That's because it never made it to our shores in any meaningful way. If it had you can guarantee there would be questions asked and more, Ebola is a totally different ball game to Covid-19.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
That's because it never made it to our shores in any meaningful way. If it had you can guarantee there would be questions asked and more, Ebola is a totally different ball game to Covid-19.
And in the main I do agree with you.
That is the beauty of such forums.
You get the benefit of other people's views.
Yours is perfectly logical.
Business needs I guess. I can see quite a few companies lobbying for this now.
Because you know, EU
iF this is true, it’s quite remarkable that they put their anti-Europe agenda before anything else
But would the rest of the worlds governments be wrong to seek compensation from China because they covered up the outbreak. This isn't the first time they have had an outbreak as they managed to contain the SARS outbreak without infecting the whole planet. Its fair to say this type of pandemic could in theory start anywhere in the world and blaming one country because of a natural phenomena is wrong. But the main reason this has infected the whole world is because the authoritarian system of government in China encourages people to hide things for fear of reprisals.
Is it not correct to say this is pandemic has its roots in the authoritarian principles of Chinese government and the rest of the world has a right to feel aggrieved.
I wish I could share your optimism.
A spokesman for the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir Patrick Vallance, didn’t directly respond to Reuters questions about the threat level. Asked whether, with hindsight, the scientists’ approach was the right one, the spokesperson said in a statement that “SAGE and advisers provide advice, while Ministers and the Government make decisions.”
But I thought the politicians were just following the science?
A friend of mine is currently doing a constructions project management masters and he said one of his lecturers who is still very much involved in the industry has contacts in the unions was explaining to his group just how fecked the construction industry would be if it came to a halt. I might be wrong but I think he said it was hundreds of billions tied up in construction projects in the UK and the margins are incredibly fine. They all work on the basis where you don't waste a kilo of concrete or a length of timber because it all factors into the profits and if a project ran over schedule by just a few weeks the knock on effect of that is huge so if you had the entire industry suddenly delayed by a few months, many of the biggest construction companies and industrial equipment hire companies would become insolvent very very quickly.
The knock on effect of that on the country's infrastructure and economy would be immeasurable.
My family is involved in construction and development and the rules the government have introduced over the last 10 to 20 years, mostly the red tape and additional steps brought in by Blair's government, have eroded margins to the point where the industry can't take a shock. Lots took a loss after 2008 and survived because they'd built up a decent cash pile beforehand, but they've been on such tight margins ever since they don't have anything to fall back on now. The handful of massive developers will be ok but everybody below that would be in serious trouble.
I hear what you are saying but the industry is already Fecked. I work for a large contractor employing approx' 250 men. Approx 40 of those men left the country when lockdown came. I have spoken to other contractors and they are in the same boat. The eastern European workforce has left the country and nobody knows if they are coming back. A few stayed but Brexit and now this has reduced the workforce significantly.
Prudent management of this crisis and making use of the governments job protection schemes will help large companies but delays are unavoidable. The supply chain for materials has locked up significantly and long delays are inevitable.
The reason I posted the link to the governments relaxation of social distancing in construction is because it just demonstrates how poorly the government recognises the industry. Builders are expected to risk infection more than any other business that isn't essential. This typifies the governments lack of protection of the industry. Grenfell came about mainly because the fire safety guidelines where inadequate and they just couldn't be bothered to bring the legislation up to date despite warnings.
Construction gets the rough end of the stick and it causes deaths. This has to change.
This governments very existance revolves around being anti-EU, the only reason those cabinet ministers are in the job is because they are strongly anti-EU and able to spin a good tale around it, no other qualification was required. Any thought they have on how to manage this crisis appropriately will trail behind their primal instinct of being a Brexit sycophant.
So remarkable yes, but not in the least surprising.
I don't doubt that the advice will be good. I doubt that the average thicko will take notice of it and just go out BBQing with friends and family when it's sunny.
Piers has a point here:
Not the picture that my Swedish friends painted yesterday one of them is a nurse in a hospital in Stockholm. The nurse said the hospital is under immense pressure, low on supplies, unsafe for it's staff. That Sweden has no control over the spread of infection because they have done minimal testing compared to all it's neighbpuring countries. Despite this the government allows fully packed outdoor seating, restaurants and so on.
