Off Topic Coronavirus and NOTHING to do with football thread

AGREE with this..... when i was born women stayed at home and did all the home making whilst dad went to work. I know we can play all the stereotypes on this.. but the point was you only needed one partner working....
I think people have been fooled on a massive scale by social engineering.... tragic really

 

This is one for the oldies on here. Whilst I can remember nothing about the Asian Flu pandemic of 1957 which killed an estimated 1-2 million people Worldwide - apparently 69,800 of those were in the USA and 3,550 in England and Wales (I was only 2 years old at the time). I have hazy memories of the Hong Kong flu of 1968/69 which killed up to 4 million Worldwide and which had spread through the USA by December 1968 and had reached the UK and Western Europe. Can anybody remember any details on these - like whether life came to a standstill, or whether the schools were closed ? My memories are very hazy on this - maybe at 14 I wasn't taking everything in as I would now - and the internet was not totting up 'new cases' totals every minute. I also don't remember whether the economy suffered as a result of either of these outbreaks. Maybe the older members could cast their minds back to the 60s - there were lots of other nasties around then such as Polio, Tuberculosis and Diphtheria causing much smaller outbreaks - and the 60s were the first real generations of innoculations.

 

I have no recollection at all about either of those flu epidemics, so they obviously didn't have too much of an effect where I lived at the time - Edinburgh for the first and watford for the second. At the risk of sounding flippant, I was certainly otherwise occupied in 1968/69 - no travel restrictions to stop us attending away matches & I attended every one that season. I can remember polio in the 50s - quite a few of my primary school classmates suffered from that - but nothing about the others.

Strangely, the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 had more of an affect on my life - my grandfater's first wife succumbed to that. If she hadn't, I wouldn't be here today as my mum was born after he remarried.

 

Silencing sh? I doubt they make butt-plugs big enough.

 

hong kong flu , ethiopians did a great ska song with that title , “ if you catch it , you’ll all go down , man , it’s dreadful , and terrible , hong kong flu “
but it wasnt as intense as this , nor was it novel , it was a strain , this beast is unknown .......

 

The WHO are clear: you can be infectious for 14 days after symptoms stop, so seven days of isolation for Johnson and Hancock just cannot be right. Johnson foolishly boasted about shaking hands in a hospital, and now seems to think that he will not pass it on to others who do not want it. The man should be locked up for his own good and others that he will come into contact with.

 

Seeing as no one else will admit to being an oldie apart from BB who suggested he was a semi-oldie , I will try, having consulted with Mme who is marginally younger, to come up with some answers, but it was a long time ago.
1957 Asian Flu. Harold Macmillan was in charge, and looked good after Anthony Eden who got the country into a right old mess, but the Asian Flu, which showed up how poor the sewerage system was a real wake up for governments who hoped that Victorian underground tunnels would look after themselves for ever. SuperMac had a very successful house building programme, but he was thrown off course when he didn't think very quickly on his feet, and the country did grind to a standstill. Asian Flu, strikes and flooding came around the same time, and he really didn't seem to appreciate that it was not simple to control events from the grouse moors.
TB. I remember very well as there was a lady in my road confined to her bed that was set up in the front room, and the window was always open for her. Don't go too near I was told, but she was a happy person who liked talking to any passerby. Eventually the window was closed and she wasn't there anymore. After lots of shared research worldwide a cure was found, but it took years for it to reach underdeveloped countries, and even today there are spasmodic outbreaks of it, even in England.
Polio was another worldwide problem, and I remember getting a jab at a mobile unit set up in Watford High Street. Once again it was something that rumbled on for years, but not on a worldwide scale all at the same time.
Diphtheria was all but wiped out before my time, but it did kill Mme's grandfather's brother. Horrible thing as it basically suffocated you as a membrane formed across your windpipe.
So basically I don't think there has been anything as such as the current crisis, a horrible disease that has spread around the world so quickly. Maybe that is due in part to the fact that we are far more mobile these days, goods are transported from outside countries so that we can have our new TV or phone, or even strawberries in December.

 

From FB.. One of many...

Just received this from a friend who forwarded this message from her son who’s a junior doctor in a London hospital. It’s heartbreaking, terrifying and entirely predictable.

From Callum:

I had never cried at work before this week. I have now broken that multiple times. What is happening is terrifying.

Senior doctors, who are usually the ones providing calmness, look terrified. The numbers we are seeing, the young ages we are seeing and the speeds that they deteriorate are terrifying. This is killing people in their 40s, 50s, 60s.

A patient, who was not on oxygen and smiled as I talked to them about the weather yesterday, is now dead.

Relatives can’t come and visit due to infection risk. So patients are dying completely alone and scared.

Government ministers have said repeatedly that the NHS is prepared for this. That is a sick joke. This government has continually ravaged the NHS so that it can barely drag itself through winter.

• There is a complete lack of appropriate protective equipment in many hospitals including my own.

• People are using protective glasses from DIY shops or donated from local schools.

• We have HALF the number of ICU beds per capita as Italy. Italy currently has greater than 10% mortality in affected cases. That is NOT a good sign for us.

