We're about to go into lockdown for the weekend. Announced just before midnight, everyone storms out to get a final bit of freedom, and now people are congregating en masse outside and fights are starting all over. Expert strategy for people to beat the shit out of each other and stay inside all weekend recovering.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Enjoy your shit sandwich, safe in the knowledge that there was no possible better outcome.
Keep calm and don't remove your blinkers.
If any other Party was in power, there'd be frontpages calling for mass resignations & criminal proceedings; they would called 'traitors to the people'.
That's not 'typical leftie whinging' - it's the bloody truth.
That's not 'typical leftie whinging' - it's the bloody truth.
Why would there be backlash here @C'est Moi Cantona at this point?
First off the government don’t run the show on this, the Health Ministry do. The government are focused instead on crises package money, huge paid sick leave etc etc.
We are well informed that there are only two ways out of this and one of them is 12 months minimum away.
I still think people are really struggling to understand that lots of people are going to die over the next 6-12 months, everywhere, it’s awful but it’s a fact. Lockdown’s might slow it in some places although with 4000 cases in again in Italy
today, I think some countries shut the barn door long after the horse had bolted, and people are just passing it around apartment blocks instead.
But after lockdowns, deaths and cases will rise again, that is inevitable.
If Sweden can get through the next 6 months like this, and our restrictions are plausible for that, whilst learning lessons along the way, they will have done “well”.
I can also tell you that Sweden’s regular “death stats” for March and April have hardly differed so far despite Covid-19.
I can also confirm once again that since we started social distancing measures in mid-March the flu and winter tummy bug have dropped off a cliff so what we’re doing is working, even whilst society still functions. Not remotely like normal, but still...
We’re likely to have extremely high “immunity” numbers in Stockholm due to schools remaining open, something that has this week been backed up with a published paper from the UK. Sadly I was hoping they’d give us a percentage figure on this today but they want more information from blood doners etc first so it’s probably two weeks away.
The Health Ministry believe we’ve flattened the curve in Stockholm, as long as we get through Easter.
But maybe compare Sweden to Belgium or Holland and ask about their backlash? Or many many many other locked down countries that are doing miles worse than Sweden.
The only “anger” here is how shit we are at protecting nursing homes, we have made an absolute mess of that.
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The NHS/carers deserve the attention BUT there's something so fecking Brasseye about seeing the UK population in pyjamas stood in quarantine in their front gardens clapping and smiling while refusing to grill the government about why they - and the care staff - are actually in this position in 2020. It's so close to being a bizarre black comedy parody it's unsettling, because a lot of people aren't even batting an eyelid at how bonkers this entire situation is.
"Ah, poor Boris. Let's go and clap in our nightwear for a horribly underpaid and exploited workforce before playing board games again tomorrow".
the schools absolutely should not be open. Keeping them closed has saved around 3% more lives and the report recommended schools should be open if kids don’t go outside for break times and also socially distance 2m apart.
I dunno man, I hate the Tories as much as the next man but I don't recall the media being against Blair leading us to look for non-existent weapons as America's lapdog.
They're the mouthpiece of WHOEVER is in charge, for me. Party doesnt matter. You're in the seat, you're in control.
This is assuming of course that you are taking many other countries numbers at face value, and don't factor in that other than Germany the other big European countries have as yet a higher percentage than the UK.
we are overtaking those countries and we had a head start and we are a fecking island.
Yet Sweden are doing miles better than loads of closed school countries so....
Norway and Austria opening schools too soon right? And Denmark?
Thanks, and I wasn't saying backlash in that there should be one, more that people are wanting to kick the UK's lockdown approach at every opportunity, when I'm not sure it's much different from anyone else's, and yet more extreme from the likes of Sweden.
The countries that have done the best closed their schools.
Best news in months.
People just think they did it too late.
Maybe they are correct but I’m still of the opinion that the horse had long bolted in the UK after half term. Britain was likely riddled before even Italy went into lockdown on 9th March.
Best “so far” mate.
They have to open them soon and 3 of the best are planning that very soon.
An island with as much international travel as anyone, and we aren't overtaking them at all, we are on the same path.
Yup.
I think when the dust settles in 6 months or so, most countries will have suffered plenty of loss. The ones who suffer the worst will be the poorer countries and the one who let their health services get annihilated.
Did you have a head start though?
We’ll never know the stats of infected per country on say 9th March but I think you were likely riddled with it in UK after half term.
yes we did
How do you know that?
How many infected in UK on 9th March when Italy shut down the country?
If you shut down then, how do you know you wouldn’t have had as many cases and deaths now? Italy has still barely slowed down over one month since then.
And what’s stopping you getting large numbers of deaths again after lockdown?
Sadly, I agree. These daily updates right now are also unhelpful imo.
Wummy should also ask himself why the French numbers are so horrific when they went into lockdown just 8 days after Italy?
I really don’t think many countries had the headstart people believe they had.
In what way? The coverage of the UK death toll is everywhere. Lots of tragic individual cases, deaths of nurses etc being highlighted.
I have to say that your figures are surprising. you have more hospital deaths in 24h than France ever had and in terms of hospital deaths you have overtaken France today with 8598 for France and 8958 for the UK.
No one even talks about Hancock promising 100,000 tests or Boris Johnson promising mass testing again.
