really died of something else but had covid put on their certificate. 

Now factor in huge decrease in cancer diagnoses, a small increase in suicides etc. I'd be interested to hear anyone dispute that more under 50s will die indirectly from our reaction than from covid itself. 

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10 hours ago, Turkish said:

150 arrests at the lock down protests today. Seems like no nonsense policing at this protest. Quite a different approach to the BLM protests we saw in the summer, funny that.

The Met seem to have got themselves confused between whether protests are allowed in a lockdown or not.

If they aren't then they are within their rights to arrest anyone doing that. If protests are allowed then they've messed up and should have taken the same line they did earlier in the summer. 

There's some info about it at the bottom of this article

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/28/met-police-anti-lockdown-protest-london

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There was no lockdown when the BLM protests were taking place. Social distancing was a thing but we weren't in the same place then. I guess that would be the counterargument. 

I'm unsure as to when the possible change to the exemption rule was introduced. Was it before the first wave of protests or after?

It definitely doesn't help when things aren't clear and even lawyers are arguing over it. 

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1 hour ago, The Cat said:

There was no lockdown when the BLM protests were taking place. Social distancing was a thing but we weren't in the same place then. I guess that would be the counterargument. 

I'm unsure as to when the possible change to the exemption rule was introduced. Was it before the first wave of protests or after?

It definitely doesn't help when things aren't clear and even lawyers are arguing over it. 

Really?

Protests in London on Friday 12th and Sat 13th June but they started on the 31st May.  Colston's statue was toppled during a protest on 7th June.

Lockdown was lifted on 23rd June : https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-announces-easing-of-lockdown-restrictions-23-june-2020

Edited by Weston Super Saint
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36 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Really?

Protests in London on Friday 12th and Sat 13th June but they started on the 31st May.  Colston's statue was toppled during a protest on 7th June.

Lockdown was lifted on 23rd June : https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-announces-easing-of-lockdown-restrictions-23-june-2020

Were we really in lockdown that long? Wow, I thought we were out before then. Oh well.

I guess the point about when the exemption to protests was changed is still pertinent.

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3 hours ago, Orange said:

It really is banana republic style political policing. Nevertheless, I am sure there will be plenty of boot lickers on this thread who delight in seeing peaceful protesters being cuffed and thrown in the back of police vans.

Most of them work at home wankers who won’t lose their jobs because of the lockdown. Obviously they’ll be the first standing with the great unwashed when the policies they support cause mass  unemployment. It’ll all be the Tories fault then. 

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Awesome news for Santa's grottos and carol singers, still not good for the entire hospitality industry!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55123490

Quote

Santa's grottos will be allowed in all tiers if they're in venues that are permitted to be open, under new Christmas advice.

Door-to-door carol singing will also be permitted, it has been confirmed in the government guidance.

 

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Looks like the 'firebreak' went really well in Wales.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55128305

Meanwhile my daughter and the rest of her year (Yr 11) has been sent home to isolate again.  They've been back for a whopping week and today since their last 2 week isolation period.  Another positive test from someone who was in school last Monday for the day and the whole year has been sent home :mcinnes:

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One thing that was interesting about this whole business is that it demonstrated how finely balanced our societies are.  A small change in shopping habits, because we have to stay in for a bit, and the shelves are empty.  

Was chatting to the better half about a potential movie scenario:  Government hastily creates a virus, injects 80% of the population and they all die or turn into mutants or whatever.  The remaining population, within days will have no fuel, food, electricity, water.   The chaos that ensues.  Will we survive?  Back to primitive ways?

 

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23 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Most of them work at home wankers who won’t lose their jobs because of the lockdown. Obviously they’ll be the first standing with the great unwashed when the policies they support cause mass  unemployment. It’ll all be the Tories fault then. 

True, they have now all embraced the 'new normal' it seems. But if you look at London in particular, the people who are going to suffer most are your TFL workers, office security guards/maintenance people, launderettes, cafe/bar workers, cab/uber drivers, hotel staff, airport workers etc.

