SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Wumminator said:
I have just seen evidence that suicides have not gone up at all during lockdown. They actually decreased in two countries.

How do lies spread so quickly nowadays?
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Most of the time it's just intuition combined with cherry picking of data, right? For example this journal starts off by saying:

Previous evidence has shown that deaths by suicide can increase during infectious disease outbreaks. Suicides increased during the 1918–20 influenza pandemic in the USA,1 and suicide rates increased among adults aged 65 years and older during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in Hong Kong.
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https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(20)30435-1/fulltext

Before going on to report that they have seen no increases in suicides during this time in Queensland or Victoria, but more investigation is needed. People who write and read those journals are trained to weigh up those two ideas that don't fit neatly together, but most of us aren't.

So when you hear that a) there are high numbers of reported calls to suicide helplines / claimed depression and b) in past crises people committed suicide more often, without much conclusive data for either, most people tend to just go with their gut. The fragments of contradictory evidence are dismissed as scientists doing what they always do, saying one thing then another.

It is easier for misinformation to spread and be seen, but folk beliefs based on utterly ridiculous notions were common when communities were very small. That's just a big part of culture, and it's part of how we connect. It's just easier for us to all believe the same ones these days. But the mechanisms for forming those beliefs don't seem to have changed much. Our minds do silly things.
 
djembatheking said:
It needs to happen , with hospital beds filling up rapidly it feels like we are just sleepwalking towards a disaster in all the four nations , whatever each nation has tried hasn`t worked and it just feels like we are coming to a critical point a lot of people seem hell bent on letting go for the week .
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It turns out they are just discussing stricter restrictions on the South East.
 
I have a feeling we are going to go into lockdown again on stephens day, which would mean no free bank holiday this year, do ye think they will make one for July next year, if shit is somewhat under control at that time.
 
christy87 said:
I have a feeling we are going to go into lockdown again on stephens day, which would mean no free bank holiday this year, do ye think they will make one for July next year, if shit is somewhat under control at that time.
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No chance. 28 soonest.
 
Been in bed for 2 days with flu like symptoms so thought I’d do the right thing and drag myself to the testing station earlier.

Results tomorrow they said. Do feel absolutely awful though.
 
Amar__ said:
Both my wife and me had the symptoms, I was ill 2-3 months ago and stayed at home for 14 days, and she had the symptoms 15ish days ago, and isolated and all, while living with me, sharing the table, bed, bathroom, and all the usual stuff, we haven't isolated from each other.

We were pretty sure it was Covid in both cases, so we did the antibodies testing today, and guess what? My wife has antibodies and is negative at the moment, and I don't have antibodies. How on earth is that possible?
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Either you had another virus, you no longer have detectable antibodies or your test was a false negative. What sort of test did you have?
 
Amar__ said:
Both my wife and me had the symptoms, I was ill 2-3 months ago and stayed at home for 14 days, and she had the symptoms 15ish days ago, and isolated and all, while living with me, sharing the table, bed, bathroom, and all the usual stuff, we haven't isolated from each other.

We were pretty sure it was Covid in both cases, so we did the antibodies testing today, and guess what? My wife has antibodies and is negative at the moment, and I don't have antibodies. How on earth is that possible?
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Maybe you just had flu? Because, despite it being perversely fashionable some how to automatically assume Covid when you’re sick, that does still exist.
 
Whats the likelihood of Boris actually cancelling Christmas now? I mean the 5 days he told everyone about.

Do you think he has it in him?
 
Relevated said:
Whats the likelihood of Boris actually cancelling Christmas now? I mean the 5 days he told everyone about.

Do you think he has it in him?
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I personally don’t care as the travel restrictions have ruined Christmas and pretty much the whole year for me, but there’s just no chance. There would be riots.
 
Relevated said:
Whats the likelihood of Boris actually cancelling Christmas now? I mean the 5 days he told everyone about.

Do you think he has it in him?
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No chance. He won't want to be known as the PM who cancelled Christmas. I think a 2 week lockdown from the 29th might happen though.
 
3,648 new cases of Covid in South Carolina today with a positive test rate of 25.9%.

One of the new cases is our governor’s wife. He had a press conference a few days ago where he bitched about all schools not being open full time yet, then told us we only have a couple hundred thousand doses of vaccine in the state, then told us to be sure to mask up. He and his wife were photographed 2 days later at a church service presenting an award to someone on stage... nobody in the whole shot wearing a mask and nobody socially distanced.
 
Carolina Red said:
3,648 new cases of Covid in South Carolina today with a positive test rate of 25.9%.

