Coronavirus General Discussion

Watched Raab on Marr this morning...I’ve heard more sense in an episode of the Teletubbies.Does nobody brief these clones?
The daily briefings continue to be an exercise in spouting mind-boggling and illogical garbage especially when the questioning starts.
Awful

I think an awful lot of people (everyone, in fact, to a certain level) have this kind of gut feeling that if something bad happens then it's in some way deserved — bad things happen to bad people — and so they can't imagine it could happen to them.

That is part of my worry. I'm all for social distancing but how long can we as a society go without physical contact? From a mental health perspective apart from anything else. Single people especially will be suffering infinitely more than those isolating with partners.

But the situation is completely different.

When the lockdown started we were in a situation where the disease's growth was exponential and the number of deaths was based on infections that happened at a time where distancing and home working were still in the future and all businesses were still open. Now we're in a situation where the disease is in decline and the number of infections has been kept under control by two months of restrictions. The two situations aren't remotely comparable. The number of deaths is only one single data point, and it's far from the most important one.

Furthermore, the lockdown is being eased, not ended, no matter how much several of you keep trying to imply that everything is going back to normal and there'll be as much opportunity for disease transmission as there was in early March. Distancing is still in effect. Working from home is still in effect. The furlough programme is still in effect. The only thing that has changed is that people are being allowed a little more freedom and some businesses are being allowed to open if and only if they can do so without compromising safety. So long as people behave sensibly there's no reason why there should be a significant increase in risk.

And if people don't behave sensibly? Well, perhaps the government should increase the penalty charge. (I'd have set it as £250 / 50% of weekly income to reflect the seriousness of the issue. £30 is more like a parking ticket.) The country can't get into arbitrarily high levels of debt because a small percentage of the population are idiots and can't grasp how diseases spread, which is something almost nobody over the age of eight really has any excuse for not understanding.

The government is not saying that the restrictions are over, that it's OK to take risks now, or that the danger has passed. I don't know what people expect to achieve by acting as though that's what they are saying.

I am by myself and it is the past few weeks where I am finding things difficult and I think a lot has to do with the changes and uncertainty. And people are out now, walking around and I almost feel I should be too. I didn't feel lonely at all until that point when you start to think: Is there something wrong with me? I am missing out now. When of course ai should be home and doing all the right things. But it doesn't feel like that anymore.

Have been pondering on the strategy as I believe there must be one.

My belief is that the Government have decided that transmission outside in warm weather is extremely unlikely or at least is less infectious than in winter / early spring aided by social distancing. The 2m distance is likely to remain as in reality most people read 2m as 1-1.5m and if the distance is less we are more likely to begin to reduce the distance between each other subliminally.

The lockdown is still in place for most confined spaces and meeting friends has to be done outdoors.


My concern especially after this weekend with high density beaches, beauty spots and demonstrations it is difficult to maintain the 2m distance and people are spending a lot of time close together the two scenarios that can lead to infection and what the Government were hoping would not happen.

If we had less infected people in the population this would most probably not matter but we have what is believed to be 8,000 fresh cases in reality every day and the deaths and hospitalisation figures are beginning to plateau or in the case of hospital admissions creeping up slowly.

If the warm weather hypothesis is true being outside and at a safe distance should not be a concern and that is what we need to continue to do.


Will be monitoring the hospital admissions this week to determine if there is a trend upwards but otherwise I will be going outside regularly but only in spaces where I can maintain a safe distance and the time spent with individuals I do not know is limited.

Nobody is writing off those deaths, and it's deeply offensive that you'd imply that I am.

I think that very much depends on the person. I live with my mother but neither of us are particularly huggy people & I'm not sure we've actually hugged each other the entire time we've been in lockdown. So I find it kind of hard to understand when I see comments online how people are desparate to be able to hug others again. I've also not had a face to face conversation with anyone other than my mother since lockdown, & only a couple of phone conversations & no video calls, & again I'm fine with that & will happily keep it up indefinitely. Being an introvert with Asperger's who has a strong dislike of humanity en masse is extremely useful in the current situation!

No, it is not.
But it is the job of governments to assertively macro-lead their citizens, particularly in ever-changing conditions and moments of crisis.

I think the misreporting from the media has something to answer to. I have watched every briefing bar one I think and seen one news bulletin a day. The headline that government scientists don't agree with what has been actioned is totally unrealistic when 3 out of 50 sage members are mentioned. The other 47 then are apparently in agreement.
This is a complex issue and getting the balance right is not an easy ask as there are many competing issues and views at all times. I doubt if the government would go ahead if they thought what they were doing would risk a second peak when at every stage that is what they have been trying to avoid.A lot of what is happening is advice, shielded people are not being forced to go out. Jenny harries said yesterday that the risk outdoors has dropped substantially since the outbreak began. People are being given choices. That is not to say people are being irresponsible as I think many are. At every stage we are being told that the regulations when changed are not to be taken advantage of and we should still be minimising contacts where possible.
I hope we can move through the levels without any further major outbreaks but that is not just down to government. It is down to how we all act.I don't agree there is any confusion with what is being done. Detailed guidelines are always available on gov.uk.
I am sure many will disagree but we all have our opinion and lets hope we can all get though this without too much further suffering.

That was nought to nuclear, I wasn't talking directly about you. I was talking about me, LondonPostie, you, everyone who posts on here. Everyone that has been in the tales of 'lockdown ended' over the last few weeks and days posted on here and everywhere else. We went into lockdown two weeks too late and have come out (about) four weeks too early.

I'm mainly talking about a government. I've stopped trying to project my own priorities and beliefs onto absolute screwballs like Johnson, Gove and Cummings, and instead get my head around their ultra libertarian free market laissez-faire ideology, then everything they do becomes as predictable and explicable as me calling for nationalisation.



The greatest myth ever is that the elite are the anti Establishment looking out for the ordinary people. They don't give a f*** if ordinary people live or die or, if they live, how they manage to live.

Because their conscience is all about their libertarian free market. Everything else is on you. You decide to go out, you decide the risk and mitigate with mask and gloves and keeping your distance, or you just take your chances, it's all on you. You decide to stay in, you end up skint, that's also on you. Your choice in a libertarian free market.



Their vindication will be in financial results, not death rates or "r" numbers or "k".



From where I look at it, I fail to see how people can be outraged at the perfectly predictable and, from an ultra libertarian perspective, rational disregard for anything construed as "social" or "collective" - like public health.

I said "might", and stand by the observation to the extent I made.

I note you haven't engaged with my point so can I take it then that you agree with me that a one track mind on coronavirus may do just as much harm as good now we are past the peak and at a point where the NHS can cope (and therefore lockdown has achieved its stated aim)? In other words, oversimplifying this to being about a lockdown and only a lockdown is potentially as dangerous now as not locking down in March would have been.