So.....it seems you HAVE to download the ‘Track and Trace‘ app to do certain things eg my local gym, Strollers restaurant...and now police and gonna do spot visits and dish out £1000 fines to anyone who isn’t ‘self isolating’ when they should......Meanwhile asking neighbour to ‘grass’ on neighbour if they dare to have uncle Fred And auntie Freda visit their family of 5..... All a bit 1984 to me
Have a gin and don’t worry about it. Do we have anything like the numbers to police this thing anyway? Sounds a lot like the government wanting to be seen to doing something rather than actually doing something which they aren’t as good at. If I got a random text telling me to stay inside but had a family depending on me to get out the house and work I’m not ashamed to say I’d be going out to work, while taking reasonable precautions like wearing a mask as we all should be anyway. If I actually knew I had it that would be a different story.
To be fair, the restaurant didn't say they wouldn't serve me if I didn't have the app. I do find the powers that the police are being given worrying, but I seem to be in a small minority. The general public have become sufficiently terrorised as to the dangers of the virus that they actively want more extreme measures and punishments. I find this very disturbing.
Steve Jones a regular onQPR Facebook just tweeted... Brings it home Lost my dad to that bastard Covid this morning, three months after losing mum. If I see anyone else saying it’s just a scam, it’s about government control I won’t hold back. It’s ****ing real. Rest easy Dad https://t.co/0keQtiQTTs
Agree it' has nothing to do with government control (utter bollox). it's about a disease. My partner has a family member in an induced coma and on a ventilator. 3 weeks ago he was fine.
Sorry if this offends anyone but my random thoughts...... It seems to me that there are some who think that anyone who dares to question anything about the virus and the measures being taken against it are somehow delusional and are branded ‘COVID deniers’....burn them at the stake the bloody heretics !! I’m also seeing an avalanche of emotion on social media of reports of that person, this person dying of COVID and how terrible others are to question anything to do with COVID, trying it seems to shame people into acceptance if everything. It’s as if too many questions are being asked
Existence and measure for treatment are too different things. People who have had Covid, particularly badly, or have seen relatives suffer or die, are understandably upset by those who say it doesn't exist and it's just a government conspiracy. Those who say it doesn't exist need to put strong arguments forward - I haven't seen any that convince me and I've known someone who had Covid badly in her early thirties and six months on, is still a shadow of herself. Measures for treatment should be an open debate, but much can be learned from how the problem is being handled in other countries - and most of them in the Western World seem to be struggling
I am sorry for anyone who has had, or is suffering still from Covid. All is very quiet on the Chinese front and Wuhan. I am disappointed that there hasn't been a joint Govt effort to combat this virus, and more questions asked about the "missing doctors and scientists" who have disappeared. Maybe if "mankind" hadn't destroyed the habitats of bats, or attempted to eat them then we would collectively would not be in the mess we are in. Can see the virus being around for many years to come, however as it mutates will only "attack" some members of the population.
I think it’s pretty clear that there is a massive tension at the heart of this between those who are concerned about the impact of the virus and those who are concerned about the impact of the response to the virus. But nowhere do I see the debate being stifled or suppressed. Then again, apart from here, I don’t do social media. But I do see plenty of mainstream media platforms for people like Peter Hitchens and Lord Sumption, and plenty of people in Parliament (mostly Tories) arguing the libertarian side of the case. The way I see it is - the virus exists and can have devastating consequences for large numbers of people. The efforts to control the virus will damage the economy (have damaged the economy) and will upset those who are very focussed on their individual ‘rights’. The ‘cure’ could be as bad as or worse than the disease. Getting the balance right is the job of government based on scientific evidence. So far this has been a bit of a fiasco, neither curing the disease nor avoiding the side effects of the treatment. And we are all getting increasingly wound up and neurotic as a result, and because, in these times of ‘rights’ and instant gratification, this has gone on for longer than our puny attention spans can cope with, and our skins are too thin to manage the differences of perspective. There is right on both sides.
We’re talking about two different things here...you mention people who say that COVID doesn’t exist, who number very few I feel (though there are some)....whereas I’m talking about people, like me, who dare to question things such as the prevalence, government response and death toll from the virus. Some are lumping us in the same category and that’s just unfair
Questioning the government response is healthy and beyond criticism. I just don't buy all the conspiracy stuff (I'm not saying you do, Stainsey) when this virus is worldwide.
Totally mate, I see it more as an opportunity for the government to reign in control a bit (like they did in 1994 with the Criminal Justice Act)....why let the chance go missed as it can be seen to be done for the good of all, law abiding people.
What flies in the face of that is that (a) Boris was desperate to get people back to their usual place of work for economic reasons and (b) the threat of a second wave of the virus is absolutely born out by the rate of increase in cases here, and even more so, in Continental Europe and (c) Wales and Scotland are doing the same as the UK
....although there are serious questions to be asked about the validity of the test results. Still ongoing as far as I know.
As Woody says above....and we’ve done the thing about ‘cases’ and ‘deaths/serious illness’ many times before