Lockdown #2

[kevinlms]

4 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Another difference is that the UK is entering winter, which on the face of it, seems more amenable to transmission of the Covid virus.  On the opposite hand Australia is beginning to emerge from winter into a period when the natural transmission of the virus seems to cecline.  add some strict, aussie style, control measures and you can. perhaps, explain a drop in the number of cases.

 

 

Not so sure that the season has as much to do with it, as many like to believe. For evidence, I'll give you places like India and the southern states of the USA, such as Florida or Texas. These are all generally quite warm places and people generally don't huddle inside. Florida is a key place (sorry!) that many north Americans and Canadians escape to for the winter, for good reason.

 

Victoria, Australia started its peak in July (our winter), but due to curfew, travel restrictions and compulsory mask wearing, the numbers started to fall quite rapidly

[boxbrownie]

On 01/11/2020 at 11:10, APOLLO said:

Here in Wigan we have an old saying to get us through adversity - "Keep guwin wit yed down" translates in English (!!) as Keep going with your head down" - perhaps an old coal miners or Rugby League players saying, still used today.

 

 

Really appreciate the translation, I am sure here in the South we people really needed that 

 

Or as the Tin Miners said here........Gwitha mos yn-rag gans dha penn dhe’n dor.       

[APOLLO]

26 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

Really appreciate the translation, I am sure here in the South we people really needed that 

 

Or as the Tin Miners said here........Gwitha mos yn-rag gans dha penn dhe’n dor.       

 

Glad to be of help - I remember this old TV  documentary about Leigh (near Wigan) with some out of work locals taking their ferrets "Rabbiting" on the slag heaps - They kindly added sub-titles for those south of Crewe !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

Brit15

Edited November 2, 2020 by APOLLO
Summat spelt wrung !! (Typo)

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

 

Glad to be of help - I remember this old TV  documentary about Leigh (near Wigan) with some out of work locals taking their ferrets "Rabbiting" on the slag heaps - They kindly added sub-titles for those south of Crewe !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Kind of like the version of 'Mad Max' dubbed into American.

[boxbrownie]

Wow haven’t seen the Granada VT rushes clock for years 

Edited November 2, 2020 by boxbrownie

[Gwiwer]

Rates of infection are , in many areas, slowing.  In some areas they are actually declining.  

Numbers in hospital are rising but those requiring intensive care are not at the level, nor rising at the rate, of the first wave.  Some of those in hospital may have other seasonal illnesses normal for the time of year and will prove to be negative for Covid-19

Much more is known about this virus and some forms of treatment are available which lessen its severity and can save lives.

The pattern of infection waves and retreats has been broadly similar in nations where no lockdown has occurred though I cannot directly correlate this to the availability and quality of healthcare

 

Financial assistance was refused or offered on modified terms to the northern cities, to Wales and to Scotland who are all making noises about how it is suddenly OK at the eleventh hour to bail out England as a whole.

 

It was perfectly OK the first time around for pubs to sell takeaway alcohol with meals, and it was OK for outdoor non-contact sports to resume such as golf.  Elite sport is OK to continue including soccer which of necessity involves contact and the transmission of perspiration.  

 

Putting several points together could someone please explain what I am missing because it seems to me that a draconian lockdown is not actually needed - this thing is sorting itself out and slowly receding already across much of England.  Check your local council area under the "Cases" tab and scroll down to the graph showing the trend in that area.  Many are now pointing down or at the worst flat. 

 

Government's own figures https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk

 

No conspiracy.  This is derived from the published statistics.  When the 1922 Committee and other significant forces at work in the House of Commons are unhappy to the extent they reportedly are then all is definitely not well with our leadership.  

 

Other opinions may be available.  

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Gwiwer

[Nearholmer]

I've been obsessively following the numbers, and the position varies hugely be place.

 

Where the case rates are already very high, even if they have peaked and begun to fall in some of those places (but by no means all), the future hospital cases and deaths are already, as the CMO put it "baked in", and in some of those places the hospitals are already very near capacity, so the "baked in" cases will take them to capacity, even if the number of people contracting it newly is falling.

