Lockdown’s Last Lingerings - (Covid since L2 ended)

[monkeysarefun]

Yesterday  in Brisbane a worker in one of the hotels where overseas arrivals are quarantined tested positive for the UK strain.

Consequently from 6am today the whole of greater Brisbane is on a 3 day lockdown, no leaving home except for essential work etc etc etc. And face masks are mandatory, no stupid exemptions and a $200  on the spot fine for natures simple folk. the same as down here in Sydney since Monday. 

 

Our cases in Sydney seem to have settled down to  2 or 3  a day, linked to known cases  which is heartening, and our strain isn't the UK one. Yesterday there were zero.

 

Yesterday there was an emergency national  cabinet meeting to discuss issues such as the UK strain and the self isolation of overseas flight crew. Both issues will result in either bans on people from certain countries, or more likely a negative test result prior to getting here, plus the usual quarantine period. Airline crew will be much more highly regulated.

 

Been out and about a little since Monday and I've yet to see anyone without a mask where we are required to wear them, in fact even though they're only required inside shops, public transport etc, at least half also wear them out on the street.  Those overseas new stories from England and the US have really made an impression here and no one wants to go down that path.

Edited January 7, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[coastalview]

I would be fascinated to understand how those who are not in favour of restrictions believe the NHS will be able to cope with the resulting no.  of people who get ill.

 

We are already at a point where according to information leaked to the HSJ hospitals in London will be overwhelmed.

 

Edited January 7, 2021 by coastalview
typo

[rockershovel]

11 minutes ago, black and decker boy said:

Just to correct you, construction is not excluded from furlough. We and similar companies have had people on furlough. It might be harder for the very small SME / self employed workers but those on PAYE can access it.

 

construction is able to carry on as its mostly outdoor work, mostly mechanised and so social distancing is pretty easy to create & maintain. It’s also not possible to build something out of bricks / concrete / tarmac over Zoom.

 

I have run 4 site projects since March 2020 with no issues.

 

Well, that’s true. But if you are one of the high proportion of self-employed, or employed on PAYE through an agency or umbrella company, you are in a hiding to nothing, because there is no will to recognise employed status. 

 

My experience was of an immediate, precipitate drop in employment as sites closed, some have still not reopened; projects still on hold have not started. The job I am currently employed on, preparing contract documentation has been delayed since June and won’t start properly till Easter. 

 

I don’t doubt that any construction company actually working, has all the labour they want. 

 

[rockershovel]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Rocker

 

The figure you cited was out by a factor of at least ten - don't you think it would be a good idea to correct it, in case anyone is daft enough to believe it?

 

K

 

... but cases aren’t uniformly and evenly distributed, are they? That’s my point. There are a number of well-defined hotspots up and down the country which appeared early, and have remained constant. 

[phil-b259]

2 hours ago, chris p bacon said:

 

What support package ? Some (myself included) have had nothing.  I listen to some who moan about only getting XX% on furlough and think you have no idea.

 

'Tweaking' can of course include expanding provision of support.....

 

Given there is a a lot of 'making things up as you go along' in Government when it comes to the Covid response its hardly surprising that there are 'gaps' for folk to fall down.

 

The correct response is to plug them - not to greatly increase the chance of the NHS collapsing under the strain or any further people be denied things like cancer treatment due to high Covid cases.

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by phil-b259

[LBRJ]

For a forum where politics is expressly forbidden, that one is really gonna take some explaining away....

[phil-b259]

44 minutes ago, rockershovel said:

 

... but cases aren’t uniformly and evenly distributed, are they? That’s my point. There are a number of well-defined hotspots up and down the country which appeared early, and have remained constant. 

 

And which have gone on to cause the surrounding areas to see an increase in case numbers too.

 

In the case of the current situation the initial cases of the new variant continued to spread in spite of Tier 4 restrictions!

