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    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,130

    One thing that might be a big step forward to support the black community in the UK would be free prescriptions of Vitamin D supplements. Black people are more vulnerable to illnesses in which Vitamin D deficiency is implicated, due to the superior sun-blocking abilities of black skin. These include diabetes, and it's logical that coronavirus also falls into this category.

    You can buy it for peanuts
  • Options
    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,451
    edited June 2020
    fox327 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    And it is all very well talking about common-sense and then announcing two days beforehand that these are the rules and you have to comply with them and businesses then realising that they can’t and then facing problems.

    We still don’t know whether any of the social distancing advice will be made into enforceable rules. For instance, will pubs be legally required to keep people 2 metres apart?

    Anyone know?

    No, they won't. The current guidance for offices deals with situations where the 2m recommendation cannot be met. It provides the business must:
    Consider whether an activity needs to continue for the business to operate
    Keeping the activity time involved as short as possible
    Using screens or barriers to separate people from each other
    Using back-to-back or side-to-side working whenever possible
    Staggering arrival and departure times
    Reducing the number of people each person has contact with by using ‘fixed teams or partnering’
    So a restaurant will need to keep people 2m apart where they can; to restrict the time they are closer where they can't; to use screens (masks) etc where possible; to encourage queues that are side by side rather than behind each other (unlike those idiot MPs); to have as much of a gap as possible between front of house and back of house staff; to keep smaller teams in different parts of the establishment working together. etc. etc.
    All of which sounds perfectly sensible and achievable in a pub...
    Which is why it should be up to pubs and their customers to think for themselves what is achievable and what is not.

    I don't think there either will be or should be a detailed checklist saying this is what you must do because what suits some might not suit others. Use your common sense and you should be fine.

    If your question is: Is rigorously cleaning my toilets and providing sanitiser acceptable and you haven't heard anything to the contrary my assumption would be: Yes.

    The guidance is out there - try to keep people 2m apart etc. How you want to implement that though should be entrusted to those who know their businesses not know it alls who have no involvement in Whitehall.
    It is not possible to keep people apart in a pub. The point of a pub is for people to meet up and be together.

    If it is not a rule - and it isn’t - then let people come if they want, have hand sanitizers available, have rigorous hygiene, clean tables etc. Let customers decide. From what my daughter’s customers are saying, they want it reopened. Many will use it. How many is the question. But if they do come, it will not be physically possible to have any form of social distancing.

    Will insurance be valid? Will a venue be legally liable if someone becomes ill?

    And the answer is.......?

    If 2 metres is a legally enforceable rule then many pubs, including my daughter’s will have to close.

    So the distinction between whether this is a legally enforceable rule or merely guidance which can be ignored if it is not reasonable to do so for a particular venue is a critical one.

    And as yet there is no answer. It is not unreasonable for people in government to be thinking about such issue and providing clarity. The government took on responsibility for the hospitality sector when it shut it down. It cannot wash its hands now just because a bit of hard thinking is needed.

    I note that there are a lot of cafes and restaurants in my area that are still closed, or which are taking only online orders not walk-in business. Yet most shops will be allowed to reopen in a week from today. I am beginning to think that in fact many shops and restaurants will remain closed even after next week.

    This will put pressure on the government which wants to restart the economy. To persuade many businesses to reopen the government may have to relax the restrictions such as social distancing, as otherwise there will be little point in them reopening.
    Hotels are due to be allowed to reopen in Ireland on the 29th June (brought forward from 20th July).

    I had suggested to my wife that it would be nice to go to the hotel where we were married for a couple of nights, partly to support them as a going concern and to have a bit of time away.

    But then we talked about it again and decided that it might not be relaxing at all, with hand sanitizer stations higher and thither, and wondering whether any of the staff or guests were asymptomatic carriers. Staying at home would be more relaxing.

    Similarly for cafes and restaurants and non-essential shopping. I'll go masked-up to a supermarket, because I have to, but why would I do the same to a pub or restaurant?

    I think those businesses are fucked until the virus is crushed, New Zealand style.
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 20,165
    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
  • Options
    contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    alterego said:

    I am not sure that showing us pictures of lots of bad people who just happen not to be Minnesota cops or Bristolian slave traders makes the sins of the Minneapolis PD or Edward Colston go away.

    Of course it won;t but what it will hopefully do is make these protests go away by showing up the protestors as the hypocrites they are.

    Black people could be slaughtering each other on an industrial scale, and that would be completely ignored by Black Lives Matter.
    Paragraph 2 part 1 is quite probably factually correct. I don't see how that makes Derek Chauvin asphyxiating George Floyd OK.
    Nobody is claiming it does. And I think everybody hopes Chauvin and any others will receive the very heavy punishment it probably deserves.

    But there's no need for policemen in Britain to get injured for that to happen. It is going to happen anyway.

    If Chauvin walked or got a light sentence because of a white jury or biased judge or if evidence got 'lost' or policemen perjured themselves to try to save him, fine. I could see why America's cities would be on fire. And Britain's.

    But in all probability that ain't gonna happen. Because actually Floyd probably is going to get the justice he deserves.
    Paragraph 2. You are 100% correct.

    Final paragraph. A bit late for Mr Floyd. If he was a bad guy, throw him in jail by all means. But even if he was a bad guy, he deserved due process rather than an execution by accident or design on a kerbside in Minneapolis.
    I absolutely agree Floyd deserved his day in court, though whether he would have got that is another matter.

    I don;t know much about the US court system, but from what I have seen its there, and not on the streets, where the real racial injustice may be.

    The plea bargain/ public defender system militates very strongly against the impoverished defendent in the American system, and therefore against the black person, in real terms.

    I wonder how many innocent black people take the deal rather than fight their case with a weak attorney, risking a draconian punishment.
    I believe in US talking single digit percent of cases actually go to trial, the rest are settled by plea bargain.
    Indeed. Its little wonder the black community hate the police so much when arrest and charge means a de facto prison sentence in almost every case.
    Surely the more serious the charge, the smaller percentage plea bargained. Is there data on that?
    I don;t know. The sentences for murder can be extremely long if you risk court, and I think its true that even if you are accused of a serious crime in the US, that does not guarantee you a serious lawyer if you cannot pay. Far from it.
  • Options
    Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    Perhaps this theory about a significant proportion of the population having natural immunity has legs, and that herd immunity doesn't need 60%+ to catch it, 20-25% might be enough.
    German\Norwegian study suggesting Blood group may be a major factor.
    Bad news if you are A type ( esp A+ ), good news for O Types

    https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article209150033/Studie-Blutgruppe-beeinflusst-Schwere-des-Covid-19-Verlaufs.html
    You mean that Lord Eadric the Divine is not our saviour after all??? :open_mouth:

    It is all random???
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,631

    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
    Yes, I think it's time for someone in the government to basically explain where we're at and actually for the stats to be broken out into care home deaths and community deaths. Lumping the two together isn't very helpful as the wider community hasn't got a lot to do with what happens in care homes.

    Unfortunately as has been pointed out, it's pretty obvious that no one in the government really understands any of this. If they did we would have moved the graphs to date of death a long time ago and we'd be doing much better forwards projections than what the government are producing.
  • Options
    squareroot2squareroot2 Posts: 6,379

    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Not a word to say about the tens of thousands of 'protesters' engaging in massive super-spreader events then, and cheered on by Labour MPs?

    What a fucking surprise!

    Dura_Ace said:



    If there is a weak point then let us hear from the campaigners as to which statues and street names they'd like to see changed and why.

    https://twitter.com/RoRyxotic/status/1269698079000846340
    God, she stuffed your lot up good and proper, didn't she? Decades and decades later and the left are still stewing in impotent rage about the Iron Lady :lol:
    Then Blair "stuffed your lot up good and proper" in 3 successive elections, that's how it goes.
    Electorally, but not politically. Taxes were never lower nor capitalism ever more thriving than under good old Tone. Thatcher and Major broke Old Labour so hard that most of the Tory programme remained or was expanded even when the Tories themselves were out of power. They actually did 'win the argument' - that's what the Corbynites were so angry about.
    Cameron had to become a Blair mini-me in order for the Tories to get back into power.
    OllyT said:

    OllyT said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Not a word to say about the tens of thousands of 'protesters' engaging in massive super-spreader events then, and cheered on by Labour MPs?

    What a fucking surprise!

    Dura_Ace said:



    If there is a weak point then let us hear from the campaigners as to which statues and street names they'd like to see changed and why.

    https://twitter.com/RoRyxotic/status/1269698079000846340
    God, she stuffed your lot up good and proper, didn't she? Decades and decades later and the left are still stewing in impotent rage about the Iron Lady :lol:
    Then Blair "stuffed your lot up good and proper" in 3 successive elections, that's how it goes.
    Electorally, but not politically. Taxes were never lower nor capitalism ever more thriving than under good old Tone. Thatcher and Major broke Old Labour so hard that most of the Tory programme remained or was expanded even when the Tories themselves were out of power. They actually did 'win the argument' - that's what the Corbynites were so angry about.
    Desperate stuff. You'll be telling us next that 1997 Tories supported Labour's minimum wage, a windfall tax on utilities, huge planned increases in public spending on education and health, FOI, and so on.

