The Dutch high council of law recently made euthanasia in cases of dementia legal by refusing to prosecute a doctor who euthanized a patient for this reason. At the patient’s request obviously.
This is the News… THIS IS THE NEWWWWWWWS!
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Bumping this as the thread is sticking.
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Six supermarkets in Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) have been told to improve their coronavirus safety measures or face closure.
RCT Council says it is taking a “tough stance” on these businesses to ensure that they continue help to keep shoppers safe.
The supermarkets have been criticised for not ensuring that social distancing is being maintained and that hand and cleaning sanitiser is available where appropriate.
I’m puzzled again why this is so hard in a very wealthy country. Every single business in Malaysia has hand sanitiser at the entrance, including bloody Tesco named in this report, or they get closed down. In fact in my local Tesco you don’t have a choice, they spray it on your hands before they let you in.
Just bizarre that easy and cheap measures seem so hard to implement, I genuinely don’t understand it.
It can be noted that RCT council here actually did this voluntarily, most aren’t checking at all.
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My dad lives in Wales and I asked him if he’d been wearing his mask when he went shopping. I was staggered to learn that it’s not required in Wales. England has generally been pretty crap, but we are at least required to wear masks in shops now. Think I managed to persuade my dad that he should start wearing one.
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Six supermarkets in Rhondda Cynon Taf (RCT) have been told to improve their coronavirus safety measures or face closure.
RCT Council says it is taking a “tough stance” on these businesses to ensure that they continue help to keep shoppers safe.
The supermarkets have been criticised for not ensuring that social distancing is being maintained and that hand and cleaning sanitiser is available where appropriate.
I’m puzzled again why this is so hard in a very wealthy country. Every single business in Malaysia has hand sanitiser at the entrance, including bloody Tesco named in this report, or they get closed down. In fact in my local Tesco you don’t have a choice, they spray it on your hands before they let you in.
Just bizarre that easy and cheap measures seem so hard to implement, I genuinely don’t understand it.
It can be noted that RCT council here actually did this voluntarily, most aren’t checking at all.
All the supermarkets I go to have hand sanitiser at the entrance these days.
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Their public health adviser is pretty insistent that distancing is much more useful than masks
Which is fine as long as you’re able to maintain a 2m distance. There are plenty of instances where staff might be working in smaller shops where that’s simply not possible all the time though.
It’s all very well the governments of the world lauding shop-workers etc. as “key workers,” but if they’re not prepared to back it up with legislation that protects them, then their words ring pretty hollow.
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I can’t disagree, they have brought in mandatory masks in shops in a local lockdown for Caerphilly that had a surge in cases. I don’t understand the reluctance to just do it everywhere.
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they have brought in mandatory masks in shops in a local lockdown for Caerphilly that had a surge in cases.
Sounds like they’re handling the pandemic…
…Caerphilly
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Looks like increasing cases have forced their hand anyway and masks have just been made mandatory in shops across Wales. At least your dad is already prepared Steve.
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New York’s Gov. Cuomo announced yesterday that, starting Monday, people caught riding MTA* buses or trains without wearing a mask will be fined $50. The idea is to make commuters feel safe about taking public transportation again. It’s a good thought, but for some COVIDiots a $50 fine is not sufficient deterrent; he should make it $500 to make them think twice about defying the order.
*Metropolitan Transit Authority covers NYC plus 12 surrounding counties in lower New York State as well as a couple of Connecticut counties.
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I look at a bus full of masked people and it just reminds me of what’s going on and that it’s best not to get on the bus at all.
Are you saying you would rather ride on a bus with maskless people because it doesn’t remind you of our current situation? A lot of people don’t have the choice or whether to get on the bus or not. Here in western NY people are getting upset because our numbers have dropped but we are painted with the same brush as NYC so if he uses fines to get NYC to get with the program so be it. In Rochester the busses all have signs saying no mask no ride. it is even on the front of the bus where it says which route the Bus is following. It might seem naive that those signs are obeyed but our numbers ARE down.
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I think there’s a huge dollop of guesswork in all these assumptions about reactions. I was talking to Mike the other day and about how everywhere here has temperature checks before entering.
He said it could make people complacent and the readers are not really at medical grade and can give inaccurate readings (which is true, one measured me at 32 degrees which would make me technically dead, although most are pretty consistent at around 36.5 ish).
That’s the same argument that was made for masks though, they aren’t medical grade and they lessen the chances of spread rather than preventing it. In practice for me they don’t seem to give the impression that the majority feel it’s all suddenly ok with a mask and temp check. It’s possible people could have completely opposite reactions, one becomes for relaxed the other more worried.
