Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[existentialist]

It's less about clear messaging and more about the ongoing split bubbling along within the Tory party on this again.

The CRG etc. are clearly using the schools/children thing as a weak point to leverage getting things (the economy) 'back to normal' as soon as they can. Absolute pricks, when the fuck have they ever been bothered about disadvantaged children in the previous years?

It's a bitter irony that we're now enduring the mayhem of Brexit to appease the swivel-eyed tendency in the Tory Party, and, having got their way on that, the ERG seems to have morphed via the change of a single letter in their name, into the CRG, where they're fighting exactly the same libertarian-at-any-cost battle around Covid - so, while Brexit "only" kicked us in the financial and employment nuts, now they'd have us put our lives on the line for their implausible dreams.

It seems particularly shit that a party's internal rifts should be inflicted most directly on the people least able - unlike many of those egging it on - to cope with the consequences.

 

[elbows]

It's less about clear messaging and more about the ongoing split bubbling along within the Tory party on this again.

The CRG etc. are clearly using the schools/children thing as a weak point to leverage getting things (the economy) 'back to normal' as soon as they can. Absolute pricks, when the fuck have they ever been bothered about disadvantaged children in the previous years?

Nothing good will come from the enlarged rectum group mutating into the colossal rectum group. Unless it all blows up in their face.

 

[StoneRoad]

Is there no end to their stupidity ?

Mixed messaging causes people to think that their personal actions don't matter so much, hence the spreading from people who don't isolate, or wear masks etc when they should, nay, MUST, to combat the more virulent strains.

Was BoJo just trying to indicate that there was hope for light at the end of the tunnel ? because people will latch onto "relaxation of rules after mid/end February" and ignore that all-important "potential" - to assume he meant by the end of February.

 

[Petcha]

Prolly already been posted, but this morning's idiot. She actually stormed off

 

[elbows]

Some of the shits probably have an interest in their own narrow framing of the pandemic in order to distract from things like:

 

[Spandex]

It's interesting looking at the ONS data on Covid deaths by occupation (here).

You'd expect nursing and care workers to be badly hit, and they have been:

Nursing & Midwifery - 79.1 deaths per 100k
Caring Personal Services - 91.0 deaths per 100k

For comparison, Business & Finance Professionals are on 15.4 deaths per 100k

However, nursing & care aren't the hardest hit occupations.

Food Preparation & Hospitality Trades - 115.7 deaths per 100k

So much for pubs being safe. Makes the Eat Out to Spread It About scheme look less of a misjudgment and more like manslaughter by Rishi Sunak. That's just the workers, Managers & Proprietors in Hospitality & Leisure Services are also badly hit at 72.0 per 100k.

Keeping the building sites open has put Elementary Construction Operatives at 82.1 deaths per 100k.

But hardest hit is Elementary Process Plant Occupations at 143.2 deaths per 100k. Also badly hit are the related Plant & Machinary Operatives on 82.3 deaths per 100k. Seems there's an overlooked story in manufacturing

 

[editor]

Food Preparation & Hospitality Trades - 115.7 deaths per 100k

So much for pubs being safe.

I think you'd need to break the figures down a bit more before arriving at that conclusion.

 

[Spandex]

I think you'd need to break the figures down a bit more before arriving at that conclusion.

Fair comment, but that's as broken down as the figures go.

What do you think might account for the huge death toll in food preparation & hospitality? Are you suggesting the figure for kitchen staff might actually be much higher and bought down by a low number of bar staff catching Covid?

 

[editor]

Fair comment, but that's as broken down as the figures go.

What do you think might account for the huge death toll in food preparation & hospitality? Are you suggesting the figure for kitchen staff might actually be much higher and bought down by a low number of bar staff catching Covid?

I've no idea but I don't think it's wise to heap a ton of blame on the pub trade without any stats to back it up.

