Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[planetgeli]

Have I got this right?

Looters, generally economically disadvantaged people who may otherwise starve, deserve to be shot.

Hoarders, generally rich middle class who have paid for their stuff, paid for their oversized freezer with 3 months of food and therefore creating a crisis, just planning ahead?

Is that right?

 

[Mr Moose]

The moment critical national infrastructure starts going (power, internet, phones, etc.) all bets are off if you ask me...

But is there any reason they should?

Food and the means to live. Guarantee those and most people will adapt. At the moment the measures don’t go far enough for those facing hardship.

 

[elbows]

This coronavirus will kill some fit and healthy young people too. Just because a lower percentage of them become seriously ill than older people, doesnt mean the burden to the younger group is nil.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Maybe I'll be proven wrong by events but I still think the likelihood of armed forces personnel enforcing law and order and curfews and what not is pretty... remote. They haven't got the numbers for a start. I reckon it will just be official orders to shut up shop unless you are a chemists/convenience store/supermarket and soldiers driving and stuff. Don't reckon it's going to go mad max just yet

 

[Azrael]

They've got people so wound up I'm not sure a full lockdown's even viable now, especially with police numbers as low as they are (using soldiers would just hose petrol on the panic, and they're already being sent to do logistical work). Italy's been having trouble policing hers, and that's wasn't introduced in the wake of a swivel-eyed plan to deliberately infect millions with coronavirus.

Every legacy of austerity's erupting at once.

Maybe shutting all pubs and cafes, banning all remaining events, combined with an exhaustive locate and isolate programme, will be all they can enforce. God what a mess.

 

[DotCommunist]

thinking of becoming a spiv for modern times only instead of nylon stockings and meat ration cards I'll have modern stuff like giffgaff credit, weed and amazon firesticks.

 

[Sasaferrato]

The most important thing if they fully deploy in London is preventing the wealthy and priviledged from 'opting out' by going to their holiday and second homes and fleeing the capital, spreading the virus merrily as they go... or dafties going back to stay with mum and dad, clearly to be avoided too.

This has already happened in Spain. Queues on the motorways leaving Madrid to Valencia and Andalucia when they tried closing the city. I am no fan of draconian measures normally, jeez, but I dont think there will be any civil unrest any time soon. And I think its the duty of the state to think of our interests - which currently means if they are going to seal off London, doing it properly quickly and with no exceptions.

And if people do start looting and turning the situation quickly into a crisis - is Sas wrong to say they should be dealt with extremely firmly (I dont know about shot). I dont think so. There should always be a question of immediate priorities and demands for progressive politics.

The likelihood of looters being shot is infinitesimal, especially with troops and police on the streets to enforce isolation. Even in WWII, where there was widespread looting by utter vermin, no one was shot.

'During the four months of the London Blitz from September to December 1941, a total of 4,584 cases of looting were heard by the Old Bailey court. In just one day in November, 56 of the cases to be heard by the courts involved looting. '

Were looting to occur, the looters are stealing food from society at large, no doubt with the intent of selling it back to society at inflated prices. The 'seize to redistribute' scenario is utter bollocks. Criminals don't work like that.

 

[Proper Tidy]

thinking of becoming a spiv for modern times only instead of nylon stockings and meat ration cards I'll have modern stuff like giffgaff credit, weed and amazon firesticks.

I will take weed and a loaded firestick, serious btw

 

[Sasaferrato]

Maybe I'll be proven wrong by events but I still think the likelihood of armed forces personnel enforcing law and order and curfews and what not is pretty... remote. They haven't got the numbers for a start. I reckon it will just be official orders to shut up shop unless you are a chemists/convenience store/supermarket and soldiers driving and stuff. Don't reckon it's going to go mad max just yet

It depends on how this goes. Troops and police are enforcing isolation in other countries now.

What astonishes me is the casual way people are regarding this, well casual is perhaps not the right word, but there seems to be no realisation that this has not yet really started in the UK.

 

[Sasaferrato]

I will take weed and a loaded firestick, serious btw

Weed is indeed in short supply.

 

[Sasaferrato]

This coronavirus will kill some fit and healthy young people too. Just because a lower percentage of them become seriously ill than older people, doesnt mean the burden to the younger group is nil.

We simply just don't know. That is the frightening thing.

 

[lazythursday]

But is there any reason they should?

Food and the means to live. Guarantee those and most people will adapt. At the moment the measures don’t go far enough for those facing hardship.

What worries me is how global supply chains may be breaking down. Will there actually be enough food in a few weeks time? Will, for instance, Spain still be exporting vegetables to us?
In power, to take one example, will logging to create wood pellets still be taking place in the US? Will those pellets be transported and loaded onto boats, taken to Liverpool, loaded onto trains and delivered to Drax power station?
I'm trying not to think about this stuff because once you do it becomes way more worrying than being confined to home for months / catching the virus. I hope there are people in all sorts of sectors making contingency plans.

