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Coronavirus - the new strain XI

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Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
This is fair enough, in its own terms. But as I said upthread, the muppets will always be with us. There are a couple of things about the muppets we should probably keep in mind, for balance. First, I think they are relatively few, and the incidents are blown up (like the 'dangerous dogs' stuff a few years back). I agree, it annoys me when I see people on public transport not wearing masks, and people in Sainsburys wearing them as chinstraps, or people wearing them over their mouths, but not their noses. But that's people. The government must be aware that people like this will be around, and that leads me to my second thing: the government needs to minimise the effect of the muppets by clear, unequivocal rules and guidance, and leading by example.

In short, we are where we are because of the decisions the government has taken (or ducked). Blaming the muppets lets the government off the hook. Let's not do that.
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Everyone has their triggers and for me it’s the chinstrap. Either use it or don’t, but don’t warm your -ing chin with it!
 
Seanm said:
Everyone has their triggers and for me it’s the chinstrap. Either use it or don’t, but don’t warm your -ing chin with it!
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Yes, but for me it’s the mouth covering that mostly does it. Unless you’re a habitual mouth breather, putting a covering over your closed mouth achieves sod all. Put it on properly, you muppet.
 
Seanm said:
I think the fundamental cause is that the virus is really difficult to contain and there are lots of ways of messing it up.

I personally am not blaming some flaw in the British character, be it intrinsic or Thatcher-induced. I’ll leave that to the patriots. But it seems uncontroversial to suggest that decades of hollowing out public institutions, running down healthcare capacity and neglecting/privatising social care presented the current administration with a really serious challenge. And, more controversially, that their Thatcherite assumptions and strategies prevented them from rising to it.

Comparisons with other countries show that there are ways of getting it right, after all, sometimes with much lower basic capacity than the UK. Obviously, it’s a very difficult situation, but there have been a lot of unforced errors here.
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I don't have an issue with any of that, it's just that I don't have a clear vision of what a safe post-lockdown looks like. More vigorous enforcement of measures to stop the disease propagating? More active support for people to engage with those measures?
 
Sue Pertwee-Tyr said:
Yep, tiggers’ riposte there is disappointing. I was doing him the courtesy of giving a considered response. More fool me.
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Apologies, wasn't aimed at you, it's just we (the collective we) keep going round the same circular arguments and it's not getting us anywhere. I'm not about to join 'the only fault lies with the government' camp any more than anyone who thinks that way is likely to see it my way. The only point I wanted to make (2 days ago now) is that the arguments are not mutually exclusive like certain people on here seem to think they are (not you). Anyway I think it's about time we just agreed to disagree and discuss other aspects of the pandemic and its effects. Gavreid is very good at keeping us posted and maybe a bit more discussion about what he posts would be a good idea than the continual desire of some to politicise each and every comment/post (again not aimed at you).

The one thing that is quite amusing is seeing who likes each post... there's a pattern and it's genuinely laughable.
 
tiggers said:
The one thing that is quite amusing is seeing who likes each post... there's a pattern and it's genuinely laughable.
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I'll give you a like ;)

Starter for 10: universities should be 2/3rds empty to prevent 'massive spikes' across the student population

https://www.theguardian.com/educati...hirds-empty-to-avoid-covid-spikes-says-expert

This report about young people drinking in London shows a very clear lack of understanding and the impact of the rw propaganda

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...icised-last-orders-arrive-early-soho-covid-19
 
Tim Jones said:
There's a strong argument that the end of the social contract was fast approaching in any case.

That won't stop the woollier parts of the left summoning it whenever they feel the need to feed their sense of saintliness. Unfortunately, it doesn't win elections = or provide for an effective Opposition.
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Human beings evolved to cooperate in groups of about 150, that’s part of the reason of its success as a species, it’s totally unnatural to have everyone functioning as a selfish individual and it’s not leading to good outcomes. If you look at the way the system is running at the moment then people are working long hours, travelling long distances and living in smaller accommodation all of which makes it more difficult to find a partner and have children, just look at the latest Blackrock missive on dating colleagues or even people from other firms, one of the few places people in those companies could find a partner, they may as well just lock them up in an office until they cannot produce any more work and are let out to die. The whole system is moving away from caring for each other to just caring for money.
 
russel said:
Human beings evolved to cooperate in groups of about 150, that’s part of the reason of its success as a species, it’s totally unnatural to have everyone functioning as a selfish individual and it’s not leading to good outcomes. If you look at the way the system is running at the moment then people are working long hours, travelling long distances and living in smaller accommodation all of which makes it more difficult to find a partner and have children, just look at the latest Blackrock missive on dating colleagues or even people from other firms, one of the few places people in those companies could find a partner, they may as well just lock them up in an office until they cannot produce any more work and are let out to die. The whole system is moving away from caring for each other to just caring for money.
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Getting closer to The Handmaid's Tale every month.
 
gavreid said:
Starter for 10: universities should be 2/3rds empty to prevent 'massive spikes' across the student population
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I'll comment on my own post then ;)

Re student residences, given that students were always going to return, they should have been assigned to social bubbles of people on the same courses within the residences. That way they could be supporting each other while viewing and working on online lectures and be relatively safe when attending classes that have to be held face to face. The privatisation of the accommodation sector has made such planning impossible, where even were the risk assessments? Universities are now also struggling with the guidance that staff should be working from home, because clearly that's possible as it was in March, but they conned (and were allowed to con) students into believing that they'd get face to face teaching if they attended.
 
gavreid said:
I'll comment on my own post then ;)

Re student residences, given that students were always going to return, they should have been assigned to social bubbles of people on the same courses within the residences. That way they could be supporting each other while viewing and working on online lectures and be relatively safe when attending classes that have to be held face to face. The privatisation of the accommodation sector has made such planning impossible, where even were the risk assessments? Universities are now also struggling with the guidance that staff should be working from home, because clearly that's possible as it was in March, but they conned (and were allowed to con) students into believing that they'd get face to face teaching if they attended.
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Or as the universities might say, “hey! we have a business to run”. Investors poured into the new generation of battery hen student ‘villages’ and they’ll no doubt turn out to have a similar transmission pattern to cruise ships at the beginning of the year.
 