    In reality, back in 1997 Tories like you, just as they do now, argued that the country would be going to hell in a handcart if Labour were elected to implement their crazy spending plans and liberal social policies. Plus ca change.

    and we did.. by the time Blair let go the spending constraints of Kenneth Clarke plans 2 yrs on from 97 and Blair had taken us into an illegal war, and the loon Brown had taken over, we were well and truly screwed./
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 20,165

    Anderson no longer being a prat it seems: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/52958158

    No reason the Derby shouldn't be at Goodison. Hopefully that's where the title will be won.


    I actually know Joe – he's a lifelong, staunch Everton fan – I wonder if he'd prefer to play the derby at a neutral ground for other reasons!

  • Options
    FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,298
    edited June 2020
    MaxPB said:

    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
    Yes, I think it's time for someone in the government to basically explain where we're at and actually for the stats to be broken out into care home deaths and community deaths. Lumping the two together isn't very helpful as the wider community hasn't got a lot to do with what happens in care homes.

    Unfortunately as has been pointed out, it's pretty obvious that no one in the government really understands any of this. If they did we would have moved the graphs to date of death a long time ago and we'd be doing much better forwards projections than what the government are producing.
    I still can't quite work out how we ended up with the stupid day of announcement graphs for deaths and positive cases, which bloody scientists then read out and debate. If i was in their position, i couldn't agree to it.
  • Options
    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,350
    Pulpstar said:

    Pulpstar said:


    BLM comes into the picture only because the above scenario of cop needlessly kills civilian tends to generate substantially more black casualties.

    Is that definitely true ?
    I believe one has a greater probability of being arrested/ killed by law enforcement in the USA as a result of racial profiling. If that is incorrect I daresay someone will put me right.
    I think that's likely true, but it's not quite what you said :p
    Pedant!
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    MaxPB said:

    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
    Yes, I think it's time for someone in the government to basically explain where we're at and actually for the stats to be broken out into care home deaths and community deaths. Lumping the two together isn't very helpful as the wider community hasn't got a lot to do with what happens in care homes.

    Unfortunately as has been pointed out, it's pretty obvious that no one in the government really understands any of this. If they did we would have moved the graphs to date of death a long time ago and we'd be doing much better forwards projections than what the government are producing.
    Care homes and their staff are in the wider community.

    If a care worker picks up the infection at work, gets the bus home and passes it to others then how is that different to any other community transmission?
  • Options
    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,130

    I am not sure that showing us pictures of lots of bad people who just happen not to be Minnesota cops or Bristolian slave traders makes the sins of the Minneapolis PD or Edward Colston go away.

    Of course it won;t but what it will hopefully do is make these protests go away by showing up the protestors as the hypocrites they are.

    Black people could be slaughtering each other on an industrial scale, and that would be completely ignored by Black Lives Matter.
    Paragraph 2 part 1 is quite probably factually correct. I don't see how that makes Derek Chauvin asphyxiating George Floyd OK.
    Nobody is claiming it does. And I think everybody hopes Chauvin and any others will receive the very heavy punishment it probably deserves.

    But there's no need for policemen in Britain to get injured for that to happen. It is going to happen anyway.

    If Chauvin walked or got a light sentence because of a white jury or biased judge or if evidence got 'lost' or policemen perjured themselves to try to save him, fine. I could see why America's cities would be on fire. And Britain's.

    But in all probability that ain't gonna happen. Because actually Floyd probably is going to get the justice he deserves.
    Has even one person here said violence against the police in the UK is acceptable?

    Why are you trying to conflate matters. That's not what this is about.

    Chauvin's accomplices weren't even arrested or charged and Chauvin himself was charged with a lesser offence to begin with so yes it was already in the wrong before this happened.
    You ever heard of building a case, they don't just jump in and use first thing that comes into their head, they have to make it stick so need to look at it and make sure they get it right. They waited till they had the full evidence.
  • Options
    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,004

    MaxPB said:

    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
    Yes, I think it's time for someone in the government to basically explain where we're at and actually for the stats to be broken out into care home deaths and community deaths. Lumping the two together isn't very helpful as the wider community hasn't got a lot to do with what happens in care homes.

    Unfortunately as has been pointed out, it's pretty obvious that no one in the government really understands any of this. If they did we would have moved the graphs to date of death a long time ago and we'd be doing much better forwards projections than what the government are producing.
    Care homes and their staff are in the wider community.

    If a care worker picks up the infection at work, gets the bus home and passes it to others then how is that different to any other community transmission?
    They should be wearing a mask on the bus shortly so that route of transmission ought to be reduced.
  • Options
    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,598
    malcolmg said:

    One thing that might be a big step forward to support the black community in the UK would be free prescriptions of Vitamin D supplements. Black people are more vulnerable to illnesses in which Vitamin D deficiency is implicated, due to the superior sun-blocking abilities of black skin. These include diabetes, and it's logical that coronavirus also falls into this category.

    You can buy it for peanuts
    I know. You can buy milk for peanuts too, but it doesn't stop people being upset that Thatcher took their school milk away.
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 54,081

    TimT said:

    A very good piece on what the conversation is about in the US when people talk about 'defunding' or 'abolition' of the police.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-police-heres-what-that-really-means/

    Given how awful the policing situation has become in the US - both for the police themselves and for the communities they serve - I think that this is a conversation that all good people on both sides of the fence need to have.

    That's asking for a subscription. Have you got something not behind a paywall?
    (If you are an Amazon customer, you can subscribe to Washington Post via Kindle - which gives you access to the website, even if you don't have a Kindle - for an incredibly low price. Something like $1/month for six months, followed by $3/month.)
  • Options
    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 54,081

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    Perhaps this theory about a significant proportion of the population having natural immunity has legs, and that herd immunity doesn't need 60%+ to catch it, 20-25% might be enough.
    German\Norwegian study suggesting Blood group may be a major factor.
    Bad news if you are A type ( esp A+ ), good news for O Types

    https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article209150033/Studie-Blutgruppe-beeinflusst-Schwere-des-Covid-19-Verlaufs.html
    I'm A+

    :disappointed:
  • Options
    MangoMango Posts: 1,013



    Clive Lewis doesn't strike me as 'whacky'. Has his moments, but mostly perfectly reasonable.

    I don't mind Clive. One of the few Labour lefties who can say the words "electoral reform" without getting a nosebleed.
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,631

    MaxPB said:

    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
    Yes, I think it's time for someone in the government to basically explain where we're at and actually for the stats to be broken out into care home deaths and community deaths. Lumping the two together isn't very helpful as the wider community hasn't got a lot to do with what happens in care homes.

    Unfortunately as has been pointed out, it's pretty obvious that no one in the government really understands any of this. If they did we would have moved the graphs to date of death a long time ago and we'd be doing much better forwards projections than what the government are producing.
    I still can't quite work out how we ended up with the stupid day of announcement graphs for deaths and positive cases, which bloody scientists then read out and debate. If i was in their position, i couldn't agree to it.
    Yes, the lack of integrity from the scientists has been quite shocking IMO. Those graphs would never have made it into any of my university papers and I did a fair bit of work drug half lives etc...
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    Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,409
    Quite surprised at how assured Patel is at the dispatch box just now
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    rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 54,081
    Alistair said:

    Alistair said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Georgia - https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report



    Very, very interestingly no rise in deaths, just cases. I had been expecting to start to see an effect by now.
    There was a good piece of commentary from @BigRich on the Georgia experience the other day. I believe Rich is severely dyslexic so his posts aren't always spelled correctly but he often has interesting things to say.

    Worth a check back – as you say a couple of things stand out in GA

    1. The second peak wasn't as big as the first and soon tailed back off (shown in your chart)
    2. The rise in cases wasn't matched by any rise in deaths

    It has barely trailed off - Georgia has a big data reporting lag. Everything shaded (the last 14 days) should be treated as the most provisional of provisional figures and will be revised heavily upwards.

    The 2nd 'peak' reached reached 703 cases on the 7 day moving average on the 19th of May, it is already 656 on the 1st of June and that figure will only increase over the next week.

    The interesting thing is point 2, the no rise in deaths.
    Indeed, the five of the next seven days have positive numbers well above the moving average line, so it's definitely going to start heading up again.

    That being said... if it stays at this level (i.e. 750 cases/day) and doesn't expand, then that's probably OK. The risk is that it goes from 750/day to 1,200 and the hospital system in Atlanta struggles under the weight of 120+ new CV-19 admissions per day.
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!
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    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    malcolmg said:

    I am not sure that showing us pictures of lots of bad people who just happen not to be Minnesota cops or Bristolian slave traders makes the sins of the Minneapolis PD or Edward Colston go away.

