The Scientists have been weirdly reluctant to shut our borders from day one, to the point where you have to wonder whether it was some weird political preference on their part.
The Scientists have been weirdly reluctant to shut our borders from day one, to the point where you have to wonder whether it was some weird political preference on their part.
Same problem in the US.
You all know I'm a proper latte-sipping liberal lefty, but I was all for slamming closed the borders immediately. Pandemics are one situation that clearly justifies (requires!) border closures. Pandemic modelling is really clear on that point - any Actual Scientist arguing otherwise probably has a PhD in extrasolar biology or something, and doesn't know what they're on about. I'm legitimately curious who has been saying otherwise, because it can't have been the epidemiologists.
The problem is obviously that the EU and US states are built around the idea of free movement, but the impetus was surely political rather than scientific.
The reason no European country shut the borders early is just sheer scale - we have 300 million air passengers a year and NZ have 40 million, most of whom are probably from Australia. It would have taken a proper one-off maverick of a PM to shut borders in February, against scientific advice, and not re-open them for... will it be two years? Who knows. In Aus and NZ it's a much easier decision as you're that much more removed from mass international transit.
Maggie Thatcher might have done it if she was deep on the G&Ts that week, but even that I doubt.
The bit Boris has done wrong over here is a) listen too much to the right wing of his party and too little to the population; b) always delay decision-making as long as possible (which he does in every arena, not just the pandemic).
This was the first year since 2006 in which I haven't left Australia. It's been weird in that regard. It felt like a game of musical chairs, and in March 2020 the music stopped. Wherever you were, that's where you stayed.
I have a friend in Sydney from Europe, and her mum was visiting at the time. Ended up staying in her apartment for six months.
How have people reacted to the on and off lockdowns there, Ital? We have instituted a series of half-hearted measures on and off, and by the third change to THE RULES the public has just decided it doesn’t care anymore.
I agree, although there's a lot of air travel within that was shut off as well. Sydney-Melbourne was the second-busiest flight route in the world, and while we aren't quite an international hub, a lot of flights to Asia go through our east coast. Even we didn't shut everything down in February, though we were certainly preparing for it.
I'm not saying it would have been easy - we're definitely playing on easy mode, and it was still challenging. But every delay in a pandemic is critical, especially early on, and there was a real resistance from a lot of governments to listen to epidemiologists giving the obvious advice until things were already spiraling.
Once you know for sure it's going to be a pandemic, it's almost too late.
I agree entirely, and I think it would have been a lot easier for all of you now if he hadn't done those two things. Still not great, obviously, because it's a global pandemic. But you could barely asked for a worse person to be at the helm.The bit Boris has done wrong over here is a) listen too much to the right wing of his party and too little to the population; b) always delay decision-making as long as possible (which he does in every arena, not just the pandemic).
Mostly fine. There was some discontent with the Victorian lockdown as it dragged on, but mostly it held. There's always a few, but noncompliance is built into the mathematical models, and it's all within the predicted ranges.
The Queensland lockdown seems to have worked. I'm required to follow it even though I was allowed to go back to Sydney during the lockdown, which is a nice touch.
The penalties are pretty stiff here, and the police are enforcing them. Not wanting to be down $10,000 helps sway hearts and minds. Businesses are required to have electronic sign-ins in NSW with the government app, and the penalty there is steep enough that they're following it.
Why would I remove my mask outside if I hadn't washed and sanitised my hands first? That would be mong behaviour.
Last edited by Giggles; 11-01-2021 at 05:32 AM.
Haven't they basically debunked the spread of COVID via fomites?
We don't have the manpower to enforce the rules for 65 million people, so the only option is to make them palatable enough that most people will follow them voluntarily (and most people do, I think).
I really don't think they do. The 'bubble' rules are the problem. It's being used as Carte Blanche by most people I know with kids.
It's better now than it was before Christmas because it's an actual "lockdown" but it's still going on.
The bubble rules are not the problem. People refusing to read what the bubble rules actually are is the problem.
If they end up forcing me back into isolation and not being able to see my parents once a week I'll be as close to breaking the rules as I have been since the beginning (he says, posting from a completely empty office other than me).
Mixture of the two. I don't think a lot of people are capable of reading in full sentences or comprehending the nuance of a regulation beyond the word 'bubble'.
Exactly that. All context has disappeared, it's just become "childcare" as an excuse to see whoever they want.
My sister In Law is currently in a 'single person bubble' with her monster in law (her mother in law is in 3 single person bubbles) and a 'childcare bubble' with her mum. She doesn't actually need the childcare, she works from home whilst her husband is home. There's no childcare going on.
