Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[two sheds]

I'd be concerned to go into offices unless I knew the ventilation system didn't recirculate air

 

[Artaxerxes]

Blood test at the gp this morning, you think at this point they’d have started to try and send results out by post or email but got told to come and collect from them as always.

Sigh.

 

[Plumdaff]

At least some of the empty commercial office space will become the slums of the future following change of use to (not actually suitable) residential. The government will say it is doing something about the housing crisis by shunting people into tiny spaces not designed to be used to live in and helping their mates out. We could think about how we want our city centres to change and function in an era of mass wfh and how to transition people at risk of unemployment into different modes of work but it'll just be mass redundancies, boarded up offices and/or awful housing to enrich the spivs.

 

[Badgers]

Good replies to this shit

 

[Teaboy]

Oh dear. My g/f has just got an email putting the hard sell on getting everyone back to the central London office. This will go well.

Fortunately they've caveated it with ways to keep yourself safe with such gems as avoid travelling at rush hour / peak time. Given tfl tell us that peak times are between 06:30 to 09:30 and 16:00 and 19:00 it does somewhat make you wonder what they expect of people. I'm sure they'll be fine with everyone doing a 10:30 to 15:30 working day.
Callous divs.

 

[LDC]

Blood test at the gp this morning, you think at this point they’d have started to try and send results out by post or email but got told to come and collect from them as always.

Sigh.

Your GP must be from the 19th C then, nearly everything is (or can) be done remotely now.

 

[Mrs Miggins]

Oh dear. My g/f has just got an email putting the hard sell on getting everyone back to the central London office. This will go well.

Fortunately they've caveated it with ways to keep yourself safe with such gems as avoid travelling at rush hour / peak time. Given tfl tell us that peak times are between 06:30 to 09:30 and 16:00 and 19:00 it does somewhat make you wonder what they expect of people. I'm sure they'll be fine with everyone doing a 10:30 to 15:30 working day.
Callous divs.

Absolute madness.
"avoiding peak time travel" my arse
It's impossible unless they move to some sort of shift pattern or as you say, everyone doing a drastically reduced working day.

What reasons are they giving for wanting everyone back in?

 

[LDC]

Good replies to this shit

Oh my fucking days, does he live in the same country as the rest of us?!

 

[killer b]

I'm sure they'll be fine with everyone doing a 10:30 to 15:30 working day.

they're imagining an 11am - 8pm working day...

 

[Teaboy]

Absolute madness.
"avoiding peak time travel" my arse
It's impossible unless they move to some sort of shift pattern or as you say, everyone doing a drastically reduced working day.

What reasons are they giving for wanting everyone back in?

How much better everyone works in the office and the quality of their output blardy blah.

they're imagining an 11am - 8pm working day...

I don't think they've put that much thought into it. It's a just a meaningless throw away statement to make it look like they care.

 

[Badgers]

Oh my fucking days, does he live in the same country as the rest of us?!

Only until he can take his money abroad

 

[farmerbarleymow]

Lockdown reimposed in Bolton and Trafford 12 hours after they were lifted. What a load of fucking incompetent twats.

Lockdown reimposed in Greater Manchester areas in latest U-turn

Restrictions return in Bolton and Trafford just 12 hours after they were lifted

www.theguardian.com

 

[Badgers]

I don't think they've put that much thought into it. It's a just a meaningless throw away statement to make it look like they care.

Are her colleagues a good bunch? Any option to present a united front? Perhaps via HR?

 

[Cloo]

Trouble is, this government doesn't want to change a thing. I'm normally loath to point to the 'They and all their mates want to protect their investments' thing (as sometimes that's just simplistic, though I think correlates pretty directly in this case), and I recognise many 'ordinary' people's pensions etc are reliant on commercial property of various kinds, but regardless of this, the current model is unsustainable.

The smart move is to think how can we repopulate our city centres in a way people can afford, that will reduce need for commuting, provide customers for business and stop the bleeding out of anyone under 40 who is not in education because they can't fucking afford to live in London anymore?

 

[Teaboy]

Mental triple / quadruple post. Weird.

 

[Teaboy]

dp

 

[Artaxerxes]

Your GP must be from the 19th C then, nearly everything is (or can) be done remotely now.

Prescriptions and arranging appointments can be, fuck knows why I can’t get sent results. It’s been my experience most GPs are fucking useless bureaucratic nightmares stuck in the past. Made worse by how unhelpful the receptionists usually are.

Trouble is, this government doesn't want to change a thing. I'm normally loath to point to the 'They and all their mates want to protect their investments' thing (as sometimes that's just simplistic, though I think correlates pretty directly in this case), and I recognise many 'ordinary' people's pensions etc are reliant on commercial property of various kinds, but regardless of this, the current model is unsustainable.

The smart move is to think how can we repopulate our city centres in a way people can afford, that will reduce need for commuting, provide customers for business and stop the bleeding out of anyone under 40 who is not in education because they can't fucking afford to live in London anymore?

Aye, if Dominic and Boris were serious about dealing with inbuilt London prejudice and inertia this is an absolutely golden opportunity to put down markers for the future on doing this. Instead we get back to work as soon as possible thrown at us.

 

[Sue]

they're imagining an 11am - 8pm working day...

I worked briefly for a woman who was a workaholic. Started in the summer when it was really hot. She was about eight months pregnant at that point and said she'd be changing her working hours a bit so she could avoid rush hour/boiling hot, crowded tubes. I assumed that meant she'd be coming in later and leaving earlier but no, she started coming in even earlier (like 7am) and leaving after the evening rush hour...

