So why can’t cafes and restaurants reopen if shops can?
I would assume due to length of time spent in them
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
So why can’t cafes and restaurants reopen if shops can?
I would assume due to length of time spent in them
Yes, proximity, interaction, and weight of viral load over time
The worst places are gyms, choirs, churches, mosques, theatres, cinemas, clubs, dance halls, basically anywhere indoors where people are crowded together and panting air through singing, laughing, loudly talking
That is to say: many of the fun places that make life worth living
All you describe applies to quite a lot of shops too, shopping centres especially.
And in response to @Chris: I don’t expect instant normality but I’d like to understand what the scientific basis is for allowing some indoor places to reopen and not others. And whether that really is the basis for this decision and whether it has been weighed against the costs.
It’s beyond me why pubs with beer gardens can’t open in summertime. I hope to see this change soon.
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
Speaking for myself, yes, I have occasionally been dragged around shops by a woman but it's something I have now learnt to avoid like the plague. My personal expertise in avoiding shops notwithstanding, I think you miss the point: even if people do spend hours in shops, they don't spend hours speaking at close quarters in a group with friends and with strangers, and in a confined space, which is the high-risk behaviour.
Not my experience I have to say. People do go shopping with friends; they do talk with strangers or shop assistants as they are usually known and they are in a confined space.
I often used to sit in cafes in a corner writing - by myself - with the occasional interaction with waiting staff. There was much less interaction with strangers - even in a busy one - than in a shop.
The point is that you can’t make the sort of generalities you have just made about shops vs cafes and the behaviours of people in them or the risks they might therefore run if they were open.
There needs to be some fairness in how we deal with continued closure of businesses and how we treat their reopening. I know fairness is not something which seems to animate this government but still worth hanging onto, don’t you think.?
Here's what has changed. People now know who Boris adviser is. The more clued up know who his parents are, where he went to school, that he lives in Islington and his in laws live in a castle. And what he did in the Rona days. Raging against an unelected elite is done. He'll need to find a new playlist. And Boris needs to up his game sharpish. He's wonderful on the front foot as he was today on the last question urging folk to go out and spend. Not great on the defensive. He isn't well. We no nowt about the medium to long term effects on survivors.
Welcome to the elite, same as the old elite. *
* Well, possibly a different Oxbridge college, but hey time can't stand still.
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
Speaking for myself, yes, I have occasionally been dragged around shops by a woman but it's something I have now learnt to avoid like the plague. My personal expertise in avoiding shops notwithstanding, I think you miss the point: even if people do spend hours in shops, they don't spend hours speaking at close quarters in a group with friends and with strangers, and in a confined space, which is the high-risk behaviour.
Not my experience I have to say. People do go shopping with friends; they do talk with strangers or shop assistants as they are usually known and they are in a confined space.
I often used to sit in cafes in a corner writing - by myself - with the occasional interaction with waiting staff. There was much less interaction with strangers - even in a busy one - than in a shop.
The point is that you can’t make the sort of generalities you have just made about shops vs cafes and the behaviours of people in them or the risks they might therefore run if they were open.
There needs to be some fairness in how we deal with continued closure of businesses and how we treat their reopening. I know fairness is not something which seems to animate this government but still worth hanging onto, don’t you think.?
Of course, but governments can only make rules, and they can't easily make a rule which distinguishes between people sitting quietly and a bunch of braying loudmouths spraying potentially infectious droplets over neighbouring tables.
What we do (tentatively) know is that bars, restaurants, nightclubs etc have been significant causes of clusters of infection, whereas shops don't seem to have been. So it's very reasonable for governments to see if they can open the latter before opening the former.
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
Speaking for myself, yes, I have occasionally been dragged around shops by a woman but it's something I have now learnt to avoid like the plague. My personal expertise in avoiding shops notwithstanding, I think you miss the point: even if people do spend hours in shops, they don't spend hours speaking at close quarters in a group with friends and with strangers, and in a confined space, which is the high-risk behaviour.
Not my experience I have to say. People do go shopping with friends; they do talk with strangers or shop assistants as they are usually known and they are in a confined space.
I often used to sit in cafes in a corner writing - by myself - with the occasional interaction with waiting staff. There was much less interaction with strangers - even in a busy one - than in a shop.
The point is that you can’t make the sort of generalities you have just made about shops vs cafes and the behaviours of people in them or the risks they might therefore run if they were open.
There needs to be some fairness in how we deal with continued closure of businesses and how we treat their reopening. I know fairness is not something which seems to animate this government but still worth hanging onto, don’t you think.?
I suspect which sector donates most to the Tory Party may be first. Or is that overly cynical? But we need care. Reopening to very very few customers would be the worst of all outcomes.
Caught up with nursing friend over Skype. The wards are getting busier again. 😬
Which area of the country?
inpatient numbers were up in Leicestershire this week, at least on Friday they were.
Hmm, that's worrying if it's a general phenomenon. It suggests that even the really quite minor relaxation of lockdown which occurred around ten days ago is enough to start bumping up the numbers again.
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
Speaking for myself, yes, I have occasionally been dragged around shops by a woman but it's something I have now learnt to avoid like the plague. My personal expertise in avoiding shops notwithstanding, I think you miss the point: even if people do spend hours in shops, they don't spend hours speaking at close quarters in a group with friends and with strangers, and in a confined space, which is the high-risk behaviour.
Not my experience I have to say. People do go shopping with friends; they do talk with strangers or shop assistants as they are usually known and they are in a confined space.
I often used to sit in cafes in a corner writing - by myself - with the occasional interaction with waiting staff. There was much less interaction with strangers - even in a busy one - than in a shop.
The point is that you can’t make the sort of generalities you have just made about shops vs cafes and the behaviours of people in them or the risks they might therefore run if they were open.
There needs to be some fairness in how we deal with continued closure of businesses and how we treat their reopening. I know fairness is not something which seems to animate this government but still worth hanging onto, don’t you think.?
seems strange to be able to go shopping, but not to see family. Its almost as if money matters more than people.
That's a pretty damning chart for the anti-lockdown people. The UK, Sweden, the USA and Btrazil in the top 5 (with San Marino)
Interestingly, the Swedes are of the opinion, or their experts are anyway, that we need to wait for the long game and review the figures in a year.
In the UK, our experts have been totally opposed to that view, arguing that we must lockdown and flatten the curve now and not worry about the long game.
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
Speaking for myself, yes, I have occasionally been dragged around shops by a woman but it's something I have now learnt to avoid like the plague. My personal expertise in avoiding shops notwithstanding, I think you miss the point: even if people do spend hours in shops, they don't spend hours speaking at close quarters in a group with friends and with strangers, and in a confined space, which is the high-risk behaviour.
Not my experience I have to say. People do go shopping with friends; they do talk with strangers or shop assistants as they are usually known and they are in a confined space.
I often used to sit in cafes in a corner writing - by myself - with the occasional interaction with waiting staff. There was much less interaction with strangers - even in a busy one - than in a shop.
The point is that you can’t make the sort of generalities you have just made about shops vs cafes and the behaviours of people in them or the risks they might therefore run if they were open.
There needs to be some fairness in how we deal with continued closure of businesses and how we treat their reopening. I know fairness is not something which seems to animate this government but still worth hanging onto, don’t you think.?
Of course, but governments can only make rules, and they can't easily make a rule which distinguishes between people sitting quietly and a bunch of braying loudmouths spraying potentially infectious droplets over neighbouring tables.
What we do (tentatively) know is that bars, restaurants, nightclubs etc have been significant causes of clusters of infection, whereas shops don't seem to have been. So it's very reasonable for governments to see if they can open the latter before opening the former.
Apparently they don't even make rules. Just guidelines for ones instincts.
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
Speaking for myself, yes, I have occasionally been dragged around shops by a woman but it's something I have now learnt to avoid like the plague. My personal expertise in avoiding shops notwithstanding, I think you miss the point: even if people do spend hours in shops, they don't spend hours speaking at close quarters in a group with friends and with strangers, and in a confined space, which is the high-risk behaviour.
Not my experience I have to say. People do go shopping with friends; they do talk with strangers or shop assistants as they are usually known and they are in a confined space.
I often used to sit in cafes in a corner writing - by myself - with the occasional interaction with waiting staff. There was much less interaction with strangers - even in a busy one - than in a shop.
The point is that you can’t make the sort of generalities you have just made about shops vs cafes and the behaviours of people in them or the risks they might therefore run if they were open.
There needs to be some fairness in how we deal with continued closure of businesses and how we treat their reopening. I know fairness is not something which seems to animate this government but still worth hanging onto, don’t you think.?
seems strange to be able to go shopping, but not to see family. Its almost as if money matters more than people.
Judging by the garden gatherings around me this weekend, families have already made their own verdict on that one.
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
Speaking for myself, yes, I have occasionally been dragged around shops by a woman but it's something I have now learnt to avoid like the plague. My personal expertise in avoiding shops notwithstanding, I think you miss the point: even if people do spend hours in shops, they don't spend hours speaking at close quarters in a group with friends and with strangers, and in a confined space, which is the high-risk behaviour.
Not my experience I have to say. People do go shopping with friends; they do talk with strangers or shop assistants as they are usually known and they are in a confined space.
I often used to sit in cafes in a corner writing - by myself - with the occasional interaction with waiting staff. There was much less interaction with strangers - even in a busy one - than in a shop.
The point is that you can’t make the sort of generalities you have just made about shops vs cafes and the behaviours of people in them or the risks they might therefore run if they were open.
There needs to be some fairness in how we deal with continued closure of businesses and how we treat their reopening. I know fairness is not something which seems to animate this government but still worth hanging onto, don’t you think.?
Of course, but governments can only make rules, and they can't easily make a rule which distinguishes between people sitting quietly and a bunch of braying loudmouths spraying potentially infectious droplets over neighbouring tables.
What we do (tentatively) know is that bars, restaurants, nightclubs etc have been significant causes of clusters of infection, whereas shops don't seem to have been. So it's very reasonable for governments to see if they can open the latter before opening the former.
One thing we’ve learnt today, Richard, is that even when government does make rules, it is possible for some people to distinguish between those rules which apply to them and those which apply to other people.
The concept of rules applying equally to all has been rather damaged, no?
Caught up with nursing friend over Skype. The wards are getting busier again. 😬
Which area of the country?
inpatient numbers were up in Leicestershire this week, at least on Friday they were.
Hmm, that's worrying if it's a general phenomenon. It suggests that even the really quite minor relaxation of lockdown which occurred around ten days ago is enough to start bumping up the numbers again.
That's a pretty damning chart for the anti-lockdown people. The UK, Sweden, the USA and Btrazil in the top 5 (with San Marino)
Tho it is the rolling seven day average.
