Corona Virus main thread

[sonyc 5,482]

30 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

Ah, no worries mate  🙂

I'm pretty easy going but I do get a bit annoyed on here when people of one political allegiance quote figures, which are estimates !!, from newspapers (I honestly don't care what the particular political leaning of the paper is) but don't want to acknowledge proven facts.

Internet message boards, I guess  🙂 

 

The figures will get to a stage where they will simply speak for themselves, whether absolute numbers or per capita or comparative. People will always take what message they want to take (like they do looking at our position in the league and our goals against figures!). I am of the view now that it is fairly irrelevant to criticise because the situation is there for all to see in front of our eyes. Yet, it doesn't stop debate and posting interesting pieces. You learn that way.

 

I posted an article earlier yesterday (the 99%), where commentators felt to not have in excess of 80,000 deaths would mark a reasonable result for the UK. It was a measured piece (not unduly or overly critical) that also compared the possible effect of different forms of lockdown relaxation. The conclusion so far in that piece is that we are at a critical point (which perhaps we may be validated by the PM tonight). So, take that article or not, at 31.5k deaths at this moment recorded, it seems to me we are nowhere near the middle or the end of this pandemic.

Edited May 10, 2020 by sonyc

[Herman 9,699]

I get the feeling some very wealthy people, (newspaper owners, party donors), are getting hit in the pocket too much so are desperate for us to get back out there working and spending money, hence the relax lockdown messaging.

[Van wink 2,994]

1 minute ago, Herman said:

I get the feeling some very wealthy people, (newspaper owners, party donors), are getting hit in the pocket too much so are desperate for us to get back out there working and spending money, hence the relax lockdown messaging.

It aint going to relax very much, but if its not absolutely clear people will do what they want. 

[Herman 9,699]

20 minutes ago, Van wink said:

It aint going to relax very much, but if its not absolutely clear people will do what they want. 

Your friend/family member is on a very strict diet for health reasons. You leave a packet of chocolate biscuits on the side telling them not to touch them.

This seems to be government thinking/policy.

[Barbe bleu 809]

5 minutes ago, Herman said:

Your friend/family member is on a very strict diet for health reasons. You leave a packet of chocolate biscuits on the side telling them not to touch them.

This seems to be government thinking/policy.

Or the government leaves a  pack of chocolate biscuits for the other person in the house who has diabetes and might just need them.

Unfortunately no major nation in europe has eliminated this disease yet and there is no evidence that weeks or even months more of lockdown would achieve that.  At some point we do have to emerge in a careful and considered manner

 

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Barbe bleu

[sonyc 5,482]

4 minutes ago, Herman said:

Your friend/family member is on a very strict diet for health reasons. You leave a packet of chocolate biscuits on the side telling them not to touch them.

This seems to be government thinking/policy.

....yet if you did get away with it, wouldn't you be a jammie dodger?

Edited May 10, 2020 by sonyc

[rondy 7]

X

 

Edited April 7 by rondy

[Barbe bleu 809]

2 minutes ago, rondy said:

Yep, since Brexit everyone, although particularly those in the leave/Tory/Boris camp are so entrenched in their views that they’re completely unable/unwilling to see things from another angle and will no defend him no matter what. It’s hugely frustrating and incredibly dangerous.

to quote Mark Twain “it’s easier to fool people than to convince them they’ve been fooled” seems particularly relevant/apt at the moment.

I’m at the stage where I can’t work out whether the government are doing this deliberately and don’t care about the deaths or If they are actually completely incompetent and out of their depth - or both.

And if it is one or the other then which is worse, not caring or being this incompetent? 

 

Don't tell me, you are a remainer but in no way have you let your previous view of this government influence your thinking on this!

[ricardo 7,333]

I get the feeling some would rather see armed police on the streets enforcing the lockdown.

Then they could moan about that.

Stay at home and things will gradually be loostened when the R0 permits and without the gift of clairvoyance there is no way of knowing when that will be.

 

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

I get the feeling some would rather see armed police on the streets enforcing the lockdown.

Then they could moan about that.

Stay at home and things will gradually be loostened when the R0 permits and without the gift of clairvoyance there is no way of knowing when that will be.

How long have you got left on your lengthy lockdown Ricardo? I have totally lost track of time and the calendar.

