Generic Virus Thread

[DCJonah]

A poll in the observer shows that 61% think the government have handled this pandemic well. 

What the ****? 

[Delphinho123]

16 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

A poll in the observer shows that 61% think the government have handled this pandemic well. 

What the ****? 

How would you have handled it? 

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, Delphinho123 said:

How would you have handled it? 

Personally, when the first UK deaths started happening in January, I’d have started planning and stopped shaking hands with people and suggesting we just take it on the chin.

[DCJonah]

3 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

How would you have handled it? 

Well that would require a detailed response. One I might write in the morning. 

But when our daily deaths are higher than Italy and spain and front line staff can't be tested or have the required protective equipment I struggle to see how this has been handled well. 

I dread to think what handling it badly would look like. 

[villa4europe]

9 minutes ago, Delphinho123 said:

How would you have handled it? 

Softer lockdown earlier 

 

[Enda]

320 dead in Ireland. Scaling up for population that would be about 4,000 in the UK. So we’re not talking a difference of 10% or 20%, but something like 100%. Twice as many dead in the UK as there “should be”.

Thousands dead. Thousands. Compare that to Grenfell which was, of course, an unthinkable outrage. 

I cannot believe people think HMG have handed this well. It’s beyond my understanding.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, bickster said:

And he's on the left of the media!

With 'friends' like these . . .

[Kuwabatake Sanjuro]

28 minutes ago, Enda said:

320 dead in Ireland. Scaling up for population that would be about 4,000 in the UK. So we’re not talking a difference of 10% or 20%, but something like 100%. Twice as many dead in the UK as there “should be”.

Thousands dead. Thousands. Compare that to Grenfell which was, of course, an unthinkable outrage. 

I cannot believe people think HMG have handed this well. It’s beyond my understanding.

And Ireland has not handled it well at all but government apologists have the look at the UK argument.

[LakotaDakota]

40 minutes ago, Enda said:

320 dead in Ireland. Scaling up for population that would be about 4,000 in the UK. So we’re not talking a difference of 10% or 20%, but something like 100%. Twice as many dead in the UK as there “should be”.

Thousands dead. Thousands. Compare that to Grenfell which was, of course, an unthinkable outrage. 

I cannot believe people think HMG have handed this well. It’s beyond my understanding.

doesn't work like that though does it, Irelands less than 5 million people are pretty spread out, only 71 people per square km on average & not getting millions of international travellers every week

In England that figure is close to 450 per square km, The UK as a whole 274 per square km. In greater London, An area with a population of 2 million+ more than Ireland there are around 15,000 people per square mile

1 person in Ireland gets it they probably aren't going to give it to that many people, 1 person in London gets it they can in theory give it to hundreds/thousands simply getting to & from work on the tube

Ireland population & density are both very similar to Scotland, Scotland has closer to 500 deaths but guessing this being a little higer can be down to being closer to large populated areas of England & more frequent travel between

Edited April 11, 2020 by LakotaDakota

[Stevo985]

16 minutes ago, LakotaDakota said:

doesn't work like that though does it, Irelands less than 5 million people are pretty spread out, only 71 people per square km on average & not getting millions of international travellers every week

In England that figure is close to 450 per square km, The UK as a whole 274 per square km. In greater London, An area with a population of 2 million+ more than Ireland there are around 15,000 people per square mile

1 person in Ireland gets it they probably aren't going to give it to that many people, 1 person in London gets it they can in theory give it to hundreds/thousands simply getting to & from work on the tube

Ireland population & density are both very similar to Scotland, Scotland has closer to 500 deaths but guessing this being a little higer can be down to being closer to large populated areas of England & more frequent travel between

But on the other hand Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated countries on the planet, and had little warning about the disease, and have 4 deaths out of 1000 cases.

It makes the argument that London is this impossible place to control the disease look a bit silly (I'm not saying you were making that argument, just seemed a relevant post to make the point)

[sidcow]

12 minutes ago, LakotaDakota said:

doesn't work like that though does it, Irelands less than 5 million people are pretty spread out, only 71 people per square km on average & not getting millions of international travellers every week

In England that figure is close to 450 per square km, The UK as a whole 274 per square km.

1 person in Ireland gets it they probably aren't going to give it to that many people, 1 person in London gets it they can in theory give it to hundreds simply getting to & from work on the tube

Ireland population & density are both very similar to Scotland, Scotland has closer to 500 deaths but guessing this being a little higer can be down to being closer to large populated areas of England & more frequent travel between

Yes, you have to take into account the population density in the UK compared to other countries.  France for example has what, 4 times the land mass with a lower population.  

The London conurbation is one of the most densely populated and largest built up areas in Europe.  Not many other European countries have the number of dense conurbations like we do. West Midlands, Greater Manchester, North East.   There are very few really remote areas in England, whereas France and Spain for example will have fairly sizeable portions of their populations in very rural, reasonably isolated small towns and villages. 

[sidcow]

Just now, Stevo985 said:

But on the other hand Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated countries on the planet, and had little warning about the disease, and have 4 deaths out of 1000 cases.

I would take any figures out of China with a huge pinch of salt, and also in a China when you are told to lockdown, you lockdown, no ifs and no buts and no querying of the police are being a bit heavy handed. 

We are a free people and the flouting of the lockdown is there for all to see. 

