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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

There's just so much to despise, isn't there - beyond people going out.
The acknowledgment yesterday and today that SSP payments are too low to live on (Hancock agreeing, Gove swiftly moving on from the question today, the cunt), UC having been adjusted upwards, by £20 a week, even to meet that shitty rate...like it was ok before?
I'm frustrated at people not taking measures which are comparitvely easier, for a time, when our health system is so overwhelmed because it's been so deliberately run down, when there are staff there working themselves into the ground, without any remotely safe precautions in place for themselves, where that inevitably reflects on their capabilities to save lives - when money and magic IS so easily found, when acknowledgments ARE made in light of this. Homelessness, DV, it's all shot out into the light. What went before and what comes later are important. In the meantime, there are things we can do, though and it's not having fucking picnics or driving off to 'secluded' places and we shouldn't need policing in that.
 
It is so easy to whip up hate at the moment... I think this will be a conscious decision, to prepare the grounds for the general public being 'to blame' when numbers continue to rise. In todays frankly unbelieveable press briefing, this deflection was used (by Gove) in textbook style. After his medical colleague went off piste, mentioning the words 'avoiding the question', not once but twice, Gove swiftly swooped in with some irrelevant guff (answering nothing). When the journalist continued to press about uncomfortable details (testing, iirc) (again ignored), another hack appears on screen to insist the govt flag up conspiraloonery regarding setting fire to 5gmasts...because obviously, it is essential that the public are made cognisant that there are loons on social media.
So yep, I think it is almost inevitable that the public will be scapegoated, the police will be as heavy-handed as they can get away with and there will be public naming and shaming.
We need to allocate blame where it is most due - to the greedy, lazy incompetents (and their enablers) who have consistently failed to put people before profit...on every single level, for 4 decades of exploitation...not some dogwalker on the common.
 
I'm avoiding the whole scapegoating issue until such a time as it might actually happen.

Because it strikes me that the things government etc are saying that people suspect are setting the scene for scapegoating, are mostly the same things that would be said in a desperate plea to actually get people to do their bit and adhere to the restrictions. Maybe there are some exceptions, but generally I'd say good luck separating these phenomenon.
 
I caught only the latter part of that press conference live, and switched off before they started asking questions.
Am I right though in picking up that Gove said nothing at all about testing?
 
It's still so strange to see long trains with no passengers pass my house. Rail travel in London down by 95%, and buses are down by 85%.

According to TfL numbers, around 162,000 unique payment cards – either contactless or Oyster – were used on Tube and rail services across London on Wednesday 1st April. This compares to around two million unique payments cards used on the same services on a typical day.

On the London Underground, including all other tickets, where there was previously around four million journeys per day at this time last year, TfL is now just seeing around 210,000 journeys per day on the Tube.

Reports of some overcrowding in the past week were put down to one instance of a train failure, and also some changed travel habits as people spread out their journey times so that the rush hour started earlier than usual.

 
I get the need for outdoor exercise but I don't think going out for a picnic is ok, personally and I'm a bit baffled that anyone would, although I do obviously understand why people would want to.

I've not left the house for 18 days, along with my daughter, but we do have a garden (and I've also managed to secure weekly shopping slots by some usual but also selfish planning ahead) and my family is also quite sloth like, in general.
On top of that my kids are older a
I'm avoiding the whole scapegoating issue until such a time as it might actually happen.

Because it strikes me that the things government etc are saying that people suspect are setting the scene for scapegoating, are mostly the same things that would be said in a desperate plea to actually get people to do their bit and adhere to the restrictions. Maybe there are some exceptions, but generally I'd say good luck separating these phenomenon.

Tomorrow - warmest day of the year forecast - if today’s fuckwittery was owt to go by, tomorrow will be a clusterfuck of gigantic proportions!
 
I'm avoiding the whole scapegoating issue until such a time as it might actually happen.

Because it strikes me that the things government etc are saying that people suspect are setting the scene for scapegoating, are mostly the same things that would be said in a desperate plea to actually get people to do their bit and adhere to the restrictions. Maybe there are some exceptions, but generally I'd say good luck separating these phenomenon.

It's the difficulty we have though - in separating personal responsibilty, where that is meaningful and where it makes a direct difference, against a gov who have actively dismantled all the means we have to do it.
It's an enormous, new health crisis, in addition to an existing political/social crisis.
 