Unless there's some clarity as to what jobs are being included, it's quite difficult to arrive at any firm conclusions, but I would imagine - for example - the bigger food prep industries to be a grimmer affair.

Anecdotally, I don't know any bar staff who caught the virus while pubs were open - and I have a lot of friends in that industry - but clearly there is some risk associated with any public facing businesses.

 

[teuchter]

Do these numbers tell us about the risk associated with being in a job where you are expected to go to work instead of WFH, or do they tell us the risk inherent in doing that job?

Two different things.

 

[prunus]

It's interesting looking at the ONS data on Covid deaths by occupation (here).

You'd expect nursing and care workers to be badly hit, and they have been:

Nursing & Midwifery - 79.1 deaths per 100k
Caring Personal Services - 91.0 deaths per 100k

For comparison, Business & Finance Professionals are on 15.4 deaths per 100k

However, nursing & care aren't the hardest hit occupations.

Food Preparation & Hospitality Trades - 115.7 deaths per 100k

So much for pubs being safe. Makes the Eat Out to Spread It About scheme look less of a misjudgment and more like manslaughter by Rishi Sunak. That's just the workers, Managers & Proprietors in Hospitality & Leisure Services are also badly hit at 72.0 per 100k.

Keeping the building sites open has put Elementary Construction Operatives at 82.1 deaths per 100k.

But hardest hit is Elementary Process Plant Occupations at 143.2 deaths per 100k. Also badly hit are the related Plant & Machinary Operatives on 82.3 deaths per 100k. Seems there's an overlooked story in manufacturing

I'm not sure you're reading the tables quite right - the figures you are quoting are for men only - for instance the rate for nurses for women is 24.5 per 100k. As they're all (your numbers) for men the relative magnitudes are still comparable IU guess, but they're not the whole picture.

 

[Spandex]

I'm not sure you're reading the tables quite right - the figures you are quoting are for men only - for instance the rate for nurses for women is 24.5 per 100k. As they're all (your numbers) for men the relative magnitudes are still comparable IU guess, but they're not the whole picture.

You're right. I fucked that up Everybody ignore me

Still think it highlights an issue in manufacturing that hasn't really been talked about.

 

[Wilf]

Prolly already been posted, but this morning's idiot. She actually stormed off

I'm not always a fan of the shouty interruption style of interviewing - and morgan is a twat of course - but sometimes it works perfectly. James O'Brien on farage was the best I can remember of this genre. Destroying someone with the logic of the words they just used 3 seconds ago. Much less shouty, but the New Zealander *who interviewed trump was in the same ball park.

Edit: Aussie, Jonathan Swann. Couldn't remember his name so I search 'trump interview graphs'

 

[Wilf]

Is there no end to their stupidity ?

Mixed messaging causes people to think that their personal actions don't matter so much, hence the spreading from people who don't isolate, or wear masks etc when they should, nay, MUST, to combat the more virulent strains.

Was BoJo just trying to indicate that there was hope for light at the end of the tunnel ? because people will latch onto "relaxation of rules after mid/end February" and ignore that all-important "potential" - to assume he meant by the end of February.

The PM's messaging:

 

[weltweit]

..
But hardest hit is Elementary Process Plant Occupations at 143.2 deaths per 100k. Also badly hit are the related Plant & Machinary Operatives on 82.3 deaths per 100k. Seems there's an overlooked story in manufacturing

what is "Elementary Process Plant Occupations"?

 

[Wilf]

I've no idea but I don't think it's wise to heap a ton of blame on the pub trade without any stats to back it up.

Unless there's some clarity as to what jobs are being included, it's quite difficult to arrive at any firm conclusions, but I would imagine - for example - the bigger food prep industries to be a grimmer affair.

Anecdotally, I don't know any bar staff who caught the virus while pubs were open - and I have a lot of friends in that industry - but clearly there is some risk associated with any public facing businesses.

