Covid - coming out of Lockdown 3 - no politics, less opinion and more facts and information.

[Hobby]

I think the pont he was making was that she thought that everyone else should change their lifestyles to suit her, something that is often an accusation made about our young people. So she is just doing the same as they. I think most of us on here have taken a more practical outlook and adjusted our lifestyles to suit rather than expecting everyone else to act in accordance with our wishes to the detriment of their own. 

[alastairq]

8 minutes ago, Neil said:

I'd also take issue with you on holidays; they're not an essential but they do bring joy to many. I'm retired, with a comfortable lifestyle but I enjoy holidays and look forward to the day when continental travel is safe and easy again. They say travel broadens the mind, it certainly gives a different perspective on home. If we ban holidays as frivolous what next? Galleries, museums, theatre, cinema .... and somewhere down the line .... model railways.

 ''Holidays', or the 'entitlement' to them, is very much a modernism.

 

They are a reflection of the changes in society created by industrialisation.

 

But , as we have seen, it is the 'travel' aspect that has very much landed us in the position we are in, now.

 

My point is, they are something that we can very much 'do without' if it means  a safer public health.  But, i can see how indoctrinated we have become, in 'expecting' the right to a 'holiday'.  After all, there's a lot of money to be made from it all.

But, really, why do we need 'a holiday?'

Shouldn't we be getting exactly the same sort of 'rest' within our own homes?

 

And, if not, is there something 'wrong' with our present home situation?

 

I have not mentioned anything about 'bans!'

It's not about 'banning' anything. It's about changing our lifestyles!! Changing our views about what we expect in our lives?

As a result of the impact of covid, for starters......

But, what next?

 

''Frivolous'' is your description, not mine.  But, hey, it'll do for now.

 

If we are to protect ourselves from this thing, then we need to consider our own changes.

 

Especially when we cannot rely upon everybody else to 'play the game?'

 

 

 

 

[boxbrownie]

11 minutes ago, alastairq said:

 ''Holidays', or the 'entitlement' to them, is very much a modernism.

 

They are a reflection of the changes in society created by industrialisation.

 

But , as we have seen, it is the 'travel' aspect that has very much landed us in the position we are in, now.

 

My point is, they are something that we can very much 'do without' if it means  a safer public health.  But, i can see how indoctrinated we have become, in 'expecting' the right to a 'holiday'.  After all, there's a lot of money to be made from it all.

But, really, why do we need 'a holiday?'

Shouldn't we be getting exactly the same sort of 'rest' within our own homes?

 

And, if not, is there something 'wrong' with our present home situation?

 

I have not mentioned anything about 'bans!'

It's not about 'banning' anything. It's about changing our lifestyles!! Changing our views about what we expect in our lives?

As a result of the impact of covid, for starters......

But, what next?

 

''Frivolous'' is your description, not mine.  But, hey, it'll do for now.

 

If we are to protect ourselves from this thing, then we need to consider our own changes.

 

Especially when we cannot rely upon everybody else to 'play the game?'

 

 

 

 

Can’t you tell when your being chatted up? 

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, APOLLO said:

No going back to the good old days of 2019.

I can’t understand Wiganish, but the spirit is spot-on. A lot of things have to change, because we’ve spent too long living too high on the hog for our own good, and those changes are going to be bl@@dy uncomfortable for a lot of us.

 

Thing I find disturbing isn’t that ‘the times they are a changing’, see foregoing, but that so much focus is put on continuing to do as we have done, but somehow in less impactful ways. It won’t work, and will maximise the grief.

 

Step 1 really needs to be to unhook ourselves from consumerism. Even dropping back to “comfortable 1970s” levels of consumption in the U.K., which isn’t many years, would probably allow us to ‘do our bit’  in terms of contributing to sustainability, given that technology has moved on and can now deliver more for less.
 

My mother is pretty good on this topic, because she lived through WW2 and deep austerity, and pursues a fiercely independent, but very frugal lifestyle. At no point in her life has she ever had more than ‘just about enough to get by’, so consumerism has effectively whooshed right past her, and I’d say she’s actually happier for it most of the time.

 

I’m afraid, Alistair, that she does like to go on holiday periodically, though. Very modest holidays, no more than once a year, but seeing some different places, and meeting some different people, is her essential tonic.

 

 

Edited October 22, 2021 by Nearholmer

[hayfield]

2 hours ago, Andy Hayter said:

 Congratulations John of helping to propagate what is probably the second most dangerous false fact of the pandemic.

 

The first being that Vaccines don't work. will kill you. will insert a chip in your brain ....

