Off Topic Coronavirus - 606 tales from the Inquiry

To be fair, how many of us would say no to Nicole Kidman.

 

Infection levels above 30,000 per day for a while now.
Daily mortality rates creeping up too - over 170 in the last 24 hours.

School holidays over in a week or two.
And still only 50% of adults in London vaccinated.

Stay careful out there folks.
Being in crowds around the Valley still makes me nervous.

 

So much for building a better Britain after Coronavirus...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58334379

Granted, it took three or four years after WW2 for the massive reforms to our society to begin changing people's lives for the better.
But the wheels were set in motion as soon as Labour came to power.

What evidence do we have that the current Government is planning a new, better British society after the pandemic?
None.

• House prices still going up (good for the economy we are told)
• House building still in the doldrums
• Infrastructure? HS2 (£50 billion to save half an hour) Elizabeth Line (Crossrail) about 15 years late and 10x over budget.
• poverty up
• Homelessness & evictions up
• inflation up
• violence up
• the NHS on its knees
• supermarkets half empty
• high streets entirely empty of shops
• gambling out of control
• drugs out of control

You get the gist.
Churchill delivered victory over fascism.
Johnson delivered Brexit.
Johnson isn't 1% the leader that Churchill was - but he deserves the same reward that Churchill got at the polls in 1945.

 

Expect an October Lockdown...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58474536

Covid: No plans for October lockdown, says government

Hi Royston
I know he's an avid reader...

 

Maybe I spoke too soon (the thread above).
If Boris is really going to scale back the Government's legal powers to lock the country down, I applaud him for that.

Freedoms and civil liberties are very vulnerable during times of national emergency.
Once gone, they might never be returned.

 

A reminder on the BBC news this morning that the NHS is almost at breaking point.
Staff are exhausted, thousands suffering from post traumatic stress. People are leaving, just to preserve their sanity and (in effect) save their own lives.

8,000+ in hospital, 150+ deaths every day ... not as a "wave" but as a permanent condition, and one that is getting gradually worse.
And it's only September. Six or seven long months to go before the country emerges from the coming winter.

If we are not going to live under permanent lockdown, then our Health Service needs massive extra support.
But money just promised won't translate into new trained NHS staff for several years.

I can't describe the depth of my sympathy for our NHS and care sector workers.
They are being asked to sacrifice their mental health - pushed beyond endurance - so the rest of us can push the pandemic to the backs of our minds and go about our business pretending it's all over and everything is back to normal.

 

Yep even at the doctors surgery where my wife works people are fed up and leaving , they’re having to deal with flack from fed up doctors ,management and also patients that are trying to get face to face appointments which is not always possible after new protocols have been put in place because of the pandemic- my wife is looking for a new job and I don’t blame her tbh

 

I went for a scan recently.
Had to wait about 20 minutes past the appointment time - not a problem really.
When I went into the scanning room, the first thing the doctor said was "sorry about the wait, I'm having to do about three jobs at once".

He didn't say it in an emotional way, but I instantly knew he was fed up with it.
Had he not been so stressed I don't think he would have said any such thing. Would have regarded it as unprofessional.
That told me the measure of his despondency.

 

It really must be so, so hard for the frontline NHS staff, but it's not an easy problem to solve.

There isn't a magic solution to the pandemic, you simply cannot defeat such a virus as this, you can only hope to mitigate the effects.

And pouring huge amounts of extra money in won't solve the problems in the NHS, unless it is correctly targeted, but also unless the NHS learns to prioritise in a better way. Everyone knows there are too many managers and executives and not enough doctors, nurses and other hands on staff. But the only people in a position to make major changes are the executives and managers themselves or ultimately we as the British public. But every election we just vote for the same parties time and time again, knowing that none of the ones who can actually win (because of our system) will do anything to force these changes. We are therefore just voting for the least worst option, whatever way we choose.

It's all a bit depressing when you start to think about it too deeply, so most of us just try to do the best we can and only worry about the things we can actually affect.

 

The medical staff also have to deal with a widespread outbreak of madness, aka Vaccine Hesitancy, the great euphemism of our time. Any refusenik who reads the latest figures will have to undergo a great deal of contortions to stick to their conspiracy theory, or whatever.

 

I'm looking up city breaks for £500

 

Well here's a shocker

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-58662455

People who work from home aren't as productive, because they skive off, says City Boss.
"part time work for full time salaries".
As if white collar workers don't have enough advantages already.
Some might even say they don't do much for their fat salaries anyway.

 

I believe he's wrong, it's just a cheap shot.

 

He might be.

I'm just jealous of people whose jobs allow them the possibility to work from home.
Mine doesn't.

 

Friend of mine that normally commutes from Whitstable to London says he gets more done from home than when in the office , he feels fresher and more energetic without the commute - but obviously you will get people that abuse it

 

Spot on, same here... been WFH for 18 months now and thriving for both me and the Bank i work for.

 

Strange that Boris didn't mention the vaccine rollout yesterday in his rousing "jam tomorrow" speech. Britain's figure of 1,999 deaths per m is significantly higher than the European average of 1,628/m. We are also mid-table in vaccination take-up, and have 2.8 doctors per 1,000 people against the European average of 3.7. Gone are the days when Boris answered every question by referring to the government's "highly successful vaccine rollout".

 

After a spectacular start to the vaccine roll out (which a lot of members of this government attributed to Brexit knowing full well it had no bearing), there seems to have been a gradual slow down. In Spain we went the other way and started late and slow, but have pushed ahead and are nicely placed now - the infections yesterday were 2,800 and 43 deaths - which is still horrible for those involved, but way below some of the high's we have hit.
Something that has struck me is there is almost no 'anti-vax' type movement here - like none at all. I don't know but like the USA, there does seem to be a cluster in the UK who still think they'll be plugged into a Bill Gates alternative universe which means there will the whole vaccine push will eventually grind to a halt, with the anti vaxxers partially sheltered by the herd immunity, but still vulnerable and potentially a home for spawning new variants. Given that there a lot of places still crying out for vaccines, it's a good time to get them immunised up as I imagine a new variant is more likely to arrive where more people are vulnerable, but I really have no sympathy for people getting seriously ill with covid while refusing to believe it exists.
I did see s scientist in the UK saying that the virulence of Covid-19 will drop off by next spring and it won't be so potentially lethal. I don't know how much of that is proof, extrapolation of other data or pure guess work, but it will do for me.

 

As always we have to be very cautious about comparing different countries performances with covid as each country chooses how it reports infections and deaths according to it's own systems, which in reality are all different.

We currently test more people per million population than any other major economic country IN THE WORLD and therefore our figures are always likely to look worse.

As an example our testing rates per million population are currently 3 times as much as Spain and Italy, 2.5 times as much as the USA, 5 times as much as Germany and of course a completely unrealistic 40 times as much as China.

If you test more people then obviously you will find more infections and therefore there will be more deaths attributed to Covid, especially as the way we attribute deaths related to Covid are different again to other countries.

Perhaps we should have just tested less people and then our figures would look much better, but is that really the right thing to do ?