Coronavirus

[Andicis]

He seems ok

[Albert]

18 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Me too.

I want him to lose the election badly, then spend the rest of his life alternating between court and jail.

Let's hope he pulls through. Looking a lot like Boris so far though. Went from 'he's fine' to 'he's symptomatic and a bit fatigued' to 'he's in hospital as a precaution' in less than a day. With the age difference in age, could well be a worry. 

Him dying, no matter what you think of him, is doing nobody any good. He, and the American people, should have the chance to test him at the next election. To be robbed of that would be a loss for all. 

Even if you're in the camp that blames him for America's response to the pandemic, or blame him for not taking required precautions, surely you can agree with the above. 

[Comrade 86]

5 hours ago, Uptherams said:

He might well have just come out and asked is your name Ireland, because my Penis is Dublin. 

I'm confused... Is it infection rates or your penis that's Dublin every 7 days? 

 ?‍♀️

[Albert]

Hmmm...

 

[Eddie]

7 minutes ago, Albert said:

Hmmm...

 

Couple this with him taking the pee out of Biden for mask wearing etc, and it's no wonder the Karma pixies have paid him a visit.

It must be serious too - he hasn't tweeted for about 18 hours, which must be some kind of a record.

[GboroRam]

7 hours ago, Eddie said:

Some of the so-called insults I handed out were understated to the point that they were almost compliments.

Unfortunately we've had people try to use the defense "but it's true" before. It didn't work. 

[Albert]

7 hours ago, Andicis said:

Don't get it twisted, it's nothing about competency. The UK is a global hub. Australia and New Zealand are tucked out of the way. We're always going to be hinged off what the rest of Europe do. We can't get zero covid. It'd just get imported back, and the cycle starts up again. 

Australia acts as a hub to an entire continent, and saw disproportionate volume of traffic to and from East Asia, which was the initial epicentre of this virus. 

The UK is a literal island, and if the only thing stopping the UK controlling the virus, then surely places like Heathrow can be firewalled from the rest of the country. The UK already has similar regulations in place as well. It seems more like attempting to make excuses for failure than anything else. 

[Ken Tram]

The views about Corina virus this morning.

1. My lodger does not believe in the corona virus. "It is a conspiracy to control us, and to make money, and to stop us from seeing each other smile, and the distancing is to stop us kissing each other as a greeting. There are lots of YouTube videos about it, but YouTube are going to remove the videos!" "I'm not interested in the App [and there's no point in downloading an App for a virus that doesn't exist]! And it will track me." [They do believe in the flu virus!] 

2. At a local shop, the owner had not heard of the Covid App.

3. One customer had forgotten her mask, but she did buy a newspaper and hold it up in front of her face.

4. A second customer could not download the App because her phone was too old.

[alexxxxx]

1 hour ago, Albert said:

Australia acts as a hub to an entire continent, and saw disproportionate volume of traffic to and from East Asia, which was the initial epicentre of this virus. 

The UK is a literal island, and if the only thing stopping the UK controlling the virus, then surely places like Heathrow can be firewalled from the rest of the country. The UK already has similar regulations in place as well. It seems more like attempting to make excuses for failure than anything else. 

I support what you say but the differences between the UK and Australia are stark in terms of population and geography (plus Australia is a wealthier country than UK).

The reason we started to get such a huge number of cases to begin with is because of imported infections from italian/Swiss ski resorts which thousands visit every year.

Its not possible to contain the virus as easily in the UK as England from Manchester South is just one huge metropolitan area. 

The only way we could have prevented this was locking down much earlier and being incredibly strict on borders. And they would have had to have stayed shut. 

[maxjam]

1 hour ago, Albert said:

Australia acts as a hub to an entire continent, and saw disproportionate volume of traffic to and from East Asia, which was the initial epicentre of this virus. 

The UK is a literal island, and if the only thing stopping the UK controlling the virus, then surely places like Heathrow can be firewalled from the rest of the country. The UK already has similar regulations in place as well. It seems more like attempting to make excuses for failure than anything else. 

You're either trolling now or know very little about the world. 

I can't be bothered to do the work for you, but The UK is a global hub in one of the more populous regions of the world.  The amount of traffic that passes through both countries for both business and tourism is not even on the same scale.

[Ken Tram]

22 hours ago, Albert said:

The disagreement, as discussed is basically around what value lockdowns and controls have. 

My position is that their benefits are well demonstrated, and that done well, they avoid long term human and economic costs that are associated with the pandemic. Human costs is a very broad term, but covers things like job losses, economic hardship, impact on healthcare, etc. 