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Are you saying you would rather ride on a bus with maskless people because it doesn’t remind you of our current situation? A lot of people don’t have the choice or whether to get on the bus or not.
No, and if it makes the people who have no choice but to get the bus actually safer, then I’m all in favour. What I’m disagreeing with is “The idea is to make commuters feel safe about taking public transportation again”. If enforcing masks is supposed to be a stimulus to get discretionary bus riders (like me, for example) riding buses again because they now feel safe, I don’t think it’s going to work.
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I am taking a lot less buses
You really do want to resurrect Stannis, don’t you.
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resurrect Stannis,
HE’S NOT DEAD
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If enforcing masks is supposed to be a stimulus to get discretionary bus riders (like me, for example) riding buses again because they now feel safe, I don’t think it’s going to work.
The primary reason is to make people feel safer riding the bus, so that they stop driving their cars into the City.
Early in the pandemic, I was taking my car to work one day per week to go through mail, sign checks, scan documents, etc. At that time there was very little traffic as most would-be commuters were staying home. Now, as restrictions have eased, more and more people are heading back to work but choosing to drive in rather than take a chance with public transportation. If that trend continues, pretty soon the major arteries into Manhattan are going to be clogged — it was already getting bad even before schools reopened and now it’s just going to get worse. The governor and the mayor realize this and are trying to resolve it by taking steps to make us feel less uncomfortable taking the bus or train to and from work.
Of course the downside of everyone going back to public transportation is that the buses and trains will probably become crowded again. The MTA is already grumbling that if they don’t get Federal $$ assistance they’ll have to reduce the frequency of trains and buses, which will only make things worse.
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At that time there was very little traffic as most would-be commuters were staying home.
Wasn’t it a beautiful time? Tragic in some ways but really great in others.
Penang isn’t particularly similar to Manhattan in many ways but it is an island that’s densely populated. When lockdown hit here we were allowed one member per household to buy groceries or medicine, that was it. So traffic basically went from 100% to 2%. I’d look out of my window and see no cars on the road for 5 or 10 minutes when there’s usually a constant stream.
I went to the Tesco supermarket via a 6 lane road and as I went into the lane to turn right a 5 foot long monitor lizard was sleeping on the road. I just scuttled around him but no way ever would they get that close otherwise, then I got videos of monkeys invading condo swimming pools and having a great time.
Humans and their transport really are arseholes.
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Seems like maybe as little as a month ago I was thinking how nice this area of the world has been for the forest fire situation (after multiple years of horrendous summers), and how much we’ve needed a break.
Well, that’s out the window. The West Coast of the USA is on fire.
U.S. wildfires help make Vancouver air quality among worst in the world
According to IQAir, which claims to operate the world’s largest free real-time air quality information platform, Vancouver briefly had the worst air quality of any major city on earth, while other platforms showed the region’s air quality as bad but not the worst.
British Columbia’s own Air Quality Health Index readings listed air quality for Metro Vancouver, the Fraser Valley, Nanaimo and southern Vancouver Island as 10+, or “very high risk.”
It’s bad and getting worse. Hazy everywhere and like there’s a campfire outside the window.
But outside of the elderly and those with breathing problems, I’m telling friends and co-workers to be thankful we’re alive.
Seriously. What I’m seeing on the news is horrible.28 people have been killed and dozens more are missing as fires ravage the West Coast
Thousands have fled their homes in Oregon alone…
Across the West, 97 large fires were burning Saturday, including 12 in Idaho and nine in Montana…
In California, three of the five largest wildfires in the state’s history are burning now…
At least eight of Oregon’s wildfires are expected to burn “until the winter’s rains fall”…
About 500,000 people in Oregon are under some type of evacuation alert.
This year can take a flying leap.
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My job site near Seattle has been shut down all week due to the air quality. I’m one of three people allowed to work out of the 600 that are staying home without pay. The first day I was wearing a N95 mask but the superintendent said it was still too much exposure for a 9 hour shift. Now I have his truck parked at the gate so I can run the filtered AC and sit inside. Personally, I don’t think idling a truck all day is a great idea but I’ll go along with it as long as I can keep my job.
We had planned a camping trip to Cannon Beach for last weekend. Amber had made a map of filming locations from The Goonies but we’ll have to make it a spring trip now.
Poor kid had her graduation, 18th birthday party and summer gigs cancelled due to covid, now this… can’t catch a break.
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In the words of Cedric Daniels, this is bullshit:
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It’s fucking bullshit.
