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

sammsky1 said:
But I’m guessing it’s citizens are a lot more compliant to Government instructions and perhaps more responsible towards their fellow citizens? What was their secret to success?
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1. Lack of trust towards China. By the day China announced the occurence of suspicious pneumonia (Dec 31), they immediately treated this virus as SARS and took preventive actions. This was the press release from the Taiwan CDC and you could note the date posted (Google translate if interested). They were also the first region to close the border against China. https://www.cdc.gov.tw/Bulletin/Detail/zicpvVlBKj-UVeZ5yWBrLQ?typeid=9

2. Banned from the heavily corrupted WHO. The WHO recommendation "not to issue a travelling ban against China" has been proven a joke. In fact, the WHO admitted that they had received an advice from Taiwan warning about this highly infectious virus. What a shame. https://time.com/5826025/taiwan-who-trump-coronavirus-covid19/

3. Self production of rapid detection kits and masks.

4. Adequate policy formulation and compliance.
 
BootsyCollins said:
Why did he think he had a cold if he was asymptomatic?
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Maybe asymptomatic isn't the right word, given that he had a symptoms but they weren't one of the government ones

Full story:

He has a family friend who has covid. He hasn't seen her though, but his wife and kid have so are self isolating (which is correct).

However, he kept going to work even though his family are isolating (which is also allowed, unless contacted by track and trace)

On Monday, he had a headcold at work.

That's not one of three symptoms that the gov UK looks for to take PCR test (loss of smell and taste, temperature/fever, new continuous cough)

On Tuesday he had a day off. He lives in an area where they are doing tests for people without symptoms for specific groups such as family members of key workers (his wife is a teacher).

He took the lateral flow test and came back positive. He then had to follow it up with a PCR test and came back positive.
 
rcoobc said:
Maybe asymptomatic isn't the right word, given that he had a symptoms but they weren't one of the government ones

Full story:

He has a family friend who has covid. He hasn't seen her though, but his wife and kid have so are self isolating (which is correct).

However, he kept going to work even though his family are isolating (which is also allowed, unless contacted by track and trace)

On Monday, he had a headcold at work.

That's not one of three symptoms that the gov UK looks for to take PCR test (loss of smell and taste, temperature/fever, new continuous cough)

On Tuesday he had a day off. He lives in an area where they are doing tests for people without symptoms for specific groups such as family members of key workers (his wife is a teacher).

He took the lateral flow test and came back positive. He then had to follow it up with a PCR test and came back positive.
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I see.
I think people should really treat any flu or cold-like symptom like its corona untill they gets a negative test back.
 
hmchan said:
1. Lack of trust towards China. By the day China announced the occurence of suspicious pneumonia (Dec 31), they immediately treated this virus as SARS and took preventive actions. This was the press release from the Taiwan CDC and you could note the date posted (Google translate if interested). They were also the first region to close the border against China. https://www.cdc.gov.tw/Bulletin/Detail/zicpvVlBKj-UVeZ5yWBrLQ?typeid=9

2. Banned from the heavily corrupted WHO. The WHO recommendation "not to issue a travelling ban against China" has been proven a joke. In fact, the WHO admitted that they had received an advice from Taiwan warning about this highly infectious virus. What a shame. https://time.com/5826025/taiwan-who-trump-coronavirus-covid19/

3. Self production of rapid detection kits and masks.

4. Adequate policy formulation and compliance.
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Thanks for explaining. All makes total sense and also doesn’t sound that hard either, so long as a Government has the political will to strictly and quickly enforce.

meanwhile Boris ignored the threat for 3 months and then implemented a very weak and half hearted ‘lockdown’. And carried on making such bungled decisions since. Even this Xmas lockdown is a a diluted joke. So many quick and easy things could be done to make it more difficult for people to break the law:

- why didn't Boris implement the no travelling mandate immediately instead of allowing people 12 hours to get out?
- Shut down all major motorways which can access London and other hotspots? Dramatically reduce intercity trains?
- why not shut major roads between tier zones so people physically can’t drive outside their tier zone?

The U.K. feels like it’s become the new ‘Wuhan’ but we dont have the political will to deal with this threat like the Chinese Government did.
 
