Live concerts sounds way too premature, they opened a club in South Korea and had a few new cases after that.
Are you still self isolating until March 2021?
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
Are you still self isolating until March 2021?
I think Australia and NZ can justify easing to some degree. The UK never locked down hard enough which is largely why so many have died. But just because the government fecked it up doesn't meant the right thing is to ease off now. As summer approaches a proper lock down with contact tracing and quarantine could actually control the virus rather than, in effect just giving a few weeks or months of of pub gardens before the rest of the old people die. The economic impact will be significant but so will having to shut down when the almost inevitable second wave arrives. On top of the economic impact of Brexit the UK economy is going to take a huge hit no matter what.
Why would you need a contact tracing if you have a 'proper' lockdown?
Also the economic hit we've took from lockdown makes Brexit look like a tea party. Economists though that a no deal would take about 3% off UK growth.
The UK shrunk by 5.8% in March alone and we weren't even in lockdown for most of March.
The Lockdown is orders of magnitude worse than Brexit when it comes to the economy,
Because it is a hugely important way of restricting further infections. Australia, NZ, South Korea and Singapore (and probably others) have used it to great effect but you need to get to far lower levels of community transmission than the UK has for it to be possible on a scale that is required. Still good to do but not as effective as it is in countries that have locked down hard and early.
As for the economics just remember that Brexit is in addition to the economic impact of Covid and it is also a gift that keeps on giving (or rather taking).
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For the record I'm no fan of Brexit but the economic impact of the Lockdown is orders of magnitude worse than Brexit. Brexit does not help at all but there's no equivalence here.
And yeah, I lockdown and a contact tracing system would the optimal solution. However, that hasn't happened. Lockdown is a finite state and we've reached the end of it in the UK. So, we're going to have to restart society and hope this system prevents the NHS being overwhelmed until we get a vaccine.
REPORTER: "What about the 40,000 deaths?"
HANCOCK: "30,000 deaths? What about the 20,000 deaths?"
HANCOCK: "30,000 deaths? What about the 20,000 deaths?"
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A government of amateurs.
Except amateurs are often competent.
NZ very close to eradicating SARS-CoV-2
No new infections for a week and only 1 person still to recover.
Australia isn't quite there but barring Victoria, who had 10 new infections yesterday, there was only 1 new infection in NSW and all other states had 0.
No new infections for a week and only 1 person still to recover.
Australia isn't quite there but barring Victoria, who had 10 new infections yesterday, there was only 1 new infection in NSW and all other states had 0.
Yep, track and trace systems are only useful if their scale is in-line with the number of infections. Like much of the UK governments response, the system is just window dressing for now and will be woefully inadequate w.r.t. the thousands of infections still occuring and slow testing procedures. It's good to have in place but not if it's relied upon as the saviour.
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You can hope, but it won't happen. From 0 up to a few hundred thousand cases happened within 3-4 months or so. There is nothing to suggest that from tens of thousands of cases, it is gonna stay to tens of thousands of cases for a year or so (until the vaccine arrives) just because we wish it to happen.
It is extremely likely (in fact, I would say dead certain) that a second wave is gonna happen, which will put most countries in lockdown again.
Good job from those two countries (though it has been easier than if they were in Europe), no doubt about that. I guess the plan is a 2-week mandatory quarantine for everyone who goes there (otherwise, it just starts again).
Australia took early measures regarding travel from China in January and other hard hit countries as they emerged but only just fully locked down in time (about the 20th of March I think) but have done a good job in the main with a few exceptions (don't mention the $60 billion budget miscalculation or the Ruby Princess debacle). Although Australia has a large number of daily flights from China it isn't exactly the same as the UK but given that the UK is such a major travel hub the bumbling response should be even more harshly judged than it is. Heading towards 40,000 dead citizens and only now are they thinking quarantine might just be a good idea?
And yes compulsory 14 day quarantine under police guard is here for the foreseeable future. Only person found/known to have broken the quarantine is now in prison.
NZ have been brilliant. Their PM is a superstar.
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Absolutely. Best Western leader IMO.
That will kill off any tourism though, which is probably the price to pay to save lives.
I don’t really know it’s true. Countries that have reopened have now been light on restrictions for 3-4 weeks in some cases and haven’t seen any spike in infections at all. We have been going out for more than three weeks already and even going to bars/restaurants for the last two and infections are still at the same daily rate. We haven’t seen growth in cases since mid-April. It seems to me that we were wrong about how easily the virus spreads and how steep the incline would be.
Vaccine won’t even matter here as 70-80% of people will never take it. There will be riots on the streets if they try to force people to get vaccinated as large chunk of our country think the vaccine has been designed by Bill Gates to get us chipped and control us with 5G (I’m not even kidding, we are getting to a point where very soon 15 to 20 per cent of Polish kids will not receive any vaccines, that’s how much traction the antivax movement has got here).
Well that's their tourism industry fecked then.
I understand what they are doing, but it isn't a viable long-term strategy is it?
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British 'democracy' at it's very best.
And thats there own choice, it wont indefinitely be forced on them as you claimed.
People will be scared and social distance for a long term. Thats their choice.
The lockdown has reduced the economic impact not caused it.
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Yeah, exactly. I was listening to an “eradicate the virus” advocate the other day and he had me convinced for a while that it’s the best strategy. Living with this thing in your country will be horrendous. But the strategy only works if EVERYONE follows it. Especially in a continent that relies on freedom of travel like Europe. Killing your tourism industry is a hell of a price to pay. I don’t actually think it’s sustainable. And then what?