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And the aftermath:
2 Louisville officers shot amid Breonna Taylor protests
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I wonder if they were doing anything violent and threatening, like sleeping.
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Coronavirus: police break up anti-lockdown protest in London
It came just after conspiracy theorist David Icke made an incendiary speech at the top of the steps leading to the National Gallery, calling on people to take off their masks and embrace freedom. He urged police forces and militaries around the world to take the side of the people, rather than “psychopathic” governments.
Fucking idiots.
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Coronavirus: police break up anti-lockdown protest in London
It came just after conspiracy theorist David Icke made an incendiary speech at the top of the steps leading to the National Gallery, calling on people to take off their masks and embrace freedom. He urged police forces and militaries around the world to take the side of the people, rather than “psychopathic” governments.
Fucking idiots.
Icke is a major fucking idiot.
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Saw some footage from Belarus on the BBC news last night with black-garbed, masked security forces breaking up an anti-government demonstration and carrying people away in vans. The BBC reporter seemed rightful concerned over this.
Then I saw some footage about exactly the same thing happening in Trafalger Square. But everybody seems ok with that because, David Icke
Regardless of whether David Icke is an idiot (that is beyond dispute), it’s amazing how people in this country are just accepting that the government should have the power to take away our civil liberties without scrutiny or opposition.
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Regardless of whether David Icke is an idiot (that is beyond dispute), it’s amazing how people in this country are just accepting that the government should have the power to take away our civil liberties without scrutiny or opposition.
Well, for one thing Icke is a madman. For the other, there hopefully is scrutiny. People will be set free immediately after a stern warning, as opposed to disappearing for days and weeks and being tortured. And if they weren’t, I am sure the BBC would be rightfully concerned, as well.
Equating the situation in Belarus (or China) with the breaking up of anti-corona demonstrations that are being broken up for the single reason that they didn’t keep to existing laws protecting people from a pandemic isn’t helpful.(Not that security forces should go masked. Is that a thing in the UK? Do they have identification badges? That’s a major current issue here in Germany, or at least in my county.)
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Debated whether this belonged here, the Weird News thread or the Random thread:
Louisiana priest arrested for alleged threesome on church altar: report
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Debated whether this belonged here, the Weird News thread or the Random thread:
I think it belongs on all three threads you mentioned, as well as the Sports thread.
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Hm. Made a post that seems was lost. Anyway, he and the women were arrested on charges of having sex publicly, which is bullshit – they were in a building and the witness watched them through a window. I can understand the church firing him, but persecuting this by law is ridiculous and disgusting at the same time. I hope the bit of fame/notoriety coming with this allows the women to balance the court costs somewhat (they’re professional sex workers).
Funny sidenote: the diocese apparently has now burned the altar they did it on.
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It’s happening everywhere. I don’t know why people still say “When this is all over.” It’s never going to be over.
The only disease we have every eradicated, ever in the entire history of human medicine, is Smallpox, and that took a concerted worldwide effort spanning decades. Nobody every bothered trying again because it’s just too damn hard. “Tuberculosis? Yeah it kills two million a year but screw ’em, we can’t go through all that again.”
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It’s happening everywhere. I don’t know why people still say “When this is all over.” It’s never going to be over.
I disagree. This disease is unprecedented in our lifetimes, in terms of how deadly it is and how transmissible. With the profound effect it’s having on everyone’s lives, there’s a huge motivation to find a way to treat it. There’s also a huge desire to return to the way things were before, which is why so many people are taking risks that they probably shouldn’t.
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“Tuberculosis? Yeah it kills two million a year but screw ’em, we can’t go through all that again.”
Yes but we know a large part of the difference there. Nearly all TB deaths happen in areas of high poverty (the annual number in the UK for example is under 300, 129 in Germany). We could prevent the vast majority of the 1.5 – 2 million deaths a year but generally global society doesn’t care enough.
Similarly bubonic plague still exists but is easily treatable with antibiotics.
Spanish Flu did just eventually go away. This could or could not.
I agree though that this second wave does pose questions as Covid is clearly not going away any time soon. We have to live with it to an extent but we also can’t ignore it and carry on as normal as our medical facilities can’t cope with it running unchecked at this time. So we are left with a lot of middle ground on what we should do.
Personally I think a greater emphasis should have been placed on restricting travel, both internationally and internally. I think countries that have done that have kept it in check a lot better and that’s enabled them to operate with fewer restrictions on day to day life. Sacrificed one sector to help the rest continue as close to normal as they can ( I was watching a sold out sports match from the antipodes on Sunday afternoon).
