Generic Virus Thread

[chrisp65]

Just now, PaulC said:

If I start using public transport again I want to be safe.  

So you’ll be looking for full eye shielding visor and everything?

Disposable paper suit?

I think for most it’s about a realistic level of precaution, it really isn’t easy. There are going to be people out there with no care for themselves or others, there will be people in full chem hazard suits.

If you’re using public transport, I can appreciate how difficult all these decisions are.

 

[PaulC]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

So you’ll be looking for full eye shielding visor and everything?

Disposable paper suit?

I think for most it’s about a realistic level of precaution, it really isn’t easy. There are going to be people out there with no care for themselves or others, there will be people in full chem hazard suits.

If you’re using public transport, I can appreciate how difficult all these decisions are.

 

Well I wear glasses so Im not too concerned about the eyes. 

[sne]

2 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Well I wear glasses so Im not too concerned about the eyes. 

[limpid]

1 minute ago, PaulC said:

Well I wear glasses so Im not too concerned about the eyes. 

Blimey, if only the government had realised that they could just tell nurses to wear glasses..

[chrisp65]

5 minutes ago, PaulC said:

Well I wear glasses so Im not too concerned about the eyes. 

That feels like a bit of a mixed approach, wanting a full carbon filter bespoke fitted face mask, but no eye protection?

[PaulC]

 

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

That feels like a bit of a mixed approach, wanting a full carbon filter bespoke fitted face mask, but no eye protection?

From what I read was you are far more likely to get catch it through your nose and mouth. The biggest risk with eyes is rubbing them.  Yes maybe slightly mixed but glasses do offer a shield although I know theres a very very small risk of exposure from droplets. 

[mikeyp102]

2 hours ago, PaulC said:

. The govt should be supplying these things for free. 

Why should they 

[bannedfromHandV]

1 hour ago, Seat68 said:

Second stab at that conspiracy theory hey.
 

We have a government that has no idea on how to deal with this and doesn’t really care. That has acted late and refused to be part of anything that may assist. Its not any conspiracy, its ineptitude. 

I’m not saying there is a conspiracy going on but that there’s a possibility of it, and people are latching on to my mentioning Vietnam, that’s just an example. For such a highly contagious virus surely we’d have seen more evidence of it ripping through poor and confined communities and I haven’t seen that, yet.

Something just feels a bit off to me, do I think Vietnam are waging a biological war? No.

Probably just a case of too much time on my hands and too few distractions.

[HanoiVillan]

9 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

Why should they 

. . . because if you believe they are essential for public health, and make wearing them a legal condition of travel, then unless you make them freely available, you create a de facto situation in which poor people cannot legally leave their homes to go to work or buy groceries because of their poverty. Then they will either suffer at home, or travel unsafely, potentially spreading the virus.

[bannedfromHandV]

1 hour ago, chrisp65 said:

So, theories 1 & 2, we have an inept government of charlatans and liars.

Theory 3, Vietnam is waging genetically profiled bio warfare so sophisticated it can kill Chinese and Japanese but not Vietnamese. No scientist or military from around the world have the technology or spies to suspect this.

 

Tricky tricky choice. If only there was some razor based method of discerning between the various possibilities.

As I’ve already replied, Vietnam was purely an example of a country, with what you’d think/ assume are worse levels of infrastructure resilience who are seemingly doing far better than us, despite being in far closer proximity to the alleged outbreak, I don’t think Vietnam specifically are responsible for a secretive bio attack.

 

We seem to unanimously agree that there are a shedload of  bad people in the world and that many of them are those pulling the strings either through political and/or wealth means, and yet any possible mention of something being awry, perhaps deliberate in terms of how this virus and situation came to be tend to be dismissed as ludicrous, as if you have to be wearing a tin foil hat and living in a bunker to think it, I don’t believe the thoughts haven’t crossed most people’s minds over the past months.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

Well then perhaps that’s my ignorance then but I wouldn’t have considered Vietnam’s infrastructure to be so well developed that they could effectively manage something like isolation and tracking down of other people encountered.

At this stage it’s appearing as one of three scenarios to me:

1. We literally have a totally inept government, incapable of coming close to managing the situation effectively.
2. We have a cruel and callous government who have actively sought to allow the virus to spread
3. There’s really something more going on which we’re not being allowed to know for whatever reason (conspiracy) 

I think the key point you're missing on healthcare infrastructure is that it depends where you're starting from. Does Vietnam have the public health infrastructure to do a rigorous program of test, trace and isolate with a pandemic running at 2,000+ cases per day, like we have here? No, absolutely not. But they knew that from the beginning, which is why they imposed extremely strict measures from minute 1, so they were never having to deal with those case numbers. They do have the public health infrastructure to cope with test, trace and isolate on an epidemic where there's many days with no cases, some days with up to half a dozen, and an occasional day where there's a localised outbreak.

