Off Topic Coronavirus - 606 tales from the Inquiry

Kind of feel like in the wake of this, every democracy the world should officially recognise Hong Kong and Taiwan as independent nations, free of the PRC, and given them a seat in the UN.

China said they will boycott with nations that do this, soo time we and other nations follow what the Netherlands have started.

They cannot boycott the world and very evident that we need to reduce reliance on buying cheap from despotic regimes who have very little regard for human decency.

 

The Netherlands has recognised Hong Kong and Taiwan as independent nations?

I was under the impression that practically everybody recognised Taiwan as independent from Red China.

And (ironically) can the Netherlands take a position like that if such a position is not in line with the position of the entire EU?
I would think if China threatened to refuse to trade with the EU, some other members would have a word or two in the Netherlands' shell-like.

 

More allegations have been made that the SAGE advisory group on Coronavirus science has been compromised politically by the Government.

This is extremely serious.
And it cannot be just brushed aside in my view, as long as the SAGE advice is kept confidential (which it currently is).

And as long as the presence of Dominic Cummings at SAGE video conferences remains - and remains unexplained.

 

I was actually going to raise the point about government accountability. I've seen a few bits scattered about that any criticism of the government is simply political point scoring on the basis of lots of dead people (not pointing the finger at your earlier post Lardi by the way) and to me it rather upends the principals of democracy. The government are accountable, and should be viewed as such. A possibility was to bring a couple of opposition MP's onto the decision making panel purely for the Covid-19 stuff, but I haven't seen that occur anywhere, and to be honest, by the time the government had woken up to the dangers, it was out of control, and besides, I'm not even sure if Labour had a leader at that point.
But the Sage stuff is disgracefull. Apart from the pointlessness of wasting time and resources on a test to see if the UK was prepared got a pandemic (it wasn't) and then ignoring the results so that the worst case scenario actually played out , what the hell was Cummings doing anywhere near that? And sadly, like a lot of this stuff the current government seems to regard the best way of dealing with this stuff is to ignore it, and hope it gets forgotten.

 

I did (especially in the early weeks) have a go at certain critical voices, because I thought that they were dissenting for its own sake, or because they thought it would make them more popular.
Some of it sounded like defeatism.

When the virus was multiplying maybe out of control and huge work was going into building extra hospital facilities at breakneck speed, I strongly felt that it was not the time for party politics. Labour's recent attempts to use the "slow to..." soundbite against the Government and make it stick was crass and obvious in my opinion. Simplistic soundbites and insulting slogans belong in the Brexit past.

Not to say that Labour did not have a valid point - especially on PPE and care homes.
But having various MP's parroting the "slow to..." over and again was a mistake. People don't want to hear that kind of sloganism.

I'd like to think I can tell the difference between party political point-scoring or dumb questions from Journos, and matters of real concern that cannot be blustered away by Corona circumstance excuses.

One muppet asked today whether the Nightingale Facilities had been built "in error".
That is the dumbest question I've heard put forward so far during this crisis. It's only a few IQ points above thinking that 5G signals spread the disease.

But I agree Ken that the SAGE related accusations are extremely serious.
I cannot see any reason for keeping SAGE advice confidential, or for the presence of Dominic Cummings at their meetings.
No good explanations have been offered.

If the Government is thought to be manipulating the Science advice while claiming to be 100% led by it, public trust in it will be eroded.
Bearing in mind it will be a year or more before we have a vaccine, and that the economic fall-out of this Pandemic is likely to make the Credit Crunch look like a blip, the very last thing we need is to be given reasons to lose faith in this newly elected Government.

 

It would be an interesting question for whoever doubts the need for the Nightingale hospital to ask how many dead, and how many sick people in corridors would be needed before you 'start' to construct the hospital in question.
In the end, it was little used, but that doesn't take away that it was a statement of intent to try and make sure there would be beds for everyone when the numbers started to climb. And should be applauded as such.

 

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?? What

 

It’s being said again that there is evidence this virus came from a Chinese lab , how do we feel about that ? And if proven what steps should be taken against the Chinese?

 

Update.