It’s inherently daft that in the UK they impose restrictions on businesses in areas with high incidences of the virus but it’s perfectly fine to then travel from there to somewhere with low instances and fewer restrictions to just spread it around again.
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Personally I think a greater emphasis should have been placed on restricting travel, both internationally and internally.
There’s a lot of things we should have done differently, and you’d think after the first time round, we’d be better prepared for the second wave. But we’re not.
The really frustrating thing is, it would be so easy to wipe this thing out by shutting down completely for say two or three months – total lockdown, with government support, until cases have dwindled to nothing.
Instead, we seem – in the UK at least – to be even more reluctant than ever to shut things down. This stupid tier-system we have now will be all but ignored I imagine. It’s too localised, with areas with uncertain boundaries that have completely different rules. It’s just not going to work, so it will drag on and on far longer than it should.
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The really frustrating thing is, it would be so easy to wipe this thing out by shutting down completely for say two or three months – total lockdown, with government support, until cases have dwindled to nothing.
It looks like Starmer has just advocated something like this (although for a shorter time period, two to three weeks).
The government were advised to do this by experts some weeks ago and didn’t, so it will be interesting to see whether the idea gains traction with the public.
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It’s inherently daft that in the UK they impose restrictions on businesses in areas with high incidences of the virus but it’s perfectly fine to then travel from there to somewhere with low instances and fewer restrictions to just spread it around again.
This is a big problem with Johnson’s latest measures I think. They potentially offer more incentive for people to spread it around by offering opportunities (open pubs etc.) in different areas that aren’t available in their own.
I do think that in terms of adherence to lockdown measures across the nation, a fairly high degree of consistency is needed to avoid this two-speed system. If only to prevent people resenting the relative freedoms of others, wanting the same thing, and just deciding not to bother following the measures themselves.
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The UK never went into lockdown really. Everything I’ve seen has been muddled and fudged.
Here in Malaysia our lockdown was strict, one member of the family was allowed out for groceries and medicine. Essential workers could go to work, that’s it. Police patrolled the streets and set up roadblocks and sent everyone home if they weren’t out for one of those reasons, maximum one person in a car. Borders shut except for returning nationals who had to quarantine in specific hotels for 14 days.
No ‘1 hour outdoor exercise’ which seemed to me from pictures to be an excuse for many to meet up at the park or the beach. No people wandering in through airports without even a temperature check. No voluntary ‘work from home’ order that non-essential businesses ignored.
Cases went down to single figures a day, my state went over 100 days without one, so we opened up 6 weeks before the UK with restaurants, bars and cinemas. It has crept back into triple figures nationally in the last few weeks though so I think it’s hard to fully eradicate, even New Zealand couldn’t shut it out completely.
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Yeah it’s true. Even the most stringent national lockdown from March to June had sufficient caveats and exemptions for people to find reasons to be out and about, and then the Cummings affair gave everyone license to do whatever they wanted really.
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I was honestly chuckling at the demand from some quarters for 2 hours exercise a day. It was so transparent what they actually wanted was more freedom to wander about and have picnics.
Unless you are a professional athlete almost nobody does 14 hours a week training and there was nothing stopping you doing YouTube led workouts at home (which is what we did with the kids, who literally didn’t leave the house from 18th March to 4th May).
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The sharpest joke going is that the UK politicians of Johnson’s ilk, the kind very quick to trot out a WW2 analogy, are also the ones going ‘you can’t ask people to be disciplined in their actity for more than six months’.
Oh? That war you lot are quick to invoke – and which you didn’t have any part of – involved doing exactly that for six years! (Arguably longer because the post-war recovery took a few years too.)
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But also, Covid-19 will never be over. We’ll develop some better treatments to keep the death rates down, but it will still be there killing us every year, the same as every other disease we have ever encountered. If we’re lucky, it will settle down to a point where won’t kill many more of us than seasonal flu does.
Yeah, that’s how thing will end up without any doubt. There’s a number of factors that play into reducing the danger of the illness though, not just better treatments. Vaccines will probably be part of it, as will rising immunity in the populace, and there’s even a chance that it will mutate into a version of the virus that has less lethal effects.
Either way, yes, Covid-19 itself will never be over, but having to protect ourselves from it with drastic measures will be. Which is what counts.
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Here in Malaysia our lockdown was strict … It has crept back into triple figures nationally in the last few weeks though
So strict lockdown doesn’t work either?
What’s the point then?
Strict lockdown worked in Vietnam
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It depends what you think the point of lockdown is.
If you think it’s to wipe COVID-19 from the face of the planet, then no, that isn’t going to happen.
