Coronavirus

[19th Holer]

Most of the people flying in are returning home. As long as they do that and adhere to the lockdown rules that exist then it shouldn't be a massive issue ?

 

[Rui_CostCo]

Most of the people flying in are returning home. As long as they do that and adhere to the lockdown rules that exist then it shouldn't be a massive issue ?

"A small but significant number of flight passengers are continuing to enter the UK for non-essential reasons.
travellers being allowed to enter the country for holidays, family visits or business trips was making a “mockery” of the country’s coronavirus lockdown."

“We accept repatriation of UK residents, emergencies and freight [have to happen], those are areas we can accept, but why are we allowing people to come on holiday?”

The oft quoted useless WHO advice clearly states testing at airports is imperative. We don't seem to think so, I tend to disagree.

You could argue that people are said to be most infectious before symptoms show, which is probably why the Mrs brother who is a Doctor had to complete 2 weeks of quarantine when he returned to Ireland from Australia and why the same is being done with the imported strawberry pickers over there. Mind you, now he has his placement he has to change PPE after each patient, not keep the same set for each session so they're doing many things quite differently in Ireland.

 

[arklowolf]

"A small but significant number of flight passengers are continuing to enter the UK for non-essential reasons.
travellers being allowed to enter the country for holidays, family visits or business trips was making a “mockery” of the country’s coronavirus lockdown."

“We accept repatriation of UK residents, emergencies and freight [have to happen], those are areas we can accept, but why are we allowing people to come on holiday?”

The oft quoted useless WHO advice clearly states testing at airports is imperative. We don't seem to think so, I tend to disagree.

You could argue that people are said to be most infectious before symptoms show, which is probably why the Mrs brother who is a Doctor had to complete 2 weeks of quarantine when he returned to Ireland from Australia and why the same is being done with the imported strawberry pickers over there. Mind you, now he has his placement he has to change PPE after each patient, not keep the same set for each session so they're doing many things quite differently in Ireland.

There's some fairly shambolic things going on over here with the HSE as well tbh.

 

[pr0sl0]

Strange the media keeping very quiet about this type of thing.

It's been reported plenty, but at the moment a lot of the failings of government preparation and responsiveness are being hedged or downplayed by having those reports as minor footnotes to the main stories. Same with the lack of PPE for NHS staff and care workers, the massive testing shortfall, the pivot away from herd immunity, and just in general a lack of framing around the core fact that the UK has been among the very worst at dealing with this crisis worldwide among higher-income economies.

I get why - it's not a conspiracy or anything. Considering how important it is that people listen to public health advice in order to continue to suppress transmission, there's a lot of feeling among both MPs and journalists that going too hard on the government could have the unintentional effect of causing blowback against the wider lockdown strategy and cause more problems than it would solve.

That said, I do find it very frustrating that what's being promoted instead are propaganda-esque reports on Boris Johnson's recovery, or stories of people "heroically" fundraising for what should be a properly funded health service, all the while healthcare workers are experiencing a nightmare scenario and our death rate is looking like it will exceed both Italy's and Spain's once the full figures outside of hospitals are taken into account.

 

[Papper]

The thing I took away from it is that if you tell people what the tax is for and where it goes then people are OK with that. If tax is a general % rise form the government then people baulk at that and there is resistance. Folks just don't trust governments.

Think you are spot on Johnny.

If you factor in the percentage rate of population growth and that the majority of new jobs created in the last decade or so are fairly low paid in the service economy THEN match spending to what was paid out in the Blair years ( seen as a rough benchmark) I would hazard a guess the rise in tax would be a hell of a lot more than 2.5%. Given the UK faces a 2 million increase in unemployment, consumer spending will fall as debt rises then Mr Starmer will have hell of a job on his hands when the Blues scarper and hand the reigns back.

 

[Papper]

If we dont have organised clapping how can I prove I love the NHS more than others do??

The same sentiment plays out every year around armistice day, which has increasingly turned into an egofest and recruitment drive for the British Army. There is almost a competition to be the most caring and to tell people about it. Maybe I am too cynical.

 

[Rui_CostCo]

Think you are spot on Johnny.

