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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

William of Walworth said:
I absolutely get why some people are posting here and in other threads about how bad their experiences are of people conforming really badly to lock-down rules.

I do think it's worth remembering though that different places can experience wildly different levels of rule-breaking.

Most of the time, here in Swansea, we see vastly fewer numbers of people behaving like arses.
There'll always be exceptions, and we've seen one or two, but most of the time we see people distancing well and doing their best.

And in the city centre especially, the streets largely remain near-empty of both traffic and people.
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I agree. Round our way there are more people about, but still nothing like normal, and nearly all social distancing. If you go for a long walk you hardly meet anyone. (That is just like normal - I don’t see why they made a fuss about only half an hour, cos so few ever do more than that anyway). A minority behaving badly always gets far more attention than they deserve.
 
I've been through Central London tonight it's really quiet, when considering how many people are here are cooped up in little flats and shared houses it's pretty striking. Still.
 
IC3D said:
I've been through Central London tonight it's really quiet, when considering how many people are here are cooped up in little flats and shared houses it's pretty striking. Still.
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Where were you? Not very many people live in central London, think it's more people out in their local areas that's the problem...
 
Sue said:
Where were you? Not very many people live in central London, think it's more people out in their local areas that's the problem...
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Kings x on the canal, I actually started a thread ranting about social distancing here so I'll stfu but the estates round here are quiet too. It's young peeps with no family around are the problem
 
The local rag is reporting Barrow has the worst COVID-19 infection rate in the country. 50% higher than the second worst hit area (nearby Lancaster) and more than three times the national average. Wonderful. Herion, dead babies, legionnaires and plague. I fucking love it :D
 
weltweit said:
BAME deaths from Covid-19

from 07/05/2020 Latest figures on Covid-19 deaths spark fresh calls to protect BME population | Nursing Times


from 07/05/2020 Black people four times more likely to die from Covid-19, ONS finds


from 07/05/2020 Why are so many black and ethnic minority people dying from coronavirus – and what does it have to do with heart disease?


These articles and others resulted from a recent report which explains that BAME individuals are at greater risk of death from a covid-19 infection, the articles draw on the stats in a similar way. Adjusting for the number of NHS staff that are BAME does not wholly explain the increased hospitalisation and deaths of BAME individuals, neither does demographic or class information. In the end the articles pretty much say, BAME individuals are more likely to die from covid-19 but we don't yet know why, and further studies are underway.
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I've been learning about vitamin d and how vital it is for immune function and I've come to the conclusion that it's an overlooked possibility as to why BAME people are more at risk of serious covid infection.

People with darker skin produce vitamin d at a slower rate than white people and are often deficient in it as a result. Vitamin D has been shown, very convincingly IMO, to significantly reduce the risk of respiratory infections. It also reduces the rate at which a virus reproduces in your body if you do become infected and it reduces the risk of a cytokine storm.

This bloke's done a couple of videos on vitamin D and he takes you through all the evidence on it. His earlier video at the start of the pandemic convinced me enough to start taking vitamin D supplements.

 
Doctor Carrot said:
I work in a corner shop. We've been much busier since lockdown started. I was really quite pissed off with people's attitude to it at the beginning but I had to stop doing that because it was only me it was bothering.

Throughout the lockdown I have frequently seen people make several appearances during my, on average, 8 hour shift and they'll buy one or two items a time. It was bloody terrifying at first but I feel a lot more at ease now I have a face shield. That behaviour continues of course, in fact it's more frequent, but I have a sort of dead eyed and rather weary response to it now.

From my limited anecdotal experience, I think most people have done OK and stuck with the very loose rules but a very significant minority have treated it more or less as business as usual. I've learned a hell of a lot about the country I live in these past few weeks. This pandemic has exposed so much. There is a severe lack of social conscience in this country and that's hardly surprising given the decades that have preceded this. I still think there is something there but the selfishness is strong. I'm now more sure than ever that I want to leave England though, just for a year or so but fat chance of that happening any time soon!
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Thanks for your reply. It's strange about the people going into your shop several times a day.

I worked in a hardware store until late February so pre-lockdown. From about the beginning of February a few people who didn't look/sound like tradesmen started buying several facemasks at a time and asking about filtration ratings.
 
Doctor Carrot said:
My view of it is definitely going to be different than most because I've been working amongst it throughout. There's quite a lot of green space where I live and all I know is those spaces and where I work have been way too busy for a place that's supposed to be on lockdown.
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People are being encouraged to go and exercise in parks. Whether that's right or wrong that's down to the government not some sort of mass civic failure on the part of the people.

