Boris Johnson tests positive for Covid-19

[bimble]

This 'he's a fighter' bollocks also helps prop up an illusion that the PM has somehow still got agency and control at this point, of his own body but also of anything at all.

 

[frogwoman]

Yep. Totally agree. As if being ill means you're a weakling. I hate that attitude. I worked with someone who knew I was unwell. She used to turn to me every fucking day and say "your health is your wealth". My brain couldn't fucking compute that and it did get to the stage where I eventually turned on her and told her to fuck off. She was mortally wounded as I pointed out to her that my health was none of her fucking business and considering as I was earning a shitload more than her that her daily throw away shit comment was deeply flawed.

As for Raab? He's a dope.

Used to work with someone who claimed she never had sick days. Until she was in bed with flu for 5 days.

 

[planetgeli]

A lot of cancer survivors are equally annoyed by it. They'll know full well that they were lucky and not 'strong' or 'brave' or any of that shit, about which sickness gives not the tiniest fuck.

FWIW, and it's probably just me, but, as a cancer patient myself, I'm not too keen on the 'survivor' label either. I've certainly been labelled it and eulogised for it. I did nothing outside of make a couple of ok choices. HCW did everything. It's also a term that makes cancer a defining part of you. Don't like it, sorry.

 

[Ladystardust]

FWIW, and it's probably just me, but, as a cancer patient myself, I'm not too keen on the 'survivor' label either.

Not just you

 

[SpookyFrank]

FWIW, and it's probably just me, but, as a cancer patient myself, I'm not too keen on the 'survivor' label either. I've certainly been labelled it and eulogised for it. I did nothing outside of make a couple of ok choices. HCW did everything. It's also a term that makes cancer a defining part of you. Don't like it, sorry.

Rather than try and find a suitable form of words I'll just delete the whole thing. Not really my place to speak for others in this context anyway. My apologies.

 

[planetgeli]

Rather than try and find a suitable form of words I'll just delete the whole thing. Not really my place to speak for others in this context anyway. My apologies.

No need mate, honestly. I know you meant no harm.

 

[platinumsage]

Update due from the hospital around 1pm

 

[Johnny Doe]

No need mate, honestly. I know you meant no harm.

This is not the sort of behaviour one expects on the internet!

 

[Pickman's model]

This is not the sort of behaviour one expects on the internet!

The auld certainties no longer hold true

 

[Aladdin]

This may seem callous. I cant but think of Boris in ICU having to listen to the final breaths of dying patients and face the fact that he was too up his own arse about herd immunity to put a decent plan of action in place until it was very nearly too late.
Will he be a changed man after this? Will he ever see that he and his advisors were wrong and made grave mistakes that have cost lives?

 

[Pickman's model]

This may seem callous. I cant but think of Boris in ICU having to listen to the final breaths of dying patients and face the fact that he was too up his own arse about herd immunity to put a decent plan of action in place until it was very nearly too late.
Will he be a changed man after this? Will he ever see that he and his advisors were wrong and made grave mistakes that have cost lives?

He'll more likely be feeling sorry for himself

 

[existentialist]

This may seem callous. I cant but think of Boris in ICU having to listen to the final breaths of dying patients and face the fact that he was too up his own arse about herd immunity to put a decent plan of action in place until it was very nearly too late.
Will he be a changed man after this? Will he ever see that he and his advisors were wrong and made grave mistakes that have cost lives?

I think that one of the defining characteristics of most politicians is the ability not to experience empathy, which gets in the way if you're involved in a naked grab for power, scaling hills of skulls along the way. There are empathic politicians, but by and large it mitigates against them scaling the loftier heights. Of course, what they are good at - to varying degrees - is looking like they're being empathic.

I think we can probably assume that Johnson is likely to score pretty low on empathy.

 

[Cid]

This may seem callous. I cant but think of Boris in ICU having to listen to the final breaths of dying patients and face the fact that he was too up his own arse about herd immunity to put a decent plan of action in place until it was very nearly too late.
Will he be a changed man after this? Will he ever see that he and his advisors were wrong and made grave mistakes that have cost lives?

Pretty sure he’s got a room to himself.

 

[Smangus]

I was going to say he's not renowned for his empathy, look at his reaction to the photo of the kid in hospital. This is hard wired into him.

 

[maomao]

They're probably trying to keep him off the ventilator as long as possible because they know that as soon as he's tubed up he's out of the game for a few months minimum.

 

[Spymaster]

FWIW, and it's probably just me, but, as a cancer patient myself, I'm not too keen on the 'survivor' label either.

Thing is Gel, I don't think it's about the actual sufferers. It's a way that humans have developed of talking to each other about sick or dying people that makes them feel more comfortable without having to put too much thought into the situation. All of the clichés; "fighter", "survivor"; see also "brave" and "courageous", usually appended to sick kids, as if they had a choice in what was going on. Platitudes, by definition meaningless. Just indelicate throwaway lines like the bloody awful "be strong" to grieving relatives. They are worthless and should simply be humoured or, better still, contempuously ignored, rather than timewastingly dissected for any genuine meaning.