One of the new cases is our governor’s wife. He had a press conference a few days ago where he bitched about all schools not being open full time yet, then told us we only have a couple hundred thousand doses of vaccine in the state, then told us to be sure to mask up. He and his wife were photographed 2 days later at a church service presenting an award to someone on stage... nobody in the whole shot wearing a mask and nobody socially distanced.
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Those are terrible figures. I hate to think what it'll be like around the middle of January.
 
Carolina Red said:
3,648 new cases of Covid in South Carolina today with a positive test rate of 25.9%.

One of the new cases is our governor’s wife. He had a press conference a few days ago where he bitched about all schools not being open full time yet, then told us we only have a couple hundred thousand doses of vaccine in the state, then told us to be sure to mask up. He and his wife were photographed 2 days later at a church service presenting an award to someone on stage... nobody in the whole shot wearing a mask and nobody socially distanced.
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Ahhh, yes, those idiotic, ignorant rituals like having to go to church in order to ‘worship properly.’

In SC, idiocy like this can be really destructive due to the insane number of churches around the state.
 
Penna said:
Those are terrible figures. I hate to think what it'll be like around the middle of January.
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Look at where we are right now after a secular holiday. This upcoming religious holiday will be even worse, then top it off with the stupidity that will be evident over NYE.
 
Pablo76 said:
I personally don’t care as the travel restrictions have ruined Christmas and pretty much the whole year for me, but there’s just no chance. There would be riots.
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Why do you think the UK are unable to accept it while people in Italy, Germany, Netherlands and others are able to accept it?

There will be some people in every country that will decide they will not bow down to such an absurd rule, but the UK has one of the most docile populations on the whole. They haven't protested as much as Germany during this particular crisis, despite facing tougher restrictions and a more incompetent government response. And they haven't rioted like Italy at their angriest. The vast, vast majority of the UK population have done nothing but go about their daily business quietly and subserviently.

So while we know some people who who will think "feck this bullshit, let's go wild", what makes you think there are more of those people than these other countries? I think all of them would expect a significant minority to reject the rules, but the overall effect on transmission would still be worth it.
 
Relevated said:
Whats the likelihood of Boris actually cancelling Christmas now? I mean the 5 days he told everyone about.

Do you think he has it in him?
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No chance. He would never go back on it so late in the day, when everybody has already made their plans. That ship sailed a few weeks ago.
 
The rules have been tightened again in Italy, even though our cases are showing a downwards trend. We will all be under a complete lockdown (red) from 24th-27th December inclusive, then again from 31st Dec-3rd Jan and again on 5th and 6th Jan, which is Epiphany. The days in between we will all be under level 2 (orange) restrictions. The overnight curfew will remain in place (10pm to 5am).

The concessions within all of this are that two people can visit a home other than their own within the same region on the complete lockdown days (children under 14 from the same home can travel with them and are disregarded in the numbers, but you couldn't go as a group of mum, dad, and kids over 14). On the level 2 days in between, those of us living in comunes of less than 5,000 people can travel to neighbouring comunes if they're less than 30km away.

I'm grateful for the concession for people living in small towns and villages, if nothing else!
 
Pablo76 said:
I personally don’t care as the travel restrictions have ruined Christmas and pretty much the whole year for me, but there’s just no chance. There would be riots.
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Why on earth would there be riots if Christmas is cancelled? To think like this is almost psychopathic.

fecking skip a Christmas, it’s not like one is dying or contracting a disease that could kill them.

It’s selfishness, hubris, & narcissism like this that is keeping this pandemic virulent.
 
Boris holding a press conference later today (don't know the time)

Travel ban to/from SE? Lockdown is SE?
 
I suppose they can use the "new strain" as a way to update some of the rules over Christmas, thus avoiding having to admit that the original advice was premature and too generous. Though I'm not doubting the validity of any new strain.
 
calodo2003 said:
Why on earth would there be riots if Christmas is cancelled? To think like this is almost psychopathic.

fecking skip a Christmas, it’s not like one is dying or contracting a disease that could kill them.

It’s selfishness, hubris, & narcissism like this that is keeping this pandemic virulent.
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I do think it's also a bit weird given the UK is reasonably multicultural, so we already have best experience of how UK citizens experienced Eid, Diwali, etc.