I drove past a pub near me the other day and I actually thought it was open.  On closer inspection on the way back I realised that quite a large number of blokes had gathered together there and were all drinking out of cans on the outdoor benches.  You can just hear their voices "no one is stopping me going to the pub" calling up their usual cronies and agreeing to meet at the pub. No way that is allowed in China. 

Also all that nonsense 2 weeks ago with those huge crowds outside supermarkets like Tesco in Dudley.  No way that happens in China, but here you can't stop the mob.  Its their right to go to the shops. 

[Enda]

41 minutes ago, LakotaDakota said:

doesn't work like that though does it, Irelands less than 5 million people

...
Ireland population & density are both very similar to Scotland, Scotland has closer to 500 deaths

Yes, indeed there are differences across countries in population and also in age profiles and doctors per capita and hundreds of other things.

It is an imperfect comparison so absolutely you need to adjust for the things but, as you say yourself, Scotland is also a good bit above Ireland’s rate.

They can’t say they didn’t know what was happening in Italy. The consequences were discussed in depth here in this very thread. It was all completely predictable. And that higher death rate, the sadness inflicted on families all over, is partly because they let Cheltenham happen, because they hesitated to shut down schools, etc etc.

[Stevo985]

 

 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, LakotaDakota said:

doesn't work like that though does it, Irelands less than 5 million people are pretty spread out, only 71 people per square km on average & not getting millions of international travellers every week

In England that figure is close to 450 per square km, The UK as a whole 274 per square km. In greater London, An area with a population of 2 million+ more than Ireland there are around 15,000 people per square mile

1 person in Ireland gets it they probably aren't going to give it to that many people, 1 person in London gets it they can in theory give it to hundreds/thousands simply getting to & from work on the tube

Ireland population & density are both very similar to Scotland, Scotland has closer to 500 deaths but guessing this being a little higer can be down to being closer to large populated areas of England & more frequent travel between

To echo and build on the point @Stevo985 made, the problem with this argument is that South Korea (particularly the Seoul area), Taiwan (particularly the Taipei area) and Hong Kong all have similar population sizes to the London area, higher population densities, and higher riderships for public transport (over 90% of journeys in Hong Kong are via public transport, one of the highest in the world), and in addition, all three had greater connectivity to Wuhan via air and earlier cases than we did, yet all have much smaller outbreaks that are under much better control.

Now, it's reasonable to point out that these places are culturally different than London and the wider UK, in terms of mask-wearing, taking viruses seriously, following public health information and so on. So 'norms' might be considered to fill a part of the gap between their performance and ours. But whatever is left is the gap in 'policies', and that's what the government need to be judged on (also, they could have worked harder to change norms, and a better policy mix might have created more space for doing so - for example, if we had mass-produced masks in January and February, we could have pushed the 'norm' of mask-wearing outside in late Feb/early March, and that would have reduced the outbreak).

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, sidcow said:

I would take any figures out of China with a huge pinch of salt, and also in a China when you are told to lockdown, you lockdown, no ifs and no buts and no querying of the police are being a bit heavy handed. 

We are a free people and the flouting of the lockdown is there for all to see. 

I drove past a pub near me the other day and I actually thought it was open.  On closer inspection on the way back I realised that quite a large number of blokes had gathered together there and were all drinking out of cans on the outdoor benches.  You can just hear their voices "no one is stopping me going to the pub" calling up their usual cronies and agreeing to meet at the pub. No way that is allowed in China. 

Also all that nonsense 2 weeks ago with those huge crowds outside supermarkets like Tesco in Dudley.  No way that happens in China, but here you can't stop the mob.  Its their right to go to the shops. 

Hong Kong and mainland China are very different places, in terms of what the police can and can't do, and how the authorities have handled the outbreak.

[Awol]

Still noticing two things the medical briefers are saying during daily press conferences that the press miss completely: first we’re still in the early stages of the pandemic, and second they are trying to slow the rate of infection so the NHS can cope. They are not trying to eradicate the virus but let it burn more slowly. 

The casualty rate top trumps seems a bit premature at this point, everything indicates this bring a long haul. I’d be very surprised if that only applies to the UK. 

[leemond2008]

It is currently 3.07am 

2 girls have just been arrested for breaking lockdown rules, 7 cars and 14 officers took 45 minutes to do it.

**** me the first two coppers were speaking to them like trash, I heard on of them say at one point "are you autistic or just **** thick" and just really antagonizing them from the start.

Only in Erdington.

[Tomaszk]

5 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

Personally, when the first UK deaths started happening in January, I’d have started planning and stopped shaking hands with people and suggesting we just take it on the chin.

Too much talk of fighting the virus like you can volley it in the face.

Saw a pretty disturbing tweet I probably agree with...

 

[LondonLax]

9 hours ago, Morley_crosses_to_Withe said:

Yeah they moved away from the laddish “bantaaa” ages ago when they got a new female CEO or head of content (someone senior anyway). Tit Tuesday and the rest of that sort of stuff is long gone. 
They get pelters for some of the content regularly in the comments (the old skool followers don’t think it’s laddish enough anymore), but even though they’ve tried to move away from their original intended audience, they still have over >2M followers (edit: >2m on Twitter and apparently over 35M on Facebook!!!) 

I assume they’re given credibility and allowed to attend these conferences due to the overall reach they have. 

The same thing happened to buzzfeed. Started out  just doing ‘listicles’ (10 cats that look like Winston Churchill etc) but now do real journalism, breaking stories and being invited to political press conferences.