At other times, Belgium, Italy, Spain and others have topped this grim table
We need to wait til the end of the season to know for sure
Also you would first need reliable excess deaths figures, and then you would need to control for a whole bunch of factors such as age profile, ethnicity, and obesity.
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
Speaking for myself, yes, I have occasionally been dragged around shops by a woman but it's something I have now learnt to avoid like the plague. My personal expertise in avoiding shops notwithstanding, I think you miss the point: even if people do spend hours in shops, they don't spend hours speaking at close quarters in a group with friends and with strangers, and in a confined space, which is the high-risk behaviour.
Not my experience I have to say. People do go shopping with friends; they do talk with strangers or shop assistants as they are usually known and they are in a confined space.
I often used to sit in cafes in a corner writing - by myself - with the occasional interaction with waiting staff. There was much less interaction with strangers - even in a busy one - than in a shop.
The point is that you can’t make the sort of generalities you have just made about shops vs cafes and the behaviours of people in them or the risks they might therefore run if they were open.
There needs to be some fairness in how we deal with continued closure of businesses and how we treat their reopening. I know fairness is not something which seems to animate this government but still worth hanging onto, don’t you think.?
seems strange to be able to go shopping, but not to see family. Its almost as if money matters more than people.
Judging by the garden gatherings around me this weekend, families have already made their own verdict on that one.
Well of course. People should follow their instincts.
Nobody has said "yes, I know just how you feel!" to this post FPT about the occasional feeling of "eyesight feeling wrong, but with no discernible deterioration" so I worry that I'm going mad now!! I wonder if @Foxy can shed any light. (Apologies for repost to anyone who saw it before.)
Occasionally - once every couple of years maybe, and particularly if I've been under the weather healthwise - I have a funny feeling with my eyesight. It just doesn't seem "right" somehow, subjectively anyway. It's disconcerting so I try to check it objectively, and I find I can focus fine on near objects, I can read text far away, there's no sensation of shaking or "swimming", and there isn't any region in my field of vision that is discernibly blurred. Though if I was asked "why does your eyesight feel 'off' to you, what's wrong with it?", the closest I could say is probably "it feels blurry". It just doesn't look blurry, despite "feeling" it, if that makes any sense?
For fellow glasses-wearers, perhaps a clearer explanation: the visual disconcertment is like the feeling you get when you switch to a new pair of spectacles with a slight change in prescription (or a change in material so you have to get used to a different amount of chromatic aberration, glare etc). That always feels quite badly "off" to me for a few days, and only starts to feel actively "normal" after a couple of weeks.
What Cummings said about this actually rang a lot of bells for me - not quite trusting your eyesight, yet not being able to identify any specific flaw or deficiency, and wanting to "get my eye in" before undertaking any serious activity. Yet the general public reaction to it seems to be treating it as something alien and incomprehensible.
Does anyone else ever experience this feeling, or better still know what it's called? I'd love to know whether it's entirely subjective (which is what I lean towards) or whether it actually is a deterioration in vision - perhaps the eyes not quite focusing correctly.
(For what it's worth, I try to deal with it by pottering around the house and garden, avoiding TV/computer/phone screens, until I feel confident in my vision - it still feels "off" but once I've got some faith that things are where I am visualising them as being, it stops being so disconcerting. If possible I'll cancel anything that requires going out. Once or twice this has struck while I'm out and about, and I'll go for a bit of a walk first before driving home cautiously if I'm satisfied that my vision is actually okay, despite the sensation. Though personally I'd need to feel really satisfied it's all okay before taking passengers or undertaking a long drive, and if I could switch driving duties with somebody I would.)
I'd only get behind the wheel if I felt my eyesight was up to it. But if I'd been sick or not driven for a long time I always do short drives before going on cross country drives. ...
PS the half hour rule of thumb I've followed since I was 18, came from an RAC agent.
You're taking a lot of ridicule for this, presumably because of the person it's being used in defence of, but just as a standalone piece of advice I think this is a good one. I sometimes go weeks or even a couple of months without driving, and always like to get a short, unpressurised practice run in before starting up driving again. Not sure about optimal duration, but I suspect 30 mins is good for the car too if it's been sitting unused!
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
Speaking for myself, yes, I have occasionally been dragged around shops by a woman but it's something I have now learnt to avoid like the plague. My personal expertise in avoiding shops notwithstanding, I think you miss the point: even if people do spend hours in shops, they don't spend hours speaking at close quarters in a group with friends and with strangers, and in a confined space, which is the high-risk behaviour.
Not my experience I have to say. People do go shopping with friends; they do talk with strangers or shop assistants as they are usually known and they are in a confined space.
I often used to sit in cafes in a corner writing - by myself - with the occasional interaction with waiting staff. There was much less interaction with strangers - even in a busy one - than in a shop.
The point is that you can’t make the sort of generalities you have just made about shops vs cafes and the behaviours of people in them or the risks they might therefore run if they were open.
There needs to be some fairness in how we deal with continued closure of businesses and how we treat their reopening. I know fairness is not something which seems to animate this government but still worth hanging onto, don’t you think.?
Of course, but governments can only make rules, and they can't easily make a rule which distinguishes between people sitting quietly and a bunch of braying loudmouths spraying potentially infectious droplets over neighbouring tables.
What we do (tentatively) know is that bars, restaurants, nightclubs etc have been significant causes of clusters of infection, whereas shops don't seem to have been. So it's very reasonable for governments to see if they can open the latter before opening the former.
One thing we’ve learnt today, Richard, is that even when government does make rules, it is possible for some people to distinguish between those rules which apply to them and those which apply to other people.
The concept of rules applying equally to all has been rather damaged, no?
And that's the problem with the "with one leap, Jack was free" narrative.
In the event that things go wrong this autumn, and we need another lockdown. Even a smart lockdown; much more local and shorter-lived than the one we're stuck with now. Or some other inconvenient measures to squash a flareup of an infection.
How the @&**#?! does this government gather together the moral authority to do what might need to be done?
One thing we’ve learnt today, Richard, is that even when government does make rules, it is possible for some people to distinguish between those rules which apply to them and those which apply to other people.
The concept of rules applying equally to all has been rather damaged, no?
Yes, probably, although I have to say that the glee with which some people seem to be saying they will risk the lives of themselves and others others purely as an act of revenge against the undoubted arrogance of Dominic Cummings is not something I find particularly seemly.
Caught up with nursing friend over Skype. The wards are getting busier again. 😬
Which area of the country?
inpatient numbers were up in Leicestershire this week, at least on Friday they were.
Hmm, that's worrying if it's a general phenomenon. It suggests that even the really quite minor relaxation of lockdown which occurred around ten days ago is enough to start bumping up the numbers again.
100% increase over the week, and 40% of staff covid positive.
Have you finished 'Normal People'?
Yes, and very good it was too.
Great writing, acting and cinematography. It dealt well with the issues of self esteem and mental health that are such a problem to the youngsters.
I also liked its Irishness, without any stereotypes.
We watched the last episode last night. Completely agree, it was fantastic in all the ways you mention. One of the best series I've ever watched I'd say
I actually found myself wondering today what Marianne and Connell would be doing right now!
The media really really hate Cummings, they can't hide their hatred of the man. The Tories certainly going to test the idea the media aren't as important as they once were....very different approach to New Labour attempt to always have them onside.
Nobody has said "yes, I know just how you feel!" to this post FPT about the occasional feeling of "eyesight feeling wrong, but with no discernible deterioration" so I worry that I'm going mad now!! I wonder if @Foxy can shed any light. (Apologies for repost to anyone who saw it before.)
Occasionally - once every couple of years maybe, and particularly if I've been under the weather healthwise - I have a funny feeling with my eyesight. It just doesn't seem "right" somehow, subjectively anyway. It's disconcerting so I try to check it objectively, and I find I can focus fine on near objects, I can read text far away, there's no sensation of shaking or "swimming", and there isn't any region in my field of vision that is discernibly blurred. Though if I was asked "why does your eyesight feel 'off' to you, what's wrong with it?", the closest I could say is probably "it feels blurry". It just doesn't look blurry, despite "feeling" it, if that makes any sense?
For fellow glasses-wearers, perhaps a clearer explanation: the visual disconcertment is like the feeling you get when you switch to a new pair of spectacles with a slight change in prescription (or a change in material so you have to get used to a different amount of chromatic aberration, glare etc). That always feels quite badly "off" to me for a few days, and only starts to feel actively "normal" after a couple of weeks.
What Cummings said about this actually rang a lot of bells for me - not quite trusting your eyesight, yet not being able to identify any specific flaw or deficiency, and wanting to "get my eye in" before undertaking any serious activity. Yet the general public reaction to it seems to be treating it as something alien and incomprehensible.
Does anyone else ever experience this feeling, or better still know what it's called? I'd love to know whether it's entirely subjective (which is what I lean towards) or whether it actually is a deterioration in vision - perhaps the eyes not quite focusing correctly.
(For what it's worth, I try to deal with it by pottering around the house and garden, avoiding TV/computer/phone screens, until I feel confident in my vision - it still feels "off" but once I've got some faith that things are where I am visualising them as being, it stops being so disconcerting. If possible I'll cancel anything that requires going out. Once or twice this has struck while I'm out and about, and I'll go for a bit of a walk first before driving home cautiously if I'm satisfied that my vision is actually okay, despite the sensation. Though personally I'd need to feel really satisfied it's all okay before taking passengers or undertaking a long drive, and if I could switch driving duties with somebody I would.)
I'd only get behind the wheel if I felt my eyesight was up to it. But if I'd been sick or not driven for a long time I always do short drives before going on cross country drives. ...
PS the half hour rule of thumb I've followed since I was 18, came from an RAC agent.
You're taking a lot of ridicule for this, presumably because of the person it's being used in defence of, but just as a standalone piece of advice I think this is a good one. I sometimes go weeks or even a couple of months without driving, and always like to get a short, unpressurised practice run in before starting up driving again. Not sure about optimal duration, but I suspect 30 mins is good for the car too if it's been sitting unused!
The technical term is dysthenopia or aesthenopia.
I get migraines auras sometimes that thave caused me to pull over when driving.
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
One thing we’ve learnt today, Richard, is that even when government does make rules, it is possible for some people to distinguish between those rules which apply to them and those which apply to other people.
The concept of rules applying equally to all has been rather damaged, no?
Yes, probably, although I have to say that the glee with which some people seem to be saying they will risk the lives of themselves and others others purely as an act of revenge against the undoubted arrogance of Dominic Cummings is not something I find particularly seemly.