 

Sorry, this isn't some sort of Communist utopia where you can fence in every hotspot and wait for it to fade away. With this new strain proving highly transmissible and many not showing symptoms it is incredibly easy for it to be spread even in lockdown conditions.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

5 hours ago, rockershovel said:

on the promise of being sheltered from a virus which infects less than one in a thousand

 

From today's Government Dashboard:

 

Rate per 100k resident population: 550.5

Seven-day rolling rate by date of specimen as of 1 January 2021

 

In other words, in a single seven day period the virus has infected more than five and half people in each thousand in the entire UK*. Cumulatively, and without having checked recent ONS numbers, it has infected at least 10% of the population, or one hundred in each thousand.

 

You would need to look at very localised, possibly ward, level to find places where the cumulative infection rate is less than one in a thousand, and they will be few and far-between. Certainly taken at upper-tier local authority level the seven-day, let alone cumulative, rate is currently above that in every area except Argyll and Bute, The Shetlands, and Gwynedd (I struggle with the colours on the dashboard map slightly, so correct me if that isn't right).

 

As to persistent hot-spots, yes there are some, and in some cases they are a clear demonstration of the danger of releasing lockdowns while the case rate remains relatively high, but focusing on that again creates a misleading impression that this is a localised problem, rather than a very widespread one, particularly since summer changed to autumn and the new variant emerged.

 

In short, if people are going about thinking that this thing infects less than one in a thousand, or is localised to that bit of town where the halal butchers or the polish grocers are, or doesn't get to nice villages like ours, so their odds are pretty good, they are utterly deluded. 

 

I think I would be right in saying that in the UK it has so far been implicated in the deaths of more than one person in a thousand, let alone infected that proportion.

 

*And that, and all the other numbers I cite in this post underestimates the infection rate, because it is based on "positive tests". The ONS "dip sampling" and the Covid ZOE studies both yield numbers roughly double these, because they pick-up asymptomatic or very weakly symptomatic cases.

Edited January 8, 2021 by Nearholmer

[phil-b259]

43 minutes ago, LBRJ said:

For a forum where politics is expressly forbidden, that one is really gonna take some explaining away....

 

 

 

 

Yes its politics, but I would contend its not party politics. I have not named / belittled any one party and have emphasised the historical aspect in all this.

 

Think of it not as politics per say - rather a philosophical musing on life. You need to take a step back and see politics for what it is - the lifeblood of who we are as a society and indeed a species.

 

At one time it was considered acceptable to own slaves (and I am not just talking about recent centuries - remember the ancient Greeks had a system of politics and they were quite happy with the concept). This practice did not stop because of a technical reason or mathematical algorithm - it changed because the political environment changed.

 

Moreover its impossible to completely ignore politics completely - its effect touches on our daily lives in so many ways. The ability for men and women to be paid the same or why 3 pin plugs have to be made to a certain standard is ultimately due to the decisions enacted by politicians because of political pressure. They might be underpinned by human rights or science considerations but they are still political decisions at the end of the day given force through acts of parliament!

 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by phil-b259

[Nearholmer]

My take is that it is allowable to talk about that p-word thing, provided it is couched in civil terms and is labelled as "history", "economics", "philosophy", or (pushing it a bit) "current affairs" .

 

I hope so, anyway!

[phil-b259]

12 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

Well, that’s true. But if you are one of the high proportion of self-employed, or employed on PAYE through an agency or umbrella company, you are in a hiding to nothing, because there is no will to recognise employed status. 

 

 

 

 

Which is a long standing problem of the obsession with 'contracting' rather than directly employing staff.

 

Don't get me wrong, when times are good it works well for both companies (and contractors themselves) - but when it all goes wrong (and this pandemic is probably just about as wrong as you can get) then contractors suffer.

 

Its something I have often felt (but am unable to prove) that in recent decades there has been far too much encouragement for the 'contracting out' of things that should by rights be done in house.

 

It might sound old fashioned but in my view contracting jobs should only last a matter of weeks - if you are going to be working for someone for 6 months or more then you should be employed by them for the duration  and receive all the benefits of traditional salaried staff.

Edited January 8, 2021 by phil-b259

[phil-b259]

4 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

My take is that it is allowable to talk about that p-word thing, provided it is couched in civil terms and is labelled as "history", "economics", "philosophy", or (pushing it a bit) "current affairs" .

