The Covid-19 serious chat thread

by **JuliusHMarx** Tue May 26, 2020 5:48 am

First topic message reminder :

Self-isolating, social distancing, locked down thread split.

by lostinwales Sun Dec 20, 2020 7:45 am

Samo wrote:About 72 hours ago Boris Johnson accused Keir Starmer of trying to “cancel Christmas”. Now Johnson has had to introduce new Tier 4 restrictions in certain parts of England. Instead of announcing this days ago and giving more people fair warning he plays Tribalist cowpat games with peoples lives to avoid giving Labour a “win”.

You’ve got to laugh. I feel sorry for people who’ve had everything ripped up with such short notice. No doubt Nicola Sturgeon will make a similar announcement later.

You didnt need a crystal ball to see this coming.

For once Manchester is not in the top tier, although I am sure the Tories are planning an Andy Burnham special tier 5 as I type

by GSC Sun Dec 20, 2020 10:28 am

Boris being an incompetent twunk aside.

Great seeing all the people queueing up to spread the virus all over the country because their own Xmas is too important.

by Duty281 Sun Dec 20, 2020 10:39 am

GSC wrote:Boris being an incompetent twunk aside.

Great seeing all the people queueing up to spread the virus all over the country because their own Xmas is too important.

If he were, I might like him a bit more! Whistle

by Derbymanc Mon Dec 21, 2020 8:20 pm

I don't think you can expect anything less from the public to be honest. They were promised a half decent Christmas, put in and out of lockdown and tiers to control it all and then as per this crappy government it was taken away but with loopholes you can drive a bus through

by **LondonTiger** Mon Dec 21, 2020 8:24 pm

I think the issue for so many of us is that more and more it seems that the Govt has never been thinking ahead and creating contingency plans. Means we seem to lurch from one decision to the next with little logic or planned transition evident.

This is not an easy time for anyone, and certainly not an easy one to manage for our authorities. We urgently need calm decision making from genuine leaders, not sound bites, back sliding and appeasement.

by BamBam Mon Dec 21, 2020 8:41 pm

Oh come on LT boxing

by lostinwales Mon Dec 21, 2020 8:47 pm

LondonTiger wrote:I think the issue for so many of us is that more and more it seems that the Govt has never been thinking ahead and creating contingency plans. Means we seem to lurch from one decision to the next with little logic or planned transition evident.

This is not an easy time for anyone, and certainly not an easy one to manage for our authorities. We urgently need calm decision making from genuine leaders, not sound bites, back sliding and appeasement.

This is it. No understanding of consequences, only of headlines. They can only put off the consequences for so long but not forever. It feels at times like we are just the toys of some monstrous toddler and the adults are nowhere to be seen.

I suspect that things will change very quickly at some point next year, hopefully for the better, but that the next couple of months could be very grim.

by **LondonTiger** Mon Dec 21, 2020 8:51 pm

Gents,

Just a gentle reminder, but can we make sure the conversations stay or indeed veer back towards being civil. This is of course an emotive subject, as politics tends to be, so we need to try especially hard to not actively look to cause upset.

Merry Christmas

by **Pr4wn** Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:24 pm

Last warning. No wumming.

by Derbymanc Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:27 pm

It's been pretty timid to be fair fella's.

What does everyone see the plan being for after Christmas? I think we'll be back into a full on lockdown across the country, probably for a month, we'll reopen and the numbers will sky rocket again, rinse and repeat

by **Pr4wn** Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:29 pm

Timid is fine, I just don't want name-calling or wumming. It's a tough time for everyone, as LT has said. Timid can descend into less timid pretty quickly, so it's best to keep things civil.

Also, we've deleted/split the offending posts Wink

by lostinwales Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:33 pm

Derbymanc wrote:It's been pretty timid to be fair fella's.

What does everyone see the plan being for after Christmas? I think we'll be back into a full on lockdown across the country, probably for a month, we'll reopen and the numbers will sky rocket again, rinse and repeat

Well we do have the vaccines now, so the end is in sight. The problem is that vaccinating everyone is going to take time. That plus Brexit kicking in in a couple of weeks (unless the government decide to do something sensible for once) will make for a grim couple of months.

I am sure the specially selected government team will get the vaccines delivered in a timely manner. Obviously Alok Sharma and that random business woman know a great deal about the subject because they decided they didn't need anyone from PHE to help out.

by GSC Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:42 pm

I'm not gonna even try and defend Boris flip flopping and over promising every week, but we'd be in a much better spot with covid if we as a public actually took some collective responsibility rather than trying to push every single loophole to the limit in search of personal gain.

You don't need legislation to use common sense.

by Derbymanc Mon Dec 21, 2020 9:49 pm

I agree with that GSC but they haven't helped at all with certain people flouting their own rules and nothing being done. Making an absolute hash of what people can do (You can't have someone at your house but can meet them at the pub), the perceived reaction that the North was a testing bed. the school meals debacle and now Unicef getting involved to feed kids. Oh and the 'corruption' and payments to all the dodgy companies.

