Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[xenon]

this is bizarre stuff. The idea that anyone who’s gone to the pub recently is ignorant, doesn’t read the news or is reckless.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I think other than being triggering the millions of school kids are a far more significant spreading vector than a few hundred protesters

Kids being in school serves a purpose. A horde of selfish fuckwits whinging about having to adjust their lifestyles in order to save thousands of lives on the other hand...

 

[killer b]

this is bizarre stuff. The idea that anyone who’s gone to the pub recently is ignorant, doesn’t read the news or is reckless.

it's true that most people don't pay much attention to the news though. Otherwise I agree.

 

[Miss-Shelf]

Hmm, if it's true that companies are giving the OK to come out of isolation based on the time the client states he thinks he noticed symptoms as oppossed to test date then that is very wrong and needs to be be sorted, I suspect its just that the guy is lying though and the screenshot is fabricated

Didnt mean to copy and paste that!

 

[xenon]

I should maybe read the news less, and stay in. It was pretty dead in the pub tonight actually.

 

[_Russ_]

I think you probably wanted to make a comment, Miss-Shelf?

 

[Wilf]

We’re not though. How many were double jabbed 12 months ago?

Well, we are and we aren't. Being double and triple vaxxed helps a lot and will cut back on hospitalisations. But if this wave/variant is as bad as it looks to be (and has such a high R rate), the number of hospitalisations could be just as bad.

 

[LDC]

I think the 'it's milder' thing has really caught too, so many people have said that to me recently. And it is just brought up on every news item pretty much, often by the presenter, and sometimes totally unchallenged. So no wonder people seem less bothered now.

 

[Wilf]

I think the 'it's milder' thing has really caught too, so many people have said that to me recently. And it is just brought up on every news item pretty much, often by the presenter, and sometimes totally unchallenged. So no wonder people seem less bothered now.

Yes, and if it is milder for some or even many people that presumably increases the number of people who won't realise they have it or will mistake it for a cold. All adding to the R rate and increasing the threat to both the NHS and vulnerable.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather get something that is mild and the idea of a 'milder' variant almost takes you in the direction of wanting to get it now to get some immunity. Almost, but not really, I know that's a bad idea, not least for my partner's pregnant daughter who I'll be seeing on Christmas Eve.

 

[editor]

this is bizarre stuff. The idea that anyone who’s gone to the pub recently is ignorant, doesn’t read the news or is reckless.

Suits the Tories' agenda a treat though, and helps them shift the blame to ordinary people doing ordinary things rather than elected twats committing colossal fucks ups with every move.

 

[Wilf]

Here's the latest No 10 party:

Boris Johnson and staff pictured with wine in Downing Street garden in May 2020

Exclusive: photograph raises fresh questions for No 10 after denial of a social event at time of Covid restrictions

www.theguardian.com

Must admit, I think this one's a bit less of an issue that the Christmas ones with people pissed up till the early hours. But anything that causes johnson a bit more pain and outrage is fine by me.

By the by, have we heard who the whistle blowers are yet? Presume some of them journalists who were at the various parties.

 

[two sheds]

Yes, and if it is milder for some or even many people that presumably increases the number of people who won't realise they have it or will mistake it for a cold. All adding to the R rate and increasing the threat to both the NHS and vulnerable.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather get something that is mild and the idea of a 'milder' variant almost takes you in the direction of wanting to get it now to get some immunity. Almost, but not really, I know that's a bad idea, not least for my partner's pregnant daughter who I'll be seeing on Christmas Eve.

yep waiting for pcr result and can't quite decide what I'm hoping for. Reasonably mild at the moment but getting out of breath a bit easily. If it's not covid I'm a bit concerned about what else it might be. Hopefully just a coldy type thing.

 

[elbows]

Brian May bought into a certain version of safe and making what seemed to him like reasonable judgements, and ended up catching it. Sounds like he regrets it.

Brian May says he ‘made wrong decision’ after catching Covid-19 at birthday gathering

Brian May says he ‘made wrong decision’ after catching Covid-19 at birthday gathering

www.independent.co.uk

 

[elbows]

Suits the Tories' agenda a treat though, and helps them shift the blame to ordinary people doing ordinary things rather than elected twats committing colossal fucks ups with every move.

They've never managed to shift that blame though because people blame them anyway. For the bad timing and for sending the wrong signals to the public via shitty contradictory public health messaging and now also via the whole parties stuff, the hypocrisy over not following rules thing.

 

[Wilf]

Brian May bought into a certain version of safe and making what seemed to him like reasonable judgements, and ended up catching it. Sounds like he regrets it.