 

I hope so, anyway!

 

 

Indeed.

 

Politics in its widest sense is why we live the way we do today, the twists and turns throughout history shaping everting about the legal, social and economic structure by which we regulate our lives today.

 

Many politicians (real or wannabee) today pop up on TV or social media sounding as though they are revolutionary or have the solution to everything - a study of human history will usually show this to be false and instead we should not be afraid of politics being boring so to speak.

 

Governments ranging from hard left (Communists) to hard right (Fascists) as well as what might be termed an absence of governance have all been tried before - we should not ignore the lessons they reach us, particularly those which might not be obvious or could be described as 'unwanted side effects'

 

In these troubling times, the guidance of the past is more relevant to the future than ever...

 

 

[Andy Hayter]

10 hours ago, rockershovel said:

 

... but cases aren’t uniformly and evenly distributed, are they? That’s my point. There are a number of well-defined hotspots up and down the country which appeared early, and have remained constant. 

 

I am wondering if you are living in the same world as most of the rest of us.  Of course it does depend on how you define a hot spot.  If every other house in your street has cases but you are free does that mean that the rest of the street is a hot spot but you are not?

 

 

 

The map from the start of this week.  The only hot spot I see from here in France is the UK.

[Nearholmer]

Talking of maps, we have been wiped-off this one, either because we are now fully adrift on our own, or to avoid the compilers having to buy new, really dark, crayons.

 

(beware - the rates on this are /100k.fortnight, rather than /100k.week)

 

 

 

 

[Oldddudders]

9 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

Which is a long standing problem of the obsession with 'contracting' rather than directly employing staff.

And contracting/outsourcing will continue all the time Finance Directors etc regard reduced company headcount as a virility symbol

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, Oldddudders said:

And contracting/outsourcing will continue all the time Finance Directors etc regard reduced company headcount as a virility symbol

 

 

Or the tax system (which is determined by politicians) continues to make it financially advantageous compared to taking on staff properly.

Edited January 8, 2021 by phil-b259

[jcm@gwr]

15 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

And contracting/outsourcing will continue all the time Finance Directors etc regard reduced company headcount as a virility symbol

 

Otherwise known as accountants having too much power/influence in running companies!

[phil-b259]

1 hour ago, jcm@gwr said:

 

Otherwise known as accountants having too much power/influence in running companies!

 

 

Which comes back to an unhealthy obsession with money and related things like share prices that distorts priorities within organisations.

 

Nothing wrong with making reasonable profits or having a reasonable share price of course - but when they become the panicle of company performance (with Hedge funds etc only too keen to step in if 'the market' thinks they are not big enough) it rarely benefits ordinary people...

Edited January 8, 2021 by phil-b259

[Nearholmer]

Did anyone listen to the Reith Lectures by the former Governor of the Bank of England?

 

Very interesting, because he put into eloquent words, for the consumption of ‘money people’, how the obsession with attempting to assign a monetary value to everything, and externalising as much cost as possible (which any capitalist enterprise will always do - that’s economics, not politics, BTW), has warped our perceptions and adversely affected the way the world works, particularly in terms of un-sustainability.

 

When a guy from that background is saying ‘we have to get beyond the current way of thinking, for our own good’, you know something needs to change, even if you didn’t know it before.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Bernard Lamb]

10 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

At one time it was considered acceptable to own slaves (and I am not just talking about recent centuries - remember the ancient Greeks had a system of politics and they were quite happy with the concept). This practice did not stop because of a technical reason or mathematical algorithm - it changed because the political environment changed.

 

 

 

 

 

It still is within a certain group of people who live not far from where I am.

Google modern slavery in Herts or Beds and you will find plenty on the subject.

 

Bernard

 

 

 

 

[hayfield]

59 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Or the tax system (which is determined by politicians) continues to make it financially advantageous compared to taking on staff properly.

