1. Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!

Off Topic Coronavirus

Discussion in 'Queens Park Rangers' started by Sooperhoop, Feb 8, 2020.

  1. Steelmonkey

    Steelmonkey Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2011
    Messages:
    22,766
    Likes Received:
    43,499
  2. Frome-Ranger

    Frome-Ranger Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 16, 2011
    Messages:
    4,977
    Likes Received:
    4,532
    Seeing a fair bit of this on Twitter as well. Parents and children getting positive tests and still sending them to school.
     
    #11582
  3. Stroller

    Stroller Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2013
    Messages:
    22,267
    Likes Received:
    21,601
    The Covid hysteria is getting worse
    From magazine issue: 19 September 2020

    Readers may recall a column last month that laid out powerful evidence for the proposition that the ethnic and racial disparities for dire Covid outcomes are overwhelmingly due to obesity. While I also read the piece aloud for posting online, fewer of you will have listened to the audio rendition. That’s because YouTube took it down.

    The explanation was pro forma: the column violated the site’s opaque ‘community guidelines’. An appeal produced the further explanation: ‘YouTube does not allow content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts the World Health Organisation or local health authorities’ medical information about Covid-19, including on methods to prevent, treat, or diagnose Covid-19 and means of transmission of Covid-19. Learn more.’ Thus if I were to ‘learn more’ from YouTube, I would only be allowed to absorb information in lockstep with the government line.

    You may also recall that my loony, irresponsible text, imperilling the lives of grandparents everywhere, was based on a large study conducted by researchers at Columbia University, whose results were published in the New York Times. Gosh, the sicko anti-vaxxer tin-hatters now lurk in the most alarmingly legitimate boltholes.

    Scads of people now use YouTube and Facebook as their primary sources of news, so the platforms’ increasingly heavy-handed censorship is alone a concern. Yet with the UK circling the toilet bowl in the name of public health, our restricted access to diverse viewpoints on the pandemic is an even graver threat than the ‘mere’ curtailment of free speech.

    Let’s start with the definition. We should rightly worry about a second wave of deaths. Covid fatalities have been rumpling along the X-axis at barely above zero for two months. But Boris has brought down the hammer on treacherous convocations of seven people, even outside, because of a rise in cases. Ergo, a ‘second wave’ will be defined as a surge in cases, even if deaths remain negligible and admissions to hospitals presently half-empty barely rise.

    This escalation of cases for the last month has a host of explanations, one being that lockdowns only delay infections so long as the virus is still circulating at all. Lockdowns do not save lives, unless we lock down for ever, in which case I suggest we all procure a mercifully deadly dose of cyanide. The other obvious cause is vastly ramped-up testing, which identifies the asymptomatic.

    Testing also turns up false positives, estimated at roughly 2 per cent. When you account for the fact that PCR tests are wildly oversensitive, and thus systematically stigmatise loads of people who merely carry a kind of viral flotsam and are not infectious, the real false positivity rate is much higher. With widespread testing that produces a high percentage of false positives, we will always appear to be amid a raging epidemic. This nightmare will never be over. And the authorities’ suffocating restrictions for our ‘own good’ won’t ever be over, either.

    That’s why the ‘moonshot’ proposal to get us to test ourselves every day as automatically as we brush our teeth has activated the few dormant cells in my brain that are vulnerable to conspiracy theories. Daily testing of 67 million people would, if nothing else, produce a bumper crop of false positives. It would have the happy side benefit of inducing permanently heightened anxiety in us serfs: more terrorism. It’s a formula for maintaining a state of emergency until the end of time. At an eye-popping cost of £100 billion, it would also, by the by, help ensure sovereign bankruptcy.

    On encountering Chris Whitty’s baleful announcement that the UK is ‘on the edge of losing control’ of the virus, I can’t have been alone in spewing coffee all over a new iPad. Our betters have never controlled the virus. They’ve just controlled us.

    They’re not planning to stop controlling us. This government is starting to behave as if it wants a second wave, ideally even worse than the first, and a second lockdown, ideally even worse than the first as well. Otherwise, we wake up one day and realise: oh, excess deaths for 2020 weren’t all that high compared to previous years with especially bad flu. Most of us are still here. And the country is in shambles. The finger-pointing could grow unpleasant.

    Pay less attention to case numbers. Primarily attend to deaths, and secondarily to hospital admissions (also paltry for the last two months). Only the lethality of this disease has justified the wholesale destruction of our social lives, our work lives, our livelihoods, and our civil rights — including freedom of speech, apparently. If draconian measures are triggered by an uptick in mere ‘cases’, which for the most part do not represent people gravely or terminally ill, the country could be plunged into repeated lockdowns to suppress the head cold.

    WRITTEN BYLionel Shriver
    Lionel Shriver is a columnist at The Spectator and author of We Need to Talk About Kevin, among other books.

    CommentsShare
    TOPICS IN THIS ARTICLEInternational
    Read next
     
    #11583
    kiwiqpr likes this.
  4. Stroller

    Stroller Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2013
    Messages:
    22,267
    Likes Received:
    21,601
    Isn't it the number of positive cases that is said to be doubling every 8 days, not hospitalisations?
     
    #11584
    Last edited: Sep 18, 2020
  5. bobmid

    bobmid Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2011
    Messages:
    13,488
    Likes Received:
    14,910
    I thought it quite logical that once schools open then the rate of transmission will increase.
     