Brian May says he ‘made wrong decision’ after catching Covid-19 at birthday gathering

Brian May says he ‘made wrong decision’ after catching Covid-19 at birthday gathering

www.independent.co.uk

Ah well, another one bites...

 

[Artaxerxes]

Honestly feels a bit traumatic remembering how I felt in spring 2020. It was knife edge stuff.

UK police warned against ‘overreach’ in use of virus lockdown powers

Exclusive: policing chiefs seek to set out legal powers forces have in coronavirus lockdown

www.theguardian.com

UK lockdown saw a spike in police Section 60 searches - with black people impacted the most

Ryan Colaço was stop and searched twice in one week, only for police to find nothing - he's one of 20,000 black men who have been victim to it over lockdown

inews.co.uk

 

[killer b]

They've never managed to shift that blame though because people blame them anyway.

Sure this wasn't true at first - it took Cummings' eye test to shift opinion on that. Polling throughout spring and early summer 2020 had the public firmly to blame for everything.

 

[pbsmooth]

Well, we are and we aren't. Being double and triple vaxxed helps a lot and will cut back on hospitalisations. But if this wave/variant is as bad as it looks to be (and has such a high R rate), the number of hospitalisations could be just as bad.

About 45% of over 12s are already triple vaxxed so we certainly want hospitalisations to be a lot lower otherwise the vaccine really isn't up to much and we are in trouble

 

[elbows]

Sure this wasn't true at first - it took Cummings' eye test to shift opinion on that. Polling throughout spring and early summer 2020 had the public firmly to blame for everything.

I dont agree at all. Tories still polling ok is not the same as the public being blamed for everything in the pandemic. People consistently worried here about such a blame game, and repeatedly thought they saw signs of the setup happening, but it never came to fruition. But that is slightly different to the question of whether plenty of people were able to also feel charitable towards how much shit the tories & Johnsons should get in for their pandemic handling. A lot of people were probably somewhat ok with things because of furlough etc, perceiving that their own economic interests had been at least partially protected by the extent of the financial measures the tories ended up having to take. Some also let the tories off for the first wave fuckups on the basis that it was a rapidly moving situation which included having to do stuff the government had not imagined previously. Still not the same as blaming the public for what happened.

 

[elbows]

About 45% of over 12s are already triple vaxxed so we certainly want hospitalisations to be a lot lower otherwise the vaccine really isn't up to much and we are in trouble

The nature of the numbers involved mean that vaccines can really still be hugely impressive and protect vast numbers of people, but large enough numbers of people could still get sick enough that the health system comes under immense pressure.

Thats why various experts are still nervous about the Omicron wave. Because it has the potential to infect a really large number of people, and then if protection from serious illness from that variant given by vaccines fell from a figure like 95% to a figure more like 80% the resulting numbers would be a big disaster. But they dont know whether those sorts of figures will turn out to be the right ones, and frankly they will only discover the real numbers by seeing the situation unfold for a greater period of time.

 

[killer b]

I dont agree at all. Tories still polling ok is not the same as the public being blamed for everything in the pandemic. People consistently worried here about such a blame game, and repeatedly thought they saw signs of the setup happening, but it never came to fruition. But that is slightly different to the question of whether plenty of people were able to also feel charitable towards how much shit the tories & Johnsons should get in for their pandemic handling. A lot of people were probably somewhat ok with things because of furlough etc, perceiving that their own economic interests had been at least partially protected by the extent of the financial measures the tories ended up having to take. Some also let the tories off for the first wave fuckups on the basis that it was a rapidly moving situation which included having to do stuff the government had not imagined previously. Still not the same as blaming the public for what happened.

I meant the polling about who was to blame for infection rates etc blamed the public not the government - it made pretty depressing reading. I'll see if I can dig out some of the polls later.

 

[weepiper]

Here's the latest No 10 party:

Boris Johnson and staff pictured with wine in Downing Street garden in May 2020

Exclusive: photograph raises fresh questions for No 10 after denial of a social event at time of Covid restrictions

www.theguardian.com

Must admit, I think this one's a bit less of an issue that the Christmas ones with people pissed up till the early hours. But anything that causes johnson a bit more pain and outrage is fine by me.

By the by, have we heard who the whistle blowers are yet? Presume some of them journalists who were at the various parties.

I have seen a number of tweets such as this one explaining why this picture is just as much an issue as the Christmas booze-ups

 

[Wilf]

The nature of the numbers involved mean that vaccines can really still be hugely impressive and protect vast numbers of people, but large enough numbers of people could still get sick enough that the health system comes under immense pressure.