Look I hope I was lied to by my friends buddy because this virus is brutal.
It's going to be very interesting to see how the next few weeks unfold in Sweden. It could be very morbid viewing, but if not, it could really raise eyebrows. I'm hoping of course, it's the latter but the former is more likely.
Well it's far more deadly!
But yeah it was contained quite well in comparison. But did anyone get blamed for swine flu which killed 150k or did China get blamed for Avian flu in the 50s? I wasn't alive then so I dont know
It's also spread by contact with bodily fluids of people with symptoms, and symptoms of Ebola are pretty obvious. It's easy to isolate and contain in a developed country.
Nobody was blamed for swine flu partly because we don't know where it came from, best estimates were either Mexico or somewhere in Asia. The Avian flu outbreak was commonly known as Asian flu, but like you i wasn't around then.
I object to this assumption of sub-humanising as an explanation for allocating some responsibility. I haven't seen or made any posts allocating blame upon the Chinese due to any racial profile. I understand it is a pipe dream to wish that the Chinese Govt. could take any responsibility but every human in the world has had their lives upturned and worse now every time a virus originates from within their borders. The responsibility for allowing this particular virus to spread beyond their borders on every occasion that they have a laboratory incident or transmission from animal to human due to poor hygiene and then engage in deceit about its beginnings, progress and disruption lays the blame if we call it that on no-one but the Chinese Government. The facts that our lives may be changed forever, the debt that we all incur and the sorrow we endure cannot be any other than theirs to own and make restitution for until the next occasion and the next has nothing to do with their race whatsoever and playing that card even if it might be wishful thinking that we could find a way to recompense the destruction is mistaken at best.
Spanish flu didn’t originate in Spain, for what it’s worth. Bet they felt a bit hard done by over the choice of name.
Every virus has to start somewhere. Enforced reparations on the country of origin seems like a shitty thing to do. That said, any government who is deliberately deceitful about the progress of a potential pandemic in their country should be held to account. Which would potentially involve a lot more countries than just China. Concrete evidence of this alleged deliberate deceit would be a good starting point, obviously.
I was wondering why no one has mentioned 5G but then I just fully read the thread title 
True. Im unsure where he is being treated though. Guess they have not publicised it.
Too late for that, China is too powerful now both militarily and economically to succumb to so called 'world pressure'. Ironically its only Trump and the US who can take them on, just imagine that it may come down to a choice between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump!!
I was wondering why no one has mentioned 5G but then I just fully read the thread title
I just went down a YouTube comments rabbit hole after someone I know posted a video of some gobshite spouting nonsense on Facebook about 5G. Which was a terrible idea. Conspiracy theory types are the absolute worst.
I don’t think we can. It’s a zero sum game between us two.
Quite possibly it is, but the rest of the world, individually or even collectively, won't have a dog in the race!
Can't quite fully understand (Clunky) the end bit but I think I agree.
How do we as a species prevent this type of crisis happening on a regular basis? It is imperative we do.
Or is it?
Imagine she's desperately trying to avoid questions on her definition of "essential workers"
What's crazy is I was backpacking in 2009 when Swine Flu was exploding. I vividly remember being in Vietnam and was going to NYC, but in a roundabout way I was heading to Hong Kong first, then mainland China, then to Newark airport. I also had to take an internal flight in Vietnam a few days before the journey in question - I had a bit of a smokers cough and was pertified because they were testing EVERYONE at every airport.
What I don't understand is, why hasnt this been happening with covid19?
You see videos of dozens of people arriving in London and just waltzing through without a second glance. What is the actual reasoning behind this, on this occasion? It doesn't make any sense to me at all.
Or people (there are other words I could use) like this?
"If I catch it, that's ok, it's just me".
No, if you catch it, there's a chance the country's average IQ will go up a notch.
#Justforclicks
I think I'm trying to say that this is not the first occasion and I'm doubtful that it will be the last. That it has nothing to do with race and I am hoping that it is merely a mistake to label it as racist.
Globalisation is a good thing I think however my personal belief that this virus on this occasion has been with us for longer than the reported origins would mean that no country had an opportunity to close its borders and take whatever the correct precautions might be.
To prevent re-occurrence given our ways of life would mean preventing the sources by changing their way of life.