TheDecameron said:
Or as the universities might say, “hey! we have a business to run”.
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Yes they would - that's very much what they are too in terms of u/g students. Government (Labour as it happens) failed to fund accommodation with the expansion, pretty much leaving them with no options, other managing the decaying estate that few wanted to live in. There are still aspects of universities that are not private, but mainly on the research side. For six years I sat on the governing body of a big uni, turning over £3/4 bn at the time, and saw it all coming - that was a little while ago now though.
 
gavreid said:
I'll comment on my own post then ;)

Re student residences, given that students were always going to return, they should have been assigned to social bubbles of people on the same courses within the residences. That way they could be supporting each other while viewing and working on online lectures and be relatively safe when attending classes that have to be held face to face. The privatisation of the accommodation sector has made such planning impossible, where even were the risk assessments? Universities are now also struggling with the guidance that staff should be working from home, because clearly that's possible as it was in March, but they conned (and were allowed to con) students into believing that they'd get face to face teaching if they attended.
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They'll have to admit the con soon or the impact on public health is going to be huge. It's a real scandal in the making. Plenty of Reckless Freshers Kill Granny stories in it though so who's to say whether it's good or bad.
 
Seanm said:
They'll have to admit the con soon or the impact on public health is going to be huge. It's a real scandal in the making. Plenty of Reckless Freshers Kill Granny stories in it though so who's to say whether it's good or bad.
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I don't see UCU members putting up with the same nonsense that teachers have had to so far.
 
Most freshers are in halls, most halls are like big communes, if they haven't already mixed in the pubs they were encouraged to visit, they most certainly are mixing in their 'communes'. Sadly, in the wider community poor behaviour runs right across the age range but it's a dishonest man who thinks the government's messaging hasn't been muddled, confusing and most times as now, half arsed and half a month too late.
 
russel said:
Human beings evolved to cooperate in groups of about 150, that’s part of the reason of its success as a species, it’s totally unnatural to have everyone functioning as a selfish individual and it’s not leading to good outcomes. If you look at the way the system is running at the moment then people are working long hours, travelling long distances and living in smaller accommodation all of which makes it more difficult to find a partner and have children, just look at the latest Blackrock missive on dating colleagues or even people from other firms, one of the few places people in those companies could find a partner, they may as well just lock them up in an office until they cannot produce any more work and are let out to die. The whole system is moving away from caring for each other to just caring for money.
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I know where you’re coming from but of course, employment in a company such as Blackrock is entirely ‘at will’. It’s a high performance, high pressure environment where you sell your soul to the devil in return for being very well remunerated. That culture is not for everyone.
 
Leeds is up to 1 in 1000 infected now and is added to the interventions list. London (all boroughs) added to the watch list while Cardiff and Swansea face lockdowns.

"We are seeing a rising tide of coronavirus cases in London across a broad range of ages. This is no longer limited to young people in their twenties." Director of PHE.

This is moving quickly now with R reported to be possibly as high as 1.5 (this has a couple of weeks of time lag and R will be higher today)...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-face-covid-interventions-as-virus-fears-rise

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...an-household-visits-in-london-to-tackle-covid
 
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-54292728
Covid-hit university students: 'Why have they sent us here?'

Frankly? For your deposit, and hopefully a bit of rent too - same reason people working from home were made to go back to the office.

The cynicism is quite astounding, and not to harp on about it, but we need to remember who the victims are when we read about the Freshers’ parties: these young adults have been told that a conventional university experience was viable and many will have been too green to consider that their elders might be putting their health and sanity at risk for money.
 
Richard Lines said:
The bigger picture is there are lots of examples of people not following the rules/ guidelines call them what you will. I am getting very p****d off that we are where we are.

There are people here who seem determined to hold the Government to account or that the testing system is failing. A simple incontrovertible fact is that people are not doing what they have been asked to do.

How difficult can it be? If in doubt don't. Unfortunately the Dominic Cummings incident blew that out of the water.

OK I used the wrong term regarding house moving being 'banned' but I think most people knew what I meant!!!! It is indicative of people deciding the rules, or at least some of them, don't apply to themselves.

As for the students in Scotland............

Regards

Richard
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Your comment on house moves is gibberish.
It is not indicative of people deciding rules don’t apply to them.
There were no rules governing house moves.
No matter how much you would have clearly liked there to have been.
 
gavreid said:
My niece has just started at St Andrews, which was among the first to have confirmed cases. It's a huge concern - I told my sister but there's only so much you can say...
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I guess the thing to remember is that direct health risks for healthy young people really do seem to be very low. My main concern for them would have to do with mental health, and that's something family can help with. The broader issue is of course the likelihood that having congregated for marathon super spreading sessions they then disperse across the country and seed the virus everywhere.
 
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