This is fairly representative of most people I know with kids and I get the temptation. Having bored kids at home, whilst working and not being able to do anything is a tough slog.
I think being from / in Essex probably adds to the experience. The combination of being 'cheeky' and thick as pig shit makes this stuff inevitable.
Another sweet week of doing what I want.
+1 for the bubble shambles.
Not saying the government shouldn't have a system, but as someone who knows the rules on it (as I'm legitimately in one with my sister's family) the amount of people I come across who're taking the piss with it is unreal.
"They're one of my bubbles" or "We've formed a bubble (hang on, you both live with other people)".
Bring childcare into it and allow exceptions for that (which you sort of have to for times when it is needed) and you've got no chance, as no parent wants to spend 24 hours a day for 10 months with their kids. Not a single one.
Last edited by Yevrah; 11-01-2021 at 09:31 AM.
And not that the government haven't made mistakes (faaaar from it), but stuff like the above that makes me think this round is on 'us' rather than them and the frustration at the situation we're in should be directed at the people who think the rules don't apply to them rather than Kay and Ken, or whatever the fuck their names were.
Then you've got those who test positive and keep quiet because they don't fancy missing out on a fortnight of work.
On a related note, an interesting fact is that in the warehouse that's attached to my company, there are 25 people who work there and 14 of them have acquired mask exemption cards, all of which appeared after a rule requiring them to wear masks was introduced in October.
Probably can't hear themselves over them.
People breaking the rules are bastards.
Nothing was ever going to happen in February, but there was nothing to stop them shutting borders in April. Priti Patel and Matt Hancock wanted to stop flights from the then hotspots in early March, but between the Treasury graph and the attempts to get expats home (fuck them) it never happened.
You probably have more sense of civic togetherness than we do, especially as each city/metro area/state has its own certain identity about what it is. We are a very crowded island some of which is quite nice and some of which is a post-industrial hellhole, and all of which has had its social institutions eroded over the last 40 years to the point where it's basically every man for himself.
And like Spikey says, there was compliance the first time round but when it comes back two and three and four times, all for weeks and months at a time, people just get sick of it.
Celtic.
I also think it helped that our first big lockdown - combined with the border restrictions and early start - basically controlled and eliminated the major threat (touch wood). It helped that it was strict, and there were very few loopholes. I really think having seventeen thousand different loopholes may have seemed like an important quality-of-life measure, but it just helped the disease spread.
After that there have been occasional flare-ups, but I think people see it as a solveable problem rather than fighting the tide like it is there. People are more motivated when they don't feel something is hopeless. It feels like a short but important inconvenience.
"i CaN tEaCh OnLiNe JuSt As EfFeCtIvElY!"
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/s...uggle-23297807
Hasn't done Australia much harm.
Madagascar had is sussed years ago. Anyone who's done that, or got as close as possible, have staved this thing off, but most countries simply didn't have the option to even think about doing that in the first place.
Border closures and strict (draconian) enforcement of isolation rules were beyond the wit and capability of most jurisdictions from the outset.
Being a covid stats obsessive (it keeps me sane knowing facts), I found it very curious that today Matt Hancock chose for the first time not to mention the number of daily deaths (just over 500) but to mention the 7 day average (just over 900) instead. They obviously want that number high, in presentational terms, which seems arse about face but what do I know.
They need people scared if they've any chance of getting them to do as they're told.
Anyone using daily figures for comparison between consecutive days needs COVID-20. BBC News are the biggest culprits I know of. Either use 7-day moving averages or Guardian's comparison to same day last week. Idiots.
What's the xD today? (Expected deaths)
There are hospitals which have had to lower target saturations (the level of oxygen in a patient's blood) to 88% for all patients because they are at critical oxygen supply. It would usually be >95%.
Keep telling us how we could be overwhelmed soon Boris. Overwhelmed was last week.
Parents are having the Pfizer on Friday. Breaking the dirty ethnic stereotype at every turn, what heroes.
Our ITU are 30 nurses short of safe staffing levels tonight.
Never let it be said that I'm a defender of our Liberal governments, but the UK lot are in a different league.
That said, the best thing our lot did was realise that it needed to be coordinated at state level, rather than federally. They closed the border, put up a bunch of money to make sure that people could keep their jobs, then let the states handle the important decisions.
The UK doesn't really have a layer of government between local councils and national, does it?
Scotland/Wales/NI have national assemblies but England has nothing. Some cities have mayors but they don't have many powers.