We needed a strong government that backed up what they said, that shown the public the way to go and didn't look like flip flopping at any moment it would have suited them. Unfortunately the horse has already bolted and you can't get that trust back now.

Thankfully we do have a vaccine but as LIW said it's gonna take time that.

by lostinwales Mon Dec 21, 2020 10:25 pm

GSC wrote:I'm not gonna even try and defend Boris flip flopping and over promising every week, but we'd be in a much better spot with covid if we as a public actually took some collective responsibility rather than trying to push every single loophole to the limit in search of personal gain.

You don't need legislation to use common sense.

You don't. A lot depends on personal circumstances. I have shifted to working from home, and although that has its own set of challenges I have a fairly safe job and we already had a decent sized room set up as an office. Not so sure how happy the wife is now she has to share it but that is another matter.

It has been easy for me to shift to a 'common sense' existence. Plenty of people not so fortunate, for lots of reasons. The death that really made me pause a second was of a man called Miltos Petridis. At the time of his death he was head of the computer science department at Middlesex University, but I remember him as a fellow PhD student.

Communication is such a big deal, and that is the area where the government has consistently failed. It is also an area where it can be harder to produce 'hard evidence' even though everybody knows that, because of Barnard Castle/ Stanley Johnson etc the government doesn't give a crap about their own regulations. It is hardly a case of 'we are all in it together'. The end result is that they have consistently undermined their own message.

At the same time there is the growth of the Covid is a fake argument. I actually had a leaflet through the door pushing this idea. What kind of people actually go as far as organising and paying for a leaflet campaign at a time when the hospitals are on the point of being overwhelmed?

by lostinwales Mon Dec 21, 2020 10:28 pm

On the theme of communication, and in an attempt to lift the mood a little, look up Larry and Paul on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy4Nb5q7X7I

They have it nailed.

by GSC Mon Dec 21, 2020 10:31 pm

I fully agree with both of you, I just think there's an element of passing the buck here where a section of society don't take any personal responsibility. London goes into lockdown because of a new more contagious strain, and your first reaction to pack a suitcase and jump on a train or in the car to go somewhere else before the new regulations kick in at midnight? It's a pretty nasty side of society being exposed.

by Duty281 Tue Dec 22, 2020 2:20 am

GSC wrote:I fully agree with both of you, I just think there's an element of passing the buck here where a section of society don't take any personal responsibility. London goes into lockdown because of a new more contagious strain, and your first reaction to pack a suitcase and jump on a train or in the car to go somewhere else before the new regulations kick in at midnight? It's a pretty nasty side of society being exposed.

I do agree with this. I haven't agreed with any lockdown since the first one, but do feel that while they're in place society should try to adhere to it to give it the best chance of working, no matter how difficult it is. And all too often, like with the scenes at St. Pancras, we're seeing the rules being ignored or 'loopholes' being exploited.

I've also felt sympathy with the government at how they deal with this over Christmas. Whichever decision they take will be tough to enforce and/or tough to justify.

by **navyblueshorts** Tue Dec 22, 2020 2:44 am

Derbymanc wrote:I agree with that GSC but they haven't helped at all with certain people flouting their own rules and nothing being done. Making an absolute hash of what people can do (You can't have someone at your house but can meet them at the pub)¹, the perceived reaction that the North was a testing bed². the school meals debacle and now Unicef getting involved to feed kids. Oh and the 'corruption' and payments to all the dodgy companies.

We needed a strong government that backed up what they said, that shown the public the way to go and didn't look like flip flopping at any moment it would have suited them. Unfortunately the horse has already bolted and you can't get that trust back now.

Thankfully we do have a vaccine but as LIW said it's gonna take time that.

¹Pubs can control their clientele; people at home can, but likely won't.
²What a stupid 'chip on the shoulder' reaction that was, if as you suggest.

In all of this, everything, two wrongs don't make a right and you can't justify poor behaviour just because someone else is flouting guidance. That's the logic of a child.

by Derbymanc Tue Dec 22, 2020 7:22 pm

Morning Navy,

1. Pubs can but weren't controlling it, people who hadn't seen family for a loooong time and were seeing MP's/Cronies and others breaking the rules though if they can do it, why not me. Whether you agree with this or not (I don't, it's selfish and Poopie and I had a major row with some of my family up North about it) the government has to lead by example.

2. Is it a chip on your shoulder when your mayor is saying the same thing, when your rates etc are the same as cities down south that aren't moved up tiers??? I live down South so it doesn't affect me but I know a lot of people who were very angry about it all.

It's not justifying that behaviour by the way, can't remember if I've posted it on here (I'm in and out) but I've been in favour of stricter and longer lockdowns since we started. It's understanding why SOME people won't follow the rules and figuring out why and how to get them back onside (You'll always get selfish idiots that won't anyway, same as those that won't wear a mask etc).