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Wibble said:
How come France can shut the border when early on in the pandemic the UK allegedly couldn't because "the EU"?
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The same reason why the UK approved the vaccine whilst still under EU legislation. Each country is sovereign to make those decisions as I know you know. The UK government and Brexiters telling porkies, never, surely.
 
BootsyCollins said:
I see.
I think people should really treat any flu or cold-like symptom like its corona untill they gets a negative test back.
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Thing is he wouldn't have even be allowed to get a test under current rules with a "head cold"

Of course he could just lie and say he had other symptoms
 
rcoobc said:
Thing is he wouldn't have even be allowed to get a test under current rules with a "head cold"

Of course he could just lie and say he had other symptoms
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Yes thats a problem of course. And i have sympathy that some people needs to go to work to feed them self or their family.

But in a perfect world everybody would be able to stay home even with the smallest of symptoms untill they go away or 10 days has passed.
 
NinjaFletch said:
I find this quite a strange argument. It's hardly absurd to suggest that dozens of countries, particularly in Western Europe, have made a series of entirely avoidable blunders in their response to the pandemic and are suffering as a result. In that context, the idea that they might also have made the same mistake of sending schools back and being unprepared for the inevitable consequences is hardly the absurd suggestion that you are presenting it as.

At the very least in the UK we have Whitty on record in August saying:

So let's not pretend that it was just armchair experts playing at epidemiology who happened to think that the return of schools had associated risks. The problem was the same problem that we've had throughout the pandemic, a tousled haired buffoon was scared to make the unpopular decision he had to make to balance the risks with the benefits of having schools open, and here we are. The failure of other countries to mitigate against the same risks is its own, unrelated, failure of political leadership.
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I agree with you the risks were there. They weighed up those risks and made those decisions. Still now, with a clearer idea of the impact of those choices, there is a lot of support for that notion in senior government, in education, among parents, etc. The opposition tends to be strongest among the people outside of that core stakeholder group, who have other priorities. That doesn't mean those priorities are wrong, but it does - in my view - reject the notion that it is an entirely avoidable blunder that demonstrates a failure of political leadership that is present in most major economies.

There is a reason so many of the countries have made that choice. The concerns about interrupting school long-term are not minor, and they're not unjustified. The question is which conern is bigger. That just isn't a no-brainer. I absolutely accept it might be the wrong choice, and I would lean that way at the moment. But I think we should also have the humility to accept that people who are much closer to the issue do have a different, deeper understanding of the consequences. The fact people are listening to their voices over others is not a ridiculous decision to make, it's a difficult judgement call in an uncertain situation.

We do not know the long-term effects it would have because there are not equivalent natural experiments in kicking kids out of school en masse for a prolonged period in a critical stage of their development. My perception from kids in my family is that most kids are much more resilient than their parents and guardians think, but how many kids is it ok to let fall through the cracks? How many infections are worth one kid going off the rails in their education at a critical juncture? That's not an easy question.

rcoobc said:
I think that, specifically for the UK government, they hugely underestimsted the impact that kids and uni students going back to school and uni would have.

I think that, specifically for the UK, the government assumed that the protections the schools and unis would put in place would be enough.

I think that, specifically for the UK, the UK government is run by a bunch of out-of-touch middle aged men and the occasional childless middle aged woman, and so as a group they *do* lack the common sense you might find from mothers and involved parents.

I suspect that other countries may be similarly run by middle aged men and childless middle aged woman.

I have evidence that the UK government underestimated the impact schools and unis going back would have, from radio interviews, newspaper articles and the destruction of track and trace in September.

I have no idea what your point is :lol:
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The point is really simple, on two levels. I'll just re-use the quote from NinjaFletch, but there many others, that contradict your belief that the government thought re-opening schools wouldn't have an effect on the pandemic:

"I think we're in a situation whereby most people think that opening schools is a priority for the health and wellbeing of children and that when we do that we are going to reconnect lots of households.
"And so actually, closing some of the other networks, some of the other activities may well be required to enable us to open schools.
"It might come down to a question of which do you trade off against each other, and then that's a matter of prioritising. Do we think pubs are more important than schools?"
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It may well be required to close other things to allow schools to open. It's not that schools will have no impact, but we think the impact of schools is a worthwhile hit to take because schools are so important, and taking the hit on hospitality is worth it. You can find other views from other government personnel that fit closer to your perspective. The point is that you choose to ignore these ones that contradict your characterisation of "what the government seems to think".

