Off Topic Coronavirus

I know it’s not cool or trendy to watch the daily press conference, but I do. Hancock on again, blah blah, but also a good nurse, and the truly outstanding Prof. Jonathan Van-Tam, deputy Chief Medical Officer, the bloke who owned Peston a couple of days ago. He has given a brilliant and crystal clear explanation of how clinical trials work, which will of course be ignored by the journos, and also was very reassuring on face masks (well reassuring to me because it supported everything else I’ve heard) - pointless for the well general public, just hardwired in to certain Eastern cultures. Sadly, when the US go down this route we will come under huge pressure to follow, then there will be panic because we can’t even get enough good ones to the people who really do need them.

Just keep your 2 metre distance. Everyone, always.

 

As far as I can see, it's only the Swedish Government that adopts your position, so it will be interesting to see how they progress

 

Totally agree with your point on face masks for the public.
Seems every **** and his mother are wearing one down the supermarket, while of course pulling it half way down their chins to tell their mates on their mobiles how they are ‘being safe and not adding to the cwisis’......the same ****s who then stand 30cm away from me, cough into their gloves hands (also ‘keeping everyone safe’)..then touching the last tin of ****ing beans that I’m able to buy !!!.

Everybody wants to be part of it.

 

Germans have their priorities right. They are allowing 40,000 seasonal workers into the country to harvest the asparagus. This time of year every ****ing meal in Germany features ****ing asparagus.

 

I feel a surge of potential violence every time I see a civilian wearing a face mask in public, especially if it’s obviously a flashy one rather than a simple one.

We need a list for the reckoning.

Just want to check my supermarket protocol with you - I use the hand sanitiser on entrance, I find that the shops I have gone to in the last week also sanitise the basket/trolley handles, do my shopping, bag it, and use hand sanitiser again on leaving. Wash hands thoroughly immediately once home. Adequate? Supermarkets are by far the worst place for distancing.

 

Maybe wear gloves as well mate....and sanitise them before and after use......twice on sundays

 

**** off

 

It’s very good that my local Tesco’s have conveniently laid out the direction that shoppers should travel down each aisle.....shame every **** in the store completely ignores it

 

Snap in bourgeois Leamington Spa. Great for me to practice my loud sighing and head shaking. Still attempting to avoid conflict, but was forced to comment to an elderly lady who didn’t budge from the centre of the pavement when I approached, forcing me to play chicken with the traffic, ‘we’re doing this for you, you know’. No response.

 

Bob I think you are correct. Family are between a hard place and a rock.

 

Yes it will, but we won't know for decades which approach 'saved' more lives.

 

It won't ever be provable conclusively. But if Sweden has a massive spike in serious cases and deaths, beyond any other country in Europe, then politicians in those other countries will feel vindicated.

 

Stan is right that this subject is for the Politics thread, so I’d happily continue this over there, Stainsey. All I was asking Pompey for originally was to be more specific around his claim that the Boris’ Tories have lied on their election pledges. I just kinda thought the accusation rather stupid considering they only got voted in four months ago and have spent about half that time on the coronavirus and the rest delivering Brexit and pulling a cracker. Yes, they’ll probably not deliver on some things, particularly now - the world has changed - but it’s a bit early for such claim, innit?

Anyway, no more of this from me on this thread.

 

It seems to me that the lockdown has been more about avoiding too many cases at one time, and the consequent NHS collapse, than actually saving lives. It's a question of timing. If we had spent the extra hundreds of billions on more doctors, nurses, and hospitals (not to mention PPE and ventilators), that potential collapse would have been avoided anyway.

 

Yes, they probably will, but in 30 or 40 years time Sweden may have many fewer austerity-related deaths. It has been estimated that austerity following the 2008 bankers' crash contributed to 120,000 early deaths in this country. Many of these would be decades early, not just a few weeks.

 

Serious question back: have we had enough warnings, though? SARS, bird flu etc. haven’t really amounted to much in the U.K. have they? As I’ve said before, it’s a probability game, isn’t it? With scarce resources you make a call. It’s easy to say now the call was wrong and allocate blame. History, of course, will probably only record what the authorities got wrong.

Note: there were 4 cases (not deaths) of SARS in the U.K. and only 774 recorded deaths worldwide. No U.K. citizen was infected with any of the four strains of bird flu that have caused concern between 1997-2016. There were only 214 swine flu deaths in the U.K. in 2009.

 

18% rise in Swedish deaths today. My guess is their liberal approach will fold and they'll come in line with the rest of the world. The reality is no politician would accept sitting on hands and watching thousands of families lose loved ones now for an unascertainable benefit 40 years hence.

 

Uncle Update: still on oxygen but looks like he’s over the worst, thankfully. A video link was setup so my aunt could see him. He looks like ****, but has eaten something. Looking like a good news story, but don’t want to speak too soon.

 

I agree with that. However the world is as it is. As a country, our rulers for the last 40 years have chosen not to invest sufficiently. and I hope that when this is all over we will take heed of the mistakes of the past. But how does any of that answer the question I asked of you namely what practical steps do you think should have been taken to reduce the spread of the epidemic yet allow everyone to carry on working and socialising as before?

 

Fingers and toes crossed for him