At this point in time, we need a strong government with a strong message and a willingness to follow everything to the letter. If you haven't got that the public will only do it for so long which is the state we have at the moment. It's now not just the Northerners that are saying 'sod it' but the Southerners too and that leaves us wide open for a longer slog than we thought.

Lockdown will be back in Jan I reckon

by WELL-PAST-IT Tue Dec 22, 2020 11:14 pm

"A World Health Organisation (WHO) official has said a new strain of coronavirus in the South East was identified in September.

Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Maria Van Kerkhove, Covid-19 technical lead at WHO, said: “The UK had picked this up in September and seeing that this has been circulating in south-east England since September.”

One would think that a new strain of the virus would be carefully monitored. If they new about it in September, why did we wait until the middle of December and the strain had become the major infector in Kent and Essex before we did anything. If they were monitoring it, they must have seen how fast it was being passed on compared with the original strain and it took the until a few days before Christmas before they did anything about it. I cannot see how they could have only known about the virus's ability to be passed on 70% faster than the old one on Friday. With thousands of people infected by it it would have been evident that the rate of transmission was much greater.

Again they have acted to late to stop it dead in it's tracks, it has now spread to all parts of the UK and abroad which will probably mean other countries will have the same issues.

How many more people have to suffer and possibly die due to the ineptitude of Boris and his cronies?

by **navyblueshorts** Wed Dec 23, 2020 1:53 am

Derbymanc wrote:Morning Navy,

1. Pubs can but weren't controlling it, people who hadn't seen family for a loooong time and were seeing MP's/Cronies and others breaking the rules though if they can do it, why not me. Whether you agree with this or not (I don't, it's selfish and Poopie and I had a major row with some of my family up North about it) the government has to lead by example.

2. Is it a chip on your shoulder when your mayor is saying the same thing, when your rates etc are the same as cities down south that aren't moved up tiers??? I live down South so it doesn't affect me but I know a lot of people who were very angry about it all.

It's not justifying that behaviour by the way, can't remember if I've posted it on here (I'm in and out) but I've been in favour of stricter and longer lockdowns since we started. It's understanding why SOME people won't follow the rules and figuring out why and how to get them back onside (You'll always get selfish idiots that won't anyway, same as those that won't wear a mask etc).

At this point in time, we need a strong government with a strong message and a willingness to follow everything to the letter. If you haven't got that the public will only do it for so long which is the state we have at the moment. It's now not just the Northerners that are saying 'sod it' but the Southerners too and that leaves us wide open for a longer slog than we thought.

Lockdown will be back in Jan I reckon

Hi Derby.

1. Don't disagree that some pubs probably not enforcing as you might have expected. Happy to take the income, but not police the rules. Personally, I think we should have tended towards more police (Army? TA?) on streets kind of thing, curfews, permits to be out etc for a short while as people in this country way too self-centred.

2. Yep, it's a chip on the shoulder IMO; at least in part. For too long there's been this cry that London gets special treatment etc, w/o any real, objective evidence. Yep, likewise there's probably been too much slagging off of 'The North' from too many in 'The South'. To be clear, and it's something way too many don't factor in to their thinking, it's more than simply rates of infection. It's age demographics, it's NHS capacity etc etc in any given area. A lot of those angry people simply don't have the relevant evidence and/or the necessary understanding/training to be able to comment sensibly. So they just rant and blame 'The South'.

Yep, lockdown will be back in Jan I think, especially as it now seems (yet to be proven) that is so-called new variant virus appears to be more infectious for children than previous versions.

by Duty281 Wed Dec 23, 2020 1:56 am

We're already in lockdown, it's just called 'tier 3' or 'tier 4' for most people. And it's causing more harm than Covid.

by Derbymanc Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:06 am

Hundred percent agree with you on point 1. Navy, My missus has been moaning they should have done this at the start (we have some amazing conversations ha ha).

I can see what your saying with 2., and whilst I admire Andy Burnham for standing up for Manchester I do think he went on too long about it and instead of focusing on how 'unfair' it was to Mancland, should have been shouting about how bad other areas where.

We need a proper lockdown again, schools closed etc. Whilst mental health takes a massive hit to this (I'm one of em) we need to get a handle on it all again and getting kids to mix with what is in effect 30 different households is stupid in the extreme (imo) even more so now this new strain is more infectious for kids

by **navyblueshorts** Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:07 am

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:"A World Health Organisation (WHO) official has said a new strain of coronavirus in the South East was identified in September.

Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Maria Van Kerkhove, Covid-19 technical lead at WHO, said: “The UK had picked this up in September and seeing that this has been circulating in south-east England since September.”