    Of course it won;t but what it will hopefully do is make these protests go away by showing up the protestors as the hypocrites they are.

    Black people could be slaughtering each other on an industrial scale, and that would be completely ignored by Black Lives Matter.
    Paragraph 2 part 1 is quite probably factually correct. I don't see how that makes Derek Chauvin asphyxiating George Floyd OK.
    Nobody is claiming it does. And I think everybody hopes Chauvin and any others will receive the very heavy punishment it probably deserves.

    But there's no need for policemen in Britain to get injured for that to happen. It is going to happen anyway.

    If Chauvin walked or got a light sentence because of a white jury or biased judge or if evidence got 'lost' or policemen perjured themselves to try to save him, fine. I could see why America's cities would be on fire. And Britain's.

    But in all probability that ain't gonna happen. Because actually Floyd probably is going to get the justice he deserves.
    Has even one person here said violence against the police in the UK is acceptable?

    Why are you trying to conflate matters. That's not what this is about.

    Chauvin's accomplices weren't even arrested or charged and Chauvin himself was charged with a lesser offence to begin with so yes it was already in the wrong before this happened.
    You ever heard of building a case, they don't just jump in and use first thing that comes into their head, they have to make it stick so need to look at it and make sure they get it right. They waited till they had the full evidence.
    If you believe that you'll believe anything.
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    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,631

    MaxPB said:

    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
    Yes, I think it's time for someone in the government to basically explain where we're at and actually for the stats to be broken out into care home deaths and community deaths. Lumping the two together isn't very helpful as the wider community hasn't got a lot to do with what happens in care homes.

    Unfortunately as has been pointed out, it's pretty obvious that no one in the government really understands any of this. If they did we would have moved the graphs to date of death a long time ago and we'd be doing much better forwards projections than what the government are producing.
    Care homes and their staff are in the wider community.

    If a care worker picks up the infection at work, gets the bus home and passes it to others then how is that different to any other community transmission?
    Which is why there needs to be daily rapid testing of care home staff. Care homes are a separate issue to the wider community and they can be insulated from community transmission
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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 76,004
    rcs1000 said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    Perhaps this theory about a significant proportion of the population having natural immunity has legs, and that herd immunity doesn't need 60%+ to catch it, 20-25% might be enough.
    German\Norwegian study suggesting Blood group may be a major factor.
    Bad news if you are A type ( esp A+ ), good news for O Types

    https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article209150033/Studie-Blutgruppe-beeinflusst-Schwere-des-Covid-19-Verlaufs.html
    I'm A+

    :disappointed:
    O negative here.

    I linked to this a few months back

    As per the study, the normal population in Wuhan has a blood type distribution of 31 percent type A, 24 percent type B, 9 percent type AB, and 34 percent type O.

    Those with the virus, by comparison, were distributed as follows: 38 percent type A, 26 percent type B, 10 percent type AB, and 25 percent type O. Similar differences were observed in Shenzhen.
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    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,350
    edited June 2020

    Quite surprised at how assured Patel is at the dispatch box just now

    Perhaps having fallen out with Dom, she plans to go down with a flourish. Good luck to her!

    P.S. I don't think she was ever short of self confidence.
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    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,684
    Pulling down statues is no doubt intoxicating. You feel like you’re achieving and doing something. But, tomorrow, will it makes the lives of black people any better? Does it help them with greater opportunities, discrimination in job interviews or being treated differently by the police? Does it help them in not being looked at in the streets, or treated differently in restaurants or on holiday?

    Was this statue inspiring white people who passed it to oppress black people because of what it was and what represented? And will therefore removing it lessen those attitudes and improve those behaviours as a consequence?

    Or is this a huge piece of displacement activity? A way of showing your sympathies and which side you’re on, without achieving very much? Because from what I’ve detected very few people knew who he was. It was a statue to a man that died over three hundred years ago and simply wasn’t that relevant to many Bristolians be they black and white.

    I might be wrong. It might be that many black people thought it was offensive and insulting as they walked past it every day. It might have been underlining simmering tensions in the city. It carried important symbolism that it was important to challenge. I would like to hear more on this (from those who weren’t involved) from all backgrounds.

    Or it might be that a minority of blacks and whites felt this way, perhaps having read about it or been taught accordingly, but most others couldn’t give a toss. And are far more interested in the future.

    Because the more I think about it. The more I think tearing down this statue was a fantastic load of bollocks that distracts us from the real challenges we face and risks polarising us still further. Further, I’m not sure what level of statue removal would satisfy because at the end of the day it doesn’t address the real issues.

    I’m fully prepared to have a bucket of abuse poured on my head for saying that, particularly as a white man. Because for many people that’s what this seems to be about: setting up dividing lines across which you can denounce. So, if you don’t want to believe I’m sincere, don’t believe me. So be it.

    But I will continue to listen and learn to rationality wherever I can, call out nonsense wherever I see unless someone can soberly convince me otherwise.

    You can shut me up. But you can’t change my mind. Only I can do that, and you need my cooperation.
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    ABZABZ Posts: 441
    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think it is ventilator beds - as of last Thursday there were only 571 in such beds across the UK as a whole. Not sure if the definition of ICU is the same across countries though.

    PS I think the number is 16 for Scotland, not 6, although still small!!
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    CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,983
    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think you may be looking at the table 'data by health board' where some entries are asterisked as 'less than five' - not sure why, maybe a reporting thing. But the total could be rather more than 6, obviously.

    Tabby seems to have 16 which sounds more like it, though still a lot less than Sweden. Maybe the Swedes have different defintions of ICU? Or of confirmed vs confirmed and suspected?

    https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker
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    SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,751
    Deer update: The deer I saw yesterday has returned. She is in our garden eating our roses!
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    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Pulpstar said:

    MaxPB said:

    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
    Yes, I think it's time for someone in the government to basically explain where we're at and actually for the stats to be broken out into care home deaths and community deaths. Lumping the two together isn't very helpful as the wider community hasn't got a lot to do with what happens in care homes.

    Unfortunately as has been pointed out, it's pretty obvious that no one in the government really understands any of this. If they did we would have moved the graphs to date of death a long time ago and we'd be doing much better forwards projections than what the government are producing.
    Care homes and their staff are in the wider community.

    If a care worker picks up the infection at work, gets the bus home and passes it to others then how is that different to any other community transmission?
    They should be wearing a mask on the bus shortly so that route of transmission ought to be reduced.
    Reduced but not eliminated. Plus soon those care home staff will be able to start going to pubs, restaurants etc like anyone else.

    You can quarantine people coming into the country. You can't isolate or quarantine care homes from the community at large. That is as true for the virus leaving the homes to re-enter the community as it was for the virus entering the homes in the first place.
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    AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    Tables for the latest Northern Irish poll is out:

    https://www.lucidtalk.co.uk/single-post/2020/06/08/LT-NI-Spring-Tracker-Poll

    The Northern Irish really are unimpressed with the UK government's response. This table is typical:

    https://2514bea3-91c5-415b-a4d7-2b7f18f64d4f.filesusr.com/ugd/024943_4b6776209f6f4917bb4a83e4485c0a5b.pdf
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    rcs1000 said:

    Alistair said:

    Alistair said:

    Scott_xP said:
    Georgia - https://dph.georgia.gov/covid-19-daily-status-report



    Very, very interestingly no rise in deaths, just cases. I had been expecting to start to see an effect by now.
    There was a good piece of commentary from @BigRich on the Georgia experience the other day. I believe Rich is severely dyslexic so his posts aren't always spelled correctly but he often has interesting things to say.

    Worth a check back – as you say a couple of things stand out in GA

    1. The second peak wasn't as big as the first and soon tailed back off (shown in your chart)
    2. The rise in cases wasn't matched by any rise in deaths

    It has barely trailed off - Georgia has a big data reporting lag. Everything shaded (the last 14 days) should be treated as the most provisional of provisional figures and will be revised heavily upwards.

    The 2nd 'peak' reached reached 703 cases on the 7 day moving average on the 19th of May, it is already 656 on the 1st of June and that figure will only increase over the next week.

    The interesting thing is point 2, the no rise in deaths.
    Indeed, the five of the next seven days have positive numbers well above the moving average line, so it's definitely going to start heading up again.

    That being said... if it stays at this level (i.e. 750 cases/day) and doesn't expand, then that's probably OK. The risk is that it goes from 750/day to 1,200 and the hospital system in Atlanta struggles under the weight of 120+ new CV-19 admissions per day.
    Interestingly although Atlanta has, naturally, the bulk of the cases in the state in terms of cases per head of population it is the southwest around Albany that's the hardest hit.
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    Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 25,598

    Deer update: The deer I saw yesterday has returned. She is in our garden eating our roses!

    Hope the spirit of Jolyon Maugham doesn't descend and you rush outside with a baseball bat wearing your wife's kimono.
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    NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,351
    ABZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think it is ventilator beds - as of last Thursday there were only 571 in such beds across the UK as a whole. Not sure if the definition of ICU is the same across countries though.

