Coronavirus

[Currywurst and Chips]

Percentage of people self isolating fully when told to do so has dropped to 11%

Shameful

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54586897

[Thor]

Is it any wonder when the powers that be ignore it? Blair being the latest example.

[Currywurst and Chips]

Welsh Labour Government have opted for a 17 day "Fire break" which is a rebranded Circuit break which is actually a lockdown in old money.

Not gonna take place until Friday

[PoliticOs]

I was actually quite surprised at that news today, but then it's still Labour so makes sense.

Johnson seems to feel more pressure by Sturgeon's decisions than Drakeford's, obviously. If she goes for it too I think its going to be a difficult one for him to not do our own version.

[Ornchurch]

Welsh Labour Government have opted for a 17 day "Fire break" which is a rebranded Circuit break which is actually a lockdown in old money.

Not gonna take place until Friday

Why not until Friday? Give everyone a few days to spread it a bit more first?

[Ornchurch]

Is it any wonder when the powers that be ignore it? Blair being the latest example.

Don't bring anyone Labour in to the conversation.

Don't you know that this is all down to the Tories??

[PoliticOs]

It still is pretty much all down to the Tories though, aint it? Blair's not been PM for quite some time. He doesn't outrank even the least senior Tory minister these days.

But Blair, Kinnock, Corbyn or anyone caught being a tit deserves to get stick. That being said, Blair was apparently exempt due to his current role.

[Long slender neck]

Seems pretty crazy of the Welsh. Is this some sort of political game?

[tuffers#1]

Good Interview

[Long slender neck]

I have a relative who has been in hospital for weeks, covid outbreak on their ward the other day. They want to send them home! The NHS has learnt nothing from their care home mistakes.

[AckneyAwks]

Tuffers. In the war everyone carried on regardless of the danger. There is no comparison. Also , the restrictions, if not lockdown , have already been 8 months. Who knows how much longer. You have a limited period when you are young at your peak. Why should they have to sacrifice that time in their life. A year or two in your 40s/50s for example , is nothing. When you are 18 , it is.

George, are you serious?...i'm sure everyone whatever their age is frustrated and suffering under our current way of life
A year or two in your 40/50s for example is nothing, is it?...i'm in my sixties and getting nearer to the lid being screwed down, so a year or two is really precious to me.
In fact since reaching 60 i am now having more fun than when i was 18 if you get my drift, hope your not eating your dinner.
At 18 i dont even think they are at their peak...just wondering George, how old are you if you dont mind me asking.

[George M]

Ackney. I am 62. I agree with you. 1-2 years at our age is important. I suppose if I was a little more specific I would rephrase and say “ why should 68,950,000 million people have their lives put on hold to protect the few that should be shielding “.
But I’m done with Covid now. How can we be expected to comply with anything when
1. Our small , over populated island , has different rules for England, Scotland,and Wales. Utterly ridiculous.
2. When Cummins and that Scottish MP ignore restrictions, break the law , and escape punishment.
3. When Tier 3 zones continue to ignore the advice.
4. When people continue to arrive from other countries or through other countries without the need to quarantine.
It won’t suddenly disappear no matter what they force us to do so you would be better creating your own risk assessment and getting on with it

[AckneyAwks]

Ackney. I am 62. I agree with you. 1-2 years at our age is important. I suppose if I was a little more specific I would rephrase and say “ why should 68,950,000 million people have their lives put on hold to protect the few that should be shielding “.
But I’m done with Covid now. How can we be expected to comply with anything when
1. Our small , over populated island , has different rules for England, Scotland,and Wales. Utterly ridiculous.
2. When Cummins and that Scottish MP ignore restrictions, break the law , and escape punishment.
3. When Tier 3 zones continue to ignore the advice.
4. When people continue to arrive from other countries or through other countries without the need to quarantine.
It won’t suddenly disappear no matter what they force us to do so you would be better creating your own risk assessment and getting on with it

Thought you were much younger George but dont worry i'm much older than you i'm 63

[George M]

I really tried to point out that from teens to 30 you develop and change daily it seems. After that I suppose you change much less in many ways. Therefore it’s a shame that people in that younger age group are being prevented from enjoying that period in their life.
But I am totally against any lockdown or restrictions. The advice we were given in March is still the most sensible course of action. Hand hygiene and space.
It is interesting to note that in Spain , masks have been worn indoors and out since July , yet the increase in cases is similar to ours . You can’t leave your home in Spain without wearing one.

[PutneyO]

The man on the news said that at the end of the day what's going to keep you safe is common sense.
Some of you are in trouble.

[PutneyO]

This dreadful virus has sadly turned millions of people into neurotic old women.

[tuffers#1]

This dreadful virus has sadly turned millions of people into neurotic old women.

Sounds like O's fans after 2 defeats

[EliotNes]

I've gotta have Covid-19 test this week to have my postponed cancer check-up. I'm more nervous about the Covid test than the cancer check-up and results.

[BIGRON]

I've gotta have Covid-19 test this week to have my postponed cancer check-up. I'm more nervous about the Covid test than the cancer check-up and results.

