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Coronavirus - the new strain XII

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russel

russel

./_dazed_and_confused
Andrew C! said:
A bit of a musing/thought -

Reading recent posts on here, I’m minded to remember that we live in a society that is very transient. We like to travel, possibly more so than some other cultures. We have also been encouraged over the years to be independent, and expect our freedoms of association and movement to be supported. This has been engrained in our culture for decades.

When these two values are constricted, the concluding friction is inevitable. It’s therefore hardy surprising that we don’t tolerate these values being compromised for too long, is it?

The example is close to home. Outside of Nottingham, the infection rate is a lot lower, and yet the restrictions apply to the county. Some friends of mine agree with this, due to travel/transmission, whilst others suggest it isn’t needed, and why should they be restricted others than not going to Nottingham.
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Add to ignore experts, if you follow advice to isolate lack of job security for some people means going hungry and possibly homeless, it just shows how fragile the neoliberal economic system is. Thank god we don’t have a virus with a mortality rate nearer ten percent and an r0 larger than 2, the system would have completely broken down without the kind of martial law we saw imposed in China.

if a different type of disaster struck, say a Carrington event, the U.K. would be back in the dark ages for quite a few years.
 
mandryka said:
..... on the depressing channel 4 news last night.....
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Is there any other kind of Channel 4 News these days? I particularly like it when they say "we asked the government to comment on the corruption/lying/etc* but no-one was available".

*delete where applicable
 
tiggers said:
Hancock sounds utterly desperate:

"Things will get worse before they get better. But I know that there are brighter skies and calmer seas ahead. But the ingenuity of science will find a way through."
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Exactly : just waiting for a vaccine...
Anybody still think it was too drastic to close borders in February ?
 
Tony L said:
Nail, head. That is what every opposition MP of every party should be shouting from the rooftops, every investigative journalist spotlighting. We are witnessing a huge crime at present, one that is killing huge numbers of people, placing others at unnecessary risk, whilst an elite simply pockets our taxes. This is a systemic failure with zero scrutiny, zero accountability and near total corruption.
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One of the good Labour MPs.

He's just resigned as a shadow minister so he can vote against the CHIS (akak "spy cops") bill:

https://twitter.com/siennamarla/status/1316688745794547714

Predictably, Starmer is whipping Labour MPs to abstain.
 
One local authority leader said on BBC they were told by Johnson’s government “either you do this with us or we do it to you”.
 
gavreid said:
so it is (I'm tired) - I'll need to change that cause it's b*llocks. Student cases are running at 10 times the general population in these big centres. Doh ;)
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Is there a connection between universities opening and the rise in cases?
 
flatpopely said:
Is there a connection between universities opening and the rise in cases?
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Seems to be, yes. I'm looking at a quieter place now e.g. Bath (18 000 total students), which is, helpfully, making numbers public. Their weekly rate is about 0.7% currently but the City as a whole is down at 0.1% so not quite up there with the huge student centres but very high nonetheless...

It's not the whole story though, cf Burnley as we were just discussing. I think students probably caught the disease where they moved to, in the main, rather than bringing it with them i.e. the student hotspots were already hotspots. Owing to their cramped living conditions, they have then passed it around very rapidly...
 
Andy Burnham talking a lot of sense in his statement right now, the north of England being used as canaries in the coal mine in order to test their tier 3 experiment for the south.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the role of Police & Crime Commissioner rolled into Andy Burnham's Mayoral powers? If he was doing a better job of encouraging (or enforcing) adherence to the Tier 2 restrictions, there might be less discussion of needing to go to Tier 3. (Not to mention less people dying).
 
Johnson will likely impose rather than be seen to give in to Burnham - maybe that's what he wants. It doesn't seem like a very strong bargaining position to me since Johnson has the legal powers.

I'm concerned about Johnson taking the moral high ground i.e. protecting the old and at risk, we've set out a perfectly generous support package within the bounds of what is affordable etc etc. The danger is that Burnham is then seen to be onside with the libertarian Tory right...
 
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