    PS I think the number is 16 for Scotland, not 6, although still small!!
    You would be amazed at how few people are in ICU at the moment with Covid
  • Options
    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    Carnyx said:

    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think you may be looking at the table 'data by health board' where some entries are asterisked as 'less than five' - not sure why, maybe a reporting thing. But the total could be rather more than 6, obviously.

    Tabby seems to have 16 which sounds more like it, though still a lot less than Sweden. Maybe the Swedes have different defintions of ICU? Or of confirmed vs confirmed and suspected?

    https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker
    Sweden only counts lab confirmed Coronavirus cases in the stats I'm looking at.
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    FishingFishing Posts: 4,561
    Does anybody know where we are on excess mortality? Are we almost back to normal for the time of year? The latest figures I can find are a couple of weeks old.
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    BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,008




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    kjhkjh Posts: 10,688

    Deer update: The deer I saw yesterday has returned. She is in our garden eating our roses!

    They love roses.
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    Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,409

    ABZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think it is ventilator beds - as of last Thursday there were only 571 in such beds across the UK as a whole. Not sure if the definition of ICU is the same across countries though.

    PS I think the number is 16 for Scotland, not 6, although still small!!
    You would be amazed at how few people are in ICU at the moment with Covid
    Do you have the exact figures ?
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    Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    kjh said:

    Deer update: The deer I saw yesterday has returned. She is in our garden eating our roses!

    They love roses.
    Oh deer!
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    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,350

    Tables for the latest Northern Irish poll is out:

    https://www.lucidtalk.co.uk/single-post/2020/06/08/LT-NI-Spring-Tracker-Poll

    The Northern Irish really are unimpressed with the UK government's response. This table is typical:

    https://2514bea3-91c5-415b-a4d7-2b7f18f64d4f.filesusr.com/ugd/024943_4b6776209f6f4917bb4a83e4485c0a5b.pdf

    I can sort of understand why the question of competence would be asked of the government in the South by a poll in NI. I am not sure why the same question would be asked of Wales and Scotland by a poll in NI.

    I know nothing of the NI government's handling of the pandemic, and I only know how wonderful Nicola is from our three main Scotland correspondents here on PB.
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    kinabalukinabalu Posts: 39,375

    Looks like London is getting back to normal,

    2 men shot dead and others stabbed in horrific weekend of violence in capital

    https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/london-crime-2-men-shot-18380603

    Will there be any protests about this young black man losing his life?
    Was one of the authorities who is meant to keep the public safe abusing his position of authority and responsible for killing him instead?
    I have just transferred you back into the 'sensible PB Tory ' column.
    And merited it is too. It will, of course, be temporary but what isn't.
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    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905
    edited June 2020

    fox327 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    DavidL said:

    Cyclefree said:

    And it is all very well talking about common-sense and then announcing two days beforehand that these are the rules and you have to comply with them and businesses then realising that they can’t and then facing problems.

    We still don’t know whether any of the social distancing advice will be made into enforceable rules. For instance, will pubs be legally required to keep people 2 metres apart?

    Anyone know?

    No, they won't. The current guidance for offices deals with situations where the 2m recommendation cannot be met. It provides the business must:
    Consider whether an activity needs to continue for the business to operate
    Keeping the activity time involved as short as possible
    Using screens or barriers to separate people from each other
    Using back-to-back or side-to-side working whenever possible
    Staggering arrival and departure times
    Reducing the number of people each person has contact with by using ‘fixed teams or partnering’
    So a restaurant will need to keep people 2m apart where they can; to restrict the time they are closer where they can't; to use screens (masks) etc where possible; to encourage queues that are side by side rather than behind each other (unlike those idiot MPs); to have as much of a gap as possible between front of house and back of house staff; to keep smaller teams in different parts of the establishment working together. etc. etc.
    All of which sounds perfectly sensible and achievable in a pub...
    Which is why it should be up to pubs and their customers to think for themselves what is achievable and what is not.

    I don't think there either will be or should be a detailed checklist saying this is what you must do because what suits some might not suit others. Use your common sense and you should be fine.

    If your question is: Is rigorously cleaning my toilets and providing sanitiser acceptable and you haven't heard anything to the contrary my assumption would be: Yes.

    The guidance is out there - try to keep people 2m apart etc. How you want to implement that though should be entrusted to those who know their businesses not know it alls who have no involvement in Whitehall.
    It is not possible to keep people apart in a pub. The point of a pub is for people to meet up and be together.

    If it is not a rule - and it isn’t - then let people come if they want, have hand sanitizers available, have rigorous hygiene, clean tables etc. Let customers decide. From what my daughter’s customers are saying, they want it reopened. Many will use it. How many is the question. But if they do come, it will not be physically possible to have any form of social distancing.

    Will insurance be valid? Will a venue be legally liable if someone becomes ill?

    And the answer is.......?

    If 2 metres is a legally enforceable rule then many pubs, including my daughter’s will have to close.

    So the distinction between whether this is a legally enforceable rule or merely guidance which can be ignored if it is not reasonable to do so for a particular venue is a critical one.

    And as yet there is no answer. It is not unreasonable for people in government to be thinking about such issue and providing clarity. The government took on responsibility for the hospitality sector when it shut it down. It cannot wash its hands now just because a bit of hard thinking is needed.

    I note that there are a lot of cafes and restaurants in my area that are still closed, or which are taking only online orders not walk-in business. Yet most shops will be allowed to reopen in a week from today. I am beginning to think that in fact many shops and restaurants will remain closed even after next week.

    This will put pressure on the government which wants to restart the economy. To persuade many businesses to reopen the government may have to relax the restrictions such as social distancing, as otherwise there will be little point in them reopening.
    Hotels are due to be allowed to reopen in Ireland on the 29th June (brought forward from 20th July).

    I had suggested to my wife that it would be nice to go to the hotel where we were married for a couple of nights, partly to support them as a going concern and to have a bit of time away.

    But then we talked about it again and decided that it might not be relaxing at all, with hand sanitizer stations higher and thither, and wondering whether any of the staff or guests were asymptomatic carriers. Staying at home would be more relaxing.

    Similarly for cafes and restaurants and non-essential shopping. I'll go masked-up to a supermarket, because I have to, but why would I do the same to a pub or restaurant?

    I think those businesses are fucked until the virus is crushed, New Zealand style.
    A lot of them undoubtedly have had it, though there ought to be survivors. The extent of the carnage will depend on how the epidemic progresses.

    If cases do drop low enough to allow the hospitality businesses to unshutter and they stay low, then many customers will think the same way you do, but by no means all. Individuals will make judgements about whether or not to patronise them based on several factors, some of which you already mention:

    * What will the visitor experience be like? For example, in a restaurant, will I be sat closer to other guests than I'm comfortable with? Or will I be made to sit in a horrible perspex box?

    * What's my risk of coming to harm through the virus? Am I so terrified of it that I won't dare go anywhere near these businesses, or am I really looking forward to getting back to something resembling normal life and prepared to take a calculated risk? People will form their own opinions about the likelihood of contracting the disease and the probability that they will come to serious harm if they do so. If the number of new cases being reported in the community (outside of health and care settings) falls to very low levels, and you're a young person who has little chance of falling seriously ill even if you contract the virus and practically none of dying from it, then you're likely to make different judgments to a diabetic octogenarian.

    * If I catch the virus then who else might I be exposing to it, and what is their risk of coming to harm? Personally, if I were still single I'd probably be quite happy to hop on the train to Cambridge and go exploring just as soon as there was enough to do there for it to be worth the bother, but since I now have my asthmatic husband to consider as well I feel the need to exercise some extra caution. We're not going to huddle nervously in the flat, occasionally drawing the curtains back with trembling fingers to peer at the outside world (apart from anything else, I have to go out to work as well as to do the shopping, so the option of going stir crazy in a brick box doesn't even exist.) However, if more stuff does open up then we're not going to be visiting it every five minutes, either.

    I think that it's reasonable to assume that the demand for both non-essential retail and bars and restaurants is there, but will be substantially below pre-crisis levels. Both have issues with customer experience - queues for entry to shops and particularly the closure of fitting rooms for clothes outlets will substantially degrade their remaining advantages versus buying online - and with older, sicker and more cautious clients deciding that going out isn't worth the risk. Therefore, these sectors ought logically to contract until, broadly speaking, the remaining number of outlets matches the remaining pool of available customers.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,843
    edited June 2020
    rcs1000 said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    Perhaps this theory about a significant proportion of the population having natural immunity has legs, and that herd immunity doesn't need 60%+ to catch it, 20-25% might be enough.
    German\Norwegian study suggesting Blood group may be a major factor.
    Bad news if you are A type ( esp A+ ), good news for O Types

    https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article209150033/Studie-Blutgruppe-beeinflusst-Schwere-des-Covid-19-Verlaufs.html
    I'm A+

    :disappointed:
    It is a pretty modest effect though. Being A+ gives an Increased Risk of 1.45 (1.2 - 1.75 CI)

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.31.20114991v1
  • Options
    NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,372

    TimT said:

    A very good piece on what the conversation is about in the US when people talk about 'defunding' or 'abolition' of the police.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-police-heres-what-that-really-means/

    Given how awful the policing situation has become in the US - both for the police themselves and for the communities they serve - I think that this is a conversation that all good people on both sides of the fence need to have.

