Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[xes]

That's the spirit!

Group drives 109 miles to Beachy Head because they 'heard the view was nice'

A CAR-LOAD of people travelled more than 100 miles down to the Sussex coast after hearing the view was “nice”.

www.theargus.co.uk

aah that's nuffink

French police turn back private jet of holidaymakers from UK

Party of 10 flew into Marseille-Provence airport to be taken by helicopter to luxury Cannes villa

www.theguardian.com

FFS

 

[Buddy Bradley]

I haven't been watching the daily briefings every day, but do they always use that graph of deaths - the one showing how every country is following the same trajectory apart from China and South Korea? Have any of the journalists ever asked "What did we get wrong that they got right, and why aren't we doing that now?"

 

[SheilaNaGig]

Yep. France has started adding those now. From looking at France and elsewhere, we can probably add about a quarter to the stated UK figure for care homes. And then there will be the additional deaths of people without C19 who couldn't get the appropriate treatment or service. Parts of Italy have had increases in overall death rates more than double the stated headline figure of deaths from C19 in hospital. I see no reason why it won't be the same story here, sadly.

Your second paragraph is spot on in every regard. This is the thing we need to try to hold them to account for.

Yes, of course. But how?

They're buffered by crap soft soap questions, by the press, by the fact that we’re all locked in, by the necessity for the opposition to allow them to get on with the job at hand, by the Disneyfiquation of Johnson because he was ill, by their huge stupid majority and by the fact that the next election is 4 years off.

 

[weltweit]

I haven't been watching the daily briefings every day, but do they always use that graph of deaths - the one showing how every country is following the same trajectory apart from China and South Korea? Have any of the journalists ever asked "What did we get wrong that they got right, and why aren't we doing that now?"

Yes, I have wondered because usually South Korea is on the chart with it's very low numbers of deaths etc why journalists aren't asking about this difference! ? But they don't ask the question ..

 

[Yossarian]

I haven't been watching the daily briefings every day, but do they always use that graph of deaths - the one showing how every country is following the same trajectory apart from China and South Korea? Have any of the journalists ever asked "What did we get wrong that they got right, and why aren't we doing that now?"

It's bizarre - 6 weeks or so ago, the attitude seemed to be "this is an East Asian problem, it couldn't possibly get as bad here." Now, when it is worse in Britain it was in any East Asian country and the government apparently did a worse job of containing it than any other Western country, authorities don't seem to consider the experiences of Asian countries relevant.

 

[weltweit]

.. authorities don't seem to consider the experiences of Asian countries relevant.

I have heard a couple of times in the press briefings someone say that they are learning all the time from what others are doing, but no detailed examples for example of South Korea .. which has to be the gold standard.

 

[kebabking]

South Korea instituted a very clever, but incredibly invasive surveillance apparatus - you can argue whether that apparatus would be acceptable to the UK now, but 3 months ago? Probably not...

China just welded people's doors shut. Admirably efficient perhaps, but almost certainly fatal for a huge number of people who's deaths China won't tell you about.

 

[weltweit]

9,875 died in hospitals in the UK from coronavirus / covid-19

That isn't counting deaths in the care sector, in the community or where for whatever reason a positive covid-19 test was not carried out - in a hospital.

I have not been noting UK numbers for a while, whilst I looked more at worldwide issues, so Sunday there will almost certainly have been more than 10,000 deaths in UK hospitals. That is pretty awful.

 

[Cid]

oops.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

South Korea instituted a very clever, but incredibly invasive surveillance apparatus - you can argue whether that apparatus would be acceptable to the UK now, but 3 months ago? Probably not...

China just welded people's doors shut. Admirably efficient perhaps, but almost certainly fatal for a huge number of people who's deaths China won't tell you about.

SK's system could be adapted, though. And it's basically a soft version of that that Germany instituted early on. Has worked exceedingly well so far.

Problem is that it's no good saying how they're learning now. They needed to learn two months ago at least. Now, who do they learn from about dealing with panic stations? Italy?

 

[weltweit]

South Korea instituted a very clever, but incredibly invasive surveillance apparatus - you can argue whether that apparatus would be acceptable to the UK now, but 3 months ago? Probably not...
..

But they avoided lockdown so far. I think if in the future a surveillance regime was proposed for the UK, as an alternative to a lot more lockdown, and that this would be removed once covid-19 was neutralised by vaccine, the UK population might think neutrally or even slightly positively about it.

