Re: We're all doomed! Doomed I say- the Corona virus thread for panicking in!

[halfwise]

I think the main perspective it gives you is "ah well, here we go again" the next time something strikes. Doesn't make you stronger, just less shocked the next time it happens. Which actually counts for a lot as far as mental health goes.

[Lancebloke]

Well Boris... that was a whole load of nothing.

I am pretty sure a huge population of people have no idea what they are supposed to be doing tomorrow.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ I think there will be a resurgence in England thanks to Boris and this message change. I mean what in the context of an invisible virus does "stay alert" mean? As to telling some folk they can go back to work tomorrow (what?!!) but not to use public transport (how does that even work then?) is madness at this point.
Fortunately it only applies to England, the rest of the UK, NI, Scotland and Wales are sticking to the lockdown for now and the original unambigous message of "Stay Home". Thank god for devolution- at this point its actually going to save lives. }}

[halfwise]

Around here the dollar stores are running out of stock. That signals the end it nigh - people will open up the economy just to keep those stocked.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Well I'm losing track of how long we've been in Lockdown, all the days blend together even more than usual, and not just due to alcohol as normal. but think its been about 2 months now, and apart from an idiotic week or so right at start where there was panick buying, supply chain has been fine. Even my little local corner shop has milk, fresh eggs, bacon, rolls and fully stocked shelves without issue so far.
And fortunately no issues with their alcohol supply (as its a small corner shop and situated right next to a secondary school it is of course, by Scotslaw, required to sell alcohol.
Without which we might end up with a sober generation, and no one wants that (we tend to invade England when that happens, you'd think we'd do that when we were drunk, sounds like a 3am drunk idea doesn't it? But actually as a whole we are a nation of friendly drunks, violent yes, but friendly with it.
The drunk in the pub that suddenly out of nowhere sticks the head in you will in all likelihood be the same person, who once you regain conciousness, will have propped you back up at the bar, held the tissues to your broken nose and bought you a pint and whisky chaser.
He will simultaneously also be telling you if he ever sees you in his pub again he will fucking kill you next time.
Before proceeding on to phone you a taxi and stuff a tenner in your hand for the fare, grabbing the hand you take it with and using it to get you in a hold in order to drag you and your broken nose to the pub door and kick you out onto the street to await you taxi.
The Scottish drunk is a complex person. And may be male or female and the same applies. )

Oh and in actual news, Boris' new message of "Stay Alert!" and telling people they can go back to work if they can do so without public transport, and only if they can stay 2 metres away from anyone else at all times, has caused plenty confusion and also derision largely.

What do employers tell workers? To come back to work tomorrow? What about all those with children when all the schools and child care is closed down? What happens to all those who have had to go onto benefits of some sort to get through this period of no income, are told they have to go back to work but have children and no one to care for them whilst they are at work? Will they lose their benefits becuase they have a job to go to but are choosing not to? (Given its probably Universal Credit, and its notariety for strictness in sanctioning payments for the smallest deviation -such as being 1 minute late for an appointment- its likely a lot of folk will have benefit issues and be put in a position of go to work leaving children alone at home all day, or go without income). And no mention of criteria for those who are now going back to work in England to have any PPE, not even a mask.

The response to it has not been good-

'Leaders of the devolved nations - which have the power to set their own lockdown regulations - said they had not been consulted over the "stay alert" message.
In Wales and Scotland, the devolved governments who control health have made clear they will keep the original slogan - stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives..So from tomorrow, messaging will be different in different parts of the UK.
Behavioural expert Professor Susan Michie, who is part of the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), warned some people might take the more generalised "alert" slogan as a "green light" to socialise.
"I do not think this is a helpful message in terms of guiding behaviour. It does not give advice as to what people should do," she told the PA news agency.

