Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[d34noj]

It smells cleaner where I live too.

I live quite close to a stream - right now it's crystal clear and there's ducks in it.

Goes to show the real virus on the planet is humans.

 

[tsubaki]

The reaction on social media. Social media is bonkers and largely full of people who make @davek seem rational. I will say, however, that the overwhelming majority of journalists are privately educated English graduates, so I don't expect them to understand science, much less question it from a robust position. What I fail to understand is quite why people hold so much sway by them, especially at a time like this. The universities, with real experts, have been churning out content on CV like they've got nothing else to do (which is largely true) for the past few weeks, and provides infinitely better commentary than you get from even the broadsheet newspapers.

re: the social media point, it’s true that the loudest voices on it are invariably the worst (something equally true on the left, right and centre) but it is used by governments and media to push the same sort of opinions they put in print so often.

re: the second point, yes that would explain why a lot of the commentary is risible but not why it is so uncritical or even supportive, in fact them all being English graduates should make that less likely if they are behaving honestly.

As an example, look at this report on BBC News’ site:

Coronavirus: 'Herculean effort' to provide NHS protective gear

The health secretary reassures frontline staff that efforts are being made to get them the equipment they need.

www.bbc.co.uk

An English graduate from a public school who went to Oxford or Cambridge should know exactly what that headline is doing. It’s a disgrace, not least to the memory of Hercules.

 

[Chris O'Connor]

Lessons will be learnt, its a new virus and has been dealt with better in some countries than others. I think there's a danger of politicians, the media and especially the social media warriors making ill informed snap judgements without all the facts though, as they usually do tbf.

Scientists like anyone can be wrong, can make bad mistakes and could learn and do things better, their colleagues in the same field are possibly the best equipped to judge them. Sometimes it's not so straight forward a path to follow with no definite right answers and sometimes they may be floundering as it's not something they can accurately predict. I'm sure some countries were intrinsically better prepared from more recent experience with similar viruses or having a far stronger economy and industrial base with the option of instituting mass testing far more quickly - preparation, logistics and experience tailor realistic choices and options.

What's for sure is for all of this, is that hindsight and especially social media warriors will be quick to judge the ones that made mistakes or took the wrong turn very harshly indeed whether or not they themselves can judge fairly. It still wouldn't mean these same advisors aren't the best placed to advise on the future regardless.

 

[tsubaki]

Lessons will be learnt, its a new virus and has been dealt with better in some countries than others. I think there's a danger of politicians, the media and especially the social media warriors making ill informed snap judgements without all the facts though, as they usually do tbf.

Scientists like anyone can be wrong, can make bad mistakes and could learn and do things better, their colleagues in the same field are possibly the best equipped to judge them. Sometimes it's not so straight forward a path to follow with no definite right answers and sometimes they may be floundering as it's not something they can accurately predict. I'm sure some countries were intrinsically better prepared from more recent experience with similar viruses or having a far stronger economy and industrial base with the option of instituting mass testing far more quickly - preparation, logistics and experience tailor realistic choices and options.

What's for sure is for all of this, is that hindsight and especially social media warriors will be quick to judge the ones that made mistakes or took the wrong turn very harshly indeed whether or not they themselves can judge fairly. It still wouldn't mean these same advisors aren't the best placed to advise on the future regardless.

trans: it’s the scientists to blame (but you should forgive them).... oh, and the “social media warriors”

 

[Number_25]

Spain are run by a socialist party, Italy by a populist party and France by a centrist party. I'm not sure quite what part political ideology plays in all this, especially as the civil servants that actually do stuff would be exactly the same regardless of who was actually in government.

With respect, I wasn't talking about political ideology here mate.

Look at how Germany dealt with the disease, they took the decisions to close things down early and heeded all of the guidelines the WHO were providing. For whatever reason, our government decided that we were to be a exception to that rule and now we have over 1,000 people dying daily.

Corbyn's an irrelevance isn't he?

He was leader of the opposition then, and nobody listened.

 

[d34noj]

Not counting care homes is a joke as well btw.
I got to speak to step mum last night and she said 'they've all got it'.
4 on her companys rounds have already died and 9 in hospital she said.
If this is replicated across the UK, a lot of deaths are being kept off these figures in my opinion.

Same here with the sister-in-law's, they've had 5 sent from hospital who they aren't going to bother treating as the entire 4th floor in the hospital is full of Covid-19 patients.

My wife came out of hospital yesterday after having appendicitis and saw first hand the strain the NHS are on, every time they enter a room they have to put new PPE on, and their hands and faces are red raw from the constant cleaning.

There's already 20 dead from Coronavirus in the hospital already, and that's not counting the elderly they've sent to the various care homes around the area - it's almost as if they are trying to spread this virus around the elderly with how they are moving them into the less equipped care homes.

 

[roydo]

every time they enter a room they have to put new PPE on,

That is standard practice.

 

[Chris O'Connor]

trans: it’s the scientists to blame (but you should forgive them).... oh, and the “social media warriors”

Ok the 'warriors' was a bit tabloid-ish and unnecessary but it was used to sum up the constant 'war' they wage on anything within range when in their normally agitated state of 'angry and annoyed'.

It's a forum so you are limited on any depth or detail, the scientists can be judged by others, the point being that most who do so haven't a clue as to the options or constraints the scientists had when they made those choices.