    That's asking for a subscription. Have you got something not behind a paywall?
    If you click on "free" in the first column it will let you through, unless you read lots of articles.

    FWIW I'm not really convinced - I think that defunding is an understandable demand given the background but it will alienate both sensible cops and the wider public, even if it actually means "slim down their role and keep funding them for the time being", as the article suggests.
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,634

    MaxPB said:

    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
    Yes, I think it's time for someone in the government to basically explain where we're at and actually for the stats to be broken out into care home deaths and community deaths. Lumping the two together isn't very helpful as the wider community hasn't got a lot to do with what happens in care homes.

    Unfortunately as has been pointed out, it's pretty obvious that no one in the government really understands any of this. If they did we would have moved the graphs to date of death a long time ago and we'd be doing much better forwards projections than what the government are producing.
    I still can't quite work out how we ended up with the stupid day of announcement graphs for deaths and positive cases, which bloody scientists then read out and debate. If i was in their position, i couldn't agree to it.
    In the world of Gotcha! Politics (TM) announcing anything other than "all the reported deaths" would have the likes of Professor Piers Morgan FRS, DIp SHit frothing at "Boris hiding the dead" etc....

    As a Spad* once observed we get the politics we deserve - and vote for.

    *Guess who that was?
  • Options
    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,350
    kinabalu said:

    Looks like London is getting back to normal,

    2 men shot dead and others stabbed in horrific weekend of violence in capital

    https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/london-crime-2-men-shot-18380603

    Will there be any protests about this young black man losing his life?
    Was one of the authorities who is meant to keep the public safe abusing his position of authority and responsible for killing him instead?
    I have just transferred you back into the 'sensible PB Tory ' column.
    And merited it is too. It will, of course, be temporary but what isn't.
    A whole raft have been transferred out by contrast, based on today's witterings.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    Pulling down statues is no doubt intoxicating. You feel like you’re achieving and doing something. But, tomorrow, will it makes the lives of black people any better? Does it help them with greater opportunities, discrimination in job interviews or being treated differently by the police? Does it help them in not being looked at in the streets, or treated differently in restaurants or on holiday?

    Was this statue inspiring white people who passed it to oppress black people because of what it was and what represented? And will therefore removing it lessen those attitudes and improve those behaviours as a consequence?

    Or is this a huge piece of displacement activity? A way of showing your sympathies and which side you’re on, without achieving very much? Because from what I’ve detected very few people knew who he was. It was a statue to a man that died over three hundred years ago and simply wasn’t that relevant to many Bristolians be they black and white.

    I might be wrong. It might be that many black people thought it was offensive and insulting as they walked past it every day. It might have been underlining simmering tensions in the city. It carried important symbolism that it was important to challenge. I would like to hear more on this (from those who weren’t involved) from all backgrounds.

    Or it might be that a minority of blacks and whites felt this way, perhaps having read about it or been taught accordingly, but most others couldn’t give a toss. And are far more interested in the future.

    Because the more I think about it. The more I think tearing down this statue was a fantastic load of bollocks that distracts us from the real challenges we face and risks polarising us still further. Further, I’m not sure what level of statue removal would satisfy because at the end of the day it doesn’t address the real issues.

    I’m fully prepared to have a bucket of abuse poured on my head for saying that, particularly as a white man. Because for many people that’s what this seems to be about: setting up dividing lines across which you can denounce. So, if you don’t want to believe I’m sincere, don’t believe me. So be it.

    But I will continue to listen and learn to rationality wherever I can, call out nonsense wherever I see unless someone can soberly convince me otherwise.

    You can shut me up. But you can’t change my mind. Only I can do that, and you need my cooperation.

    I'm not going to tell you to shut up. You're entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled to mine.

    Just because we disagree doesn't make either of us wrong or mean either of us should shut up.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    TimT said:

    A very good piece on what the conversation is about in the US when people talk about 'defunding' or 'abolition' of the police.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-police-heres-what-that-really-means/

    Given how awful the policing situation has become in the US - both for the police themselves and for the communities they serve - I think that this is a conversation that all good people on both sides of the fence need to have.

    That's asking for a subscription. Have you got something not behind a paywall?
    If you click on "free" in the first column it will let you through, unless you read lots of articles.

    FWIW I'm not really convinced - I think that defunding is an understandable demand given the background but it will alienate both sensible cops and the wider public, even if it actually means "slim down their role and keep funding them for the time being", as the article suggests.
    I tried that. It's asking me to subscribe as soon as I clicked free.
  • Options
    Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981

    TimT said:

    A very good piece on what the conversation is about in the US when people talk about 'defunding' or 'abolition' of the police.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/07/defund-police-heres-what-that-really-means/

    Given how awful the policing situation has become in the US - both for the police themselves and for the communities they serve - I think that this is a conversation that all good people on both sides of the fence need to have.

    That's asking for a subscription. Have you got something not behind a paywall?
    If you click on "free" in the first column it will let you through, unless you read lots of articles.

    FWIW I'm not really convinced - I think that defunding is an understandable demand given the background but it will alienate both sensible cops and the wider public, even if it actually means "slim down their role and keep funding them for the time being", as the article suggests.
    From reading it, it is the difference between being police and gun slingin' cowboys.

    It sounds like a reform that is long overdue.
  • Options
    MangoMango Posts: 1,013



    Lets hope. In the closing stages of the campaign Trump will demand rifle-toting loons to defend the ballot boxes against liberals and the MSM. And having lost will tell them that they have just a few short weeks to stop their country taken away.

    Lets be honest about this. If he loses, Trump isn't going to depart quietly. He'll try and provoke an armed insurrection against the Powers That Be.

    Most likely. But at that point the rats will be deserting. The idiot sons will probably stick by him, but Jared and Ivanka will be going hell for leather
    to stay out of jail. Pence and Pompeo will suddenly remember urgent Republican party meetings they have to attend in Alaska, etc.
  • Options
    rjkrjk Posts: 66

    Pulling down statues is no doubt intoxicating. You feel like you’re achieving and doing something. But, tomorrow, will it makes the lives of black people any better? Does it help them with greater opportunities, discrimination in job interviews or being treated differently by the police? Does it help them in not being looked at in the streets, or treated differently in restaurants or on holiday?

    Was this statue inspiring white people who passed it to oppress black people because of what it was and what represented? And will therefore removing it lessen those attitudes and improve those behaviours as a consequence?

    Or is this a huge piece of displacement activity? A way of showing your sympathies and which side you’re on, without achieving very much? Because from what I’ve detected very few people knew who he was. It was a statue to a man that died over three hundred years ago and simply wasn’t that relevant to many Bristolians be they black and white.

    I might be wrong. It might be that many black people thought it was offensive and insulting as they walked past it every day. It might have been underlining simmering tensions in the city. It carried important symbolism that it was important to challenge. I would like to hear more on this (from those who weren’t involved) from all backgrounds.

    Or it might be that a minority of blacks and whites felt this way, perhaps having read about it or been taught accordingly, but most others couldn’t give a toss. And are far more interested in the future.

    Because the more I think about it. The more I think tearing down this statue was a fantastic load of bollocks that distracts us from the real challenges we face and risks polarising us still further. Further, I’m not sure what level of statue removal would satisfy because at the end of the day it doesn’t address the real issues.

    I’m fully prepared to have a bucket of abuse poured on my head for saying that, particularly as a white man. Because for many people that’s what this seems to be about: setting up dividing lines across which you can denounce. So, if you don’t want to believe I’m sincere, don’t believe me. So be it.

    But I will continue to listen and learn to rationality wherever I can, call out nonsense wherever I see unless someone can soberly convince me otherwise.

    You can shut me up. But you can’t change my mind. Only I can do that, and you need my cooperation.

    I'm not going to tell you to shut up. You're entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled to mine.

    Just because we disagree doesn't make either of us wrong or mean either of us should shut up.
    If we were back in the late 90s, I would add that quote to my forum signature.
  • Options
    Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    Foxy said:

    It is a pretty modest effect though. Being A+ gives an Increased Risk of 1.45 (1.2 - 1.75 CI)

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.31.20114991v1

    Would you rather have an increased risk or a reduced risk?
  • Options
    NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,372



    I tried that. It's asking me to subscribe as soon as I clicked free.