 

[Proper Tidy]

It depends on how this goes. Troops and police are enforcing isolation in other countries now.

What astonishes me is the casual way people are regarding this, well casual is perhaps not the right word, but there seems to be no realisation that this has not yet really started in the UK.

Yeah I'm not ruling it out in coming weeks or months. Depending on how long this goes on for it could get really grim. Just unconvinced by the panic that set in last night about roadblocks and drones and compliance by pointing guns at people across london by friday.

 

[Kaka Tim]

There's nothing like swift, decisive action to get control of the situation in a crises. And this is nothing like it.
They are consistently dragging their feet on doing what clearly need to done to slow down infection rates - and then being forced to do it as events run ahead of them.
It is really dangerous - as well as pushing infection rates higher than they would be - it will stoke fear and confusion and chaos - especially in London.
The cunts are still in denial - they have to mobilise the entire forces of the state at every level to contain the pandemic and ensure peoples basic needs are met - and they are refusing to accept it.
Millions of people will now be increasingly fearful of being pushed into destitution - but it ok cos meal vouchers and your landlord cant evict you for 12 weeks.
Appalling.

 

[Azrael]

With hindsight, they've been working on the basis of the "herd immunity" strategy for weeks, maybe from the start (no restrictions at airports, which led to untold carriers melting into the general population, no testing of people reporting symptoms without known links with infected people, etc), and I don't believe for a second that their boffins didn't have a rough idea of a death toll that was obvious from the most basic arithmetic. They just didn't anticipate the extent of the backlash.

Now they're floundering, with remnants of the old policy still in place (why else bullheadedly refuse to test any NHS staff or enlist labs who've volunteered for testing?), mixed in with half-hearted attempts at suppression. We can't go on like this: a commitment to mass testing, contact tracing and isolation grows more urgent by the hour.

 

[kebabking]

Yeah I'm not ruling it out in coming weeks or months. Depending on how long this goes on for it could get really grim. Just unconvinced by the panic that set in last night about roadblocks and drones and compliance by pointing guns at people across london by friday.

It's delusional fuckwits obsessed by their own, imagined - and mistaken - importance.

Which kind of sums up London tbh....

 

[Treacle Toes]

Yeah I'm not ruling it out in coming weeks or months. Depending on how long this goes on for it could get really grim. Just unconvinced by the panic that set in last night about roadblocks and drones and compliance by pointing guns at people across london by friday.

Has anyone on here said that is going to happen?

 

[Treacle Toes]

It's delusional fuckwits obsessed by their own, imagined - and mistaken - importance.

Which kind of sums up London tbh....

Right.

 

[Kaka Tim]

With hindsight, they've been working on the basis of the "herd immunity" strategy for weeks, maybe from the start (no restrictions at airports, which led to untold carriers melting into the general population, no testing of people reporting symptoms without known links with infected people, etc), and I don't believe for a second that their boffins didn't have a rough idea of a death toll that was obvious from the most basic arithmetic. They just didn't anticipate the extent of the backlash.

Now they're floundering, with remnants of the old policy still in place (why else bullheadedly refuse to test any NHS staff or enlist labs who've volunteered for testing?), mixed in with half-hearted attempts at suppression. We can't go on like this: a commitment to mass testing, contact tracing and isolation grows more urgent by the hour.

I am genuinely getting increasingly fearful now. Its the sort of thing that could prompt a major exodus from london - (and other cities) further increasing the spread of the virus. Or is their "nudge unit" actually trying to provoke a complete break down in social order? Cos these cunts are doing the polar opposite of promoting calm reassurance or trust in their basic competence.

 

[Riklet]

Looting is quite a broad term. There's a spectrum from wantonly ransacking the local food shops in an orgy of competitive individualism to cracking open hoarded surplus resources and redistributing it.

Fair enough there is a difference in defiitions. But which is more likely in London May 2020? This isnt Paris after a year long siege.

Point remains about immediate priorities and immediate demands. Is the immediate priority for socially-minded individuals to be out in big groups and breaking into warehouses and company supplies? No. There are much more humble positive actions that can be done that dont involve Paris Commune Fantasy Roleplay. Sure, if things actually got to the severe necessity and breakdown that this was appropriate, then that might be different.

But that wasnt what I was talking about with 'looting' in the context of a pandemic health crisis. What were anarchists and communists doing in East London during the Blitz? Def not helping themselves while others were suffering. Did that mean they uncritically agreed with the state and didnt agitate in other ways? Er no.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Has anyone on here said that is going to happen?

Pretty much yeah.