Good luck mate

[J R Hartley]

Just come out of self isolation, Daughter in law youngest in the family ( 21) 8 months pregnant tested Positive for covid 19 only wore face shield provided by employer, I told her it was sufficient, she is asthmatic and unable to take injection because all based on egg yolk to which she is allergic but they don't learn,
Test and Tracking found, my self and other half, my son their other 2 year old boy, her mum step dad and brother. We all wear masks and gloves, non of us caught it, she got sh*t scared and now wears mask and glove, Silly cow should've done that in first place. However recovered but lost sense of taste and smell.
But I'm annoyed I took all precaution and I'm seventy but we a got sh*t scared because of one silly person who knew better.

[Long slender neck]

I think public opinion has shifted to be well against lockdowns, just read the comments on any news site. Even The Times front-page going with my strategy now.

[Disoriented]

I think public opinion has shifted to be well against lockdowns, just read the comments on any news site. Even The Times front-page going with my strategy now.

Yeah, a few comments adds up to the whole of public opinion.

[Long slender neck]

Top comment on first covid article i could find on Guardian

"

Have seen so much comment BTL of late equating making a choice between "citizens vs economy" as somehow a "Tory thing". This is so hilariously misguided it's untrue – as if the two were separable. The economy is not some concrete "thing", rather it's a term denoting the abstract set of systems, practices and choices that we all live in. Stop and ask yourself if you have ever complained about the death toll of austerity, and you'll get my drift. The death toll of the worst depression for hundreds of years, which is what we are currently ushering in, will make austerity look like a picnic, and is also (IMO) going to usher in a mental health crisis the like of which we've never seen before. But because these deaths and deleterious effects are less easily identifiable and thus less easily quantifiable, and are also "deferred" a bit further down the line, no one seems that bothered. Rather, the Covid numbers are now literally all that matters, it appears.

It's my honest opinion that the current strategy of endlessly deferring the inevitable passage of the virus through the population, in the vague hope that science will provide the magic bullet of a vaccine, is now at least worthy of a reassessment and reevaluation. Ity's surely clear now that viruses gonna virus, basically. So the question remains, to my mind: what's the objective now? What are we trying to achieve, other than delaying the inevitable?

I ask, because if you expand the question from pure epidemiology to a more holistic understanding of public health, then we are faced with a choice, admittedly a hard one, but an unavoidable choice nevertheless. An epidemiologist's views are valuable and more than worthy of consideration, but they ultimately see the population as effectively data points on a graph, and devise strategies to alter those numbers in various directions and with various aims.

But there are more considerations than simply mere numbers: what of the futures of our school leavers and graduates? What about the absolutely catastrophic levels of unemployment that are coming inexorably down the pipe? And the associated costs of that devastation in both economic terms and in lives? What about whole sectors of both the economy and life in general that are currently being tossed aside as unviable in the New Normal?: sport, the arts, hospitality, etc, not to mention the simple joy of having your family and friends around to your house - aren't these the very things that make working worth doing, and indeed life worth living? Are they now to be considered unavoidably (and in apparent perpetuity) casualties of a virus that, while of course highly contagious and lethal to a small percentage of people, is hardly the bubonic plague?

And before anyone steams in with the predictable and fatuous rejoinder "YoU dOn'T CarE AboUt LiVes", of course I do. But the fact is that Covid victims are very definitely not the only lives at stake now, far from it. All I am suggesting is that, IMHO, a hard but necessary conversation is long overdue about how to go forward, which entails 1) setting out a clear objective that does not ignore the reality that this virus cannot be eradicated, and also relatedly 2) an acknowledgment that we cannot endlessly (and ultimately futilely) kick the can down the road while incurring an increasingly cataclysmic (and in the case of some sectors likely irreversible) toll on the economy, because that is what ultimately underpins civil society itself.

There's no reason to my mind, for example, that we can't consider a strategy that focuses our efforts on protecting/shielding the small strata of people to whom Covid presents a clear and present danger – ie the elderly and those with co-morbidities – and let everyone else get moving again before the whole show gets crashed into a tree. The adoption of some general adjustments to behaviour – eg handwashing, masks in the supermarkets and on buses, etc – are also eminently plausible, and could and should be adopted without much resistance by all but the most cabin-in-the-woods libertarian crackpots.

But you simply cannot stop human beings mixing, mingling, bustling, hugging, bumping and grinding indefinitely, so this endless oscillation between lockdown, lockdown-lite, and arbitrary restrictions that are slowly killing the economy has to stop sometime – the only question is when.

I don't personally think it's "callous", "selfish", or indeed "trolling" to be thinking about these questions, quite the opposite in fact. It's just realistic."

[Currywurst and Chips]

Perhaps we should have a referendum on lockdown?

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

Perhaps we should have a referendum on lockdown?

If my social media circle is anything to go by, you could simply use the Brexit result as a proxy - there is a strong correlation between those wanting to Get Brexit Done and those against lockdown.