Corona Virus main thread

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

Where's Johnson ?

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

The pull of this guy on the left is incredible.

Whether or not a guy had good reason to drive a car should not be as big a story of the fact that we have over taken italy in terms of deaths per head. The horrid symbolism of this is what should matter.

Perhaps outside of the activist bubbles it is what matters.

That is your opinion but perhaps the reason we have overtaken Italy is because Cummings has been advising, or telling, the Government about the pandemic. If they can lie, then what else have they lied about.

And where is our PM? Back in hiding again. He isn't fit for office. I walked the dog this morning and people who voted for him now want him gone.

[ricardo 7,347]

5 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

 

And where is our PM? Back in hiding again. He isn't fit for office. I walked the dog this morning and people who voted for him now want him gone.

Dog walkers for Starmer likely to be a big factor come 2024🐕

[Van wink 2,994]

7 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

The pull of this guy on the left is incredible.

Whether or not a guy had good reason to drive a car should not be as big a story of the fact that we have over taken italy in terms of deaths per head. The horrid symbolism of this is what should matter.

Perhaps outside of the activist bubbles it is what matters.

That is your opinion but perhaps the reason we have overtaken Italy is because Cummings has been advising, or telling, the Government about the pandemic. If they can lie, then what else have they lied about.

And where is our PM? Back in hiding again. He isn't fit for office. I walked the dog this morning and people who voted for him now want him gone.

Is he doing the press briefing this afternoon, I suspect not?

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

Just now, ricardo said:

Dog walkers for Starmer likely to be a big factor come 2024🐕

Woof !

Is it 7 Tory's now calling for him to go...

Tick tock.

2:1 looks safe.

I suspect by tonight.

[ricardo 7,347]

4 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Woof !

Is it 7 Tory's now calling for him to go...

Tick tock.

2:1 looks safe.

I suspect by tonight.

Needs to go before the end of May else its a loser.

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

6 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Needs to go before the end of May else its a loser.

I think tonight. His position is  untenable. What's the betting that the papers actually have video or snap shots as well ?

If it was you or me that had transversed the country with known Covid symptoms we'd of been lucky to get away with just at £1000 fine and a common criminal record. Cummings should be no different. 

He took that trip knowing it was wrong. He should of also realized it was a career ending decision.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Yellow Fever

[lake district canary 4,531]

1 hour ago, king canary said:

2 hours ago, sonyc said:

If we are not truly affected and annoyed about this then what does it say about us? That we must either be tough-skinned or certainly insensitive. Insensitive is a strong word here but I use it because we all know of people who have died and couldn't see them, or we have very elderly in laws (like my wife has) whom, for 2 and a half months she cannot visit (lives less than 20 minutes away). Many posters surely have been making the same sacrifices. It doesn't matter if we are left or right, we are all mostly caring people and following government advice (sometimes whether we like it or not) but the architect of it all can do what he wants to do. Surely this is a public scandal? 

This is basically it.

You've got people who can't see dying relatives, people who can't attend loved ones funerals, people who've not seen their grandchildren for  months all because they followed the rules set out by the Government. To have the chief architect of these rules break them, and then to have the cabinet line up behind him to say he did nothing wrong (not even 'he made an error of judgement but he shouldn't resign') is pissing people off all across the political spectrum. The wider issue is the arrogance on display, a suggestion that this indivdual is above accountability, above the rules and we all just have to accept it.

Agree with both the above. It should be no surprise there is one rule for them and one rule for the rest of us.  It has ever been so. Cummins really doesn't have a leg to stand on because he was seen out walking in Durham - a Sunday stroll - but if he or his wife had symptoms they should not have been out and about anywhere. 

My view of it is that some people - and it doesn't matter if they are Cummins or just plain man in the street - simply do not think the rules apply to them, or shouldn't apply to them - and that is where the fault is in this wooly governnment's handling of the situation. Lockdown should have been much more forcibly applied - complete lockdown with no reliance on peoples' sense of responsibility - because quite simply there are plenty of people in society who are just totally without any sense of responsibility or who think rules don't apply to them.  Much stricter fines, much more police prescence and maybe army prescence too, making it all very clear, would have been better.   

As for Cummins - he won't resign, he will weather the storm and then just carry on.

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by lake district canary

[sonyc 5,492]

18 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Is he doing the press briefing this afternoon, I suspect not?

Read he was away on a 10 day Whitsun break with wife and baby.

[ricardo 7,347]

There should be plenty of proof what with ANPR cameras recording traffic movement. Then there's the phone and Sat Nav, either will tell whether he went back or not.

You can't go anywhere nowadays without leaving a track that can be followed.

Edited May 24, 2020 by ricardo

[sonyc 5,492]

1 minute ago, ricardo said:

There should be plenty of proof what with ANPR cameras recording traffic movement. Then there's the phone and Sat Nav, either will tell whether he went back or not.

Had to laugh at Twitter comment yesterday..."god bless retired chemistry teachers who Google licence plates and have the results in their browser history"

[Yellow Fever 3,749]

5 minutes ago, ricardo said:

There should be plenty of proof what with ANPR cameras recording traffic movement. Then there's the phone and Sat Nav, either will tell whether he went back or not.

You can't go anywhere nowadays without leaving a track that can be followed.

Or it should be easy for him to show he was elsewhere. But then once in a hole some people just can't stop digging.

Edited May 24, 2020 by Yellow Fever

[PurpleCanary 5,554]

11 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

I made the point a few days ago that the old cliche about politicians - that they all lie - actually used not to be true. They would spin and dissemble and massage statistics, but usually not outright lie.

They do now, or at least the populists do, because populism is by definition built on a fable, and truth - tedious, prosaic truth  - threatens to undercut any fable. You could not have  better example than  Johnson (apart obviously from Trump) of someone whose whole political career has been a truth-free fable.