 

[Cloo]

The Mail/Express are thoroughly appealing to the prejudices/ignorance of their retired readers about the modern workplace – talking to those whose experience of office work was most of the time hard copies of stuff having to appear on a manager’s desk. People who have no concept of collaboration tools like Slack or Teams, whose thinking is that surely no work can be done without someone physically watching over your shoulder and with no concept of how many teams now are in constant ‘discussion’ via various means and people would generally notice is someone wasn’t contributing a damn thing.

The other thing the whole 'Go back to the office now/Hey, just travel outside normal hours' is - uh, childcare? Hello? A lot of that still not fully open and/or likely to shut at a moments' notice, but as there are no women consulted in anything ever, or just Tory women who either don't have kids and/or assume everyone's husband's city job can pay for a full-time fucking nanny.

 

[frogwoman]

Worthless scumbag can't open his mouth without lying. Boris Johnson reiterates refusal to meet Covid bereaved

 

[brogdale]

Not under control at all:

 

[zahir]

Race to track 200 people on flight after officials fail to tell airline of Covid cases

Exclusive: Wizz Air left in dark after eight teenagers travelling from Crete to London Luton test positive

www.theguardian.com

Health officials are scrambling to contact more than 200 British holidaymakers on a flight from Crete last week after authorities failed to alert the airline that eight passengers had tested positive for coronavirus.

The teenagers, from Hampshire, were diagnosed after returning to the UK on a Wizz Air flight to London Luton airport on 25 August. The positive tests should have triggered an urgent response to track down the other 204 passengers on board, but Wizz Air said it had not been made aware of the cases until contacted by the Guardian.

Ben Pearce, 18, said he was one of 15 friends who tested positive for coronavirus after returning to the UK from Crete last week. At least eight of the group were on the same Wizz Air flight 8168 from Heraklion, which landed at London-Luton on 4.35pm on 25 August.

Pearce said NHS test and trace call handlers had contacted him multiple times since Friday but none had asked for his flight details. “Even though I’ve filled out my details on three separate phone calls, they always seem to say I’ve got nothing on my file,” he said. “The phone calls never seem to serve any purpose other than they [the call handler] have been told they need to call you.”

 

[emanymton]

The kabbess went in for an eye appointment at Moorfields yesterday. She went at rush hour (caught the 7:15 train). She said by the time it got to Waterloo, there were still only six people on her carriage. Normally, it would be nose-to-armpit by that point. And when you bear in mind that they’ve reduced the Waterloo service to one train an hour and eliminated the London Bridge services entirely, that only multiplies how much people are staying away.

One of my team members went in last week to the office (which is optional). He said there were six people on our floor, which normally has several hundred people.

Not reflective of my experience on the North. Trains are gradually creeping back up and buses are commonly as full as they can be with the new distancing rules including people having to stand.

I wonder if this is part of way cases are going up more outside London? Less working from home? Mind you the busiest train I have been in was about 11am on a saturday, not only was it full, but kids where running up and down the isles and most people didn't have masks on. And as for buses I imagine the job profiles of people who get buses vs those who get trains means more people who travel by train can work from home.

 

[andysays]

Coronavirus testing rationed amid outbreaks

The coronavirus testing system is struggling to keep up with demand as a growing number of people apply for swabs. People with symptoms applying for drive-through tests have been directed more than 100 miles (161km) away.

The government says areas with fewer coronavirus cases have had their testing capacity reduced, in order to cope with outbreaks. But public health experts warn this could miss the start of new spikes.

If it's like this now when case numbers are relatively low, what will it be like when cases start going up?

 

[Chilli.s]

So tracing is completely flawed in one of the most common routes of infection outbreaks (air travel). And testing is actually unavailable to those who think they need it. World leaders in the race to the bottom.

 

[SpookyFrank]

I wonder if this is part of way cases are going up more outside London? Less working from home? Mind you the busiest train I have been in was about 11am on a saturday, not only was it full, but kids where running up and down the isles and most people didn't have masks on. And as for buses I imagine the job profiles of people who get buses vs those who get trains means more people who travel by train can work from home.

Presumably not-London has a higher proportion of people working real, ie non-office jobs than London.

 

[Looby]

Coronavirus testing rationed amid outbreaks



If it's like this now when case numbers are relatively low, what will it be like when cases start going up?

Our local paper reported that the testing site is fucked and people should just turn up at our local testing site. People in Dorset were being offered tests in Manchester when it was clear by driving past that it was dead and there was shitloads of capacity.

 

[Teaboy]

Our local paper reported that the testing site is fucked and people should just turn up at our local testing site. People in Dorset were being offered tests in Manchester when it was clear by driving past that it was dead and there was shitloads of capacity.

There's a drive in test centre a few minutes from my home in SW London. From the looks of it it could probably do around 4 or 5 tests at a time with a queuing system which could manage another 40 odd cars. I'm yet to see more than 5 cars there at any time but mostly its completely empty. Yet here we are with people from London seemingly being sent to Cardiff and other miles away places. It just makes no sense at all.

 

[Thora]

How’s the testing system going to cope next week when 10,000 kids have been sent home from school with coughs & temperatures

 

[Badgers]

So tracing is completely flawed in one of the most common routes of infection outbreaks (air travel). And testing is actually unavailable to those who think they need it. World leaders in the race to the bottom.

Wonder how much the 'Get Tested' advertising campaign cost? Maybe they need to pay more Love Island 'influencers' to post on Instagram or some other shit. The grubby cunts