Meanwhile, the government's pandemic response has been called "wishy-washy" by a body representing police officers in London.
Ms Sturgeon said the first she heard of the updated guidance was in newspapers.
Nicola Sturgeon said: "I don't know what 'stay alert' means...For Scotland right now, given the fragility of the progress we've made, given the critical point that we are at, then it would be catastrophic for me to drop the 'stay at home' message. I am particularly not prepared to do it in favour of a message that is vague and imprecise."
Labour's shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth warned ..."When you're dealing with a public health crisis of this nature, you need absolute clarity from government about what the advice is. There is no room for nuance..The problem with the new message is that many people will be puzzled by it"
Liberal Democrats' acting leader Sir Ed Davey said changing the slogan "makes the police's job near-impossible and may cause considerable alarm"
Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham called the updated advice "too ambiguous" and "unenforceable".
Doubts about Downing Street's approach is spreading beyond the opposition, with one normally loyal senior MP saying: "The backbenches are getting restless, the PM needs to lead."- BBC News

So its going down well then. Well done Boris, you almost certainly garnered some sympathy in some quarters from some for having caught the virus and suffered, and then to recover to become a father again and see the birth of your child, but any goodwill has been squandered almost immediately. Brilliant stuff. }}

[azriel]

What really has the British public done to deserve Boris Johnson ? The man is a full blown idiot. IF he was as ill as he claimed with the virus would he not have said something completely different tonight ? He sounds just like a "mouth piece" & nothing more. You are so lucky to have Nicola Sturgeon in Scotland ! Even the sheep shaggers of Wales have more insight than this reject from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ! If we get thru this it will be no thanks to Bojo at all ! I now strongly believe he & Trump are Tweedledee & Tweedledum & were separated at birth.

[Mrs Figg]

I am having a great time on the Guardian cartoon comments page. It is full of people who cannot believe their fucking ears. What the hell is 'stay alert' it is not a nuclear threat, you cant actually see a fuqing virus. oh and well done Johnson for the 9 Chelsea Pensioners who have died while he is doing a Pound Shop Churchill on VE Day. you couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.

[azriel]

https://www.facebook.com/MrLeeBradshaw/videos/10157639326487607/

[David H]

Petty- "The drunk in the pub that suddenly out of nowhere sticks the head in you ..."


another sound reason for maintaining social distance in Scotland, even when restrictions lift

[Lancebloke]

Apparently there is a 50(!) page guidance document coming out today. Let's see how helpful that is.

I kinda get it about getting people back to work. We are currently trying storing up lots of problems that will cost lives in the long term and that needs to be balanced with the lives being lost now.

The problem isn't really the thought process behind what was said, it is the huge amount of vagueness for a huge amount of people.

Some lady from Weston-super-Mare came on complaining about lack of clarity for her hotel. Well no... that was completely clear. You won't be opening until at least July!

The bit that is confusing is "if you cannot work from home then please go in" later followed by "shops will start a phased opening, possibly early June."

OK... so the initial statement didn't include "shops." It did include construction and manufacturing though... so where is the line?

Well, from adding it all together it should only be businesses that can maintain social distancing of 2m that should look to open, not just anyone who cannot work from home.

In essence there should really not be much of a change from yesterday. Some outdoor, large scale construction should resume. Maybe some manufacturing where production lines and primarily automated and little person to person contact. Possibly larger retail like garden centres, DIY places. Maybe some clothing shops if they can keep their staff safe and customers apart (that rules out Primark!!!)

I cant see much else that should change as of this morning.

In my opinion, other than having more contact with devolved governments, this should have been announced with a week buffer for this 50 page document to come out and for questions to be asked instead of being dropped at 7pm the day before!

