Yeah, it's starting to get annoying. Apparently two weeks in Benidorm shouting "Five Stellas and a half dozen packs of scampi fries por favor" is more important than people just getting a chance to be people again.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
A lot of it is scientists doing exactly what they hate other people doing. Refusing to listen to experts.
Politicians know a hell of lot more than they do about diplomacy but when politicians tell them that actually it won’t be possible to negotiate a hard border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK these scientists stick their fingers in their ears and say “we’re doing the science, so you should be able to do the politics”.
They’re just as bad on logistics. When pressed on how road transport would work in the EU with closed borders they waffle about trucks swapping trailers every time they reach a border, or dedicated toilets for foreign truck drivers at every service station.
Complete pie in the sky fantasy stuff. Which sound especially ridiculous coming from people who are typically perceived as being amongst the most rational.
He is a knobendWhat a dick-head.
Totally agreed. Haven’t been home in a year
I don't see zero covid as achievable or even as a reasonable use of human resources.
Too many things have stopped happening. Babies aren't meeting their grandparents. People who aren't in relationships aren't getting the chance to make them. While there a massive amount of volunteer effort happening - a lot of things have disappeared (from libraries to local health walks).
Meanwhile some people are still working full-time in busy workplaces, but being told not to go to the pub, or even on a park run with the same people.
I've stalled older family members, who were all set to say, "bugger it, I don't care if I catch it, I want to sit down and have Christmas dinner with the family." I stalled them with talk about vaccine and summer picnics.
If I tell them to wait until sometime, maybe in 2022, maybe who knows when, after everyone's had two jabs and a booster, border controls are in place, track and trace of all people as they enter venues, all covid tests being sequenced, 0-10/cases per 100k etc etc etc. Nah, they won't want it. Life really is too short and the only numbers most people actually take seriously are the deaths.
I think people will decide to live with it, like they live with flu.
Absolutely. 100% agree.
China has near-zero covid without any of the restrictions you describe. It's a question of which freedoms are valued more.
China is able to operate in almost complete isolation from its neighbours. It has to. So it’s a poor comparison.
It also expects its citizens to give up a right to privacy and civil liberties that wouldn’t fly in any western country.
They're a bunch of knobheads - they did the same thing in the run up to Christmas.
It's why until 22nd, ministers should not appear on TV or answer journalist Qs unless its during a covid press conference imo
My mum and dad both got their first shots today, oxford vaccine, over 65s have started in my area
678 deaths today. Hope this downward trend continues!
How is the daily infections? Still going down?
Up by a couple of hundred from yesterday. But these numbers are hard to read anything from as number of tests conducted are always increasing.
Isolation is one factor, but industrialised countries with closed borders (like the US and Canada) aren't comparable in both deaths and cases. So it's a valid comparison for non-EU countries.
According to that article, which I don't fully trust*, it requires people to check in to every place they go, which enables contact tracing. 2 things:
Google, FB, etc know down to about a square meter where I am (and what I'm saying, etc) all the time. So the information is out there, and is used for better targeting ads which I block, rather than either something obviously nefarious (govt tracking dissidents) or something useful (contact tracing).
Secondly, I am in a university in the US that had a good covid record. Just like in China, I have to sign in with a university-built app, submit my symptoms, and tell the app I am entering campus, and swipe my ID card every time I go through a door. I have to report for random covid testing 1-2 times a week on 24 hours notice, if I don't all access is stopped and I have to get it cleared with the head of department. Since this is the only way to enter my lab and do my work, I would have been kicked out of the university and country by now if I hadn't submitted to these invasions of privacy.
In return for giving up these freedoms, Chinese "babies get to meet grandparents", "people in relationships get the chance to meet", unemployment numbers aren't insane, etc. Oh also less people dead.
*i know some people in China and while they use the app a lot I don't think it's as pervasive as the article describes, I'll ask.
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Quoting day to day differences is fairly useless. The 7 day average of cases continues to drop steadily.
The thing is, I have absolutely no problem with the loss of data privacy required to go down the same route as China. My personal opinion is that personal data is over-valued in Europe and the recent changes to our data privacy legislation are over the top. And terribly timed, from the point of view of this pandemic.
Cases down by 28.6% over the last 7 days (in comparison to the prior 7 days)
Yep, that should be it now for deaths over 1000.
That sounds very like my experience. My productivity has gone through the roof but I have been working far too much. After nearly a year working from home I'd be happy never to go back.
For another thread and another day but I did an ethics module in the final year of my ComSci degree and it thoroughly put to bed that opinion for me. Especially with the corruption and cronyism we’ve seen rife in this Tory party.Things like mental health records are gold dust to the gambling industry.
How you might do it is irrelevant anyway as there is no political will to do it. Same in the US.