Anyway I'm not taking piss or looking for a row, I understand it's an anxious time and a step into unknown. I do think people should be careful about adding to the anxiety of others tho (this isn't directed at you or any other specific person)

 

[brogdale]

The likelihood of looters being shot is infinitesimal, especially with troops and police on the streets to enforce isolation. Even in WWII, where there was widespread looting by utter vermin, no one was shot.

'During the four months of the London Blitz from September to December 1941, a total of 4,584 cases of looting were heard by the Old Bailey court. In just one day in November, 56 of the cases to be heard by the courts involved looting. '

Were looting to occur, the looters are stealing food from society at large, no doubt with the intent of selling it back to society at inflated prices. The 'seize to redistribute' scenario is utter bollocks. Criminals don't work like that.

This is a fair point, but it's important to remember that it has to be set in the context of rationing which ensured that everyone just about got what was needed to keep going and without the immediate food insecurity of just-in-time systems of stock control.

 

[Azrael]

I am genuinely getting increasingly fearful now. Its the sort of thing that could prompt a major exodus from london - (and other cities) further increasing the spread of the virus. Or is their "nudge unit" actually trying to provoke a complete break down in social order? Cos these cunts are doing the polar opposite of promoting calm reassurance or trust in their basic competence.

Likewise. I was never fearful in this way about Covid-19 itself. Knowing that Whitehall was perfectly willing to allow hundreds of thousands of their citizens to perish, and worse, their top scientists signed off on it, has shaken me to the core. Now they're blundering hopelessly, chasing headlines, without a clue how to get control over an epidemic they knowingly fueled.

Becoming resigned to the possibility that we'll only gain a handle on this outbreak (and using the WHO's guidelines, we can) when the chaos becomes bad enough to collapse the current government. I don't want to think about how many will lose their lives needlessly before that happens, and continue to hope beyond hope that there's another way out.

 

[brogdale]

It's delusional fuckwits obsessed by their own, imagined - and mistaken - importance.

Which kind of sums up London tbh....

Surprising lack of solidarity.

 

[NoXion]

I honestly don't understand how the fuck they thought that this "herd immunity" strategy would work. Any immunity gained from this virus won't last because of the rate at which it mutates. It spreads very easily, and a lot of people who do catch it will exhibit mild symptoms that don't exactly force one to stay in bed all day, meaning they are more likely to spread it about.

Dangerous fucking idiots. Toss them out NOW.

 

[Azrael]

I honestly don't understand how the fuck they thought that this "herd immunity" strategy would work. Any immunity gained from this virus won't last because of the rate at which it mutates. It spreads very easily, and a lot of people who do catch it will exhibit mild symptoms that don't exactly force one to stay in bed all day, meaning they are more likely to spread it about.

Dangerous fucking idiots. Toss them out NOW.

The chatter from reliable journos on Twitter is that it's the mutant baby of Cummings' weirdos, splicing the eugenics obsession doing the rounds among the political incels with a half-understood concept from epidemiology. Even the Sunday Times quoted a source saying that Johnson's a "Darwinist" who believes in "survival of the fittest".

Their media cronies are desperately firefighting the implications of what they tried to do, but you can't effectively gaslight something this bad. It's destroying even a base level of faith in the government at the worst possible moment.

 

[Wilf]

No!

 

[Treacle Toes]

Pretty much yeah.

Anyway I'm not taking piss or looking for a row, I understand it's an anxious time and a step into unknown. I do think people should be careful about adding to the anxiety of others tho (this isn't directed at you or any other specific person)

On my to do list this afternoon I have calls to people already worried about access to food because they can't get a delivery, are self isolating or have been to their local shops and couldn't get what they need. Also gotta call people who have no income as their jobs disappeared in recent days... I've no interest in creating panic, people are already feeling it in so many ways...according to the tone of some comments here lately they should simply stop being such bloody self important Londoners. It a crock of shit.

 

[Fez909]

Any immunity gained from this virus won't last because of the rate at which it mutates.

No one knows how fast it mutates because it hasn't done so in any significant way yet.

I'm all for criticising the govt's response here, but no need to spread more fear with stuff like this.

The current thinking is that if you've had it, you're immune from catching it again for at least a while.

 

[Proper Tidy]

On my to do list this afternoon I have calls to people already worried about access to food because they can't get a delivery, are self isolating or have been to their local shops and couldn't get what they need. Also gotta call people who have no income as their jobs disappeared in recent days... I've no interest in creating panic, people are already feeling it in so many ways...according to the tone of some comments here lately they should simply stop being such bloody self important Londoners. It a crock of shit.

Yeah I understand, I've got no income now either and am fucked. Its everywhere though isn't it, this isn't just london. And the stuff on here last night about soldiers gathering, lockdown by force etc, honestly people should be more responsible imo but there we are, it's done, focus on solidarity from here on in prob best