One would think that a new strain of the virus would be carefully monitored. If they new about it in September, why did we wait until the middle of December and the strain had become the major infector in Kent and Essex before we did anything. If they were monitoring it, they must have seen how fast it was being passed on compared with the original strain and it took the until a few days before Christmas before they did anything about it. I cannot see how they could have only known about the virus's ability to be passed on 70% faster than the old one on Friday. With thousands of people infected by it it would have been evident that the rate of transmission was much greater.

Again they have acted to late to stop it dead in it's tracks, it has now spread to all parts of the UK and abroad which will probably mean other countries will have the same issues.

How many more people have to suffer and possibly die due to the ineptitude of Boris and his cronies?

:sigh: This virus is varying all the time. It has an RNA genome and they typically replicate w/ a lot of mistakes all the time. There's probably millions/billions of variants, but most don't have any selective advantage so they disappear. This one may, technically, have appeared in September, but at that point you don't simply scream "Arrghhh! Lockdown!!" if there's no evidence of any actual selective advantage that anyone needs to worry about. Until the relevant analyses have been completed, it would be daft to have announced that, well, Christmas is cancelled after all. I'm sorry, but too many see anything that UKG do as wrong, no matter what it is they do.

Too many are not in any place to really judge and/or they're applying the usual 20:20 hindsight to an extant issue. You're assuming that because UKG have made some demonstrable howlers since March, everything must therefore be a howler. That's no sensible or reasonable way to judge an individual issue.

More important is almost certainly the lack of enough adherence to basic microbiological safety from too many of the public, which they no doubt justify w/ the child's approach to logic: "Well, that ****er Cummings didn't follow the rules, so I'm damned if I will." as if they would have adhered w/o issues like Cummings. These people are looking for excuses to do what they wanted to do all along i.e. do what they bloody well please and damn anyone else. This new 'strain' has simply exacerbated what was already happening due to the self-centred 'You're taking away my freedoms' brigade of idiots.

by **navyblueshorts** Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:08 am

Duty281 wrote:We're already in lockdown, it's just called 'tier 3' or 'tier 4' for most people. And it's causing more harm than Covid.

No, it's not. That's just a convenient line to try and argue that you and others should be able to do what you like in the middle of a pandemic. Think of others for a change.

by Fernando Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:17 am

Places in Tier 4 with the lowest infection rates:
Gosport: 159 cases per 100,000
Chilterns: 202 cases per 100,000

Any place above that should be put into Tier 4 immediately yet they'll wait until it spreads round the country further.

by lostinwales Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:18 am

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:"A World Health Organisation (WHO) official has said a new strain of coronavirus in the South East was identified in September.

Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Maria Van Kerkhove, Covid-19 technical lead at WHO, said: “The UK had picked this up in September and seeing that this has been circulating in south-east England since September.”

One would think that a new strain of the virus would be carefully monitored. If they new about it in September, why did we wait until the middle of December and the strain had become the major infector in Kent and Essex before we did anything. If they were monitoring it, they must have seen how fast it was being passed on compared with the original strain and it took the until a few days before Christmas before they did anything about it. I cannot see how they could have only known about the virus's ability to be passed on 70% faster than the old one on Friday. With thousands of people infected by it it would have been evident that the rate of transmission was much greater.

Again they have acted to late to stop it dead in it's tracks, it has now spread to all parts of the UK and abroad which will probably mean other countries will have the same issues.

How many more people have to suffer and possibly die due to the ineptitude of Boris and his cronies?

Problem is that there are new strains all the time. The question in my mind is simply when did they know that this particular new strain is more infectious? Because I doubt the evidence would have been there back in September.

So far so good for the government. Unfortunately the date when the actual evidence was available to the government is still disputed. I can believe that it was last week. It would be interesting to know if it was available before parliament broke up, before Johnson attacked Starmer for wanting to cancel Christmas at PMQ's, or, as the government claim, Friday. Very easy with this bunch to read too much into timings because they have been so useless.

by **navyblueshorts** Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:25 am

Fernando wrote:Places in Tier 4 with the lowest infection rates:
Gosport: 159 cases per 100,000
Chilterns: 202 cases per 100,000

Any place above that should be put into Tier 4 immediately yet they'll wait until it spreads round the country further.

Once again. Re. what Tier an area is in, it's not just about infection rates, it's about much more than that. It's about that area's hospital capacity, age demographic etc etc as well as infection rates.

by **navyblueshorts** Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:28 am

lostinwales wrote:
WELL-PAST-IT wrote:"A World Health Organisation (WHO) official has said a new strain of coronavirus in the South East was identified in September.

Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Maria Van Kerkhove, Covid-19 technical lead at WHO, said: “The UK had picked this up in September and seeing that this has been circulating in south-east England since September.”

One would think that a new strain of the virus would be carefully monitored. If they new about it in September, why did we wait until the middle of December and the strain had become the major infector in Kent and Essex before we did anything. If they were monitoring it, they must have seen how fast it was being passed on compared with the original strain and it took the until a few days before Christmas before they did anything about it. I cannot see how they could have only known about the virus's ability to be passed on 70% faster than the old one on Friday. With thousands of people infected by it it would have been evident that the rate of transmission was much greater.