My Mum (NHS CAMHS) has just sent me a voice note she received from a very senior NHS figure and she won’t even tell me the name of the person. It was detailing changes to ambulance response times and procedures just discussed in a meeting for people not able to breathe at home. So, previously if you were struggling for every breath and unable to finish a sentence they would send a category 2 blue light ambulance with an 18 min response time. As of Thursday when they expect the peak, they will now not be sending ambulances in this case and these people will be asked to manage their symptoms at home.
There was then what sounded like speculation around further lockdown restrictions and street marshalling.
Our local ice skating rink has been hired by the local council in the event it needs to be used as a mortuary as reported by the BBC. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-merseyside-52204936
There was then what sounded like speculation around further lockdown restrictions and street marshalling.
Our local ice skating rink has been hired by the local council in the event it needs to be used as a mortuary as reported by the BBC. https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-merseyside-52204936
As a famous (or infamous) Chinese leader once said "every journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step" ... this could well be the first step in human kinds journey in responding to an increasingly over crowded planet. Just as we look to how we react to climate change, we will have to now include pandemics of this nature in our accounting and our preparations and hopefully going forward countries like China (but not just them) will get on board to finding a response we can all live with, and live by.
To save the planet we need a planet wide response and maybe just maybe this pandemic will convince...everyone of that requirement.
Great article, thanks for sharing. I think there's actually been an absence of this kind of coverage, just trying to lay out the facts rather than trying to fit some agenda or other.
That's crazy if true. I would have though the next step to that would be can't speak, can't call so is presumably a death sentence?
There is a very good article in the New York Times about how and why it happened.
After SARS China installed a fully computerised system to monitor anything like this. Never again they said. They even had US government experts in the Chinese CDC.
Now they never factored in the human factor in a dictatorship.
What was supposed to happen was if any doctor finds anything unusual they are supposed to enter it into the system. Unfortunately for everyone the doctors reported the flu to the management in Wuhan who decided to try to do it themselves. It's only end of December CDC realized that this was going on.
By early January they knew it was a new one and informed everyone.
It's the incompetency of the politicians in the west that made it so worse in those countries.
After SARS China installed a fully computerised system to monitor anything like this. Never again they said. They even had US government experts in the Chinese CDC.
Now they never factored in the human factor in a dictatorship.
What was supposed to happen was if any doctor finds anything unusual they are supposed to enter it into the system. Unfortunately for everyone the doctors reported the flu to the management in Wuhan who decided to try to do it themselves. It's only end of December CDC realized that this was going on.
By early January they knew it was a new one and informed everyone.
It's the incompetency of the politicians in the west that made it so worse in those countries.
9/11 changed the way we fly.
If the world cannot take decisive action Corona Virus might mean we have to take a test at the airport before fly.
Would they all be protected contractually by 'force majeure'? I mean this is genuinely the most true example of that in living memory!
It's just as bad on twitter and my watsapp groups
Interestingly I've had a few friends say they've been on calls this morning and it sounds like further lockdown is pending.
I'm taking it as gossip at this point but it wouldn't surprise me if they've decided the only way they can handle the easter break is full lockdown.
Thing is man, you have to think about this realistically. Think how big China is, and how many different LEGAL food markets are in each multi-million person city. Then imagine how many illegal/unlicensed sellers are in that same city, then imagine the enormity of trying to police that situation, especially when a lot of exotic meat is purchased black market by the extremely rich.....and also, sold on the sly by the very poor who need to eat something.
It's an unstoppable entity, sadly.
Drugs are illegal. Think how many dealers live and operate in your home-town, if you're from the UK. Sure, one of them might get busted now and again, does that stop the influx of illegal drugs? No, because demand will bring supply and the same goes for these wet markets.
Finally, the Chinese government need to actually want to stop them, by putting in a monumental effort. It's far more likely that they'll put on the PR face for a year then just drop interest when the world has stopped scrutisining.
As I said in my earlier post in 2009 swine flu outbreak this was what was happening in airports across the planet. Yet not this time, and I have no idea why.
But yes, this now will be 'a thing' for travellers I think, regardless of where you're going to and from. Airport health check, if something seems iffy, you will be told to go home and seek medical investigation instead of flying.