The press in the country have been a disgrace for years now but this episode has taken the cake.
The press in the country have been a disgrace for years now but this episode has taken the cake.
I don’t really get what you’re saying.
Countries that went into lockdown have clearly been able to flatten the curve. That is obvious.
Maybe it would be better to compare Sweden with other Scandinavian countries (with whom they share the climate and culture). Sweden has 870 deaths, Norway has 113 (only 13% deaths compared to Sweden in 52% as big population). Denmark has 247 deaths (28% deaths in 55% population). Adjusted per capita, for every Norwegian dying, 4 Swedish die. For every Dane dying, 2 Swedish die.
Furthermore, if we check today, there were 77 deaths in Sweden, 10 in Denmark and 5 in Norway. Not much data, but it does not look like Sweden is a week ahead of Norway and Denmark are a week, more like that they might have different curves.
Of course, at the end of the day, if they can manage to limit the daily deaths at only 50-100 day, it might be argued that it is a price worth paying. It would be just 18k-35k deaths per year (with many of those people dying anyway from other causes). But if it becomes worse, then it is a very serious problem, especially if they see their neighbours doing much better.
4 weeks after lockdown Italy was still getting 5000 cases and 800 deaths.
So why do you think your numbers now should be better given the headstart? If you’d lockdown 4 weeks ago on 13th March you’d likely be getting the same numbers because the virus had come back from half term and had weeks to circulate around the UK.
He mentioned the 100,000 tests earlier before going on to say that lots of tests have been organised for frontline NHS staff.
It was fairly cleverly worded as he introduced it with the 100k number before saying something vaguely positive about how many tests are sorted but it was clear as day it wasn’t 100k and obviously nobody is going to chase him on it.
The most annoying thing about these conferences is the 12 minute soap box questions the journos ask.
Italy's peak was 919 deaths, the UK had today 980 deaths. The UK has a slightly higher population, so if we assume that today is UK's peak, then yes, it would be similar. If the increase in UK continues for another few days (and I believe that is gonna happen, considering the effects of lockdowns are not imminent) then it will become worse than Italy (probably tracking Spain adjusted per capita).
To be fair, Italy was hit first. The rest (especially the UK and France in Europe; and the US obviously) should and could have done much better. If in the end, they finish with more deaths (per capita) than Italy, while having 2 extra weeks to prepare, it is a total failure of their governments (add to that, Italy has a significantly older population than the UK, more people live with their parents, so their population in average is more prone to dying from covid-19)
Obviously you can compare to Scandinavia @Revan but then I’d argue not to compare the most populous city that had half term in the Italy horror week and instead compare Gothenburg with Copenhagen and Oslo, cities that had half term earlier and similar populations.
49 deaths in Gothenburg state so far.
Just comparing all of Sweden to a neighbour is incredibly unscientific as we’ll never know how many infected all countries had when all kicked off in early March.
Might as well compare New York to Massachusetts.
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RAB with his notifications on the word “Sweden”
Ok not played down as such but it just seems it isnt so shocking anymore. Which I guess is natural as it's a more common thing as we progress its jus sad. I'm literally scared today I cant see a way out of this without a vaccine.
Can I do that.
Seriously though, there has been so much negative press regarding Sweden, completely ignoring how well we have done compared to say Belgium, Holland, Switzerland. Even fexking Trump is getting in on it, the cheek of the fuxker
But as I said above, even those comparisons are pointless as we’ll never ever know how countries infected rate looked when Italy kicked off.
Could quite easily be that Belgium had 10 times the infected Sweden did on 9th March.
How many people do you think were coming back from half term in Italy?
shutting down clearly has an impact on the spread of the disease. Hence Italy now limiting transition.We should have shut down earlier, having Cheltenham, Stereophonics and Anfield marches was shambolic
Disgusting that stuff like this isn’t being asked - they are getting a free pass at the moment and when Boris returns he will be treated like a messiah
Yeah, if only Stereophonics didn’t perform in front of 5,000 people in Cardiff. The virus never would have spread this badly. Ah well, it’s all handbags and gladrags now anyway.
A single music event like that infecting twenty people could be catastrophic down the line.
I'm not sure Sweden is a great comparison for many countries. Correct me if i'm wrong but lots of parts of it are quite remote outside of some southern cities? Not a tourist hotspot like Spain and Italy or even Greece i would think.
I think every country is going to have to tailor their plan to their own people, culture and geography. Its hard to judge from the outside.
Ireland has been relatively careful. Made the same mistake as every other country of not preparing for this but between Brexit and a General Election i can symphatise that it was easy enough to be distracted. Our health system has been badly underfunded for a long time at this stage so if there is a flare up I don't expect it to cope easily or especially well. So it makes sense to play it safe at least initially. I'm happy enough with the recent decisions and won't hold it against the government (that we dont technically have atm) if the numbers turn. Its a danger but they've tried to minimise it as best they can seemingly.
Putting together a step by step guide of what precisly we need to do if (when) this situation comes up again should be a prioirty. Getting a signficiant stock of masks and other ppe equipment before they lift restrictions would be my hope at this stage.
I hope you're right mate. Personally I thought that with the measures being put in place we'd be fine as long as we'd get over the worst of the pandemic within the 3 months as initially hoped for. But the last week or so has shown that might be an optimistic prediction at best.