Generic Virus Thread

[bickster]

10 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

There are plenty of headlines in the news at the moment with stories about uni students getting mass outbreaks in their dormitories etc and I have to ask, is that really a problem? 

Yes, it absolutely is. the academic year should never have gone ahead as if nothing had happened

 

10 minutes ago, LondonLax said:

Essentially what I am trying to say here is that it is frustrating that an issue that should be dealt with in a clinical scientific way seems to have fallen into the usual culture wars, where you pick your team and fight that corner to the death. As we find out more about this virus the costs seem like they are becoming harder to justify. 

I really don't think your Culture Wars scenario is happening. For example, Labour were almost fighting with the Tories about getting kids back to school, each "side" trying to go one louder. Meanwhile plenty of others (inc the Teachers Unions) were saying the complete opposite. Most of the talking points aren't simple black and white issues, there's often the complete range of opinions on each minor point

The rest of this post is you saying something thats your opinion (and your quite entitled to hold it). I've yet to see why you hold that opinion though. I don't know what you've learned that makes the cost prohibitive

[LondonLax]

11 minutes ago, bickster said:

Yes, it absolutely is. the academic year should never have gone ahead as if nothing had happened

 

I really don't think your Culture Wars scenario is happening. For example, Labour were almost fighting with the Tories about getting kids back to school, each "side" trying to go one louder. Meanwhile plenty of others (inc the Teachers Unions) were saying the complete opposite. Most of the talking points aren't simple black and white issues, there's often the complete range of opinions on each minor point

The rest of this post is you saying something thats your opinion (and your quite entitled to hold it). I've yet to see why you hold that opinion though. I don't know what you've learned that makes the cost prohibitive

Talking about the academic year not going ahead is quite drastic. If you are not in a risk group surely you should be continuing with your life? If you get sick then you isolate until you’re better?  

With the ‘culture war’ stuff I’m not talking about the U.K. Labour Party, it’s global. There seems to be an idea that ‘the left’ respects science by calling for everyone to stay at home and ‘the right’ is inthralled by making money by insisting everyone should go out and get back to work etc etc. 

[bickster]

1 minute ago, LondonLax said:

Talking about the academic year not going ahead is quite drastic. If you are not in a risk group surely you should be continuing with your life? If you get sick then you isolate until you’re better?  

With the ‘culture war’ stuff I’m not talking about the U.K. Labour Party, it’s global. There seems to be an idea that ‘the left’ respects science by calling for everyone to stay at home and ‘the right’ is inthralled by making money by insisting everyone should go out and get back to work etc etc. 

The Labour / Tory think was an example of how opinions are not as polarised as you claim and not left / right split either now you mention it. You've just claimed the left wants everyone to stay at home, yet there's the Labour Party advocating everyone go back to school. There's also plenty of Labour Party Mayors up and down the country saying the closing of pubs and restaurants and closing down the economy is stupid. It doesn't matter that you're talking globally, I'm giving you examples of you being wrong. The ideas you've stated there are not correct, they appear to be contradicted by fact

[LondonLax]

3 minutes ago, bickster said:

The Labour / Tory think was an example of how opinions are not as polarised as you claim and not left / right split either now you mention it. You've just claimed the left wants everyone to stay at home, yet there's the Labour Party advocating everyone go back to school. There's also plenty of Labour Party Mayors up and down the country saying the closing of pubs and restaurants and closing down the economy is stupid. It doesn't matter that you're talking globally, I'm giving you examples of you being wrong. The ideas you've stated there are not correct, they appear to be contradicted by fact

I think we’re getting lost in the weeds. If U.K. Labour are suggesting people get back to work that is not here nor there regarding the point I am trying to make. 

[bickster]

I think you're failing to make your point then

[HanoiVillan]

I kind of don't like either point here.

3 hours ago, bickster said:

The Labour / Tory think was an example of how opinions are not as polarised as you claim and not left / right split either now you mention it. You've just claimed the left wants everyone to stay at home, yet there's the Labour Party advocating everyone go back to school.