But what has happened with Johnson, and even more so with Trump, is that other ministers and the press officers have got drawn into defending the indefensible, to the point of lying themselves, or as near as dammit. Work for a populist and you get besmirched.

The Number 10 statement, for example, on the question of whether the police had ever spoken to the Cummings family seems to be either a lie or a cavalier knee jerk defence made without checking, on the basis that it is better to defend than admit to the slightest error, so it really doesn’t matter where the truth lies.

 

This has been an excellent, educational thread from which I have learned a great deal. And accordingly have mainly just read and not posted, and steered clear of getting into the politics of it all.

But anyone who thinks it is possible to understand any of this, whether in the UK or in any country around the world, without taking account of politics, in all its forms, including as here the symbolism of otherwise trivial events, is being hopelessly naive. Politics is in everything, and this pandemic is no exception.

[Herman 9,717]

5 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Read he was away on a 10 day Whitsun break with wife and baby.

1 press briefing, 1 (and only) Commons statement and 3 PMQs have worn him out.

[lake district canary 4,531]

15 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Read he was away on a 10 day Whitsun break with wife and baby.

?? How is this acceptable - are we not all supposed to stay at home still? 

 

 

[Van wink 2,994]

Only a matter of time

https://www.itv.com/news/2020-05-24/dominic-cummings-departure-only-matter-of-time-robert-peston/

[Van wink 2,994]

16 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Read he was away on a 10 day Whitsun break with wife and baby.

Oh dear.....

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,181]

Coronavirus could be gone from UK by end of September

I hope this lot of scientists are right

[sonyc 5,492]

Just now, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

Coronavirus could be gone from UK by end of September

I hope this lot of scientists are right

I read that too. Also, that we may see a day with  no new deaths in July. You wonder if it is simply dying out now.

[Van wink 2,994]

10 minutes ago, Herman said:

1 press briefing, 1 (and only) Commons statement and 3 PMQs have worn him out.

Whether he was ever up to the job I’m not getting into, particularly on this thread, but I genuinely believe he is far from being recovered from his illness, can’t go on like this.

[Van wink 2,994]

1 minute ago, sonyc said:

I read that too. Also, that we may see a day with  no new deaths in July. You wonder if it is simply dying out now.

I would be surprised and obviously delighted if that were the case, I wouldn’t hold your breath though.

[Mark .Y. 351]

3 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

Coronavirus could be gone from UK by end of September

I hope this lot of scientists are right

 

1 minute ago, sonyc said:

I read that too. Also, that we may see a day with  no new deaths in July. You wonder if it is simply dying out now.

Hopefully they are right.

There still hasn't been a second wave in any country so hopefully that holds true for us too.

I also think we will be able to travel to Europe and other "virus-free" countries sometime in July.

[sonyc 5,492]

8 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

?? How is this acceptable - are we not all supposed to stay at home still? 

 

 

I would guess Chequers but unsure. Reported in Telegraph and Guardian I believe. He has young child plus presumably still recuperating so that may be the reason for a further break.

Edited May 24, 2020 by sonyc

[sonyc 5,492]

5 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

 

Hopefully they are right.

There still hasn't been a second wave in any country so hopefully that holds true for us too.

I also think we will be able to travel to Europe and other "virus-free" countries sometime in July.

Indeed, it feels (instinctively) at this moment that there will not be a second wave.

I'm surmising though that social distancing is such a key factor, as is basic hygiene.

With the vaccine news today as well, September is looking very hopeful.

Ps. We need to keep borders carefully monitored though because C19 is spreading elsewhere in the world

Edited May 24, 2020 by sonyc

[ricardo 7,347]

16 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Had to laugh at Twitter comment yesterday..."god bless retired chemistry teachers who Google licence plates and have the results in their browser history"

I believe the problem here is that you can only find if the car is taxed and MOT'd not the name and address of the owner.

https://www.nationalnumbers.co.uk/faq/trace-a-registration.htm

[wcorkcanary 4,329]

Foreign travel, particularly by plane , will not be as straightforward as previously, or as cheap. Airline bosses predicted it will be 3 years or so until things get 'back to normal'.  So I dont expect Barracuda angling trips to Tenerife @€120 rtn to be available any time soon. Likewise Cork -stanstead will not be 5 flights a day for average 60 quid return. Things have changed...maybe forever.

Edited May 24, 2020 by wcorkcanary

[T 190]

One of the borders that needs most controlling is the one out of the UK as the UK is one of the countries that is seen as not having the virus under control. And it won’t be seen as having it under control until if and when it finally effectively implements test track and isolate months after other countries.
 

It seems more concerned though that Boris can’t function without his minder. He is bad enough with his minder in place so they must be really concerned about how he will perform without Cummings. 

[ricardo 7,347]

21 minutes ago, How I Wrote Elastic Man said:

Coronavirus could be gone from UK by end of September

I hope this lot of scientists are right

Its the Gupta theory.

If true then track and trace won't make a blind bit of difference if it naturally dies away.

Can't say I'm convinced yet though.

[Barbe bleu 815]

18 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

 

Hopefully they are right.

There still hasn't been a second wave in any country so hopefully that holds true for us too.

I also think we will be able to travel to Europe and other "virus-free" countries sometime in July.

Virus free nations by July seems very optimistic to me.   I'm not sure that any nation has got particularly close to this status just yet and if they loosen restrictions ws they must the risk obviously increases

I don't expect anything like a normal holiday until 2021.

[kick it off 1,948]

27 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I would be surprised and obviously delighted if that were the case, I wouldn’t hold your breath though.

Holding your breath is a sure fire way to ensure that there is at least one death that day...