Coronavirus

[Eddie]

14 minutes ago, Van Gritters said:

The people most affected by this virus will be retired. They will still be self isolating. The younger work force will have to work out how to work in a safe manner. People I work with have carried on working all the time sharing a van etc. The words ‘stay alert’ means just that staying off work if you show signs of any symptoms etc. 

Like I said the other day, for the extremely vulnerable, it now amounts to a life (or death) sentence.

[Mckram]

10 minutes ago, ketteringram said:

Surely car buying would be ok. It's shopping. 

It’s an odd one.

Having a car, especially now, is surely seen as essential to most. But what if your car breaks down and is beyond repair, but you can’t buy another.

I’d say that’s more essential than physically going in to B&Q! 

I’ve also got friends whose car leases expired but the companies won’t collect the car. They’ve said they can’t drive it, but they can’t get another car!

[Mucker1884]

2 minutes ago, reverendo de duivel said:

For a lot of people Mucker, swallow your tongue and take the money.

I don't have that situation now, but I've certainly worked in places in the past where H&S is the last thing on an employer's mind, and if you don't like it they'll soon enough find someone who does.

Leave and see your family starve, or risk it and hope for the best.

It shouldn't be a choice, yet it far too often is.

 

Yeah, I get what you're saying, and appreciate we don't all have to work under the same conditions.
But in fairness, @nottingram's posts didn't appear to hint at such a scenario?

I guess my "problem" is that I like rules to be in place, and for people to abide by those rules... reluctantly or otherwise. 
Additionally, whilst I appreciate that sort of situation (to which you hint) does exist, it's not one I'm familiar with, nor one I can realistically relate to, thus I have difficulty in commenting on.
It would be (far too) easy for me to say "Well, if that's the sort of boss you work for, you'd be better off out of it", but I'm really not qualified to say much else.  I'd hope I wouldn't have to apologise for that.    

?

[Guest]

1 minute ago, ramsbottom said:

Regardless of my political stand point the new official slogan, and guidelines released earlier on are vague, will cause confusion, and allow others to take liberties with the lockdown. If there am were clear, concise, and in any way a good example to follow, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland would endorse them. The fact that they’re ignoring them speaks volumes...

They were as vague as you would expect from a brief address to the nation.

I believe alot of people will apply common sense and wait to see the detail coming in the following days.

The only people who have whipped them into a state of confusion will be the same ones who have been saying not to rush coming out of the lockdown over the last week.

[Gritstone Ram]

1 minute ago, Eddie said:

Like I said the other day, for the extremely vulnerable, it now amounts to a life (or death) sentence.

Not much can be done though. I have two elderly parents trying to make sense of it all. They say they haven’t much time left and they don’t fancy being confined to their house for the rest of their lives.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Like I said the other day, for the extremely vulnerable, it now amounts to a life (or death) sentence.

To be fair you've said it in numerous occasions but when asked on viable alternatives have offered nothing other than suggesting that the whole country should stay locked up until you are allowed out.

Understand your frustration but I think you're clever enough to know that your alternative just doesn't work.

[Archied]

4 minutes ago, Van Gritters said:

Not much can be done though. I have two elderly parents trying to make sense of it all. They say they haven’t much time left and they don’t fancy being confined to their house for the rest of their lives.

You know mate ,, that’s a quality post , I’m willing to bet there’s a lot of people that think that way and why not their kids and grandkids are everything to them 

[ariotofmyown]

14 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

There is as much confusion coming out of the general public as there is the Government.

Do we want them just to jump in feet first and set a date for when everyone can go back to work?

Or would it be better to take baby steps and release more information when we can see how the individual steps are going?

The hotel owner in Weston Super Mare seemed to want a date when she could re-open. What if the Government had said that all hotels could re-open on 1 July but the infection rate rocketed between now and then?

I tell you what would happen. The same people who are demanding dates would be calling the Government liars and saying they had gone back on promises and missed deadlines.

Damned if they do and damned if they dont. Sad that some people are too blinkered to see this.

Think you misunderstand me there. I was not expecting a detailed long term plan, and the timetable overview given was decent and measured.

I was talking about the short notice of what is happening right now. Feel this should be done in a detailed way, with lots of potential questions already answered. 

I'm fine, but lots of people are going to be stressed out enough as it is, and spending Sunday night working out what you are going to do in the morning won't be fun. I imagine there are loads of people trying to contact bosses/employees to find out their own situation, people worrying about what happens to their kids if they have to go to work and will it be safe to take public transport. People will be desperate to keep their jobs and businesses will be desperate to survive.

This could have been done Thursday evening giving 3 days to prepare. It it could have been done in the morning, with a day of parliamentary questions and answers, with more details released. Just seems to have left people in an awkward situation overnight.

[Eddie]

2 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

To be fair you've said it in numerous occasions but when asked on viable alternatives have offered nothing other than suggesting that the whole country should stay locked up until you are allowed out.

Understand your frustration but I think you're clever enough to know that your alternative just doesn't work.

I have not exactly suggested that the whole country needs to be locked up - that is a bit of an exaggeration, let's say for dramatic effect. I did say that too little was done too late, because we had as much as 3 weeks more notice than Italy had, and that the police should have been far more rigorous in enforcing the law as it stands.

I do understand that, for those who are classified as 'extremely vulnerable', life will change for a long time, possibly for ever if no suitable treatment or vaccine ensues.