The Labour party are very clearly attempting to distance themselves from left-wing positions - as stated above, they have defined themselves *against* teachers unions all year, and are mostly refusing to oppose Conservative policy on tackling the virus for tactical reasons - so if anything they help prove the point; the 'left' position LL is claiming in the quote is the one Labour are defining themselves against, not the one they are taking.

3 hours ago, LondonLax said:

With the ‘culture war’ stuff I’m not talking about the U.K. Labour Party, it’s global. There seems to be an idea that ‘the left’ respects science by calling for everyone to stay at home and ‘the right’ is inthralled by making money by insisting everyone should go out and get back to work etc etc. 

If this is a global point, surely it is too simplistic? It doesn't seem to fit well with politics in Australia or Mexico or Italy, at a first glance. In any case, in most countries I am aware of, whatever the political alignment of their government, large majorities express in opinion polls that they favour more draconian action to limit the spread of the virus, a far larger proportion of the population than would identify themselves as 'left'. Call it the 'Piers Morgan position' - the median voter, maybe even the median conservative voter, wants right wing policies on lots of stuff but also tougher action on the virus. It's not a very convincing culture war if one side hasn't consolidated its support in favour of their proposition.

[LondonLax]

3 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

If this is a global point, surely it is too simplistic? It doesn't seem to fit well with politics in Australia or Mexico or Italy, at a first glance. In any case, in most countries I am aware of, whatever the political alignment of their government, large majorities express in opinion polls that they favour more draconian action to limit the spread of the virus, a far larger proportion of the population than would identify themselves as 'left'. Call it the 'Piers Morgan position' - the median voter, maybe even the median conservative voter, wants right wing policies on lots of stuff but also tougher action on the virus. It's not a very convincing culture war if one side hasn't consolidated its support in favour of their proposition.

Sure, a statement like that is always going to be simplistic. I don’t know what the debate is like in Mexico or Italy but in Australia it’s the Murdoch press that give you the impression that ‘it’s just the flu, stop worrying’ and the left wing press that say it’s the apocalypse and we should stay locked indoors.

The political parties mirror that to a degree with how open the internal state borders should be (the restricted international border is a bipartisan position). 

The online debate seems to fall down those lines as well. 

[darrenm]

2 hours ago, LondonLax said:

left wing press

Wow, some has been discovered?

[LondonLax]

33 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Wow, some has been discovered?

Ha! Fair comment 

[limpid]

14 hours ago, LondonLax said:

Talking about the academic year not going ahead is quite drastic. If you are not in a risk group surely you should be continuing with your life? If you get sick then you isolate until you’re better?  

This is ignoring that it's not just the kids. Teachers and TAs (and kids) might be in vulnerable groups. Teaching, like much else, has been savaged by austerity. There is no capacity or redundancy left in the system. At most primary schools if a couple of teachers are sick/isolating the school might not be able to provide a safe teaching environment and would have to (partially) close. This is a lot more disruption than just leaving them closed, or moving to a rolling attendance pattern to allow for distancing

But they should have been planning out things with the experts, not making policy on the basis of public opinion.

 

[Davkaus]

4 minutes ago, limpid said:

 

But they should have been planning out things with the experts, not making policy on the basis of public opinion.

 

This basically sums up the UK for the last 5 or 6 years.

[HanoiVillan]

9 hours ago, LondonLax said:

Sure, a statement like that is always going to be simplistic. I don’t know what the debate is like in Mexico or Italy but in Australia it’s the Murdoch press that give you the impression that ‘it’s just the flu, stop worrying’ and the left wing press that say it’s the apocalypse and we should stay locked indoors.

The political parties mirror that to a degree with how open the internal state borders should be (the restricted international border is a bipartisan position). 

The online debate seems to fall down those lines as well. 

I mean, you know better than me, but from the outside it certainly looks like a very right-wing government that has taken the virus really pretty seriously all year, certainly by comparison to other nations with Murdoch media outlets. And to go back to my other point, we're not seeing 70% support for tougher measures to control the virus because 7 in 10 Australians are left-wing.

