You see headlines like this one and it all feels a bit East Germany.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55503852
If them boys were playing dominoes all that child porn on my hard drive came pre-loaded by Dell.
What is annoying me at the moment is that I follow a lot of Americans on twitter (be it golf, baseball, etc) and they all seem to be basically carrying on as normal - yes there are masks around and an element of social distancing, but they're going out and having breakfast together, playing golf, doing most of the things they would normally be doing. Seeing each other. People are dying but other people are living their lives, to a reasonable degree. There are weddings and parties and so on all taking place.
Their 'handling' of the pandemic definitely hasn't been any better than ours - if you're a believer in stringent lockdowns, it's been far worse - so why are we in fucking permanent lockdown with no end in sight, and they are somewhat getting on with their lives?
Americans are comfortable with school children getting shot in the face, as if they break stride for a load of pensioners dying.
So my question is (since it appears more of our pensioners than theirs are dying anyway), is it all worth it?
Well it depends if you think it's worth it or not to overwhelm hospitals during winter where they will have to make choices on who lives or not. We're about 2 months away from Spring and a vaccine mass rollout, it's worth a few more inconvenient months.
Looks like they're overwhelmed anyway.
I'm not being one of those denying weirdos posting graphs about excess deaths, it just feels like all the sacrifice is completely worthless.
We got a Labour Party leaflet through the door, and it includes the following section on East Riding Council and 'vulnerable kids':
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When that 30 stone diabetic heifer who smokes 40 a day whose life you managed to save gives you a smile from her mobility scooter next summer, you'll know it was all worth it.
The argument I like against just shielding the vulnerable is how selfish it would have been to expect them to do so all this time. As opposed to...
How many vulnerable people do we have as a society?
Be interesting to see how much public money is being saved due to disability/pensions etc.
Being saved is the wrong term but you know what I mean.
The problem with just getting the vulnerable to shield is that they either can't or they don't want to. If they could or they did, we wouldn't have 1,000 of them dying a day again.
Shielding clearly wouldn't work, I mean look how the elite football and Whitehouse bubbles got ravaged.
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https://www.itv.com/news/2021-01-03/...ost-inevitable
Why is Boris so fucking slow to make literally any decision? It's like they live on 19th century political timetables and they need everyone to come into London on their horse and cart with a 5 day journey before any decisions get made.
As for enraging the libertarian wing of the Tory party, literally about 9 people in the world care what they think. Why are political reporters still doing this?
It's almost like he believes there is some sort of charm in his leave-it-to-the-last-minute, "look, I didn't WANT to do this but here we are" approach. It is very strange.
Unrest in the ranks.
Just getting the vulnerable to shield would have been pretty impossible, surely? It ripped theough care homes first time around (not sure how it is with them at the minute, not seen much reporting on that this time) but those people hardly go out much do they? It's people who have to come in and work there to look after them that causes the problems. Same for people who are cared for in their own homes by carers or relatives.
What about people of working age with health issues that make them vulnerable? Do they still go to work? What about their partners? Do they still go to work? What if they have kids at school? Do they still go to school?
According to worldofmeters, the UK has now completed over 54m tests... that's basically almost everyone... Has anyone here NOT been tested yet? Seems really high - whenever I speak to friends and family in the UK, hardly anyone has been tested.
It's been a while... Top 15 Deaths/1m pop
The same people will have been tested over and over again.
I've never been tested as I've never had a symptom, which is what is supposed to prompt a test.
No. You lockdown the vulnerable and anyone that needs to be in contact with them. The sweetener is thatvtheybare first on the vaccine priority list.
Anyone that isn't vulnerable and has no contact with the vulnerable can keep social distancing and wearing a mask to limit the spread but there's no need for the shops to be shut.
Less impossible than shutting the entire country for 12 months plus, which seems to be the alternative such whataboutery demands. I saw some talking head yesterday saying that THE SCIENCE didn't particularly think that shutting schools would make much difference. I missed the exact context [it may have been in terms of curbing the spread of THE VARIANT], but if that is in anyway true the constant demands for something to be done about them is interesting and perhaps indicative of people wanting something to be done, even if it is relatively pointless, and that a worryingly large section of society is quite keen on authoritarian government and lockdowns. From the outset it has been my view that people aren't accustomed to the idea of something being almost entirely outwith their control, which for most major developed nations covid clearly is.
I sort of agree with some of Jim's sentiments. For a while I've wondered how America, having done such an apparently bad/non-job* of bothering with covid, was broadly matching most other developed countries in terms of deaths and infections per head of population, who have locked down hard.
*but then, as so much is state by state in the US maybe the idea of them not really having done much is false, this feels the more likely answer. Or maybe their counting is squiffy, but I'm less convinced of that.
Part of me thinks we shouldve earmarked 200 billion at the beginning of this to give to doctors/nurses as a Coronatimes bonus and then done nothing else and let the virus run through the pop.
https://twitter.com/koryodynasty/sta...10393715564544
Yeah, I'll take the deaths.
Based on the conversation in the office, I think people have completely broken now (I know I have). The IT guy has come in ranting about the fact that people are still able to buy non-essential items in supermarkets but his wife's wedding photography business has had to shut down.
It's not wildly different to arriving back here.
Do the Koreans then make you isolate for 14 days even if your arrival test is negative? We do. Those are the lengths you have to go to if you don't want this thing [assuming that is even an option which is never was for most places], which is clearly unsustainable at any sort of scale.
Korea's also going through a genuine peak. 20,000 active cases. From a total of 64,000. 13,000 in the last week alone.
Exactly - the policy is pretty much exactly the same here, but they spend millions more won on draconian enforcement methods and putting people in hazmat suits and barking orders in garish uniforms. It's not a different policy that people want - it's the visible paraphernalia of control because, as you said earlier, they can't deal with the idea that there's anything which can't be controlled.
I just want to know what the additional restrictions are going to be besides schools closing. If it's a curfew they can get to fuck and if they end support bubbles they can also get to fuck. Shops closing, whatever, do your worst.
If Bill Gates or any government spies are reading this, I'd appreciate if you could leak the juice to Robert Peston asap.
Apparently:
Masks must be worn all the time and they must be 3 layer.
So is that Marcus Rashford or not on that leaflet?
It's a massive slog. More of the same without much to look forward to (until the summer?)
https://hbr.org/amp/2020/12/how-to-l...Vh5v7p&cf=1
Here's a helpful hbr link ^
Agree though I do with much of what Dr Merete Wedell-Wedellsborg has to say, there are only so many fights you can dream up for yourself in these circumstances. I did the 70 day stretch without seeing anyone last year, and what did it achieve? Apparently nothing, because here we are again. And that's speaking as someone who considers themselves, in normal circumstances, to be resilient as fuck.
I've also never been tested.
Only breathing for the sake of Thiago Alcantara minutes at this point.
Fucking set up an experiment with mice and deprive them of their clubs and saunas and see how long it takes before they start eating each other.