 

[Cid]

South Korea instituted a very clever, but incredibly invasive surveillance apparatus - you can argue whether that apparatus would be acceptable to the UK now, but 3 months ago? Probably not...

China just welded people's doors shut. Admirably efficient perhaps, but almost certainly fatal for a huge number of people who's deaths China won't tell you about.

N.b - I am drunk. But really? I mean fuck. I really think part of this is a superior 'western democracy' type thing. And I'm not really convinced it's something other than some self-justifying bullshit. Apologies to you kebabking, I don't mean specifically your post... It's just this thing that keeps cropping up, and really I'm not sure I buy it. We bang on about the fucking blitz spirit, about in this together. And yet - when the shit hits the fan - it's all 'oh no, they'd never do that'. Not this Free, Democratic, Society, where we've always held politicians to account, with our amazing free press, with our constant challenging of authority. Arse, I say. Arse.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yes, of course. But how?

They're buffered by crap soft soap questions, by the press, by the fact that we’re all locked in, by the necessity for the opposition to allow them to get on with the job at hand, by the Disneyfiquation of Johnson because he was ill, by their huge stupid majority and by the fact that the next election is 4 years off.

Yeah I know. And I don't know. Maybe it won't happen. I would say that it can't really happen right now. It'll have to await a situation of at least stability. Then, we'll see. They can't spin the death figures. They cannot hide the fact that they fucked this all up.

 

[Marty1]

Whilst moving a tree right now may not be exactly necessary, arresting the guy is completely OTT imo:



also...good question here:

View attachment 206026

Fucking wankers (coppers).

If that fuzz didn’t know he was been recorded he’d have roughed the guy up.

 

[Anju]

South Korea instituted a very clever, but incredibly invasive surveillance apparatus - you can argue whether that apparatus would be acceptable to the UK now, but 3 months ago? Probably not...

China just welded people's doors shut. Admirably efficient perhaps, but almost certainly fatal for a huge number of people who's deaths China won't tell you about.

South Korea are looking at using wristbands for people who violate quarantine after some were found to have gone out without their phones. No law to force the wearing of them but widespread support for their use.

Coronavirus: South Korea to strap tracking wristbands on those who violate quarantine orders

 

[Tankus]

Hmmm.... the a470 has police roadblocks on it... to checkout and stop the valley commandos heading for the 'diff.

Think I may run up to Culverhouse and get a last big shop in to last me well into May before the Vale gets shut down

 

[Totoro303]

Loo

 

[Steel Icarus]

Wut

 

[Azrael]

But they avoided lockdown so far. I think if in the future a surveillance regime was proposed for the UK, as an alternative to a lot more lockdown, and that this would be removed once covid-19 was neutralised by vaccine, the UK population might think neutrally or even slightly positively about it.

The gold standard should surely be what New Zealand's attempting: slam your borders, impose 14 day quarantine on new arrivals to stop imports, and throw every resource of the state into the most aggressive testing and contact tracing possible until the virus is starved of hosts and eliminated domestically. Not kept manageable, not mitigated, destroyed. It's what happened with the first SARS, and should, in principle, be repeatable with this coronavirus.

The direct benefits -- no more deaths from Covid-19 -- speak for themselves, but just think of the collateral benefits: the ruinous psychological consequences of fatalism and learned helplessness are replaced with a sense of victory; if it succeeded, domestic life could return to near-normal until a vaccine's available; and even if it fails, cases could be driven so low that restrictions can be substantially relaxed. Any "second wave" could be immediately attacked with the infrastructure established.

I can see no reason whatsoever to not at least try, with every resource we can muster.

 

[weltweit]

..
I can see no reason whatsoever to not at least try, with every resource we can muster.

I agree, with the proviso that we have to get the effect of this present lockdown established probably before we might be able to try such an approach.

If you have any articles on New Zealand's approach please post them to the worldwide thread. I haven't read up about them at all yet. Might see what I can find also.

 

[Azrael]

William of Walworth I know it was another thread we were talking on earlier about lockdown timetables etc, but since I am adding a UK story I am continuing on this thread instead.

Coronavirus lockdown: When will it end and how?

What is the path to normality as coronavirus leaves countries in lockdown?

www.bbc.co.uk

There is too much else in there to attempt to quote all the bits of relevance.

Very concerning that the article doesn't even mention total domestic elimination of SARS-CoV-2 as a possibility. Why should we learn to live with a virus when we could be throwing our vast resources into exterminating it? Succeed or not, we can at least try.