The second point is that you think other governments have made the same "mistake", then your notion of common sense is not actually not that common. Not common for people who are forced to make those decisions and properly weigh up the pros and cons in the way you aren't forced to. Your perspective is what leads you to consider that the obvious choice. But you have people in here that work in education that vehemently reject your notion of the common sense approach to schools. Again, if you choose to only listen to the voices that agree with your view, then all of your views sound like common sense. There's an obvious flaw to that.
 
Stanley Road said:
The family members? Fukk nose, divs like everyone else. Lockdown = business as usual, and here we are. I hate to day this and my job will disappear but i hope a load more people die, only way to learn.
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You hope people die?

Classy. Threads reached a new low. No doubt you'll say you were being sarcastic/ironic etc.
 
sammsky1 said:
Everything you say is correct and I also strongly agree.

The U.K. was unfortunate that it had literally just installed a new set of cabinet ministers and Prime Minister, none who had even close enough experience on how Government works to handle such a crisis, let alone this Government executive were also not experienced and best in class minds of that political party.

So we had the most important people in the country having to learn about the subject and how to work together as a team on the hoof! These idiots were also proudly ‘rule Brittainna’ so I’m sure also resistant to global insight and learnings!

personally I think U.K. would have done far better with Theresa May during Covid, despite her many failings as a leader.
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Totally agree. Johnson and Cummings stripped out any component minsters in favour of any pro Brexit at any cost Tory MP.

Almost any PM and government from the last 30 or 40 years would've handled this better than Johnson and his crew.
 
rcoobc said:
Maybe asymptomatic isn't the right word, given that he had a symptoms but they weren't one of the government ones

Full story:

He has a family friend who has covid. He hasn't seen her though, but his wife and kid have so are self isolating (which is correct).

However, he kept going to work even though his family are isolating (which is also allowed, unless contacted by track and trace)

On Monday, he had a headcold at work.

That's not one of three symptoms that the gov UK looks for to take PCR test (loss of smell and taste, temperature/fever, new continuous cough)

On Tuesday he had a day off. He lives in an area where they are doing tests for people without symptoms for specific groups such as family members of key workers (his wife is a teacher).

He took the lateral flow test and came back positive. He then had to follow it up with a PCR test and came back positive.
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It just shows what a mess track and trace is. It should be track trace & test. Surely that would cut out the need to isolate, unless you test positive. Unfortunately when infection rates reach a certain level the already inadequate track and trace system becomes less effective as a tool to reduce infection rates. So much for Johnsons boast of a world beating track and trace system. Looks like track and trace is part of the "Hunger Buster" meal deal included with the oven ready Brexit one.
 
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noodlehair said:
You sit there making judgements about people as if the situation is piss easy for everyone.
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What if there's a middle ground, noodle? What if the vast majority of people agree that the situation is very hard, and people disagree on whether people should be expected to make the hard choices that are in the best interests of society over themselves, essentially every time? Not in normal life, but just right now. The whole wartime spirit thing. There was incompetent government then too. There were selfish desires then too. But in the end people made sacrifices for the greater good, even if it had the most devastating consequences for themselves and those in their close circle. Why is it so unreasonable to expect individuals in a society to make those almighty sacrifices, for a limited period of time, if we really believe in the idea of the society? A functioning government makes it easier to believe in that, and it makes it easier to take those choices with the appropriate support system in place, but why should it be required?

F-Red said:
It's a good point that's often overlooked when people seek comparisons. Western Europe is really inexperienced in dealing with any form of modern pandemic.
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Yeah agreed. That said it's quite difficult to accept that inexperience given all the materials they had to work with. They didn't have South Korea's personal experience, but I think we should have expected to learn from their experience anyway. The notion of a global society and a particularly interconnected global scientific community suggests we should have. And even if the kind of "muscle memory" wasn't there, we did talk openly about how well prepared we were for such an instance. Independent scientific groups consistently said we were not ready while national governments said look at these big books we have and drills we run. I think it's fair to say the government fed us a load of shit on that and we should hold them accountable for that.