I once did an Everest climb on a stairmaster at the gym in my healthier days. Not sure I managed it in 5 days. In fact the real Everest climbers who the whole thing was supposed to shadow had probably been up and fucked off home for their tea by the time I huffed and puffed to the 'top'.

Edit: actually I've just watched the video, they only went to base camp, soft shites. :rolleyes: I went all the way to the top! :mad:
 
The tiny village I live in normally has hundreds of people turn up at the weekend to go for walks, cycle rides etc. Just before the lockdown, it was utterly crazy busy. Last weekend and this, is been really quiet. So people are generally being good. The pub is closed, the shop only opens for an hour or so first thing in the morning and the car parks are all shut, so it’s very much “don’t come here at the moment”.

Despite all this, though, there was a pair of guys who turned up in a van with two trail (motor)bikes, which is inappropriate right now for a bunch of reasons, not least if they were non-housemates. I also saw two groups out with picnics and a few cars turn up and park before a bunch of people got out to go for a walk. I mean, it’s a perfectly fine place for them to keep their distance from others. But if everybody did it, we’d be back to hundreds of people milling around in the village again. It’s very selfish to take the view that you can get away with it because everybody else is being good.
 
More on the policy background.

The point that so many miss is that policies to deal with major events such as pandemics take decades to develop. The genesis of the current UK policy seems to lie in the response of the Blair government in 2005 to a call by the WHO for increased preparedness for pandemics, with the production of strategy documents.

Going through several iterations, but with only minor changes, we ended up with the policy in its final form in 2014, supplemented by multiple planning documents for all levels of government – with the EU taking a close interest in developments. And, with policy essentially locked in stone, any government would have been committed to following it.
 
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I have a really bad feeling about how this lockdown might play out over the coming weeks. Over 2,000 arrests in Spain so far apparently for breaking the rules. They close Brockwell park in Lambeth today, where only a tiny percentage of people have a back garden so where is everyone supposed to go for their daily exercise apart from the narrow pavements? If this goes on for a long time, which I think it will, there's going to massive issues.
 
I have a really bad feeling about how this lockdown might play out over the coming weeks. Over 2,000 arrests in Spain so far apparently for breaking the rules. They close Brockwell park in Lambeth today, where only 1 in 10 people live in a house so 90% left with nowhere to go for their daily exercise apart from the narrow pavements?

When going for exercise I try and choose the days and times when there will be least people. 7am, 8pm, cold, dark, wet etc..

People thinking they can just pop to the park on a sunny weekend lunchtime need to clue up.
 
When going for exercise I try and choose the days and times when there will be least people. 7am, 8pm, cold, dark, wet etc..

People thinking they can just pop to the park on a sunny weekend lunchtime need to clue up.

Clue up how, by being fined / arrested ? I am not at all saying its fine for people to go for a picnic just that there is no way this will play out for weeks and weeks in densely populated urban areas where people have no access to outdoor space without very significant problems, of both enforcement and health outcomes for people including children living in tiny crowded flats etc. Just grim.
 
bloody hell. So the ventilators will be allocated according to a "frailty scale". Anyone know what that scale looks like?

Google the Rockwood clinical frailty scale. AFAIK that's not the only way of allocating them if it's needed, it's just one of the ways that will be used to assess who gets the limited resources. Other issues such as current clinical condition, age, and co-morbidities will also be taken into account from what I've heard.

It's brutal but it makes sense I'm afraid.
 
Google the Rockwood clinical frailty scale. AFAIK that's not the only way of allocating them if it's needed, it's just one of the ways that will be used to assess who gets the limited resources. Other issues such as current clinical condition, age, and co-morbidities will also be taken into account from what I've heard.

It's brutal but it makes sense I'm afraid.
More on frailty here: NHS England » Identifying frailty
 
Clue up how, by being fined / arrested ? I am not at all saying its fine for people to go for a picnic just that there is no way this will play out for weeks and weeks in densely populated urban areas where people have no access to outdoor space without very significant problems, of both enforcement and health outcomes for people including children living in tiny crowded flats etc. Just grim.

That's exactly what the govt. said right at the start and everybody screamed at them.
 
The need to not die or cause other people to die is a greater priority than the desire for some green space.

It is totally unfair, and this situation is going to exacerbate the obvious differences between people, but that's just the way it is currently. Maybe afterwards it'll result in those differences being sorted out, but for the moment it's just shitter for some people and there's no way round that.
 
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