I agree with you on the latter. Nonetheless, people don’t like being made to feel like mugs. Abuse or lose their trust and you face exactly these sort of problems: people and businesses feeling that they are being treated unfairly and doing whatever it takes to save themselves, their families and their businesses, sometimes to the extent of taking risks. They need to survive. They don’t have rich families and friends and sponsors to help out.
That is the problem the government has created for itself and for us.
Nobody has said "yes, I know just how you feel!" to this post FPT about the occasional feeling of "eyesight feeling wrong, but with no discernible deterioration" so I worry that I'm going mad now!! I wonder if @Foxy can shed any light. (Apologies for repost to anyone who saw it before.)
Occasionally - once every couple of years maybe, and particularly if I've been under the weather healthwise - I have a funny feeling with my eyesight. It just doesn't seem "right" somehow, subjectively anyway. It's disconcerting so I try to check it objectively, and I find I can focus fine on near objects, I can read text far away, there's no sensation of shaking or "swimming", and there isn't any region in my field of vision that is discernibly blurred. Though if I was asked "why does your eyesight feel 'off' to you, what's wrong with it?", the closest I could say is probably "it feels blurry". It just doesn't look blurry, despite "feeling" it, if that makes any sense?
For fellow glasses-wearers, perhaps a clearer explanation: the visual disconcertment is like the feeling you get when you switch to a new pair of spectacles with a slight change in prescription (or a change in material so you have to get used to a different amount of chromatic aberration, glare etc). That always feels quite badly "off" to me for a few days, and only starts to feel actively "normal" after a couple of weeks.
What Cummings said about this actually rang a lot of bells for me - not quite trusting your eyesight, yet not being able to identify any specific flaw or deficiency, and wanting to "get my eye in" before undertaking any serious activity. Yet the general public reaction to it seems to be treating it as something alien and incomprehensible.
Does anyone else ever experience this feeling, or better still know what it's called? I'd love to know whether it's entirely subjective (which is what I lean towards) or whether it actually is a deterioration in vision - perhaps the eyes not quite focusing correctly.
(For what it's worth, I try to deal with it by pottering around the house and garden, avoiding TV/computer/phone screens, until I feel confident in my vision - it still feels "off" but once I've got some faith that things are where I am visualising them as being, it stops being so disconcerting. If possible I'll cancel anything that requires going out. Once or twice this has struck while I'm out and about, and I'll go for a bit of a walk first before driving home cautiously if I'm satisfied that my vision is actually okay, despite the sensation. Though personally I'd need to feel really satisfied it's all okay before taking passengers or undertaking a long drive, and if I could switch driving duties with somebody I would.)
I'd only get behind the wheel if I felt my eyesight was up to it. But if I'd been sick or not driven for a long time I always do short drives before going on cross country drives. ...
PS the half hour rule of thumb I've followed since I was 18, came from an RAC agent.
You're taking a lot of ridicule for this, presumably because of the person it's being used in defence of, but just as a standalone piece of advice I think this is a good one. I sometimes go weeks or even a couple of months without driving, and always like to get a short, unpressurised practice run in before starting up driving again. Not sure about optimal duration, but I suspect 30 mins is good for the car too if it's been sitting unused!
Hey. I saw it read it and thought it was a really interesting contribution. I reflected on a football eyesight coach I heard on the radio talking about being match fit actually means having your eyesight adjusted to what's going on around you as much as any physical fitness. As someone who's been wearing readers for a year or so I reflected also on whether your experience was my experience. Concluded it wasn't and moved on. But kudos for raising a different view. It certainly got me thinking.
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
Given the sort of clientele in weatherspoons most of the time, i reckon they are prime mobile super spreaders!
More seriously though, the German church outbreak shows how even with social distancing, hand sanitizer, etc, soon get a load of people infected.
Caught up with nursing friend over Skype. The wards are getting busier again. 😬
Which area of the country?
inpatient numbers were up in Leicestershire this week, at least on Friday they were.
Hmm, that's worrying if it's a general phenomenon. It suggests that even the really quite minor relaxation of lockdown which occurred around ten days ago is enough to start bumping up the numbers again.
100% increase over the week, and 40% of staff covid positive.
Have you finished 'Normal People'?
Yes, and very good it was too.
Great writing, acting and cinematography. It dealt well with the issues of self esteem and mental health that are such a problem to the youngsters.
I also liked its Irishness, without any stereotypes.
We watched the last episode last night. Completely agree, it was fantastic in all the ways you mention. One of the best series I've ever watched I'd say
I actually found myself wondering today what Marianne and Connell would be doing right now!
Should I persist with it then?!
Wife and I watched episodes one and two and found it a bit thin and uncompelling. Not terrible, just rather average
Does it markedly improve?
I actually liked the first couple of episodes, so maybe we just have different tastes. I'd recommend watching it to anyone, I thought it was really good.
Tonight I am finishing 'the last dance' on Netflix, also recommended
Caught up with nursing friend over Skype. The wards are getting busier again. 😬
Which area of the country?
inpatient numbers were up in Leicestershire this week, at least on Friday they were.
Hmm, that's worrying if it's a general phenomenon. It suggests that even the really quite minor relaxation of lockdown which occurred around ten days ago is enough to start bumping up the numbers again.
100% increase over the week, and 40% of staff covid positive.
Have you finished 'Normal People'?
Yes, and very good it was too.
Great writing, acting and cinematography. It dealt well with the issues of self esteem and mental health that are such a problem to the youngsters.
I also liked its Irishness, without any stereotypes.
We watched the last episode last night. Completely agree, it was fantastic in all the ways you mention. One of the best series I've ever watched I'd say
I actually found myself wondering today what Marianne and Connell would be doing right now!
Should I persist with it then?!
Wife and I watched episodes one and two and found it a bit thin and uncompelling. Not terrible, just rather average
Does it markedly improve?
Yes, the school scenes are needed to set up what comes later, but Connell looks as old as his mother in the first two episodes!
Both major characters are so flawed by their inner life diverging so much from their external life. Each is their own worst enemy.
The scenes in Tuscany are heartbreakingly beautiful.
Caught up with nursing friend over Skype. The wards are getting busier again. 😬
Which area of the country?
inpatient numbers were up in Leicestershire this week, at least on Friday they were.
Hmm, that's worrying if it's a general phenomenon. It suggests that even the really quite minor relaxation of lockdown which occurred around ten days ago is enough to start bumping up the numbers again.
100% increase over the week, and 40% of staff covid positive.
Have you finished 'Normal People'?
Yes, and very good it was too.
Great writing, acting and cinematography. It dealt well with the issues of self esteem and mental health that are such a problem to the youngsters.
I also liked its Irishness, without any stereotypes.
We watched the last episode last night. Completely agree, it was fantastic in all the ways you mention. One of the best series I've ever watched I'd say
I actually found myself wondering today what Marianne and Connell would be doing right now!
Should I persist with it then?!
Wife and I watched episodes one and two and found it a bit thin and uncompelling. Not terrible, just rather average
Does it markedly improve?
Yes, the school scenes are needed to set up what comes later, but Connell looks as old as his mother in the first two episodes!
Both major characters are so flawed by their inner life diverging so much from their external life. Each is their own worst enemy.
The scenes in Tuscany are heartbreakingly beautiful.
There is a terrible continuity error in that episode when they are eating an ice creams. My one gripe!
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
Given the sort of clientele in weatherspoons most of the time, i reckon they are prime mobile super spreaders!
More seriously though, the German church outbreak shows how even with social distancing, hand sanitizer, etc, soon get a load of people infected.
Britain will be basically uninhabitable without pubs.
They are what make our climate tolerable.
I mean, it's fine now with this amazing weather and we can all picnic outside, but 7 months of the year it's too cold and wet to drink and eat outdoors so we invented The British Pub to make that bearable. And it's a splendid invention. Log fires and a fine pint after a walk on a winter day. A dog snoozing by the hearth.
Or a jolly London boozer before Christmas, all packed together and necking the gin, with frost like white lace on the windows.
Take that away and eeeesh. Bleak.
They should fence in, heat and cover the outdoor spaces to maintain capacity during winter
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
All forms of live entertainment and venues where people gather together are doomed if we carry on like this. Activities that have survived far more serious plagues and pestilence are now doomed because ..... well because we’re unable to assess risk and take sensible hygiene measures and understand that there is no such thing as 100% safety.
Meanwhile we will carry on doing exactly the same dangerous activities at home with friends .....
Wife and I watched episodes one and two and found it a bit thin and uncompelling. Not terrible, just rather average
Does it markedly improve?
I felt the same as you with installments 1 and 2, but it does grow on you. It's not as clever as Sex Education (which was often funny as well, though occasionally just silly), and sometimes you want the characters to just get on with saying what they feel, but it's oddly affecting. Stay with it.
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
All forms of live entertainment and venues where people gather together are doomed if we carry on like this. Activities that have survived far more serious plagues and pestilence are now doomed because ..... well because we’re unable to assess risk and take sensible hygiene measures and understand that there is no such thing as 100% safety.
Meanwhile we will carry on doing exactly the same dangerous activities at home with friends .....
Sadly this is true. Unfortunately I think I can assess risk. However others can't. When I am queuing in a shop randoms barge past to look in the ice cream freezer. Middle aged men spend an age walking up and down the alcohol line. People stand in the doorway arguing down the phone or texting their mates meaning no one else can move. They have been mandated to trust their instincts. Their instincts suck. Therefore I won't be eating out soon. Sorry.
Nobody has said "yes, I know just how you feel!" to this post FPT about the occasional feeling of "eyesight feeling wrong, but with no discernible deterioration" so I worry that I'm going mad now!! I wonder if @Foxy can shed any light. (Apologies for repost to anyone who saw it before.)
Occasionally - once every couple of years maybe, and particularly if I've been under the weather healthwise - I have a funny feeling with my eyesight. It just doesn't seem "right" somehow, subjectively anyway. It's disconcerting so I try to check it objectively, and I find I can focus fine on near objects, I can read text far away, there's no sensation of shaking or "swimming", and there isn't any region in my field of vision that is discernibly blurred. Though if I was asked "why does your eyesight feel 'off' to you, what's wrong with it?", the closest I could say is probably "it feels blurry". It just doesn't look blurry, despite "feeling" it, if that makes any sense?
For fellow glasses-wearers, perhaps a clearer explanation: the visual disconcertment is like the feeling you get when you switch to a new pair of spectacles with a slight change in prescription (or a change in material so you have to get used to a different amount of chromatic aberration, glare etc). That always feels quite badly "off" to me for a few days, and only starts to feel actively "normal" after a couple of weeks.
What Cummings said about this actually rang a lot of bells for me - not quite trusting your eyesight, yet not being able to identify any specific flaw or deficiency, and wanting to "get my eye in" before undertaking any serious activity. Yet the general public reaction to it seems to be treating it as something alien and incomprehensible.