• We are already having to ration ventilators and high flow oxygen devices and are basically having to pick who has the best chance of living when thinking of this equipment.

• Lots of people who needed it have not been able to have life saving equipment because we simply don’t have enough. This means they will likely die.

It is also terrifying that this is predicted to be only the very start. The peak is estimated for 2-3 weeks time.

We already have huge staff shortages because people are dropping like flies. Some of these staff may well never come back.

Other staff are working every day they can to plug the gaps. Some have collapsed at work due to exhaustion. What happens when these staff also get sick?

And what makes me so ANGRY is that all of this was preventable.

• A report back in 2012 highlighted inadequate ICU beds and specialist equipment in the NHS and OUR GOVERNMENT DID NOTHING

• Another report in 2017 said we did not have adequate protective equipment in case of a flu pandemic but the GOVERNMENT DECIDED IT WAS TOO EXPENSIVE TO BUY IT

• In January, when the cases were spreading in China we had warning, we could see this would be an absolute disaster and THE GOVERNMENT DID NOTHING. No preparation, no purchasing of equipment.

• When it arrived in Italy, and people were dying in droves, THE GOVERNMENT DID NOTHING

• Eventually, after we had almost 1000 cases, our moronic PM mumbled some vague suggestions on national TV shortly after saying that he would still be seeing his mother on Mother’s Day and after his 79 year old father appeared on This Morning telling everyone they should still go to the pub if needed.

This isn’t funny it should be CRIMINAL. This complete pigheaded “Britishness” and the “keep calm and carry on” attitude has directly led to deaths and will lead to countless more.

I don’t blame the public at all for not listening at first after the media and the politicians downplayed the situation for nearly 2 months.

OUR GOVERNMENT HAS COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY FAILED US DID NOTHING and they were always going to. They made their allegiances very clear early on during this pandemic: that the economy is more important than lives. Lives are clearly cheap and the Tories are now showing us how little they value each and every one of ours.

For god's sake! Can we take this seriously?? Because it is!!!!

 

I'm not quite as old as Cologne and don't remember the flue epidemics but i do remember seeing children a little older than me wearing leg supports because they had had polio.

When I was two I was a model in an advertising campaign in South Africa to get (white?) people to vaccinate their children against yellow fever. I was a blond haired, blue eyed boy who appealed to the readers of women's magazines (see, for example, the 1960 Christmas eve edition of Woman's World). Yellow fever is currently increasing in Africa, partly because the anti-vacs brigade have more influence there.
I wonder what that lot will do when a vaccine for covid-19 is developed?

 

My daughter will say exactly the same sort of things Yorkie. She would add that the NHS staff will not forget what this government has put them through.

 

What can be said to a post like that? SH?

 

A socialist and a ska fan? Sir, you have my undying respect!

 

More stars:

So this is the reality to been JUST CARERS!
As I sit in my car and cry! Because we are JUST carers! All I want is to do my shopping on a little break I have off work! But I can’t! Why..because I’m JUST. A carer! People don’t see the 15 hour days we do! People don’t realise we are just putting ourself at risk as much as the NHS staff! Who are doing AMAZING! But people don’t realise the strain I have on a day at work! My only resort was to call my mam and cry in the phone to her! I just want to go homebut no...me...whos JUST a carer will smile and get on as normal! With tears in my eyes I will smile and make your mum her tea..I will smile and give your dad his breakfast! I will smile and make sure they have the care they need...why? Because I’m JUST a carer! I will smile with tears in my eyes and say I’ve got this...because I AM A CARER

 

By the time of the next general election in five years time the sensible UK electorate will be grateful for the new government's commitment to record investment in the NHS.

 

there’s more mate , i been running a reggae sound system in north wales with my mate since 1983 , , we used to play out every week , but now it’s occasional , Tribulation Rockers !

Andy Rankin was the first watford keeper i saw , we used to lose every match iirc , andy would be doing his best , but our team was basically not very good .....as a young lad i asked for his autograph on a programme and told him he was great , he just smiled .

Those days do seem a lifetime away almost , fifty years ......

Anyhow , i’m more angry and militant than ever politically , age just gives more clarity , socialism is the only cure for the world !

 

you don’t do irony , or pathos , or empathy , you’re like a vending machine , takes money and dishes out crap

 

I do facts and common sense. You should deal less in worthless platitudes and socialist dogma. The goal should be to improve everybody's lives.

 

Get on with it then.. Why aren't you cooking for the homeless like you said.. You have been found out by all on here.. A divisive, nasty attention seeking troll

 

Can we once and all agree in here. That this community message board is not for trolls, robots, or party political sloganising.

Wr are in the biggest world crisis since WW 2.. People are dying every few seconds..for goodness sake..

 

A message to all. Any personal abuse will not be allowed on this thread. It is one to discuss the largest crisis that the country has seen in a very long time. It is supposed to be about the here and now, so any guesses about what might happen in five years time or longer do not add to the debate. Keep on topic, politely, or I will remove the post.