How about this for an off the wall prediction - any thoughts? In a few years time there are going to be major concerns starting to be raised about depopulation in developed countries. It is going to be traced back to Coronavirus and a major social changes as a result of lack of and/or restriction of social contact among younger generations. People will have stopped social contact outside of their existing social groups, many of which will also be single sex. Society will have become static and it will become noticeable that there are far fewer casual relationships, developing into longer partnerships. Sex drive will reduce and people will be spending more and more time on their computers. And suddenly researchers will start noticing the lack of babies...
I had a similar thought, as though it were the start of a path to a dystopic future society which outlawed human contact amid hyper intense fears of bugs and viruses. Hopefully human nature is stronger than that but people have gotten really scared of acting normally.
I fail to understand why people will not do a simple thing like wear a mask in order to help reduce the risk of spreading the virus, do they want to go back into lockdown? What is the objection it’s not exactly the biggest infringement of human rights to get wound up about?
Desmond stated his personal perspective (it would reduce the amount he shops) and asked about enforcement. He didn’t say he wasn’t going to wear one, but pointed out some downsides
That’s just a different view not acting “like an over privileged man child” or a “fool”.
I thought Mr Gove thought it was only polite to wear masks in shops and takeaways? Yet here he is, strolling out of Pret sans mask. What a fucking hypocrite.
His latest leadership bid was started at a branch of Pret a Manger?
On topic: this is exactly what I was afraid of, now that we've crossed the Rubicon with the shops. In a few weeks' time, the news will be that everyone will be breathing through rags, everywhere outside their own homes, for the rest of our lives. All bloody day, every day, forever.
I spend my day working in a well ventilated and really very large laboratory space with one other bloke. The way the work stations are arranged even keeps us two meters apart the entire time - and we'll still both end up with rags strapped to our faces all damned day. And make no mistake, this is it: it will NEVER end. Even in the unlikely event that a fully effective vaccine is ever developed, this misery will be enforced for all time *just in case* something like Covid ever happens again, or for some similar such spurious justification.
No shopping without rags, no travelling without rags, no sunbathing without rags, no walking alone through the middle of an empty field without rags. And when you finally kick the bucket they'll probably tell your family to bury your corpse wearing a fucking rag.
I hate this country.
No. It’s not. I get you’re down and lashing out rhetorically. This isn’t being done for a love of masks. No matter whether or not some people decide that “No, there’s no other logic, it’s the State deciding for some bizarre reason that they want everyone masked because they’re baddies, don’t you know.
Masks will be compulsory in a handful of enclosed spaces for as long as needed against covid. When a vaccine is here, they’ll be gone like last year’s snow.
Really? There’s a lot of people (from the top down) expressing a desire that we move towards a “South Asian” approach to masks? (although I don’t know how much the perception matches the reality on that). When a major argument is that South Asia have done very well, not because mask wearing prevented the virus getting out of control, but indeed from largely keeping spread very low from the start, isn’t it likely that the future will be “wear a mask whenever possible to prevent the risk of this happening very again”?
Forget the debate about whether masking in principle is a very important public health measure. Has any one got a clue about what the aims of Government policies are? Yesterday lots of people were arguing that masks in shops was “win-win” - good for Public health, but perhaps as importantly good for public confidence to get back into the shops and get the economy going.
But masks in offices. All offices? Even when employers are happy to stick to social distancing measures as an alternative? And when the Government a few days ago were actively saying people SHOULD “get back to the office to help the economy”. I was seriously thinking about exploring whether I had the option yesterday of doing so - just for a bit of a change. It’s pretty much out now.
I get the impression they wanted people to go back with just distancing measures but people have not done so enough as they're still scared, so they might think masks everywhere needs to happen to make people comfortable to return. And if they just say its guidance people wont listen. Just a guess
That seems to have missed the significant changing factor. That we said we'd do it despite the Americans openly warning us not to beforehand would seem to disprove the entire premise of the cartoon.
Forget the debate about whether masking in principle is a very important public health measure. Has any one got a clue about what the aims of Government policies are? Yesterday lots of people were arguing that masks in shops was “win-win” - good for Public health, but perhaps as importantly good for public confidence to get back into the shops and get the economy going.
But masks in offices. All offices? Even when employers are happy to stick to social distancing measures as an alternative? And when the Government a few days ago were actively saying people SHOULD “get back to the office to help the economy”. I was seriously thinking about exploring whether I had the option yesterday of doing so - just for a bit of a change. It’s pretty much out now.
I get the impression they wanted people to go back with just distancing measures but people have not done so enough as they're still scared, so they might think masks everywhere needs to happen to make people comfortable to return. And if they just say its guidance people wont listen. Just a guess
No, I think masks in offices is in response to recent research showing the coronavirus spreads via airborne droplets and not, as previously thought, via surface contamination. ETA I'm not an expert but my own employer has recently issued guidance along these lines.
China's population is projected to fall by half between now and 2100. That has huge implications for China's economic and military heft.
The populations of the USA and UK will hardly change over that period. And, Nigeria could be the second most populous country on Earth, although it seems to me that population growth on that scale could provoke massive civil conflict.
Projecting demographic trends over the rest of the century is pure guesswork.
I have an atlas from the 50s or 60s that projected the post-war baby boom in the UK continuing to 2000. Suffice to say it did not come to pass.
The London comments are interesting. I spent 3 years working in Kings Cross from mid-1999 onwards. First 6 months I lived in a hovel in Kings Cross itself. Could walk to a supermarket (Safeway!) and big department stores, but when your "local" shops are on Oxford Street and you need to navigate the tourists you do it as little as possible.