I went to Lidl on Saturday and was able to take up my issues with the Manager.

I asked the lady how many customer capacity nowadays, she stalled for a few seconds then said "why do you ask?". I relayed my experience from the previous week and repeated my question, this was met with "it depends". I then said that what she said did not make sense, to which she came out with a number of 60, the first number that must have come to her head. I thanked her for her time.

By the time I purchased my stuff there was EASILY 60 people inside, with the security 'monitoring' the queue/customer capacity stood by the tills and nowhere near the entrance/exit.

An absolute shambles.

 

I'm going to be very sceptical about any 'evidence' or rumours with explosive consequences, until there is overwhelming agreement on it from a large number of sources that do not all have something to gain.

We know the first virus outbreak was in Wuhan, China.
But one popular rumour among working folk in Wuhan is that the disease came from Africa, brought to Wuhan by African migrant workers.
Branches of McDonald's in Wuhan actually banned African customers on the strength of this rumour.
I could imagine the authorities in China passively approving of this rumour, or even encouraging it.
Believing it allows Chinese people to 'save face' at least in their own minds.

There are other rumours in China too, that the virus is a US biological weapon deliberately deployed against them.
An Act of War in effect.
This rumour is even more ridiculous than the African migrant workers rumour, but some people will believe them.

None of these rumours (African, US weapon, Chinese Lab) have any credibility in my view.
But many human beings have a tendancy to fill alarming gaps in knowledge by believing anything they feel comfortable with.

Telecoms engineers have received death threats and mobile phone masts have been vandalised here in the UK because some people believe the scientifically impossible rumour that 5G signals transmit Coronavirus.

Rumours are bad news as well as (usually) fake news I'm afraid.
The way they spread across the internet highlights the worst quality of the Web.

 

Exactly how I see it. I have seen various rumours about where this came from. Wuhan seems pretty clearly the epicenter. From there though, there is a huge gap, with lots of theories and little or no proof. Plus Donald Trump has been very active in pushing an anti China/WHO agenda to cover how terrible his own performance has been. It's going to take some going to unravel this and China will have to be unusually cooperative in allowing investigations to take place. Transparency isn't their big thing, which will help rumours to thrive.

 

Since saturday, the adults have been allowed out to do an hour's exercise or a simple walk, provided they don't drift more than a kilometre from home. I went out for a walk, but gave up after fifteen minutes. No distancing - joggers and cyclists go in a straight line and if they get close enough to touch, well who cares? The walkers were mostly without masks, as were ALL the sporty types, and a couple of times, I was forced round groups who stopped for a chat in the middle of the walkway, blocking it for everyone. I caught an interview from a nurse in the local hospital that night, who bitterly pointed out she lost three atients on her shift that nght, only to find this sort of mindless behaviour te next day on the beach.
To be honest, Spain is racing out of quarentine. The footie clubs begin training next week, and they are in planning for a pre season very son and getting the season underway in june. We were told tat provinces would only begin the climb out of lock down when they had completed a series of checks regarding infection rates and hospital beds, but despite the fact neither Barcelona or Madrid comply with some of these, they are on the same level as most of the rest of Spain. Having seen the same scenes at the beach tonight, I imagine we can look foreward to a fresh surge in infections later in tis onth a back into a devastating lock down a few weeks later. I hope I am wrong, but the attitude I have seen seems to be that Coronavirus has disappeared, and we can mix pretty freely. Basically throwning a lot of hard work out of the window as far as I can see. but we'll see - I may yet be wrong.

 

Sorry to hear that another surge of infections is likely in Spain.
It's even more awful knowing in advance that it will happen.

Nothing has changed regarding treatment for COVID19.
If people mix socially without strict distancing, they will get infected.
Four weeks from now, we will see a second peak beginning in Spain unless people are extremely careful.
And it sounds like many are not going to be very careful.

Extremely unfair on their health workers.
Some people seem to be thinking that as long as their Health System isn't actually overwhelmed by the pandemic, everything is OK. They don't seem to care at all that doctors and nurses are being traumatised by almost impossible workloads and the constant fear of infection, day after day, week after week.

