Generic Virus Thread

[DCJonah]

Don't worry folks, the American institute that predicted 66,000 deaths for the UK has revised its figures to now predict 37,000 deaths. Which would still make us the worst country in Europe. 

And we've handled it well. 

[sharkyvilla]

7 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

 

 

I don't see the point in a graph based on the first week.  There are other graphs you can see on that thread from later on where the UK is a lot closer to the blue line.  The number of clusters of population and transport hubs also makes a difference.  

[Jareth]

9 hours ago, Delphinho123 said:

How would you have handled it? 

Ok - question of the year there - someone who posts on VT is asked 'what would they do if they were PM'. So before we even get to that stage - can I just check that the person you are asking has spent their entire life, groomed sine childhood, to be in power? That they as a 7 year old were asked to write an essay on decisions you would make were you in charge of the country. Who was sent away from their family to a boarding school and made to grow up before they suffered childhood. Whose parents have huge wealth and advantage and privilege and have told them since school they were destined for 'the' top job? If all of those conditions are met - then cool - ask away. If not, please remember, Boris Johnson is not you or me, he is where the buck stops - that is what he has always wanted. 

[Vive_La_Villa]

The government knew what would happen. They just weighed up the impact on the economy alongside the death count to see how long they could avoid the lockdown for. 

[Straggler]

Boris handled it really well. He went to see people with covid19 and shook hands with them whilst wearing no protective gear. He could not have been more hands on. His cavalier attitude was on display to us all and it nearly killed him. Why anyone would think that fool is doing any better for the rest of us is beyond me. He did too little too late and infected the nation with the idea that it is not too serious by not taking it seriously himself. That attitude is still enabling the spread today as people flout the lockdown. 

What would I have done differently? I'd have locked us down earlier, I'd have joined the EU attempts to procure ventilators, I'd have been funding the NHS properly for the last decade, I would have lead by example, demonstrating social distancing and the importance of protective gear. I would have prioritized lives over the economy, I would have suspended rents, and bills for heat, water, electrical etc, I would spend to protect the most vulnerable and any support for big business would come with conditions that a proportion of that business is now owned by the tax payer.

Easy to say in hindsight, but I pulled my kids out of school before they were shut down, I was practicing social distancing before it was enforced, and anyone that knows me is bored hearing how pissed off I am at the state of the NHS. None of this makes me some sort of Nostradamus, it was evidence based and freaking obviously what needed to happen as we saw Corona spread from China and across Europe. What we had and continue to have is a leadership who's ideology is more important than the facts and it is getting people killed.

[markavfc40]

There seems to be a handful or so of posters on here who are of the opinion that the UK staring down the barrel of being the worst hit country in terms of deaths, certainly during first wave, was unavoidable and simply a consequence of the density of our population in places like London.

I could perhaps accept some of that argument if the fact that London having a population of 9 million was say due to 4 million people suddenly rocking up there over the last couple of months and the government not being able to plan for it. We knew though that if Lombardy in Italy could be hard hit, with a 10th of the density of population of London, that this virus would therefore do some serious damage and cost of lot of lives in places like London and The Midlands. 

It seems logical to me that one way of mitigating the spread of the virus in these densely populated areas is to lock down as soon as possible. We though watched and saw what was happening in Lombardy, watched as Northern Italy was locked down on 8th March, when we had 274 cases, and our response was to allow a quarter of a million people to rock up to the Cheltenham Festival (finishing on March 13th), to allow 53k people to rock up to Anfield on March 12th including 5k from Madrid and to allow people to pretty much go about their daily lives as normal until we finally decided to go into a form of lock down on March 23rd.

For me we wasted the advantage we had of being able to see what was happening in China and much closer to home, with more reliable information, in Italy. No denying we arguably do face greater challenges here than some other European countries due to the density of our population in certain places. You don't therefore react as late as we did, especially having seen the consequences of doing so in Italy, you act as soon as you can and we didn't and that delay is now costing lives and will almost certainly result in us being hardest hit in Europe from this.

There are serious questions to be asked about how we have handled this and I notice the government seem to be going down the route of blaming the scientists and not giving a straight answer when asked if they got it wrong at the start of all this. If the government do believe the advice they were given was wrong it does beg the question as to whether we should still be taking the advice of these people.

Edited April 12, 2020 by markavfc40

[bickster]

8 minutes ago, Straggler said:

Easy to say in hindsight, but I pulled my kids out of school before they were shut down, I was practicing social distancing before it was enforced... None of this makes me some sort of Nostradamus, it was evidence based and freaking obviously what needed to happen as we saw Corona spread from China and across Europe.

Same here, stopped going to gigs and stopped driving the taxi way before the lockdown. Still had to go to work for a week or so after the lockdown but we changed to weekly shops etc (from daily) way before that was anoounced as something you needed to do. We were also stocking up on non perishables like tins, a few at a time each shop

It was blindingly obvious what was happening and what was going to happen. As soon as the daughter got the nod to work from home, we told her to leave London and work from our house, her boyfriends parents did the same to him.