At the danger of getting a bit broken recordish all of this 'look at all these scumbags going to the park' stuff is taking up a lot of space that should be taken up with 'why are the government doing fuck all to stop this ripping through care homes/STILL not providing proper PPE for medical staff/encouraging companies to force people to work etc'
 
Monkeygrinder's Organ said:
People are being encouraged to go and exercise in parks. Whether that's right or wrong that's down to the government not some sort of mass civic failure on the part of the people.

At the danger of getting a bit broken recordish all of this 'look at all these scumbags going to the park' stuff is taking up a lot of space that should be taken up with 'why are the government doing fuck all to stop this ripping through care homes/STILL not providing proper PPE for medical staff/encouraging companies to force people to work etc'
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And safety at work. Barely a peep about that. The unions are getting plenty of info I'm sure but even if I did bother watching the news I dont think there is anything on it.

The increase in passengers on buses I'm seeing isn't going to be people travelling socially so much. Its going to be people forced to work for one reason or another.
 
Doctor Carrot said:
I work in a corner shop. We've been much busier since lockdown started. I was really quite pissed off with people's attitude to it at the beginning but I had to stop doing that because it was only me it was bothering.

Throughout the lockdown I have frequently seen people make several appearances during my, on average, 8 hour shift and they'll buy one or two items a time. It was bloody terrifying at first but I feel a lot more at ease now I have a face shield. That behaviour continues of course, in fact it's more frequent, but I have a sort of dead eyed and rather weary response to it now.

From my limited anecdotal experience, I think most people have done OK and stuck with the very loose rules but a very significant minority have treated it more or less as business as usual. I've learned a hell of a lot about the country I live in these past few weeks. This pandemic has exposed so much. There is a severe lack of social conscience in this country and that's hardly surprising given the decades that have preceded this. I still think there is something there but the selfishness is strong. I'm now more sure than ever that I want to leave England though, just for a year or so but fat chance of that happening any time soon!
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Get a mask to go with your face shield. On it's own its useless.
 
Doctor Carrot said:
I've been learning about vitamin d and how vital it is for immune function and I've come to the conclusion that it's an overlooked possibility as to why BAME people are more at risk of serious covid infection.

People with darker skin produce vitamin d at a slower rate than white people and are often deficient in it as a result. Vitamin D has been shown, very convincingly IMO, to significantly reduce the risk of respiratory infections. It also reduces the rate at which a virus reproduces in your body if you do become infected and it reduces the risk of a cytokine storm.

This bloke's done a couple of videos on vitamin D and he takes you through all the evidence on it. His earlier video at the start of the pandemic convinced me enough to start taking vitamin D supplements.

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That’s certainly a possibility and well worth looking at. Unfortunately by lumping all minorities into one category, BAME, any possible nuance regarding skin colour gets lost. So Nigerians and Filipinos, Chinese and Zulus all count as one. Lack of sunlight for certain populations over winter, e.g. in Scotland, further complicates this investigation.

I’m taking vitamin D as well. There again the pharmaceutical industry and medical establishment usually poo-poo or ignore things as simple and straightforward (and commercially less profitable) as vitamin and mineral supplementation.
 
Doctor Carrot said:
I've been learning about vitamin d and how vital it is for immune function and I've come to the conclusion that it's an overlooked possibility as to why BAME people are more at risk of serious covid infection.

People with darker skin produce vitamin d at a slower rate than white people and are often deficient in it as a result. Vitamin D has been shown, very convincingly IMO, to significantly reduce the risk of respiratory infections. It also reduces the rate at which a virus reproduces in your body if you do become infected and it reduces the risk of a cytokine storm.

This bloke's done a couple of videos on vitamin D and he takes you through all the evidence on it. His earlier video at the start of the pandemic convinced me enough to start taking vitamin D supplements.

Click to expand...


I doubt this is an overlooked possibility. If anything it's too widely known that dark-skinned people are less efficient at producing vitamin D, to the point where people with all sorts of medical issues may get sent home from the doctors with nothing but vitamin D supplements, even if they've had blood tests done and been found to have plenty of the stuff already.

Also it is probably more fair to say that vitamin D is involved in processes which are useful in resisting viral infections, rather than 'vitamin D does this' or 'vitamin D does that'.
 
Kevbad the Bad said:
I’m taking vitamin D as well. There again the pharmaceutical industry and medical establishment usually poo-poo or ignore things as simple and straightforward (and commercially less profitable) as vitamin and mineral supplementation.
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Largely as studies show again and again that if you're getting a balanced diet then they're an expensive waste of money, and sometimes are actually harmful. (They are massively pushed by a multi-billion pound industry btw, no sure where you get the less profitable thing from.)

Vitamin D is one of the few that studies show decent evidence that some people should take a supplement, and the NHS often recommend and prescribe it as such, so it's far from ignored.
 