For the rest of the time I lived on the Edmonton / Enfield border. Edmonton was just a place I caught public transport (hated it otherwise). Enfield a nice enough little town. When I was in the office I might go out in London - I wouldn't haul myself in from Zone 4 otherwise. There must be a LOT of people in outer zones who work in Zone 1 who like me don't normally head into town for the hell of it. I assume that is why its is so dead - no tourists, no workers. Haven't been into the centre of ANY big city since this started so no idea if that is just a London problem or not, but I can understand why people don't want to go there. I didn't.
On topic: this is exactly what I was afraid of, now that we've crossed the Rubicon with the shops. In a few weeks' time, the news will be that everyone will be breathing through rags, everywhere outside their own homes, for the rest of our lives. All bloody day, every day, forever.
I spend my day working in a well ventilated and really very large laboratory space with one other bloke. The way the work stations are arranged even keeps us two meters apart the entire time - and we'll still both end up with rags strapped to our faces all damned day. And make no mistake, this is it: it will NEVER end. Even in the unlikely event that a fully effective vaccine is ever developed, this misery will be enforced for all time *just in case* something like Covid ever happens again, or for some similar such spurious justification.
No shopping without rags, no travelling without rags, no sunbathing without rags, no walking alone through the middle of an empty field without rags. And when you finally kick the bucket they'll probably tell your family to bury your corpse wearing a fucking rag.
I hate this country.
Well that was an intelligent and balanced response.
Well if you enjoy the idea of being stuck wearing a mask everywhere for the rest of your natural life then bully for you. To me, it sounds little different to being in Afghanistan under the Taliban, where women were of course threatened with punishment by the state if they dared to go outside sans burqa. The only substantive difference with the masks everywhere policy that we have coming - because, be in no doubt, it will come - is that men are going to get whacked with it as well, so it's not sexist. Joy.
No. The analogue to the Taliban is the meaningless cultural shibboleth whereby it is illegal in this country to get your tits or knob out in public - a law with which you presumably comply without complaint? Masks = motorbike helmets or seatbelts or lifejackets, and jolly sensible too.
Wouldn't encouraging masking in ALL enclosed situations AND outdoors when closer than six feet, actually help the economy?
Certainly would personally feels better about going out & about & popping into stores & shops IF masking compliance was higher. And it is going up here in Seattle, but still a ways to go.
Knowing the English mentality, no it wouldn't. A lot of people might stubbornly stay at home as a way of protesting against the facemask rule. It's probably different in other countries, and in Scotland and Wales. Also, "hell is other people" is a surprisingly popular maxim in England in my experience, unlike virtually everywhere else on the planet.
As far as I know no legal instrument has been passed to mandate masks in shops therefore the police can try and fine and we should all say charge me with an offence or go fornicate officer
Actually Regulations were passed by the government under the Regulations (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 this week giving the police full legal authority to impose a £100 fine for not wearing a mask in a shop
Then they will row back on it as there is too much resistance, shops wont enforce it either because those that do will lose custom. Another shit law from a shit government that will be largely ignored. Never pass a law you cant enforce
I don't understand all this stuff about how wearing a face covering when in a shop is going to be unenforceable. Here in Germany very few people were wearing them, then they were made compulsory and everybody wore them. There were no riots, nobody called the police, nobody is refusing to go shopping as a protest.
Shops just put up signs at entrances to remind people.
I did see a person once who'd forgotten, he was reminded by another shopper by pointing at his own mask, and maskless shopper put his mask on.
What's the problem? What on earth do people imagine is going to happen?
German and British culture are not the same when it comes to things like this, whether we like it or not. Germans tend to trust government more.
In Los Angeles, they introduced a rule about mask wearing in shops and... guess what... people started wearing masks in shops.
Nobody seems unhappy. There are no mass demonstrations.
Most people just want to avoid getting ill or making others ill.
So how is Coronavirus going in California now mask wearing is compulsory?
Maybe they should have tried getting in front of the problem rather than chasing it. Clearly waiting till you see a problem with this virus means you’ve left it too late.
To be fair to Newsome, California has done relatively well in the crisis - they locked down early and controlled it.
It’s very tough to keep it under control when you have an unpoliced border with other states that are more lax.
And they’ve been pretty firm in acting now. LA and SD school districts, for example, have announced that next semester will be distance learning
I thought Mr Gove thought it was only polite to wear masks in shops and takeaways? Yet here he is, strolling out of Pret sans mask. What a fucking hypocrite.
Wouldn't encouraging masking in ALL enclosed situations AND outdoors when closer than six feet, actually help the economy?
Certainly would personally feels better about going out & about & popping into stores & shops IF masking compliance was higher. And it is going up here in Seattle, but still a ways to go.
Knowing the English mentality, no it wouldn't. A lot of people might stubbornly stay at home as a way of protesting against the facemask rule. It's probably different in other countries, and in Scotland and Wales. Also, "hell is other people" is a surprisingly popular maxim in England in my experience, unlike virtually everywhere else on the planet.
As far as I know no legal instrument has been passed to mandate masks in shops therefore the police can try and fine and we should all say charge me with an offence or go fornicate officer
Actually Regulations were passed by the government under the Regulations (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 this week giving the police full legal authority to impose a £100 fine for not wearing a mask in a shop
Then they will row back on it as there is too much resistance, shops wont enforce it either because those that do will lose custom. Another shit law from a shit government that will be largely ignored. Never pass a law you cant enforce
I don't understand all this stuff about how wearing a face covering when in a shop is going to be unenforceable. Here in Germany very few people were wearing them, then they were made compulsory and everybody wore them. There were no riots, nobody called the police, nobody is refusing to go shopping as a protest.