Does anyone else ever experience this feeling, or better still know what it's called? I'd love to know whether it's entirely subjective (which is what I lean towards) or whether it actually is a deterioration in vision - perhaps the eyes not quite focusing correctly.
(For what it's worth, I try to deal with it by pottering around the house and garden, avoiding TV/computer/phone screens, until I feel confident in my vision - it still feels "off" but once I've got some faith that things are where I am visualising them as being, it stops being so disconcerting. If possible I'll cancel anything that requires going out. Once or twice this has struck while I'm out and about, and I'll go for a bit of a walk first before driving home cautiously if I'm satisfied that my vision is actually okay, despite the sensation. Though personally I'd need to feel really satisfied it's all okay before taking passengers or undertaking a long drive, and if I could switch driving duties with somebody I would.)
I'd only get behind the wheel if I felt my eyesight was up to it. But if I'd been sick or not driven for a long time I always do short drives before going on cross country drives. ...
PS the half hour rule of thumb I've followed since I was 18, came from an RAC agent.
You're taking a lot of ridicule for this, presumably because of the person it's being used in defence of, but just as a standalone piece of advice I think this is a good one. I sometimes go weeks or even a couple of months without driving, and always like to get a short, unpressurised practice run in before starting up driving again. Not sure about optimal duration, but I suspect 30 mins is good for the car too if it's been sitting unused!
The technical term is dysthenopia or aesthenopia.
I get migraines auras sometimes that thave caused me to pull over when driving.
Eye strain can also be a result of the distortion caused by the refractive properties of certain types of spectacle lenses. The subtle blurriness caused by this distortion in peripheral vision, requires eye muscles to strain in order to retain clear vision. Such prolonged distortion can lead to an increase in strain which is eventually felt by muscles surrounding the eye (in severe cases, even muscles of the upper cheek and forehead). Plastic lenses cause greater distortion than glass lenses and this can easily be verified by focusing both eyes on a screen directly in front and turning the head left or right while continuing to look at the same spot on the screen while wearing spectacles.
Frequent changes in spectacle lenses results in the focal point of the new spectacles being different from the older spectacles. This forces the eye muscles to re-adjust and causes more strain. This adjustment becomes more difficult after the age of 26.
What particularly resonated with me about Dom's description was how this sensation came on after a period of sickness. I suppose it could be triggered by something like poor sleep while ill rather than by the disease itself. He sounded genuinely disconcerted by it and I felt immediately familiar with that odd, confidence-sapping sensation of being unsure whether you're up to doing a normally straightforward task while, at the same time, not experiencing any specific deterioration that proves that you can't. I'm not justifying what Cummings did, but it was a detail that rang very true to me yet has produced some of the most incredulous and derisive reactions, so I was wondering if my experience was unusual. (If it was a fabricated detail then it was a bizarre choice to insert!)
Sorry to hear about the migraines @Foxy, that's one affliction I can count myself lucky enough to have avoided. A young relative of mine had a stroke while driving on a busy A-road, which was a nasty experience - no place to safely pull over.
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
All forms of live entertainment and venues where people gather together are doomed if we carry on like this. Activities that have survived far more serious plagues and pestilence are now doomed because ..... well because we’re unable to assess risk and take sensible hygiene measures and understand that there is no such thing as 100% safety.
Meanwhile we will carry on doing exactly the same dangerous activities at home with friends .....
Sadly this is true. Unfortunately I think I can assess risk. However others can't. When I am queuing in a shop randoms barge past to look in the ice cream freezer. Middle aged men spend an age walking up and down the alcohol line. People stand in the doorway arguing down the phone or texting their mates meaning no one else can move. They have been mandated to trust their instincts. Their instincts suck. Therefore I won't be eating out soon. Sorry.
That’s a very good argument for not going to a shop. And yet they will be allowed to open.
There is no consistency, no rationale to this, no cost-benefit analysis, as far as I can see. I don’t trust what the government says on this anymore.
In which case 2nd wave here we come. Fewer than 5% wearing them here. Anecdata. But the government has spent 2 months telling us they don't work.
That's very different to Los Angeles. Around 90% of people on the street are wearing them, and inside shops they're compulsory.
The UK government's total failure on masks will come back to haunt it. Unbelievable negligence. Every country doing "well" on corona is strict on masks.
Masks scenes from NYC. Huge public pressure to wear them
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
Given the sort of clientele in weatherspoons most of the time, i reckon they are prime mobile super spreaders!
More seriously though, the German church outbreak shows how even with social distancing, hand sanitizer, etc, soon get a load of people infected.
Britain will be basically uninhabitable without pubs.
They are what make our climate tolerable.
I mean, it's fine now with this amazing weather and we can all picnic outside, but 7 months of the year it's too cold and wet to drink and eat outdoors so we invented The British Pub to make that bearable. And it's a splendid invention. Log fires and a fine pint after a walk on a winter day. A dog snoozing by the hearth.
Or a jolly London boozer before Christmas, all packed together and necking the gin, with frost like white lace on the windows.
Take that away and eeeesh. Bleak.
Until a few months ago, I would have agreed with you. Used to drop in to my local on the way back from work at least once a week, usually twice. And usually lunch there a couple of times a week too. In addition to the 2-4 days per week I was travelling and eating out.
But I've spent the last couple of months learning how to cook more complicated meals. And it has totally changed my view. For the same price as a nice but nothing special meal at my local, I can buy a great wine or beer and top notch organic ingredients. And enjoy the process of cooking.
Dinner parties are what I am looking forward to. Providing for your loved ones and hosting a warm reception at the same time. Can't wait.
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
All forms of live entertainment and venues where people gather together are doomed if we carry on like this. Activities that have survived far more serious plagues and pestilence are now doomed because ..... well because we’re unable to assess risk and take sensible hygiene measures and understand that there is no such thing as 100% safety.
Meanwhile we will carry on doing exactly the same dangerous activities at home with friends .....
Sadly this is true. Unfortunately I think I can assess risk. However others can't. When I am queuing in a shop randoms barge past to look in the ice cream freezer. Middle aged men spend an age walking up and down the alcohol line. People stand in the doorway arguing down the phone or texting their mates meaning no one else can move. They have been mandated to trust their instincts. Their instincts suck. Therefore I won't be eating out soon. Sorry.
That’s a very good argument for not going to a shop. And yet they will be allowed to open.
There is no consistency, no rationale to this, no cost-benefit analysis, as far as I can see. I don’t trust what the government says on this anymore.
Totally disagree. Pubs and restaurants mean people talking, often very loudly, laughing, very close to one another. Waiters need to get very close to deliver food etc. A trip to a medium sized restaurant might put you in close proximity, for a prolonged period of time, indoors, with 50 people.
So for now they stay closed. Many adapt, and survive, ready to bounce back. Our local Rick Stein is now doing takeaways, for example.
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
Given the sort of clientele in weatherspoons most of the time, i reckon they are prime mobile super spreaders!
More seriously though, the German church outbreak shows how even with social distancing, hand sanitizer, etc, soon get a load of people infected.
Britain will be basically uninhabitable without pubs.
They are what make our climate tolerable.
I mean, it's fine now with this amazing weather and we can all picnic outside, but 7 months of the year it's too cold and wet to drink and eat outdoors so we invented The British Pub to make that bearable. And it's a splendid invention. Log fires and a fine pint after a walk on a winter day. A dog snoozing by the hearth.
Or a jolly London boozer before Christmas, all packed together and necking the gin, with frost like white lace on the windows.
Take that away and eeeesh. Bleak.
Until a few months ago, I would have agreed with you. Used to drop in to my local on the way back from work at least once a week, usually twice. And usually lunch there a couple of times a week too. In addition to the 2-4 days per week I was travelling and eating out.
But I've spent the last couple of months learning how to cook more complicated meals. And it has totally changed my view. For the same price as a nice but nothing special meal at my local, I can buy a great wine or beer and top notch organic ingredients. And enjoy the process of cooking.
Dinner parties are what I am looking forward to. Providing for your loved ones and hosting a warm reception at the same time. Can't wait.
Completely agree. My recipe repertoire has increased dramatically during lockdown
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
Given the sort of clientele in weatherspoons most of the time, i reckon they are prime mobile super spreaders!
More seriously though, the German church outbreak shows how even with social distancing, hand sanitizer, etc, soon get a load of people infected.
Britain will be basically uninhabitable without pubs.
They are what make our climate tolerable.
I mean, it's fine now with this amazing weather and we can all picnic outside, but 7 months of the year it's too cold and wet to drink and eat outdoors so we invented The British Pub to make that bearable. And it's a splendid invention. Log fires and a fine pint after a walk on a winter day. A dog snoozing by the hearth.
Or a jolly London boozer before Christmas, all packed together and necking the gin, with frost like white lace on the windows.
Take that away and eeeesh. Bleak.
Until a few months ago, I would have agreed with you. Used to drop in to my local on the way back from work at least once a week, usually twice. And usually lunch there a couple of times a week too. In addition to the 2-4 days per week I was travelling and eating out.
But I've spent the last couple of months learning how to cook more complicated meals. And it has totally changed my view. For the same price as a nice but nothing special meal at my local, I can buy a great wine or beer and top notch organic ingredients. And enjoy the process of cooking.
Dinner parties are what I am looking forward to. Providing for your loved ones and hosting a warm reception at the same time. Can't wait.
Completely agree. My recipe repertoire has increased dramatically during lockdown
Glad it isn't just me! Working my way through the Ottolenghi Simple cook book is so much fun. I've never eaten so many tasty dishes.
Thank god for buying the Peloton too, though - as otherwise I think a few too many carbs for lockdown life....
There's some really interesting data on Trump's Twitter engagement. Simply, the proportion of his followers that is bots has increased, and the number of real people has declined. And real people are engaging less and less with his tweets.
Now, there are still many millions of Americans who hang of his every tweet... but that number is shrinking, not rising.
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
All forms of live entertainment and venues where people gather together are doomed if we carry on like this. Activities that have survived far more serious plagues and pestilence are now doomed because ..... well because we’re unable to assess risk and take sensible hygiene measures and understand that there is no such thing as 100% safety.
Meanwhile we will carry on doing exactly the same dangerous activities at home with friends .....
Sadly this is true. Unfortunately I think I can assess risk. However others can't. When I am queuing in a shop randoms barge past to look in the ice cream freezer. Middle aged men spend an age walking up and down the alcohol line. People stand in the doorway arguing down the phone or texting their mates meaning no one else can move. They have been mandated to trust their instincts. Their instincts suck. Therefore I won't be eating out soon. Sorry.
That’s a very good argument for not going to a shop. And yet they will be allowed to open.
