Cry Freedom, mince pies and Chrimbo Trees - Moron’s charter?

[Bob65]

The same logic that locks the country down, but still allows flights in from all over the world and asks the passengers to quarantine for two weeks, as happend back in March.

If the first lockdown worked, why are we having another?

If the first lockdown didn't work, why are we having another?

Two questions I think Boris needs to provide some good answer to.

 

[Chef]

None. It's the other behaviour associated with alcohol. As I mentioned in the bit you edited for brevity. There are no perfect solutions.

At the end of the day it's about understanding the problem and trying to do you best to be part of the solution. Act as if you have the disease and behave in a way that spreads it as little as possible whilst going about your business.

You might have missed the edit I put in:

You also say:

'I don't know what your view of all those people going to the beach in July was. My local beach is deserted. Its perfectly safe to go to. You can maintain your distance to the few other people who are there. Had it looked anything like the beaches we saw on the news I would have turned around and gone home.'

Implying that you're intelligent enough to make your own risk assessment but nobody else is,

I don't want to get into an argument about it.

However the original lockdown had a fair amount of credibility to it and as a result people supported it. The new diktats seem to be riddled with inconsistencies, such as bowling alleys where booze can be purchased can remain open but pubs must close.

No measures are going to be perfect but these proposals and the way they're being applied don't even try. The electorate may be dim but they seem to have noticed this. Boris may have to rely on Labour to get this one through parliament.

 

[Charlie4]

If the first lockdown worked, why are we having another?

If the first lockdown didn't work, why are we having another?

Two questions I think Boris needs to provide some good answer to.

If the politicians aren't working, why are we having any more?

 

[Chef]

If the politicians aren't working, why are we having any more?

Care in the community.

 

[Nimbus]

If the first lockdown worked, why are we having another?

If the first lockdown didn't work, why are we having another?

Two questions I think Boris needs to provide some good answer to.

The first lockdown (and other measures) brought the ‘R’ rate down from it’s peak.
When it’s below 1, the disease will slowly die out and Herd Immunity will increase, which was happening. Then kids go back to the incubation pressure cookers (school and university) in September and we’re back to exponential growth.
Lockdown 2 begins, and ‘R’ rate levels off and starts to go down.

(Imperial College London)

Additional factors:
Half of the population has below average intelligence.
“Common sense isn’t that common” Voltaire c1750.

 

[cowgoesmoo]

LordVonHarley said:

It's all about risk management and personal responsibility.

I agree. Personal responsibility includes your responsibility not to spread disease. Risk management requires you to understand the risks to you and others.

Most of the people who have spread the disease by irresponsible behaviour will never know how many people have become sick and suffered long term injuries or met an untimely death because of their irresponsible behaviour.

Indeed those who have behaved irresponsibly have also encouraged others to do so by their example.

Its the same as putting your lights on during the blackout.

Similarly, most of the people clamouring for lockdowns will never know how many people have seen their jobs and businesses destroyed, savings disappeared, suicides and breakdowns and long-term life chances diminished because of their insistance that millions of healthy low-risk individuals must share their own risk-adverse scared-of-their-own shadow mentality.

 

[Chef]

Similarly, most of the people clamouring for lockdowns will never know how many people have seen their jobs and businesses destroyed, savings disappeared, suicides and breakdowns and long-term life chances diminished because of their insistance that millions of healthy low-risk individuals must share their own risk-adverse scared-of-their-own shadow mentality.

Very good point. I wonder how keen the powers that be would be on lockdowns if they were on furlough pay?

As far as the small businesses go lots of them are going under; the pub I work at managed to sort out the first set of restrictions and was ticking over at reduced profits but surviving. Then came the 22:00hr closing time, all that happened was at last orders 21:15hrs the customers would finish their drinks and go to the corner shops and stock up on booze and carry on outside.

The 23:00hr closing time merely adds an hour's pay to the wage bill.

If the pub goes bust then the five members of staff who are living over the shop will be out of work and homeless.

The average age of death with covid is 82.

 

[Dan Gleebles]

None. It's the other behaviour associated with alcohol. As I mentioned in the bit you edited for brevity. There are no perfect solutions.