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Joggers annoy me too in this country.
Even when there are only one or two in a park or open space, they intimidate other people by how hard they are blowing as they run along.
Even the ones who do try to keep a distance - which isn't very many.
Just by their actions they are putting their own health vanity above the safety of others. Would it really kill them to just walk briskly instead of pant their lungs out every day in communal spaces?

Along with little groups of Polish blokes (laid off from their building jobs) hanging around the parks drinking from cans and leaving their rubbish behind them, joggers are spoiling parks for everyone else.
In six weeks I have not seen one Police officer in the local parks where I walk around for exercise. To be honest, I've not seen one beat copper anywhere around where I live. Only the occasional patrol car.

 

On Sunday I was in Norman Park, Bromley. Whilst there was a number of people jogging and cycling, coupled with parents out with their children, it was pleasing to see that people were adhering to the distancing and respecting others, it seems I was lucky given the increasing number of reports similar to Mr Lardiman's example.
It will be interesting to see the proposals laid down by the Government for the relaxing of lockdown.

They cannot win if selfish pigs do not respect them.

 

I'll confess this lockdown is wearing me down a bit.

It would be good to see a few minor concessions on Thursday (or Sunday apparently) like perhaps some more shops being allowed to open - like garden centres. And perhaps permission for people to visit their families at other addresses, with social distancing of course.

If Boris tells us there are plans in the pipeline but the lockdown rules as they stand will not be changed for at least another 3 weeks, a lot of people are going to be understandably disheartened by this.
Of course we cannot just throw caution to the wind. But with news of many other countries taking small steps to ease their lockdowns (not just talking about it) many of us would just like the Government to throw us a bone.

Observing the lockdown rules diligently is beginning to get more difficult, when evidence is gradually growing that a significant minority - around 1 in 10 at a guess - are bending or ignoring some of the rules and seemingly getting away with it.

And what is this rash of speeding on the roads all about?
Hundreds, if not thousands, of brainless prats who are using quiet roads as racetracks.
If they are caught red-handed, and their reason for being on the road at all is not essential, they should have their cars impounded on the spot.

 

I'm not too impressed by some of the nit-pickers who are griping that the new UK "track & trace" mobile 'phone app won't be compatible with every other country.

Tough.
The first responsibility of the Government is to people in this country.

Making our NHS-oriented app compatible with other countries (which use very different private healthcare systems) would seriously affect how efficiently the app works.
The only advantage to having a fully compatible international app would be to allow people to fly off on holiday in a few months and still feel comfy.
People need to FORGET about flying off to sunny foreign climes on holidays.
Or if they must, then they can take their chances as far as I'm concerned.

International holiday travel should be completely embargoed until we have universal access to a working vaccine.
That's going to be 12-18 months most likely.
Non-essential air travel of all kinds (including business) should be out too, unless watertight protection is provided to passengers.
Today's generation of cheap, dirty, cigar tube airliners doesn't even come close.

#livesbeforeleisure

 

Don't see the issue to be honest - no one is going to do much travelling just yet. I thought the problem was one of security.

 

It's just a few naysayers looking to pick holes in what the Government is trying to do.

Attempting to give the impression that the UK app won't talk to apps in other countries because ours is botched, or has been designed that way by little-Englanders just to annoy our EU neighbours.

 

Anything is government does will have naysayers and people pick holes into it.

I actually read an article from an Oxford Brooke professor saying, we're developing a vaccine but I don't want Britain to succeed in it, I'd rather another country did <LINK>

Heard other things like the EU built (or supplied funding more like) the lab where this virus supposedly come from. Sounds like them to pay for our own downfall, so they can make extra €€€€s off our own suffering and economic woes.

Either way what the Chinese are doing, destroying evidence, sending doctors to re-education camps or "disappearing" in mysterious circumstances, blaming migrants (also side bar.... How racist are the Chinese? Check out the YouTube videos of posters, etc they're putting up), deflecting blame to other nations, lying about the human-to-human transmission, an investigation which is reported back to the public is a must... Too long have nations turned a blind eye to wrong doings of despotic communist regimes.