There is no consistency, no rationale to this, no cost-benefit analysis, as far as I can see. I don’t trust what the government says on this anymore.
Indeed. The only argument is I live in a village without a car. Therefore I have to. Believe me I wouldn't if I could. I don't have to eat out. The government hasn't made any attempt whatsoever to provide a rationale. And the mask thing is barmy. German shops are handing them out free on entry. No trust. This is far more important than Cummings...
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
Given the sort of clientele in weatherspoons most of the time, i reckon they are prime mobile super spreaders!
More seriously though, the German church outbreak shows how even with social distancing, hand sanitizer, etc, soon get a load of people infected.
Britain will be basically uninhabitable without pubs.
They are what make our climate tolerable.
I mean, it's fine now with this amazing weather and we can all picnic outside, but 7 months of the year it's too cold and wet to drink and eat outdoors so we invented The British Pub to make that bearable. And it's a splendid invention. Log fires and a fine pint after a walk on a winter day. A dog snoozing by the hearth.
Or a jolly London boozer before Christmas, all packed together and necking the gin, with frost like white lace on the windows.
Take that away and eeeesh. Bleak.
Until a few months ago, I would have agreed with you. Used to drop in to my local on the way back from work at least once a week, usually twice. And usually lunch there a couple of times a week too. In addition to the 2-4 days per week I was travelling and eating out.
But I've spent the last couple of months learning how to cook more complicated meals. And it has totally changed my view. For the same price as a nice but nothing special meal at my local, I can buy a great wine or beer and top notch organic ingredients. And enjoy the process of cooking.
Dinner parties are what I am looking forward to. Providing for your loved ones and hosting a warm reception at the same time. Can't wait.
Completely agree. My recipe repertoire has increased dramatically during lockdown
Glad it isn't just me! Working my way through the Ottolenghi Simple cook book is so much fun. I've never eaten so many tasty dishes.
Thank god for buying the Peloton too, though - as otherwise I think a few too many carbs for lockdown life....
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
Given the sort of clientele in weatherspoons most of the time, i reckon they are prime mobile super spreaders!
More seriously though, the German church outbreak shows how even with social distancing, hand sanitizer, etc, soon get a load of people infected.
Britain will be basically uninhabitable without pubs.
They are what make our climate tolerable.
I mean, it's fine now with this amazing weather and we can all picnic outside, but 7 months of the year it's too cold and wet to drink and eat outdoors so we invented The British Pub to make that bearable. And it's a splendid invention. Log fires and a fine pint after a walk on a winter day. A dog snoozing by the hearth.
Or a jolly London boozer before Christmas, all packed together and necking the gin, with frost like white lace on the windows.
Take that away and eeeesh. Bleak.
Until a few months ago, I would have agreed with you. Used to drop in to my local on the way back from work at least once a week, usually twice. And usually lunch there a couple of times a week too. In addition to the 2-4 days per week I was travelling and eating out.
But I've spent the last couple of months learning how to cook more complicated meals. And it has totally changed my view. For the same price as a nice but nothing special meal at my local, I can buy a great wine or beer and top notch organic ingredients. And enjoy the process of cooking.
Dinner parties are what I am looking forward to. Providing for your loved ones and hosting a warm reception at the same time. Can't wait.
Completely agree. My recipe repertoire has increased dramatically during lockdown
Glad it isn't just me! Working my way through the Ottolenghi Simple cook book is so much fun. I've never eaten so many tasty dishes.
Thank god for buying the Peloton too, though - as otherwise I think a few too many carbs for lockdown life....
I'm addicted to cooking.nytimes.com
Great tip. Thanks.
The potato salad with vinaigrette is almost making me drool just looking at it!
In which case 2nd wave here we come. Fewer than 5% wearing them here. Anecdata. But the government has spent 2 months telling us they don't work.
That's very different to Los Angeles. Around 90% of people on the street are wearing them, and inside shops they're compulsory.
The UK government's total failure on masks will come back to haunt it. Unbelievable negligence. Every country doing "well" on corona is strict on masks.
Masks scenes from NYC. Huge public pressure to wear them
That is the thinking. Confined spaces, extended period of exposure, especially shouting, singing, etc.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
Yes, I greatly fear for pubs and restaurants. Either we all get over the fear and take the risk, or they are pretty much doomed. Absent a good vaccine
All forms of live entertainment and venues where people gather together are doomed if we carry on like this. Activities that have survived far more serious plagues and pestilence are now doomed because ..... well because we’re unable to assess risk and take sensible hygiene measures and understand that there is no such thing as 100% safety.
Meanwhile we will carry on doing exactly the same dangerous activities at home with friends .....
Sadly this is true. Unfortunately I think I can assess risk. However others can't. When I am queuing in a shop randoms barge past to look in the ice cream freezer. Middle aged men spend an age walking up and down the alcohol line. People stand in the doorway arguing down the phone or texting their mates meaning no one else can move. They have been mandated to trust their instincts. Their instincts suck. Therefore I won't be eating out soon. Sorry.
That’s a very good argument for not going to a shop. And yet they will be allowed to open.
There is no consistency, no rationale to this, no cost-benefit analysis, as far as I can see. I don’t trust what the government says on this anymore.
Totally disagree. Pubs and restaurants mean people talking, often very loudly, laughing, very close to one another. Waiters need to get very close to deliver food etc. A trip to a medium sized restaurant might put you in close proximity, for a prolonged period of time, indoors, with 50 people.
So for now they stay closed. Many adapt, and survive, ready to bounce back. Our local Rick Stein is now doing takeaways, for example.
They stay closed. They will disappear. Takeaways are barely covering costs, if that. They are not profitable. If furlough is withdrawn before they can reopen profitably, they are doomed.
It’s not just pubs and restaurants. It’s the entire entertainment and cultural sector which is doomed, all forms of face to face associations and activities, choirs, etc - anything involving people being together.
Life without that is a miserable existence, a living death really. I don’t understand why people are so apparently sanguine about the loss of all this. It baffles me. And we’re prepared to accept this to avoid catching a virus with a 1.5% death rate while being content to live with a disease which has a 15% death rate.
As I said, baffling.
I don’t want to live a miserable existence where I can’t go anywhere or meet new people or try out new experiences. I may as well be dead if all that is going to be denied to us.
In which case 2nd wave here we come. Fewer than 5% wearing them here. Anecdata. But the government has spent 2 months telling us they don't work.
Thing is, if you look at the scientific evidence currently available, there actually isn't a lot out there, certainly nothing absolutely convincing, to suggest widespread public mask-wearing (particularly untrained folk with home-made face coverings) is going to stop the spread of a tiny virus.
"Common sense" tells you it should, e.g. we know even quite primitive coverings limit the air currents when someone sneezes, so surely that will help stop virus particles spreading so far? But common sense is often a bad guide to biomedical matters, particularly when surrogate endpoints are being used as a proxy. (We know X helps achieve Y, and we have good reason to think Y will help with the Z we really care about, so it sounds like X will help with Z, right? But very often that common sense is wrong - something might help with cholesterol levels, yet fail to ultimately prevent death from disease, for example. So I think worries about whether damp face coverings end up becoming a good way to pick up the virus have some validity.)
But there's still lots of stuff we do, or get told to do, despite a lack of convincing evidence for it. There was a fuss a while back about the unproven benefits of dental flossing for example. Obviously it can remove bits of food stuck between teeth, and one would hope it removes plaque (even there the evidence was surprisingly poor) but whether it can prevent decay turns out to be a surprisingly open question.
Flossing is something a suitably funded, well-organised, ideally quite large study really ought to be able to figure out the pros and cons of. Whether getting the untrained general public to wear home-made masks while out and about will reduce transmission rates in practice ... that's not going to be figured out easily. It's not going to be figured out any time soon.
The thing I didn't like about the official UK advice on mask-wearing is that it seemed to wait around on a quality of evidence that was never going to be forthcoming. In the end, even on the rather limited evidence base that already existed, it was inevitably going to get recommended at least lukewarmly, on the precautionary basis that it probably doesn't hurt, and something's gotta be better than nothing.
In which case they might as well have got on with recommending it earlier.
The most interesting thing I read today (or yesterday) was the fact that one of the architects of the whole concept of "lockdown" was a 14 year old girl.
Peter Hitchens linked to the article on his twitter feed earlier.
"But what is this mention of the high-school daughter of 14? Her name is Laura M. Glass, and she recently declined to be interviewed when the Albuquerque Journal did a deep dive of this history.
Laura, with some guidance from her dad, devised a computer simulation that showed how people – family members, co-workers, students in schools, people in social situations – interact. What she discovered was that school kids come in contact with about 140 people a day, more than any other group. Based on that finding, her program showed that in a hypothetical town of 10,000 people, 5,000 would be infected during a pandemic if no measures were taken, but only 500 would be infected if the schools were closed.
Laura’s name appears on the foundational paper arguing for lockdowns and forced human separation. That paper is Targeted Social Distancing Designs for Pandemic Influenza (2006). It set out a model for forced separation and applied it with good results backwards in time to 1957. They conclude with a chilling call for what amounts to a totalitarian lockdown, all stated very matter-of-factly."
In which case 2nd wave here we come. Fewer than 5% wearing them here. Anecdata. But the government has spent 2 months telling us they don't work.
Thing is, if you look at the scientific evidence currently available, there actually isn't a lot out there, certainly nothing absolutely convincing, to suggest widespread public mask-wearing (particularly untrained folk with home-made face coverings) is going to stop the spread of a tiny virus.
"Common sense" tells you it should, e.g. we know even quite primitive coverings limit the air currents when someone sneezes, so surely that will help stop virus particles spreading so far? But common sense is often a bad guide to biomedical matters, particularly when surrogate endpoints are being used as a proxy. (We know X helps achieve Y, and we have good reason to think Y will help with the Z we really care about, so it sounds like X will help with Z, right? But very often that common sense is wrong - something might help with cholesterol levels, yet fail to ultimately prevent death from disease, for example. So I think worries about whether damp face coverings end up becoming a good way to pick up the virus have some validity.)
But there's still lots of stuff we do, or get told to do, despite a lack of convincing evidence for it. There was a fuss a while back about the unproven benefits of dental flossing for example. Obviously it can remove bits of food stuck between teeth, and one would hope it removes plaque (even there the evidence was surprisingly poor) but whether it can prevent decay turns out to be a surprisingly open question.
Flossing is something a suitably funded, well-organised, ideally quite large study really ought to be able to figure out the pros and cons of. Whether getting the untrained general public to wear home-made masks while out and about will reduce transmission rates in practice ... that's not going to be figured out easily. It's not going to be figured out any time soon.