Shops just put up signs at entrances to remind people.
I did see a person once who'd forgotten, he was reminded by another shopper by pointing at his own mask, and maskless shopper put his mask on.
What's the problem? What on earth do people imagine is going to happen?
German and British culture are not the same when it comes to things like this, whether we like it or not. Germans tend to trust government more.
In Los Angeles, they introduced a rule about mask wearing in shops and... guess what... people started wearing masks in shops.
Nobody seems unhappy. There are no mass demonstrations.
Most people just want to avoid getting ill or making others ill.
So how is Coronavirus going in California now mask wearing is compulsory?
Maybe they should have tried getting in front of the problem rather than chasing it. Clearly waiting till you see a problem with this virus means you’ve left it too late.
How about hand washing, social distancing etc? Those things seem to work.
If the wearing of a mask potentially prevents one unnecessary death, particularly if it happens to be one's own, a minor inconvenience is surely worth it.
Yes. They are pretty uncomfortable but in shops and public transport it seems a reasonable response. Not convinced about offices though - if they are that dangerous I think employers should t insist on people returning
I thought Mr Gove thought it was only polite to wear masks in shops and takeaways? Yet here he is, strolling out of Pret sans mask. What a fucking hypocrite.
Not a hypocrite, surely, just impolite?
And he appears to have something exciting going on with the seam at the top of his trouser legs.
I feel like the world is going insane. Face masks compulsory pretty much everywhere? For a disease which has allegedly killed about 50,000 people? Out of a population of 68 million? This is deranged. Next it will be kids in classrooms forced to wear masks. You won't be able to go outside your house without one. It's fucking creepy, who wants to live like this? (actually plenty of authoritarian personality types who love being told what to do by a government that they profess to hate and distrust).
And it is not going to be temporary.
I'd recommend Christie Davies's book "The Strange Death of Moral Britain". He invented a new concept called "causalism" which IMO does a good job of explaining how we ended up with this mindset.
I think I'll pass if the précis on Amazon is anything to go by:
In the period when Britain had a strong national and religious identity, defense of this identity led to legal persecution of male homosexuals. As Britain's identity crumbled, homosexuality ceased to be an important issue for most people. Similarly, all the pressing questions on abortion, capital punishment, and homosexuality were settled permanently on a purely utilitarian basis in Britain, where all sources of moral argument are weak. The ending of the death penalty marked the decline of the influence of the official hierarchies of church and state, the Church of England, the armed forces, and their representative, the Conservative Party.The Strange Death of Moral Britain is a study of moral change, secularization, loss of identity, and the growth of deviant behavior in Britain in the twentieth century.
Ah yes, the good old days when men like Turing were persecuted to death and we could all enjoy a nice old hanging. I yearn for a return to that kind of moral clarity.
The claim that the conservatives are the representatives of the Church and Army suggests it’s a pretty trite analysis.
I shall finish my book on the noble revolt against Charles I and then read the Silent Spring instead
I thought Mr Gove thought it was only polite to wear masks in shops and takeaways? Yet here he is, strolling out of Pret sans mask. What a fucking hypocrite.
His latest leadership bid was started at a branch of Pret a Manger?
I fail to understand why people will not do a simple thing like wear a mask in order to help reduce the risk of spreading the virus, do they want to go back into lockdown? What is the objection it’s not exactly the biggest infringement of human rights to get wound up about?
Theres over 600 MPs, some number will hold views out of step with most people, some will be idiots, some will be geniuses, and some will raise points of view and issues that even they may not believe but feel need to be considered. I hope even the most idiotic MPs feel comfortable suggesting anything on the floor of the House.
Have you watched the video? It’s an entirely reasonable question he asks IMV.
Wouldn't encouraging masking in ALL enclosed situations AND outdoors when closer than six feet, actually help the economy?
Certainly would personally feels better about going out & about & popping into stores & shops IF masking compliance was higher. And it is going up here in Seattle, but still a ways to go.
Knowing the English mentality, no it wouldn't. A lot of people might stubbornly stay at home as a way of protesting against the facemask rule. It's probably different in other countries, and in Scotland and Wales. Also, "hell is other people" is a surprisingly popular maxim in England in my experience, unlike virtually everywhere else on the planet.
As far as I know no legal instrument has been passed to mandate masks in shops therefore the police can try and fine and we should all say charge me with an offence or go fornicate officer
Actually Regulations were passed by the government under the Regulations (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 this week giving the police full legal authority to impose a £100 fine for not wearing a mask in a shop
Then they will row back on it as there is too much resistance, shops wont enforce it either because those that do will lose custom. Another shit law from a shit government that will be largely ignored. Never pass a law you cant enforce
I don't understand all this stuff about how wearing a face covering when in a shop is going to be unenforceable. Here in Germany very few people were wearing them, then they were made compulsory and everybody wore them. There were no riots, nobody called the police, nobody is refusing to go shopping as a protest.
Shops just put up signs at entrances to remind people.
I did see a person once who'd forgotten, he was reminded by another shopper by pointing at his own mask, and maskless shopper put his mask on.
What's the problem? What on earth do people imagine is going to happen?
German and British culture are not the same when it comes to things like this, whether we like it or not. Germans tend to trust government more.
In Los Angeles, they introduced a rule about mask wearing in shops and... guess what... people started wearing masks in shops.
Nobody seems unhappy. There are no mass demonstrations.