When you try and make this point to Karen the covid-secure do gooder from Richmond working in her Pjs, they will probably sneer something like 'haha what so the system collapses if we don't buy our Pret and pay our rip off tube fares'.

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1 hour ago, Manuel said:

Was chatting to the better half about a potential movie scenario:  Government hastily creates a virus, injects 80% of the population and they all die or turn into mutants or whatever.  The remaining population, within days will have no fuel, food, electricity, water.   The chaos that ensues.  Will we survive?  Back to primitive ways?

 

Have you seen Utopia? Was a C4 series a while back which was based on a graphic novel. Thee story unravels over 2 series to a point where a "Russian Flu" epidemic is addressed by the government with a vaccine. If you haven't watched it I'm not going to say what happens. 

Apparently there's a crap US remake on Amazon now but the original is one of my favourite shows of the last 10 years and features one of the most horrifyingly nasty TV bad guy performances by Neil Maskell. 

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1 hour ago, LGTL said:

Pfizer vaccine approved then - vaccinations to begin next week. Has to be good news.

Senior Tories all trotting out the "we've only been able to do this because we've left the EU" line today.

Unfortunately, and somewhat predictably, it's completely untrue...

Image

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1 hour ago, RedArmy said:

Convenient timing to distract attention away from the fact we are still in lockdown. 

Excellent news and what a boon for the scientific community to achieve it so quickly!  Hopefully all travel and entertainment companies ban anti-vaxxers and we can enjoy these things without the dribblers.

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56 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

Senior Tories all trotting out the "we've only been able to do this because we've left the EU" line today.

Unfortunately, and somewhat predictably, it's completely untrue...

Image

First country in the world to be approved, great job. Take it as an anti Tory you wont be having a vaccine?

Edited by Turkish
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Hell of a financial risk the vaccine companies have taken, basically running all stages of vaccine development as much in parallel as possible, including wide scale production, basically piling all the financial risks of R&D onto the early stages when there's still the most risk of it not paying off.

They were up against other companies that were willing to take the same risks of course, but even so, it would have been a massive call to do that.

Utterly amazing that those risks look like they're paying off better than anyone dared hope, I'm grateful that they were willing to take those risks.

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12 minutes ago, Jimmy_D said:

Hell of a financial risk the vaccine companies have taken, basically running all stages of vaccine development as much in parallel as possible, including wide scale production, basically piling all the financial risks of R&D onto the early stages when there's still the most risk of it not paying off.

They were up against other companies that were willing to take the same risks of course, but even so, it would have been a massive call to do that.

Utterly amazing that those risks look like they're paying off better than anyone dared hope, I'm grateful that they were willing to take those risks.

Maybe some of the risk was underwritten by various governments, give the extraordinary circumstances? (I've no idea if that would even be possible, legally or otherwise... Just me thinking out loud)

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8 minutes ago, trousers said:

Maybe some of the risk was underwritten by various governments, give the extraordinary circumstances? (I've no idea if that would even be possible, legally or otherwise... Just me thinking out loud)

I guess it's possible? I've got absolutely no idea whether that's actually happened though.

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20 minutes ago, trousers said:

Maybe some of the risk was underwritten by various governments, give the extraordinary circumstances? (I've no idea if that would even be possible, legally or otherwise... Just me thinking out loud)

Well loads of governments bought future options on different vaccines, so the pharma companies had government financial support.

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Listening to someone at work today, they said that the new technology that the oxford vaccine uses had already been invented but not used to date, so they were half way there when they started back in February. Of course there was always the risk that it wasn't going to work at all, thankfully it did. Still a bloody good achievement.

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18 minutes ago, Jimmy_D said:

I guess it's possible? I've got absolutely no idea whether that's actually happened though.

There was a lot of pre-ordering from governments at a reduced price (I assume with the risk you might not get what you paid for).  That will have offset a lot of it.

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  • Lighthouse changed the title to Coronavirus

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