The craziest thing about rushing out of lockdown for the sake of the economy is the catastrophic effects of another one. Think about all the pubs, restaurants, hotels etc hanging in there, desperately trying to stay afloat until they can start to trade again. I’m sure they’d all rather stay with the current situation for another week or two if that helped avoid being back to square one in a month’s time. It’s the second lockdown that will finish those businesses off completely.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran are here to talk about a frustrating 2 points dropped at Crystal Palace. They then discuss the regeneration of Old Trafford. Finally, Nik is joined by special guest Michael Statham from the Football Oranje podcast - who gives us a more in depth look at our EL opposition FC Twente, and then runs through the (many) Dutch connections currently at United.
The craziest thing about rushing out of lockdown for the sake of the economy is the catastrophic effects of another one. Think about all the pubs, restaurants, hotels etc hanging in there, desperately trying to stay afloat until they can start to trade again. I’m sure they’d all rather stay with the current situation for another week or two if that helped avoid being back to square one in a month’s time. It’s the second lockdown that will finish those businesses off completely.
Indeed you're not, however, even the most cursory look at the stats reveals that your risk from COVID reduces dramatically the younger you are. So it makes absolutely no sense to keep the young and health quarantined indefinitely.
It's all on the Track and Trace now.
There's a limit for how long you can micro-manage human behaviour. In my experience this new relaxation is just catching up with the public. The parks near me are full of groups socialising, having fun and enjoying this glorious weather and I'd be amazed if they all live together.
Death rate is high true. But new cases is something I think we should all keep an eye on. What's been frustrating in the last week is the lack of available figure of the number of people tested because from that with a steady lowish number of new cases and increased number of people tested you get a better sense of R0.
Just as well nobody is suggesting that.
Have you heard of a site called twitter?
The same place a shit-load of people are saying the virus is caused by 5G?
In the real world, not one government, anywhere on the planet is suggesting that young/healthy people are quarantined indefinitely. So why bring it up?
Pretty much all of it. Except for the bits that have been deceptively edited.
2.45 - Chemist thinks there is a political agenda. Only backs this up with the statement that the WHO exaggerate things. Whereas the WHO have been accused of underplaying this pandemic. So nothing more than an opinion that barely rises to the status of a non sequitur.
3.00 - misrepresents COVID deaths as equivalent to a flu season. This is obviously and demonstrably wrong. Deaths are massively beyond an annual flu season already and we aren't anywhere near done yet - not to mention deaths to date are likely rapidly approaching 1 million already due to poor reporting.
3.44 - clip says death RATE likely lower due to a lack of testing of mildly symptomatic cases. Yes. But so what? It will still be hugely worse than flu and hundreds of thousands of people are actually dead already and lots more will follow until we have a vaccine.
4.30 - blah, blah, blah - Skynet. Then more "just another rna virus" bullshit.
8.00 - only the old die so feck the old - take one for the team you selfish bastards.
9.00 - more "its just a flu" bullshit.
10.00 - this is probably worse than the bullshit. This guy did an antibody study that suggested less than 5% of Californians had been infected. His study was to improve understanding of the pandemic and that understanding was that herd immunity without a vaccine was impossible without huge mortality. They edited an interview to make it seem like he supported the agenda of the video. I hope he sues them.
If I had longer between meetings I'd find far more bullshit in there I'm sure.
Last edited:
In the real world there are plenty of people who have been scared to death by the virus and are resisting any relaxation of the lockdown. Obviously no one is going to come and say that they advocate an indefinite quarantine but it's equally difficult to foresee some people ever being comfortable with a non-lockdown world this side of a vaccine.
Personally I'm heartened by what I'm seeing. I took unspeakable flack on here because I told people that they needed to grow up and envision what a post-lockdown but pre-virus world would look like. Now it's happening.
Ignoring what the definition of indefinitely is, the death rate of the young is almost irrelevant as it is the overall spread of disease that will determine how many predominantly old people die. So unless you want tens of thousands more old people in the UK to die, then it is the young who need to take one for the team. The difference being that what the young have to take is inconvenience and some of the economic impact, whereas if the old take one for the team they die. Of course it is frustrating, and incredibly stressful, especially if you have lost your job. I too want this to just go away. But it isn't going away and we need to act morally and ethically for everyone's benefit and not just your own demographic.
In many ways I don't disagree with you.
I think you're being a bit dismissive about the cataclysmic economic impact and I don't think being unable to see who you want, when you want is an inconvenience, it's a massive sacrifice but that's ended now anyway.
Personally, I think there's a sweet spot here. There's a way for young people to be allowed to enjoy their youth whilst not being reckless. Meeting friends, having a relationship and enjoying life whilst complying with a stern and competent contact tracing system is that sweet spot.
EDIT: I know young people are my focus because I am young and I'll be the one footing the bill for all this. However, imagine your 85. Would you rather spend your last years being able to hug and play with your children, grandchildren, friends etc. Or would you rather be shielded until if/when we get a vaccine?
Live concerts sounds way too premature, they opened a club in South Korea and had a few new cases after that.
Are you still self isolating until March 2021?
I think Australia and NZ can justify easing to some degree. The UK never locked down hard enough which is largely why so many have died. But just because the government fecked it up doesn't meant the right thing is to ease off now. As summer approaches a proper lock down with contact tracing and quarantine could actually control the virus rather than, in effect just giving a few weeks or months of of pub gardens before the rest of the old people die. The economic impact will be significant but so will having to shut down when the almost inevitable second wave arrives. On top of the economic impact of Brexit the UK economy is going to take a huge hit no matter what.