 

[rondy 7]

On 10/05/2020 at 14:26, Barbe bleu said:

 

Edited April 7 by rondy

[ricardo 7,333]

Just now, keelansgrandad said:

I get the feeling some would rather see armed police on the streets enforcing the lockdown.

Then they could moan about that.

Stay at home and things will gradually be loostened when the R0 permits and without the gift of clairvoyance there is no way of knowing when that will be.

How long have you got left on your lengthy lockdown Ricardo? I have totally lost track of time and the calendar.

 

I think another 5 weeks, but I won't  need armed police to keep me in, especially today as its cold and rainy in NR2.

I also expect my personal lockdown to extend somewhat into a misty future unless a miracle cure arises. It is a nuisance but hardly the Gulag. Hopefully the less vulnerable will be released long before me.

[ricardo 7,333]

4 minutes ago, rondy said:

So you think they’re doing a good job and shouldn’t be held to account for mistake after mistake and telling us a pack of lies?

 

I’d be more than happy to support them if they showed any signs of competence 

You don't  have to support anything you have merely been asked to STFH.

[BigFish 1,986]

15 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

Don't tell me, you are a remainer but in no way have you let your previous view of this government influence your thinking on this!

Remain/Leave is all in the past. We left on 31st January. Time to look forward.

I was a Remainer and have found that the performance of the government has largely confirmed my previous views of them.

On second thoughts even I didn't believe they would be proved to be so totally unfit for the positions they hold as they have proved to be.

[Herman 9,699]

3 minutes ago, rondy said:

So you think they’re doing a good job and shouldn’t be held to account for mistake after mistake and telling us a pack of lies?

 

I’d be more than happy to support them if they showed any signs of competence 

You're going to get this a lot. Any critcism of a clearly shambolic response to this pandemic and it's because you're a "remainer" rather than a free thinker that is worried about the unnecessary deaths of your fellow citizens.

[sonyc 5,482]

10 minutes ago, ricardo said:

I get the feeling some would rather see armed police on the streets enforcing the lockdown.

Then they could moan about that.

Stay at home and things will gradually be loostened when the R0 permits and without the gift of clairvoyance there is no way of knowing when that will be.

 

 

Like your comments over the years about defensive stats, predictions on points totals, promotion Ricardo etc etc.... with this pandemic, the figures will ultimately speak for themselves won't they.

Politics as in football, reporters /the media and fans / voters will have their own take as ever.

Fingers crossed R is below 1. But I won't be making any predictions on this.

[Barbe bleu 809]

4 minutes ago, rondy said:

So you think they’re doing a good job and shouldn’t be held to account for mistake after mistake and telling us a pack of lies?

 

I’d be more than happy to support them if they showed any signs of competence 

A lot of folks will say that their opponents are displaying some form of tribal bias whilst not seeing it in themselves.

In these pages i have said repeatedly that the government did bungle the containment phase and that everything since has been catch up. I dont think they have got everything right and  nor indeed do I believe that they have got everything wrong. 

I am interested in quite how the disease is getting into so many 'shielded' care homes but for the time being I am undecided on central government culpability on this.

Most importantly I dont see any point in saying what overall strategy is best as this will be running for, at best, months yet.

 

[Yellow Fever 3,733]

27 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

Don't tell me, you are a remainer but in no way have you let your previous view of this government influence your thinking on this!

 

14 minutes ago, rondy said:

So you think they’re doing a good job and shouldn’t be held to account for mistake after mistake and telling us a pack of lies?

 

I’d be more than happy to support them if they showed any signs of competence 

I think BB you've kind of made in spades the point Rondy suggested. 

There are many on the right like the Telegraph and Mail criticising this governments handling of covid - but then there are some that it seems are incapable of ever seeing anything awry and always run back to it being a 'Remainer' plot. Yes the king has no clothes!

"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by Yellow Fever

[ricardo 7,333]

Just now, sonyc said:

Like your comments over the years about defensive stats, predictions on points totals, promotion Ricardo etc etc.... with this pandemic, the figures will ultimately speak for themselves won't they.

Politics as in football, reporters /the media and fans / voters will have their own take as ever.

Fingers crossed R is below 1. But I won't be making any predictions on this.

Nor should anyone. I noticed the R in Germany has risen above 1 again today. Anyone predicting how and when things turn out will be holding up a hostage to fortune. The only certainty that I see is that this has much further to run.

[Barbe bleu 809]

You presume me to be a brexiteer.  And the evidence for this is where?