But then I'm sure the South Koreans said the same about MERS earlier this decade. Why couldn't we have learned from our neighbours in China a decade earlier? So clearly there is a degree of fallibility in the system that we haven't been honest about in the past, which has created false expectations which I think people rightfully judge governments by. The institutional knowledge of dealing with similar crises is clearly a useful tool. The cultural acceptance of these kind of interventions clearly facilitates things. I do think we are very keen to overlook those factors because we don't like the idea that there are some things about this crisis that we were always going to be unprepared for, based on how we decided to structure our societies.

What we can say for sure if there's another pandemic in a decade and Europe responds this way again, things will need to be evaluated from the ground up again. As @Pogue Mahone says, this idea of interconnected economies and wide open borders play an important role here. Largely restriction-free travel for leisure too. We either decide to accept that as a significant existential threat or we design a new set of principles to either respond to a crisis or to guard against future crises. But I understand why people would rather blame the government rather than blame the principles that elected those governments and guided their decisions on how to structure societies.

bsCallout said:
Have a very ill brother that likely wont make it another year. Have waited until this Christmas break to travel south from Scotland to see him for the first time in a while and now haven't got a clue what to do.
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Yeah I'd say that's right up there with the toughest decisions to make in the pandemic. It depends on the specifics and it's an awful judgment call but there are definitely some scenarios where I think the risk of seeing them this time is greater than the risk of not seeing them next time.
 
Brwned said:
I agree with you the risks were there. They weighed up those risks and made those decisions. Still now, with a clearer idea of the impact of those choices, there is a lot of support for that notion in senior government, in education, among parents, etc. The opposition tends to be strongest among the people outside of that core stakeholder group, who have other priorities. That doesn't mean those priorities are wrong, but it does - in my view - reject the notion that it is an entirely avoidable blunder that demonstrates a failure of political leadership that is present in most major economies.

There is a reason so many of the countries have made that choice. The concerns about interrupting school long-term are not minor, and they're not unjustified. The question is which conern is bigger. That just isn't a no-brainer. I absolutely accept it might be the wrong choice, and I would lean that way at the moment. But I think we should also have the humility to accept that people who are much closer to the issue do have a different, deeper understanding of the consequences. The fact people are listening to their voices over others is not a ridiculous decision to make, it's a difficult judgement call in an uncertain situation.

We do not know the long-term effects it would have because there are not equivalent natural experiments in kicking kids out of school en masse for a prolonged period in a critical stage of their development. My perception from kids in my family is that most kids are much more resilient than their parents and guardians think, but how many kids is it ok to let fall through the cracks? How many infections are worth one kid going off the rails in their education at a critical juncture? That's not an easy question.
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I think there's an element of talking at cross purposes going on here. The blunder, in my eyes, is in not making schools a priority, but in thinking they could come back without any trade off in other walks of life. That might well have been shutting pubs (and in my eyes, you might as well shut them if you can only go with your household unit, anyway), or it might have required more serious curbs in addition. I'm not sure it's totally helpful speculating just how much would have been needed because we haven't seen the modelling, but we know it was significantly more than what we did.

Instead, owing to the fact that we elected a court jester who would rather be popular than do the right thing, we tried to wing it and hope that Covid might not start spreading again if we really hoped that it wouldn't. Inevitably, the belief in the magic covid non-infection fairy was misplaced, and, also as inevitably, the same court-jester-who-would-rather-be-popular-than-do-the-right-thing Prime Minister delayed making the correct decision to lockdown, again, until it was too late.

By no means was Britain's the only government to become absurdly complacent during Summer, and other countries will surely have their own political reckoning on the same issues, but there was still nevertheless a significant failure to correctly evaluate the risks of schools returning and pre-emptively head them off.

I also suspect that the dichotomy between 'schools open' and 'schools closed' is unhelpful. It seems to me that we're in a position with this virus where those who need the most f2f teaching for developmental purposes are the least vulnerable and least likely to spread the virus. The rush to get university students back was particularly foolhardy, but you can easily envisage a situation where primary school pupils returned but not secondary schools, or secondary school students returned but not years 12 to 13. Where you draw the line is a matter of worthy debate, but a line could nonetheless be drawn.
 