If you think it’s to reduce the infection rate and cases to a more manageable level, then yes that has been proven to happen.
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David has turned into Father Dougal, for Gar starts off talking about the past, which is far away, then switches to the present which is now and right here.
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With current treatment protocols as they are, it can seem like that.
Given the current state of things, I don’t think it’s that unreasonable to suggest a planned series of on-off lockdowns to contain the spread, in the short to medium term.
Scheduling these in advance (rather than at short notice) would at least give people some sense of certainty in terms of being able to plan for the medium-term future, whereas currently we don’t know what to expect in terms of lockdown measures in even a week’s time.
Then longer-term the hope is that newly-developed/trialled treatments will allow us to live with COVID-19 much more effectively.
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It’s never going to end.
…especially if people take the position that it’s somebody else’s responsibility to make the effort to stop the spread, while they continue to go to raves and large gatherings while neglecting to wear a mask or take common-sense precautions.
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So strict lockdown doesn’t work either? What’s the point then?
It’s relative David. I specified earlier in reply to Steve that nobody has succeeded fully in eradicating it and I don’t expect that outcome, New Zealand had a recurrence and Vietnam has had cases this week albeit less than 5.
Handily for my maths Malaysia has pretty close to half the population of the UK. So I can double the Malaysia numbers to give the exact context.
So our deaths from Covid are at 334 compared to 43,018.
Cases at 35,080 compared to 643,980.
So you can argue it didn’t work because it didn’t go away, or that it did because 42,684 fewer people died of it in the same time period.
The current increase is largely in one state (on completely the other side of Malaysia to me, a 3 hour flight) which is very difficult to police as it is mostly rainforest with a huge porous border with Indonesia which has not been able to control the virus as well. It has been comforting to me mentally that in my state, apart from a controlled breakout in a prison, there have been fewer than 150 cases and 2 deaths.
The problem I see with a half arsed lockdown is basically you still get loads of economic disruption, nobody much was making money from people popping to the park or having a VE Day conga, and get a half-arsed result in the level of slowing of the virus. So you may as well do it properly and for a shorter period so results in reducing the R rate are faster.
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It’s never going to end.
No it’s not. “Hammer and dance” is what this is called, if it works properly. (That really is the terminology our virologists have been using.)
When you have too many infections, you use the hammer – a lockdown. Then, you start the dance. Germany has managed, up to now, to avoid a second lockdown after April by keeping relatively light measures in place. All over the summer, the numbers remained stable and it looked like we’d returned to a form of normalcy. The dance was working.
With fall and winter, things look somewhat different. We may need to use the hammer again, if we are unable to adjust the dance properly. But this is how it works. Hammer and dance. If you dance well enough, you don’t need the hammer. That’s how that part ends.
Otherwise – it doesn’t. Like you said, the virus isn’t going away. If you manage to eradicate it in one country, it will be reintroduced at a later point. So you have to keep dancing. If you don’t, you need the hammer again.
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“Hammer and dance” is what this is called
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Corona restrictions are so much more fun if you just imagine that that is what we’re doing the whole time.
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In/near Paris, a teacher was attacked and beheaded. This was after he had shown pictures of the Prophet Mohammad in class while talking about freedom of speech, and after he and the school had received complaints and threats after that.
We’ve been getting a bit of a breather from this kind of shit, but in the current state of the world, it feels like it hits even harder.
The victim was a 47-year-old history-geography professor – the subjects are taught together in France – but also gave the obligatory courses in “moral and civil education”. It was as part of these, and while talking about freedom of speech, that the professor showed pupils, aged 12 to 14, the caricatures. This sparked complaints from a number of parents and one family lodged a legal complaint.
The 18-year-old Moscow-born suspect is said to have shared photos of the attack on social media. Some reports said that he had Chechen roots. He was said to be a “perfect unknown” to the country’s intelligence service, but had a petty criminal record.
The alarm was raised at 5pm on Friday when local police informed their national colleagues that a body had been found outside a school at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine in the Yvelines, a suburb north-west of central Paris.
The killer was chased by police but refused to surrender and was shot several times and killed after reportedly threatening police. Officers sealed off the area after fears the assailant was wearing a suicide vest.
[…]
After the contested lesson, an angry parent posted a video on YouTube complaining about the teacher. On Friday night, another parent posted below the video, defending the professor, writing: “I am a parent of a student at this college. The teacher just showed caricatures from Charlie Hebdo as part of a history lesson on freedom of expression. He asked the Muslim students to leave the classroom if they wished, out of respect … He was a great teacher. He tried to encourage the critical spirit of his students, always with respect and intelligence. This evening, I am sad, for my daughter, but also for teachers in France. Can we continue to teach without being afraid of being killed?”