 

In other places, my own area for one, which has numbers very typical of the Birmingham-London belt, no intervention now would put them in the above position in about four weeks time. We are at c110 new cases per100k population per week, doubling about once a fortnight.

 

Even some "remote" places like the SW have a problem, because while their case numbers are still fairly low, their hospital capacity is also fairly low.

 

The thing you need to do is not look just at cases now, but at how case rates are rising, and they are rising in a lot of areas, not just a few. You also need to factor-in the time lag between catching the bug and either recovering or needing a hospital bed ....... that's what the CMO is on about when he talks about "baked in" hospital demand and deaths.

 

Also worth asking how the dickens the Nightingale Hospitals would be staffed. I have a nasty feeling that they can't be adequately staffed, so HMG is trying to engineer things carefully to avoid needing them.

 

Following from that, I also wonder if, there is a need to protect hospital capacity at some distance from the worst affected places, to allow for overspill from those areas to "proper hospitals", given the foregoing.

 

The other thing to bear in mind is that, unlike the spring, schools are to remain open, and while transmission through younger children seems mercifully limited, once kids get to the later years of secondary school they are much more like adults in terms of how they catch, suffer, and transmit the bug, so the deceleration of cases isn't likely to be as rapid as in the spring.

 

And, there's the weather.

 

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Nearholmer

[woodenhead]

2 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Also worth asking how the dickens the Nightingale Hospitals would be staffed. I have a nasty feeling that they can't be adequately staffed, so HMG is trying to engineer things carefully to avoid needing them.

 

Online training is quite common within the health service. 

 

Want to deliver the vaccines but you don't have enough clinicians?  Just run an e-Learning course on administering an injection, problem solved.  And no, this is not a joke.

[woodenhead]

32 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Putting several points together could someone please explain what I am missing because it seems to me that a draconian lockdown is not actually needed - this thing is sorting itself out and slowly receding already across much of England.  Check your local council area under the "Cases" tab and scroll down to the graph showing the trend in that area.  Many are now pointing down or at the worst flat. 

 

Government's own figures https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk

 

No conspiracy.  This is derived from the published statistics.  When the 1922 Committee and other significant forces at work in the House of Commons are unhappy to the extent they reportedly are then all is definitely not well with our leadership.  

 

Other opinions may be available.  

 

There is a simple black and white explanation - there is either a worldwide conspiracy amongst the top 1% of people to enrich themselves even more by creating a panic about a fake virus OR there is actually a virus with the potential to overwhelm health services and leave medical people who general oath is to keep people alive to have to make unpalatable decisions about who lives and who is on their own.

 

There are people in this world who truly believe the Earth is flat with a giant glass dome sealing it, the sun and moon are massive objects spinning around a pivot and all the other stars are projected onto the dome.  They believe that a small number of people (including ALL scientists) protect this secret from the rest of the population except for the flat Earthers who believe they are the enlightened and the rest of us are fools.  What vested interest would there need to be to lie that the Earth is round, spinning in an infinite space along with a lot of other celestial bodies?

 

In the same way, why would every Government (and opposition parties), medical agency and scientist insist Covid is real if it really was a conspiracy to make very rich people even richer.  They may not all agree on the best way to manage the pandemic but I think they are all fairly agreed it is a real and present danger.

 

Some of the people saying that civil liberties are being pushed to the brink perhaps have vested interest in taking that point of view, you do hear of people being fined, but it doesn't appear to me that we've turned into a police state.  This lockdown is different than the first with more things staying open, perhaps a sign that the Government is adapting and trying to keep businesses running when there isn't a lot of social mixing involved.  My company is going back to home working but those with mental health problems or a lack of IT at home are being allowed to work from our offices, people can still go outside when they want to.

 

I don't like not being free to travel anywhere I want to when I want to, but look where that has gotten us back to since August - first with foreign travel, then the eat out scheme before the big mixing of people in schools and universities which to me was the final straw for transmission control and we are back where we began in March.  

[hayfield]

53 minutes ago, Gwiwer said:

Rates of infection are , in many areas, slowing.  In some areas they are actually declining.  

