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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

Thora said:
I've just got back from Morrisons and estimate it's gone from 90% mask wearing to maybe 75-80%.
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Went to Morrison's today at it was the same. Hope it keeps at that level. I reckon there will be a tipping-point somewhere where if it gets below a certain percentage people who want to wear masks will start feeling self-conscious and the whole thing will collapse.
 
platinumsage said:
What Equity is asking for is entirely reasonable given we had the fucking Euro championships and have opened up nightclubs. Suggesting that theatre performers ought to be able to form a bubble or take daily tests instead of cancelling their work for the foreseeable is not irresponsible.
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I'm not going to enter the race to the bottom where other terrible things that shouldnt have been allowed are held up as reasons why some other slightly lesser shit should be looked at as proportionate and responsible.

When even this shit government feel they are not in a position to offer alternatives to self isolation to a broad swathe of people yet, I am not inclined to think such things a good idea.

File this stuff under 'stuff that maybe could have stood a chance of being done sensibly by now if we had done other things to keep the overall levels of infection down, minimise the amount of seeding of Delta, etc'

I've got no sympathy for people whose policy preferences invited a vast wave of infection, who then moan about the cost of all the disruption that inevitably then comes with a huge wave.

Its like the unforgivable pingdemic propaganda - fuck anyone who tries to sell that angle, who sees the demolishing of self-isolation rules as a suitable solution. No, the solution was not to let levels of infection reach anything like the absurd and tragic levels they are at now.
 
And if 'test them instead of forcing them to self isolate' envisaged involves the appropriate use of PCR tests instead of the inappropriate use of lateral flow tests, then just imagine how many daily PCR tests would be required right now to use in that system. Rather a lot, no chance of doing that with the system under such strain at the moment from the silly number of infections and number of people self-isolating. These workarounds dont scale up well beyond a certain point, and this wave has violated such limits big time.

There will come a time where some of these aspects will either be abandoned or where the size of waves will be expected to be modest enough that the testing system can cope. Then such businesses do stand a chance of engaging in stuff closer to the old reality. That time is not now, so the government have pushed a bit towards it without trying to get all te way there. When things give them reason to be more confident, they will push further. If it wasnt for Delta we'd probably be in that moment already, but we arent, and whichever solutions people come up with, this summer would still not resemble normality for many people and sectors, especially in entertainment.
 
elbows said:
I'm not going to enter the race to the bottom where other terrible things that shouldnt have been allowed are held up as reasons why some other slightly lesser shit should be looked at as proportionate and responsible.

When even this shit government feel they are not in a position to offer alternatives to self isolation to a broad swathe of people yet, I am not inclined to think such things a good idea.

File this stuff under 'stuff that maybe could have stood a chance of being done sensibly by now if we had done other things to keep the overall levels of infection down, minimise the amount of seeding of Delta, etc'

I've got no sympathy for people whose policy preferences invited a vast wave of infection, who then moan about the cost of all the disruption that inevitably then comes with a huge wave.

Its like the unforgivable pingdemic propaganda - fuck anyone who tries to sell that angle, who sees the demolishing of self-isolation rules as a suitable solution. No, the solution was not to let levels of infection reach anything like the absurd and tragic levels they are at now.
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Given how the furlough scheme shafted theaters, it has been entirely appropriate throughout for the unions and sector to lobby government to find a way to make things work. Equity aren't responsible for the availability of testing, that's entirely on the government, and Webber and the union aren't cunts for asking for this particular thing right now. That's like saying unions shouldn't ask for pay rises during a recession.
 
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weltweit said:
So apparently the plan is that people who have been double vaccinated will not be required to isolate if they have been in contact with an infected person but rather will need to do daily tests.

Perhaps I have been on another planet, but double vaccinated people can still become infected and can still transmit the virus to others. So why are they not being asked to isolate like anyone else who comes into contact with an infected person?
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🤣 You think that's crazy, try living in the Isle of man. Here the government have now said no close contacts (regardless of vaccination status) need to isolate or get tested (although they do recommend it🙄) Cases are going mental ☹️
 
platinumsage said:
Given how the furlough scheme shafted theaters, it has been entirely appropriate throughout for the unions and sector to lobby government to find a way to make things work. Equity aren't responsible for the availability of testing, that's entirely on the government, and Weber and the union aren't cunts for asking for this particular thing right now. That's like saying unions shouldn't ask for pay rises during a recession.
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I support lobbying for better pandemic bailouts. Its been rare for me to support lobbying for weaker restrictions that are a threat to public health in a pandemic. And opportunities for me to move to a more nuanced stance on this have been squandered by poor action in regards variants, timing of relaxations, and failures to mitigate spread properly in settings such as schools.

Vaccines etc will probably still get us to a point where I can shift my stance on this quite a bit. But this time around with infections at the current levels, my sympathy towards people affected by the disruption forms an intense but relatively narrow beam and the stuff you are on about falls well outside of that beam.
 
I'm also in no mood for that debate right now because its bad enough that we've reached a point where the government has been prepared to fiddle with those rules when it comes to various sorts of essential workers.

I have to accept that stuff when it reaches the point that essential workers are desperately thin on the ground, again due to the stupid size of this wave, because otherwise more harm than good can result. But its still a desperation move and a sign of failure, and I cannot sensibly consider extending that to non-essential workers at this moment of near-maximum pressure. Some priorities still have to trump others. Later more will be possible, but not now.

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: Isolation rules loosened for critical workers

People performing "critical" tasks including air traffic controllers will still be able to work under new rules.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
elbows said:
I'm also in no mood for that debate right now because its bad enough that we've reached a point where the government has been prepared to fiddle with those rules when it comes to various sorts of essential workers.

