Covid-19 Virus

Just to give my view on this annoying disease:

I am a big believer in graphs. If you look at the case/death graphs now and compare them to March we are a million miles away. March was a grim explosion of cases and sadly deaths. Now it's a very slight edging upwards. It's a problem but a lot of people seem to think we are heading for some lockdown situation like March. We will absolutely see some tightening of restrictions, but let's not confuse that with what happened before. The R number is estimated at 1.4 currently, whereas in March it went from 0 to 5 in a matter of days.

So I'm pretty optimistic about the whole thing. Winter will be tough no doubt, but I genuinely think the evidence suggests we got the worst of it out of the way in March. Hope I'm right!

 

So, with the check-in feature on the app, why is there no option to check out? If I went to hornmeister's golf club at 9am yesterday and left at 1pm, then Mr Covid-haver checked in at 3pm and reported a positive test a few days later, would I need to isolate as the app thinks we were both there on the same day? Or would the data on my phone say I left the golf club at 1pm? What if my phone runs out of battery at 12pm?

 

I wish people would stop moaning about our young people just because they want to carry on living life to the full and not spend the next 6 months hiding under the stairs in case they develop a cough. They way students are being treated by Universities is a disgrace and I have instructed my youngest son (who is starting his final year at Birmingham) to ignore the Government's over-zealous Covid paranoia and try his best to enjoy himself. My other lad works in the city and insists on commuting to his office every day from Clapham and is doing his best to keep the economy going by going out and getting pissed most nights. Young people will be the ones paying for the economic ruin that we have inflicted upon ourselves by our Covid response so who can blame them if they choose to ignore the Government's latest edicts.

 

I tend to agree with this.

The problem lies with the fact that universities make significant sums from student accommodation fees. It was fherefore in the interests of the university bigwigs to insist that there be a mixture of face to face and online teaching, even though many of us lecturers would of course prefer the latter. But of course it was inevitable that outbreaks would occur when students returned. My hunch is that universities will have to switch to full online teaching at least for the first term - some have already done this. But will they allow students who have returned to go back home if that is the case, and if so will those students get a reduction in their accommodation fees? If the latter, some universities may be at financial risk (not that that is such a bad thing imo, there are too many universities...).

 

Yes, there is always a reason that can be found for breaking the law/rules if we don't happen to like them, in an attempt to justify ourselves.

 

Bit like the Internal Markets Bill, eh?

I'm not seeking to advocate or justify breaking the rules. Given that I personally stand to suffer from any such breaches, it wouldn't be in my interests to do that. I simply think that a Covid outbreak at university was an absolute certainty whether rules were broken or not. It's a simple product of the close proximity in which students live. This is why densely populated areas of the country are faring worse than sparsely populated ones.

Universities and government should have given much more thought in advance to how this inevitable outcome might best be managed.

 

You forgot to add that anyone who breaks the rules, or does not support the restrictions, is almost certainly responsible for hundreds of deaths!

 

I'll expect that sort of response from many people when they are justifying themselves in court. "Yes your honour, if the government can consider breaking an international treaty, then I'm justified in mugging an old lady in the street".

 

Just pointing out the apparent inconsistency in your position, that's all. I don't think either type of breach is justifiable.

 

If people are too selfish to see how their actions prolong the misery and costs for thousands of others, then no debate on here is going to change their minds.

 

Absolutely. But not every case of Covid is caused by selfishness or thoughtlessness, is it? What "rule" did Adrian Mariappa breach?

Gavin Williamson said this today: "Inevitably, there will be cases of Covid in universities just as there are in wider communities". That statement doesn't seek to attach blame to anyone and it seems to me to be much more constructive to accept that some spread is certainly going to happen and seek to mitigate it rather than merely scapegoating a group of "Covidiots" (although that is not to say that there should be no sanctions for misbehaviour of the latter). Assigning some sort of moral blame to people also runs the risk that those who consider themselves "blameless" fail to take sufficient precautions.

 

The Government’s behaviour does influence people greatly. Look at Cummings. Thoroughly trashed the first lockdown with his lies.

 

I thought we had established that Cummngs didn't do anything wrong?

 

Of course not and I've no idea if he did or not, but that's not what I was referencing.

It's been suggested that it's OK to risk other peoples, lives and livelihoods, just because someone wants to go out for a beer or two ignoring the guidance. It's a waste of time trying to debate that with anyone that thinks that's remotely justifiable.

 

I don't disagree with that except in so far as we should obviously be trying to persuade (?force?) such people to act differently rather than just ignoring their behaviour.

 

The notion that the rules have become too complicated now reinforced by the fact that Johnson himself is getting them wrong.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54342688

 

7 school days on from this and we're now at 2215 infected schools. Eek.

