My friend is currently in Liverpool and said you’d never know there was a pandemic there
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Anyone else think sending students back to uni for primarily financial reasons rather than just covering uni costs directly was one of the governments worst decisions, maybe only behind the care home shambles?
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I am in my 40s, I have a house and a car and a job. I have 20 years experience which means I am valuable to the workforce. I have some money in the bank. Not millions but enough to survive on for a year if I lost my job.
There are many people like me, and we are the ones doing the right thing by working from home, limiting contacts with people to the bare minimum. Making sarcrafices.
These idiots that are out partying are all young people. They have feck all work experience. They have nothing behind them and most will have no money. They fail to realise that their actions could be so bad for the economy in the medium term. If the economy tanks even more because Covid overwhelms UK then what? What are all these young people going to do for a job and a mortgage. fecking idiots. They are destroying their own futures and the state will have to look after them with handouts. Brainless.
There are many people like me, and we are the ones doing the right thing by working from home, limiting contacts with people to the bare minimum. Making sarcrafices.
These idiots that are out partying are all young people. They have feck all work experience. They have nothing behind them and most will have no money. They fail to realise that their actions could be so bad for the economy in the medium term. If the economy tanks even more because Covid overwhelms UK then what? What are all these young people going to do for a job and a mortgage. fecking idiots. They are destroying their own futures and the state will have to look after them with handouts. Brainless.
Update on case loads for the last 7 days, NI over double than England. East Mids increases all concentrated around Nottingham:
Those numbers are bad. well into the 2nd wave.
Yep. A Uni halls covid petri dish has been created.
Major mistake to add to the ridiculously long list of mistakes our government have made.
This is why we have both the highest number of deaths in Europe and the biggest shrinkage of our economy. They have absolutely ballsed it up.
That’s good.
What do you think university students would have been doing if the universities were closed? I’d say there’s a lot of student aged people in that Liverpool street scene. You could certainly argue that an upside of the university halls drama is that they’re not sharing households with older, more vulnerable relative.
Students have still been made to pay landlords or the unis for their accommodation so they’re hardly going to go and live in the accommodation and just stay in the house - plus most of the learning is online now.
Don't they go home over the weekends? In Belgium most of them do, so it eventually gets to the more vulnerable population anyway. Keeping them in school/unis for the sake of it because "we wouldn't know where they'd hang out otherwise" (what they're basically doing here) is a risky strategy imo, especially if you don't have the numbers to back up that there aren't many infections in school environments.
I think creating a bubble where low risk people can choose to risk infection while partying with other low risk people is a nice idea in some aspects (with obvious moral questions), but it's more theory than reality. I went to Liverpool uni and a significant chunk were relatively local and living at home or going home frequently, and it's a very small city so stepping out of that bubble into the cafes, pubs, shops and all the rest with the same older, more vulnerable people is just a short walk away for most students. Hence the hospitalisations now.
There are a lot more students partying now than there were when the vast majority went back to family homes over the summer. That might only have ever worked temporarily and they might have revolted at the idea of no uni anyway, but this doesn't seem like a better alternative at this stage.
Aye, fair points. I’m sure I’m wrong here. Was just being devil’s advocate.
New lockdown in NI. Apparently they came up with it in the middle of the night.
I wouldn't mind new restrictions if I didn't know that horrible lot in Belfast are making it up as they go along. They don't even seem to have a vague hint of a long term plan
I wouldn't mind new restrictions if I didn't know that horrible lot in Belfast are making it up as they go along. They don't even seem to have a vague hint of a long term plan
Which is funny because the Sinners down south are fecking experts at criticising other people’s plans.
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so what does one do about 'them'?
to demonstrate his shock/horror
Good if you like your hospitals full to the brim with dying people
We got back to Italy last week, but our town in NW England has been included in the Liverpool City measures along with the whole of the local authority of Sefton. This despite the fact that we're 15 miles away, it's a small seaside town and has absolutely none of the issues they're struggling with in Liverpool.
Unless decisions are made more locally in the actual hotspots, these measures will never work. If they stopped people moving out of their city or town boundary, except for work, medical reasons or other personal emergencies, things could be controlled. This is where Italy did well as we were prevented from travelling at all, and that restriction was only very gradually relaxed - first we could leave our village and travel within our province, then we could travel within our region, and only at a late stage in the first wave was free travel permitted.
Of course, this requires policing which also hasn't worked in the UK. When the police in England were breaking up large groups in the summer who were sitting in the park, they should have been giving a fixed penalty ticket to everyone in those groups. The police don't give you a free pass here, it's a fine straight away.
Unless decisions are made more locally in the actual hotspots, these measures will never work. If they stopped people moving out of their city or town boundary, except for work, medical reasons or other personal emergencies, things could be controlled. This is where Italy did well as we were prevented from travelling at all, and that restriction was only very gradually relaxed - first we could leave our village and travel within our province, then we could travel within our region, and only at a late stage in the first wave was free travel permitted.
Of course, this requires policing which also hasn't worked in the UK. When the police in England were breaking up large groups in the summer who were sitting in the park, they should have been giving a fixed penalty ticket to everyone in those groups. The police don't give you a free pass here, it's a fine straight away.
feck them. Arseholes the lot of them.
I still look back to the Cummings incident as a major reason why a lot of people aren't taking lockdowns etc as seriously as they perhaps would have if instead of excusing Cummings publicly, he was made an example of by our PM.
Up until that point, personally i had respect for the guidelines and for Boris. Now i dont really care. I will still do as i am told as i am compliant but i can completely understand why people will crowd a beach, or go to a house party and so on. There is no consequence for this behavior.
