Coronavirus

[ariotofmyown]

1 hour ago, Pearl Ram said:

Sorry, no. I have a lot of pride in who I work for and what I do. We’ll leave it there mind. ?

Haha, it sounded like a tabloid story about kids sharing chewing gum!

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Eddie said:

As opposed to you supporting measures to put even more people in the ground.

What measures are they?

I support using social distancing and masks, which you have told us on numerous occasions stop the virus from spreading. 

If I support a measure that stops the virus from spreading how does that lead to more people in the ground?

[Gone]

32 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

That maybe true but pretty much every government in the world, based on what the scientists and medical experts have advised them, seem to think measures are/were required. Frankly, I'd rather trust what seems to be the overwhelming opinion of those with medical/scientific training than us quasi "experts" on this forum or social media. 

I think we’d do a better job to be honest 

[Tamworthram]

51 minutes ago, TexasRam said:

I think we’d do a better job to be honest 

Bit like football referees. We think we could all do a better job but it’s no doubt far more difficult than we all to think.

[Gone]

3 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

Bit like football referees. We think we could all do a better job but it’s no doubt far more difficult than we all to think.

I think I’d be better at that as well judging some of the decisions I’ve seen this year ?

[Guest]

35 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

Bit like football referees. We think we could all do a better job but it’s no doubt far more difficult than we all to think.

Its an absolutely awful situation to be trying to navigate but they have done themselves absolutely no favours.

If there was a general election tomorrow there is no way I could vote for the current set up again.

 

[Sith Happens]

The number of cases from yesterday is 35000 as its discovered the Welsh were counting sheep instead of counting positive covid cases. 

I said counting not sh***ing. ?

[Albert]

7 hours ago, Ghost of Clough said:

If 700 cases in single day is out of control, then what is 100k+ cases a day for a prolonged period of time? ?

You also have to consider scale a bit when comparing. It was out of control in Melbourne, within the ring fenced region, which has a population of ~5 million, compared to the UK, which has a population of 66.65 million. 

You also need to compare apples with apples in such a discussion. The assumption you're running with is that Victoria caught 100% of cases when things got out of hand, which clearly isn't going to be true. It's hard to get a direct and fair comparison, but the figures we should be comparing is that 715 and 33,470 figures, ie the peaks for both. The UK has a population 13.3 times the size of Melbourne, so the real comparison should be the 33,470 figure to 9531, ie the scaled figure. We could also do it in terms of infections per 100,000. It wasn't until recently that the UK was getting figures of 10k and above in this second wave, and I'd describe the situation are remaining out of control over there. 

That said, I get the concern around the comparison between the likely cases as based on other means. We can scale the peak deaths for Melbourne, which was 59, so for a population the size of the UK that would be 787 deaths. This implies that the UK's first peak was worse than Melbourne's second wave, which peaked out at 1124 deaths in a day, but this second wave hasn't reached the same level. What is interesting here is that it implies that the UK's testing protocols have vastly improved in the interim, which we can see in the testing figures as well. 

[Tamworthram]

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

Its an absolutely awful situation to be trying to navigate but they have done themselves absolutely no favours.

If there was a general election tomorrow there is no way I could vote for the current set up again.

 

Can’t argue with that but we don’t know if the alternative would have done any better.

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

Can’t argue with that but we don’t know if the alternative would have done any better.

Yeah Ive certainly not seen any alternative suggestions put forward that I think would have led us down a different path.

[Albert]

2 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Yeah Ive certainly not seen any alternative suggestions put forward that I think would have led us down a different path.

Closing borders, more strict quarantine requirements, going for elimination and using testing and tracing as in all places. All were possible, particularly given the UK is, you know, on islands. 

[Tamworthram]

2 minutes ago, Albert said:

Closing borders, more strict quarantine requirements, going for elimination and using testing and tracing as in all places. All were possible, particularly given the UK is, you know, on islands. 

It’s easy for someone to suggest a better test and trace policy but it doesn’t mean they could have delivered it.

Closing borders and stricter quarantine also sounds like a good approach but would another party have implemented it?

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Albert said:

Closing borders, more strict quarantine requirements, going for elimination and using testing and tracing as in all places. All were possible, particularly given the UK is, you know, on islands. 

Given that:-

(a) Our economy relies on being a global travel hub

(b) Cases were probably into the tens of thousands before we realised how big the problem was

(c) We did not have a competent test and trace system in place 

(d) The public value their freedom over here 

They are not really viable solutions, even in hindsight.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Tamworthram said:

It’s easy for someone to suggest a better test and trace policy but it doesn’t mean they could have delivered it.

Closing borders and stricter quarantine also sounds like a good approach but would another party have implemented it?

Exactly.

Pie in the sky suggestions.

If I wanted to keep control of the virus I would have closed Chinas borders as soon as we heard of the virus.

[Andicis]

7 minutes ago, Albert said:

Closing borders, more strict quarantine requirements, going for elimination and using testing and tracing as in all places. All were possible, particularly given the UK is, you know, on islands. 

Here we go again, Albert is starting yet another circular argument that he's very well aware doesn't work at all. Elimination is not a viable strategy in the UK without a vaccine. Being an Island like New Zealand when you're in the middle of nowhere is very different from being an Island 21 miles away from mainland Europe, as you already well know. You ruin the good points you make when you repeatedly come back to die on this hill.

[Dean (hick) Saunders]

2 hours ago, G STAR RAM said:

Its an absolutely awful situation to be trying to navigate but they have done themselves absolutely no favours.

If there was a general election tomorrow there is no way I could vote for the current set up again.

 

I don’t think I could vote for current either, but within “current” I am including all the other Westminster parties. They would be equally as Shiite.

Vote for Olive (my cat).

 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Dean (hick) Saunders said:

I don’t think I could vote for current either, but within “current” I am including all the other Westminster parties. They would be equally as Shiite.

Vote for Olive (my cat)

Can she deliver Bxxxxt?

[ariotofmyown]

This is worrying and presumably unexpected by many who kept maintaining there was not a problem with hospitals and it was like any other flu year...

"According to the NHS figures, hospitals had to tell ambulance crews to divert patients elsewhere 44 times last week – the highest number for four years."

[ariotofmyown]

50 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

Can’t argue with that but we don’t know if the alternative would have done any better.

It would have been hard to do much worse though.

Regardless of political opinions, the people in charge surely need to be competent and organised, with a decent communication style and able to portray at least an illusion that they are capable of making decisions.

These are criteria that the management team of a medium sized company need. You want pretty exceptional people to be in charge of a country.

[ariotofmyown]

31 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Can she deliver Bxxxxt?

We want to be simultaneously in, and out, of Europe. We need Schrödinger's cat.