 

Masks work see Andy's post.  Most masks (at least here) are the same as used in general medical use.  I accept that those in direct and semi continuous  contact with infected people have a higher grade of mask but think of it like the enhanced seat belts used by rally drivers compared to those in you car.  

 

1 hour ago, Hobby said:

Most i see, though, when out and about aren't the medical use versions, as that photo of the Commons actually shows, there's only one of the type we see in our local hospital, the rest seem to be a combination of home made and those cheap ones you can buy in the shops... From what I remember they aren't as effective, though better than nothing. It was still just a stunt, though, and so was the response form the opposite benches, neither did anything positive for mask wearing.

 

As Hobby has replied, as most masks which are worn out and about do give little or no real protection from continuous close vicinity to an infectious person, it could be said many masks are worn incorrectly or for far too long without being changed to be effective. So wearing one is not the whole answer to do whatever you want

 

What I am not saying is don't use them. In fact I would argue they are much better than doing nothing and I expect that in schools where infection is rife masks are/should be worn all the time along with other preventative measures.

 

Using the seat belt analogy, they are better than nothing, but not placing yourself in harms way is far more effective. Leaving or not going into a café full of teenagers seems a very sensible action if you are worried about their presence 

 

Whilst nothing will give you a 100% protection short of becoming a castaway on a deserted island, common sense in reducing risk is far better.  

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, Neil said:

 

I'd also take issue with you on holidays; they're not an essential but they do bring joy to many. I'm retired, with a comfortable lifestyle but I enjoy holidays and look forward to the day when continental travel is safe and easy again. They say travel broadens the mind, it certainly gives a different perspective on home. If we ban holidays as frivolous what next? Galleries, museums, theatre, cinema .... and somewhere down the line .... model railways.

 

 

In one way I agree with you, but if this this pandemic has proved anything, its some people need protecting or more importantly others need protecting from their stupid decisions/actions.

[Nearholmer]

12 minutes ago, hayfield said:

as most masks which are worn out and about do give little or no real protection from continuous close vicinity to an infectious person

But that isn’t the reason for wearing one, unless it’s a full FFP3 or whatever.
 

A very basic one does offer some protection for the wearer, but the point is that even a fairly basic one traps a goodly proportion of the bugs in the breath, snot, and coughing of a person who is infected - they function as a crude ‘outgoing’ filter, particularly important for people who are infected, but either pre-symptomatic, or never-symptomatic.

 

But, for a set of precautions based on ‘outgoing’ filters to work effectively, pretty much everyone in a challenging environment has to wear one, otherwise the odd person unwittingly going round exhaling bugs is like the odd person smoking on the ‘bus …… everyone else gets if not a lungful, then certainly a whiff of it.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 22, 2021 by Nearholmer

[APOLLO]

8 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I can’t understand Wiganish, but the spirit is spot-on. A lot of things have to change, because we’ve spent too long living too high on the hog for our own good, and those changes are going to be bl@@dy uncomfortable for a lot of us.

 

Thing I find disturbing isn’t that ‘the times they are a changing’, see foregoing, but that so much focus is put on continuing to do as we have done, but somehow in less impactful ways. It won’t work, and will maximise the grief.

 

Step 1 really needs to be to unhook ourselves from consumerism. Even dropping back to “comfortable 1970s” levels of consumption in the U.K., which isn’t many years, would probably allow us to ‘do our bit’  in terms of contributing to sustainability, given that technology has moved on and can now deliver more for less.
 

My mother is pretty good on this topic, because she lived through WW2 and deep austerity, and pursues a fiercely independent, but very frugal lifestyle. At no point in her life has she ever had more than ‘just about enough to get by’, so consumerism has effectively whooshed right past her, and I’d say she’s actually happier for it most of the time.

 

I’m afraid, Alistair, that she does like to go on holiday periodically, though. Very modest holidays, no more than once a year, but seeing some different places, and meeting some different people, is her essential tonic.

 

 

 

I'm all for the above BUT I will not comply willingly as long as I see the rich and entitled / elite / 0.0001% (or whatever you wish to call them) getting richer and richer beyond imagination (World's first Trillionaire soon ?). Bezos & Branson in "space" etc etc.

 

I lived a frugal (ish) lifestyle in Wigan in my youth and never imagined the lifestyle I have today. My kids have no desire to "downsize" to when I was their age. 

 

Yes, the future will be difficult for the 99.9999 %. The others will just laugh at us.

 

Brit15

[Nearholmer]

4 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Yes, the future will be difficult for the 99.9999 %. The others will just laugh at us.

‘Twas ever thus.