I wonder what cost it would be for everyone to be tagged, like a convict. Curfews can then be monitored within the set parameters.
Up until that point, personally i had respect for the guidelines and for Boris. Now i dont really care. I will still do as i am told as i am compliant but i can completely understand why people will crowd a beach, or go to a house party and so on. There is no consequence for this behavior.
I wonder what cost it would be for everyone to be tagged, like a convict. Curfews can then be monitored within the set parameters.
No cos the trains are so fecking expensive. I'm off to Hull in a couple of weeks and the train (from London) was £70 despite booking in advance.
Being in opposition during a pandemic must be the easiest job in the world.
A hint of good news on this, The PM has asked for an urgent review of this and has taken on the case herself. Fingers crossed the family get the right outcome.
It wouldn't explain the same spikes being seen in Holland, Czech Republic, France, Belgium, Spain & Ireland etc though?
It's possibly good news to see the "curve" in terms of deaths across the same countries being so much shallower than in Spring though (excl. Czech Republic):
It wouldn't explain the same spikes being seen in Holland, Czech Republic, France, Belgium, Spain & Ireland etc though?
It's possibly good news to see the "curve" in terms of deaths across the same countries being so much shallower than in Spring though (excl. Czech Republic):
Czech Republic is just ahead of the curve (no pun intended) on cases and deaths for the other countries are sure to follow their current trend shortly.
Had no idea they were getting such a brutal second wave. I mainly remember the Czech Republic being held up as doing a fantastic job to crush the first wave (early widespread mask use etc) Wonder what’s gone wrong for them since?
Worried about how bad Croatia will get before the offspring leaves in late Nov. Then again he will be heading back to the US so ...........
Long term plan? As far as I can see the long term plan is to get a vaccine.
However.
It is now being openly discussed that we may never find a vaccine. They didn't find a vaccine for SARS and it only died out because it mutated and became less dangerous. It took years. The Spanish flu after WW1 did the same.
It may be we are heading towards a scenario where the truth of the matter is just too unpalatable. I'm getting reports that we may even be in this for 5 years or so. These theories are not out of the question.
I'm not a virologist but surely there comes a time when we know we are losing the battle to find a vaccine. When is that? How long do the government wait until they say the search could take longer than we thought and we need to enforce track and trace to close the virus down. As far as I know only about 10% of the population have had the virus so potentially we could be looking at 400,000 deaths if this continues untracked.
We may be getting close to a time when the government will have to start enforcing stricter rules. We would need a new Covid law enforcement system. Maybe get the army on the streets. The scenes in Liverpool last night were the last straw for me. I'm just about ready to say lets get tough on this. People without the app immediately get fined as do people who don't use or enable its use. Spot fines for not wearing a mask etc.
I wonder if a mixture of complacency and also fatigue i hurting lots of places. Its been a stressful year all over on many different fronts.
Hearing Sturgeon tell Scots to stop travelling to Blackpool is one of the oddest stories of the week 
Why is that even a thing? No wonder they want to leave the UK if that's their experience.
Why is that even a thing? No wonder they want to leave the UK if that's their experience.
Whenever I’ve been to Blackpool, it’s been full of Scots. They love it.Hearing Sturgeon tell Scots to stop travelling to Blackpool is one of the oddest stories of the week
Why is that even a thing? No wonder they want to leave the UK if that's their experience.
At the moment not one of the numerous vaccines in development have failed and many are in stage 3 trials. So that point is very far away imo.
Yeah I was taken aback when I read this yesterday. Good but grim summary.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-54482905
I think the aspect of (mis)fortune is downplayed way too much when talking about the "winners and losers" in this thing. With 80% not transmitting the virus while a small proportion of super spreaders drive most of it, all you need is a couple of incidents in short succession and things start to take off. There are obviously exceptional examples in Southeast and East Asia which warrant some deeper analysis of cultural and behavioural norms in dealing with crises going forward, but I don't think there's a while lot separating the rest.
The governments who look embarrassing are the ones who have to deal with the most serious outbreaks and get overwhelmed. I think we've made too big an assumption about what causes the other a lot of the time. The Czech government were praised for being proactive, then criticised for being too authoritarian and overreaching, now they're being criticised for being buffoons. Theoretically they could all be true in different contexts but it seems unlikely.
So would you fine people that don`t have a mobile phone or have an old one that doesn`t support the app ?
If I book a Eurostar ticket to go to Amsterdam, will anyone stop me? Will I be interrogated on how 'essential' my travel is?
My dad would be fecked - he has an old Nokia - it does phone calls and texts, that’s all he needs it for.
Same thing as Poland. Because we did so well the first time with few casualties, people have stopped believing the virus is dangerous. It doesn't help when you have your prime minister saying 'virus has departed, it's no longer a threat' and other politicians proclaiming flu is far more dangerous. Basically 20-25% population either don't believe covid exists or think it's not dangerous to anybody. Even now with hospitals overwhelmed and people dying at 100 per day rate people are just laughing at that. There is no way we can overcome this, we will have to just accept that by the end of the year 20k - 30k people will die of covid-19 and those people will still think it's a funny flu. I just pray none of my family are in that 20-30k.
I know a few people like that.
No one will probably stop you. However, hardly anything will be open to visit. Museums are closing, bars and restaurants have closed... You'd need to wear a facemask everywhere. I don't know the purpose of your travels, but if you'd like to visit the city, I'd put it on hold.
Yeah, I think you’re probably right. No matter how competent the government they will be called frauds and liars if the virus gets out if control, which can happen no matter how diligent their efforts.
Although this shouldn’t provide any excuse to the obvious incompetents. The likes of Trump and Bolsonaro. Honorable mention for Boris et al’s dithering in the first few weeks.