And your evidence that I have always supported the government on its handling of the covid crisis is where?

And where are the z score sums!?

[sonyc 5,482]

5 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Nor should anyone. I noticed the R in Germany has risen above 1 again today. Anyone predicting how and when things turn out will be holding up a hostage to fortune. The only certainty that I see is that this has much further to run.

Quite so. Doctors are reporting they have experienced a respite, which was much needed, but are extremely fearful that people will not behave properly ahead under the newly mooted guidance...

Doctors warn of second coronavirus wave as UK lockdown weakens

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/10/doctors-warn-of-second-coronavirus-wave-as-uk-lockdown-weakens?

[Rock The Boat 1,323]

6 hours ago, rondy said:

A timeline of events.. 

Not sure how anyone can defend Johnson and his government after reading this 

 

https://appeasement.org/

Appeasement is a very appropriate title for Johnson's actions. He started off with the same strategy as Sweden, and had he held his nerve then we would be like the Swedes are now, coming nicely out of gentle isolation with the economy still in place and without the massive levels of public debt that will hold us back for years. 

Instead, Johnson bowed to some very bad science, namely Ferguson's discredited model of deaths. A piece of undocumented software code that gave different result when run on different computers and even different results on the same computers with different parallelism. Ferguson had been wildly wrong in predicting outcomes in the past yet he was the main modelling scientist in SAGE. 

Johnson also appeased the media who latched onto Ferguson's predictions of deaths and began demanding a total lockdown of the country despite the fact that the virus mainly affected 80+ year olds, the majority of whom would be dead in the next 12-24 months anyway. 

Where Johnson really needs to be criticised, however, is that he still held onto the idea of allowing the elderly to be culled while continuing lockdown by shifting the illl out of hospitals and into care homes where the deaths were not being counted and PPE was not being distributed. 

As he was allowing deaths among the elderly to occur anyway he could have relaxed the lockdown in a similar fashion to Sweden but he chickened out because of our hugely powerful media would probably brought his government down. 

So we've actually suffered the worst of both worlds. We've allowed culling of the sick and elderly to continue at some of the highest rates in the world yet maintained a strict lockdown of the healthy while allowing the media Stoke up levels of mass hysteria that has traumatised millions. 

So I agree with the poster that the government actions are indefensible. But I suspect the poster believes that the lockdown should have been more rigorous. I disagree. We should have continued with herd immunity and followed Sweden's example of a more relaxed lockdown. 

If you think this is cruel to the sick and elderly who are going to die from such a strategy, I make two points. We are talking about those who will be dead within a two-year timeframe, and we are doing very little to protect them at the moment. In the cases of those in care homes and at home they are being exposed to carers who do not have full PPE and so are actually being placed at very high risk. 

[rondy 7]

On 10/05/2020 at 14:51, Barbe bleu said:

A lot of folks will say that their opponents are displaying some form of tribal bias whilst not seeing it in themselves.

In these pages i have said repeatedly that the government did bungle the containment phase and that everything since has been catch up. I dont think they have got everything right and  nor indeed do I believe that they have got everything wrong. 

I am interested in quite how the disease is getting into so many 'shielded' care homes but for the time being I am undecided on central government culpability on this.

Most importantly I dont see any point in saying what overall strategy is best as this will be running for, at best, months yet.

 

x

Edited April 7 by rondy

[Yellow Fever 3,733]

5 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

You presume me to be a brexiteer.  And the evidence for this is where?

And your evidence that I have always supported the government on its handling of the covid crisis is where?

And where are the z score sums!?

I assume this is for me -

I believe it was you who suggested Rondy's views were because he was a 'Remainer' (and where is your evidence for this?). Ergo the natural 1st line of 'defence' to criticism of Johnson from many was to attack the questioner not the question!

Not sure what you mean by z score score sums but I don't watch this thread religiously. I thought that was a done and dusted technical discussion (not an argument - it's entry level A level maths from my 1970s - z scores in this context are standard deviations of excess deaths above means).

[Uncle Fred 526]

Government pandemic management was never this bad under Chris Hughton 

[Bill 1,788]

39 minutes ago, ricardo said:

I get the feeling some would rather see armed police on the streets enforcing the lockdown.

Then they could moan about thatin the outside world. You can quoye all manner of gibberish about R, but it is meaningless

Stay at home and things will gradually be loostened when the R0 permits and without the gift of clairvoyance there is no way of knowing when that will be.