 

 

 

 

[Sith Happens]

39 minutes ago, ramsbottom said:

Regardless of my political stand point the new official slogan, and guidelines released earlier on are vague, will cause confusion, and allow others to take liberties with the lockdown. If there were clear, concise, and in any way a good example to follow, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland would endorse them. The fact that they’re ignoring them speaks volumes...

I don't agree,  but i do apologise for my reaction to your original post.  Probably another example of why i need time away from here. 

Take care.

[Eddie]

Here's a suggestion - those of us who have been confined to the house for 12 weeks should, come the start of July, be allowed a week to go out and everyone else stay at home for 24 hours a day. Just one week. 

[Rev]

38 minutes ago, Mucker1884 said:

 

Yeah, I get what you're saying, and appreciate we don't all have to work under the same conditions.
But in fairness, @nottingram's posts didn't appear to hint at such a scenario?

I guess my "problem" is that I like rules to be in place, and for people to abide by those rules... reluctantly or otherwise. 
Additionally, whilst I appreciate that sort of situation (to which you hint) does exist, it's not one I'm familiar with, nor one I can realistically relate to, thus I have difficulty in commenting on.
It would be (far too) easy for me to say "Well, if that's the sort of boss you work for, you'd be better off out of it", but I'm really not qualified to say much else.  I'd hope I wouldn't have to apologise for that.    

?

I certainly wouldn't ask you to apologise.

I work for a decent employer now, but I've dragged myself up from the bottom, mostly through sheer luck.

I've been a sixteen year old in the back of a Transit, along with 5 others driving 50 miles to dig up a sports hall floor with a neumatic drill with no training, no safety equipment for £60 a week. 

I've taken a months trial in the shadow of the BBG for an engineering firm for £200 a month cash in hand, and ignored flagrant breaches of H&S for months afterwards after being set on.

I've been in engineering for 25yrs, and never worked at a firm that doesn't remove guards etc to speed up production.

In my experience, and the experience of most of my social circle, employment is a precarious line between what the law states, and the reality of the workplace.

 

 

 

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, ariotofmyown said:

Think you misunderstand me there. I was not expecting a detailed long term plan, and the timetable overview given was decent and measured.

I was talking about the short notice of what is happening right now. Feel this should be done in a detailed way, with lots of potential questions already answered. 

I'm fine, but lots of people are going to be stressed out enough as it is, and spending Sunday night working out what you are going to do in the morning won't be fun. I imagine there are loads of people trying to contact bosses/employees to find out their own situation, people worrying about what happens to their kids if they have to go to work and will it be safe to take public transport. People will be desperate to keep their jobs and businesses will be desperate to survive.

This could have been done Thursday evening giving 3 days to prepare. It it could have been done in the morning, with a day of parliamentary questions and answers, with more details released. Just seems to have left people in an awkward situation overnight.

If it had been done on Thursday night wouldnt people have wanted to go back to work on Friday morning?

Nobody has said everybody has to go back to work tomorrow.

What is stopping employers spending a week getting all of their plans in place and people return next Monday?

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I have not exactly suggested that the whole country needs to be locked up - that is a bit of an exaggeration, let's say for dramatic effect. I did say that too little was done too late, because we had as much as 3 weeks more notice than Italy had, and that the police should have been far more rigorous in enforcing the law as it stands.

I do understand that, for those who are classified as 'extremely vulnerable', life will change for a long time, possibly for ever if no suitable treatment or vaccine ensues.

I raised this point with someone else but it appears that the 3 weeks notice is a myth, our first recorded case was 2 days before Italy.

Agree it may be looking too little has be done too late but that will only be confirmed by what happens going forward.

[ariotofmyown]

Just now, G STAR RAM said:

If it had been done on Thursday night wouldnt people have wanted to go back to work on Friday morning?

Nobody has said everybody has to go back to work tomorrow.

What is stopping employers spending a week getting all of their plans in place and people return next Monday?

Friday was a bank holiday. 

The desperate state some businesses are in could stop them making plans over the next week. They might be expecting employees to turn up to work in the morning as usual.

[B4ev6is]

Come on people stop falling out this nobody fault and yes telling people have to go back to work tomorrow not good for anyone. 

[Mucker1884]

4 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Here's a suggestion - those of us who have been confined to the house for 12 weeks should, come the start of July, be allowed a week to go out and everyone else stay at home for 24 hours a day. Just one week. 

That'll be a bit of a drag for you, won't it?  A full week just wandering around a park, or strolling along a beach?

Literally everywhere else would be closed under those conditions, wouldn't they?  No public loos either, so don't wander too far!

[Guest]

Just now, ariotofmyown said:

Friday was a bank holiday. 

The desperate state some businesses are in could stop them making plans over the next week. They might be expecting employees to turn up to work in the morning as usual.

So if Friday was a Bank Holiday nobody would have been working to get the new plans in place.

The businesses might not be expecting employees to return tomorrow also. Ours certainly wont. We will be having an online management meeting to discuss what the Government have said and then will liaise with our trade body, who in turn will liaise with the Government for more detail on what we  need to do before reopening.

 

[Archied]

6 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Isnt your first line just buzz words?

As much as people are pretending this isnt a political matter that's exactly what it has turned into.

I'd say the responses on both sides have been completely predictable.

Personally can assure you this is not party political for me , are the people doing the job up to it simple as that , if you think for one second that I believe others would be handling it better because they stand on a different side of the political fence then you are crazy, 

[bigbadbob]

20 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Here's a suggestion - those of us who have been confined to the house for 12 weeks should, come the start of July, be allowed a week to go out and everyone else stay at home for 24 hours a day. Just one week. 

What would you do or where would you go?