We're much more adaptable than people intuitively believe. You'd think most of this year would be evidence enough of that but we just seem to screen that out. When they had to close the shops on the Golden Mile in Leicester, people just had to convince themselves that, yeah, while this is devastating for the economy and tragic for our community spirits, there is a bright side to it. Maybe a smaller, less commercial Diwali where we focus on our immediate family, and spend more time embracing the spiritual aspects of Diwali, that has its own special quality. We know next year people won't be saying that, it's just a welcome delusion, the simplest way to deal with the difficult reality. As much as this thread is a bit of a downer, generally speaking humans are overly optimistic more often than they're overly pessimistic. We do most things because we think something better will come from it, almost ubiquitously.

I really think we would have been better off doing that for Christmas too. I think people are going to be devastated by the impact of January. Most people are just focusing on the one aspect they care most about in the short-term, so the people who are most panicked about the rise in cases now are most conscious of the medical impacts. But the economic impacts will be devastating again too, and it's really not that clear to me that the social benefits of a big get-together for a few days will outweigh the complete shutdown of social contacts for a few weeks. It just doesn't seem to me that people are looking at the totality of these things.

Jacko21 said:
I suppose they can use the "new strain" as a way to update some of the rules over Christmas, thus avoiding having to admit that the original advice was premature and too generous. Though I'm not doubting the validity of any new strain.
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Yeah. And while it's useful political cover, it probably does make some sections of the population more likely to accept the decision. The government have got plenty wrong but you can see there's constant consideration of the behavioural science sort of things in many of their decisions.
 
Jacko21 said:
I suppose they can use the "new strain" as a way to update some of the rules over Christmas, thus avoiding having to admit that the original advice was premature and too generous. Though I'm not doubting the validity of any new strain.
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I get the feeling the new strain is much more serious than they're letting on, sudden mass rising of cases in London indicates this but obviously a few weeks until we know if the death figures will significantly shoot up. Hopefully won't happen given they're already grim but would be final middle finger up to 2020 from this virus.
 
We've not left the house in a week and were due to travel tomorrow. We're going no matter what they fecking announce :lol:
If i was being cynical they rolled the dice purposely keeping restrictions low in December to support retail. The Tories will take a lot of flak for their handling of this and rightly so.
 
Smores said:
We've not left the house in a week and were due to travel tomorrow. We're going no matter what they fecking announce :lol:
If i was being cynical right on the money, they rolled the dice purposely keeping restrictions low in December to support retail. The Tories will take a lot of flak for their handling of this and rightly so.
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fixed that for you.
 
Brwned said:
I do think it's also a bit weird given the UK is reasonably multicultural, so we already have best experience of how UK citizens experienced Eid, Diwali, etc.

We're much more adaptable than people intuitively believe. You'd think most of this year would be evidence enough of that but we just seem to screen that out. When they had to close the shops on the Golden Mile in Leicester, people just had to convince themselves that, yeah, while this is devastating for the economy and tragic for our community spirits, there is a bright side to it. Maybe a smaller, less commercial Diwali where we focus on our immediate family, and spend more time embracing the spiritual aspects of Diwali, that has its own special quality. We know next year people won't be saying that, it's just a welcome delusion, the simplest way to deal with the difficult reality. As much as this thread is a bit of a downer, generally speaking humans are overly optimistic more often than they're overly pessimistic. We do most things because we think something better will come from it, almost ubiquitously.

I really think we would have been better off doing that for Christmas too. I think people are going to be devastated by the impact of January. Most people are just focusing on the one aspect they care most about in the short-term, so the people who are most panicked about the rise in cases now are most conscious of the medical impacts. But the economic impacts will be devastating again too, and it's really not that clear to me that the social benefits of a big get-together for a few days will outweigh the complete shutdown of social contacts for a few weeks. It just doesn't seem to me that people are looking at the totality of these things.



Yeah. And while it's useful political cover, it probably does make some sections of the population more likely to accept the decision. The government have got plenty wrong but you can see there's constant consideration of the behavioural science sort of things in many of their decisions.
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Well said. At the very least, use the cancellations to enforce the idea that change has to occur due to this virus. It’s laughably embarrassing & bereft of common sense to think that the world will be able to go back to what it was like circa 12.2019. It just won’t. There will be permanent changes in all aspects of world culture due to this, even if it is as simple as the covid vaccine becoming mandatory. But it’s going to be much more negatively impactful than that. To not engender people to this is a failure of governmental leaders, cultural leaders, & in this case, religious leaders. To think & demand that these silly rituals should & will continue unabated is a farce & plays to the weak minded among us.

We are approaching critical mass in many regions in my country after a pointless secular holiday was not skipped by millions. It will only get worse by potentially thousands of more deaths a day after this silly religious & capitalistic ritual of Christmas is adhered to due to selfishness, aggressive & willful ignorance, & narcissism.

