Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[grandjoeblue]

If a pub does food, is a family pub and has accommodation, I’d say that those pubs will still be able to make money.

@peteblue correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the mark up on soft drinks huge ?

They make a lot more margin on food and soft drinks but I think the concern would be the quantity of customers coming in. A lot of pubs offer pretty average food don't they and people just eat with their pint.

 

[peteblue]

If a pub does food, is a family pub and has accommodation, I’d say that those pubs will still be able to make money.

@peteblue correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the mark up on soft drinks huge ?

That would be giving the game away....yes....

 

[peteblue]

They make a lot more margin on food and soft drinks but I think the concern would be the quantity of customers coming in. A lot of pubs offer pretty average food don't they and people just eat with their pint.

It’s a stupid idea dreamt up by another London based CS . What is the reason for no alcohol. A pub with no alcohol is a poor man’s restaurant or cafe, and while many will open up just to generate any revenue, those not set up for food will just stay shut because there will be no customers. We certainly would stay closed. Of all the stupid ideas that have been faced by pubs, this is the most stupid.......

 

[davek]

Unfortunately it's born out of mistrust. It's great we are now vaccinating people and put it any positive way you can I'll agree.
However, that does not negate the fact our death toll. And how we come about this terrible figure.

Myself have some insight in health and social care and have practised at professional level. Frankly it's been of embarrassments to listen to our Government and its experts tell the nation we were prepared. While it deliberated the lockdowns with itself, that we had rings of steel round older people homes that turned out to be candy floss, that we had PPE, scrambling RAF planes to Turkey for mythical supplies of PPE, that we have world beating track trace. Is it face mask or is it face nappy debates, eat out to spread it about, schools work places restaurant and pubs are safe then the inevitable not safe.. And year on we are still waiting on some form of managed border control.

And course this response to Pandemic by our Government and its experts was contextualized from the onset, 20,000 dead being a good outcome, as of today 111,264 people dead. With another 400,000 plus people living long COVID. Is that a good outcome?

Not ashamed of vaccines or the roll outs, not wanting lockdown to continue, just don't trust the government or it's experts they have been found less than wanting and as evidence based practices go its awful.

Absolutely spot on on everything there.

And because of all that we KNOW that this government will make all the wrong decisions on vaccine dosage to the vulnerable (they'll struggle to get their booster shots) and ending restrictions and allowing the type of activities in the spring and summer and into late autumn that took tens of thousand of lives over the winter. They'll do that because they are controlled by big business and they are integrated with them. We'll see the end of restrictions and them lockdowns evey year, because this lot are prepared to sacrifice 100,000 of the population each year for every year the virus remains a menace to us.

It's that stark, it's that simple.

 

[Mrk]

Health before livelihoods every time, if you are of poor health livelihood will be negatively affected anyway. Although this is not the mindset in the UK, prevention services are always first to go when cost saving measures are needed.

Well obviously, but the question is how far you weight it towards health. If we always prioritised health over livelihoods, we'd have lockdowns every year during flu season, but we don't.

 

[Tubey]

Well obviously, but the question is how far you weight it towards health. If we always prioritised health over livelihoods, we'd have lockdowns every year during flu season, but we don't.

I think the flu is the perfect "line in the sand" personally.

Once over 50s are vaccinated, it's something like 98% of the lethality of the virus gone.

At that point, surely we have to just live with the thing, because the damage caused by locking down then vastly and obvious exceeds the damage done by the virus.

The issue is that due to epidemiologists naturally erring on the side of caution and their focus being on utterly squashing the virus, we have too many people still focused on the delusion of wiping out COVID completely. I get it, really do, but whilst I acknowledge that opening up before everyone is vaccinated could result in dozens of deaths a day, I also acknowledge the alternative of locking down for another 7 months or so will result in many more deaths than that, probably through suicide alone.

So yeah, the pendulum at some point has to swing, and as I've said before, I think the cut off is 1 May, with everything re-opened by July/August, just due to the politics of it.

 

[CharliePotato]

Absolutely spot on on everything there.

And because of all that we KNOW that this government will make all the wrong decisions on vaccine dosage to the vulnerable (they'll struggle to get their booster shots) and ending restrictions and allowing the type of activities in the spring and summer and into late autumn that took tens of thousand of lives over the winter. They'll do that because they are controlled by big business and they are integrated with them. We'll see the end of restrictions and them lockdowns evey year, because this lot are prepared to sacrifice 100,000 of the population each year for every year the virus remains a menace to us.

It's that stark, it's that simple.

Not really a 100,000 though is it.