[azriel]

Im still of the mind that you should only go out for food. We have a fairly big indoor shopping centre, it has 20 shops or more ? If the policy is "one in one out" for all the shops that can reopen I just see line after line of people, some not knowing which queue to join for which shop, people inevitably getting too close together, possible ructions & the chance for the virus to hop around as it likes ? I think its too early to start relaxing. Maybe you can say these things if you have every thing you need readily available, ie, Meds, protective gear, enough hospital equipment, refreshed Drs & nurses & a vaccine. Looking around I haven't noticed any other country with a positive break thu yet & them that have relaxed have seen the virus raise its ugly head again. This lock down feels like imprisonment & that its going on forever because its the total opposite of everything weve known. We are used to doing as we like when we like. 2 months ( or however long its been ? Ive lost grip of time ? ) is a drop in the ocean, Im not ready to float down the river yet. My friend said why not open the charity shops & do a one in one out ? It all sounds like a good idea but, image all the people that will now be out doing that ? If you only had 20 per queue ? 20 for Butchers, 20 for the co-op, 20 for charity shop, that's 60 already.

[Pettytyrant101]

{{ Its also not same in all the countries in UK. The R rating* in Scotland is higher than it is in England, its plateuing at that point in last week, but its not dropped, and its right on the edge of being back in the danger zone. Relaxing it now here would as Sturgeon said be catastrophic. We have to maintain the lockdown until that R rating is steadily at a low enough level to indicate its as safe a risk as possible.
That there was no consultation with the devolved adminsirations is no coincidence or chance, it actually makes sense of a trend I had noted in the last week or so in the Tory press in Scotland- a theme of Sturgeon has a plan to delibretly just not do whatever Boris says the country should do, no matter what Boris says. They've ben peddling the line if Boris says lockdown is over she will say no, and if Boris say lockdown stays for weeks she will say then we're ending it now.
They've been laying the groundwork for Boris, informed by the Tories that Boris want to ease restrictions in Englad but wont get cooperation from any of the devolved adminsitrations, because it doesnt make sense in those areas, so the friednly press were told to play this as the devolved admins playing power games to split the Union. Hence the lat week or so of all the tory press singing the same organised theme.
So Boris not consulting the devolved admnistrations on the change of message or the changes in policy is typical of him as a politician. He gambled them complaining aout it afterwards would play more into his set up narrative they are being political and deliberetly contrary more than it will harm him in his core voting area- England. And he's probably right about that at least.}}

*the R-value is the average number of people an individual would be expected to infect at a point of time during an epidemic.
It's broadly a measure of how easy it is to transmit the disease and how many people the infected person is coming into contact with.
The higher the number, the more out of control a disease is - and even small differences in the number can lead to vastly different infection rates.
At R1.1, 1,000 people could potentially cause the infections of almost 25,000 people over 60 days. But at R0.5, the number of infections would be under 2,500.
As Covid-19 can be a deadly disease, this in-turn has a direct link to the number of people who will die.
At R equals to one, a disease becomes stable. As soon as the reproduction rate moves above one, it becomes unstable and spreads at a much faster rate.- BBC}}

[Lancebloke]

No matter what the government does there will be people up in arms. This is a no win situation from their point of view.

They were criticised for not locking down quickly enough, then criticised for not opening up some elements of the economy and now that they have, criticised for doing it.

I am pretty sure that these are not the same people contradicting themselves but these are significant groups of people with different problems.

I am pretty sure we will be feeling the fallout of this for a long time... there will be people dying because of this well beyond the lifetime of this virus. Mental health, other physical health, poverty, lack of tax money coming in for the NHS and other public services so I completely get it.

There is no right time... just an attempt at a better time which only hindsight will tell if was right or not.

[halfwise]

Right, there's no "right" balance between lives and economy, just a grey area.  Even if you have a metric everyone can agree on like ensuring hospital beds are available, there's more than one way of doing this.  One is to let the virus die down far enough that you can open up completely for a while, keeping an eye on the numbers so you can clamp down again before they fill up and repeat the cycle.   Or you can open up just enough to keep the numbers level just below full capacity without the need to pulse open and closed.    This second scenario is probably unlikely, but in the first scenario you have to decide how low to let the virus go before opening up; or to open up only partly, etc etc.  No single choice and someone will always be unhappy with the choices made.