The blame is on the government for not providing fully funded self isolation or providing funds to keep the hospitality sector in a fully funded lockdown (along with eat out to help out, which was a piece of public health vandalism). However, it is still the case that those occupations are seeing the most risk/exposure/death.

 

[Spandex]

what is "Elementary Process Plant Occupations"?

Elementary Process Plant Occupations

Note: I fucked up the figures above - that's the numbers for males only.

 

[weltweit]

Elementary Process Plant Occupations
..

Sounds suitably grim :/

 

[teuchter]

Todays reported deaths are lower than last monday's, which is encouraging.

 

[Supine]

Elementary Process Plant Occupations

Note: I fucked up the figures above - that's the numbers for males only.

so basically all of the products you have delivered by Amazon, or get from supermarket shelves, are made by these people.

 

[andysays]

Here's the BBC's reporting of the ONS figures

Covid: Teachers 'not at higher risk' of death

These are the parts I found most interesting

The ONS looked at death rates from coronavirus in England and Wales between 9 March and 28 December 2020. It found 31 in every 100,000 working-age men and 17 in every 100,000 working-age women had died of Covid-19. This equated to just under 8,000 deaths among 20-64-year-olds.

But care workers, security guards and people working in certain manufacturing roles died at more than three times the rate of their peers. Two-thirds of deaths were among men.

As well as being more likely to be male, working-age people who died of Covid last year had other things in common: they were much more likely to work in jobs where they were either regularly exposed to known Covid cases or working in close proximity with other people more generally.

This isn't surprising, but it does suggest that working in close proximity with other people is inevitably risky, even if other mitigation measures are taken.

Many of the highest-risk jobs were also relatively low paid and may be more likely to be casual or insecure, without sick pay, including hospitality, care work and taxi driving.

And this isn't in the least surprising either, but it's certainly worth emphasising. Workers in low status jobs like these are at greater risk of dying as a result of coronavirus than than those in higher status professions such as teaching, despite the fact that more concern appears to have been expressed here and elsewhere about the risks to teachers.

 

[Espresso]

I see Hancock is addressing us at 5pm today. Let joy be unconfined.
More "incredibly important"s incoming.

 

[Petcha]

I'm not always a fan of the shouty interruption style of interviewing - and morgan is a twat of course - but sometimes it works perfectly. James O'Brien on farage was the best I can remember of this genre. Destroying someone with the logic of the words they just used 3 seconds ago. Much less shouty, but the New Zealander *who interviewed trump was in the same ball park.

Edit: Aussie, Jonathan Swann. Couldn't remember his name so I search 'trump interview graphs'

There was a New Zealander interviewer who decimated one of their version of the Tories last year, maybe you were thinking of her. It's painful.

 

[editor]

Hancock is so fucking punchable.

 

[editor]

592 deaths today.

 

[LDC]

Media starting to go on about lifting lockdown again. FFS, have they learnt nothing.

 

[existentialist]

Media starting to go on about lifting lockdown again. FFS, have they learnt nothing.

Nope.

But that, too, is a product of a vacillatory and inconsistent message from the government, from the start. Not that they wouldn't be maundering on about it anyway, but had the tone been set right in the first place, a serving prime minister would be able to tell them to get in line and shut the fuck up, and be fairly certain of having public opinion behind him. As it is, the media know they can sell papers by mimicking people's frustration, and hang the consequences.

 

[teqniq]

Media starting to go on about lifting lockdown again. FFS, have they learnt nothing.

It's all about keeping the wheels of capital turning, and the media are largely a willing accomplice.

 

[LDC]

Yeah, I know, rhetorical question. Cunts though, what a question when we have more people in ICU than ever before. Not to mention asking that instead of a question about holding the government to account for all the numerous horrendous fuck-ups they've made.

 

[Petcha]

Media starting to go on about lifting lockdown again. FFS, have they learnt nothing.

TBF, it was Boris who started that by claiming we could be coming out of in February. Why the fuck does he keep giving people false hope like this.