If you factor in the percentage rate of population growth and that the majority of new jobs created in the last decade or so are fairly low paid in the service economy THEN match spending to what was paid out in the Blair years ( seen as a rough benchmark) I would hazard a guess the rise in tax would be a hell of a lot more than 2.5%. Given the UK faces a 2 million increase in unemployment, consumer spending will fall as debt rises then Mr Starmer will have hell of a job on his hands when the Blues scarper and hand the reigns back.

Hopefully they won't then blame The Labour Party for the mess they've been left.

If 2% was added to tax to fund the NHS, then I would imagine there may be support for that.

If 5% is added to cover loans to businesses like airlines that have never shown a profit or companies who have paid out 100''s millions to shareholders over the past few or used share buy backs to avoid tax then I can foresee civil unrest

 

[Papper]

Airlines are essential to a lot more than just themselves. I hate to imagine how many times I have flown Flybe in the last few years, a lot of those trips will have resulted in money coming in to the UK - that's going to be more challenging now. There is a very strong argument for government subsidiaries for regional airlines.

Globally, air travel faces a massive upheaval - it'll cost far more and afforded to a privileged few BUT this is what Greta called for and was wildly applauded. The larger planes that relied on economies of scale are near obsolete. It's all very nice until those trips to the Caribbean or far off places are no longer on the cards for many.

 

[arklowolf]

It's been reported plenty, but at the moment a lot of the failings of government preparation and responsiveness are being hedged or downplayed by having those reports as minor footnotes to the main stories. Same with the lack of PPE for NHS staff and care workers, the massive testing shortfall, the pivot away from herd immunity, and just in general a lack of framing around the core fact that the UK has been among the very worst at dealing with this crisis worldwide among higher-income economies.

I get why - it's not a conspiracy or anything. Considering how important it is that people listen to public health advice in order to continue to suppress transmission, there's a lot of feeling among both MPs and journalists that going too hard on the government could have the unintentional effect of causing blowback against the wider lockdown strategy and cause more problems than it would solve.

That said, I do find it very frustrating that what's being promoted instead are propaganda-esque reports on Boris Johnson's recovery, or stories of people "heroically" fundraising for what should be a properly funded health service, all the while healthcare workers are experiencing a nightmare scenario and our death rate is looking like it will exceed both Italy's and Spain's once the full figures outside of hospitals are taken into account.

Sure there are problems, with ppe shortages, the level of cases in care homes, lack of testing, but they are not limited only to the Uk. The same problems exist here.
Looking from here the UK seems to be coping pretty well tbh.
R figure below 1,
Curve serms to be flattening and the NHS seem to be coping. No?

 

[Papper]

Hopefully they won't then blame The Labour Party for the mess they've been left.

If 2% was added to tax to fund the NHS, then I would imagine there may be support for that.

If 5% is added to cover loans to businesses like airlines that have never shown a profit or companies who have paid out 100''s millions to shareholders over the past few or used share buy backs to avoid tax then I can foresee civil unrest

Civil unrest will be easily contained. Just look at the new powers that have been granted.

Many people will become surplus to the system that existed and from now on I suspect there will be massive changes to everybody's lives. If they avert depression then fair play to them but countries are now gearing up for severe recession lasting ten, twenty years. I don't think people actually realise how serious the situation is.

 

[arklowolf]

The same sentiment plays out every year around armistice day, which has increasingly turned into an egofest and recruitment drive for the British Army. There is almost a competition to be the most caring and to tell people about it. Maybe I am too cynical.

No you're not.

 

[pr0sl0]

Sure there are problems, with ppe shortages, the level of cases in care homes, lack of testing, but they are not limited only to the Uk. The same problems exist here.
Looking from here the UK seems to be coping pretty well tbh.
R figure below 1,
Curve serms to be flattening and the NHS seem to be coping. No?

Yes and no. Nobody's handling it perfectly (well, except maybe South Korea and Taiwan, and Germany has also done extremely well), but the UK's problems are particularly acute for the size of the population and economy. For example, this news just broke - PPE is about to run out in hospitals across England in only a few hours from now: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...d-to-treat-coronavirus-patients-without-gowns

And while the curve has flattened enough for the new temporary hospitals to be only very lightly used so far (wonderful news), I wouldn't say the NHS is "coping". Testimony from healthcare workers paints a fairly grim picture, especially as so many of them are getting sick and dying due to a lack of protective measures and resources made available. And then when it comes to testing, the UK is really struggling, more so than most of its peers. Revising targets on the fly (not that any of them are being met), inconsistent data, being evasive about the scale of "missing" deaths in the figures, a reluctance to publicly release the science that's guiding policy, avoiding giving detail about longer-term plans... considering the track record so far - and that the death rate really is near the top for countries like the UK - it does demand scepticism.