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LynnDoyleCooper said:
Largely as studies show again and again that if you're getting a balanced diet then they're an expensive waste of money, and sometimes are actually harmful. Vitamin D is one of the few that studies show decent evidence that some people should take a supplement.
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Vitamin D is fat-soluble as well, so unlike say vitamin C which your body can get rid of in short order via urine if you're consuming more than necessary it will accumulate in the body if you take too much of it. If you're hyperdosing the stuff for any length of time without proper medical supervision it will make you sick.
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
Largely as studies show again and again that if you're getting a balanced diet then they're an expensive waste of money, and sometimes are actually harmful. Vitamin D is one of the few that studies show decent evidence that some people should take a supplement.
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Trouble is that so many people don’t get a balanced diet, and never have. My mum used to say that fish, chips and peas was a balanced diet, protein, carbohydrate and vitamin c. It’s OK from time to time, but not everyday. A sensible multivitamin tablet once a day is cheaper than fags and won’t do you any harm.
 
Kevbad the Bad said:
A sensible multivitamin tablet once a day is cheaper than fags and won’t do you any harm.
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There are all sorts of interactions related to how your body absorbs nutrients. Just putting everything in a pill and washing it down with chips and fanta is not ideal. Better than not taking the pill maybe, but not nearly as good as just eating some fresh veg now and then.
 
SpookyFrank said:
There are all sorts of interactions related to how your body absorbs nutrients. Just putting everything in a pill and washing it down with chips and fanta is not ideal. Better than not taking the pill maybe, but not nearly as good as just eating some fresh veg now and then.
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Trouble is, fresh veg now and then doesn’t figure in many people’s diet. During lockdown even less likely.

You mentioned medical supervision, but right now that hardly exists. If you were to ask a GP about multivitamins they would nearly all say not to bother anyway. Just eat a balanced diet, is the mantra, but like I said a lot of people don’t do that.

Not ideal.
 
Another hypothesis for different outcomes among ethnicity, blood type and gender once social factors are taken into account is differing levels of Von Willebrand factor.
 
Monkeygrinder's Organ said:
People are being encouraged to go and exercise in parks. Whether that's right or wrong that's down to the government not some sort of mass civic failure on the part of the people.
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They are but they're not encouraging people to sit down and have fucking picnics though are they? And yes I have seen a lot of this. A customer even said to me yesterday 'oh I'll just buy a couple of cans for the park.'

I'm not saying it's a mass civic failure on the part of the people. I'm saying a significant minority of people where I live haven't treated the lockdown as if it's an actual lockdown. Whether that's been repeated across the land I don't know but lots of, again, anecdotal reports suggest it has.

At the danger of getting a bit broken recordish all of this 'look at all these scumbags going to the park' stuff is taking up a lot of space that should be taken up with 'why are the government doing fuck all to stop this ripping through care homes/STILL not providing proper PPE for medical staff/encouraging companies to force people to work etc'
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It's not really though is it? You can criticise both the government and the lack of civil responsibility a minority of people have in this country at the same time. A minority I grant you but it is a significant one.

To bring things round to brexit again a lot of the vocally frothing people who voted brexit did it for reasons of 'we don't like being told what to do' and variances of it. I think that has played a huge part in both the government's messaging and people's response to it.

At the end of the day I don't give a shit about people going to the park. I do give a shit about people coming in and out of where I work on the same day, putting my health at risk each time because they can't go five minutes without a beer and at the same time saying things like 'oh well done for staying open.'

I should add it's mainly at the weekend I've seen this and when the weather's nice and I wanna stress again it's a minority. It's probably also related to that whole phenomenon of noticing crap behaviour more than good behaviour but still! Gah! Just stay home so I can actually see my family this year.
 
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Numbers said:
Better late than never...

www.bbc.co.uk

UK 'to bring in 14-day quarantine' for air passengers

An airline industry body says it has been told coronavirus quarantining will start from the end of May.
www.bbc.co.uk
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So they are going to tell people to self isolate and ask for an address. Quite what counts as a private address I dont know. 2 points. 1. It's not enforced bar maybe turning people back if they say I'll be staying in a hotel rather than just missing the hotel name off the address. Are any hotels open for private business? 2. Seems saying the words 'you must self isolate for 14 days' without any checks is a low cost, low effort measure that could have been implemented some time ago so why wasnt it?
 
tommers said:
That clapping thing is starting to really freak me out.

Not like the "donate a fiver to the NHS" thing. Im angry about that, the clapping thing freaks me out.
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My 4 year old daughter, the wife and I got shouted and clapped at from inches away by someone in a car for not clapping this week. Fucking twat. We were taking her out on her new bike as we had promised to that afternoon. We didn't do it at the time as the pharmacy had a box of medication that needed to go before the bank holiday and no one else was available.
 
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