Again they have acted to late to stop it dead in it's tracks, it has now spread to all parts of the UK and abroad which will probably mean other countries will have the same issues.

How many more people have to suffer and possibly die due to the ineptitude of Boris and his cronies?

Problem is that there are new strains all the time. The question in my mind is simply when did they know that this particular new strain is more infectious? Because I doubt the evidence would have been there back in September.

So far so good for the government. Unfortunately the date when the actual evidence was available to the government is still disputed. I can believe that it was last week. It would be interesting to know if it was available before parliament broke up, before Johnson attacked Starmer for wanting to cancel Christmas at PMQ's, or, as the government claim, Friday. Very easy with this bunch to read too much into timings because they have been so useless.

What difference? None of the anti-UKG brigade would believe UKG even if things are exactly as they've said they were. Not there yet, but we aren't far from Trumpland and that level of polarisation. Sadly, I've not won a lottery jackpot yet, so I can't up sticks w/ the family for New Zealand, Canada or buy a nice island of our own.

by **LondonTiger** Wed Dec 23, 2020 2:37 am

https://www.ft.com/content/290c234b-e8e3-4abb-9c71-26ada5a633d9

Guess whose Christmas isn’t cancelled? is the headline.

by Duty281 Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:08 am

navyblueshorts wrote:
Duty281 wrote:We're already in lockdown, it's just called 'tier 3' or 'tier 4' for most people. And it's causing more harm than Covid.
No, it's not. That's just a convenient line to try and argue that you and others should be able to do what you like in the middle of a pandemic. Think of others for a change.

I oppose the lockdown precisely because I do think of others.

by lostinwales Wed Dec 23, 2020 3:13 am

navyblueshorts wrote:
lostinwales wrote:
WELL-PAST-IT wrote:"A World Health Organisation (WHO) official has said a new strain of coronavirus in the South East was identified in September.

Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Maria Van Kerkhove, Covid-19 technical lead at WHO, said: “The UK had picked this up in September and seeing that this has been circulating in south-east England since September.”

One would think that a new strain of the virus would be carefully monitored. If they new about it in September, why did we wait until the middle of December and the strain had become the major infector in Kent and Essex before we did anything. If they were monitoring it, they must have seen how fast it was being passed on compared with the original strain and it took the until a few days before Christmas before they did anything about it. I cannot see how they could have only known about the virus's ability to be passed on 70% faster than the old one on Friday. With thousands of people infected by it it would have been evident that the rate of transmission was much greater.

Again they have acted to late to stop it dead in it's tracks, it has now spread to all parts of the UK and abroad which will probably mean other countries will have the same issues.

How many more people have to suffer and possibly die due to the ineptitude of Boris and his cronies?

Problem is that there are new strains all the time. The question in my mind is simply when did they know that this particular new strain is more infectious? Because I doubt the evidence would have been there back in September.

So far so good for the government. Unfortunately the date when the actual evidence was available to the government is still disputed. I can believe that it was last week. It would be interesting to know if it was available before parliament broke up, before Johnson attacked Starmer for wanting to cancel Christmas at PMQ's, or, as the government claim, Friday. Very easy with this bunch to read too much into timings because they have been so useless.

What difference? None of the anti-UKG brigade would believe UKG even if things are exactly as they've said they were. Not there yet, but we aren't far from Trumpland and that level of polarisation. Sadly, I've not won a lottery jackpot yet, so I can't up sticks w/ the family for New Zealand, Canada or buy a nice island of our own.

As said it is always too easy to believe the worst of our dear government. In this case there are practical benefits in delaying the announcement to the point at which Johnson made it - and that is quite simply he didn't have to do it in parliament. At the same time it has caused chaos to the plans of people all across the country.

by **navyblueshorts** Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:50 am

Duty281 wrote:
navyblueshorts wrote:
Duty281 wrote:We're already in lockdown, it's just called 'tier 3' or 'tier 4' for most people. And it's causing more harm than Covid.
No, it's not. That's just a convenient line to try and argue that you and others should be able to do what you like in the middle of a pandemic. Think of others for a change.

I oppose the lockdown precisely because I do think of others.

You can have your opinion on the lockdown(s); that's fair enough. You're on the wrong side of this argument though.

by **navyblueshorts** Wed Dec 23, 2020 4:55 am

lostinwales wrote:
navyblueshorts wrote:
lostinwales wrote:
WELL-PAST-IT wrote:"A World Health Organisation (WHO) official has said a new strain of coronavirus in the South East was identified in September.

Appearing on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Maria Van Kerkhove, Covid-19 technical lead at WHO, said: “The UK had picked this up in September and seeing that this has been circulating in south-east England since September.”