Numbers in hospital are rising but those requiring intensive care are not at the level, nor rising at the rate, of the first wave.  Some of those in hospital may have other seasonal illnesses normal for the time of year and will prove to be negative for Covid-19

Much more is known about this virus and some forms of treatment are available which lessen its severity and can save lives.

The pattern of infection waves and retreats has been broadly similar in nations where no lockdown has occurred though I cannot directly correlate this to the availability and quality of healthcare

 

Financial assistance was refused or offered on modified terms to the northern cities, to Wales and to Scotland who are all making noises about how it is suddenly OK at the eleventh hour to bail out England as a whole.

 

It was perfectly OK the first time around for pubs to sell takeaway alcohol with meals, and it was OK for outdoor non-contact sports to resume such as golf.  Elite sport is OK to continue including soccer which of necessity involves contact and the transmission of perspiration.  

 

Putting several points together could someone please explain what I am missing because it seems to me that a draconian lockdown is not actually needed - this thing is sorting itself out and slowly receding already across much of England.  Check your local council area under the "Cases" tab and scroll down to the graph showing the trend in that area.  Many are now pointing down or at the worst flat. 

 

Government's own figures https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk

 

No conspiracy.  This is derived from the published statistics.  When the 1922 Committee and other significant forces at work in the House of Commons are unhappy to the extent they reportedly are then all is definitely not well with our leadership.  

 

Other opinions may be available.  

 

 

 

 

 

I can accept folk do not trust politicians, to be quite honest I feel most are in it for their own benefit and when you see some bending/breaking the rules they give the impression that rules are for the little people

 

But what cannot be argued against are the doctors and nurses on the front line. Many have said they are getting very stretched. As for this rubbish of the south being treated better than the north. Firstly look at the infection rates, plus looking at how many have behaved badly on TV, both flouting the rules and or stating rules are for others. I can completely understand why infection rates are so high in the north and Midlands. London similarly has certain areas where locals held street parties and ignored social distancing, simply the infection rates rose not only in their districts but then transferred to neighbouring areas

 

Living in Essex we went into further restrictions 2 weeks ago, guess what infection rates in my 2 closest areas infection rates are now  starting to decline. There is a clear correlation between how groups of people react to the rules, and rising infection rates. Why cannot people take responsibility for both themselves and others, its not rocket science, but whilst some behave so selfishly the epidemic will thrive.    

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, kevinlms said:

Not so sure that the season has as much to do with it, as many like to believe. For evidence, I'll give you places like India and the southern states of the USA, such as Florida or Texas. These are all generally quite warm places and people generally don't huddle inside. Florida is a key place (sorry!) that many north Americans and Canadians escape to for the winter, for good reason.

 

Victoria, Australia started its peak in July (our winter), but due to curfew, travel restrictions and compulsory mask wearing, the numbers started to fall quite rapidly

 

The other major factor that  knocked it on the head here is our compulsory quarantining of all arrivals. No offence intended but the UK quarantining regulations seem pretty poor, to the point that new arrivals can travel to a self-nominated qurantining place such as your home, etc by public transport if necessary. Also there is a long list of countries that if you return from you don't need to quarantine at all.  And you can quarantine with friends and family.

 

If the intention of lockdown is to reduce the amount of virus in the community by limiting social contact, how is that going to be successful when new sources of the virus are continuing to be introduced into the community via inflected  people returning from overseas?

 

As  soon as you all come out of lockdown it'll start up again and you'll be locked back up by Easter.

 

[boxbrownie]

16 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

Post removed by AY - party politics and jibes

If people cannot understand a clear three tier system there is no hope whatsoever.......hence now we have to all get locked down together regardless of local conditions, as my Son who is a Doctor says....it’s the density of the population which is the problem, how true is that!

Edited November 2, 2020 by AY Mod

[Nearholmer]

Gwiwer

 

Another number to throw-in based on my obsession with statistics:

 

The UK has somewhere around 7 critical care beds for each 100k of population, which puts us very far down the world league in that respect, Germany has about 30, and the USA more even than that.

