Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[Wilf]

I'm guardedly ok with relaxing lockdown on the super lockdown cases, which I always thought were a bit indiscriminate anyway.

I'm more concerned about trying to open schools tomorrow which is fucking insane. Literally the last thing you do when you are sure the situation is manageable. It's worse than the encouragement to go back to work, but it fits right in to the neoliberal thicko gameplan.

In terms of the relaxing bit, I agree in a general sense. Trouble is, the government have no roots in the community and have been unable to get a clear message out at an operable level in real places. That get's even more so when the message is 'stay alert.. you can go to that shop... you can meet those people but not that many people... '. It's not a viable relaxing, it's a chaotic loosening. and then as you say, there's the school thing which in itself is more serious - but putting the schools into the mix also adds to the chaotic nature of what people think they are expected to do, obligated to do, what might be sensible for themselves, what might be sensible for the 'herd'. The whole lockdown started with a high level of self interest, merging into community preservation. By their idiocy, the government have reduced it to 'sort it yourself, let your anxieties take you where they will, let your self interest take you where it will'. We've all got our own new normal type thing.

 

[little_legs]

they don't give a fuck, they're just making a political choice for economic reasons

For the government the safety of the people is like Nando's spice chart. How spiced up do you want your death to be today?

 

[eatmorecheese]

I haven't read the last hundred pages of this thread but, being a bit pissed right now, I just thought I'd record my current thoughts.

The government have lost all moral authority. People will not observe social distancing enough in the general population to prevent a second peak. This appears inevitable. Regardless of the consequences, the government will not reinstate lockdown in any meaningful way and cannot realistically enforce it, given their own lack of resources and hypocrisy. I hope I'm wrong about this. They have the Nightingale hospitals ready and the ventilators, this is a price they feel is worth paying. Another 30k dead? Any advance on this?

These cunts want to 'style it out'. They are within an ace of achieving their intellectually bankrupt deregulated economy, with juvenile fantasies of 'independent' trade deals and their own interests' snouts in the trough and they can't believe that fate has presented these fortuitous circumstances. Crisis/opportunity. However, the turkey that ended up being PM may not be able to last the course, being naturally lazy on the detail and only having the Hugh Grant ruffled hair dissembling classics quotations to fall back on. A mirage. There's nothing of substance there. There never was.

I'm getting the sense that the subsequent inquiries will carry on for the rest of my natural life. There will be memorials, public martyrdom and the deification of 'front-line workers' who never had a fucking choice. They will try to re-plaster the impression of the wall of society level, to make out we were 'all in this together'. We never fucking were.

The challenges our children's generations have to face are so much more stark than ours. They need a social foundation, a floor of community and economic support that Westminster, in it's current configuration, just cannot provide. In my work, from now on, I'll try to communicate this to the young people I work with. We only have each other.

Yeah. I had tequila tonight, first time in years.

 

[Wilf]

I haven't read the last hundred pages of this thread but, being a bit pissed right now, I just thought I'd record my current thoughts.

The government have lost all moral authority. People will not observe social distancing enough in the general population to prevent a second peak. This appears inevitable. Regardless of the consequences, the government will not reinstate lockdown in any meaningful way and cannot realistically enforce it, given their own lack of resources and hypocrisy. I hope I'm wrong about this. They have the Nightingale hospitals ready and the ventilators, this is a price they feel is worth paying. Another 30k dead? Any advance on this?

These cunts want to 'style it out'. They are within an ace of achieving their intellectually bankrupt deregulated economy, with juvenile fantasies of 'independent' trade deals and their own interests' snouts in the trough and they can't believe that fate has presented these fortuitous circumstances. Crisis/opportunity. However, the turkey that ended up being PM may not be able to last the course, being naturally lazy on the detail and only having the Hugh Grant ruffled hair dissembling classics quotations to fall back on. A mirage. There's nothing of substance there. There never was.

I'm getting the sense that the subsequent inquiries will carry on for the rest of my natural life. There will be memorials, public martyrdom and the deification of 'front-line workers' who never had a fucking choice. They will try to re-plaster the impression of the wall of society level, to make out we were 'all in this together'. We never fucking were.

The challenges our children's generations have to face are so much more stark than ours. They need a social foundation, a floor of community and economic support that Westminster, in it's current configuration, just cannot provide. In my work, from now on, I'll try to communicate this to the young people I work with. We only have each other.

Yeah. I had tequila tonight, first time in years.

Yep, it's likely to be that bad in terms of the virus unless they (and we) get very lucky. And it's going to be every bit as bad as you say politically. Disaster capitalism, but run by even more stupid people. I've never ever felt so bad about what's coming down the line.

 

[Celyn]

Pope cautions against rush to ease lockdowns

Couldn't the Pope simply have a word with his omnipotent friend ask for it all to be sorted out?

 

[Celyn]

Yep. So basically their chart plan thing was wrong. Unrealistic and not properly thought through offered hastily to show that they had a plan .