Most people just want to avoid getting ill or making others ill.
So how is Coronavirus going in California now mask wearing is compulsory?
Maybe they should have tried getting in front of the problem rather than chasing it. Clearly waiting till you see a problem with this virus means you’ve left it too late.
To be fair to Newsome, California has done relatively well in the crisis - they locked down early and controlled it.
It’s very tough to keep it under control when you have an unpoliced border with other states that are more lax.
And they’ve been pretty firm in acting now. LA and SD school districts, for example, have announced that next semester will be distance learning
Look at the young persons (well under 49) figure. Massive compared to others.
Wouldn't encouraging masking in ALL enclosed situations AND outdoors when closer than six feet, actually help the economy?
Certainly would personally feels better about going out & about & popping into stores & shops IF masking compliance was higher. And it is going up here in Seattle, but still a ways to go.
Knowing the English mentality, no it wouldn't. A lot of people might stubbornly stay at home as a way of protesting against the facemask rule. It's probably different in other countries, and in Scotland and Wales. Also, "hell is other people" is a surprisingly popular maxim in England in my experience, unlike virtually everywhere else on the planet.
As far as I know no legal instrument has been passed to mandate masks in shops therefore the police can try and fine and we should all say charge me with an offence or go fornicate officer
Actually Regulations were passed by the government under the Regulations (Control of Diseases) Act 1984 this week giving the police full legal authority to impose a £100 fine for not wearing a mask in a shop
Then they will row back on it as there is too much resistance, shops wont enforce it either because those that do will lose custom. Another shit law from a shit government that will be largely ignored. Never pass a law you cant enforce
I don't understand all this stuff about how wearing a face covering when in a shop is going to be unenforceable. Here in Germany very few people were wearing them, then they were made compulsory and everybody wore them. There were no riots, nobody called the police, nobody is refusing to go shopping as a protest.
Shops just put up signs at entrances to remind people.
I did see a person once who'd forgotten, he was reminded by another shopper by pointing at his own mask, and maskless shopper put his mask on.
What's the problem? What on earth do people imagine is going to happen?
German and British culture are not the same when it comes to things like this, whether we like it or not. Germans tend to trust government more.
In Los Angeles, they introduced a rule about mask wearing in shops and... guess what... people started wearing masks in shops.
Nobody seems unhappy. There are no mass demonstrations.
I don't like wearing one but it's no great hardship, so why not. In Tescos (near Cheltenham) yesterday I should say about one in four were wearing them.
With regard to masks in offices, we are having to think about whether its worth maintaining our office or not. This could be a tipping point, personally I would lean to closing it down if masks were compulsory - wearing one for an hour on a commute or in shops is quite different to wearing one all day, five days a week.
If its needed, its needed, but it will change the economy even more rapidly.
Our colleagues who will be in the office are supposed to use Zoom to talk to each other rather than have internal meetings. Can’t think of anything more miserable
It gets old quick.
I spend most of my time on Zoom. Occasionally I push the boat out and use Teams. I even have a Bluejeans session this afternoon!
But seriously, if you are going to have to Zoom each other in the office why go back?
USA Dem Presidential nominee -- just noticed Paddy Power/Betfair Sportsbook has removed or suspended Kamala Harris from the top slot market.
Ladbrokes now has separate markets on who will be nominated and who will be the candidate on election day. Biden is 1/25 for the nomination but only 1/8 for election day, and 9/2 not to be.
For Donald Trump to be candidate on election day: yes 1/10; no 11/2.
Leaving aside questions of taste and value, I'd imagine there might be definition problems as well in the event of a very late change.
I know Stockholm and Goteborg (#1 & #3 Swedish cities well). Density is far lower than London
Stockholm - 4 638/km2 London - 5 327/km2
Not vastly lower at all.
That's pretty misleading. Stockholm doesn't have large parks, instead it has lots of water that's not included in the size figures. And London is also a bit of a donut, with some outer London boroughs having very low population density that drags the number down.
I doubt there is any part of Stockholm that is as crowded - on a day to day basis - as Camden, Brent, or any of the other inner London Boroughs.
I fail to understand why people will not do a simple thing like wear a mask in order to help reduce the risk of spreading the virus, do they want to go back into lockdown? What is the objection it’s not exactly the biggest infringement of human rights to get wound up about?
Desmond stated his personal perspective (it would reduce the amount he shops) and asked about enforcement. He didn’t say he wasn’t going to wear one, but pointed out some downsides
That’s just a different view not acting “like an over privileged man child” or a “fool”.
Four minutes for the Charles defence.
Your standards are slipping.
Have you listened to video?
He stated wearing a mask would make him less likely to want to shop. He asked if the government had discussed enforcement with the chief constable of Hampshire.
You can certainly infer from those points that he doesn’t like the idea of compulsory mask wearing. But which of those comments/questions is unreasonable and shouldn’t be asked?
How about this for an off the wall prediction - any thoughts? In a few years time there are going to be major concerns starting to be raised about depopulation in developed countries. It is going to be traced back to Coronavirus and a major social changes as a result of lack of and/or restriction of social contact among younger generations. People will have stopped social contact outside of their existing social groups, many of which will also be single sex. Society will have become static and it will become noticeable that there are far fewer casual relationships, developing into longer partnerships. Sex drive will reduce and people will be spending more and more time on their computers. And suddenly researchers will start noticing the lack of babies...
I had a similar thought, as though it were the start of a path to a dystopic future society which outlawed human contact amid hyper intense fears of bugs and viruses. Hopefully human nature is stronger than that but people have gotten really scared of acting normally.