At the end of the day it's about understanding the problem and trying to do you best to be part of the solution. Act as if you have the disease and behave in a way that spreads it as little as possible whilst going about your business.

You keep banging on about alcohol associated behaviour as if that's the main driver.

People who don't drink can and do behave as irresponsibly as anyone else.

Take students as an example, I've seen at first hand how huge crowds leave school in a gaggle, no social distancing or masks, enter coffee shops and still fail to maintain any Covid secure practices whilst they huddle around their social media, hugging and kissing.
Slightly older kids who are happy to pub crawl and party, whether they are drinking alcohol or not.

So, instead of looking at the alcohol aspect, how about we look at the demographic?

But hold on, that's a bit of a tricky path to go down, isn't it?
When do teen binge drinkers become sensible sippers?
When they're having a kebab, obvs.

Your approach is as mental as that taken by some local authorities who closed all the hot food vendors before closing time because fighting in the chippy wouldn't happen if the chippy was shut.

What next, ban all the cabs because of fighting in the taxi rank?

Too many people read stats and reach the wrong conclusion.

 

[Chef]

@Dan Gleebles depends on what your agenda is I'd say.

 

[Dan Gleebles]

@Dan Gleebles depends on what your agenda is I'd say.

Lies, damned lies etc...

 

[Arte_et_Marte]

LordVonHarley said:

It's all about risk management and personal responsibility.

I agree. Personal responsibility includes your responsibility not to spread disease. Risk management requires you to understand the risks to you and others.

Most of the people who have spread the disease by irresponsible behaviour will never know how many people have become sick and suffered long term injuries or met an untimely death because of their irresponsible behaviour.

Indeed those who have behaved irresponsibly have also encouraged others to do so by their example.

Its the same as putting your lights on during the blackout.

The second wave started around the beginning of September.
Kids went back to school around the beginning of September.
Nah... can’t see the connection.
Closing schools 2 weeks before the 5 day infectofest so the little brats can clear it out of their system? Nah... because Lazy Teachers grrr...

I think that the decision to keep places of education open was purely a decision based on economics.

During the Great first Lockdown nothing opened, the majority of the country stayed at home. yet something went wrong, because the covid virus is still with us. Coming to the end of the Second (pathetic) lockdown we are now in a position of still having the virus but most people are at work to stop the economy tanking, if we were forced into a third, proper lockdown, the kids would be at home meaning the parents couldnt both go to work.

It's a balancing act for the Government. We have to have a functioning country, which means the movement of people, if we lockdown totally again, the virus might (emphasis) be stopped, but at the expense of the economy. So work continues, which means the kids cant be at home.

For what it's worth I have two observations.

Firstly, I work in construction which was allowed to continue duiring the First Great lockdown, our van was the just about the only vehicle on the road, it was astonishing. During this current lockdown it appears to be a normal day on the roads, traffic snarled up as usual.

Secondly, I live in Lincoln a very small city, we have no anti-vaxxer demos, no rioting, no masive street parties yet we are about to hit Tier Three. London is going into Tier Two. Tier Two! It is this sort of blatently wrong, being a bit easier on the capital, that makes me believe that this is now more of a Political Pandemic and not a Medical one.

 

[Dan Gleebles]

I think that the decision to keep places of education open was purely a decision based on economics.

During the Great first Lockdown nothing opened, the majority of the country stayed at home. yet something went wrong, because the covid virus is still with us. Coming to the end of the Second (pathetic) lockdown we are now in a position of still having the virus but most people are at work to stop the economy tanking, if we were forced into a third, proper lockdown, the kids would be at home meaning the parents couldnt both go to work.

It's a balancing act for the Government. We have to have a functioning country, which means the movement of people, if we lockdown totally again, the virus might (emphasis) be stopped, but at the expense of the economy. So work continues, which means the kids cant be at home.

For what it's worth I have two observations.

Firstly, I work in construction which was allowed to continue duiring the First Great lockdown, our van was the just about the only vehicle on the road, it was astonishing. During this current lockdown it appears to be a normal day on the roads, traffic snarled up as usual.