One would think that a new strain of the virus would be carefully monitored. If they new about it in September, why did we wait until the middle of December and the strain had become the major infector in Kent and Essex before we did anything. If they were monitoring it, they must have seen how fast it was being passed on compared with the original strain and it took the until a few days before Christmas before they did anything about it. I cannot see how they could have only known about the virus's ability to be passed on 70% faster than the old one on Friday. With thousands of people infected by it it would have been evident that the rate of transmission was much greater.

Again they have acted to late to stop it dead in it's tracks, it has now spread to all parts of the UK and abroad which will probably mean other countries will have the same issues.

How many more people have to suffer and possibly die due to the ineptitude of Boris and his cronies?

Problem is that there are new strains all the time. The question in my mind is simply when did they know that this particular new strain is more infectious? Because I doubt the evidence would have been there back in September.

So far so good for the government. Unfortunately the date when the actual evidence was available to the government is still disputed. I can believe that it was last week. It would be interesting to know if it was available before parliament broke up, before Johnson attacked Starmer for wanting to cancel Christmas at PMQ's, or, as the government claim, Friday. Very easy with this bunch to read too much into timings because they have been so useless.

What difference? None of the anti-UKG brigade would believe UKG even if things are exactly as they've said they were. Not there yet, but we aren't far from Trumpland and that level of polarisation. Sadly, I've not won a lottery jackpot yet, so I can't up sticks w/ the family for New Zealand, Canada or buy a nice island of our own.

As said it is always too easy to believe the worst of our dear government. In this case there are practical benefits in delaying the announcement to the point at which Johnson made it - and that is quite simply he didn't have to do it in parliament. At the same time it has caused chaos to the plans of people all across the country.

Coincidence? Waiting for the science to give an answer w/ reasonable confidence? I presume you thought the FDA approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in the U.S., after the election, was also contrived to do down Trump coming into the election and was totally underhand?

by Duty281 Wed Dec 23, 2020 5:34 am

navyblueshorts wrote:
Duty281 wrote:
navyblueshorts wrote:
Duty281 wrote:We're already in lockdown, it's just called 'tier 3' or 'tier 4' for most people. And it's causing more harm than Covid.
No, it's not. That's just a convenient line to try and argue that you and others should be able to do what you like in the middle of a pandemic. Think of others for a change.

I oppose the lockdown precisely because I do think of others.
You can have your opinion on the lockdown(s); that's fair enough. You're on the wrong side of this argument though.

I'm on the wrong side of you, darling, not the wrong side of the argument. There's a difference.

The effects of lockdown(s) are catastrophic, far-reaching and will do (and are doing) immensely more damage to this country than Covid. I could just about (and did) support the first lockdown, a time of great panic, fear and general unease, but subsequent measures since the summer have been needlessly punitive.

by **JuliusHMarx** Wed Dec 23, 2020 6:24 am

Duty281 wrote:The effects of lockdown(s) are catastrophic, far-reaching and will do (and are doing) immensely more damage to this country than Covid.

That can't be proved. It depends largely on how many more dead people you think there would be without lockdown(s), and whether you consider that number more or less catastrophic than the negative effects of lockdown(s), which also includes a number of deaths.
What is an acceptable number of additional deaths? 50,000, 100,000?

by WELL-PAST-IT Wed Dec 23, 2020 6:49 am

NBS, I do realise that the virus is changing adapting all the time, but Vallance stated that the Covid-19 virus is more stable than usual. Are you saying that the UKG is not tracking all variants to see what is happening? They new about this one in September and informed the WHO, that shows they are monitoring for variants, what it appears they did not do, is either:

Monitor how they differed from the original bug. If they had, they would have seen the much faster increase in people infected with the new variant and could have done something less drastic about it,or

They sat on it waiting for the right time to announce it, after Christmas as a lock down pre-Christmas was not going to be popular.

If this variant is 70% more virulent than the original, it would have shown up by the end of October, some 6 weeks after they told the WHO, according to Blow Job, they did not know until Friday. This is either shocking management or a cover up.

by Soul Requiem Wed Dec 23, 2020 6:52 am

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:

If this variant is 70% more virulent than the original, it would have shown up by the end of October, some 6 weeks after they told the WHO,

How did you come to that conclusion?

by Duty281 Wed Dec 23, 2020 9:12 am

JuliusHMarx wrote:
Duty281 wrote:The effects of lockdown(s) are catastrophic, far-reaching and will do (and are doing) immensely more damage to this country than Covid.

That can't be proved. It depends largely on how many more dead people you think there would be without lockdown(s), and whether you consider that number more or less catastrophic than the negative effects of lockdown(s), which also includes a number of deaths.
What is an acceptable number of additional deaths? 50,000, 100,000?

I agree, you can't prove it either way, and we'll never know for definite which choice of action was best.

What we do know for definite is the government have taken this particular course of action, and society should adhere to it to give it the best chance of working.