Perhaps you should try reading Isaac Asimov's novel "The Naked Sun" ...
"People are taught from birth to avoid personal contact, and live on huge estates, either alone or with their spouse only. Face-to-face interaction (referred to in the book as "seeing"), and especially impregnating a woman, when replacement of a descendent is necessary, was seen as a dirty chore"
That seems to have missed the significant changing factor. That we said we'd do it despite the Americans openly warning us not to beforehand would seem to disprove the entire premise of the cartoon.
The London comments are interesting. I spent 3 years working in Kings Cross from mid-1999 onwards. First 6 months I lived in a hovel in Kings Cross itself. Could walk to a supermarket (Safeway!) and big department stores, but when your "local" shops are on Oxford Street and you need to navigate the tourists you do it as little as possible.
For the rest of the time I lived on the Edmonton / Enfield border. Edmonton was just a place I caught public transport (hated it otherwise). Enfield a nice enough little town. When I was in the office I might go out in London - I wouldn't haul myself in from Zone 4 otherwise. There must be a LOT of people in outer zones who work in Zone 1 who like me don't normally head into town for the hell of it. I assume that is why its is so dead - no tourists, no workers. Haven't been into the centre of ANY big city since this started so no idea if that is just a London problem or not, but I can understand why people don't want to go there. I didn't.
I used to go to the City quite frequently at weekends. It’s always been a ghost town.
I thought Mr Gove thought it was only polite to wear masks in shops and takeaways? Yet here he is, strolling out of Pret sans mask. What a fucking hypocrite.
Not a hypocrite, surely, just impolite?
Extolling the virtue of politeness in others while feeling no obligation to display it yourself is prime hypocrisy, or proof that you're a lying ****.
I fail to understand why people will not do a simple thing like wear a mask in order to help reduce the risk of spreading the virus, do they want to go back into lockdown? What is the objection it’s not exactly the biggest infringement of human rights to get wound up about?
Theres over 600 MPs, some number will hold views out of step with most people, some will be idiots, some will be geniuses, and some will raise points of view and issues that even they may not believe but feel need to be considered. I hope even the most idiotic MPs feel comfortable suggesting anything on the floor of the House.
Have you watched the video? It’s an entirely reasonable question he asks IMV.
Have you read what I wrote? I didnt comment on his words, and mentioned MPs who were geniuses as well as idiots. I was merely saying it was a good thing he was giving his view even if people thought it was stupid.
I thought Mr Gove thought it was only polite to wear masks in shops and takeaways? Yet here he is, strolling out of Pret sans mask. What a fucking hypocrite.
Not a hypocrite, surely, just impolite?
And he appears to have something exciting going on with the seam at the top of his trouser legs.
How about this for an off the wall prediction - any thoughts? In a few years time there are going to be major concerns starting to be raised about depopulation in developed countries. It is going to be traced back to Coronavirus and a major social changes as a result of lack of and/or restriction of social contact among younger generations. People will have stopped social contact outside of their existing social groups, many of which will also be single sex. Society will have become static and it will become noticeable that there are far fewer casual relationships, developing into longer partnerships. Sex drive will reduce and people will be spending more and more time on their computers. And suddenly researchers will start noticing the lack of babies...
I had a similar thought, as though it were the start of a path to a dystopic future society which outlawed human contact amid hyper intense fears of bugs and viruses. Hopefully human nature is stronger than that but people have gotten really scared of acting normally.
Perhaps you should try reading Isaac Asimov's novel "The Naked Sun" ...
"People are taught from birth to avoid personal contact, and live on huge estates, either alone or with their spouse only. Face-to-face interaction (referred to in the book as "seeing"), and especially impregnating a woman, when replacement of a descendent is necessary, was seen as a dirty chore"
I will soon, I've read the Foundation over lockdown!
I fail to understand why people will not do a simple thing like wear a mask in order to help reduce the risk of spreading the virus, do they want to go back into lockdown? What is the objection it’s not exactly the biggest infringement of human rights to get wound up about?
Theres over 600 MPs, some number will hold views out of step with most people, some will be idiots, some will be geniuses, and some will raise points of view and issues that even they may not believe but feel need to be considered. I hope even the most idiotic MPs feel comfortable suggesting anything on the floor of the House.
Have you watched the video? It’s an entirely reasonable question he asks IMV.
Have you read what I wrote? I didnt comment on his words, and mentioned MPs who were geniuses as well as idiots. I was merely saying it was a good thing he was giving his view even if people thought it was stupid.
Yes... I was developing the conversation not directly responding to your point...
I thought Mr Gove thought it was only polite to wear masks in shops and takeaways? Yet here he is, strolling out of Pret sans mask. What a fucking hypocrite.
Not a hypocrite, surely, just impolite?
Extolling the virtue of politeness in others while feeling no obligation to display it yourself is prime hypocrisy, or proof that you're a lying ****.
It's quite an aristocratic feature come to think of it.
How about this for an off the wall prediction - any thoughts? In a few years time there are going to be major concerns starting to be raised about depopulation in developed countries. It is going to be traced back to Coronavirus and a major social changes as a result of lack of and/or restriction of social contact among younger generations. People will have stopped social contact outside of their existing social groups, many of which will also be single sex. Society will have become static and it will become noticeable that there are far fewer casual relationships, developing into longer partnerships. Sex drive will reduce and people will be spending more and more time on their computers. And suddenly researchers will start noticing the lack of babies...
I had a similar thought, as though it were the start of a path to a dystopic future society which outlawed human contact amid hyper intense fears of bugs and viruses. Hopefully human nature is stronger than that but people have gotten really scared of acting normally.