[Mrs Figg]

I think they have got the balance right here. After making some major cock-ups early on and witnessing the human tragedy, the Italian government got things right, helped by the massive Protezione Civile department who normally organise the aftermath from earthquakes and bridge collapses and major incidents like that.
Basically it was strict lockdown for 2 months followed by opening big industries and construction sites, more relaxations to follow, and we are now allowed out and can use our cars, but and it is a big but, we all are legally obliged to wear masks and disposable gloves, like everywhere, and have to keep a distance of 2 meters. It is still one in one out in supermarkets and long lines, but there has never been shortages of food, or other white goods.
Basically it is a new normal where people do normal things but everyone wears masks, and if they don't they can be given a massive fine, or if they refuse to wear one and are found twice, they can be prosecuted. The police control the streets still and yesterday during the nice weather a group of 20 people having a party were all given 1000 Euro fines each for selfishly and stupidly putting lives at risk as none of them were wearing masks.
Masks are the way to go, they work, and people in Asian countries think that Westerners are mad not to wear them.

[Mrs Figg]

This sums it up perfectly

[Lancebloke]

From what I understand, the masks actually have very little role in preventing transmission. Its more people picking it up on hands and touching their faces etc before they have washed them... so gloves and proper hygiene habits impact spread far more.

Having said that, if wearing a mask stops a handful of infections then that is worth wearing!

Halfy - most articles/posts I see seem to focus on either the immediate threat or the unknown future threat. Do we want 50 million dead through Covid or 50 million dead through the fallout of a lockdown. There seems to be LOTS of criticism and little good, evidence based suggestions on how to do better.

Countries that were lauded day 1 have been criticised day 30. China is seeing new cases, Germany may be seeing a resurgence (to be confirmed as more data comes in) after some slight relaxations.

In a year from now, will the UK be seen as the poster child for allowing a balance of infections/deaths with most of our population then having some kind of herd immunity and New Zealand having a mass outbreak because they don't?

Will we ever see a useful vaccine or treatment or will this be the new flu with mutations every year killing tens of thousands?

Are we about to see a huge recession/depression that will impact generations of people?

Nobody knows but everyone is a fucking expert (except the experts who are obviously conspirators!)

[halfwise]

I think a mask decreases the momentum of expelled air, so decreases the radius. But that may not be the primary mode of infection, it's true. I don't see how wearing gloves is much better than washing hands frequently, and is no use if you keep reusing them.

[azriel]

The Spanish King has been quarantined on his private jet. That means the reign in Spain will stay mainly on the plane.

[azriel]

I was reading about Adriano Trevisan, a 78 yr old man in a little village in Italy, how he was the 1st to catch the virus & sadly, succumb to it. On how the mayor traced where this chap must have caught it & how he locked the little village down. Its in the Sunday Times magazine.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/20/eradicated-coronavirus-mass-testing-covid-19-italy-vo

[Mrs Figg]

You know when even Philip Schofield has a go at the government, its the beginning of the end.

[halfwise]

The Spanish King has been quarantined on his private jet. That means the reign in Spain will stay mainly on the plane.

[halfwise]

That's a key result that when they tested the entire population, 3% had it but had no symptoms.

I was reading about  Adriano Trevisan, a 78 yr old man in a little village in Italy, how he was the 1st to catch the virus & sadly, succumb to it. On how the mayor traced where this chap must have caught it & how he locked the little village down. Its in the Sunday Times magazine.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/20/eradicated-coronavirus-mass-testing-covid-19-italy-vo

[halfwise]

Okay, tell me as a foreigner who can't keep the endless British accents straight - is she Scottish? Or northern England?

You know when even Philip Schofield has a go at the government, its the beginning of the end.

[Mrs Figg]

Okay, tell me as a foreigner who can't keep the endless British accents straight - is she Scottish?  Or northern England?

You know when even Philip Schofield has a go at the government, its the beginning of the end.

She has a posh Southern English accent as far as I am aware.