My position is based on currently being in a country that went down that route, and in a state (South Australia), that has been particularly successful in that. In essence, after a whopping 4 weeks of hard lockdowns, we began to return to normal life. At this point, we've been out of lockdown for nearly half a year, being virtually at zero cases for this time period, with only one scare a bit over 50 days ago. 

Concerns were raised by others that the economic costs of lockdowns is too much, but my point is that they don't have to be. Hard, but properly done, lockdowns need not be lengthy. A number of countries have been successful in doing this, despite different cultural, social and economic backgrounds. The most notable are Australia (all Victoria), New Zealand, Vietnam and Taiwan. There are others that have been very successful, but still have a daily rate of cases, but are generally under control. At the very least, the UK's target should be this, as the economic benefits have been vast.

The counter argument has basically just been repeating 'lockdowns are too hard on the economy', and 'it's only old people who die', but the first is countered by the very existence of countries like Australia and Taiwan, while the second is just flat out fake news. Given that we already know how quickly the pandemic, when not controlled, can overwhelm health systems, and that the economic costs of businesses being forced closed is vast, the idea of 'opening up for the economy' is like burning your house down to stay warm. 

The other lingering 'debate', if it can be called that, is a certain poster just posting an example forecast repeatedly, when that forecast was never a prediction of what was to come, and it not following it is the entire point of things like the rule of 6 and other recent controls. Their point is, ironically, that there shouldn't be controls, but they're insistent on posting data that shows how effective they can be. 

Thanks very much. This is very helpful. And it was good of you to explain the counter-arguments too (even though they had some pointed observations).

I think this helps because (I guess) we want all of the coronavirus discussion in one place ... even though long and complex debates can crowd out other discussions. I think that an occasional summary can let everyone else back in!

....

It has made me think about some pros and cons of sub-threads when we have a long thread covering a broad topic like this. (I might share them, but I know others will know more about this than me.)

But, just to say again ... thank you very much for the summary. (And thank you to everyone involved in debating "Is lockdown the best tool to use?" because I think the contributions from all sides of the debate are valuable! And I am also a fan of analytical feedback and forecasts too!

[Eddie]

2 hours ago, GboroRam said:

Unfortunately we've had people try to use the defense "but it's true" before. It didn't work. 

Rearrange to following into a well-known phrase or saying...

Of that I have first experience hand

(oh, wait....)

[maxjam]

Good News... Grandparents can't get covid at Christmas.

#smallmercies

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12831758/boris-rule-six-christmas-hint-suspend/

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

9 hours ago, Andicis said:

He seems ok

ok...ish...not his usual bombastic, hyperbolic, vitriolic self, "I think I am doing very well" is not what you would expect from this muppet. Something like this more like it "The chinese virus is in for a choc, it cannot lay a glove on the greatest US president to ever live, god bless Donald Trump" 

[Ken Tram]

23 hours ago, WhiteHorseRam said:

God Bless you mate, did you ever see the Politics Thread? 

I didn't, although, you may be amused to know that I think one of the participants in this debate recommended it to me! ?

[Ken Tram]

23 hours ago, maxjam said:

Furthermore

Hi Maxjam,

Please would you kindly consider writing a post that summarises your views about: Is lockdown the best approach?

This debate goes on for pages ... which makes it hard for the rest of us to understand the points.

Albert has kindly responded by summarising his view, which was helpful - and I would find it helpful if you would do so too.

(Please don't just respond to Albert's statement ... but please explain your view, if you don't mind me asking!)

Then, everyone else can understand the points that you are both making!

And, then some of us might have some interesting comments to add ... And, the people involved in the debate might even spot some points upon which they agree (!) ... or even pinpoint the main point of disagreement, and then agree to explore that in more detail.

Maybe.

[Albert]

1 hour ago, alexxxxx said:

I support what you say but the differences between the UK and Australia are stark in terms of population and geography (plus Australia is a wealthier country than UK).

The reason we started to get such a huge number of cases to begin with is because of imported infections from italian/Swiss ski resorts which thousands visit every year.

Its not possible to contain the virus as easily in the UK as England from Manchester South is just one huge metropolitan area. 

The only way we could have prevented this was locking down much earlier and being incredibly strict on borders. And they would have had to have stayed shut. 

People said the same in Australia at first. The country is ridiculously urbanised, and the east Coast cities have very dense centres which sprawl out for arguably hundreds of km in each direction. 

Equally, Australia isn't the only comparison, there are places like Taiwan, which have even higher population density, and the same issues with sprawling population centres. 

I don't know, it just comes off as a copout. 

1 hour ago, Ken Tram said:

Thanks very much. This is very helpful. And it was good of you to explain the counter-arguments too (even though they had some pointed observations).