Those dissatisfied with lockdown/the tier system, such as myself, can exercise their grievances in a properly socially-distanced fashion, either by ranting impotently about it on the Internet or (worse) contacting our useless, wasteful MPs.

by Fernando Wed Dec 23, 2020 10:24 am

navyblueshorts wrote:
Fernando wrote:Places in Tier 4 with the lowest infection rates:
Gosport: 159 cases per 100,000
Chilterns: 202 cases per 100,000

Any place above that should be put into Tier 4 immediately yet they'll wait until it spreads round the country further.
Once again. Re. what Tier an area is in, it's not just about infection rates, it's about much more than that. It's about that area's hospital capacity, age demographic etc etc as well as infection rates.

Yet all these places are going in on Boxing Day apparently from BoJo's conference tomorrow. Whistle

by lostinwales Wed Dec 23, 2020 11:51 am

Lockdowns are sh!te, but do work if used properly. They can break or dramatically reduce the rates of spread of the virus, which should in turn be able to give more time to develop better treatments and, now, roll out the vaccines.

The crucial thing is to use them well. Countries which went into early lockdowns did better. We didn't, and we didn't learn from what was going on in Europe first. Which means that lockdowns have generally come too late and had to last longer to have any impact.

No lockdowns and you could end up with the kinds of problems they have had in, say, Iran.

by WELL-PAST-IT Wed Dec 23, 2020 11:59 pm

Soul Requiem wrote:
WELL-PAST-IT wrote:

If this variant is 70% more virulent than the original, it would have shown up by the end of October, some 6 weeks after they told the WHO,

How did you come to that conclusion?

It was a report in the Guardian I can no longer find. By the end of October, 30% of all the cases in London were down to the new variant, in parts so Essex and North Kent it was a greater percentage. This at the time when the scientist were struggling to understand why the numbers of this variant were rising so rapidly when there was not real change to the behaviour of the populace in these areas yet the rate in England was dropping due to the lockdown. As we know the virus expands exponentially, so a 70% increase is a massive hike which as soon as the lockdown was lifted spiralled.

So either the people monitoring this new variant completely missed the increase in this variant, or it was ignored. They knew that at the end of October it fast becoming the major strain in London and was already in other localised areas nearby. It was the rapid rise in covid cases mainly brought about by the new strain that caused London and Kent etc. to be placed in Tier 3 but as usual too late it had already taken hold.

The fact that North Kent, West Essex and South Hertfordshire all had serious problems with the growth of this strain and that 30% of all the cases in London were due to the new strain at the end of October, should have set off the alarm bells in October, not middling December.

by Soul Requiem Thu Dec 24, 2020 12:04 am

Knowing its prevalence is increasing is somewhat different to knowing it's more virulent.

by jimbopip Thu Dec 24, 2020 12:07 am

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:
Soul Requiem wrote:
WELL-PAST-IT wrote:

If this variant is 70% more virulent than the original, it would have shown up by the end of October, some 6 weeks after they told the WHO,

How did you come to that conclusion?

It was a report in the Guardian I can no longer find. By the end of October, 30% of all the cases in London were down to the new variant, in parts so Essex and North Kent it was a greater percentage. This at the time when the scientist were struggling to understand why the numbers of this variant were rising so rapidly when there was not real change to the behaviour of the populace in these areas yet the rate in England was dropping due to the lockdown. As we know the virus expands exponentially, so a 70% increase is a massive hike which as soon as the lockdown was lifted spiralled.

So either the people monitoring this new variant completely missed the increase in this variant, or it was ignored. They knew that at the end of October it fast becoming the major strain in London and was already in other localised areas nearby. It was the rapid rise in covid cases mainly brought about by the new strain that caused London and Kent etc. to be placed in Tier 3 but as usual too late it had already taken hold.

The fact that North Kent, West Essex and South Hertfordshire all had serious problems with the growth of this strain and that 30% of all the cases in London were due to the new strain at the end of October, should have set off the alarm bells in October, not middling December.

Well Past It, how can you say this when the Sainted Pritti Patel has just informed the country that the government "has been ahead of the curve throughout the year"?
No wonder she occasionally raises her voice and uses strong language, poor woman.

by **navyblueshorts** Thu Dec 24, 2020 1:28 am

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:NBS, I do realise that the virus is changing adapting all the time, but Vallance stated that the Covid-19 virus is more stable than usual. Are you saying that the UKG is not tracking all variants to see what is happening? They new about this one in September and informed the WHO, that shows they are monitoring for variants, what it appears they did not do, is either:

Monitor how they differed from the original bug. If they had, they would have seen the much faster increase in people infected with the new variant and could have done something less drastic about it,or

They sat on it waiting for the right time to announce it, after Christmas as a lock down pre-Christmas was not going to be popular.

If this variant is 70% more virulent than the original, it would have shown up by the end of October, some 6 weeks after they told the WHO, according to Blow Job, they did not know until Friday. This is either shocking management or a cover up.