Thats why various experts are still nervous about the Omicron wave. Because it has the potential to infect a really large number of people, and then if protection from serious illness from that variant given by vaccines fell from a figure like 95% to a figure more like 80% the resulting numbers would be a big disaster. But they dont know whether those sorts of figures will turn out to be the right ones, and frankly they will only discover the real numbers by seeing the situation unfold for a greater period of time.

And for those reasons, however weary everyone is, however much people want something like a normal Christmas and to see family, this is yet another crucial moment for some kind of precautionary principle to be applied.

 

[Wilf]

yep waiting for pcr result and can't quite decide what I'm hoping for. Reasonably mild at the moment but getting out of breath a bit easily. If it's not covid I'm a bit concerned about what else it might be. Hopefully just a coldy type thing.

Hope you are feeling better soon, whatever it turns out to be.

 

[Wilf]

I have seen a number of tweets such as this one explaining why this picture is just as much an issue as the Christmas booze-ups

Yeah, it was the same time I buried my Mum, under those funeral restrictions. She'd just died in a care home with staff doing heroics with very basic PPE and I'd only managed to see her through the window. Told I could go in and see her on the morning she died but I arrived too late. So yeah, fuck johnson and all the sorry shite of them.

 

[Wilf]

Yeah, it was the same time I buried my Mum, under those funeral restrictions. She'd just died in a care home with staff doing heroics with very basic PPE and I'd only managed to see her through the window. Told I could go in and see her on the morning she died but I arrived too late. So yeah, fuck johnson and all the sorry shite of them.

And having gone back to the Guardian story, I can see they were having drinks and pizza in the garden on the very same day she died alone.

 

[killer b]

I dont agree at all. Tories still polling ok is not the same as the public being blamed for everything in the pandemic. People consistently worried here about such a blame game, and repeatedly thought they saw signs of the setup happening, but it never came to fruition. But that is slightly different to the question of whether plenty of people were able to also feel charitable towards how much shit the tories & Johnsons should get in for their pandemic handling. A lot of people were probably somewhat ok with things because of furlough etc, perceiving that their own economic interests had been at least partially protected by the extent of the financial measures the tories ended up having to take. Some also let the tories off for the first wave fuckups on the basis that it was a rapidly moving situation which included having to do stuff the government had not imagined previously. Still not the same as blaming the public for what happened.

Here - this is from September last year, as we were firing into the second wave, but there was similar polls showing similar (or worse) numbers throughout

 

[Wilf]

Apparently neither johnson nor sunak attended today's Cobra meeting.

Boris Johnson skips Cobra meeting as decision over Christmas restrictions goes unmade

www.msn.com

 

[elbows]

Here - this is from September last year, as we were firing into the second wave, but there was similar polls showing similar (or worse) numbers throughout

Thanks for the info. Other polls with somewhat different angles are available.

Coronavirus fallout: blame, trust and the future of the UK

www.kcl.ac.uk

The handling of the crisis

By 42% to 36%, the UK public are more likely to think the pandemic has been handled badly than well.

There is a big partisan divide in opinion, with 2019 Labour voters (60%) three times more likely than 2019 Conservative voters (21%) to say it has been mismanaged.

Who gets the blame?

The following groups are seen as among the three or four most responsible according to those who think the crisis has been handled badly:

The UK government as a whole (70%)
The Prime Minister (65%)
Members of the UK public who are not following guidance (55%)
The Conservative party (41%)
Scientific advisors to the government (15%)

Those who think the crisis has been handled badly are divided along party lines when it comes to who is most culpable:

Labour voters are much more likely than Conservative voters to blame the Prime Minister (78% vs 35%), the UK government as a whole (73% vs 58%) and the Conservative party (57% vs 16%).

By contrast, Conservative voters are much more likely to blame the scientific advisors to the government (32% vs 12%), global health organisations like the WHO (29% vs 8%) and Public Health England (23% vs 5%).

Who gets the credit?

The following groups are seen as among the three or four most responsible according to those who think the crisis has been handled well:

The NHS (72%)
Members of the UK public who are following guidance (51%)
Scientific advisors to the UK government (46%)
The UK government as a whole (39%)
Public Health England (33%)

Conservative voters who think the crisis has been handled well give more of the credit to the health service (74%), scientific advisers (53%) and rule-following members of the public (53%) than they do the government (43%), the Prime Minister (36%) or their party (18%).

 

[Calamity1971]

Latest rumours apparently leaked to the times that there will be a lockdown day after boxing day. After the horse has bolted again.