I have to accept that stuff when it reaches the point that essential workers are desperately thin on the ground, again due to the stupid size of this wave, because otherwise more harm than good can result. But its still a desperation move and a sign of failure, and I cannot sensibly consider extending that to non-essential workers at this moment of near-maximum pressure. Some priorities still have to trump others. Later more will be possible, but not now.

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: Isolation rules loosened for critical workers

People performing "critical" tasks including air traffic controllers will still be able to work under new rules.
www.bbc.co.uk
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Good for you not being able to consider extending it to other workers, doesn’t make those workers cunts for asking the government though does it?
 
went to sainsburys this evening (wokingham-ish) - mask wearing seemed about the same level as it has been for the last few months. one or two non-masked with visible sunflower lanyards, one or two non-masked who may consider themselves exempt through being twats.
 
platinumsage said:
Good for you not being able to consider extending it to other workers, doesn’t make those workers cunts for asking the government though does it?
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Lloyd Webber is a cunt. Sacha Lord the Manchester nighttime economy advisor is a cunt. Others I would have to review on a per case basis. I'd certainly want to check with each of then whether they understand that self-isolation is one of the few big pandemic brakes that have been left in place for this phase, before judging whether they are being a cunt at this stage of the pandemic.

Its understandable that people moan about the disruption at this stage but that disruption is an inevitable consequence of being sold a lie about freedom day which was incompatible with Delta and our levels of vaccination/immunity.

If I had any power over policy then very many workers would have been affected by the fact that I did not agree with step 3 of the roadmap, let alone step 4, when faced with Delta.
 
Abandoning social distancing and masks, allowing clubbing - an active policy of mass infection or some twisted libertarian strand that adds up to the same. I take the point that this follows on from all the other failures and has a certain logic to it, but only in the way the Mai Lai massacre did. So, we've got the NHS struggling alongside the return of forms of leisure and consumption that will make things clearly and obviously worse. I'm relieved to hear people are still mask wearing, but my question is whether there is any way out from this other than waiting for chaos and death to lead to a u-turn? Labour are an irrelevance and the unions will only have an impact on workplaces where they are strong. I'm not even looking for collective action, there doesn't even seem to be any politicised or critical public opinion. I do get a sense that if they have to lock down again in a month, johnson will take a hit, but he's more frightened of his backbanchers than anything we can mobilise. Fuck. :(
 
Wilf said:
Abandoning social distancing and masks, allowing clubbing - an active policy of mass infection or some twisted libertarian strand that adds up to the same. I take the point that this follows on from all the other failures and has a certain logic to it, but only in the way the Mai Lai massacre did. So, we've got the NHS struggling alongside the return of forms of leisure and consumption that will make things clearly and obviously worse. I'm relieved to hear people are still mask wearing, but my question is whether there is any way out from this other than waiting for chaos and death to lead to a u-turn? Labour are an irrelevance and the unions will only have an impact on workplaces where they are strong. I'm not even looking for collective action, there doesn't even seem to be any politicised or critical public opinion. I do get a sense that if they have to lock down again in a month, johnson will take a hit, but he's more frightened of his backbanchers than anything we can mobilise. Fuck. :(
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What you probably need to imagine is one of the scenarios I keep going on about more in recent weeks.

I dont want to repeat all my usual words about it - just imagine this wave peaks at some point in the coming weeks, and what that will do to the politics and the mood music. Peak timing is a subject which did come up in todays press conference too. A peak without requiring a lockdown to induce it is the prize the tory regime currently seeks.

There is some strong public opinion out there. Whats missing to turn that into impetus for large, dramatic action, is the ultimate sense of what the worst case scenario was, what the stakes were. eg if this was a pandemic where really huge numbers of people who arent so old were dying, then it becomes easier to imagine scenarios where people would more overtly take matters into their own hands in terms of what pressure they placed on the regime. But then in those circumstances the regimes own calculations would likely have ended up different to what they actually went for.

Since this pandemic does not live up to those parameters, what we've mostly seen from opposition is a sort of delay and unwillingness to press too hard that in many ways mirrors the governments own reluctance to act properly in this pandemic. eg opposition waiting till its too late to do anything about it before condemning the government plans. The time to oppose having a wave this big was before we did step 3, months ago now! And even the likes of Indie SAGE try to stick to things that sound more palatable to people, I dont recall them demanding that step 3 not go ahead. They were more comfortable calling for sensible stuff that was likely not enough on its own, like better mitigation measures in schools.
 
Just watched the F1 at Silverstone. Spectators crammed in like sardines and barely a mask in sight. The pandemic is officially over... Or has it just started, again.
 
cupid_stunt said:
So, 60% of hospital admissions are people double jabbed, according to Vallance.

It would be nice to see stats on ages, other conditions, etc.
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He fucked the stat up.

Modelling has changed a bit over time as to what proportions to expect in this regard, so I dont have a particular number in mind myself right now. The number he came out with is probably a fair fit for where they previously thought things might be at in this regard, but I'll have to remind myself what the most recent modelling expected.

There will eventually be more stats detail like you want, but such things emerge very slowly, usually only cover a proportion of cases, or dont contain all those variables you are interested in in the same study, table etc.

Anyway, the Vallance correction:

 
Wilf said:
Still, it's not a great thought though. As exposure rockets, which is the phase we are in now, the number of doubly vaccinated people who go on to be significantly ill (whether requiring hospitalisation or not) will be significant.
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Which you'd kind of expect because we deliberately prioritised those more likely to get ill for the jabs.
 
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