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Not sure if this has been mentioned but UK academics are doubling down on the increased transmission of this strain. At least one of them at UCL - a key influencer in these decisions - seems to be ruling out the transmission being driven by behaviour alone, and their "moderate confidence" from last Friday now is "high confidence".

But scientists now have "high confidence" the mutation itself has made the virus more transmissible - though not more deadly.

Prof Judith Breuer, professor of virology and co-director of the division of infection and immunity at University College London, said it could have been down to changes in behaviour alone, but "all of that has now been accounted for".

Instead, she said, increased transmissibility of the new variant was likely to be down to "biological changes to the virus".
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Brwned said:
The point is really simple, on two levels. I'll just re-use the quote from NinjaFletch, but there many others, that contradict your belief that the government thought re-opening schools wouldn't have an effect on the pandemic:

It may well be required to close other things to allow schools to open. It's not that schools will have no impact, but we think the impact of schools is a worthwhile hit to take because schools are so important, and taking the hit on hospitality is worth it. You can find other views from other government personnel that fit closer to your perspective. The point is that you choose to ignore these ones that contradict your characterisation of "what the government seems to think".

The second point is that you think other governments have made the same "mistake", then your notion of common sense is not actually not that common. Not common for people who are forced to make those decisions and properly weigh up the pros and cons in the way you aren't forced to. Your perspective is what leads you to consider that the obvious choice. But you have people in here that work in education that vehemently reject your notion of the common sense approach to schools. Again, if you choose to only listen to the voices that agree with your view, then all of your views sound like common sense. There's an obvious flaw to that.
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Just as Trump can go against the advice of Fauci, the UK Government can go against the advice of Whitty.

You are using Whittys comments as evidence that the Government knew there was risks to opening schools - Yet he clearly states that the governments may have to lock other areas down to allow it. Which they did not do. The fact that track and trace collapsed in September and we have had a positive R number ever since shows that they woefully underestimated the impact schools and unis would have

There were government ministers going on Radio 4 saying it was going to be fine - god knows how I'll find this, but they did.

As to the last bit - your definition of common sense is not one I agree with. You are taking us right off-topic with this fixation of this phrase, but I'll humour it.

jXpc27K.png

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You will never, ever, ever find someone who defines common sense as something that "a bunch of governments around the world do". That is not common sense.

Common sense requires two things; the common people, and sense. When I first used the phrase I touched on this; that every mother would tell them that when kids went back, infections would rise. Not just of COVID, but of every disease around. Every mother knew that there would be lots and lots of kids and families needing tests

And yet

yGXZp8L.png


The government lacked common sense. Maybe other governments did as well, I don't know. Governments deciding to do something isn't the definition of what common sense is.

Every mother could have told the government that more testing would be required come september. But the government didn't realise

They lacked common sense.
 
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Roger said:
It just shows what a mess track and trace is. It should be track trace & test. Surely that would cut out the need to isolate, unless you test positive. Unfortunately when infection rates reach a certain level the already inadequate track and trace system becomes less effective as a tool to reduce infection rates. So much for Johnsons boast of a world beating track and trace system. Looks like track and trace is part of the "Hunger Buster" meal deal included with the oven ready Brexit one.
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Indeed.

If he hadn't randomly had the opportunity to take the lateral flow test - he would have presumably kept coming to work and I might have COVID right now.
 
Wonder what will be decided tomorrow then. I think they’ll go with half measures again instead of national lockdown.

The fact that they’ve decided to bring the meeting forward is promising that they might be learning from mistakes.
 
Berbaclass said:
Wonder what will be decided tomorrow then. I think they’ll go with half measures again instead of national lockdown.
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Too little too late, anywhere else goes in full lockdown for Xmas then those who have already made plans will take no notice.
 
NinjaFletch said:
I think there's an element of talking at cross purposes going on here. The blunder, in my eyes, is in not making schools a priority, but in thinking they could come back without any trade off in other walks of life. That might well have been shutting pubs (and in my eyes, you might as well shut them if you can only go with your household unit, anyway), or it might have required more serious curbs in additions. I'm not sure it's totally helpful speculating just how much would have been needed because we haven't seen the modelling, but we know it was significantly more than what we did.