 

So, our hospital critical care units will fill-up and overflow quite quickly compared with many countries, even if we had exactly the same rates of illness as other countries.

 

I checked the numbers for where I live, and the hospital, which serves roundly 250k people, had 9 critical care beds before Covid, and now has, I think, 14, split into Covid and not-Covid provision.

 

Given that once a person becomes ill enough with Covid to need such a bed they then often need it for weeks, sometimes months, this whole "full-up hospitals" thing can actually boil-down to very small numbers in each locality.

 

Sticking with my local area as the case example, currently c15 people a day testing positive, doubling every two weeks, so in a months time c60 per day. If c1% of those people progress to need a critical care bed, then somewhere around Christmas that demand equates to roughly one new person needing a critical care bed every two days, so after maybe another two or three weeks, depending upon what other demands there are, the place is full up (actually it will happen quicker than that, because I've neglected the people who might already be present in some of the beds, either through covid or other misfortunes).

 

What do they do with the next patient who gets ill enough to need a critical care bed?

 

Even a locality with a falling case rate can get into this problem, if the rate is fall from too high a level, which is exactly the situation Liverpool seems to be in. Their rate has been falling for a month, but it is falling gradually from something like 100 new test-positive cases each day, so the "production line" is probably currently producing something like one person needing a critical care bed every day.

 

That's why the PM has a look of fear in his eyes, and why we are going into some sort of semi-lockdown: he doesn't want, on his watch, people to be in need of a critical care bed and not get one, and he is very overt about saying so.

 

It might be worth checking how many critical care beds your local hospital has*.

 

Kevin

 

[My 1% of people progressing from testing positive to needing a critical care bed is an educated guess, I'm pretty sure on the low side if people across the age spectrum were infected evenly, but the correct number will depend heavily upon the demographic of those infected. If anyone knows a better number, we can run the figures with that]

 

*Based on your stated location, probably Kingston upon Thames Hospital, serving  a population of 320k, which says on its website that it has a 10 bed ICU. Presumably that was pre-covid, so I'd guess 20 now. That catchment area is currently seeing about 65 test-positive cases each day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by Nearholmer

[Ron Ron Ron]

My sister lives in northern Italy, right in the epicentre of the original widespread outbreak.

Her daily contact with us made us very aware of how awful and desperate the situation was, before it hit here..

The population was terrified by what was going on all around them, resulting in overwhelming compliance with restrictions and recommended behaviours.

Like Spain and France, they had a proper total lock down, far stricter than our loose one. Nobody complained.

By all accounts, much of the cautious and disciplined behaviour extended through the summer, as the restrictions were eased off.

 

Having lived there for 36 years, my sister remarked on the remarkable 180 degree turn around in attitudes. 

A nation that has traditionally and culturally had a higher degree of non-compliance, casualness, even a certain distain for certain (usually the petty kind) rules and regulations, than we are used to in Northern European countries, has flipped overnight to one where the vast majority are strictly following government and medical rules and advice.

Contrast that with the UK. We seem to have gone in the opposite direction.

 

Back in the summer, when the British news media was full of reports and images of crowds flocking to beaches and of mass protests in city centres, the Italian and much of the European news media covered those events with astonishment that the British population had lost their heads.

In contrast to our news media, which was full of everyone under the sun, journalists, opposition politicians etc, all working hard at the blame game and pointing fingers at government, many of their European counterparts were instead, pointing at the stupidity of large chunks of the British population.

 

My sister works in the care sector.

The care home where she works lost 43 out of the 96 residents in a short 3 month period. It was devastating, not least because many of those who sadly died were not on their last legs, or in even close to a natural end. Some were living there because they were unable to adequately cope on their own at home, due to physical ageing problems or general frailness.

Others who died were in the recuperation unit, staying for a few months between a hospital operation and being able to return home.

 

I should mention, at the beginning of the outbreak, in order to clear much needed space and provide safe isolation in the hospitals, care home residents who were in hospital at the time, were quickly cleared out and returned back to their care homes, along with some other elderly people, who normally lived at home. That practice, which is suspected as a possible main route for introducing the infection to the care homes, appears to have been the practice in a number of countries across Europe, not just the UK.