 

Massive disparity of wealth is pretty much impossible to defend from a moral stance, whether it be “insanely rich first-world individual vs person on the Clapham/Wigan omnibus” or “All the people in Clapham/Wigan vs third world people barely able to keep body and soul together”, but we daren’t use that immorality as the cover for not changing to cure undustainability.

 

One thing we might consider is a heavily progressive consumption tax, but I haven’t the faintest idea how such a thing could be levied. Allowing or causing energy prices to sky-rocket is a partial proxy (because energy cost is locked into all consumption), but it is at least partly retrogressive, rather than progressive. Hopefully someone cleverer than me can think of a method.

[Hobby]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

A lot of things have to change, because we’ve spent too long living too high on the hog for our own good, and those changes are going to be bl@@dy uncomfortable for a lot of us.

 

Thing I find disturbing isn’t that ‘the times they are a changing’, see foregoing, but that so much focus is put on continuing to do as we have done, but somehow in less impactful ways. It won’t work, and will maximise the grief.

 

1 hour ago, APOLLO said:

I'm all for the above BUT I will not comply willingly as long as I see the rich and entitled / elite / 0.0001% (or whatever you wish to call them) getting richer and richer beyond imagination (World's first Trillionaire soon ?). Bezos & Branson in "space" etc etc.

 

Anyone put this to Ms Thunberg?

 

(BTW I agree with both posts and therein lies the problem... Typical "do as I say, but not as I do", politicians I expect that from sort of c**p from, they have history, but it's the self righteous "celebrities" that really p' me off!)

[Neil]

Two stories from the BBC:

 

Brits increasingly lax on mask wearing and social mixing

 

Latest from the governments own advisors

 

 

[APOLLO]

58 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

‘Twas ever thus.

 

Massive disparity of wealth is pretty much impossible to defend from a moral stance, whether it be “insanely rich first-world individual vs person on the Clapham/Wigan omnibus” or “All the people in Clapham/Wigan vs third world people barely able to keep body and soul together”, but we daren’t use that immorality as the cover for not changing to cure undustainability.

 

One thing we might consider is a heavily progressive consumption tax, but I haven’t the faintest idea how such a thing could be levied. Allowing or causing energy prices to sky-rocket is a partial proxy (because energy cost is locked into all consumption), but it is at least partly retrogressive, rather than progressive. Hopefully someone cleverer than me can think of a method.

 

The good folks of Clapham / Wigan have over the last 200 years worked, suffered,  sweated and grafted throughout the industrial revolution, two world wars (valiantly and expensively won) etc to enable our standard of living today. I don't go for the White (or any skin colour actually) woke privilege etc etc..

 

I don't know about Clapham, but Coal, Iron & Cotton built my town. There are countless tales of very young children, both boys & girls (no other genders back then !!!) working in absolutely terrible conditions, corrected slowly over the years. We all know (or should know) the story. Todays rights and freedoms have been hard won and struggled / fought for. Yes we will all have to adjust as fossil fuels deplete over the next 30 years or so (the REAL reason for the aggressive political green agenda) - and YES I believe in climate change caused by CO2 (amongst many other things).

 

A rising world population is the main culprit, along with everyone worldwide aspiring to a "western" lifestyle, which this planet cannot sustain. Yes the third world need help, education being a priority.

 

Difficult years ahead for the majority.

 

Brit15

[Hobby]

"And 82% say they wear a face covering now, down from 97% in mid-June."

 

Judging by the comments from those of us on here I do wonder who they asked! 82%?!! 

[Nearholmer]

The people who own those nine out of ten cats that used to feature in adverts, I reckon.

 

But, a lot depends on how the question was phrased, because a fair few people probably wear one at some point in a week, maybe at work.
 

If the question was “Do you always wear a face covering where/when government advice suggests that you should?”, then 82% of the 82% were lying. Even as a diligent masker, I couldn’t say ‘yes’, because I codsed-up and suddenly realised I wasn’t wearing one when visiting a museum last Sunday.

[Nearholmer]

20 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

I don't go for the White (or any skin colour actually) woke privilege etc etc..

I’m not asking that you should. I’m simply saying that, from a moral perspective, it’s impossible to defend immense disparities in wealth.

[APOLLO]

18 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m not asking that you should. I’m simply saying that, from a moral perspective, it’s impossible to defend immense disparities in wealth.

 

Agree. I'll leave it there

 

Brit15

[boxbrownie]

3 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

But that isn’t the reason for wearing one, unless it’s a full FFP3 or whatever.
 

A very basic one does offer some protection for the wearer, but the point is that even a fairly basic one traps a goodly proportion of the bugs in the breath, snot, and coughing of a person who is infected - they function as a crude ‘outgoing’ filter, particularly important for people who are infected, but either pre-symptomatic, or never-symptomatic.

