Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Kenshin]

Suppose you can't make it up.

Liverpool the only city to have the strictest lockdowns. Can't meet up with anyone, more places shut than anywhere else , highest infection rate in the whole country.

So 5 days later Everton play Liverpool and all of the players have been jetting around the world.

 

[BlueToff]

Which ones?

I remember distinctly in mid-March, Valance showing a graph which showed they expected the peak to be 12 weeks away. This is despite the fact pretty much everyone else in the scientific community were insisting we were only 1-2 weeks behind mainland Europe.

This was in a news conference in which they said they would not be shutting down etc (so must have been the week of the 9th).

Less than a week later it was clear their projections were utter nonsense and that the illness was spreading far quicker than they thought, even though it was clear to everyone that was the case.

The first 'spike' - lack of a better term - peaked in April, about 3-4 weeks after that news conference

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

View attachment 104256

Probably need to add into that open air circulation but the principle works. A range of measures are needed.

Yeah, thats what I said - masks in tandem with other measures not to supplant things like social distancing. I like the Swiss cheese model, sadly it makes me peckish though.

 

[grandjoeblue]

Wasn't Witty (or Valance) saying in March that there was no evidence that shutting Cheltenham down would have helped?

I trust them more than the MPs, but that's not exactly saying much.

Their calculations at the start of it were way off. I think in lockdown they seemed pretty reasoned, cautious but at least showed a way out.

Since the lockdown was lifted the rules have been nonsense.

The worst is surely Neil Ferguson, every estimate he has ever done has been completely wrong.

 

[BlueToff]

Suppose you can't make it up.

Liverpool the only city to have the strictest lockdowns. Can't meet up with anyone, more places shut than anywhere else , highest infection rate in the whole country.

So 5 days later Everton play Liverpool and all of the players have been jetting around the world.

They're in 'bubbles', though.

That's the same world over.

Munich had a shutdown the other week. Not total lockdown but caps on stuff as there was a rise in cases. All of their players and the opposition players still played.

Being a professional athlete is probably the safest thing right now given the amount of tests and top quality care they get.

 

[BlueToff]

The worst is surely Neil Ferguson, every estimate he has ever done has been completely wrong.

Yeah, he was the one saying 500k deaths even with lockdown, wasn't he?

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

Thing is, it isn't going anywhere, so this time next year are people still going to be having a go about others getting near them?

I am not quite sure of your point here. Are you questioning the effectiveness of social distancing? I mean, in theory people should be more mindful and take life slower long term. But it isn't easy. Folk forget themselves, pick up on contradictions in messaging abd rebel / ease off, have poor impulse control, or just strop because they can't do what they think is a right like a massive child. Plus all the 'nudges' / signs / rules in shops etc have slowly been backgrounded. So it gets forgotten. But, technically yes, if you don't want to be locked down be sensible.

 

[tsubaki]

The worst is surely Neil Ferguson, every estimate he has ever done has been completely wrong.

That is the nature of estimates, but it should be pointed out that they were done on the basis that if we took no action then we’d have that many deaths.

We did take action, so his prediction was always going to be out - the same thing is being said now about Whittys graph a few weeks ago that said 50k cases a day if we didn’t take extra measures.

 

[Charro]

Going to have to walk two hours to get a test as I’ve developed symptoms ffs.

 

[tsubaki]

Going to have to walk two hours to get a test as I’ve developed symptoms ffs.

get well soon

 

[grandjoeblue]

That is the nature of estimates, but it should be pointed out that they were done on the basis that if we took no action then we’d have that many deaths.

We did take action, so his prediction was always going to be out - the same thing is being said now about Whittys graph a few weeks ago that said 50k cases a day if we didn’t take extra measures.

Its not his COVID predictions that are questionable, look at his estimates for swine flu, BSE and bird flu.