Human nature will reassert itself but these things can take time. In a year or two there should be some form of COVID vaccine, but the UK economy will be in a bad state by then. Government decisions that are bad for the economy will have consequences that will take a long time to play out. It will be easy to see in hindsight 10, 20 years from now the consequences of government decisions, but that is a long time to wait for mistakes to be put right. However, humanity has always worked this way. It is not perfect but it is what we have got.
How about this for an off the wall prediction - any thoughts? In a few years time there are going to be major concerns starting to be raised about depopulation in developed countries. It is going to be traced back to Coronavirus and a major social changes as a result of lack of and/or restriction of social contact among younger generations. People will have stopped social contact outside of their existing social groups, many of which will also be single sex. Society will have become static and it will become noticeable that there are far fewer casual relationships, developing into longer partnerships. Sex drive will reduce and people will be spending more and more time on their computers. And suddenly researchers will start noticing the lack of babies...
I had a similar thought, as though it were the start of a path to a dystopic future society which outlawed human contact amid hyper intense fears of bugs and viruses. Hopefully human nature is stronger than that but people have gotten really scared of acting normally.
Perhaps you should try reading Isaac Asimov's novel "The Naked Sun" ...
"People are taught from birth to avoid personal contact, and live on huge estates, either alone or with their spouse only. Face-to-face interaction (referred to in the book as "seeing"), and especially impregnating a woman, when replacement of a descendent is necessary, was seen as a dirty chore"
I will soon, I've read the Foundation over lockdown!
Read The Caves of Steel before The Naked Sun.
BTW, did you read the three novels or Foundation's Edge as well?
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
On topic: this is exactly what I was afraid of, now that we've crossed the Rubicon with the shops. In a few weeks' time, the news will be that everyone will be breathing through rags, everywhere outside their own homes, for the rest of our lives. All bloody day, every day, forever.
I spend my day working in a well ventilated and really very large laboratory space with one other bloke. The way the work stations are arranged even keeps us two meters apart the entire time - and we'll still both end up with rags strapped to our faces all damned day. And make no mistake, this is it: it will NEVER end. Even in the unlikely event that a fully effective vaccine is ever developed, this misery will be enforced for all time *just in case* something like Covid ever happens again, or for some similar such spurious justification.
No shopping without rags, no travelling without rags, no sunbathing without rags, no walking alone through the middle of an empty field without rags. And when you finally kick the bucket they'll probably tell your family to bury your corpse wearing a fucking rag.
I hate this country.
No. It’s not. I get you’re down and lashing out rhetorically. This isn’t being done for a love of masks. No matter whether or not some people decide that “No, there’s no other logic, it’s the State deciding for some bizarre reason that they want everyone masked because they’re baddies, don’t you know.
Masks will be compulsory in a handful of enclosed spaces for as long as needed against covid. When a vaccine is here, they’ll be gone like last year’s snow.
What if we don’t get an effective vaccine and it turns out immune response from infection fades after months?
There’s still a lot of complacency that this is all a dream that will abruptly end. It might not. And once behavioural changes have been made, they’re very hard to undo.
Why would we not get an effective vaccine?
167 credible and potentially successful projects in operation. 29 of those already begun Phase 1 trials. 12 have begun Phase 2 already. 3 are already in large scale Phase 3 efficacy trials.
The virus is well and truly on the less-challenging end of the spectrum of vaccination difficulty - as shown by the rapidity at which the above has been happening (plus the unparallelled surge of activity to achieve it).
The chances of us getting an effective vaccine are overwhelming. I'm not, I believe, known around here for overoptimistic denialism of things being serious. If anything, I'm usually accused (if at all) of going the other way.
So, sure, what if we don't get a vaccine? Or what if there's a Carrington Event with the Sun in the next few months and most electronic systems are wiped out? Or what if one of the supervolcanoes around the world erupts and places us in a multi-year winter?
All are possible, all are catastrophic, and all are low risk enough that I'm not going around wasting time worrying about them.
(To be honest, of those three, the Carrington Event is probably the least unlikely, but I'm still not spending too much time worrying about it).
How about this for an off the wall prediction - any thoughts? In a few years time there are going to be major concerns starting to be raised about depopulation in developed countries. It is going to be traced back to Coronavirus and a major social changes as a result of lack of and/or restriction of social contact among younger generations. People will have stopped social contact outside of their existing social groups, many of which will also be single sex. Society will have become static and it will become noticeable that there are far fewer casual relationships, developing into longer partnerships. Sex drive will reduce and people will be spending more and more time on their computers. And suddenly researchers will start noticing the lack of babies...
I had a similar thought, as though it were the start of a path to a dystopic future society which outlawed human contact amid hyper intense fears of bugs and viruses. Hopefully human nature is stronger than that but people have gotten really scared of acting normally.
Perhaps you should try reading Isaac Asimov's novel "The Naked Sun" ...
"People are taught from birth to avoid personal contact, and live on huge estates, either alone or with their spouse only. Face-to-face interaction (referred to in the book as "seeing"), and especially impregnating a woman, when replacement of a descendent is necessary, was seen as a dirty chore"
I will soon, I've read the Foundation over lockdown!
Read The Caves of Steel before The Naked Sun.
BTW, did you read the three novels or Foundation's Edge as well?
All 7 of them. (Annoyingly Forrward the Foundation is not available in an edition which matches the others. Really ruins the shelf cohesiveness)
China's population is projected to fall by half between now and 2100. That has huge implications for China's economic and military heft.