 

But, for a set of precautions based on ‘outgoing’ filters to work effectively, pretty much everyone in a challenging environment has to wear one, otherwise the odd person unwittingly going round exhaling bugs is like the odd person smoking on the ‘bus …… everyone else gets if not a lungful, then certainly a whiff of it.

 

 

 

 

Which is why we decided after the lifting of the “compulsory” wearing of masks we have been using FFP3 type, they are a little more expensive than the basic masks but now instead if us protecting others from us, we are protecting us from others, well at least the best we can.

 

Oddly the FFP3 type we have are better to wear than the basic tri-layer NHS type as they sit around the mouth and “stand off” not rubbing on the nose and lips at all.

[Pete the Elaner]

2 hours ago, Hobby said:

"And 82% say they wear a face covering now, down from 97% in mid-June."

 

Judging by the comments from those of us on here I do wonder who they asked! 82%?!! 

 

You only need to go shopping to see that this figure is complete rubbish. Even the other way around at 82% who don't cover up in places like shops; that is being very optimistic.

[alastairq]

My local surgery is ceasing all but the most clinically essential blood tests. This is due to the shortage of bottles/containers for the blood.

Yet another supply chain issue.

 

Still not heard from the State inviting me to reinstate my CAt C+E licence category...Perhaps a good thing, keep danger off the roads...?

[Dunsignalling]

Anybody with the same gripe regarding the unmasked young as the elderly lady in alastairq's earlier post has an easy remedy.

 

I've been doing my supermarket shop at 0730 since the first restrictions were imposed. Apart from staff members and the odd builder buying sandwiches, I've seldom clapped eyes on anybody under 30 in all that time.

 

Most still in bed (or the shower) at that time of day? 

 

John

 

 

Edited October 22, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[Dunsignalling]

3 hours ago, Hobby said:

"And 82% say they wear a face covering now, down from 97% in mid-June."

 

Judging by the comments from those of us on here I do wonder who they asked! 82%?!! 

On personal observation on train journeys over the past month or so, I'd say it's gone (roughly) from 82% wearing to 82% not wearing in that time.

 

John

[alastairq]

I agree

However in this case, the farm shop is somewhat upmarket in most respects, and sells via a puff pastry deli all sorts of posh stuff...and the lady in question lived but 100 yards away.

I shop there  on a causal basis as its local to me [7 miles away, or, round the corner to those living within the M25]...but I only buy their fresh veg, bags of pots, etc. I don't buy their meats or posh wines or teas...I may buy three carrots, for example. I was there yesterday because my village was under an 8 hour power cut, I needed milk and a bag of 'locally grown] spuds. I ended up fancying a [reasonably priced] hot sausage sarnie and a Grumpy Mule coffee..

I did not go in for a tenners worth of sit down lunch...that, I can do without.

[Bernard Lamb]

3 hours ago, Hobby said:

"And 82% say they wear a face covering now, down from 97% in mid-June."

 

Judging by the comments from those of us on here I do wonder who they asked! 82%?!! 

Almost all the places that I have visited in the last two weeks mask wearing has been 100%.

The local GPs surgery.

The local emergency hospital.

The main area hospital A&E and a couple of other departments.

The local pharmacy for my booster.

I have developed DVT so have had a series of scans and blood tests and been seen by around 20 NHS people.

On blood thinners at the moment and under control.

I was due to take part in a trial by Imperial College into covid. However I have been rejected as they say that taking the test carries a risk of scratching myself and any bleeding could be serious. I have never seen this warning in respect of the usual commercial covid tests. How do I stand legally with having to take a test if I want to travel abroad?

 

The local shop seems to have abandoned mask wearing with both the staff and customers totally giving up.

Calling in last Saturday for the weekend paper I did not even bother to take a mask with me.

However I know that around the time I usually go there are very few people about.

Bernard

[beast66606]

Just had an email from the ONS, along with the Mrs, we've both still got antibodies - we both had our second jab in May so 5 months ago.

[Andy Hayter]

Those who talk of returning to normal need to accept that the normal as we go forwards will not be the normal we left behind in 2019.

 

But that should be no surprise.  When I was young we had no TV - let alone multiple sets in different rooms.  

Holidays outside of the UK might just about extend to Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey and certainly not Spain, France, Greece or Turkey - let alone the USA Thailand or the Caribbean.

Few people owned cars and public transport was available and widely used. 

I walked nearly 2 miles to school.  That was normal for many.  WE later got a school bus and that cut of just over a mile.  

Computers?  Never 'erd of 'em.

 

In 60 years the world has moved on and normal has moved with it.

Likewise when we emerge the new normal will be different to the old.