This happening again, after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, it’s just so poisonous. It just makes me so angry, not just at the poor dumb kid who beheaded the poor teacher, but at that part of Islam that makes people think that making fun of religious authority figures is a personal attack on them and should be retaliated against, by complaint or other means. It’s not hard to imagine what effect this will have on people who are already anti-islam and xenophobic anyway.
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The teacher just showed caricatures from Charlie Hebdo as part of a history lesson on freedom of expression. He asked the Muslim students to leave the classroom if they wished, out of respect …
I have a huge problem with that… no one deserves to die for something like that, but I can’t say I agree with his behaviour…
Also, in general, what the fuck is up with the goddamned cartoons?? If people know they really trigger some muslims, why keep on showing them? Like, what’s the whole point? You don’t need to show them to give a lesson. Wouldn’t it be easier to just be respectful and don’t start shit just because? u_u
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Wales is going into a lockdown for two weeks. Which worked soooo well back in March
What’s that quote about repeating things that we already know don’t work and hoping they will work this time?
Maybe I’m being selfish, but I’m thinking that at least it’s Wales trying it first, and when doesn’t work again there then maybe they won’t also try it here in England? Sorry Wales
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How are you defining “works?” They’re not expecting to eradicate the disease, but if it helps flatten the curve enough so that hospitals aren’t overwhelmed with cases, then lockdown worked exactly as it was intended to do.
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Wales is going into a lockdown for two weeks. Which worked soooo well back in March
What’s that quote about repeating things that we already know don’t work and hoping they will work this time?
Maybe I’m being selfish, but I’m thinking that at least it’s Wales trying it first, and when doesn’t work again there then maybe they won’t also try it here in England? Sorry Wales
I feel like we just had this conversation a few days ago.
No-one is arguing that a lockdown will eradicate the disease completely. But what it does do is have a huge dampening effect on the spread (in terms of new cases, hospitalisations, deaths etc) as proven by the first one.
This is obviously a big benefit in terms of keeping the disease at a manageable level.
So they’re not repeating something that didn’t work and hoping it will this time; they’re repeating something that did work and they know it will again.
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Also, how many weeks did the last lockdown take to flatten the curve? This Welsh one is scheduled to last two weeks.
Obviously there is quite a delay between the initial action and the effect, to allow for infections/incubations/hospitalisations/deaths to play out.
But you can see the effect pretty clearly from the graphs that the government is regularly wheeling out.
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I guess a big part of the problem is politics. Two weeks is probably all they can get away with because any longer will cause push-back from business leaders and the like. That’s just speculation on my part, mind you.
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The last UK-wide lockdown was supposed to last three weeks. It lasted much longer than that
No, they said they would review it again after three weeks. No one ever suggested it would only run for that long.
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Maybe they only want to flatten the curve a tiny bit this time? Let the NHS be overwhelmed but only by a small amount? I’m struggling with the logic.
It’s not necessarily a case of a much longer lockdown of several months cutting the rate more effectively and it being proportionate in that way.
If it was strictly observed, a short lockdown of sufficient length that eliminated all contact would act as a ‘reset’ of sorts and provide a big dampener on new cases.
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I’m struggling with the logic.
You struggle with the logic because you see things in a very binary fashion.
There are two extremes of thought on the virus:
1) Just ignore it and let it run, if people die so be it – they are mostly old anyway.
2) Lock down everything and everyone to eradicate the disease.
In practice no government on the planet has done either option but instead taken options in between to balance controlling the virus with economic collapse and other hardships. There are all colours of options in the middle at play.
Option 1 we know ends up with an overwhelmed health system, we start triaging and allowing patients to die without treatment as every bed is full and we don’t have enough medical staff (this happened in the UK, Spain, Italy, east coast of the US earlier this year). This is because even though flu, cancer, measles, TB, too much smoking and drinking and car accidents also kill a lot of people the levels are generally stable and built into the capacity. Adding an additional problem with high levels of transmission can easily exceed that planning. There is no short term solution to the capacity issues, doctors take 7 years to train and nurses a few years too.
Option 2 destroys both the economy and also quality of life, nobody wants to exist in solitary confinement, it would work to kill off transmission if everyone lived in a bubble but is too high a price to pay. There has to be a mental health balance.