 

Having lost her own husband (65 yrs old) to cancer, only two years ago, I don't know how my sister has survived through all this.

She's completely exasperated by what she sees happening back "at home" on British TV (she has Sky and gets our TV channels) and on the internet.

 

 

.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Ron Ron Ron

[Ron Ron Ron]

Something not mentioned about hospital critical care capacity.

Earlier in the year, a significant proportion of medical staff either contracted the virus, or had to self isolate due to potential exposure.

Some sadly lost their lives.

One of the ongoing risks as patient numbers increase, is that the number of vital medical staff may be limited or reduced in similar circumstances.

A critical care doctor was on the radio the other day, outlining this risk and describing a possible doomsday scenario, where hospitals start to be overrun and the number of available doctors, nurses and other specialists is severely hampered. 

 

 

.

[brianusa]

27 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Having lost her own husband (65 yrs old) to cancer, only two years ago, I don't know how my sister has survived through all this.

She's completely exasperated by what she sees happening back "at home" on British TV (she has Sky and gets our TV channels) and on the internet.

From the left hand side of the pond, I would agree; it looks a bit chaotic "at home" these days.   Not that this side is any better with our own chaos of  an election, which is bad enough but at least we aren't suffering as those at home are suffering so badly.  Grocery stores are more or less normal although staff has been reduced by covid illnesses.  Bars and restaurants struggle through open and shut periods.  We stay at home, dash out for provisions, come home and shut the door and thats about it.  None of us are suffering to see a doctor and our hair isn't long so no need to go there.  The cars seem to be suffering the most with flat batteries and the chargers are busy these days!

May sound a bit dull to some but we sleep at night and don't miss the hectic life of yore.  Maybe we'll live a little longer

          Brian.   

[monkeysarefun]

47 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

Back in the summer, when the British news media was full of reports and images of crowds flocking to beaches and of mass protests in city centres, the Italian and much of the European news media covered those events with astonishment that the British population had lost their heads.

 

Similarly the images of the crowd on Bondi Beach at the start of the pandemic portrayed Sydneysiders in the same light, which was annoying since the vast majority of people flouting the rules that day were foreign backpackers here on holidays who refused to abide by the rules for several weeks because they were "on holiday". The most infamous picture of crowds was taken on a  Friday when  most locals had a job to go to.

 

 The Backpacker hostels in Sydneys  East became centres of infection caused by backpackers still having parties etc, until they were shut down.  Once the backpackers racked off back home the virus numbers plummetted here, (and probably rose there!)

[PatB]

20 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

Similarly the images of the crowd on Bondi Beach at the start of the pandemic portrayed Sydneysiders in the same light, which was annoying since the vast majority of people flouting the rules that day were foreign backpackers here on holidays who refused to abide by the rules for several weeks because they were "on holiday". The most infamous picture of crowds was taken on a  Friday when  most locals had a job to go to.

 

 The Backpacker hostels in Sydneys  East became centres of infection caused by backpackers still having parties etc, until they were shut down.  Once the backpackers racked off back home the virus numbers plummetted here, (and probably rose there!)

Let's not also forget the Ruby Princess debacle, where hundreds of passengers were allowed off a cruise ship hosting a known outbreak, without any checks or controls. A monumental stuff up and act of gross incompetence for which those responsible have largely avoided significant sanction. 

[kevinlms]

2 hours ago, PatB said:

Let's not also forget the Ruby Princess debacle, where hundreds of passengers were allowed off a cruise ship hosting a known outbreak, without any checks or controls. A monumental stuff up and act of gross incompetence for which those responsible have largely avoided significant sanction. 

A classic case of federal and state governments passing the buck. I could say more, but better not, as Andy Y is sick of politics!

[Ravenser]

13 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

The other major factor that  knocked it on the head here is our compulsory quarantining of all arrivals. No offence intended but the UK quarantining regulations seem pretty poor, to the point that new arrivals can travel to a self-nominated qurantining place such as your home, etc by public transport if necessary. Also there is a long list of countries that if you return from you don't need to quarantine at all.  And you can quarantine with friends and family.