 

[Pickman's model]

Thing is Gel, I don't think it's about the actual sufferers. It's a way that humans have developed of talking to each other about sick or dying people that makes them feel more comfortable without having to put too much thought into the situation. All of the clichés "fighter", "survivor", see also "brave" and "courageous" usually appended to sick kids as if they had a choice in what was going on. They're just indelicate throwaway lines like the bloody awful "be strong" to grieving relatives, and should be treated as such and pretty much ignored rather than disected for genuine meaning.

He says after assigning meaning

 

[Aladdin]

He'll more likely be feeling sorry for himself

I think that one of the defining characteristics of most politicians is the ability not to experience empathy, which gets in the way if you're involved in a naked grab for power, scaling hills of skulls along the way. There are empathic politicians, but by and large it mitigates against them scaling the loftier heights. Of course, what they are good at - to varying degrees - is looking like they're being empathic.

I think we can probably assume that Johnson is likely to score pretty low on empathy.

Yeah. You're right.
For a while I forgot he's not like most ordinary people who have a conscience and a sense of empathy.

 

[The39thStep]

Lots of details in that, but not without contradictions in narrative either, such as "The catalyst for a policy reversal came on March 16 with the publication of a report by Neil Ferguson’s Imperial College team. .....[yet].........Imperial’s prediction of over half a million deaths was no different from the report by the government’s own pandemic modelling committee two weeks earlier." There are other headscratching examples in it that suggest things unknown and unsaid.

There's a lot of murk in this episode, a public enquiry wouldn't unpick it either.

I think I am prefering that complex if sometimes contradictory narrative rather than this is all the work of a shadowy evil genius over ruling expert medical opinion type explainations tbh.

 

[brogdale]

He'll more likely be feeling sorry for himself

For being placed amongst such losers/quitters

 

[Sprocket.]

FWIW, and it's probably just me, but, as a cancer patient myself, I'm not too keen on the 'survivor' label either. I've certainly been labelled it and eulogised for it. I did nothing outside of make a couple of ok choices. HCW did everything. It's also a term that makes cancer a defining part of you. Don't like it, sorry.

This, 100%, well said, nuff said.

 

[fakeplasticgirl]

This may seem callous. I cant but think of Boris in ICU having to listen to the final breaths of dying patients and face the fact that he was too up his own arse about herd immunity to put a decent plan of action in place until it was very nearly too late.
Will he be a changed man after this? Will he ever see that he and his advisors were wrong and made grave mistakes that have cost lives?

This suggests a level of introspection and self awareness I’m not sure Boris has.

 

[TopCat]

FWIW, and it's probably just me, but, as a cancer patient myself, I'm not too keen on the 'survivor' label either. I've certainly been labelled it and eulogised for it. I did nothing outside of make a couple of ok choices. HCW did everything. It's also a term that makes cancer a defining part of you. Don't like it, sorry.

Agreed. I prefer snarky cunt for myself.

 

[maomao]

The least likely outcome here is Boris becoming a better person as a result of exposure to others' hard work and suffering. If he comes back it'll all be about his suffering. And it'll be insufferable.

 

[klang]

.

the point is that he's likely to be in a bad way.

 

[The39thStep]

This is interesting
Edit: someone has posted this above too

Special Report: Johnson listened to his scientists about coronavirus - but they were slow to sound the alarm

It was early spring when British scientists laid out the bald truth to their government. It was "highly likely," they said, that there was now "sustained transmission" of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom.

mobile.reuters.com

I found it fascinating and far more plausible than some of the very simplified but understandable knee jerk claims that herd immunity was just the work of Johnson and Cummimgs overuling expert advice. It also shows that their were contradictory opinions amongst experts and that some of those opinions were contextualised by the experts themselves into what would be politically and socially acceptable responses.

 

[Teaboy]

If he doesn't pull through whats the chance of the government attempting a hilarious Weekend at Bernie's strategy?

 

[BassJunkie]

Probably not as far as zero, though if he did die, it would be typical of this government to spend at least a day using misleading euphemisms before admitting it.

"His temperature has dropped significantly, he's no longer in the intensive care unit, there is no further risk of pneumonia, and he does not require oxygen."

 

[brogdale]

I found it fascinating and far more plausible than some of the very simplified but understandable knee jerk claims that herd immunity was just the work of Johnson and Cummimgs overuling expert advice. It also shows that their were contradictory opinions amongst experts and that some of those opinions were contextualised by the experts themselves into what would be politically and socially acceptable responses.

Yes, importantly it demonstrated that the simplistic linear, one-way flow of advice from scientists --> politicians presented by the Johnson regime is false. Clearly the various committees charged with proffering advice were working within politically determined assumptions.

 

[SpookyFrank]

If he doesn't pull through whats the chance of the government attempting a hilarious Weekend at Bernie's strategy?

I'd be ok with that. Dead Boris would probably be better at his job than Alive Boris.