The populations of the USA and UK will hardly change over that period. And, Nigeria could be the second most populous country on Earth, although it seems to me that population growth on that scale could provoke massive civil conflict.
The socio/political changes in the next 80 years are quite difficult to predict, and will have a big influence on population numbers.
That too. If these projections are at all correct, I'd expect warfare in Africa to be endemic, whereas most of the rest of the world would try to avoid warfare, given the shortage of young people.
Perhaps Africa would try to make war on the rest of the world in that scenario.
I thought Mr Gove thought it was only polite to wear masks in shops and takeaways? Yet here he is, strolling out of Pret sans mask. What a fucking hypocrite.
His latest leadership bid was started at a branch of Pret a Manger?
And smells of tuna and damp ham.
If Gove mentions tuna, or fish in general, it is definitely a leadership bid.
The London comments are interesting. I spent 3 years working in Kings Cross from mid-1999 onwards. First 6 months I lived in a hovel in Kings Cross itself. Could walk to a supermarket (Safeway!) and big department stores, but when your "local" shops are on Oxford Street and you need to navigate the tourists you do it as little as possible.
For the rest of the time I lived on the Edmonton / Enfield border. Edmonton was just a place I caught public transport (hated it otherwise). Enfield a nice enough little town. When I was in the office I might go out in London - I wouldn't haul myself in from Zone 4 otherwise. There must be a LOT of people in outer zones who work in Zone 1 who like me don't normally head into town for the hell of it. I assume that is why its is so dead - no tourists, no workers. Haven't been into the centre of ANY big city since this started so no idea if that is just a London problem or not, but I can understand why people don't want to go there. I didn't.
I used to go to the City quite frequently at weekends. It’s always been a ghost town.
Not any more, well at least pre-lockdown. It's a thriving market space now at weekends. The most striking thing to go to the City at weekends is the colour. Weekdays everyone is in blue, black, grey. At the weekends it is like carnival in comparison.
If the government wants to avoid the possibility of a second wave then correcting their big mistake in February and March is the key.
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
If people are up in arms because they have to wear a mask, quarantining them for a fortnight after their annual holiday to Wuhan will send them apoplectic with rage.
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
But masks are mandatory on public transport.
And we've been assured that masks make people feel safer and encourage people to go to where they are mandatory.
How about this for an off the wall prediction - any thoughts? In a few years time there are going to be major concerns starting to be raised about depopulation in developed countries. It is going to be traced back to Coronavirus and a major social changes as a result of lack of and/or restriction of social contact among younger generations. People will have stopped social contact outside of their existing social groups, many of which will also be single sex. Society will have become static and it will become noticeable that there are far fewer casual relationships, developing into longer partnerships. Sex drive will reduce and people will be spending more and more time on their computers. And suddenly researchers will start noticing the lack of babies...
I had a similar thought, as though it were the start of a path to a dystopic future society which outlawed human contact amid hyper intense fears of bugs and viruses. Hopefully human nature is stronger than that but people have gotten really scared of acting normally.
Perhaps you should try reading Isaac Asimov's novel "The Naked Sun" ...
"People are taught from birth to avoid personal contact, and live on huge estates, either alone or with their spouse only. Face-to-face interaction (referred to in the book as "seeing"), and especially impregnating a woman, when replacement of a descendent is necessary, was seen as a dirty chore"
I will soon, I've read the Foundation over lockdown!
Read The Caves of Steel before The Naked Sun.
BTW, did you read the three novels or Foundation's Edge as well?
All 7 of them. (Annoyingly Forrward the Foundation is not available in an edition which matches the others. Really ruins the shelf cohesiveness)
7? Does that include the Brin/Bear/Benford versions?
And make no mistake, this is it: it will NEVER end. Even in the unlikely event that a fully effective vaccine is ever developed, this misery will be enforced for all time *just in case* something like Covid ever happens again, or for some similar such spurious justification.
while I think there is a point to make that given we are always at risk of catching disease there is a chance people will argue for permanency of such measures, I feel like your histrionics are misplaced - at present they havent got full use and wont get full compliance during a pandemic, they certainly won't get it when there isnt one.
I will of course be wearing a mask in shops when it becomes mandatory. I won't be shopping as much.
As soon as humanly possible (i.e. when it becomes clear that Covid is all but eradicated), I'll not be wearing a mask in shops or on trains. If the law lags the reality, I'm pretty sure most Brits will follow suit.
I would suggest the report of a possible winter covid crisis has given Boris the cover he needs to come out strongly in favour of masks and by mandating their use they will become accepted by most people, giving him the option to open more of the economy as today's GDP figures show is very urgent
it will have the opposite effect though. Wouldn't mind so much if it was effective in getting rid of covid -19 but it isn't
Only a vaccine will rid us of this deadly virus but as the economy opens and more close contact becomes inevitable, face mask use is likely to become the norm as is evident in China and the far east
Face masks might become a cultural norm but there are cultural differences. I.e. high tech Japanese toilet tech has never become a thing in the West.
This is clearly a big issue for which the solution of encouraging a greater number of births should be the only solution that is NOT encouraged. We should embrace and encourage a lower population and look at how we mitigate the significant issues that arise and welcome the benefits.
Agree re UK population and ghost town comment is indeed interesting (see Detroit)
If the government wants to avoid the possibility of a second wave then correcting their big mistake in February and March is the key.
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
If people are up in arms because they have to wear a mask, quarantining them for a fortnight after their annual holiday to Wuhan will send them apoplectic with rage.
Its how the virus entered the country with the government doing nothing to stop it.