I think this helps because (I guess) we want all of the coronavirus discussion in one place ... even though long and complex debates can crowd out other discussions. I think that an occasional summary can let everyone else back in!

....

It has made me think about some pros and cons of sub-threads when we have a long thread covering a broad topic like this. (I might share them, but I know others will know more about this than me.)

But, just to say again ... thank you very much for the summary. (And thank you to everyone involved in debating "Is lockdown the best tool to use?" because I think the contributions from all sides of the debate are valuable! And I am also a fan of analytical feedback and forecasts too!

Forums are an interesting one, and this characteristic you note is quite the weakness. I still recall reading some papers a while back regarding methods of controlling forums through, in essence, flooding out criticism, and bumping praise, for certain ideas. No system is perfect though. 

1 hour ago, maxjam said:

You're either trolling now or know very little about the world. 

I can't be bothered to do the work for you, but The UK is a global hub in one of the more populous regions of the world.  The amount of traffic that passes through both countries for both business and tourism is not even on the same scale.

At points I wonder why people make such comments without much research backing them. 

Heathrow is busy, no doubt, but in relative terms Australia is a very busy country in terms of air travel. 

Heathrow and Gatwick, the two biggest airports in the UK, shifted 80,888,305 and 46,576,473 passengers respectively in 2019. There's the other players like Manchester (29,397,357), Liverpool (28,124,292), Luton (18,216,207), Edinburg (14,737,497), are also quite notable. We can compare these with Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's two biggest (and Australia has a lot of airports), which had 44,446,838 and 37,490,978 respectively. Going through the other major players, there's Brisbane (24,114,833), Perth (~14.5 million), Adelaide (~8.5 million), Gold Coast (~6.4 million) etc. Not quite as large as the UK, but larger relative to the population. 

As to tourism, Australia gets around 9.3 million per year, compared to the UK's 39.2 million. Australia gets about 0.372 tourists per population per year, while the UK gets 0.588, so they do perform better here. That said, 24.8 million million of the UK's tourists in 2019 came from the EU. With that in mind, however, the bigger point is that travel with Asia initially, as tourism is virtually dead at this point in time, and should not be driving infections. To that end, it's worth noting that 5.2 million of Australia's tourists in 2019 were indeed from China, compared to 0.833 million for the UK. 

To put that another way, in the delicate stage at the start of the pandemic where it was spreading, but borders were not closed, it was indeed Australia that had the much higher risk profile. As noted before, much of this traffic was to and from East Asia, including Wuhan. Australia, unlike the UK, managed these risks effectively as Australia, unlike the UK, shut borders promptly, and put strong controls on early, despite knowing this would have an impact on its airline industry, which as noted shifts a larger volume of passengers per capita than the UKs. That really is the tradeoff though, and one that paid off for Australia. 

[maxjam]

36 minutes ago, Ken Tram said:

Hi Maxjam,

Please would you kindly consider writing a post that summarises your views about: Is lockdown the best approach?

This debate goes on for pages ... which makes it hard for the rest of us to understand the points.

Albert has kindly responded by summarising his view, which was helpful - and I would find it helpful if you would do so too.

(Please don't just respond to Albert's statement ... but please explain your view, if you don't mind me asking!)

Then, everyone else can understand the points that you are both making!

And, then some of us might have some interesting comments to add ... And, the people involved in the debate might even spot some points upon which they agree (!) ... or even pinpoint the main point of disagreement, and then agree to explore that in more detail.

Maybe.

Gonna keep this brief with a few, not exhaustive, bullet points;

1.  We're a global economy - some countries more so than other (UK, more specifically London is a financial hub)

2. Lockdowns only work in delaying the inevitable - we need to learn to live with covid as we do other diseases until a vaccine become available.

3. For continued lockdowns to work you'd need other countries to do the same and impose harsh restrictions on daily life.

4. For continued lockdowns to work you have to forgo numerous income streams such as tourism - worth about £150bn in the UK alone.

5. Lockdowns are driven out of fear by those in power presiding over thousands of deaths tracked on daily graphs challenged by egotistical 'gotcha' reporters.  Long term financial consequences and mortalities will arguably be far greater and more difficult to pin blame on.

6. 'Save the NHS' as postponed many potentially life saving doctors appointments and operations - for example, 1 million mammograms have been cancelled which will lead to a significant number of preventable deaths.

7. Long term financial effects of lockdowns won't be seen for years, a recession - a deep one will cause untold misery and potentially deaths running into the many millions globally and saddle future generations with poor employment prospects and mounting debt.

8. Covid doesn't seem to be as deadly as initially feared. Unlike Spanish flu that attacked all ages Covid largely attacks the elderly and vulnerable.  Now we have better data we could let the masses return to work/life employing practical measures - masks, hand washing etc which will help to keep the economy moving whilst protecting the more vulnerable.