The conundrum is that short of exceeding full HIT throughout the whole of Europe further waves and lock-downs might well be necessary. I hope not and vaccination sorts this shit out. In terms of NZ and AU it will be interesting to see how we handle opening up once mass vaccination occurs. Shame we aren't going to make it compulsory.
We haven't had a case for a couple of weeks in NSW and compulsory mask wearing is now only on public transport. It is still compulsory to scan in every time you go to a hospitality venue and strongly encouraged in all shops etc to aid contact tracing in the event of an outbreak. I can see that continuing for the rest of the year. One of the challenges will have will be how we trust in evidence of vaccination from overseas travelers when we start to open up again. Forgeries will be an issue from countries where vaccination is hard to get or not universal.
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Yep. Most of us have nothing to fear but health and genetic information has a huge potential for facilitating discrimination.
I think there's a bunch of unknown negatives about trading data that will come out over time. Corporate cnuts are relentlessly good at figuring out how to exploit personal data in a multitude of new ways. I did that 23&me DNA thing because I thought it'd be cool to see what my makeup is. I'm sure it'll backfire on me somehow now that fecking smiling cnut Branson is getting his mitts on it.
Not to mention that there won’t be any country, anywhere, vaccinating kids any time soon. So banning travellers without evidence of vaccination will only be a token gesture so long as you allow visitors travel with their children.
I think kids will probably be getting vaccinated before we open international borders which will likely be in 2022.
https://www.propublica.org/article/fauci-vaccines-kids
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...t-covid-vaccines-end-year-government-adviser/
Victoria to enter snap 5 day lockdown to try to stop the outbreak that is so far restricted to quarantine workers and close contacts who are isolating to try to prevent it getting into the general population. Or at least detect it if it has. Thanks UK variant.
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ctoria-announced-in-bid-to-contain-uk-variant
https://www.theguardian.com/austral...ctoria-announced-in-bid-to-contain-uk-variant
Put those that refuse the vaccine on a higher tax bracket
Israel is 60% vaccinated and deaths are growing higher everyday, why is that?
Someone smarter or/and with more data can explain me this?
Someone smarter or/and with more data can explain me this?
No agenda there whatsoever. Everything there based on science. I especially liked his "holistic approach"
Because you are incorrect. Deaths are declining from a late Jan peak
I am totally dreading that day, total recall
It's a sad story. I read about that case when it was first reported, and I thought that the mum probably simply couldn't cope anymore. The boy's father is described as a "celebrity photographer" and is often in other countries, so not much daily support from him, in all likelihood.
We've got all staff at home at the moment, other than a few who have to be in to keep the office functioning. We're finding that people are much less keen on working from home full time during this lockdown. The novelty seems to have worn off and the fatigue is kicking in. We're being told that people are sick of being at home alone all day and are missing colleagues. A few people seem to be having a rough time of it.
I think there's a definite place for working from home for some of the working week. Perhaps some will work exclusively from home if it suits them, but I don't hold with the idea that we'll move to virtual offices generally.
Italy's about to start vaccinating all the key workers - everyone working in schools and unis, police, military, fire fighters, people living in communities such as nuns, prison staff and prisoners. They will get the AZ vaccine. The health and social care staff have already been vaccinated, of course.
Our region started vaccinating over-80s this week. It's a bit slow, but at least the most vulnerable oldies (the ancients and the ones in care homes) were vaccinated first. Being over 80 doesn't seem like a big deal here!
Our region started vaccinating over-80s this week. It's a bit slow, but at least the most vulnerable oldies (the ancients and the ones in care homes) were vaccinated first. Being over 80 doesn't seem like a big deal here!
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Area I live in is yet again worst in Ireland. FML. They’re ignorant around here
Area I live in is yet again worst in Ireland. FML. They’re ignorant around here
our office is the opposite. everyone is pretty much universally preferring working from home than going into the office. i think the fatigue is possibly more to do with the lockdown generally, at least our office seems to think the working from home element has been the one bonus from the whole pandemic. my office is in canary wharf though so maybe the pain of the daily commute contributes to this, not sure where your office is.
certainly we won't be going full time work from home though, with people able to go in when they want if they want. but our department is currently talking once in a fortnight as a mandatory requirement.
Out of interest, what's the average age of people at your place? I'm of the opinion that younger and single people are having a tougher time due to the lack of space and/or social support. Also parents because of the homeschooling issue (although that's a relatively new issue by comparison).
This is pretty much my experience right now. My productivity and enthusiasm for working from home was great up until the Christmas break. Ever since then, I've been fighting a losing battle to keep on top of my usual priorities. I'm trying to persevere, but I really have been stuck in second gear for long periods of the week.