But there is every way of knowing when food and medical supplies will run out if we all hid away. Your safety is dependent upon others putting their lives at risk

And given that you do not go out, you and similar minded folk on here can have no idea what is going on in the outside world. I regularly visit the supermarket and you are lucky if you see one person in fancy dress.  Not simply because they know how absurd this is, but that the risk to them is minimal.. Those who have died that were outside of the high risk groups are very low and if they a very low risk know they will be very low risk in months ahead,

The problem has been caused through incompetence and loony right wing ideas that have put care homes and hospitals at risk - not because everyone didn't avoid contact

But that would need you to come out of your ow self isolation from reality - something as you say "here is no way of knowing when that will be.".......... if at all

[Barbe bleu 809]

We are all biased. Bias is a natural condition. To claim that the brexit lobby is more prone to bias is without foundation. 

24 minutes ago, rondy said:

Name me anything they’ve got right? 

Phase one was poorly executed. We are still in phase 2 and wont know how well it was done for many, many months.  When it's done we can say what was done well and what was done poorly, not before. 

 My suspicion is that the key criticisms of phase 2 will be around care homes (though this will probably be a shared culpability), the successes might prove to be the financial measures / management and the fact that the NHS has held up despite being highly stressed at the best of times.

 

Phase zero ie long term issues in british society and governance will also prove to be fundamental to our 'success' in this.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Barbe bleu

[Surfer 1,547]

9 minutes ago, yellowrider120 said:

I'm not a particular fan of the Blonde Buffoon or the Tories in general most of whom have an insufferably arrogant trait but the main stick to beat the Government with now is this 'officially the highest death toll in Europe'.  The current figure is shocking, for sure, and way above what I envisaged it might be back in early March but are we SURE that it exceeds Italy (or even Spain)?? Unless these countries include ALL care home deaths in their figures then we are nowhere near a 'like for like' comparison. The article from Dan Hodges today focuses on this point. Of course because this is in The Mail on Sunday it must be 'fascist, hard right fake news' or some similarly stupid description. If you can't force yourself to give any credit to Hodges then perhaps you might read the BBC article on Italy v UK death figures where some similar evidence was offered.

  https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-8303639/DAN-HODGES-dont-worst-Covid-19-death-rate-Europe-wicked-pretend-do.html 

The only statistic that can be trusted is "excess deaths" as that bypasses all the administrative issues over how that death was categorized. And Mar/Apr data shows the UK has the largest number - both in absolute terms and when corrected for population. Scroll down this FT link to see the charts for excess deaths ..,

https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441

Edited May 10, 2020 by Surfer

[ricardo 7,333]

13 minutes ago, Bill said:

But there is every way of knowing when food and medical supplies will run out if we all hid away. Your safety is dependent upon others putting their lives at risk

And given that you do not go out, you and similar minded folk on here can have no idea what is going on in the outside world. I regularly visit the supermarket and you are lucky if you see one person in fancy dress.  Not simply because they know how absurd this is, but that the risk to them is minimal.. Those who have died that were outside of the high risk groups are very low and if they a very low risk know they will be very low risk in months ahead,

The problem has been caused through incompetence and loony right wing ideas that have put care homes and hospitals at risk - not because everyone didn't avoid contact

But that would need you to come out of your ow self isolation from reality - something as you say "here is no way of knowing when that will be.".......... if at all

Ive  read it twice and still don't  know what you are talking about, but no change there.

[Bill 1,788]

does it matter whether we have more or less deaths than Spain or Italy ?

These are human beings not points on the table, or goals for.

What matters is whether things could have been done differently, and understanding what needs to be done to save as many others who are at risk.

A few days back I spoke of the dangers of the government outsourcing work to the private sector - and unsurprisingly was chastised by some righty on the basis that 'cheap is good' however,

"The test, track and trace programme to tame coronavirus and release the lockdown will be “a car crash” as currently designed, a leader in disease control has warned in a blistering attack on the government.

Ministers are recruiting low-skilled private staff to carry out complex work and ignoring vital local experts, while relying on an unproven smartphone app, insisted a director of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health (CIEH).

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/coronavirus-test-and-trace-programme-cases-deaths-uk-a9503651.html

Which yet again highlights that the failings cannot be blamed on earlier administrations - it is the same warped ideology that is driving us all over the cliff, and causing so much failure