[LondonLax]

48 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I mean, you know better than me, but from the outside it certainly looks like a very right-wing government that has taken the virus really pretty seriously all year, certainly by comparison to other nations with Murdoch media outlets. And to go back to my other point, we're not seeing 70% support for tougher measures to control the virus because 7 in 10 Australians are left-wing.

Much like the US the Australian response is largely driven by the state governments rather than the federal government and that is where you see a divergence in the response. For example NSW is run by the Conservative party and they have resisted shutting down the state through the winter, by comparison Victoria is run by a Labour government and they have had restrictive lockdowns of the whole state for months. Queensland is another case, the Labour government there has banned all travel into their state from the rest of Australia and so the Conservative parties at state and federal level are putting huge pressure on the Queensland premier to open their state up again.

The National border is a bit different. There has always been a populist right wing anti immigration sentiment in Australia (like in most countries really) so a right wing national government shutting the national border to keep ‘diseased foreigners’ out plays well with the ‘right’. 

 

 

[snowychap]

CBS

Quote

Coronavirus outbreaks are devastating mink populations in the U.S., first in Utah, and now in Wisconsin. Over 12,000 mink have recently died from the virus, prompting dozens of farms to enter into quarantines.

...

"The research done in Utah still supports that the disease has spread from humans to mink and that the risk of the opposite transmission is very low," the UDAF spokesperson told CBS News.

...more

 

Edited October 11, 2020 by snowychap

[Davkaus]

31,000 people packed in to a stadium in New Zealand to watch the rugby last night, with no masks or social distancing required.

They had it easier than most other countries, but they've shown what was possible by taking swift, uncompromising action to stamp this out, and it's allowed a much earlier return to normality.

[Demitri_C]

Margaret ferrier refusing to resign. What a absolute prick she is

[Seat68]

21 minutes ago, Demitri_C said:

Margaret ferrier refusing to resign. What a absolute prick she is

Would you? I wouldn’t. 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, Davkaus said:

31,000 people packed in to a stadium in New Zealand to watch the rugby last night, with no masks or social distancing required.

They had it easier than most other countries, but they've shown what was possible by taking swift, uncompromising action to stamp this out, and it's allowed a much earlier return to normality.

What I think I had insufficiently appreciated earlier on this year is that they actually didn't do much at all. They locked down chronologically after we did; all that happened was that they had the fortune - being an archipelago on the way to nowhere on the edge of the world, with comparatively little international travel - of having hardly any cases in the community at that point, while the political space to enforce a lockdown came from the frightening TV scenes of what was happening in Europe.

I think I've become convinced that New Zealand did nothing except play an extremely easy hand successfully - score a tap-in to an empty net, if you like. The countries we should really try to learn from in their handling of the pandemic are those Asian democracies that were exposed early and have recovered, so Taiwan and especially South Korea, but for some reason people in the public policy community seem to be allergic to learning anything about these countries (not only on this issue) so I don't hold out much hope.

[blandy]

17 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

all that happened was that they had the fortune - being an archipelago on the way to nowhere on the edge of the world, with comparatively little international travel - of having hardly any cases in the community at that point, while the political space to enforce a lockdown came from the frightening TV scenes of what was happening in Europe.

The UK also saw the scenes in Italy and China. The UK also had initially hardly any cases. The UK is also an Island(s).

Sure, much more international traffic and many different factors, and I know you’re not arguing otherwise, but we’ve handled it appallingly when it could have been so much better.

As in football, you make your own luck.

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

The UK also saw the scenes in Italy and China. The UK also had initially hardly any cases. The UK is also an Island(s).

Sure, much more international traffic and many different factors, and I know you’re not arguing otherwise, but we’ve handled it appallingly when it could have been so much better.

As in football, you make your own luck.

Yeah, obviously I'm not comparing their response negatively with our own lol. What I'm saying is that when we think about the 'Lessons Learned' at the end of this, 'be more fortunate and take advantage of your fortune' may not be a very replicable lesson.