[Seat68]

11 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

I’m not saying there is a conspiracy going on but that there’s a possibility of it, and people are latching on to my mentioning Vietnam, that’s just an example. For such a highly contagious virus surely we’d have seen more evidence of it ripping through poor and confined communities and I haven’t seen that, yet.

Something just feels a bit off to me, do I think Vietnam are waging a biological war? No.

Probably just a case of too much time on my hands and too few distractions.

I feel like I am in an episode of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home. Vietnam managed it well. No conspiracy. 

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, bannedfromHandV said:

As I’ve already replied, Vietnam was purely an example of a country, with what you’d think/ assume are worse levels of infrastructure resilience who are seemingly doing far better than us, despite being in far closer proximity to the alleged outbreak, I don’t think Vietnam specifically are responsible for a secretive bio attack.

 

We seem to unanimously agree that there are a shedload of  bad people in the world and that many of them are those pulling the strings either through political and/or wealth means, and yet any possible mention of something being awry, perhaps deliberate in terms of how this virus and situation came to be tend to be dismissed as ludicrous, as if you have to be wearing a tin foil hat and living in a bunker to think it, I don’t believe the thoughts haven’t crossed most people’s minds over the past months.

If it was the first ever time something like this had happened, if it was truly novel, then I’d be more open to suggestions.

But plenty of people were waiting for this, they come around every once in a while. So, I can only speak for myself but at no point have I thought this is any kind of conspiracy.

I’m not saying it’s 100% impossible. It’s just kind of a cop out to suggest this is anything more than poor preparedness on our part. The running down of services, the selection of science advice to suit what a few government advisors had a hunch about anyway, the dumping of viral load in to care homes. The refusal to stop horse racing and football and stadium gigs. The airports importing unchecked people straight in to our public transport hubs.

Perhaps there was a bit of a conspiracy. 

Just not at the original outbreak, and much much closer to home.

[HanoiVillan]

Seems to me like this is a case where the random power of nature is more frightening than the thought that someone, even an evil someone, is in control.

[mikeyp102]

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

. . . because if you believe they are essential for public health, and make wearing them a legal condition of travel, then unless you make them freely available, you create a de facto situation in which poor people cannot legally leave their homes to go to work or buy groceries because of their poverty. Then they will either suffer at home, or travel unsafely, potentially spreading the virus.

So you give them out freely to everyone who’s household earns below a certain amount. But there are approx 67 million people in the UK, the economy has already been hit massively by this pandemic. Then add in the amount that is being given out for the Furlough scheme. Finally add in the ineptitude of the government in getting PPE and it seems a recipe for disaster 

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

So you give them out freely to everyone who’s household earns below a certain amount. But there are approx 67 million people in the UK, the economy has already been hit massively by this pandemic. Then add in the amount that is being given out for the Furlough scheme. Finally add in the ineptitude of the government in getting PPE and it seems a recipe for disaster 

The cost of PPE is trivial compared to the cost of implementing any sort of means-testing system like you're proposing here. Means testing is often bad in government expenditure; this is a situation where it would be actually pathologically absurd.

EDIT: Since I'm maybe not making this clear enough - think about why they don't make parents pay for TB or MMR jabs for kids.

Edited June 6, 2020 by HanoiVillan

[LondonLax]

There is also going to be an element of blind luck with how a country is affected.

[chrisp65]

20 minutes ago, mikeyp102 said:

So you give them out freely to everyone who’s household earns below a certain amount. But there are approx 67 million people in the UK, the economy has already been hit massively by this pandemic. Then add in the amount that is being given out for the Furlough scheme. Finally add in the ineptitude of the government in getting PPE and it seems a recipe for disaster 

How much would means testing and checking cost, versus free distribution to all?

It doesn’t always save money to try and only target the poorest. Plus there’s decades of evidence of people choosing not to take up selective benefits that single them out as ‘poorer’.

Tricky business.

 

[HanoiVillan]

It's a good job neoliberalism hadn't become hegemonic in this country by the time of the Second World War, because if it occurred nowadays the government would outsource the production of aircraft to Serco and introduce means testing for gas masks.

[AVTuco]

To me it's clear that masks work.

However, hardly anyone in Finland uses them. They're not mandatory, and I think less than 1% has them on. Well, dince they opebed schools three weeks ago, everyone stoped using gloves too. Now it's like there never was corona.