Oh be fair. The chart had several different colours, which makes it very trustworthy.

 

[Calamity1971]

Couldn't the Pope simply have a word with his omnipotent friend ask for it all to be sorted out?

No one's seen him in ages. Self isolating and not picking up.

 

[Celyn]

Loads of people in the shielded cohort got texts last week saying they wouldn’t be getting the government food boxes any more. And I know for a fact that my own council is starting to means test people asking for help now. Times are gonna get harder soon for a lot of people

What is also sad about that is that it indicates a whole lot of people with no one else to help them. I mean, my Dad can't go out, but a brother and I have been arranging supplies for him, although I really must get him to agree to online banking, with me having access (not that he can cope with the internet these days), but how very sad.

 

[Celyn]

Everyone is pointing out beaches and parks and stuff. Clearly, if people were catching it and dying in hours. Everywhere would be deserted.

But people don't catch it and fall down dead within hours, do they? They traipse back home, perhaps even stopping somewhere else on the way, and take the same virus back to infect shop workers etc.

I'm really hopeful that the camping is going to happen in July.

Fingers crossed for you.

I have only just now noticed the very obvious fact that the actual etymology of "camping" is hanging about in a field, living there temporarily. .

 

[elbows]

I'm getting the sense that the subsequent inquiries will carry on for the rest of my natural life. There will be memorials, public martyrdom and the deification of 'front-line workers' who never had a fucking choice. They will try to re-plaster the impression of the wall of society level, to make out we were 'all in this together'. We never fucking were.

The challenges our children's generations have to face are so much more stark than ours. They need a social foundation, a floor of community and economic support that Westminster, in it's current configuration, just cannot provide. In my work, from now on, I'll try to communicate this to the young people I work with. We only have each other.

Yeah. I had tequila tonight, first time in years.

I really liked your post, three cheers for tequila!

I dont know what sort of age you are so I dont know which generation your childrens generation is, or how long you expect the rest of your natural life to be. I am not asking for the answers to these questions, just indicating that aspects of my response are somewhat broad and vague as a result.

Theres been a continual reframing and capturing of events via propaganda all the way along. But there are still some promising nuggets that can be plucked out of the ugly realities of the response to the first pandemic wave. For example in regards to the whole 'were all in this together' and how we never were. Yes on the one hand various things were engineered and manipulated on this level. And yet all the genuine decent stuff that became visible from people at criticial moments in this pandemic, although often squandered, still made its presence felt. It more than hinted at what people had the capabilities to achieve via various forms of solidarity and practical action, if we were operating in a system that properly valued people taking matters into their own hands at all levels.

Westminster was never going to deliver on that, the only suitable configuration it could offer would be one where it got out of the way in so many areas. The opportunity from this pandemic was never going to be that Westminster would somehow come good and deliver that, but rather that it would be exposed, and that people who were paying attention would notice enough of these things and act on them to bring about the change we need in future.

The stuff about how stark the challenges of a generation are going to be is interesting. I think many of the challenges and realities have been around for a very long time, with new flavours of stark horror on offer in all of the decades of the 20th century and 21st century so far. The atomic age cast a long shadow. Environmental and energy concerns showing up in popular culture and politics is older than me. Numerous generations and communities have been severely damaged in this country and elsewhere by decades of managed decline. What may have been changing more obviously this century is that the amount of time that countries, economic and political forces could play for time and postpone the inevitable may be running short. The veneer has worn very thin, and the cladding which they reach for to hide the ugly view has been shown to be dangerously combustible.

There were moments in this pandemic where the sudden end of normality had an effect on certain powerful illusions, assumptions and perceptions about what is actually possible. As time has gone on some aspects of this have faded as the shock wore off, and the story in the months ahead will often seem to signal a return to normal form. But it may still turn out to have been the end of an era, and right now even if all manner of things go wrong and look bleak, it will be some time before the sense of hope that came to mind is really extinguished again. Its more likely than not that the trajectory of many things has been altered by this pandemic. The big challenges were already lying in wait in the future anyway, on top of the existing normal day to day misery that austerity and what went before it brought. Perhaps the failures of this pandemic will help people to position themselves better for some of these challenges. Perhaps people have had enough of this level of failure and absurdity, not to mention inequality.

 

[ruffneck23]

 

[bimble]

What’s the problem ruffneck23 they’ve already explained, you have 2 nostrils so that’s 2 tests. Worldbeating.

 

[ruffneck23]

What’s the problem ruffneck23 they’ve already explained, you have 2 nostrils so that’s 2 tests. Worldbeating.

dunno must be a bit dim , oh wise one

 

[teuchter]

Couldn't the Pope simply have a word with his omnipotent friend ask for it all to be sorted out?

His friend is having too much of a laugh just now, setting us up with the sunniest spring since records began, and so on.