Why would you need a contact tracing if you have a 'proper' lockdown?
Also the economic hit we've took from lockdown makes Brexit look like a tea party. Economists though that a no deal would take about 3% off UK growth.
The UK shrunk by 5.8% in March alone and we weren't even in lockdown for most of March.
The Lockdown is orders of magnitude worse than Brexit when it comes to the economy,
Because it is a hugely important way of restricting further infections. Australia, NZ, South Korea and Singapore (and probably others) have used it to great effect but you need to get to far lower levels of community transmission than the UK has for it to be possible on a scale that is required. Still good to do but not as effective as it is in countries that have locked down hard and early.
As for the economics just remember that Brexit is in addition to the economic impact of Covid and it is also a gift that keeps on giving (or rather taking).
Last edited:
For the record I'm no fan of Brexit but the economic impact of the Lockdown is orders of magnitude worse than Brexit. Brexit does not help at all but there's no equivalence here.
And yeah, I lockdown and a contact tracing system would the optimal solution. However, that hasn't happened. Lockdown is a finite state and we've reached the end of it in the UK. So, we're going to have to restart society and hope this system prevents the NHS being overwhelmed until we get a vaccine.
REPORTER: "What about the 40,000 deaths?"
HANCOCK: "30,000 deaths? What about the 20,000 deaths?"
HANCOCK: "30,000 deaths? What about the 20,000 deaths?"
A government of amateurs.
Except amateurs are often competent.
NZ very close to eradicating SARS-CoV-2
No new infections for a week and only 1 person still to recover.
Australia isn't quite there but barring Victoria, who had 10 new infections yesterday, there was only 1 new infection in NSW and all other states had 0.
No new infections for a week and only 1 person still to recover.
Australia isn't quite there but barring Victoria, who had 10 new infections yesterday, there was only 1 new infection in NSW and all other states had 0.
Yep, track and trace systems are only useful if their scale is in-line with the number of infections. Like much of the UK governments response, the system is just window dressing for now and will be woefully inadequate w.r.t. the thousands of infections still occuring and slow testing procedures. It's good to have in place but not if it's relied upon as the saviour.
Last edited by a moderator:
You can hope, but it won't happen. From 0 up to a few hundred thousand cases happened within 3-4 months or so. There is nothing to suggest that from tens of thousands of cases, it is gonna stay to tens of thousands of cases for a year or so (until the vaccine arrives) just because we wish it to happen.
It is extremely likely (in fact, I would say dead certain) that a second wave is gonna happen, which will put most countries in lockdown again.
Good job from those two countries (though it has been easier than if they were in Europe), no doubt about that. I guess the plan is a 2-week mandatory quarantine for everyone who goes there (otherwise, it just starts again).
Australia took early measures regarding travel from China in January and other hard hit countries as they emerged but only just fully locked down in time (about the 20th of March I think) but have done a good job in the main with a few exceptions (don't mention the $60 billion budget miscalculation or the Ruby Princess debacle). Although Australia has a large number of daily flights from China it isn't exactly the same as the UK but given that the UK is such a major travel hub the bumbling response should be even more harshly judged than it is. Heading towards 40,000 dead citizens and only now are they thinking quarantine might just be a good idea?
And yes compulsory 14 day quarantine under police guard is here for the foreseeable future. Only person found/known to have broken the quarantine is now in prison.
NZ have been brilliant. Their PM is a superstar.
Last edited:
Absolutely. Best Western leader IMO.
That will kill off any tourism though, which is probably the price to pay to save lives.
I don’t really know it’s true. Countries that have reopened have now been light on restrictions for 3-4 weeks in some cases and haven’t seen any spike in infections at all. We have been going out for more than three weeks already and even going to bars/restaurants for the last two and infections are still at the same daily rate. We haven’t seen growth in cases since mid-April. It seems to me that we were wrong about how easily the virus spreads and how steep the incline would be.
Vaccine won’t even matter here as 70-80% of people will never take it. There will be riots on the streets if they try to force people to get vaccinated as large chunk of our country think the vaccine has been designed by Bill Gates to get us chipped and control us with 5G (I’m not even kidding, we are getting to a point where very soon 15 to 20 per cent of Polish kids will not receive any vaccines, that’s how much traction the antivax movement has got here).
Well that's their tourism industry fecked then.
I understand what they are doing, but it isn't a viable long-term strategy is it?
And thats there own choice, it wont indefinitely be forced on them as you claimed.
People will be scared and social distance for a long term. Thats their choice.
The lockdown has reduced the economic impact not caused it.
Yeah, exactly. I was listening to an “eradicate the virus” advocate the other day and he had me convinced for a while that it’s the best strategy. Living with this thing in your country will be horrendous. But the strategy only works if EVERYONE follows it. Especially in a continent that relies on freedom of travel like Europe. Killing your tourism industry is a hell of a price to pay. I don’t actually think it’s sustainable. And then what?
At this point they must know track and trace has no chance of working. The take up of app is going to be small, people won't share contact details and then people aren't going to quarantine when there's no financial support in place.
Shit. Norn Iron a lot worse than I thought. Another reason we might as well give up on trying to eradicate the virus completely.
The virus getting milder with each mutation is probably the only way to really 'get rid' of it in the long run?
How accurate is this though? I live in NI and travel to my farm in Donegal regularly. I havent heard of one death in the NI town and Donegal hasnt had a case in 5 days. Theres so much cars going over the border each way you would expect a lot of spillover but theres nothing.
Last edited: