Coronavirus: COVID-19

[Vertigo 7]

I completely agree with you up to this point. For quite a while there was a lot of emotive rhetoric and "won't somebody think of the children" and not a lot of action. By the start of term, though, there was fairly detailed advice available for schools (it's not perfect, but it covers most issues) and UK schools seem, in general, to have bridged any gaps and managed to open without there being a huge outcry from teachers or teaching unions. It remains to be seen how long they manage to stay open as numbers creep up again, of course. Where the UK government really messed up was in totally failing to plan for the inevitable surge in test requests once schools went back, and even having the gall to admit that this wasn't predicted.

So yes, there are problems with schools and the response to the pandemic, but I don't think they are even remotely comparable to those in the US.

There was a typically pithy comment from the HIGNIFY crew recently:-

"As the government struggles to keep up with demand for Covid tests, Gavin Williamson suggests an algorithm to simply predict everyone's results".

And @BrasatoAlBarolo unfortunately we have one of the most incompetent governments in living memory in charge at the moment. The main criteria for being a member of the Cabinet are a) loyalty to Johnson and b) ideological commitment to Brexit as a cause.

Sunak is smart and on his game. I originally gave Hancock the benefit of the doubt but he's floundering and mis-stepping all over the place. The rest of them I wouldn't trust to run a chip shop.

School openings are very confusing in Italy, too, I was just making a very generic rant on governments around. They literally had months to plan the safest school opening around, yet they just waited the bomb to tick down.

I would rather that be the case here than the president using children and teachers as pawns in his political games.

[Mightysword]

In short: One 'side' is pulling 'facts' out of its arse and spinning a web of lies which would hog-tie Shelob. The other side is not. Stop trying to argue a false equivalence.

Do you notice that when person A bait person B into flame war, and if B takes the bait the moderators will often issue citation to both A and B equally? And if B try to argue with moderators that "but A started first!", they don't care. Also good luck trying to defend yourself with something "I can flame the other guy because of my moral high ground!!" and see if that flies. And why do you think the moderators have that policy?

Because a flame war is not a good conduit for a proper discussion, which what a forum is (ideally) supposed to be. And there is someone like me, who will assume "good intention" first - aka taking the bait - for the first few attempts. But once I decided that the other party has no interest in a discussion but just outright want an argument, my policy is to put the person on ignore and completely dis-engage from any future contact. Now while that may help avoiding future conflict, it's also not a good conduit for proper discussion either. And if you extrapolate those 2 issues to a large scale, they illustrate the exact problem in society. The former issue when 2 sides are more interest in flaming each others than "talking", and the latter is when some people just completely dis-engage altogether. NEITHER are goods thing when society need to come together to find solutions to problems.

The reason you don't like my approach because you're seeking the gratification of casting the blame, of being "more right than the others", and often the justification is "well the other side is more wrong than me so my wrong doing doesn't count!" - which exactly what you just said as far as I'm concern. I don't care about assigning blame, I care about proper discussions and dialogue. Before someone want to talk right/wrong or moral highground, I want to see 2 respectable adults first, and right now that impression is very lacking.

[Alan Phipps]

Moderators here will also say to *both* parties, please discuss the topic and not other posters or their posting styles.

[Mightysword]

To clarify, I'm just using the forum/moderator example to explain my reason why I hold both side of the media of equal responsibility.

[Alan Phipps]

.. and also to clarify, I was just pointing out why *anybody* commenting on other posters or their posting style rather than on thread topic is a bad idea that often just leads to further off topic arguments. Now back onto thread topic please.

"Stop trying to argue a false equivalence ... "
"The reason you don't like my approach [is] because you're ... "

[felter]

I have often said all it takes is one person, just a single person can mess it all up for everyone else. Bolton a town in the North West of England, population of around 130,000. They were looking pretty good, an infection rate so good they were even looking at easing restrictions opening up just a little bit more. Suddenly out of the blue the infection rate went from 12 per 100,000 to one of the highest in the UK with around 212 per 100,000, and it all happened in under 3 weeks. They did some backtracing to establish what went wrong and it mainly went back to a cluster of pubs. So they carried on looking at who had been at those pubs eventually a link appeared a group of friends out on a pub crawl. One single person stood out amongst them mainly due to the fact he had jut came back from holiday 3 days previous to the pub crawl, and who got a positive virus test 2 days after the pub crawl. The thing was he was meant to be self isolating for 14 days after his holiday, but no he thought he was better than anyone else that the rules didn't apply to him so he had just ignored them and for 5 days acted like nothing was wrong, spreading the virus around Bolton.

Bolton is now under some of the most strictest lockdown rules in the UK and it is mainly being blamed on that single one person. He is a modern day Mary Mallon and I wouldn't like to be him, I'm sure his name is going to spread amongst the people of Bolton and I'm sure more than a few are not happy about what is going on there and they are going to blame him for it. So I suspect he is not going to have a pleasant future ahead of him.

[RegisterMe]

For anybody interested here's the (or at least a) source for that story:-

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-m ... r-54205353

[pjknibbs]

Just to note that Bolton is in the North West, not the North East. That guy is an absolute moron, though--he knows he's supposed to self-isolate for 14 days on return from holiday, but he goes on a pub crawl instead?

[felter]

Just to note that Bolton is in the North West, not the North East. That guy is an absolute moron, though--he knows he's supposed to self-isolate for 14 days on return from holiday, but he goes on a pub crawl instead?

Yeah, for some reason I was thinking north of Manchester which is in the west, but my fingers for some reason still typed East instead of that West.

[Vertigo 7]

And that is precisely the same reason kids should not be in a class room right now. It only takes one to slip under the radar and a lot of people end up paying the price for it.

We have to contain and control this if we want to see and end to it at some point in our lives. Playing fast and loose is getting people killed.

[felter]

From September 28th there will be a fine of £1,000 and up to £10,000 for anyone breaking a self isolation rule in England. That guy in Bolton was lucky as I think he would have received the max fine. They also reckon that 4 out of every 5 people that are supposed to be self isolating are not doing so, that's a fairly high rate I wouldn't have thought it was that high, just shows that the majority are idiots and are not taking the virus seriously.

[Alan Phipps]

I saw a UK news service headline today that says "Fresh fears of supermarket panic buying as new UK lockdown speculation continues" and thought to myself that if anything was going to spark another unnecessary panic buying spree then it would be seeing headlines such as that appearing.

I call such things a self-licking lollipop, or perhaps a self-fulfilling prophesy.

[pjknibbs]

I imagine the people who were panic-buying toilet paper and the like first time around (a) probably still haven't used all their first lot and (b) will have seen that the supermarkets did not, in fact, turn into empty wastelands void of any sustenance despite the full-on lockdown, so one can only hope a little bit of common sense will prevail this time around.

[euclid]

Parts of Wales enter lockdown again starting Tuesday 5 pm. Affected areas are Blaenau Gwent, Bridgend, Merthyr Tydfil and Newport. More to be expected after Tuesday's Emergency Response Meeting.

Cheers Euclid

[felter]

It's really funny how things can suddenly turn around. Two weeks ago it was everyone needs to get back to work people need t be back in the office but mask are mandatory. Last week it was two thirds of the working population are back at work. To today where it is if you can work from home then you should do so. le back working with each other and masks should have been compulsory just one of many mistakes that have been made leading us up to where we are today.

School bus drivers are also up in arms, as they are transporting packed out buses to and from schools. Turns out the kids on those packed buses are also not abiding by the rules, with little to no social distancing while mixing together instead of staying in their own social groups and doing so while not wearing a mask. Of course drivers can't have anything to do with those kids, as with the world we live in they would be accused of things if they did so, they just have to let the kids do what they want and they are not happy about it and quite rightly so.

[Vertigo 7]

Today the US crossed 200k COVID deaths and were still averaging more than 40k new cases per day. We'll probably see another 100k deaths before the year is out.

[Y-llian]

Today the US crossed 200k COVID deaths and were still averaging more than 40k new cases per day. We'll probably see another 100k deaths before the year is out.

It's so hard to know what to say with those numbers - it's a sobering milestone. I really hope that matters improve across the pond. I have lots of friends in the States and everyone seems to be resigned that the number will continue to grow unless the strategy changes. We have our challenges in Europe also - the UK has introduced new restrictions in just the last few hours.

That said, we must also remember that we all have a shared humanity and we should do all we can support those who are affected. Now more than ever, there's a need for kindness even as we press our political leaders to turn their rhetoric into meaningful action.

[Vertigo 7]

Today the US crossed 200k COVID deaths and were still averaging more than 40k new cases per day. We'll probably see another 100k deaths before the year is out.

It's so hard to know what to say with those numbers - it's a sobering milestone. I really hope that matters improve across the pond. I have lots of friends in the States and everyone seems to be resigned that the number will continue to grow unless the strategy changes. We have our challenges in Europe also - the UK has introduced new restrictions in just the last few hours.

That said, we must also remember that we all have a shared humanity and we should do all we can support those who are affected. Now more than ever, there's a need for kindness even as we press our political leaders to turn their rhetoric into meaningful action.

Sadly, the 'rhetoric' from the president is on inaction. He isn't going to do anything and he's going to continue to encourage his retard followers to rebel anytime someone tells them to wear a mask. Nothing is going to change here so long as he's leading people to their deaths and his ego and arrogance will not let him change course. That would involve him admitting he screwed up. So don't expect to see anything change on that front until January.

[Y-llian]

Sadly, the 'rhetoric' from the president is on inaction. He isn't going to do anything and he's going to continue to encourage his retard followers to rebel anytime someone tells them to wear a mask. Nothing is going to change here so long as he's leading people to their deaths and his ego and arrogance will not let him change course. That would involve him admitting he screwed up. So don't expect to see anything change on that front until January.

I too, hope that things change come January and will be following the election closely. I found Trumps recent 'good genes' statement so shocking... Just when you think he's lowered the bar as far as possible, he manages to push it down even further.

[RegisterMe]

I too, hope that things change come January and will be following the election closely. I found Trumps recent 'good genes' statement so shocking... Just when you think he's lowered the bar as far as possible, he manages to push it down even further.

I think the closest Trump got to understanding what a gene was was when he ran his zipper up too fast.

I'm increasingly asking myself "qui bono"?

- Sure, Russia ******* the US up benefits Putin
- Sure, China ******* the US up hurts the US more than it does China
- Sure, lots of people in the US (and globally) may stand to benefit (short term at least) from some of that....

But... qui bono?

Say I am Steve Bannon (or Steven Miller, or...), I am at the summit of US power, which is at the summit of global power, and I am going to throw away our alliances, actively destroy the global economic structures that have underpinned our success, talk down our military (which have, Afghanistan aside, been pretty much hegemonic) and, oh, by the way, let a pandemic rip through the country because otherwise my boss' hair would have looked off...

I am struggling to buy it. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but...

qui bono?