Instead, owing to the fact that we elected a court jester who would rather be popular than do the right thing, we tried to wing it and hope that Covid might not start spreading again if we really hoped that it wouldn't. Inevitably, the belief in the magic covid non-infection fairy was misplaced, and, also as inevitably, the same court-jester-who-would-rather-be-popular-than-do-the-right-thing Prime Minister delayed making the correct decision to lockdown, again, until it was too late.

By no means was Britain's the only government to become absurdly complacent during Summer, and other countries will surely have their own political reckoning on the same issues, but there was still nevertheless a significant failure to correctly evaluate the risks of schools returning and pre-emptively head them off.
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Yeah I think we are. This was the specific point I was responding to:
rcoobc said:
When Schools and Universities went back they seemed to think that it wouldn't cause a spike in cases. That it would have no effect.
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He was saying he thinks the government believe there would be "no effect" to bringing schools and universities back. I think it is pretty clear that this government and almost every other major government knew schools would contribute to rises in cases, just like all forms of social interaction would, but allowing schools to open and balancing other elements of the economy would be the right balance in the wider interests of society. There was disagreement then and now about how much of an effect it would have, but it was consistently acknowledged it would have an effect.

If you're saying they didn't do enough to manage the spread, I agree. If you are saying they misjudged the effect it would have, I would partially agree. But I think there's room for a wide range of opinions on that. I do not think it is common sense. The views from teachers are very insightful, IMO.

rcoobc said:
Just as Trump can go against the advice of Fauci, the UK Government can go against the advice of Whitty.

You are using Whittys comments as evidence that the Government knew there was risks to opening schools - Yet he clearly states that the governments may have to lock other areas down to allow it. Which they did not do. The fact that track and trace collapsed in September and we have had a positive R number ever since shows that they woefully underestimated the impact schools and unis would have

There were government ministers going on Radio 4 saying it was going to be fine - god knows how I'll find this, but they did.

As to the last bit - your definition of common sense is not one I agree with. You are taking us right off-topic with this fixation of this phrase, but I'll humour it.

jXpc27K.png

79Or4Dg.png

LZoL9wU.png

You will never, ever, ever find someone who defines common sense as something that "a bunch of governments around the world do". That is not common sense.

Common sense requires two things; the common people, and sense. When I first used the phrase I touched on this; that every mother would tell them that the when kids went back, infections would rise. Not just of COVID, but of every disease around. Every mother knew that there would be lots and lots of kids and families needing tests

And yet

yGXZp8L.png


The government lacked common sense. Maybe other governments did as well, I don't know. Governments deciding to do something isn't the definition of what common sense is.

Every mother could have told the government that more testing would be required come september. But the government didn't realise

They lacked common sense.
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Saying things will be fine and saying there will be no negative effects are not the same. It is a statement of reassurance. When I went for surgery my dad told me things would be fine, which didn't mean this major surgery would be easy to get through or would have no after effects, but that I would get through it. And it was the right choice all things considered. Sometimes we are forced to make choices that have negative effects no matter which way we go, and we weigh up the risks and make a judgment call on which risks we can tolerate and what outcomes we desire. In many cases they are subjective choices based on limited evidence. Sometimes we get the risk calculations wrong and regret it afterwards. Sometimes the negative effects are worse than we expected but still better than the alternative. But they will still be fine.

Sometimes governments take that paternal tone because they believe it is what people need to hear to get through difficult moments. You can disagree on what the appropriate terminology is but all I can say is that what you're reading into things is not the only way to read into them. There are many, many people in this thread that do not agree with your assertion that "the government thought opening schools would have no effect". They are not all wrong. At worst, they just have a different perspective. There are many ways to look at complicated issues. They become simple when you only allow your opinion to be considered valid.

It very much reads like common sense is what people like me think. If you're comfortable with that definition then I can happily agree that they did not show common sense. And I'm glad they apply a different set of criteria to make those decisions.
 
Brwned said:
Yeah I think we are. This was the specific point I was responding to:



He was saying he thinks the government believe there would be "no effect" to bringing schools and universities back. I think it is pretty clear that this government and almost every other major government new schools would contribute to rises in cases, but that allowing schools to open and balancing other elements of the economy would be the right balance in the wider interests of society.