The thing I didn't like about the official UK advice on mask-wearing is that it seemed to wait around on a quality of evidence that was never going to be forthcoming. In the end, even on the rather limited evidence base that already existed, it was inevitably going to get recommended at least lukewarmly, on the precautionary basis that it probably doesn't hurt, and something's gotta be better than nothing.
In which case they might as well have got on with recommending it earlier.
Well it couldn't hurt. You may feel like a twat. Seatbelts spring to mind.
The most interesting thing I read today (or yesterday) was the fact that one of the architects of the whole concept of "lockdown" was a 14 year old girl.
Peter Hitchens linked to the article on his twitter feed earlier.
"But what is this mention of the high-school daughter of 14? Her name is Laura M. Glass, and she recently declined to be interviewed when the Albuquerque Journal did a deep dive of this history.
Laura, with some guidance from her dad, devised a computer simulation that showed how people – family members, co-workers, students in schools, people in social situations – interact. What she discovered was that school kids come in contact with about 140 people a day, more than any other group. Based on that finding, her program showed that in a hypothetical town of 10,000 people, 5,000 would be infected during a pandemic if no measures were taken, but only 500 would be infected if the schools were closed.
Laura’s name appears on the foundational paper arguing for lockdowns and forced human separation. That paper is Targeted Social Distancing Designs for Pandemic Influenza (2006). It set out a model for forced separation and applied it with good results backwards in time to 1957. They conclude with a chilling call for what amounts to a totalitarian lockdown, all stated very matter-of-factly."
Is she wrong though? Or is she a 14 year old girl?
In which case 2nd wave here we come. Fewer than 5% wearing them here. Anecdata. But the government has spent 2 months telling us they don't work.
That's very different to Los Angeles. Around 90% of people on the street are wearing them, and inside shops they're compulsory.
The UK government's total failure on masks will come back to haunt it. Unbelievable negligence. Every country doing "well" on corona is strict on masks.
Masks scenes from NYC. Huge public pressure to wear them
In which case 2nd wave here we come. Fewer than 5% wearing them here. Anecdata. But the government has spent 2 months telling us they don't work.
Thing is, if you look at the scientific evidence currently available, there actually isn't a lot out there, certainly nothing absolutely convincing, to suggest widespread public mask-wearing (particularly untrained folk with home-made face coverings) is going to stop the spread of a tiny virus.
"Common sense" tells you it should, e.g. we know even quite primitive coverings limit the air currents when someone sneezes, so surely that will help stop virus particles spreading so far? But common sense is often a bad guide to biomedical matters, particularly when surrogate endpoints are being used as a proxy. (We know X helps achieve Y, and we have good reason to think Y will help with the Z we really care about, so it sounds like X will help with Z, right? But very often that common sense is wrong - something might help with cholesterol levels, yet fail to ultimately prevent death from disease, for example. So I think worries about whether damp face coverings end up becoming a good way to pick up the virus have some validity.)
But there's still lots of stuff we do, or get told to do, despite a lack of convincing evidence for it. There was a fuss a while back about the unproven benefits of dental flossing for example. Obviously it can remove bits of food stuck between teeth, and one would hope it removes plaque (even there the evidence was surprisingly poor) but whether it can prevent decay turns out to be a surprisingly open question.
Flossing is something a suitably funded, well-organised, ideally quite large study really ought to be able to figure out the pros and cons of. Whether getting the untrained general public to wear home-made masks while out and about will reduce transmission rates in practice ... that's not going to be figured out easily. It's not going to be figured out any time soon.
The thing I didn't like about the official UK advice on mask-wearing is that it seemed to wait around on a quality of evidence that was never going to be forthcoming. In the end, even on the rather limited evidence base that already existed, it was inevitably going to get recommended at least lukewarmly, on the precautionary basis that it probably doesn't hurt, and something's gotta be better than nothing.
In which case they might as well have got on with recommending it earlier.
Well it couldn't hurt. You may feel like a twat. Seatbelts spring to mind.
To be fair, it could make things worse. There are a couple of reasons to think it could have negative effects - masks moist from the wearer's own breath might make transmission easier, particularly if they touch it to adjust it or don't take it off properly, and "false sense of security" could in principle lead to people abandoning social distancing. But then, overzealous flossing can damage your gums, and you can be decapitated by your own seat belt, yet those risks don't invalidate flossing or seat-belt wearing.
Most of the common-sensical reasons to think "it could make things worse" have a common-sensical counter-argument like "wearing a mask reminds you not to touch your face so often" or "talking to someone with a mask is a visual reminder we're in unusual times and should keep our distance, and certainly not hug or kiss". So such arguments don't really prove anything either way - some observational evidence of whether, in practice, mask-wearers maintain social distancing might be useful, but will be confounded by the greater mask-wearing among people who take COVID more seriously...
In the timeframe available we're unlikely to get definitive answers to the questions raise by mask-wearing. But there is some suggestive evidence in their favour, and the risks of harm seem largely speculative, so on the balance of probabilities masks at least seem in the "probably won't hurt, might just help" category.
In which case 2nd wave here we come. Fewer than 5% wearing them here. Anecdata. But the government has spent 2 months telling us they don't work.
That's very different to Los Angeles. Around 90% of people on the street are wearing them, and inside shops they're compulsory.
The UK government's total failure on masks will come back to haunt it. Unbelievable negligence. Every country doing "well" on corona is strict on masks.
Masks scenes from NYC. Huge public pressure to wear them
So why can’t cafes and restaurants reopen if shops can?
I would assume due to length of time spent in them
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
So why can’t cafes and restaurants reopen if shops can?
I would assume due to length of time spent in them
Yes, proximity, interaction, and weight of viral load over time
The worst places are gyms, choirs, churches, mosques, theatres, cinemas, clubs, dance halls, basically anywhere indoors where people are crowded together and panting air through singing, laughing, loudly talking
That is to say: many of the fun places that make life worth living
All you describe applies to quite a lot of shops too, shopping centres especially.
And in response to @Chris: I don’t expect instant normality but I’d like to understand what the scientific basis is for allowing some indoor places to reopen and not others. And whether that really is the basis for this decision and whether it has been weighed against the costs.
It’s beyond me why pubs with beer gardens can’t open in summertime. I hope to see this change soon.
This is one area where the Scottish Government seem to be ahead of England in terms of timescale with Pubs and Cafes with outdoor seating alllowed to open in phase 2 which should be in mid-June. However this will no doubt coincide with the wettest June/July on record. However for many of these places the small number of tables outside will not make it viable to be open.
There are a few cafes around here doing take-away coffee etc not to make money but just so that they are losing less money than being closed. It is hard to see how many coffee shops in particular can survive if they have to half the number of tables that they are allowed to keep the social distancing rules once they do re-open. Even the queues in a Costa or a Nero around here will be out the door most of the day if we are all keeping the 2m distance.
It is something where in Europe they have got restaurants and cafes etc open fairly quickly in the reopening phase. And with a shorter distance in many countries for social distancing this allows for greater capacity. It will be interesting to see if this has any effect on the number of infections. Because if there is no rise due to them being open then the one solution to a lot of the problems for hospitality and catering businesses here is going to be to reduce the distance. (This would also help schools planning for have all pupils back in the Autumn)
In which case 2nd wave here we come. Fewer than 5% wearing them here. Anecdata. But the government has spent 2 months telling us they don't work.
Thing is, if you look at the scientific evidence currently available, there actually isn't a lot out there, certainly nothing absolutely convincing, to suggest widespread public mask-wearing (particularly untrained folk with home-made face coverings) is going to stop the spread of a tiny virus.
"Common sense" tells you it should, e.g. we know even quite primitive coverings limit the air currents when someone sneezes, so surely that will help stop virus particles spreading so far? But common sense is often a bad guide to biomedical matters, particularly when surrogate endpoints are being used as a proxy. (We know X helps achieve Y, and we have good reason to think Y will help with the Z we really care about, so it sounds like X will help with Z, right? But very often that common sense is wrong - something might help with cholesterol levels, yet fail to ultimately prevent death from disease, for example. So I think worries about whether damp face coverings end up becoming a good way to pick up the virus have some validity.)
But there's still lots of stuff we do, or get told to do, despite a lack of convincing evidence for it. There was a fuss a while back about the unproven benefits of dental flossing for example. Obviously it can remove bits of food stuck between teeth, and one would hope it removes plaque (even there the evidence was surprisingly poor) but whether it can prevent decay turns out to be a surprisingly open question.
Flossing is something a suitably funded, well-organised, ideally quite large study really ought to be able to figure out the pros and cons of. Whether getting the untrained general public to wear home-made masks while out and about will reduce transmission rates in practice ... that's not going to be figured out easily. It's not going to be figured out any time soon.
The thing I didn't like about the official UK advice on mask-wearing is that it seemed to wait around on a quality of evidence that was never going to be forthcoming. In the end, even on the rather limited evidence base that already existed, it was inevitably going to get recommended at least lukewarmly, on the precautionary basis that it probably doesn't hurt, and something's gotta be better than nothing.
In which case they might as well have got on with recommending it earlier.
Well it couldn't hurt. You may feel like a twat. Seatbelts spring to mind.
To be fair, it could make things worse. There are a couple of reasons to think it could have negative effects - masks moist from the wearer's own breath might make transmission easier, particularly if they touch it to adjust it or don't take it off properly, and "false sense of security" could in principle lead to people abandoning social distancing. But then, overzealous flossing can damage your gums, and you can be decapitated by your own seat belt, yet those risks don't invalidate flossing or seat-belt wearing.
Most of the common-sensical reasons to think "it could make things worse" have a common-sensical counter-argument like "wearing a mask reminds you not to touch your face so often" or "talking to someone with a mask is a visual reminder we're in unusual times and should keep our distance, and certainly not hug or kiss". So such arguments don't really prove anything either way - some observational evidence of whether, in practice, mask-wearers maintain social distancing might be useful, but will be confounded by the greater mask-wearing among people who take COVID more seriously...
In the timeframe available we're unlikely to get definitive answers to the questions raise by mask-wearing. But there is some suggestive evidence in their favour, and the risks of harm seem largely speculative, so on the balance of probabilities masks at least seem in the "probably won't hurt, might just help" category.
Countries where mask wearing is more prevalent seem to have done noticeably better, so I doubt it's making things worse.
The most interesting thing I read today (or yesterday) was the fact that one of the architects of the whole concept of "lockdown" was a 14 year old girl.
Peter Hitchens linked to the article on his twitter feed earlier.
"But what is this mention of the high-school daughter of 14? Her name is Laura M. Glass, and she recently declined to be interviewed when the Albuquerque Journal did a deep dive of this history.