    I think you have to register (I remember doing that ages ago, but I've never paid them anything), then the "free" works.
  • Options
    Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
    Yes, I think it's time for someone in the government to basically explain where we're at and actually for the stats to be broken out into care home deaths and community deaths. Lumping the two together isn't very helpful as the wider community hasn't got a lot to do with what happens in care homes.

    Unfortunately as has been pointed out, it's pretty obvious that no one in the government really understands any of this. If they did we would have moved the graphs to date of death a long time ago and we'd be doing much better forwards projections than what the government are producing.
    Care homes and their staff are in the wider community.

    If a care worker picks up the infection at work, gets the bus home and passes it to others then how is that different to any other community transmission?
    Which is why there needs to be daily rapid testing of care home staff. Care homes are a separate issue to the wider community and they can be insulated from community transmission
    In an ideal world daily testing of NHS and Care staff would be fantastic.

    But we don't have the capacity for millions of tests per day.
  • Options
    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,451

    Because the more I think about it. The more I think tearing down this statue was a fantastic load of bollocks that distracts us from the real challenges we face and risks polarising us still further. Further, I’m not sure what level of statue removal would satisfy because at the end of the day it doesn’t address the real issues.

    That's basically what I think. It looks like cargo cult thinking to me.

    Undoubtedly, if there was a revolution in the UK, and we swept aside existing institutions and started afresh, hopefully with improvements, many statues that were emblematic of the old order would be toppled. But toppling statues alone does not a revolution make.
  • Options
    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,511

    ABZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think it is ventilator beds - as of last Thursday there were only 571 in such beds across the UK as a whole. Not sure if the definition of ICU is the same across countries though.

    PS I think the number is 16 for Scotland, not 6, although still small!!
    You would be amazed at how few people are in ICU at the moment with Covid
    Do you have the exact figures ?
    On the Isle of Wight - epicentre for testing the App that doesn’t work - the current total is one.
  • Options
    Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 2,772

    Deer update: The deer I saw yesterday has returned. She is in our garden eating our roses!

    Shouldn't that be "Deer Diary"?
  • Options
    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,350
    Mango said:



    Lets hope. In the closing stages of the campaign Trump will demand rifle-toting loons to defend the ballot boxes against liberals and the MSM. And having lost will tell them that they have just a few short weeks to stop their country taken away.

    Lets be honest about this. If he loses, Trump isn't going to depart quietly. He'll try and provoke an armed insurrection against the Powers That Be.

    Most likely. But at that point the rats will be deserting. The idiot sons will probably stick by him, but Jared and Ivanka will be going hell for leather
    to stay out of jail. Pence and Pompeo will suddenly remember urgent Republican party meetings they have to attend in Alaska, etc.
    Pence and Pompeo will be unable to put the lid back on that box.

    When the time comes the bumper sticker boys and girls will be his trusted lieutenants. I have often thought that like Putin, Trump would prefer to leave office feet first.
  • Options
    kinabalukinabalu Posts: 39,375

    Looks like London is getting back to normal,

    2 men shot dead and others stabbed in horrific weekend of violence in capital

    https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/london-crime-2-men-shot-18380603

    Will there be any protests about this young black man losing his life?
    Was one of the authorities who is meant to keep the public safe abusing his position of authority and responsible for killing him instead?
    I have just transferred you back into the 'sensible PB Tory ' column.
    So anytime in the world when a white police officer kills a black man whilst arresting him then the UK should have black lives matter protests. But when a black man kills another black man in the UK (which is an almost daily occurence) everyone should just shrug? And thats sensible?
    I recommend that people on this side of the argument say what they really think and what they really mean instead of these increasingly tortuous tangents.

    May I have a go? -

    What happens in America has sweet FA to do with us. And furthermore this "BLM" stuff is an absolute crock of shit in any case. The people who black lives seem to not matter to are blacks - as evidenced by how they are forever killing each other.

    Am I warm?
  • Options
    Black_RookBlack_Rook Posts: 8,905

    MaxPB said:

    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
    Yes, I think it's time for someone in the government to basically explain where we're at and actually for the stats to be broken out into care home deaths and community deaths. Lumping the two together isn't very helpful as the wider community hasn't got a lot to do with what happens in care homes.

    Unfortunately as has been pointed out, it's pretty obvious that no one in the government really understands any of this. If they did we would have moved the graphs to date of death a long time ago and we'd be doing much better forwards projections than what the government are producing.
    I still can't quite work out how we ended up with the stupid day of announcement graphs for deaths and positive cases, which bloody scientists then read out and debate. If i was in their position, i couldn't agree to it.
    In the world of Gotcha! Politics (TM) announcing anything other than "all the reported deaths" would have the likes of Professor Piers Morgan FRS, DIp SHit frothing at "Boris hiding the dead" etc....

    As a Spad* once observed we get the politics we deserve - and vote for.

    *Guess who that was?
    Surely the easiest way to circumvent that problem would be to announce the total figures as per the current formulation (so that the Government can't be accused of hiding all the historic figures that the NHS is really rubbish at reporting in a timely fashion) but then to display a graph of total fatalities by date of death? If you either grey out the last week or exclude it outright, then the rest of the curve should be very close to what the final reported outcome will be when the epidemic has ended.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,843
    IanB2 said:

    ABZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think it is ventilator beds - as of last Thursday there were only 571 in such beds across the UK as a whole. Not sure if the definition of ICU is the same across countries though.

    PS I think the number is 16 for Scotland, not 6, although still small!!
    You would be amazed at how few people are in ICU at the moment with Covid
    Do you have the exact figures ?
    On the Isle of Wight - epicentre for testing the App that doesn’t work - the current total is one.
    15 in Leicester, for a population of a million. It was about 5 times that at the peak.
  • Options
    Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    IanB2 said:

    ABZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think it is ventilator beds - as of last Thursday there were only 571 in such beds across the UK as a whole. Not sure if the definition of ICU is the same across countries though.

    PS I think the number is 16 for Scotland, not 6, although still small!!
    You would be amazed at how few people are in ICU at the moment with Covid
    Do you have the exact figures ?
    On the Isle of Wight - epicentre for testing the App that doesn’t work - the current total is one.
    I thought experience had shown that intubating people for ICU was the worst thing you could do for Covid?
  • Options
    Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 7,981
    edited June 2020

    ... But toppling statues alone does not a revolution make.

    Which is why I do not care about this statue. This is not the start of the Great Revolution so I do not have to worry.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,859
    Foxy said:



    rcs1000 said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    Perhaps this theory about a significant proportion of the population having natural immunity has legs, and that herd immunity doesn't need 60%+ to catch it, 20-25% might be enough.
    German\Norwegian study suggesting Blood group may be a major factor.
    Bad news if you are A type ( esp A+ ), good news for O Types

    https://www.welt.de/wissenschaft/article209150033/Studie-Blutgruppe-beeinflusst-Schwere-des-Covid-19-Verlaufs.html
    I'm A+

    :disappointed:
    It is a pretty modest effect though. Being A+ gives an Increased Risk of 1.45 (1.2 - 1.75 CI)

    https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.31.20114991v1
    If you're in a relatively high risk group already, then a 45% increment isn't nothing.
    A fit young character like @rcs1000 ought to have little to worry about, though.
  • Options
    kinabalukinabalu Posts: 39,375

    kinabalu said:

    Exciting times.

    I sense we are on the verge of being able to conclude that slavery is and always has been an integral part of the human condition, popping up here there & everywhere for as long as homo sapiens have walked the earth, and thus any attempt to portray the involvement of Britain in it as worthy of any particular consideration - even in Britain - is to succumb to an exercise of the utmost futility.

    One more heave (!) and we're there.

    We’re where? And what does that “one more heave” look like?

    And what will it achieve?
    On the last -

    We will have argued away the racist legacy of Empire.

    No small prize.
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    MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,319
    Another ridiculous question from Rigby.

    Does she seriously think Hancock would say:

    "X number of deaths per day is acceptable for us to open up the economy".
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    NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,351
    IanB2 said:

    ABZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think it is ventilator beds - as of last Thursday there were only 571 in such beds across the UK as a whole. Not sure if the definition of ICU is the same across countries though.

    PS I think the number is 16 for Scotland, not 6, although still small!!
    You would be amazed at how few people are in ICU at the moment with Covid
    Do you have the exact figures ?
    On the Isle of Wight - epicentre for testing the App that doesn’t work - the current total is one.
    Winchester - 0
    Basingstoke -1
    Andover - 0
    Bournemouth 1
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    kinabalukinabalu Posts: 39,375
    Mango said:



    Clive Lewis doesn't strike me as 'whacky'. Has his moments, but mostly perfectly reasonable.

    I don't mind Clive. One of the few Labour lefties who can say the words "electoral reform" without getting a nosebleed.
    Indeed. Clive does get something at the thought of PR and it is not a nosebleed.
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    CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,793
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    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,511
    edited June 2020

    IanB2 said:

    ABZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think it is ventilator beds - as of last Thursday there were only 571 in such beds across the UK as a whole. Not sure if the definition of ICU is the same across countries though.