I'm the sort of prson who normally says "Sod it, we'll be ok, we'll get through" but not with this.

[mjmooney]

7 hours ago, Awol said:

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. 

I think this is true. What we are doing seems to be a middle route between a China total lockdown and a Sweden (maybe?) let-it-rip-for-herd-immunity. It's a tacit acceptance that we're going to get rising deaths, but buying time for better medical capacity later in the year. Whether this is a thought-out strategy or just blithering through, I will let others decide. 

[Morley_crosses_to_Withe]

Old Uncle Bill called it five years ago! 

 

[Rugeley Villa]

14 minutes ago, Morley_crosses_to_Withe said:

Old Uncle Bill called it five years ago! 

 

Watched this 4 weeks ago 

[LondonLax]

26 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

I think this is true. What we are doing seems to be a middle route between a China total lockdown and a Sweden (maybe?) let-it-rip-for-herd-immunity. It's a tacit acceptance that we're going to get rising deaths, but buying time for better medical capacity later in the year. Whether this is a thought-out strategy or just blithering through, I will let others decide. 

Some countries are using a lockdown to get the numbers back down to a level where ‘track and trace’ becomes a viable option again, rather than just slowing the curve on the way to a herd immunity. 

The UK could still have something like this in mind. 

[Villarocker]

43 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

There seems to be a handful or so of posters on here who are of the opinion that the UK staring down the barrel of being the worst hit country in terms of deaths, certainly during first wave, was unavoidable and simply a consequence of the density of our population in places like London.

I could perhaps accept some of that argument if the fact that London having a population of 9 million was say due to 4 million people suddenly rocking up there over the last couple of months and the government not being able to plan for it. We knew though that if Lombardy in Italy could be hard hit, with a 10th of the density of population of London, that this virus would therefore do some serious damage and cost of lot of lives in places like London and The Midlands. 

It seems logical to me that one way of mitigating the spread of the virus in these densely populated areas is to lock down as soon as possible. We though watched and saw what was happening in Lombardy, watched as Northern Italy was locked down on 8th March, when we had 274 cases, and our response was to allow a quarter of a million people to rock up to the Cheltenham Festival (finishing on March 13th), to allow 53k people to rock up to Anfield on March 12th including 5k from Madrid and to allow people to pretty much go about their daily lives as normal until we finally decided to go into a form of lock down on March 23rd.

For me we wasted the advantage we had of being able to see what was happening in China and much closer to home, with more reliable information, in Italy. No denying we arguably do face greater challenges here than some other European countries due to the density of our population in certain places. You don't therefore react as late as we did, especially having seen the consequences of doing so in Italy, you act as soon as you can and we didn't and that delay is now costing lives and will almost certainly result in us being hardest hit in Europe from this.

There are serious questions to be asked about how we have handled this and I notice the government seem to be going down the route of blaming the scientists and not giving a straight answer when asked if they got it wrong at the start of all this. If the government do believe the advice they were given was wrong it does beg the question as to whether we should still be taking the advice of these people.

Allowing the football and horse racing to go ahead was simply mental. To be honest, I cannot believe the Greyhound Racing is still on as well. I know it's not as popular as it used to be but there are still people gathering in a relatively small venue to race dogs. What is the point? To keep the massive gambling revenues coming in? 

It just goes to show that money is the root of all evil when you read/hear so-called experts and economists weighing up the loss of human life against the financials.

[mjmooney]

4 minutes ago, Villarocker said:

To be honest, I cannot believe the Greyhound Racing is still on as well. 

It is? WTF??? 

[Rugeley Villa]

There are some who put the economy ahead of human lives regarding how long the lockdown should be. I have no problem with the lockdown being for 12 months if that’s what it takes . We should be worrying about what’s in front of us first, instead of what happens once the virus has passed. By all means have people working on economic strategies to help once we kind of get back to normal, but people shouldn’t be mixing the two up together and trying to figure how what’s best to do for the country and it’s economy. 

[bickster]

7 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

The UK could still have something like this in mind. 

Nah, they never had this in mind, they allowed over 2000 people to enter the country unchecked from China at the same time as we were repariating from Wuham. They allowed 5,000Madrid fans into the country, Italy was in Lockdown but you could still get on a plane and walk into the UK

Never been part of any plan.

[Rugeley Villa]

3 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

It is? WTF??? 

Tbf Mooney I don’t think it generates much money either, so god knows why it’s still being allowed. 

[Seat68]

12 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

It is? WTF??? 

Behind closed doors from my limited searching. 

[StefanAVFC]

As stated previously, no Government who watched it go to shit as rapidly as it did in France and Spain, and still let huge events (Cheltenham is the example here) go ahead can be congratulated for handling it well.

[It's Your Round]

I’m shocked to see that there’s still flights coming into Heathrow from New York! How the hell can that be a sensible thing?!

Edit: and Rome and Madrid. 
 

I hope these travellers are being quarantined, somehow I feel that’s doubtful though. 

Edited April 12, 2020 by It's Your Round

[StefanAVFC]

I hate these horrible bunch of bastards.