    #11585
  6. sb_73

    sb_73 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 18, 2012
    Messages:
    29,195
    Likes Received:
    26,549
    Rumour going round that a two week nationwide full lockdown will be announced soon.

    Don’t shoot the messenger. Comes from a group which is regularly used as a ‘tester’ for reactions to policy announcements. Though presumably not for much longer if it’s this leaky.
     
    #11586
    bobmid likes this.
  7. qprbeth

    qprbeth Wicked Witch of West12
    Forum Moderator

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2011
    Messages:
    14,401
    Likes Received:
    12,574
    This morning Matt Hancock was softening us up for that decision too.
    Not a total lockdown...schools will remain open, as will workplaces and of course essential workers, but we will be back to being locked in our houses aithout our social bubble.

    Seems as though this will be their last attempt to claim back control, and I think they have lost so much respect that it will not work.
    As said before, I'm stock piling:- toilet rolls, tin tomatoes and plasterboard
     
    #11587
    kiwiqpr and bobmid like this.
  8. Stroller

    Stroller Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2013
    Messages:
    22,267
    Likes Received:
    21,601
    Opinion polls show that most people have been sufficiently spooked by the 'spike' in cases (even though deaths and hospitalisations haven't shown any significant increase) that they are gagging for another lockdown, so it will happen.

    Madness.
     
    #11588
  9. qprbeth

    qprbeth Wicked Witch of West12
    Forum Moderator

    Joined:
    Jun 13, 2011
    Messages:
    14,401
    Likes Received:
    12,574
    I'm not gagging for another lockdown...I'm off to cinema this afternoon. Last week saw Tenet....hubbie and I at front...one other couple at the back ...in a 200 seat cinema. Felt very safe
     
    #11589
    Stroller likes this.
  10. Stroller

    Stroller Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2013
    Messages:
    22,267
    Likes Received:
    21,601
    I'm looking forward to seeing Tenet. How about a review on the Review Thread, Beth?
     
    #11590

  11. sb_73

    sb_73 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Aug 18, 2012
    Messages:
    29,195
    Likes Received:
    26,549
    Re hospitalisations and deaths, keep your eyes on France and Spain. Hopefully won’t reach the levels of April, but on the rise. We are, as always, a couple of weeks behind. Two weeks ago the number of infections was booming in the 20-35 age group, those pretty unlikely to get seriously ill. Now, apparently, the age cohort roughly 40-60 is catching up. Hopefully self isolation amongst the more elderly will reduce a spike in the particularly vulnerable age group.

    Given that we now apparently have zero capacity to test and trace the various levels of lockdown are the only crude weapons left to government to demonstrate that it is doing something, even if no one seems to know if it makes any difference. Threats include not even allowing exercise this time. I suspect this is a bomb they can only use once, and they would be better off saving it until we are well into the winter.

    Have you read any of Lionel Shriver’s fiction? Strange bedfellows indeed Strolls my friend.
     
    #11591
  12. Stroller

    Stroller Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2013
    Messages:
    22,267
    Likes Received:
    21,601
    No exercise? Now that would be utter madness.

    No, I haven't read any of Shriver's fiction but I was struck by the Spectator piece, which is somewhat confused but fairly accurately reflects my thoughts.

    She's not as strange a bedfellow as some others of mine on this issue.
     
    #11592
    sb_73 likes this.
  13. rangercol

    rangercol Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2011
    Messages:
    35,612
    Likes Received:
    19,159
    They said hospitalisations on breakfast tv.
    Thing is, there's always an alternative view from knowledgeable experts.

    I'm ****ed if I know what to believe anymore.
     
    #11593
    Frome-Ranger and Steelmonkey like this.
  14. Steelmonkey

    Steelmonkey Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Apr 11, 2011
    Messages:
    22,766
    Likes Received:
    43,499
    Nothing to worry about....

    On Friday, the UK recorded a further 4,322 confirmed cases of coronavirus - the first time the daily total of positive tests has exceeded 4,000 since 8 May.
    Another 27 deaths were also reported within 28 days of a positive test......

    Ms Sturgeon warned that the country was following the path of France, which four weeks ago was in the same position that Scotland is now.

    It is now seeing 10,000 new cases a day, with hundreds of people in intensive care and the number of deaths increasing.
     
    #11594
  15. Stroller

    Stroller Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2013
    Messages:
    22,267
    Likes Received:
    21,601
  16. rangercol

    rangercol Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2011
    Messages:
    35,612
    Likes Received:
    19,159
    Nothing to see here.
    No need to worry.

    Let's just stick our fingers in our ears and carry on regardless.
     
    #11596
    bobmid and Steelmonkey like this.
  17. Stroller

    Stroller Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2013
    Messages:
    22,267
    Likes Received:
    21,601
    I fully intend to carry on regardless. You can keep washing your money.
     
    #11597
  18. rangercol

    rangercol Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Mar 22, 2011
    Messages:
    35,612
    Likes Received:
    19,159
    Head in the sand.
     
    #11598
  19. Stroller

    Stroller Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 28, 2013
    Messages:
    22,267
    Likes Received:
    21,601
    That's quite hard with your fingers in your ears.
     
    #11599
  20. Frome-Ranger

    Frome-Ranger Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jul 16, 2011
    Messages:
    4,977
    Likes Received:
    4,532
    Not looking too clever now.
     
    #11600

Share This Page