Secondly, I live in Lincoln a very small city, we have no anti-vaxxer demos, no rioting, no masive street parties yet we are about to hit Tier Three. London is going into Tier Two. Tier Two! It is this sort of blatently wrong, being a bit easier on the capital, that makes me believe that this is now more of a Political Pandemic and not a Medical one.

It's a neither - nor, half arsed piece of nonsense.

We either lock down completely or we secure the vulnerable and crack on with life.

 

[cowgoesmoo]

Secondly, I live in Lincoln a very small city, we have no anti-vaxxer demos, no rioting, no masive street parties yet we are about to hit Tier Three. London is going into Tier Two. Tier Two! It is this sort of blatently wrong, being a bit easier on the capital, that makes me believe that this is now more of a Political Pandemic and not a Medical one.

Huge swathes of the area I live in have infection rates less than half of those in London (and trending downwards), yet are getting put into tier 3. Probably because the economic impact will be minimal here on the grand scheme of things yet astronomical in London, and as London subsidises the rest of the UK probably more essential to keep it going.

 

[Chef]

Have any other diseases vanished as a result of the first lockdown? It'd make an interesting thesis for someone.

 

[Arte_et_Marte]

It's a neither - nor, half arsed piece of nonsense.

We either lock down completely or we secure the vulnerable and crack on with life.

I agree it's a half arrsed nonsense, however we have tried a near total lockdown and that obviously didn't work.

As understand it, the virus spreads when an infected person coughs/sneezes into the face of somebody who is within a few feet. There is an incubation period of no more that two weeks. Therfore, in my mind the only way stop the thing is for a total lockdown. Everybody locks down, nobody working, no schools/university,nobody going out, no flights in or out of the country, no exercise in the park, no chatting to a neighbour over the fence, no complicated 'bubble' system, everything and everybody locked down for two weeks and it will end.

Unfortunately that will never happen.

 

[Arte_et_Marte]

Huge swathes of the area I live in have infection rates less than half of those in London (and trending downwards), yet are getting put into tier 3. Probably because the economic impact will be minimal here on the grand scheme of things yet astronomical in London, and as London subsidises the rest of the UK probably more essential to keep it going.

It takes one person to spread it. One. A decision has to be made, a hard decision, do we live with Covid for ever or stop it.

 

[Dan Gleebles]

It takes one person to spread it. One. A decision has to be made, a hard decision, do we live with Covid for ever or stop it.

Live with it.

 

[br9mp812]

The second wave started around the beginning of September.
Kids went back to school around the beginning of September.
Nah... can’t see the connection.
Closing schools 2 weeks before the 5 day infectofest so the little brats can clear it out of their system? Nah... because Lazy Teachers grrr...

kids being send into school clearly ill (even if not cov) because parents do not want time off work or LDs at home in the day,
with a bit of gentle QandA, kids let on who's had it in the home or which party mum and dad went to at the weekend.
no manner how much you stick to the rules some jobs mean its when not if you get ill.

 

[Ortholith]

I agree it's a half arrsed nonsense, however we have tried a near total lockdown and that obviously didn't work.

As understand it, the virus spreads when an infected person coughs/sneezes into the face of somebody who is within a few feet. There is an incubation period of no more that two weeks. Therfore, in my mind the only way stop the thing is for a total lockdown. Everybody locks down, nobody working, no schools/university,nobody going out, no flights in or out of the country, no exercise in the park, no chatting to a neighbour over the fence, no complicated 'bubble' system, everything and everybody locked down for two weeks and it will end.

Even that won't fix things. You could potentially eradicate the virus in the UK by doing so for 3 weeks, possibly longer. What then happens is you have a population still vulnerable. Once the lockdown ends and in comes someone from abroad, asymptomatic but infected? We go back to square one.

 

[cowgoesmoo]

It takes one person to spread it. One. A decision has to be made, a hard decision, do we live with Covid for ever or stop it.

I don't think we'll ever stop it completely as its in the wild now. Do what Auz and NZ did and it'll simply come back when you open the borders again no matter how careful you are. That's my biggest misgiving with the more draconian lockdown measures - permanent damage for a very short term gain. Most likely we'll have annual vaccinations similar to the flu jab, limited outbreaks on occasions similar to what happens with swine flu, MERS, SARS etc which will be contained locally, and in a year or two it'll be normal jogging.