Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[mill]

They have messed up the rules. I tend to observe the keep your distance, wear a mask, wash your hands, be sensible and keep to a small locality. London doesn’t give a crap tbh and the rest of the country got screwed with the tier areas to get it into tier 2. It should always have been tier 3 or just do away with the bleeding things and let us sort it for ourselves .....

out of curiosity, if you’ve remained in your locality, how do you know whether people hsve remained compliant?

ln my borough, people have been incredibly sensible.

 

[Amw79]

This is to present statistics ripped from all context, though - and she is absolutely wrong (deliberately wrong too, given how often she cheerleads for whatever the Tory Party generally and Johnson specifically are saying) to make this argument, however incompetently.

Aside from global wars, we've only rarely had events that impacted as many people as this has and none of those occured in an age of genuine mass communication. We've all seen the impact of disasters - Grenfell, Hillsborough, CJD, train crashes, plane crashes - with death tolls that COVID beats easily each day; even a disaster like 9/11 dominated that entire decade (of course the US are occasionally having that number of dead per day). We already feel (and are encouraged to feel) sympathy for the victims and loved ones of those who died in these horrors even though we are very unlikely to have any link to them whatsoever.

This is however much different - to use your statistics, 3% are going to closely know someone who died in this. That is (and I know people arent distributed evenly) going to mean every workplace of any size above a single shop is going to have someone who was closely affected in it; every full bus is going to have someone who was closely affected in it, Goodison is going to have more than a thousand people in every capacity crowd who are going to have been closely affected by this. We are in short all going to know someone who closely knows someone who died.

... and that is just deaths from people who died. Theres all the people who were intensive care and didn't die, all the people who lost their jobs, all the people who were locked down and felt terrified. As British disasters go this has been relatively universal - we've all been affected to at least some extent by it.

Of course, this means that this has the potential to generate really severe problems for whoever ends up getting blamed for it. The government and its mates in the media certainly know this, which is why they've been working so hard since about mid-February to aim flak at everyone else - SAGE, other "experts", the Opposition, foreigners, the North, the South and (after Christmas) the population who wanted to have turkey rather than protect their own family.

I don’t think I disagree with much of that, and it‘s the nature of small percentages, that when applied to large populations, result in huge numbers. That’s why when people where saying the death rate is “only” 1% or less, that would still have resulted in a huge death number if allowed to move through the entire population.

I was actually thinking about the difference in perception and the actual data, and how that will map to the wider population, when we get through the first half of next year, as it’s quite likely that a majority of the population won’t have had a close contact with COVID related death (although as you rightly say, many will ‘know someone, who knew someone...’) but it will be very easy to convince a large number of people that it was overplayed as they didn’t experience it firsthand, as people are generally more emotionally convinced by first hand anecdote, rather than large scale statistics, and the experiences which almost all people will have firsthand experience of will be of a personal lockdown / restriction of freedom and job losses, which will itself lean into a narrative of overreaction.

 

[tsubaki]

I don’t think I disagree with much of that, and it‘s the nature of small percentages, that when applied to large populations, result in huge numbers. That’s why when people where saying the death rate is “only” 1% or less, that would still have resulted in a huge death number if allowed to move through the entire population.

I was actually thinking about the difference in perception and the actual data, and how that will map to the wider population, when we get through the first half of next year, as it’s quite likely that a majority of the population won’t have had a close contact with COVID related death (although as you rightly say, many will ‘know someone, who knew someone...’) but it will be very easy to convince a large number of people that it was overplayed as they didn’t experience it firsthand, as people are generally more emotionally convinced by first hand anecdote, rather than large scale statistics, and the experiences which almost all people will have firsthand experience of will be of a personal lockdown / restriction of freedom and job losses, which will itself lean into a narrative of overreaction.

They'll absolutely try to say that it was overplayed - they've (the right) been trying to do that for months - but I just think its really difficult for a right wing government to make that argument when they were the ones in charge at the time, and when theres been some impact on everyone.

 

[BlueStevie35]

Hospital figures - 307 deaths were announced today, up 89 on yesterday and down 59 on last Tuesday. 293 deaths were in English hospitals, up 114 on yesterday and down 32 on last week. The 7 day rolling average falls to an even 326

All settings - for the 28 day cut off, 506 deaths were announced today, up 274 on yesterday and down 93 on last Tuesday. The 7 day rolling average falls to 410.71

For the 60 day cut off, 603 deaths were announced today, up 349 on yesterday and down 64 on last Tuesday. The 7 day rolling average falls to an even 465

 

[Sy-]

The stricter they make the rules the less the public will buy in. Surely even this inept government can work that out.

No rules means a free for all. But sensible rules and most will adhere. Pragmatism is key in this.

Let's not forget that they looked at a simple graph showing the start of the second wave and deduced the one thing not to close was schools.

So, yeah... nah.

 

[ToffeeTim]

Let's not forget that they looked at a simple graph showing the start of the second wave and deduced the one thing not to close was schools.

So, yeah... nah.

To be fair i dont agree with closing schools normally. The finally week of term or the first week of January i can understand, but we need to keep them open. There are no easy answers because closing schools is extremely bad and should be avoided as much as possible.

 

[Sy-]

To be fair i dont agree with closing schools normally. The finally week of term or the first week of January i can understand, but we need to keep them open. There are no easy answers because closing schools is extremely bad and should be avoided as much as possible.

Also in fairness the key spreader ages seem more specifically 6th form to university ages rather than the younger kids.

 

[ToffeeTim]

Also in fairness the key spreader ages seem more specifically 6th form to university ages rather than the younger kids.

Yeah secondary schools definitely seem a far bigger problem

 

[Caolam]

Here in Northern Ireland our hospitals are operating over capacity, in one of our critical care hospitals they were treating patients in 17 ambulances while there was 43 people waiting inside. We have now initiated a “care in the car park“ policy.

 

[Leylo]

Here in Northern Ireland our hospitals are operating over capacity, in one of our critical care hospitals they were treating patients in 17 ambulances while there was 43 people waiting inside. We have now initiated a “care in the car park“ policy.

bloody ell

 

[Goat]

Here in Northern Ireland our hospitals are operating over capacity, in one of our critical care hospitals they were treating patients in 17 ambulances while there was 43 people waiting inside. We have now initiated a “care in the car park“ policy.

Just for the flu?

/s

 

[CharliePotato]

Just for the flu?

/s

What about over here in England, our nightingale hospitals are absolutely full aren’t they....oh wait there.

 

[Goat]

What about over here in England, our nightingale hospitals are absolutely full aren’t they....oh wait there.

500 dead today.

And we have been "locked down" for months now.

Please, refrain from lowering my IQ by addressing anymore of my posts.

 

[BlueStevie35]

What about over here in England, our nightingale hospitals are absolutely full aren’t they....oh wait there.

You realise why we have them right?

 

[BlueToff]

Let's not forget that they looked at a simple graph showing the start of the second wave and deduced the one thing not to close was schools.

So, yeah... nah.

Nowhere else has closed schools. Every country is doing what they can to keep education going. That has come at a cost to a lot of other things but it's what they've done.