So what the health advisers to the UK government have said is that they think a short sharp lockdown (the circuit breaker) will reset you back to an R level below 1 and halt the current exponential rise in cases, hospitalisation and deaths from where we were 2 months ago. The UK government has chosen not to take that advice for England but the Labour opposition believe they should. The Labour opposition runs the Welsh Government so effectively have to take that stance or it makes no sense.
Only time will tell which works best (best being the operative word because there is no perfect outcome) due to everyone figuring this out as it goes along. The ‘novel’ in novel coronavirus does not mean a worthy tome like Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen but ‘new’.
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If the government (any government) was run by scientists and medical professionals, they would impose a complete lockdown and quarantine until such time as the virus has been significantly brought under control. But most governments are run by leaders who must balance life safety with the needs of individuals and society to shop for essential services, to go to work, to go to school, to go places of worship, and to participate in social and entertainment activities. A two- or three-work lockdown may seem like only a half-measure, but it will hopefully resolve concerns about overtaxing the hospitals and clinics again while giving citizens the incentive that, if we all just behave ourselves for a fortnight, we can go back to being irresponsible again very soon.
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The theory can be taught without having to share the materials. If the kids are interested they can Google them later.
Exactly, there’s ZERO educational value in showing that sort of stuff, mentioning the facts is more than enough… but also, asking the students to leave the classroom? Dude, that’s fucked up… The only time you’re either asked or thrown out of a classroom is when you do something wrong and are being punished for it… this is just more ostracizing certain people, more of the same-old inequality of treatment.
The worst part of this is that OF COURSE it’s now a matter of patriotism and all that BS, and the teacher is gonna be painted as a hero of the republic and all that kind of dumbshittery… Man I really hate the fuckin french sometimes… what a bunch of hypocrites. Sure, let’s show the prophet’s cartoons in the name of “freedom of speech and republican values”, no matter how offensive they might be to a huge chunk of their citizenry, but oh don’t you dare make a joke about the holocaust or paint a swastika anywhere because then you’re commiting a hate crime, that’s hate speech… Am I the only one who sees a problem here?
Cue the government starting to come down on a lot of pro-muslim organizations… of course… and hey, I wouldn’t be against that IF they trated everyone equally, but of course they don’t. They can pretend all they want but there’s a gigantic double-standard in how arabs/muslims are treated, and it’s nothing new… same shit was going on since I was a kid, and obviously before.
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Hold the Nukes!
‘Murder hornet’ nest discovered near British Columbia border
Washington state officials have tracked down the first so-called “murder hornet” nest on U.S. soil.
The Asian giant hornet (Vespa mandarina) nest was found in Blaine, Wash., just a few kilometres south of the British Columbia border.
Officials on both sides of the border are worried about the hornets, which are known to have a voracious appetite and are capable of wiping out entire colonies of honey bees.
Staff with the Washington State Department of Agriculture said Friday they’d used a high-tech solution to track the insects back to their home.
Entomologists have spent months trying to capture live hornets, then attach tiny micro-transmitters on them.
That approach finally paid off with the live capture of four live hornets this week, three of which were fitted with the trackers.
On Thursday, officials were finally able to follow one of the bugs home to a nest in the cavity of a tree on a residential property.
Crews plan to return to the property on Saturday and eradicate the colony.
Wait, what? Destroy all with fire in a 25-mile radius.
If not, you’ll wish you “nuked them from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.”
____________________________also from Aljazeera
‘Got ’em’: US authorities destroy ‘murder hornet’ nest
An entomologist for the Washington State Department of Agriculture displays a canister of Asian giant hornets vacuumed from a nest in Blaine, Washington1 user thanked author for this post.
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Wait, what? Destroy all with fire in a 25-mile radius.
Letting the flames consume all will make sure that there are no wildfires in the area for a good while too.
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The news today is telling me we are seeing 100,000 new cases per day in the UK, with the rate of growth doubling every 9 days.
Some number crunching tells me that every single person in the UK will be affected by day 57.
Which is Christmas day, Merry Christmas.
You can check my working if you want:
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The workings are good but which news told you there were 100,000 cases a day?
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hairdressers stay open
That seems like a fairly random decision
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hairdressers stay open
That seems like a fairly random decision
Those MPs have got to get their hair cut somehow!
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Especially given that the numbers will rise once the healthcare system has been overwhelmed
Which is the huge shadow behind the bare stats.
I know people talk about the flu cases and cancer and car accidents each year also being high but all our health systems, private or public, have that built in to their capacity plans, it’s generally fairly stable and predictable. Neither likes to spend money on huge excess capacity and those plans haven’t built in Covid-19.