If New Zealand and other countries do pull it off, pressure to join this fight can only grow.

 

[Azrael]

I agree, with the proviso that we have to get the effect of this present lockdown established probably before we might be able to try such an approach.

If you have any articles on New Zealand's approach please post them to the worldwide thread. I haven't read up about them at all yet. Might see what I can find also.

Yes, current priority's undoubtedly to drive down mortality and spread. But given the scale of national campaign to completely eliminate the virus domestically, preparations can't start soon enough.

The N.Z. article I posted is about the best I've seen on how their fight's going. There's been a few pieces in journals, but they're speculative. I'll be following it closely, and will definitely post up any interesting developments in the other thread.

 

[Azrael]

And in some much needed positive news (via the Telegraph unfortunately, but confirmed in a statement), at least one London NHS Trust has set aside government "advice" to not treat Covid cases with drugs outside clinical trials, and has rolled out antimalerial and immunosuppressive medicines in appropriate cases.

Whitehall may be continuing their unerring trend of advising the worst possible thing at the worst possible time, but thanks to the Trust for showing that we don't have to simply accept it.

 

[LDC]

The gold standard should surely be what New Zealand's attempting: slam your borders, impose 14 day quarantine on new arrivals to stop imports, and throw every resource of the state into the most aggressive testing and contact tracing possible until the virus is starved of hosts and eliminated domestically. Not kept manageable, not mitigated, destroyed. It's what happened with the first SARS, and should, in principle, be repeatable with this coronavirus.

The direct benefits -- no more deaths from Covid-19 -- speak for themselves, but just think of the collateral benefits: the ruinous psychological consequences of fatalism and learned helplessness are replaced with a sense of victory; if it succeeded, domestic life could return to near-normal until a vaccine's available; and even if it fails, cases could be driven so low that restrictions can be substantially relaxed. Any "second wave" could be immediately attacked with the infrastructure established.

I can see no reason whatsoever to not at least try, with every resource we can muster.

I have sympathy for that approach, assuming it was possible given the differences between the UK and NZ in terms of population size and density, and global movement, and how quickly it got here and spread. But then what about once it's eliminated domestically (assuming it can be)? A permanent 14 day quarantine for new arrivals until a vaccine is there? Ongoing monitoring of these somewhat vague symptoms in the whole population?

 

[existentialist]

This bit's pretty good too.



'virtually every single day'... Er, maybe you should be working every single day on the biggest crisis facing the country since the second world war??

I imagine she had to fight hard to work at ALL - civil servants will have been busting a gut to keep her away from anything she might comprehensively fuck up. Perhaps they thought that a waffer-thin briefing was something even she couldn't fuck up...

 

[Azrael]

I have sympathy for that approach, assuming it was possible given the differences between the UK and NZ in terms of population size and density, and global movement, and how quickly it got here and spread. But then what about once it's eliminated domestically (assuming it can be)? A permanent 14 day quarantine for new arrivals until a vaccine is there? Ongoing monitoring of these somewhat vague symptoms in the whole population?

Temporary 14 day quarantine for all new arrivals until (sigh, I'll have to use the dread phrase, albeit accurately) herd immunity's been achieved via vaccination.

Regardless of whether elimination or ongoing suppression's the goal, constant monitoring will be essential if we ever want to leave lockdown without this nightmare becoming cyclical, with the country enduring rolling lockdowns to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed.

As for whether it's possible, given that the lockdown in effect turned the clock back by driving down the infection rate, it should be. Regarding scalability, whatever the truth of their original stats, China now appears to be close to eradicating the virus domestically.

And even if elimination failed, suppression would be a lot further along. Can see nothing that makes it worse than other approaches, and much that makes it better.

 

[wayward bob]

And that, ladies and gentleman, was the Secretary of State for the Home Department...!!!!

thought elbows had been rightfully promoted for a sec

 

[Brainaddict]

Obviously I'm biased against Tories, but I am really amazed by what a bunch of talentless, narcissistic no-marks this cabinet is.

I can see Sunak getting to be PM not because he's particularly impressive - he has the air of a junior minister in the Blair regime - but because compared to the rest of the worthless shitgibbons, he manages to give off an aura of vague competence. Though come to think of it, that will count against him with the party faithful.

 

[Thora]

Sunak’s only been around for 5 minutes and all he’s had to do so far is promise to give us all money. There’s still time to see his incompetence.

 

[brogdale]

Title of the graph....America First or Special relationship?

(Selected early lockdowners in dark blue)