 

If the intention of lockdown is to reduce the amount of virus in the community by limiting social contact, how is that going to be successful when new sources of the virus are continuing to be introduced into the community via inflected  people returning from overseas?

 

As  soon as you all come out of lockdown it'll start up again and you'll be locked back up by Easter.

 

 

Britain is heavily dependant on cross border flows of goods, largely by truck. 4 years of arguments about Brexit have taught us pretty clearly the devastating implications if cross-channel /North Sea flows suddenly stopped. Therefore it simply isn't possible to seal off the country. The nearest analogy is trying to seal the NSW/VIC or NSW /QLD borders - except that the flows are much larger and more critical.

 

And every European country is in the same boat, only more so. In some places on the Continent people routinely cross borders to go to work. Much Irish international traffic moves on trucks which catch one ferry from Ireland to Britain, drive across the country and catches a ferry across the Channel /North Sea from another British port. We have a problem with illegal immigrants stowing away in cross Channel trucks, and now attempting Channel crossings in small boats

 

The "long list of countries" is down to about 6 or 8 , some of which won't let British people in. Outward travel without good reason has just been banned. Travel flows in and out are down to about 1-2% of normal. (There is an underlying assumption that almost no-one from abroad will be coming to Britain - travel means British people visiting the Continent)

 

Also there is massive political pressure against : EU "freedom of movement" and global immigration is a shibboleth for half the country and most of those in positions of influence. No aspect of the restrictions has been resisted more - even to bring in any form of quarantine was bitterly opposed in many quarter, the airlines and airports have been pushing to have it scrapped and France in particular has consistently signalled they would not tolerate it, and threatened retalitory action (It's fine for Macron to close the French borders against us , but he has repeatedly stated France will not tolerate the imposition of quarantine by anyone on visitors from France).

 

Also the idea that the virus is something we import from foreign countries would be attacked as overtly racist by many. At a practical level - the virus is here, in very great strength, and has been since February. Eradication is not practically possible anywhere in Europe - and certainly not on the Continent, which has to be treated as one block, and where the EU institutions will defend open borders to their last breath. Even if it were possible to eradicate the virus here by lockdown (and that might take 18 months or more of total closure) it is simply not practical to seal the country hermetically from the Continent for ever. Food would run  out in weeks.  It isn't 1943

 

The only countries who can effectively practice a "seal and eradicate" strategy are island states at some distance from anyone else, who sealed their borders before very much virus got in . Hence Australia, NZ, Taiwan, Japan. Korea is a peninsular and the border to the north is utterly closed. HK and Singapore are in similar situations. The cost of an eradication strategy in VIC has been ruinous and could only be borne because at the end of the day VIC is only one component part of Australia, and the rest of the country can carry it

 

There's no argument for making quarantine of international travellers more rigourous than quarantine of those actually infected. While it might be beneficial to remove everyone who tests positive to a quarantine facility , there are so many of them that you couldn't provide enough isolation facilities to do it, or staff them if we did (Something of the kind has been tried with sealing off university Halls of Residence but they struggled a bit getting food to the students)

[Ravenser]

10 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

 

 The Backpacker hostels in Sydneys  East became centres of infection caused by backpackers still having parties etc, until they were shut down.  Once the backpackers racked off back home the virus numbers plummetted here, (and probably rose there!)

 

You get exactly the same scenario with university halls of residence, I'm afraid. The big driver is that teenagers think the virus is someone else's problem. They've been told ad nauseum that the virus kills those who are i) over 65 ii) already ill iii) male iv) non-white . Most students don't tick any of those boxes - and nor does anyone they hang out with. Coronavirus won't hurt us - let's party!