 

[BlueToff]

I am not quite sure of your point here. Are you questioning the effectiveness of social distancing? I mean, in theory people should be more mindful and take life slower long term. But it isn't easy. Folk forget themselves, pick up on contradictions in messaging abd rebel / ease off, have poor impulse control, or just strop because they can't do what they think is a right like a massive child. Plus all the 'nudges' / signs / rules in shops etc have slowly been backgrounded. So it gets forgotten. But, technically yes, if you don't want to be locked down be sensible.

If social distancing is still in place this time next year then that means no crowds at events, gigs, matches etc.

The shift in mentality from people being happy to be in a room with a criwd from November to March (when this thing was here) compared to now is drastic, and interestingly shows how fear is the main thing which drives someone.

We have to learn to live with this thing and 'social distancing' stops life getting back to how it was. Which is the entire issue.

You can't 'socially distance' at a gig, or a match, or in a pub or a bar. So there is no solution other than opening everything back up. Half-measures don't do anything except make these trades and industries experience a long, painful death.

Again, I know we have to have a vaccine or something for the above to happen. But if we're still 'social distancing' in October 2021, then there'll be hardly anything that is worth doing.

 

[BlueToff]

Going to have to walk two hours to get a test as I’ve developed symptoms ffs.

They're delivering them.

That's the job I was going to be starting but thankfully now I don't have to as more work has come up.

100s - 1000s of people - are driving around the UK delivering tests, both covid and for anti-bodies.

The same people drop them off, then collect from the person who was tested (socially distanced of course) and take them to a courier.

This is what's happening.

If anyone needs work, like, look into it.

Star Medical are the recruiters behind it.

 

[Daveysgingerlovechild]

If social distancing is still in place this time next year then that means no crowds at events, gigs, matches etc.

The shift in mentality from people being happy to be in a room with a criwd from November to March (when this thing was here) compared to now is drastic, and interestingly shows how fear is the main thing which drives someone.

We have to learn to live with this thing and 'social distancing' stops life getting back to how it was. Which is the entire issue.

You can't 'socially distance' at a gig, or a match, or in a pub or a bar. So there is no solution other than opening everything back up. Half-measures don't do anything except make these trades and industries experience a long, painful death.

Again, I know we have to have a vaccine or something for the above to happen. But if we're still 'social distancing' in October 2021, then there'll be hardly anything that is worth doing.

Well, this is a conundrum isn't it? But on the other hand its a question of priorities and a societies moral compass. Do you want to avoid deaths and illness (in sectors if the population you might not necessarily engage with or know) in the relatively short term or do nice things for your own gratification?

Heh, guess that point stands for a significant portion of what constitutes high capitalist consumer society.

Being less flippant, it is an issue. But you can't wish something away. Equally the 'learning to live with the virus' argument implictly seems to preclude basically incorporating measures to modify how we live. Especially those folk don't like. Toddlers. Everywhere. Tory Toddlers.

 

[The binman chronicles]

Does a 2 week "circuit break" make any tangible difference though?

I've heard some who work in health say it wouldn't and we need a far longer period of intense lockdown. That's why I am not able to support further lockdown. If a 2 week period would make a big difference then of course I could accept it, but I'm very sceptical.

If everyone buys into the circuit break it would work as a respite. At the moment you're told to isolate for what 10 days after symptoms show? If everyone stays home for 14 days, those who have it now but don't know are not outside giving it to more people who then themselves pass it on. Hopefully they won't be infectious by the time it is finished so the chain is broken. Of course it will then come back afterwards but you've bought time.

The hospitalisations probably won't go down as it takes a number of weeks to go through the system, but a few weeks after the temporary lockdown they would be better off than they would otherwise have been.

Seeing we are persisting on the local (but not full lockdown measures) it's likely the cases will keep rising and we'll need a longer national full lockdown within a month. The sacrifices that Liverpool are making now will just mean they will just spend longer in lockdown (local 2/3 weeks) before a harder national one of 3/4 weeks as hospitalisations will be through the roof by that point. Shambles comes to mind.