    PS I think the number is 16 for Scotland, not 6, although still small!!
    You would be amazed at how few people are in ICU at the moment with Covid
    Do you have the exact figures ?
    On the Isle of Wight - epicentre for testing the App that doesn’t work - the current total is one.
    I thought experience had shown that intubating people for ICU was the worst thing you could do for Covid?
    I have no idea.

    On the island, the stats are that we have about 200 confirmed cases - a figure that is now remaining pretty stable - of whom, about a quarter have died and a quarter have recovered and, of the remaining half, a significant proportion are in care homes. Hardly any cases now require intensive care within our hospital.

    The situation has clearly been exacerbated by returning hospital patients Into care homes, and eliminating further spread now relies upon care homes being able to prevent their positive cases infecting the rest of their residents.

    Meanwhile the rest of us are carrying around our phones with the App that doesn’t work but, even if it did, wouldn’t be of much help unless we are someone who regularly visits a local care home.
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    kinabalukinabalu Posts: 39,375

    Pulling down statues is no doubt intoxicating. You feel like you’re achieving and doing something. But, tomorrow, will it makes the lives of black people any better? Does it help them with greater opportunities, discrimination in job interviews or being treated differently by the police? Does it help them in not being looked at in the streets, or treated differently in restaurants or on holiday?

    Was this statue inspiring white people who passed it to oppress black people because of what it was and what represented? And will therefore removing it lessen those attitudes and improve those behaviours as a consequence?

    Or is this a huge piece of displacement activity? A way of showing your sympathies and which side you’re on, without achieving very much? Because from what I’ve detected very few people knew who he was. It was a statue to a man that died over three hundred years ago and simply wasn’t that relevant to many Bristolians be they black and white.

    I might be wrong. It might be that many black people thought it was offensive and insulting as they walked past it every day. It might have been underlining simmering tensions in the city. It carried important symbolism that it was important to challenge. I would like to hear more on this (from those who weren’t involved) from all backgrounds.

    Or it might be that a minority of blacks and whites felt this way, perhaps having read about it or been taught accordingly, but most others couldn’t give a toss. And are far more interested in the future.

    Because the more I think about it. The more I think tearing down this statue was a fantastic load of bollocks that distracts us from the real challenges we face and risks polarising us still further. Further, I’m not sure what level of statue removal would satisfy because at the end of the day it doesn’t address the real issues.

    I’m fully prepared to have a bucket of abuse poured on my head for saying that, particularly as a white man. Because for many people that’s what this seems to be about: setting up dividing lines across which you can denounce. So, if you don’t want to believe I’m sincere, don’t believe me. So be it.

    But I will continue to listen and learn to rationality wherever I can, call out nonsense wherever I see unless someone can soberly convince me otherwise.

    You can shut me up. But you can’t change my mind. Only I can do that, and you need my cooperation.

    CAN we shut you up?

    How please?
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    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,634

    MaxPB said:

    Stocky said:

    Stocky said:

    It's fizzling out, it would seem.

    Tomorrow and Wednesday's numbers will be interesting – usually the 'worst' days of the week.
    My understanding is that the UK total for today is 62 - 59 in England, 3 in Wales, and none in Scotland or Northern Ireland for the second day running.

    Notable in the English figures are zero new deaths reported in London, and only 2 in the South-West, one of which happened a month ago. 41 deaths - two-thirds of today's total - were reported from the Midlands and the North.
    55 I think, but yes, none in London nor any in Scotland or NI for the second day running, as you say.
    I ask again - why isn`t the government shouting this from the rooftops? Instead we get the news today of travel quarantines. Hancock was crap on Sophie Ridge yesterday.
    Hancock yesterday was stupidly downbeat given the numbers. The only rational explanation is that if they shout too loudly they fear people will abandon the lockdown.
    Perhaps. But when you see that daily deaths have fallen so sharply and consistently (e.g. NHS England deaths have fallen by 90% from the peak) - and given that the government are trying to kick-start the economy - you`d think that they would be keen to trumpet these stats as a vindication of their policies.

    Maybe the answer is more obvious - the ministers don`t understand the stats themselves because they are a bit dim and/or are poorly communicating. It all seems a bit loose and shambolic to me. Some of their performances, including the PM`s have been abysmal.

    It is really saying something that Shapps has been one of the best.
    Ha! Yes, fair enough. There is certainly almost no public recognition that a) the numbers are down 90% from the peak and b) 90%+ of all corona-recorded deaths are to those with pre-existing conditions.

    So you have a fearful public that you have now got to calm back to normality.

    That could be a challenge given the comms skills of our political masters...
    Yes, I think it's time for someone in the government to basically explain where we're at and actually for the stats to be broken out into care home deaths and community deaths. Lumping the two together isn't very helpful as the wider community hasn't got a lot to do with what happens in care homes.

    Unfortunately as has been pointed out, it's pretty obvious that no one in the government really understands any of this. If they did we would have moved the graphs to date of death a long time ago and we'd be doing much better forwards projections than what the government are producing.
    I still can't quite work out how we ended up with the stupid day of announcement graphs for deaths and positive cases, which bloody scientists then read out and debate. If i was in their position, i couldn't agree to it.
    In the world of Gotcha! Politics (TM) announcing anything other than "all the reported deaths" would have the likes of Professor Piers Morgan FRS, DIp SHit frothing at "Boris hiding the dead" etc....

    As a Spad* once observed we get the politics we deserve - and vote for.

    *Guess who that was?
    Surely the easiest way to circumvent that problem would be to announce the total figures as per the current formulation (so that the Government can't be accused of hiding all the historic figures that the NHS is really rubbish at reporting in a timely fashion) but then to display a graph of total fatalities by date of death? If you either grey out the last week or exclude it outright, then the rest of the curve should be very close to what the final reported outcome will be when the epidemic has ended.
    You might think that.

    I can introduce you to a non-data-science journalist who will tell you that all that will be reported is the headline number. Plus the other stuff will be reported (since the lead reporters don't understand it) as the government waffling.

    See the travails of Peston Expert In.... Stuff earlier.
  • Options
    MikeLMikeL Posts: 7,319
    Total deaths are not down 90%.

    7 day rolling average:

    Peak - 943
    Today - 222

    OK, that's date of announcement but that's all we have on daily basis and the difference to date of death isn't that significant with reporting now more timely.
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    MattWMattW Posts: 18,781

    Deer update: The deer I saw yesterday has returned. She is in our garden eating our roses!

    Shouldn't that be "Deer Diary"?
    Given the plague of deer in this country and the damage they do, it should be lunch...
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    MattWMattW Posts: 18,781

    Pulling down statues is no doubt intoxicating. You feel like you’re achieving and doing something. But, tomorrow, will it makes the lives of black people any better? Does it help them with greater opportunities, discrimination in job interviews or being treated differently by the police? Does it help them in not being looked at in the streets, or treated differently in restaurants or on holiday?

    Was this statue inspiring white people who passed it to oppress black people because of what it was and what represented? And will therefore removing it lessen those attitudes and improve those behaviours as a consequence?

    Or is this a huge piece of displacement activity? A way of showing your sympathies and which side you’re on, without achieving very much? Because from what I’ve detected very few people knew who he was. It was a statue to a man that died over three hundred years ago and simply wasn’t that relevant to many Bristolians be they black and white.

    I might be wrong. It might be that many black people thought it was offensive and insulting as they walked past it every day. It might have been underlining simmering tensions in the city. It carried important symbolism that it was important to challenge. I would like to hear more on this (from those who weren’t involved) from all backgrounds.

    Or it might be that a minority of blacks and whites felt this way, perhaps having read about it or been taught accordingly, but most others couldn’t give a toss. And are far more interested in the future.

    Because the more I think about it. The more I think tearing down this statue was a fantastic load of bollocks that distracts us from the real challenges we face and risks polarising us still further. Further, I’m not sure what level of statue removal would satisfy because at the end of the day it doesn’t address the real issues.

    I’m fully prepared to have a bucket of abuse poured on my head for saying that, particularly as a white man. Because for many people that’s what this seems to be about: setting up dividing lines across which you can denounce. So, if you don’t want to believe I’m sincere, don’t believe me. So be it.

    But I will continue to listen and learn to rationality wherever I can, call out nonsense wherever I see unless someone can soberly convince me otherwise.

    You can shut me up. But you can’t change my mind. Only I can do that, and you need my cooperation.

    I'm not going to tell you to shut up. You're entitled to your opinion. I'm entitled to mine.

    Just because we disagree doesn't make either of us wrong or mean either of us should shut up.
    I think taking this out of the democratic process into street politics and riots is a huge error.

    The slave history of Bristol was being addressed - that process will now be deligitimised.

    Having read up a little today about Nigerian slavery of Nigerians, and how it was the Brits who tried to stop it, I think those trying to make it purely about race and "Black Lives Matter" are shooting themselves in both feet.