9. The key arguments are not whether lockdowns work but whether all countries can coordinate to make them work, how long citizens used to varying degrees of freedom will abide by restrictions and whether the short term benefits outweigh the long term costs.  Neither argument has all the winning answers you're gambling with lots of deaths now against fewer later or visa versa.

 

[maxjam]

22 minutes ago, Albert said:

At points I wonder why people make such comments without much research backing them. 

Heathrow is busy, no doubt, but in relative terms Australia is a very busy country in terms of air travel. 

Heathrow and Gatwick, the two biggest airports in the UK, shifted 80,888,305 and 46,576,473 passengers respectively in 2019. There's the other players like Manchester (29,397,357), Liverpool (28,124,292), Luton (18,216,207), Edinburg (14,737,497), are also quite notable. We can compare these with Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's two biggest (and Australia has a lot of airports), which had 44,446,838 and 37,490,978 respectively. Going through the other major players, there's Brisbane (24,114,833), Perth (~14.5 million), Adelaide (~8.5 million), Gold Coast (~6.4 million) etc. Not quite as large as the UK, but larger relative to the population. 

As to tourism, Australia gets around 9.3 million per year, compared to the UK's 39.2 million. Australia gets about 0.372 tourists per population per year, while the UK gets 0.588, so they do perform better here. That said, 24.8 million million of the UK's tourists in 2019 came from the EU. With that in mind, however, the bigger point is that travel with Asia initially, as tourism is virtually dead at this point in time, and should not be driving infections. To that end, it's worth noting that 5.2 million of Australia's tourists in 2019 were indeed from China, compared to 0.833 million for the UK. 

To put that another way, in the delicate stage at the start of the pandemic where it was spreading, but borders were not closed, it was indeed Australia that had the much higher risk profile. As noted before, much of this traffic was to and from East Asia, including Wuhan. Australia, unlike the UK, managed these risks effectively as Australia, unlike the UK, shut borders promptly, and put strong controls on early, despite knowing this would have an impact on its airline industry, which as noted shifts a larger volume of passengers per capita than the UKs. That really is the tradeoff though, and one that paid off for Australia. 

So what you're confirming is that the UK has approx 4x as many tourists as Australia? Which by the way equates for approx £150bn revenue for the UK but you're arguing that because Australia has more from Asia they were at greater risk?!?

FWIW a quick google search showed that Australia had approx twice as many visitors from China as the UK (rough figures 1m compared to 500k) not sure where you got 5m, I can only find 1.3m*) but the UK had approx 25m visitors from the EU which includes some of the largest covid hotspots in the world.  I think you're performing quite acrobatics to argue Australia had a higher risk than the UK tbh.

The UK typically has approaching 150m people passing through it every year but 'we're literally an island' so can simply close the borders.  No financial consequences there then what-so-ever then eh?

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Australia

 

 

[Albert]

22 minutes ago, maxjam said:

So what you're confirming is that the UK has approx 4x as many tourists as Australia? Which by the way equates for approx £150bn revenue for the UK but you're arguing that because Australia has more from Asia they were at greater risk?!?

FWIW a quick google search showed that Australia had approx twice as many visitors from China as the UK (rough figures 1m compared to 500k) not sure where you got 5m, I can only find 1.3m*) but the UK had approx 25m visitors from the EU which includes some of the largest covid hotspots in the world.  I think you're performing quite acrobatics to argue Australia had a higher risk than the UK tbh.

The UK typically has approaching 150m people passing through it every year but 'we're literally an island' so can simply close the borders.  No financial consequences there then what-so-ever then eh?

*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tourism_in_Australia

 

 

You're right, I've mixed up my tourism and visitors numbers from China, my mistake. 

Noting Europe as a 'Covid epicentre' is a bit of an odd argument to make in this instance, as tourism was already virtually dead by the time that Europe became the main epicentre. The UK has not gotten 25 million European visitors this year. As explained previously, the main concern with travel and Covid is in the period before we knew what it was, at which time Australia received much more travel from China, including direct air travel from Wuhan. To suggest that Australia, with strong travel links to the location of origin of the disease, did not have a worse risk profile is quite frankly absurd. 

As noted, Australia, per capita, saw a larger volume of air traffic prior to the pandemic. Australia did make the decision to lockdown the borders, and has reaped the benefits. What you are, in effect, arguing is that the UK's airline industry is more important than keeping the disease out. Given you've noted above things that simply can't happen as long as there are still so many active cases, like getting the NHS to focus on anything else, you're effectively saying that the airline industry is more important than public health and safety.