 

[Celyn]

Ah. Well we know how to sort that one out. Simply a matter of appointing a Minister for Drought and that will bring a LOT of rain.
(Showing my age somewhat)

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

Couldn't the Pope simply have a word with his omnipotent friend ask for it all to be sorted out?

Matthew 19:14
COVID-19 said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

 

[teuchter]

Anyway, the BBC brings us some morale boosting news, which is that the Queen has been sitting on a horse. It's brightened my morning immensely; this is the sort of thing the nation needs right now.

Coronavirus: Queen pictured outside for first time since lockdown

The monarch is pictured riding outside Windsor Castle, where she is isolating with Prince Philip.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[LDC]

I'm getting the sense that the subsequent inquiries will carry on for the rest of my natural life. There will be memorials, public martyrdom and the deification of 'front-line workers' who never had a fucking choice. They will try to re-plaster the impression of the wall of society level, to make out we were 'all in this together'. We never fucking were.

Well fucking said.

 

[editor]

That one idiot jumping off the cliff is very very lucky to be alive

"He hit the water so hard he didn't even come up to the surface, he went straight down," Mr Wiley said.

"I could see a white body on the seafloor, but it was so deep none of us could get to him. Everyone was in a state of panic."

He said it took five attempts to reach the victim.

"When I got to him he was just laid on some seaweed and I grabbed his hand and kept swimming to the surface.

"I thought I was going to let go of him as I didn't think I'd make it to the surface myself. I'd exhaled all the air in my lungs.

"I swum through the pain and the fact I thought I was going to drown - dragging a body through the water was hard."

Four "incredible ladies" on the beach then performed CPR to get the man breathing again before medics arrived and he was flown to hospital.

Durdle Door: Tombstone rescuer 'feared he would drown'

Paddleboarder Mike Wiley hauled the man to the surface after finding him unconscious on the seabed.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Pickman's model]

That one idiot jumping off the cliff is very very lucky to be alive

Durdle Door: Tombstone rescuer 'feared he would drown'

Paddleboarder Mike Wiley hauled the man to the surface after finding him unconscious on the seabed.

www.bbc.co.uk

your link mentions three idiots

 

[cupid_stunt]

That one idiot jumping off the cliff is very very lucky to be alive

The guy that rescued him has just been interviewed on BBC South Today.

your link mentions three idiots

And yet, according to the local TV news, people were still attempting to jump off the arch yesterday.

 

[dessiato]

I saw this and wondered what the fuck the government is thinking when it suggests easing lockdown.

 

[Buddy Bradley]

I saw this and wondered what the fuck the government is thinking when it suggests easing lockdown.

But but but ... you can't compare countries against each other. The government says so.

 

[Sprocket.]

On Ilkley Moor bah't common sense or common decency.

Litter and toilet roll left at Yorkshire beauty spots

Parts of Yorkshire have been left an "eyesore" by an influx of visitors

www.bbc.com

Take your rubbish home you morons.

 

[quimcunx]

I saw this and wondered what the fuck the government is thinking when it suggests easing lockdown.

View attachment 215674

Surely it should be comparing deaths at the dates of same stage of lockdown easing.

 

[teuchter]

I saw this and wondered what the fuck the government is thinking when it suggests easing lockdown.

View attachment 215674

What useful information do you believe this graph gives you?

 

[teuchter]

Surely it should be comparing deaths at the dates of same stage of lockdown easing.

And corrected for population size. Sweden did not have loads fewer deaths than us on the 29th; it had loads more.

 

[Pickman's model]

I saw this and wondered what the fuck the government is thinking when it suggests easing lockdown.

View attachment 215674

esp when the uk's total is only one more than germany, turkey, holland, france, germany, belgium, sweden and italy's combined death toll

 

[Lurdan]

Today :

This person wasn't very impressed with the 'training' :

Why I quit working on Boris Johnson's ‘world-beating' test-and-tracing system - The Guardian (Saturday)

The training was very basic. We saw some slides about our role – the public health website we will use, and a script for what we had to say to people. We were told: do not go off-script, and if there was anything we could not answer, we should ask our supervisor. (...)

The trainer told us there was a further seven and a half hours of self-led training that we had to complete before “going live”. This seemed a little unfair, if not impossible to achieve by the next morning. We were reassured that we could probably get through the training in two to three hours – but we would be paid for all seven and a half. (...)

The self-led courses were very basic – with some generic dos and don’ts about customer data, security and so on. I completed it all in less than one and a half hours, with a score of 95%+.

The next morning I was worried, and feeling very unprepared.

 

[cupid_stunt]

On Ilkley Moor bah't common sense or common decency.

Litter and toilet roll left at Yorkshire beauty spots

Parts of Yorkshire have been left an "eyesore" by an influx of visitors

www.bbc.com

Take your rubbish home you morons.

We've had the same problem on Worthing's seafront this weekend, right bloody mess.

If the bins are full, take your bloody rubbish home, don't leave it by the bins for fucking seagulls to spread around.