 

In terms of comparisons with Italy - their infection rate has risen very fast, very quickly and their numbers are now worse than ours , while their measures are some distance behind ours. The sudden huge surge in Italy and its timing, is one key piece of evidence for the idea that this wave is seasonal and temperature driven, rather than the product of "government incompetence" or "irresponsible behaviour by the population"

 

This time round Britain is actually doing rather better than a lot of Continental countries, on the numbers so far, something which our media reactions have successfully obscured. I really fear the worst for both Belgium and the Czech Republic, and Spain also seems to be betting the house on the idea that their hospitals will manage to cope somehow 

Edited November 3, 2020 by Ravenser

[Neil]

I'm intrigued by the ethics behind the lives vs livelihoods debate. The way it's presented at the moment  seems to me to be partially stripped of context or humanity. It's been reduced to a transactional trade off. Last night I began to think of parallels which might help sharpen up the thinking. The first I came up with was the Ford Pinto and it's exploding petrol tank where Ford knew of the dangers but decided that it would cost them more to fix the problem than to pay the compensation to those killed or injured by the defect. While the current situation is more complex when people talk of balancing the risk to life with the risk to the economy they are essentially facing the same choice as the Ford Motor Co. executives did all those years ago.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

56 minutes ago, Ravenser said:

 

.....every European country is in the same boat, only more so. ....

......At a practical level - the virus is here, in very great strength, and has been since February. Eradication is not practically possible anywhere in Europe - and certainly not on the Continent,.....

.......Even if it were possible to eradicate the virus here by lockdown (and that might take 18 months or more of total closure) i.........

 

It isn't going away anytime soon.

All these comments you hear about getting "back to normal" by Christmas, or next spring, are just plain naive.

 

There appears to still be a general lack of comprehension as to the scale and magnitude of the pandemic and the unavoidable damaging consequences that will result.

 

Our British MSM are no help, with their myopic reporting and sensationalism, focussing almost entirely on the political "blame game" and the domestic situation and only referring to other countries when selectively saying country X has faired better than us, or country Y has announced a lockdown, without pointing out that country Y are doing much worst, sometimes very much worst, than the UK.

 

When there are complaints or protestations about the damage to the economy and the potential destruction of thousands of businesses, or cries of  ".....but peoples livelihoods will be destroyed......",  rather than trying to defend the actions being taken, the straight honest answer should be "YES , that's correct". 

It might be best to view this as analogous to war. Sadly there will be what the military call, "collateral damage".

It's more than very unfortunate; it's an awful situation and realistic expectations should take into account that there's a limit to what any government can do about it, other than to try as much damage limitation as practically possible and help steer us through the troubled waters that lie ahead.

 

This is the real "learning to live with the virus", not pretending we can just "isolate the vulnerable" and carry on as normal.

"Normal" as we knew it has gone. 

 

 

.

 

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

14 minutes ago, Neil said:

I'm intrigued by the ethics behind the lives vs livelihoods debate. The way it's presented at the moment  seems to me to be partially stripped of context or humanity. It's been reduced to a transactional trade off. Last night I began to think of parallels which might help sharpen up the thinking. The first I came up with was the Ford Pinto and it's exploding petrol tank where Ford knew of the dangers but decided that it would cost them more to fix the problem than to pay the compensation to those killed or injured by the defect. While the current situation is more complex when people talk of balancing the risk to life with the risk to the economy they are essentially facing the same choice as the Ford Motor Co. executives did all those years ago.

 

 

There are lots of analogies one can draw on Neil, from both fiction and the real world.

I thought about JAWS, where the local mayor and business leaders were desperate to deny the awful reality of the situation and continue as normal, because their livelihoods were about to be ruined.

They became very angry, losing all rationality and perspective in terms of the risks to human life.

 

There was also a lava flow from a volcano threatening a village, some years ago. I can't remember where or when.

A resident steadfastly refused to leave their home that lay in the path of the lava flow, until they were eventually physically removed by either the police or military personnel.

 

 

 

 

 

.

Edited November 3, 2020 by Ron Ron Ron

[rocor]

16 hours ago, woodenhead said:

There are people in this world who truly believe the Earth is flat with a giant glass dome sealing it, the sun and moon are massive objects spinning around a pivot and all the other stars are projected onto the dome.  They believe that a small number of people (including ALL scientists) protect this secret from the rest of the population except for the flat Earthers who believe they are the enlightened and the rest of us are fools. 

 

 

 

You forgot to mention the gigantic sticky label on the underside stating, "Manufactured by the one true god, patent pending'.