Someone on here earlier stated that any increase in January cases / deaths will probably be blamed on NYE & I agree. The damage that the absurdity of of maintaining this silly christian & capitalistic ritual will be obfuscated time try to ensure the perpetuity of these ‘positive’ institutions, fairy tales that they really are. It’s just sad that common sense won’t come to the fore due to not wanting to alienate some even though more get alienated daily for numerous other reasons.
 
A potential Tier 4, can only work if it's either lockdown - or they say in T4 non-essential retail has to close....which is also pretty much lockdown.
 
FootballHQ said:
I get the feeling the new strain is much more serious than they're letting on, sudden mass rising of cases in London indicates this but obviously a few weeks until we know if the death figures will significantly shoot up. Hopefully won't happen given they're already grim but would be final middle finger up to 2020 from this virus.
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Little reason to think that a new strain will be less serious. A virus is out to better itself & to make itself more effective.
 
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Too late to be introducing Tier 4. People will have made plans based on the previous advice & I doubt they’ll cancel them at this stage. The whole opening up for Xmas was stupid to begin with. We will need a national lockdown again.

I’m more interested in this new strain. Whilst it apparently spreads faster, hopefully it doesn’t affect the efficacy of the vaccines.
 
Brwned said:
I do think it's also a bit weird given the UK is reasonably multicultural, so we already have best experience of how UK citizens experienced Eid, Diwali, etc.
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True re Eid and Diwali - but those to populations combined make up less than 8% of the UK Population.

Christmas rules may be largely adhered too, but you only need 1 in 5 to say bollocks, and that translates into much bigger numbers taking part in this potential super spreader event
 
calodo2003 said:
Well said. At the very least, use the cancellations to enforce the idea that change has to occur due to this virus. It’s laughably embarrassing & bereft of common sense to think that the world will be able to go back to what it was like circa 12.2019. It just won’t. There will be permanent changes in all aspects of world culture due to this, even if it is as simple as the covid vaccine becoming mandatory. But it’s going to be much more negatively impactful than that. To not engender people to this is a failure of governmental leaders, cultural leaders, & in this case, religious leaders. To think & demand that these silly rituals should & will continue unabated is a farce & plays to the weak minded among us.

We are approaching critical mass in many regions in my country after a pointless secular holiday was not skipped by millions. It will only get worse by potentially thousands of more deaths a day after this silly religious & capitalistic ritual of Christmas is adhered to due to selfishness, aggressive & willful ignorance, & narcissism.

Someone on here earlier stated that any increase in January cases / deaths will probably be blamed on NYE & I agree. The damage that the absurdity of of maintaining this silly christian & capitalistic ritual will be obfuscated time try to ensure the perpetuity of these ‘positive’ institutions, fairy tales that they really are. It’s just sad that common sense won’t come to the fore due to not wanting to alienate some even though more get alienated daily for numerous other reasons.
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It's hard to imagine how we'll reflect back on decisions like this but I just find them hard to wrap my head around most of the time. The hospitals in my home town / country have been at around 100% capacity for nearly a month now and somehow that's been normalised to the point where the idea of sacrificing a party on NYE - a party about half the population inevitably claim was a massive disappointment the day after - is far too much to just release the pressure on hospitals. That's what they're there for, supposedly. Somehow the humanity of healthcare workers has already been lost. I'm all in for a mad NYE party but let's just set it for a different fecking arbitrary date. And when I look at the US I do despair.

calodo2003 said:
Little reason to think that a new strain will be less serious. A virus is out to better itself & to make itself more effective.
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Better for the virus doesn't usually mean worse for us, though. At least in some important ways. Surviving longer in its hosts and having more hosts to pass onto is better than causing more severe effects and limiting its reach.

Tibs said:
True re Eid and Diwali - but those to populations combined make up less than 8% of the UK Population.

Christmas rules may be largely adhered too, but you only need 1 in 5 to say bollocks, and that translates into much bigger numbers taking part in this potential super spreader event
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Oh sure it's on a different scale, and we know a significant minority couldn't give up Eid either. Presumably the same for Diwali. That's part of human nature too. But then there's always that idea that you shouldn't let perfect be the enemy of good. Yes we know that the way this has been handled now will guarantee a lot of people just not following the rules. But more people will than won't, and surely that's better if we think the situation is too precarious as is? Limiting the reach of that super spread event is still wortwhile, essentially.
 
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What's the chance that this mutated strain has vaccine escape potential?
 
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