Laura, with some guidance from her dad, devised a computer simulation that showed how people – family members, co-workers, students in schools, people in social situations – interact. What she discovered was that school kids come in contact with about 140 people a day, more than any other group. Based on that finding, her program showed that in a hypothetical town of 10,000 people, 5,000 would be infected during a pandemic if no measures were taken, but only 500 would be infected if the schools were closed.
Laura’s name appears on the foundational paper arguing for lockdowns and forced human separation. That paper is Targeted Social Distancing Designs for Pandemic Influenza (2006). It set out a model for forced separation and applied it with good results backwards in time to 1957. They conclude with a chilling call for what amounts to a totalitarian lockdown, all stated very matter-of-factly."
Someone seriously believes that the concept of "lockdown" as a pandemic response doesn't predate the computer modelling of anyone, regardless of that person's age or gender?
When people had to deal with infectious diseases before that, what did they do? The power of prayer, strong herbs and progroms of ethnic or religious minorities were always on the menu, but some concept of "lockdown" - in whichever form, given the specific circumstances of life - was a perennial mainstay. Some people might even consider organised response to infectious disease to be a crucial hallmark of what we like to call civilisation.
That 14 year old girl's modelling is an effort to figure out how exactly it works, she obviously didn't invent the concept of lockdown, and Mr Hitchens - for all his deficiencies - should still be able to recognise that.
The most interesting thing I read today (or yesterday) was the fact that one of the architects of the whole concept of "lockdown" was a 14 year old girl.
Peter Hitchens linked to the article on his twitter feed earlier.
"But what is this mention of the high-school daughter of 14? Her name is Laura M. Glass, and she recently declined to be interviewed when the Albuquerque Journal did a deep dive of this history.
Laura, with some guidance from her dad, devised a computer simulation that showed how people – family members, co-workers, students in schools, people in social situations – interact. What she discovered was that school kids come in contact with about 140 people a day, more than any other group. Based on that finding, her program showed that in a hypothetical town of 10,000 people, 5,000 would be infected during a pandemic if no measures were taken, but only 500 would be infected if the schools were closed.
Laura’s name appears on the foundational paper arguing for lockdowns and forced human separation. That paper is Targeted Social Distancing Designs for Pandemic Influenza (2006). It set out a model for forced separation and applied it with good results backwards in time to 1957. They conclude with a chilling call for what amounts to a totalitarian lockdown, all stated very matter-of-factly."
Someone seriously believes that the concept of "lockdown" as a pandemic response doesn't predate the computer modelling of anyone, regardless of that person's age or gender?
When people had to deal with infectious diseases before that, what did they do? The power of prayer, strong herbs and progroms of ethnic or religious minorities were always on the menu, but some concept of "lockdown" - in whichever form, given the specific circumstances of life - was a perennial mainstay. Some people might even consider organised response to infectious disease to be a crucial hallmark of what we like to call civilisation.
That 14 year old girl's modelling is an effort to figure out how exactly it works, she obviously didn't invent the concept of lockdown, and Mr Hitchens - for all his deficiencies - should still be able to recognise that.
Thank you for elegantly writing what I had been thinking,
The idea that "lockdowns" to deal with infectious diseases is a new concept is so utterly bizarre, that I fear for Mr Hitchens sanity.
The most interesting thing I read today (or yesterday) was the fact that one of the architects of the whole concept of "lockdown" was a 14 year old girl.
Peter Hitchens linked to the article on his twitter feed earlier.
"But what is this mention of the high-school daughter of 14? Her name is Laura M. Glass, and she recently declined to be interviewed when the Albuquerque Journal did a deep dive of this history.
Laura, with some guidance from her dad, devised a computer simulation that showed how people – family members, co-workers, students in schools, people in social situations – interact. What she discovered was that school kids come in contact with about 140 people a day, more than any other group. Based on that finding, her program showed that in a hypothetical town of 10,000 people, 5,000 would be infected during a pandemic if no measures were taken, but only 500 would be infected if the schools were closed.
Laura’s name appears on the foundational paper arguing for lockdowns and forced human separation. That paper is Targeted Social Distancing Designs for Pandemic Influenza (2006). It set out a model for forced separation and applied it with good results backwards in time to 1957. They conclude with a chilling call for what amounts to a totalitarian lockdown, all stated very matter-of-factly."
Someone seriously believes that the concept of "lockdown" as a pandemic response doesn't predate the computer modelling of anyone, regardless of that person's age or gender?
When people had to deal with infectious diseases before that, what did they do? The power of prayer, strong herbs and progroms of ethnic or religious minorities were always on the menu, but some concept of "lockdown" - in whichever form, given the specific circumstances of life - was a perennial mainstay. Some people might even consider organised response to infectious disease to be a crucial hallmark of what we like to call civilisation.
That 14 year old girl's modelling is an effort to figure out how exactly it works, she obviously didn't invent the concept of lockdown, and Mr Hitchens - for all his deficiencies - should still be able to recognise that.
Thank you for elegantly writing what I had been thinking,
The idea that "lockdowns" to deal with infectious diseases is a new concept is so utterly bizarre, that I fear for Mr Hitchens sanity.
He gives the impression he doesn't quite believe that viruses even exist.
ORDERS CONCEIVED AND PUBLISHED BY THE LORD MAYOR AND ALDERMEN OF THE CITY OF LONDON CONCERNING THE INFECTION OF THE PLAGUE, 1665.
...
Watchmen.
‘That to every infected house there be appointed two watchmen, one for every day, and the other for the night; and that these watchmen have a special care that no person go in or out of such infected houses whereof they have the charge, upon pain of severe punishment. And the said watchmen to do such further offices as the sick house shall need and require: and if the watchman be sent upon any business, to lock up the house and take the key with him; and the watchman by day to attend until ten of the clock at night, and the watchman by night until six in the morning.
...
Feasting prohibited.
‘That all public feasting, and particularly by the companies of this city, and dinners at taverns, ale-houses, and other places of common entertainment, be forborne till further order and allowance; and that the money thereby spared be preserved and employed for the benefit and relief of the poor visited with the infection.
..."
This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very cruel and unchristian method, and the poor people so confined made bitter lamentations.
The whole of the Orders, and subsequent discussion of the and indeed the whole book are well worth reading. Hitchens torpedoes his own claim by saying that social distancing is a politically correct way of saying quarantine - a word which would not be needed if tbe thing it denotes did not exist.
I hadn't really encountered Cummings before yesterday and my impression of him was of an immensely clever villain - Blofeld with a dash of Moriarty. I am disappointed to find a sad, silly, vain and not overly bright little man.
I hadn't really encountered Cummings before yesterday and my impression of him was of an immensely clever villain - Blofeld with a dash of Moriarty. I am disappointed to find a sad, silly, vain and not overly bright little man.
My impression is that Cummings seems a bit like me. I'd even read Tetlock on Superforecasting before Cummings started plugging it. Trouble is, I'm not bright enough to be running the country. Nor is a man who drives 30 miles to test his eyesight rather than simply try to read a number plate from a distance.
One thing we’ve learnt today, Richard, is that even when government does make rules, it is possible for some people to distinguish between those rules which apply to them and those which apply to other people.
The concept of rules applying equally to all has been rather damaged, no?
Yes, probably, although I have to say that the glee with which some people seem to be saying they will risk the lives of themselves and others others purely as an act of revenge against the undoubted arrogance of Dominic Cummings is not something I find particularly seemly.
Of course its not seemly, the glee comes from the expected release of frustration, anger and isolation, not because they are pleased about the consequences.
So why can’t cafes and restaurants reopen if shops can?
I would assume due to length of time spent in them
Have you and @Richard_Nabavi ever gone shopping with a woman or been somewhere like Westfield or Trafford Shopping Centres. People spend hours in them.
So why can’t cafes and restaurants reopen if shops can?
I would assume due to length of time spent in them
Yes, proximity, interaction, and weight of viral load over time
The worst places are gyms, choirs, churches, mosques, theatres, cinemas, clubs, dance halls, basically anywhere indoors where people are crowded together and panting air through singing, laughing, loudly talking
That is to say: many of the fun places that make life worth living
All you describe applies to quite a lot of shops too, shopping centres especially.
And in response to @Chris: I don’t expect instant normality but I’d like to understand what the scientific basis is for allowing some indoor places to reopen and not others. And whether that really is the basis for this decision and whether it has been weighed against the costs.
It’s beyond me why pubs with beer gardens can’t open in summertime. I hope to see this change soon.
This seems such an obvious starting point, especially in summer. I would have liked to see outdoor places being allowed to open in June.
Amazed nobody asked him which route he took, to do the journey in half and hour takes some doing, did he use the A688 like the rest of us. If he did he must have been going at 60mph through Spennymoor, Bishop Aukland etc, way, way over the speed limit. It smells. But he will get away with it. PS London reporters probably did not know Barnard Castle existed, one called it Castle Barnard, I ask you.
Comments
I often used to sit in cafes in a corner writing - by myself - with the occasional interaction with waiting staff. There was much less interaction with strangers - even in a busy one - than in a shop.
The point is that you can’t make the sort of generalities you have just made about shops vs cafes and the behaviours of people in them or the risks they might therefore run if they were open.
There needs to be some fairness in how we deal with continued closure of businesses and how we treat their reopening. I know fairness is not something which seems to animate this government but still worth hanging onto, don’t you think.?
* Well, possibly a different Oxbridge college, but hey time can't stand still.
What we do (tentatively) know is that bars, restaurants, nightclubs etc have been significant causes of clusters of infection, whereas shops don't seem to have been. So it's very reasonable for governments to see if they can open the latter before opening the former.
Or is that overly cynical?
But we need care. Reopening to very very few customers would be the worst of all outcomes.
That really is a rather damning chart.
In the UK, our experts have been totally opposed to that view, arguing that we must lockdown and flatten the curve now and not worry about the long game.
And yet...
The concept of rules applying equally to all has been rather damaged, no?
Even more than most international comparisons, which of course depend on different ways of measuring, etc.
Great writing, acting and cinematography. It dealt well with the issues of self esteem and mental health that are such a problem to the youngsters.
I also liked its Irishness, without any stereotypes.
Sun comes out and loads of people seem to think you can't catch this thing.
One thing i am always struck by is people might try and do the 2m thing, but don't pay any attention to what people are touching.
In the event that things go wrong this autumn, and we need another lockdown. Even a smart lockdown; much more local and shorter-lived than the one we're stuck with now. Or some other inconvenient measures to squash a flareup of an infection.
How the @&**#?! does this government gather together the moral authority to do what might need to be done?
https://twitter.com/tom_slater_/status/1264966677969735681?s=21
I actually found myself wondering today what Marianne and Connell would be doing right now!
I get migraines auras sometimes that thave caused me to pull over when driving.