At this point they must know track and trace has no chance of working. The take up of app is going to be small, people won't share contact details and then people aren't going to quarantine when there's no financial support in place.
Shit. Norn Iron a lot worse than I thought. Another reason we might as well give up on trying to eradicate the virus completely.
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The virus getting milder with each mutation is probably the only way to really 'get rid' of it in the long run?
How accurate is this though? I live in NI and travel to my farm in Donegal regularly. I havent heard of one death in the NI town and Donegal hasnt had a case in 5 days. Theres so much cars going over the border each way you would expect a lot of spillover but theres nothing.
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The data is 11 days old?
Has to be, doesn't it? Otherwise you won't see the cases yet. This is as up to date as you can get, it was just published yesterday.
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It wouldn't be entirely their choice, as the environment they exist in fundamentally shapes how people feel about the world. As you move through the world now there are lots of physical symbols that generate fear - perspex screens, masks, signage, etc. They are designed to protect people but they do also reinforce a culture of fear. In a survey of 5,000 people in the UK just a couple of weeks ago, 60% said they would submit to indefinite lockdown if the government continued to signal it was necessary for public safety.
As the lockdown is relaxed, all of those physical symbols will still exist and it seems possible that will keep people fearful long after the government changes its messaging. If that is the case the knock-on economic effects could be huge, and millions of jobs could be lost on top. At which point people will ask whether some of the steps taken that generated that fear were misjudged. When police were publicly shaming people for long walks in remote spaces, it got a lot of support from many. As time goes in it seems increasingly clear that this really wasn't risky behaviour, and all it did was reinforce a total fear of the outside world for many.
Authority figures in many instances have created and strengthened that fear, so I don't think it's entirely true to say people have chosen to feel that way. After that point it isn't as simple as flicking a switch and saying I'm not scared any more. Especially for those suffering from anxiety, which by some measures was already at unprecedented levels before the crisis. There have already been signals from the government that they think they may have instilled a little too much fear, and I reckon it could be one of the key questions of the next few months. If only 1 in 3 people decide they're ready to go back to the shops, cafés etc., as they're saying currently, places will go bankrupt very quickly. Two-thirds of those places are "independents", and 96% of UK businesses have fewer than 10 employees. That is people's livelihood disappearing, not just losing a job.
There are always unintended consequences and deep, long-lasting fear could be one of them. However dramatic changes have happened a few times in this pandemic so hopefully people will suddenly snap out of it when the time comes.
Just to be absolutely clear, the UK has reached the end of its FIRST lockdown. If you think the economic impact of this has been bad, try and picture the consequences of another one before the end of this year. And that’s why it’s so important that everyone - yes, even young people - doesn’t assume this easing of measures means life can go back to normal. That’s an extremely dangerous attitude with consequences for EVERYONE (not just the 60+ year olds losing decades of their life that you don’t seem too bothered about)
Very good post.
That fear is rational, though. It’s unfortunate but it’s based on reality i.e. a lethal, highly contagious virus. So it’s entirely necessary, in my opinion. And has had the desired effect (arguably the Uk populace weren’t quite scared enough) Obviously it sucks but we are where we are. That’s life.
I don't think there would be a public support base in the entire society for another lockdown (and I hope/think that with people being cautious and certain measures being kept in place, it won't be necessary either). And the politicians over here are bleating that it would cause irreparable damage to our economy as well. There was one on TV yesterday who brought up a stat - of all of our deaths (I think 9k+ at this point), only 35 or something were younger than 50 years old. I honestly don't know if the government will be able to convince the entire population that we'd have to stay at home (with all costs and consequences that come with it) for that. Not that I'm doubting it or am against it, it's just that I honestly don't have a clue what would be better, imposing another lockdown or keeping the young/healthy people at work. Of course, the latter would mean that the old(-ish) people could never be safe again, so I don't see how that would be a solution either.
Be more careful parroting Trumpian talking points next time.
Absolutely, people should be scared. It's difficult to say how high those levels of fear should be though, right? You've said yourself that you think some people are unnecessarily fearful of meeting up in outside spaces, long before that became the accepted norm, so you agree with the basic premise that some people are more fearful than perhaps is necessary in certain circustances. It's not a binary choice between fear or no fear, there are levels to it, and it depends on the context. People will need to be fearful long after the lockdown is relaxed, fearlessness poses a threat of another sudden spike. However if people are too scared, it could create problems of its own.
Deaths are dropping despite the recent spike but we'll see next week if there's any spike from VE and so on.
From the lows of Sunday/Monday to Thurs day last week it was 1576 deaths, this week from the lows of Sun/Mon to Thurs it's 1162. Looks like a bit of lag bumping up Wed/Thurs.
If you look at the past month Tue is the highest day of each week of the step down usually but with bank holiday it was unusually very low and gave wed/thurs a bump higher than last weeks days.
Last 5 days average to 232 a day so we're quite a way off from double digits but hopefully next week can stay on the lowering trend.
From the lows of Sunday/Monday to Thurs day last week it was 1576 deaths, this week from the lows of Sun/Mon to Thurs it's 1162. Looks like a bit of lag bumping up Wed/Thurs.
If you look at the past month Tue is the highest day of each week of the step down usually but with bank holiday it was unusually very low and gave wed/thurs a bump higher than last weeks days.
Last 5 days average to 232 a day so we're quite a way off from double digits but hopefully next week can stay on the lowering trend.
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