 

They reckon the true figure in March/April was that there were really about 100k new infections per day but they were only recording these in hospitals to start with. Now testing has been ramped up, the reported number of 6k+ per day although similar to March, that they reckon this is about 50% of the true figure. Therefore it is right to say we are not in the same position we were in March but the hospitalisation numbers lag the infection numbers and the death numbers lag the hospitalisations. The hospitalisation numbers are now starting to rise, like the infection rate did a few weeks ago, I expect the death rate to go up to 3 digits again by the end of next week.

 

Absolutely. The spread is currently far slower than before which suggests we have 'some' degree of control but further restrictions will be needed to get the R number back to below 1 sadly.

 

Oddly, we’ve already fallen substantially behind the Whitty/Vallance 50,000 case scare story prediction, even though most of SAGE think the rule of 6 and the 10pm thing is of little use.

 

We were told people 'selfishly' enjoying the beach in the summer would cause a spike in infections. Nothing happened. Was there an increase in cases in London after the 'irresponsible' demonstrations over the summer? No. What about after the 'reckless' VE Day parties? Erm... no. If young people -or anyone for that matter - choose to hold a street party after they've been chucked out of the pub early in the evening, good luck to them! I for one find news footage of their joie de vivre uplifting

 

I have to say that, as I live in Canada this thread is rather amusing and the self Centred attitudes displayed on this thread, alongside the farcical UK government response really show why the UK cases are rocketing. I live in Alberta the most conservative province and even the hicks will wears masks because they realise its in the countries best interest. To read the rhetoric I'm going to do what I want because I'm young and it's just a cough is laughable. I'm 25 and the truth is I don't want a virus that we don't know the long term implications of receiving it are. I am active so my health and fitness is important to me but if "getting pissed most nights" is your life, so be it. I don't think Canada has had the best response in the world but culturally the UK is diseased and covid has really showed this. Young people singing in the streets, boomers pointing the finger and then travelling to Greece for a 2 week holiday. Don't let me start on the government who is trying its best to essentially privatise a pandemic whilst creating a different set of rules for the ruling class.

 

It is puzzling.

According to Worldmeters,
The UK is about 11th worse for deaths per population.
But the UK has only the 58th worst "cases per 1m" population figure (6,564) that is better than than Ireland (7,218), Portugal (7,333), France (8,309), Sweden (9,142), Belgium (9,942) and Spain (16,003) are amongst the 50 with worse numbers.
The UK, amongst all the major nations (those with a population more than 10m) has done, by far, the most tests per 1m population (356,000), more than that of France (218,196), for example.

 

Canada is by some distance the dullest country I have ever visited. I'm sure you fit in well. Has Trudeau 'blacked up' recently?

 

Wouldn't you agree that sitting on a beach 6ft away from the next family is likely to be less "infectious" than having a party round someones house with all the intimacy that potentially entails, dancing, etc, or in a pub, when many will get pie-eyed? The fact that so many students seemed to have tested positive over the very first weekend of fresher's week implies that they were infected before they got there. If you think they caught it because they all legged it down to the beach last Wednesday, then you really must be mistaken.

 

Interesting, yet somewhat patronising comments there from someone living over 3500 miles away.

 

To be fair, it’s easy to give the impression youngsters are out getting wasted everynight. The films that everyone sees of rowdiness are generally the same ones again and again and mostly shot outside where people are much less likely to get infected. The truth is much more pedestrian, infection mostly at home and often from a failure to social distance at work.

 

Should we talk about the UK priminister....

Guessing you had a work trip to Toronto and didn't visit anywhere else?

Hiked 850km this summer, what have you done buddy. Quality of life over here is incomparable. If the piss up on the weekend is all you live for I really do pity you.

 

Once again the contradiction in the rules being given out by the government are inexcusable. But that's the government rhetoric, it's how it always has been, politics of divide and marginalize. It's was the polish then the Muslims and now its young people. The fact that the government is criticising people for taking covid tests when they have no symptoms is insane. Particularly when a lot of people are asymptomatic. I can walk 10 minutes down the road and get a test without a booking. But testing has been privatized in england and the tracing app doesn't let you report tests done under the nhs.

 

But what I don't understand is how mask have only just become mandatory in pubs and restaurants. Servers literally had a choice and people in kitchens to wear them. The police even said its not their responsibility to enforce people breaking rules, it's the responsibility of the establishment. It's been groups of 6 mask in transition from table and it bathrooms since we reopened. Even dive bars enforce the rules.

 

I think a lot of it is to due with the huge ramp up of infections in March when we had no very little testing, and the breakout amongst care homes causing a huge death rate. All those tests we have done have been well after the virus died down.

 

LOL!!

 

I feel it only fair to point out that, as Vallance/Whitty were at pains to explain, their graph was not a ‘prediction’. It was an illustration of what could happen if no preventative measures were taken, or properly followed.

 

Yes of course, we started off slowly with testing. But we have now done 24m tests compared with France 10m, Italy 11m and Spain 12m, Germany 15m.

 

Either way it was complete scare story nonsense. I'm gobsmacked it was ever allowed to be presented to the public like that.