If you're saying they didn't do enough to manage the spread, I agree.
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So what balancing act did we do? Because, as far as I can remember, the 'balancing act' was 'really hope we can get away with doing nothing'. As @rcoobc says, other than Whitty, the talk from Conservative MPs was 'this will all go fine'. If anything, it was coupled with a push to get people back in to office's so people would buy Pret a Manger sandwiches again.
 
944 deaths in Germany in the last 24 hrs?
Some backlog or are things getting a lot worse?
 
Berbaclass said:
It will be from Boxing Day.
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Yeah maybe so but wouldn’t be surprised if the feckwits announced on Xmas Eve that families couldn’t mix on Christmas Day. Anyway we have 7 of us for the day with 2 who have already had COVID and the rest are taking/have taken tests then isolating.

As someone who said above whose brother is ill @bsCallout and it could be his last Xmas then he should see him in my opinion. It is alright being the martyr but when it is family and it could be their last Xmas you can be a bit compassionate or as some of you would say, selfish.

Oh btw I have followed every guideline but there is no black and white and if you were in a certain persons position you would think differently.
 
NinjaFletch said:
So what balancing act did we do? Because, as far as I can remember, the 'balancing act' was 'really hope we can get away with doing nothing'. As @rcoobc says, other than Whitty, the talk from Conservative MPs was 'this will all go fine'. If anything, it was coupled with a push to get people back in to office's so people would buy Pret a Manger sandwiches again.
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Like I said, if you believe they got the balancing act wrong, I'm happy to agree with you on that. I am not arguing what the right set of decisions to make was. I think that's a far longer conversation that has been had too many times that at the very least people don't need to hear my views on again. I have taken up too much of the conversation space in recent days as is. The only point I was making is that they didn't open schools thinking it would involve no risks. They recognised that particular risk, along with the many other risks that have been ever-present, and moved forward with their strategy to balance the economic, social and medical concerns.

At various times the government has been criticised for striking the wrong balance on every single one of those things. There is no universal opinion on what the right balance of those things are. The varied opinions in this thread almost every day reiterate that. I do not believe my opinion on that is common sense or particularly valuable, personally. It's just a way to occupy our minds and spend our time with others.

But to suggest they can't see something this blindingly obvious is plainly untrue. They see it and they perceive it differently to you. That's normal. If you don't believe it is a difficult decision then I suspect you would have a different opinion if you were a member of one of the relevant stakeholder groups that overwhelmingly disagree with you. Our opinions are formed from our limited perspectives. I think it's reasonable to accept our limited perspective isn't necessarily the ideal perspective to see all sides of the story.
 
Just on how the Government wasn't prepared for Schools going back.. I've stumbled upon this video of the head of track and trace talking about the lack of capacity and foresight. Quite interesting.



Some snippits
we built our capacity plans based on sage modeling for what we should be preparing for
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well i think that i don't think anybody was expecting to see the really sizeable increase in demand that we've seen over the course of the last few weeks so none of the modeling was that expect[ed]
... that's why i think we all have to think really hard about how we prioritize the use of these tests
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MP: In order to to be there and to be to got to the test center and to be allocated a test they've had to declare that they've had symptoms you're saying 27 percent of people lied?
Dido Harding: well i completely understand why people are worried and scared and coming forward
MP: But you are saying that 27% of people lied to get a test?
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On that last bit, that was not correct. I know for a fact that in August/September if you tried to book a test and, when it asks you "do you currently have symptoms of coronavirus" you select "NO", it would still let you book a test. Presumably because you can also use it if you need to get a test for some NHS operations.
 
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Relevated said:
You reckon? Its being reported tier 4 in most places until jan 1st.
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Just from the reports I've seen tonight saying they've moved the meeting forward which was supposed to be the 30th but will be tomorrow. I think the intention behind that is to start from Boxing Day.
 
Berbaclass said:
Just from the reports I've seen tonight saying they've moved the meeting forward which was supposed to be the 30th but will be tomorrow. I think the intention behind that is to start from Boxing Day.
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Maybe man. Who knows except for them... actually even they don't.
 
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