 

Its more complicated than just saying its tax. Firstly its the employment laws that push up the overall costs of employing someone plus the cost of both holiday and sickness cover then don't forget the increasing costs of employers having to make pension payments

 

I worked for a national company who over the years outsourced both cleaning and maintenance jobs. There was an initial saving on the balance sheet, however these were soon absorbed into other areas. Call out times increased sometimes resulting in stock losses, items outside routine contracted work rocketed in price as the contractors employed subcontractors both adding their profit margin to the cost. very short sighted 

[phil-b259]

19 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Did anyone listen to the Reith Lectures by the former Governor of the Bank of England?

 

Very interesting, because he put into eloquent words, for the consumption of ‘money people’, how the obsession with attempting to assign a monetary value to everything, and externalising as much cost as possible (which any capitalist enterprise will always do - that’s economics, not politics, BTW), has warped our perceptions and adversely affected the way the world works, particularly in terms of un-sustainability.

 

When a guy from that background is saying ‘we have to get beyond the current way of thinking, for our own good’, you know something needs to change, even if you didn’t know it before.

 

However that very necessary change involves politicians - and arguably the reason capitalist enterprises have been given the opportunity to develop in this unsustainable way is also because the political system has let it do so in an effort to carry favour with the electorate.

 

To some extent humans are their own worst enemy - for all the good that we can do, beneath the surface the base tendencies of selfishness and a desire to be a cut above the rest are never far away. Politicians and business knows this and seeks to exploit such feelings to achieve power or for monetary gain.

 

Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it.

 

This pandemic has bought out elements of both good and bad across the population, yet the way to recover from it needs us to pull together, thus politics and economic considerations should not be used to prolong the agony by giving into those base emotions we all (and yes I include myself in that) posses

[phil-b259]

20 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

Its more complicated than just saying its tax. Firstly its the employment laws that push up the overall costs of employing someone plus the cost of both holiday and sickness cover then don't forget the increasing costs of employers having to make pension payments

 

 

 

 

I'm afraid I regard the provision of these things by employers as a non-negotiable part of having a just and fair society. While obviously there will be a need to reflect the time spent on the company's payroll in terms of the specific levels of benefit received the principle of having them is sound.

 

20 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

I worked for a national company who over the years outsourced both cleaning and maintenance jobs. There was an initial saving on the balance sheet, however these were soon absorbed into other areas. Call out times increased sometimes resulting in stock losses, items outside routine contracted work rocketed in price as the contractors employed subcontractors both adding their profit margin to the cost. very short sighted 

 

 

Which rather goes to show the dangers of focusing on short term monetary values rather than playing the long game. Yes it is accepted that in the Casino like share trading environment, the genuine* words 'long term' are non existent - but that again comes back to the political environment which has seen such activity as highly desirable and encouraged it over many decades.

 

 

* long term = a decade or more, not just a couple of years even though the later might seem like it if you like gambling on share prices

Edited January 8, 2021 by phil-b259

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Or the tax system (which is determined by politicians) continues to make it financially advantageous compared to taking on staff properly.

But it works both ways, when my company decided to “trim the fat” an awful lot of the high up managers were asked to take voluntary redundancy and early retirements and almost all of them were back the next week in virtually the same job (or moved slightly/changed position name to avoid regulations) as self employed.....by their own (and usually wives) company contracted to work on long term 6 month contracts which turned into many years just as they were before, but they certainly loved the tax advantages to it and the company liked it also.

 

I have very little sympathy with people who take advantage of “tweaks” only to bleat when it goes wrong, if your going to gamble.....tough.

 

Now where’s my copy of the little red book gone? 

[Nearholmer]

I tend to view it all in terms of two human traits: one that gives us individual drive, to perpetuate our genes, get resources, ‘cos you never know when there will be a shortage, and nurture our off-spring so that they carry the genes on; and, one that seeks to do the same, but through collaboration, and trades the benefits of collective wellbeing for individual piles of resources, and which creates the stable conditions that allow things like scientific progress, freedom from the threat of violence etc.

 

Give the first free rein, and it will cause us to create a hell on Earth for one another; take the first away completely and we become a bunch of slackers.

 

So, as ever, balance is the key, and rot sets in if we tip to extremes. And, IMO, we are currently leaning way too far in favour of the first, and need to sort that out pronto.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Nearholmer