 

[tsubaki]

I think the flu is the perfect "line in the sand" personally.

Once over 50s are vaccinated, it's something like 98% of the lethality of the virus gone.

At that point, surely we have to just live with the thing, because the damage caused by locking down then vastly and obvious exceeds the damage done by the virus.

The issue is that due to epidemiologists naturally erring on the side of caution and their focus being on utterly squashing the virus, we have too many people still focused on the delusion of wiping out COVID completely. I get it, really do, but whilst I acknowledge that opening up before everyone is vaccinated could result in dozens of deaths a day, I also acknowledge the alternative of locking down for another 7 months or so will result in many more deaths than that, probably through suicide alone.

So yeah, the pendulum at some point has to swing, and as I've said before, I think the cut off is 1 May, with everything re-opened by July/August, just due to the politics of it.

To do that would be to learn nothing from this, though. Flu kills > 10000 a year, and thats new variants on a relatively (compared to this) old virus. The new variants of this are going to come back in the same sort of waves but with lethality frequently being much greater than that of the flu. This means we are going to need some form of properly resourced rapid test, track, trace and isolate system that can protect us against those waves (or "squash the virus", if you will) or "normal life" is going to be impossible here; we will inevitably be forced into lockdown (or lockdown-like measures) because we will still have no way of containing new waves before they take hold.

That the government still hasn't given any indication that it understands this and is going to do something about it really should be criminal - we genuinely could have been back to a form of normal ever since the first lockdown, had they provided the right level of resources, understanding and leadership. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost because they didn't.

 

[BlueStevie35]

Not really a 100,000 though is it.

No you’re right, it’s actually 111, 264

 

[Tubey]

To do that would be to learn nothing from this, though. Flu kills > 10000 a year, and thats new variants on a relatively (compared to this) old virus. The new variants of this are going to come back in the same sort of waves but with lethality frequently being much greater than that of the flu. This means we are going to need some form of properly resourced rapid test, track, trace and isolate system that can protect us against those waves (or "squash the virus", if you will) or "normal life" is going to be impossible here; we will inevitably be forced into lockdown (or lockdown-like measures) because we will still have no way of containing new waves before they take hold.

That the government still hasn't given any indication that it understands this and is going to do something about it really should be criminal - we genuinely could have been back to a form of normal ever since the first lockdown, had they provided the right level of resources, understanding and leadership. Tens of thousands of lives have been lost because they didn't.

I expect testing/Track and Trace to continue for years to keep a lid on it as you say. But "normal" life can continue with those protocols in place.

I don't think this will have a lethality greater than flu once vaccination is widespread. 95%+ prevention of serious illness once vaccinated. We'll be alternating the vaccine to deal with new strains through genome sequencing, but the virus will be so low level that spikes in it will be nothing like we've witnessed now before the vaccine is rolled out again.

I won't defend the governments' handling of this pandemic, at all, but I will say vaccination is a game changer and our thinking as a result needs to change to opening things up again.

 

[tsubaki]

I expect testing/Track and Trace to continue for years to keep a lid on it as you say. But "normal" life can continue with those protocols in place.

I don't think this will have a lethality greater than flu once vaccination is widespread. 95%+ prevention of serious illness once vaccinated. We'll be alternating the vaccine to deal with new strains through genome sequencing, but the virus will be so low level that spikes in it will be nothing like we've witnessed now before the vaccine is rolled out again.

I won't defend the governments' handling of this pandemic, at all, but I will say vaccination is a game changer and our thinking as a result needs to change to opening things up again.

TBF to say "testing/Track and Trace to continue" suggests that its been done up until this point; at least in terms of being done effectively it has not been. I know we were all appalled at what Harding said recently, but she couldn't have made that statement if the system was anywhere near working properly - it was really indicative that something is really wrong.

In terms of how this virus mutates then all I'd say there is that failing to pick up new variants that pose a risk quickly enough (which is what not having a rapid test/track/trace/isolate system is going to result in) is not going to result in low numbers of people infected, nor are we going to get much advanced warning time in developing an updated vaccine.

 

[PaulPowersTash]

This latest leak about pubs being allowed to open without alcohol seems laughable. Why not just keep them closed until they can sell their primary product? Surely no dry pub makes money?

But the government don't have to pay the furlough money if they are allowed to open...

 

[GrandOldTeam]

 

[peteblue]

That sounds a little too positive for this thread, any chance you could suggest that the vaccines don’t work or that millions of us will die every year because of Boris.....

 

[davek]

Recovery can be real...and this is what it looks like.