    It will give the extremists a short term hit, as did their dreams of street violence (see McDonnell and friends) the last 2 or 3 times but it will not address the question.
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    CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,793
    This Thread Has Surrendered for Questioning
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    MattWMattW Posts: 18,781
    edited June 2020
    kinabalu said:

    Looks like London is getting back to normal,

    2 men shot dead and others stabbed in horrific weekend of violence in capital

    https://www.mylondon.news/news/north-london-news/london-crime-2-men-shot-18380603

    Will there be any protests about this young black man losing his life?
    Was one of the authorities who is meant to keep the public safe abusing his position of authority and responsible for killing him instead?
    I have just transferred you back into the 'sensible PB Tory ' column.
    So anytime in the world when a white police officer kills a black man whilst arresting him then the UK should have black lives matter protests. But when a black man kills another black man in the UK (which is an almost daily occurence) everyone should just shrug? And thats sensible?
    I recommend that people on this side of the argument say what they really think and what they really mean instead of these increasingly tortuous tangents.

    May I have a go? -

    What happens in America has sweet FA to do with us. And furthermore this "BLM" stuff is an absolute crock of shit in any case. The people who black lives seem to not matter to are blacks - as evidenced by how they are forever killing each other.

    Am I warm?
    Where are you going with this?

    I'm happy with the notion that slavery is far more to do with power than race - consider the dataset of Rome (Not Angels but Angels), the Arab Slave Trade, the European Slave Trade by Africans, the Atlantic Slave Trade and so on.

    Of course Generation Woke will have a fit of outrage at the notion that we shouldn't hate ourselves, but that is their mode of existence.
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    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,631
    Indians (and Jews) are the black sheep of the BAME community because we're successful. Asians especially disprove the notion that skin colour is a major contributory factor in personal failure and this is a huge blow to the lefty narrative of grievance among lefty BAME activists out destroying monuments at the moment.

    People use the colour of their skin as a defence mechanism for personal failures and there are very few Asians who will agree with that stance.

    The next step is the left minimising racial discrimination and attacks that Asians have faced ever since we arrived in the UK, attacks and discrimination that Priti Patel describes well and that all of us recognise. It is to minimise the fact that millions of Indians were put into indentured servitude after the banning of slavery. It is to minimise the hardships of Indians due to the decisions made by the East India Company.

    Asians are an inconvenient truth that the left can't stand and many of them wish we didn't exist as it disrupts their narrative. As I said yesterday, I'm much more likely to change the racist attitude of a BNP fascist than a lefty liberal who loathes my very existence because I don't subscribe to their culture of blame and grievance.
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    nichomarnichomar Posts: 7,483
    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    ABZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think it is ventilator beds - as of last Thursday there were only 571 in such beds across the UK as a whole. Not sure if the definition of ICU is the same across countries though.

    PS I think the number is 16 for Scotland, not 6, although still small!!
    You would be amazed at how few people are in ICU at the moment with Covid
    Do you have the exact figures ?
    On the Isle of Wight - epicentre for testing the App that doesn’t work - the current total is one.
    15 in Leicester, for a population of a million. It was about 5 times that at the peak.
    Whilst I can’t vouch for the figures spain has averaged 14 in icu over the last seven days, 0 in Valencia for over a week.
  • Options
    MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,631
    nichomar said:

    Foxy said:

    IanB2 said:

    ABZ said:

    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think it is ventilator beds - as of last Thursday there were only 571 in such beds across the UK as a whole. Not sure if the definition of ICU is the same across countries though.

    PS I think the number is 16 for Scotland, not 6, although still small!!
    You would be amazed at how few people are in ICU at the moment with Covid
    Do you have the exact figures ?
    On the Isle of Wight - epicentre for testing the App that doesn’t work - the current total is one.
    15 in Leicester, for a population of a million. It was about 5 times that at the peak.
    Whilst I can’t vouch for the figures spain has averaged 14 in icu over the last seven days, 0 in Valencia for over a week.
    After the data reporting changes in Spain I'm not sure we can trust any of those statistics any more.
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    StockyStocky Posts: 9,736
    edited June 2020
    MaxPB said:

    Indians (and Jews) are the black sheep of the BAME community because we're successful. Asians especially disprove the notion that skin colour is a major contributory factor in personal failure and this is a huge blow to the lefty narrative of grievance among lefty BAME activists out destroying monuments at the moment.

    People use the colour of their skin as a defence mechanism for personal failures and there are very few Asians who will agree with that stance.

    The next step is the left minimising racial discrimination and attacks that Asians have faced ever since we arrived in the UK, attacks and discrimination that Priti Patel describes well and that all of us recognise. It is to minimise the fact that millions of Indians were put into indentured servitude after the banning of slavery. It is to minimise the hardships of Indians due to the decisions made by the East India Company.

    Asians are an inconvenient truth that the left can't stand and many of them wish we didn't exist as it disrupts their narrative. As I said yesterday, I'm much more likely to change the racist attitude of a BNP fascist than a lefty liberal who loathes my very existence because I don't subscribe to their culture of blame and grievance.
    Excellent post. How dare a victim "group" have the temerity to shed its victimhood and hence, as you say, disrupt the narrative?
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    Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,324
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    TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 40,312


    You can shut me up.

    Who are these people that can shut you up? They've been doing a pisspoor job of it whoever they are.
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    MangoMango Posts: 1,013
    Phil said:



    I mean, it’s only one Brexiteer, but Brendan O’Neill believed there should be riots if Brexit was delayed by Parliament:

    https://twitter.com/SunApology/status/1269946215829065736?s=20

    This kind of sentiment was everywhere on Twitter if you went looking a\t the time.

    Pretty sure I can get a good mob together to topple BO'N and get him dumped in a harbour.

    There will be much morally justified rejoicing.
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    malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 42,130
    Carnyx said:

    Alistair said:

    Strangely I haven't actually looked at the Covid stats for Scoltand at all during lockdown - I just looked today what with the shielding announcement. As a result I have a question.

    https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-daily-data-for-scotland/

    Is this really saying that in all of Scotland there are currently only 6 people in ICU with Covid?

    Six? In all of Scotland?

    Sweden currently has ~300 people in ICU with Covid!

    I think you may be looking at the table 'data by health board' where some entries are asterisked as 'less than five' - not sure why, maybe a reporting thing. But the total could be rather more than 6, obviously.

    Tabby seems to have 16 which sounds more like it, though still a lot less than Sweden. Maybe the Swedes have different defintions of ICU? Or of confirmed vs confirmed and suspected?

    https://www.travellingtabby.com/scotland-coronavirus-tracker
    I think majority in Scotland are in HDU , some just use ICU whereas I believe ours is HDU + ICU.
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    kamskikamski Posts: 4,331

    kamski said:

    SandraMc said:

    Historian Kate Williams is defending on Twitter the pulling down of Colston's statue saying there had been debate over the statue for ages and it had got nowhere so direct action was justified. There is also a Colston Concert Hall in Bristol and the debate over changing the name hasn't had a result so far so would it be justified to burn the building down?
    Please note I am not supporting this action. I am just saying that it could be justified by the same line of thought.

    There is also a very famous Colston's school

    Should the pupils and staff be singled out for intimidation?
    That would obviously be harming people. People making these ridiculous arguments seem to be admitting to being massive racists. Otherwise how is anyone harmed by the removal of this statue?
    The removal of the statue is not the point at all.

    It is the manner in which it was removed. It was removed illegally and by mob rule.

    If there is such a groundswell of opinion to have it removed, then it should be relatively easy to remove through the proper channels.

    Like the way we did brexit. Not by injuring policemen. Not by setting EU flags alight, not by violent demonstations. Not by marching on the embassies of Germany or any other European institution.

    By the ballot box. Time and time again, until they got the message.
    The point is people are repeatedly saying things like removing a statue of a slave trader is just like intimidating school children. The only way that could even be remotely true is if you are such a massive racist that you need to have statues of slave traders around.

    I say good riddance to the statue. If the protesters get prosecuted that's fine. If the police decide to take no further action good for them.
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    kamskikamski Posts: 4,331

    kamski said:

    SandraMc said:

    Historian Kate Williams is defending on Twitter the pulling down of Colston's statue saying there had been debate over the statue for ages and it had got nowhere so direct action was justified. There is also a Colston Concert Hall in Bristol and the debate over changing the name hasn't had a result so far so would it be justified to burn the building down?
    Please note I am not supporting this action. I am just saying that it could be justified by the same line of thought.

    There is also a very famous Colston's school

    Should the pupils and staff be singled out for intimidation?
    That would obviously be harming people. People making these ridiculous arguments seem to be admitting to being massive racists. Otherwise how is anyone harmed by the removal of this statue?
    'Otherwise how is anyone harmed by the burning of this book?'

    - Anonymous German, 1933.
    Again, equating taking down a statue of a slave trader with nazis burning books only makes any sense if you are a massive racist. This should be obvious, really.
This discussion has been closed.