It is more stable than, say, influenza. But it's still varying all the time - it can't not vary if it's replicating billions of time per individual host. It's also partying in a totally new host - variations in this virus haven't stabilised yet as it's still, essentially, optimising itself to the new host.
I don't know if the UK is tracking all variants all the time. We do have good genomics here and COG-UK is doing good things. Yes, the WHO is in contact w/ UKG over this, but I haven't seen anywhere that UKG told them about this variant in September - think you might be conflating two issues, but happy to retract if there's solid information to the contrary.

Your two suggested points don't hold water.
The first is a tin foil fever dream I'm afraid, especially given how Whitehall leaks these days. No chance.

Your second isn't a lot better:

https://twitter.com/The_Soup_Dragon/status/1340349639946629120/photo/1

There's no real pickup until late Nov and even you would have to admit, surely, that UKG would need to await info from NERVTAG etc to base any decision upon. Don't let your dislike of UKG, in general, get in the way of the most likely explanations for where we now are.

by **navyblueshorts** Thu Dec 24, 2020 1:30 am

Fernando wrote:
navyblueshorts wrote:
Fernando wrote:Places in Tier 4 with the lowest infection rates:
Gosport: 159 cases per 100,000
Chilterns: 202 cases per 100,000

Any place above that should be put into Tier 4 immediately yet they'll wait until it spreads round the country further.
Once again. Re. what Tier an area is in, it's not just about infection rates, it's about much more than that. It's about that area's hospital capacity, age demographic etc etc as well as infection rates.

Yet all these places are going in on Boxing Day apparently from BoJo's conference tomorrow.

And?

by **navyblueshorts** Thu Dec 24, 2020 1:32 am

Soul Requiem wrote:Knowing its prevalence is increasing is somewhat different to knowing it's more virulent.

Terminology, please. As far as we know, it's not more virulent; it's more infectious.

by **navyblueshorts** Thu Dec 24, 2020 1:39 am

WELL-PAST-IT wrote:
Soul Requiem wrote:
WELL-PAST-IT wrote:

If this variant is 70% more virulent than the original, it would have shown up by the end of October, some 6 weeks after they told the WHO,

How did you come to that conclusion?

It was a report in the Guardian I can no longer find. By the end of October, 30% of all the cases in London were down to the new variant, in parts so Essex and North Kent it was a greater percentage. This at the time when the scientist were struggling to understand why the numbers of this variant were rising so rapidly when there was not real change to the behaviour of the populace in these areas yet the rate in England was dropping due to the lockdown. As we know the virus expands exponentially, so a 70% increase is a massive hike which as soon as the lockdown was lifted spiralled.

So either the people monitoring this new variant completely missed the increase in this variant, or it was ignored. They knew that at the end of October it fast becoming the major strain in London and was already in other localised areas nearby. It was the rapid rise in covid cases mainly brought about by the new strain that caused London and Kent etc. to be placed in Tier 3 but as usual too late it had already taken hold.

The fact that North Kent, West Essex and South Hertfordshire all had serious problems with the growth of this strain and that 30% of all the cases in London were due to the new strain at the end of October, should have set off the alarm bells in October, not middling December.

A Guardian article you can no longer find? The fact that it's a) the Guardian and b) no longer there should perhaps give you pause for thought. And I thought it was just Americans who were addicted to conspiracies...

30% in London due to new variant by end of Oct? Really?

I'll use this again: https://twitter.com/The_Soup_Dragon/status/1340349639946629120/photo/1

Yes, this is data from the Milton Keynes Lighthouse lab, but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect this is a decent approximation to the rest of the south east.

by WELL-PAST-IT Thu Dec 24, 2020 8:29 pm

Applogies about the 30% comment, a reputable source, Neil Ferguson is quoted in a New Scientist article as below:

How much faster is it thought to spread?

"The latest estimate is that it was 50 per cent more transmissible than other circulating strains during England’s latest lockdown, according to Neil Ferguson at Imperial College London, another committee member. However, it isn’t clear if this figure is true more generally, he says. B.1.1.7 is already responsible for 80 per cent of infections in London."

This article was originally published on 15th December and updated on 22nd December. I think that this gives credence to 30% at end of October.

I am not in any way addicted to conspiracies, but I do follow patterns in behaviour and this pathetic attempt at a Government has been about 3 weeks behind the pace on everything they have done with regard to covid-19. Recognition and realisation of what this new strain can do seems to follow the same pattern.

Milton Keynes has been massively different from London and the suburbs all through the pandemic, until very recently it has been at the lower levels of infection even when Northampton 10 miles away was badly hit, MK stayed at relatively low levels.

On a personal note, my eldest son has just been contacted by the NHS T & T system and told to isolate for 2 days completely b*ggering up our Christmas. 8 days to make contact is just ridiculous. If he has been infected (unlikely now) he could have infected god knows how many others in that time. About as World Class as this government.

by Sponsored content