The big problem at the root of everything is just that the UK went into lockdown two weeks later than it should have, and it did it in fits and bursts, with inconsistent messaging and enforcement - not to mention slowness to recognise and prepare for these kinds of resource shortages in advance, back in February, if not January. The problems the UK is having now are larger than they should be, magnified by that initial judgement to put off social distancing and lockdowns further than elsewhere. And of course the larger point here is that just because every country has its own specific successes and failures when it comes to responding to the crisis, it doesn't excuse poor decisionmaking for any of them, just as it shouldn't mean not getting credit when credit is due. Building excess hospital capacity at speed, for example, to prepare for the worst; likewise, I've seen criticism of spending £20m on those bunk tests from a Chinese company, but a punt like that, in this situation, is more than reasonable.

 

[Rui_CostCo]

That's a bit tin hat for me. Probably a kernel of truth in there somewhere then creates a huge leap to super injunction.

Every question today at the press briefing related to a subject or area that had been spoken about during the briefing.

Where the smarter more experienced journalists framed the question with subjects not raised in the briefing, such as that supply of ventilators
hadn't been great, would supply of vaccines be better and the treasury was committed to spending millions, would canning the HS2 now be sensible only the parts of the question relating to today's statements were answered, the vaccines and spending, the ventilators and HS2 were ignored.

That is what is giving the impression journalists are letting politicians off the hook when they appear not to answer the question and the journalist doesnt call them out on it.

One journalist did call them out today, but it was because he said he was confused about the answer, not that the question wasnt answered.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

So the Government is putting £14m into a vaccine centre. Given that nearly all the experts said the only way out of this was a vaccine it does see this is about 2 months too late.

 

[pr0sl0]

Every question today at the press briefing related to a subject or area that had been spoken about during the briefing.

Where the smarter more experienced journalists framed the question with subjects not raised in the briefing, such as that supply of ventilators
hadn't been great, would supply of vaccines be better and the treasury was committed to spending millions, would canning the HS2 now be sensible only the parts of the question relating to today's statements were answered, the vaccines and spending, the ventilators and HS2 were ignored.

That is what is giving the impression journalists are letting politicians off the hook when they appear not to answer the question and the journalist doesnt call them out on it.

One journalist did call them out today, but it was because he said he was confused about the answer, not that the question wasnt answered.

A more plausible explanation for the ongoing shitness of the questions asked by the Lobby is that it's the Lobby asking questions, not health or science journalists with expertise in the issues involved.

 

[Papper]

Every question today at the press briefing related to a subject or area that had been spoken about during the briefing.

Where the smarter more experienced journalists framed the question with subjects not raised in the briefing, such as that supply of ventilators
hadn't been great, would supply of vaccines be better and the treasury was committed to spending millions, would canning the HS2 now be sensible only the parts of the question relating to today's statements were answered, the vaccines and spending, the ventilators and HS2 were ignored.

That is what is giving the impression journalists are letting politicians off the hook when they appear not to answer the question and the journalist doesnt call them out on it.

One journalist did call them out today, but it was because he said he was confused about the answer, not that the question wasnt answered.

Is anybody in those nightingale hospitals?

I would question the integrity of most journalists who are employed in the mainstream media.

Peston and Rigby couldn't fart in a tub.

 

[Keef]

Large scale temporary mortuary at Birmingham airport opened today,looks like it's expected to get worse if that's now operating

 

[Papper]

Large scale temporary mortuary at Birmingham airport opened today,looks like it's expected to get worse if that's now operating

Think the reckoning is 10% above normal deaths. Scaremongering bullshit.

 

[AndyWolves]

Think the reckoning is 10% above normal deaths. Scaremongering bullshit.

Is that right? It doesn't sound right

 

[Papper]

Is that right? It doesn't sound right

I read it on here so it must be right.

A normal flu season without a vaccine would produce maybe 80,000 deaths if 2015 (success rate 30%) is correficient.

The public is being duped.