However, it has been shown that contaminated surfaces still a hazard. German study found a guy got it from being handed a salt shaker.
And heard US authorities talking about toilets, very concerned about how much of a potential hazard they are.
I don't fancy touching say a surface that 100 other people have on the past hour getting their booze. Also people have a few drinks and then lose any sense of inhibition. We think they maintain their social distance, wash hands in the bogs properly, etc?
That is the problem the government has created for itself and for us.
As someone who's been wearing readers for a year or so I reflected also on whether your experience was my experience. Concluded it wasn't and moved on.
But kudos for raising a different view. It certainly got me thinking.
More seriously though, the German church outbreak shows how even with social distancing, hand sanitizer, etc, soon get a load of people infected.
Tonight I am finishing 'the last dance' on Netflix, also recommended
Both major characters are so flawed by their inner life diverging so much from their external life. Each is their own worst enemy.
The scenes in Tuscany are heartbreakingly beautiful.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_trump_job_approval-6179.html
Brazil 757
USA 482
Mexico 215
Peru 173
India 148
UK 121
Canada 121
Ecuador 95
Russia 92
Italy 92
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Anecdata. But the government has spent 2 months telling us they don't work.
Meanwhile we will carry on doing exactly the same dangerous activities at home with friends .....
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265009852516110336?s=20
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1265011145879977985?s=20
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
https://twitter.com/KenRoth/status/1265059455902908416
They have been mandated to trust their instincts.
Their instincts suck.
Therefore I won't be eating out soon.
Sorry.
Eye strain can also be a result of the distortion caused by the refractive properties of certain types of spectacle lenses. The subtle blurriness caused by this distortion in peripheral vision, requires eye muscles to strain in order to retain clear vision. Such prolonged distortion can lead to an increase in strain which is eventually felt by muscles surrounding the eye (in severe cases, even muscles of the upper cheek and forehead). Plastic lenses cause greater distortion than glass lenses and this can easily be verified by focusing both eyes on a screen directly in front and turning the head left or right while continuing to look at the same spot on the screen while wearing spectacles.
Frequent changes in spectacle lenses results in the focal point of the new spectacles being different from the older spectacles. This forces the eye muscles to re-adjust and causes more strain. This adjustment becomes more difficult after the age of 26.
What particularly resonated with me about Dom's description was how this sensation came on after a period of sickness. I suppose it could be triggered by something like poor sleep while ill rather than by the disease itself. He sounded genuinely disconcerted by it and I felt immediately familiar with that odd, confidence-sapping sensation of being unsure whether you're up to doing a normally straightforward task while, at the same time, not experiencing any specific deterioration that proves that you can't. I'm not justifying what Cummings did, but it was a detail that rang very true to me yet has produced some of the most incredulous and derisive reactions, so I was wondering if my experience was unusual. (If it was a fabricated detail then it was a bizarre choice to insert!)
Sorry to hear about the migraines @Foxy, that's one affliction I can count myself lucky enough to have avoided. A young relative of mine had a stroke while driving on a busy A-road, which was a nasty experience - no place to safely pull over.
Modi is a success story on this
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
There is no consistency, no rationale to this, no cost-benefit analysis, as far as I can see. I don’t trust what the government says on this anymore.
Priti also wanted flight bans and passengers quarantined months ago but was overruled
But I've spent the last couple of months learning how to cook more complicated meals. And it has totally changed my view. For the same price as a nice but nothing special meal at my local, I can buy a great wine or beer and top notch organic ingredients. And enjoy the process of cooking.
Dinner parties are what I am looking forward to. Providing for your loved ones and hosting a warm reception at the same time. Can't wait.
So for now they stay closed. Many adapt, and survive, ready to bounce back. Our local Rick Stein is now doing takeaways, for example.
If you do a good job with mask wearing (particularly in crowded spaces), you can open much of the economy back up.
Thank god for buying the Peloton too, though - as otherwise I think a few too many carbs for lockdown life....
Now, there are still many millions of Americans who hang of his every tweet... but that number is shrinking, not rising.
The government hasn't made any attempt whatsoever to provide a rationale. And the mask thing is barmy. German shops are handing them out free on entry. No trust.
This is far more important than Cummings...
https://www.salon.com/2020/05/23/rick-wilson-trumps-campaign-manager-parscale-is-milking-him-like-cow-as-re-election-bid-dies_partner/
The potato salad with vinaigrette is almost making me drool just looking at it!
It’s not just pubs and restaurants. It’s the entire entertainment and cultural sector which is doomed, all forms of face to face associations and activities, choirs, etc - anything involving people being together.
Life without that is a miserable existence, a living death really. I don’t understand why people are so apparently sanguine about the loss of all this. It baffles me. And we’re prepared to accept this to avoid catching a virus with a 1.5% death rate while being content to live with a disease which has a 15% death rate.
As I said, baffling.
I don’t want to live a miserable existence where I can’t go anywhere or meet new people or try out new experiences. I may as well be dead if all that is going to be denied to us.
"Common sense" tells you it should, e.g. we know even quite primitive coverings limit the air currents when someone sneezes, so surely that will help stop virus particles spreading so far? But common sense is often a bad guide to biomedical matters, particularly when surrogate endpoints are being used as a proxy. (We know X helps achieve Y, and we have good reason to think Y will help with the Z we really care about, so it sounds like X will help with Z, right? But very often that common sense is wrong - something might help with cholesterol levels, yet fail to ultimately prevent death from disease, for example. So I think worries about whether damp face coverings end up becoming a good way to pick up the virus have some validity.)
But there's still lots of stuff we do, or get told to do, despite a lack of convincing evidence for it. There was a fuss a while back about the unproven benefits of dental flossing for example. Obviously it can remove bits of food stuck between teeth, and one would hope it removes plaque (even there the evidence was surprisingly poor) but whether it can prevent decay turns out to be a surprisingly open question.
Flossing is something a suitably funded, well-organised, ideally quite large study really ought to be able to figure out the pros and cons of. Whether getting the untrained general public to wear home-made masks while out and about will reduce transmission rates in practice ... that's not going to be figured out easily. It's not going to be figured out any time soon.
The thing I didn't like about the official UK advice on mask-wearing is that it seemed to wait around on a quality of evidence that was never going to be forthcoming. In the end, even on the rather limited evidence base that already existed, it was inevitably going to get recommended at least lukewarmly, on the precautionary basis that it probably doesn't hurt, and something's gotta be better than nothing.
In which case they might as well have got on with recommending it earlier.
Peter Hitchens linked to the article on his twitter feed earlier.
https://www.aier.org/article/the-2006-origins-of-the-lockdown-idea/
"But what is this mention of the high-school daughter of 14? Her name is Laura M. Glass, and she recently declined to be interviewed when the Albuquerque Journal did a deep dive of this history.
Laura, with some guidance from her dad, devised a computer simulation that showed how people – family members, co-workers, students in schools, people in social situations – interact. What she discovered was that school kids come in contact with about 140 people a day, more than any other group. Based on that finding, her program showed that in a hypothetical town of 10,000 people, 5,000 would be infected during a pandemic if no measures were taken, but only 500 would be infected if the schools were closed.
Laura’s name appears on the foundational paper arguing for lockdowns and forced human separation. That paper is Targeted Social Distancing Designs for Pandemic Influenza (2006). It set out a model for forced separation and applied it with good results backwards in time to 1957. They conclude with a chilling call for what amounts to a totalitarian lockdown, all stated very matter-of-factly."
https://twitter.com/StevePeers/status/1265036486036148224
Most of the common-sensical reasons to think "it could make things worse" have a common-sensical counter-argument like "wearing a mask reminds you not to touch your face so often" or "talking to someone with a mask is a visual reminder we're in unusual times and should keep our distance, and certainly not hug or kiss". So such arguments don't really prove anything either way - some observational evidence of whether, in practice, mask-wearers maintain social distancing might be useful, but will be confounded by the greater mask-wearing among people who take COVID more seriously...
In the timeframe available we're unlikely to get definitive answers to the questions raise by mask-wearing. But there is some suggestive evidence in their favour, and the risks of harm seem largely speculative, so on the balance of probabilities masks at least seem in the "probably won't hurt, might just help" category.
There are a few cafes around here doing take-away coffee etc not to make money but just so that they are losing less money than being closed. It is hard to see how many coffee shops in particular can survive if they have to half the number of tables that they are allowed to keep the social distancing rules once they do re-open. Even the queues in a Costa or a Nero around here will be out the door most of the day if we are all keeping the 2m distance.
It is something where in Europe they have got restaurants and cafes etc open fairly quickly in the reopening phase. And with a shorter distance in many countries for social distancing this allows for greater capacity. It will be interesting to see if this has any effect on the number of infections. Because if there is no rise due to them being open then the one solution to a lot of the problems for hospitality and catering businesses here is going to be to reduce the distance. (This would also help schools planning for have all pupils back in the Autumn)
When people had to deal with infectious diseases before that, what did they do? The power of prayer, strong herbs and progroms of ethnic or religious minorities were always on the menu, but some concept of "lockdown" - in whichever form, given the specific circumstances of life - was a perennial mainstay.
Some people might even consider organised response to infectious disease to be a crucial hallmark of what we like to call civilisation.
That 14 year old girl's modelling is an effort to figure out how exactly it works, she obviously didn't invent the concept of lockdown, and Mr Hitchens - for all his deficiencies - should still be able to recognise that.
The idea that "lockdowns" to deal with infectious diseases is a new concept is so utterly bizarre, that I fear for Mr Hitchens sanity.
...
Watchmen.
‘That to every infected house there be appointed two watchmen, one for every day, and the other for the night; and that these watchmen have a special care that no person go in or out of such infected houses whereof they have the charge, upon pain of severe punishment. And the said watchmen to do such further offices as the sick house shall need and require: and if the watchman be sent upon any business, to lock up the house and take the key with him; and the watchman by day to attend until ten of the clock at night, and the watchman by night until six in the morning.
...
Feasting prohibited.
‘That all public feasting, and particularly by the companies of this city, and dinners at taverns, ale-houses, and other places of common entertainment, be forborne till further order and allowance; and that the money thereby spared be preserved and employed for the benefit and relief of the poor visited with the infection.
..."
This shutting up of houses was at first counted a very cruel and unchristian method, and the poor people so confined made bitter lamentations.
...
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/376/376-h/376-h.htm
Defoe Journal of the Plague Year
The whole of the Orders, and subsequent discussion of the and indeed the whole book are well worth reading. Hitchens torpedoes his own claim by saying that social distancing is a politically correct way of saying quarantine - a word which would not be needed if tbe thing it denotes did not exist.
PS London reporters probably did not know Barnard Castle existed, one called it Castle Barnard, I ask you.