This isn’t easily solved either. I think the UK got excited at the efficiency of China building field hospitals and did a good job themselves but what we can never magic up is trained medical staff, doctors and nurses.
Our old pal Dr Mike you know is an expert on sleep for children but he also looks at strains on his fellow medical staff. They were driven to the brink on the initial outbreak and over 200 of them, all well below the average age, died in Britain from viral load.
The populist answer of ‘let’s just let it run a lot of illnesses are as bad’ have no consideration for the compound effect on the health professionals. They are knackered, they are behind on other treatments, if an extra 300 people arrive with severe Covid symptoms they can’t handle it, more of them get sick, they run out of beds and we get into triage on who they can treat.
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This isn’t easily solved either. I think the UK got excited at the efficiency of China building field hospitals and did a good job themselves but what we can never magic up is trained medical staff, doctors and nurses.
Yup. In Germany, it has only now become part of the public discourse that we have way more beds in intensive care units than we have intensive care nurses. The beds themselves are pretty useless if there’s nobody to take care of the patients.
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Just a bit of non-covid news that is worth talking about (or well, only a little bit related to Covid):
The shit going down in Poland, with massive protests after the government banned all abortions, including the ones of children who will suffer from birth defects so bad that they are not going to survive.Quite possibly the Polish government thought they could push this through while everybody’s mind is on covid, and Polish women aren’t having it. Which is cool; that country really badly needs a shake-up.
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UK study finds evidence of waning antibody immunity to COVID-19 over time – Reuters
Proportion of people in England with Covid antibodies has fallen, study says – The Guardian
COVID-19 antibody response drops in UK study – DW
Covid: Antibodies ‘fall rapidly after infection’ – BBC
Levels of protective antibodies in people wane “quite rapidly” after coronavirus infection, say researchers. (click one of the links for a full article – SR)
The Imperial College London team found the number of people testing positive for antibodies has fallen by 26% between June and September.
They say immunity appears to be fading and there is a risk of catching the virus multiple times.“Immunity is waning quite rapidly, we’re only three months after our first [round of tests] and we’re already showing a 26% decline in antibodies,” said Prof Helen Ward, one of the researchers.
Exactly what the antibody drop means for immunity is still uncertain. There are other parts of the immune system, such as T-cells, which may also play a role, directly killing infected host cells and calling to other immune cells to help out.
However, the researchers warn antibodies tend to be highly predictive of who is protected.
Prof Wendy Barclay said: “We can see the antibodies and we can see them declining and we know antibodies on their own are quite protective.
“On the balance of evidence, I would say it would look as if immunity declines away at the same rate as antibodies decline away, and that this is an indication of waning immunity.”There are four other seasonal human coronaviruses, which we catch multiple times in our lives. They cause common cold symptoms and we can be reinfected every six to 12 months.
There have been very few confirmed cases of people getting Covid twice. However, the researchers warn this may be due to immunity only just starting to fade since the peak infection rates of March and April.
The hope is the second infection will be milder than the first, even if immunity does decline, as the body should have an “immune memory” of the first encounter and know how to fight back.
The researchers say their findings do not scupper hopes of a vaccine, which may prove more effective than a real infection.
“The need for a vaccine is still very large, the data doesn’t change that.”3 users thanked author for this post.
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The new cases here are dropping thankfully. It went down from more than 10,000 a day to now 5,600.
We have a limited lockdown. Bars and restaurants are closed, which sucks. I know some people who ran bars are trying to make money in different ways, like turning the place into a liqor store for the time being. Also restaurants still do take out.
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Some exciting news on the vaccine front.
News coverage:
Covid-19 vaccine candidate is 90% effective, says manufacturer
Interim analysis of vaccine by Pfizer/BioNTech far exceeds expectations of most experts
Covid vaccine: First ‘milestone’ vaccine offers 90% protection
Pfizer says this about availability: “Based on current projections we expect to produce globally up to 50 million vaccine doses in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.”
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Based on the past week it feels like 2020 is really trying to turn things around before the finish line.
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It proves my theory that Covid doesn’t really exist, it was a Democrat plot to make Trump look bad. Now they need a plausible way of explaining how it’s all going away overnight.
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Does anyone else find it coincidental that this news comes out the first business day after Biden is declared the winner in the US Presidential election?
Yes, must be coincidence. ;)
Seriously, it has to be. I like a good conspiracy but to believe the vaccine is fake, or they had a vaccine ready and were just waiting to see if Biden or Trump was going to win, would imply the whole medical sector is in on it. That is going a bit too far even for me.
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Who got to you, Arjan?
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