A very easy jibe to make and you took it (predictably)

 

[tsubaki]

Ok the 'warriors' was a bit tabloid-ish and unnecessary but it was used to sum up the constant 'war' they wage on anything within range when in their normal state of 'angry and annoyed'.

It's a forum so you are limited on any depth or detail, the scientists can be judged by others, the point being that most who do so haven't a clue as to the options or constraints the scientists had when they made those choices.

A very easy jibe to make and you took it (predictably)

The point you’ve missed was that nowhere do you acknowledge that politicians might have some blame here. In fact, you lump them in with the rest of us, almost as spectators.

Why do you think that, given that they are actually in charge and have a fairly lengthy history of picking and choosing only the scientific or expert advice that suits their needs?

 

[Tubey]

trans: it’s the scientists to blame (but you should forgive them).... oh, and the “social media warriors”

The same ideology that drove Brexit through drove the response to this virus - the idea of innate English superiority. Its a toxic form of nationalism that emerged from mass insecurity about our position in the world.

Johnson - a total idiot - is the perfect representation of it.

 

[PhilM]

Cycling and sunbathing are not comparable

I know... sunbathers do not cause mayhem on the roads.

 

[PhilM]

It smells cleaner where I live too.

While it's currently in the higher levels of moderate, this is quite often in the unhealthy category or above the current rate; it's very rarely in the good category.

However, this week it has actually been verging towards or in good on many occasions, and the improved temperature won't be helping the current reading.

Liverpool Speke, United Kingdom Air Pollution: Real-time Air Quality Index

How polluted is the air today? Check out the real-time air pollution map, for more than 100 countries.

aqicn.org

Not counting care homes is a joke as well btw.
I got to speak to step mum last night and she said 'they've all got it'.
4 on her companys rounds have already died and 9 in hospital she said.
If this is replicated across the UK, a lot of deaths are being kept off these figures in my opinion.

When you look at the break down on daily fatality figures, on a fair few occasions a % of the deaths were not the previous day, but rather days or weeks ago.

I hope it's not redistributing deaths later down the line to help balance (average out) the figures, and rather it be slow reporting for a number of other reasons.

Sadly, I suspect it's a bit of both...

 

[NilSatisOptimum]

Forgive me if I've misunderstood, but he seemed to be complaining (as is so often the case) that the media are terribly biased against Labour and there's a horrible right-wing bias in our media, and if we only had a more balanced media who could hold the government to account we'd have a much better outcome for this pandemic.

All I said was that Europe has governments from across the political spectrum, many of whom have responded in largely the same way, with largely the same results, despite ideological differences. So I'm not sure political ideology has any part to play in this at all. It's not like Corbyn had his own crack squad of socialist civil servants up his sleeve to produce completely different recommendations.

You don't half chat some utter Tory WUM for a cough cough Liberal... Portugal that's it in Europe all the others may have some socially minded administration at this point or some flavour of socialism in their policies.

It takes many years of the same the government in the democracy model to fundimentally change a country. And besides these political meanings have very different understandings to individual countries.

There is no doubt in my mind had Corbyn won in 2015 2017 or even Milliband won in 2010 the NHS would have much better prepared for this pandemic. We may have had to pay more in Taxes and our Amazon items may have cost a bit more, however, no where near the cost to us now in life and economics.

 

[BlueToff]

re: the social media point, it’s true that the loudest voices on it are invariably the worst (something equally true on the left, right and centre) but it is used by governments and media to push the same sort of opinions they put in print so often.

re: the second point, yes that would explain why a lot of the commentary is risible but not why it is so uncritical or even supportive, in fact them all being English graduates should make that less likely if they are behaving honestly.

As an example, look at this report on BBC News’ site:

Coronavirus: 'Herculean effort' to provide NHS protective gear

The health secretary reassures frontline staff that efforts are being made to get them the equipment they need.

www.bbc.co.uk

An English graduate from a public school who went to Oxford or Cambridge should know exactly what that headline is doing. It’s a disgrace, not least to the memory of Hercules.

As someone who works in the media, and saw that bit of the briefing yesterday, then there really isn't anything 'disgraceful' about that headline.

If your pieces are quotes led, then that was the quote you would lead on. That's just it. There's no conspiracy. It was the 'best' quote. Soundbites are soundbites for a reason.

There should also have been an article about the number of deaths, which I'm sure there will have been, and the number will have been referenced in any article published after the announcement last night.

I didn't go to Oxford and Cambridge and I wasn't privately educated. But that report puts forward what was said in the briefing.

 

[Chris O'Connor]

The point you’ve missed was that nowhere do you acknowledge that politicians might have some blame here. In fact, you lump them in with the rest of us, almost as spectators.

Why do you think that, given that they are actually in charge and have a fairly lengthy history of picking and choosing only the scientific or expert advice that suits their needs?

I really didn't intend it to be an all encompassing commentary on the rationale behind appointments of scientific advisors over the last ten years or however long. Politicians always make appointments they think advantageous to their own path followed and always will.

The point is that they've been elected 5 minutes ago, these are the advisors and scientists who are in place and they've been making the difficult choices given the constraints and practicalities imposed upon them by the speed at which this has spread from China.