I would suggest the report of a possible winter covid crisis has given Boris the cover he needs to come out strongly in favour of masks and by mandating their use they will become accepted by most people, giving him the option to open more of the economy as today's GDP figures show is very urgent
it will have the opposite effect though. Wouldn't mind so much if it was effective in getting rid of covid -19 but it isn't
Only a vaccine will rid us of this deadly virus but as the economy opens and more close contact becomes inevitable, face mask use is likely to become the norm as is evident in China and the far east
Face masks might become a cultural norm but there are cultural differences. I.e. high tech Japanese toilet tech has never become a thing in the West.
They won't become a norm in Britain.
If they were going to, they would have done by now. I've walked past about 25 people so far this morning, none have been wearing masks.
I fail to understand why people will not do a simple thing like wear a mask in order to help reduce the risk of spreading the virus, do they want to go back into lockdown? What is the objection it’s not exactly the biggest infringement of human rights to get wound up about?
Desmond stated his personal perspective (it would reduce the amount he shops) and asked about enforcement. He didn’t say he wasn’t going to wear one, but pointed out some downsides
That’s just a different view not acting “like an over privileged man child” or a “fool”.
Actually he is saying he won't wear one. That's what he means when he says the police in Hampshire will have to enforce it against him and some angry constituents.
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
But masks are mandatory on public transport.
And we've been assured that masks make people feel safer and encourage people to go to where they are mandatory.
Masks don't make people feel safe.
The most vocal mandatory mask advocates I've spoken to in person still say they'll be worried and won't be shopping as much.
I hope I'm wrong, but my background in retail suggests to me that scaring the bejesus out of people and making shopping an uncomfortably experience will reduce in person shopping. Especially for non essentials.
I wonder if someone has come up with the idea that mask wearing in offices will make workers feel safer and so more likely to want to work in offices ?
If the government wants to avoid the possibility of a second wave then correcting their big mistake in February and March is the key.
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
If people are up in arms because they have to wear a mask, quarantining them for a fortnight after their annual holiday to Wuhan will send them apoplectic with rage.
Its how the virus entered the country with the government doing nothing to stop it.
It is.
Don't hold your breath for a speedy reintroduction of the earlier quarantine regulations.
I wonder if someone has come up with the idea that mask wearing in offices will make workers feel safer and so more likely to want to work in offices ?
I would suggest the report of a possible winter covid crisis has given Boris the cover he needs to come out strongly in favour of masks and by mandating their use they will become accepted by most people, giving him the option to open more of the economy as today's GDP figures show is very urgent
it will have the opposite effect though. Wouldn't mind so much if it was effective in getting rid of covid -19 but it isn't
Only a vaccine will rid us of this deadly virus but as the economy opens and more close contact becomes inevitable, face mask use is likely to become the norm as is evident in China and the far east
If the government wants to avoid the possibility of a second wave then correcting their big mistake in February and March is the key.
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
Still is being applied now for visitors from Brazil, the USA, Sweden etc
It might be applied but is it being enforced ?
And if there is a new outbreak in Spain or Italy in the winter then the virus could be here before it is even known about let alone restrictions imposed.
The government will be blamed if that happens and rightly so.
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
Perhaps it was foolish to have allowed so many foreign criminalsinvestors to buy central London property and simply leave it empty?
On topic: this is exactly what I was afraid of, now that we've crossed the Rubicon with the shops. In a few weeks' time, the news will be that everyone will be breathing through rags, everywhere outside their own homes, for the rest of our lives. All bloody day, every day, forever.
I spend my day working in a well ventilated and really very large laboratory space with one other bloke. The way the work stations are arranged even keeps us two meters apart the entire time - and we'll still both end up with rags strapped to our faces all damned day. And make no mistake, this is it: it will NEVER end. Even in the unlikely event that a fully effective vaccine is ever developed, this misery will be enforced for all time *just in case* something like Covid ever happens again, or for some similar such spurious justification.
No shopping without rags, no travelling without rags, no sunbathing without rags, no walking alone through the middle of an empty field without rags. And when you finally kick the bucket they'll probably tell your family to bury your corpse wearing a fucking rag.
I hate this country.
No. It’s not. I get you’re down and lashing out rhetorically. This isn’t being done for a love of masks. No matter whether or not some people decide that “No, there’s no other logic, it’s the State deciding for some bizarre reason that they want everyone masked because they’re baddies, don’t you know.
Masks will be compulsory in a handful of enclosed spaces for as long as needed against covid. When a vaccine is here, they’ll be gone like last year’s snow.
What if we don’t get an effective vaccine and it turns out immune response from infection fades after months?
There’s still a lot of complacency that this is all a dream that will abruptly end. It might not. And once behavioural changes have been made, they’re very hard to undo.
Why would we not get an effective vaccine?
167 credible and potentially successful projects in operation. 29 of those already begun Phase 1 trials. 12 have begun Phase 2 already. 3 are already in large scale Phase 3 efficacy trials.
The virus is well and truly on the less-challenging end of the spectrum of vaccination difficulty - as shown by the rapidity at which the above has been happening (plus the unparallelled surge of activity to achieve it).
The chances of us getting an effective vaccine are overwhelming. I'm not, I believe, known around here for overoptimistic denialism of things being serious. If anything, I'm usually accused (if at all) of going the other way.
So, sure, what if we don't get a vaccine? Or what if there's a Carrington Event with the Sun in the next few months and most electronic systems are wiped out? Or what if one of the supervolcanoes around the world erupts and places us in a multi-year winter?
All are possible, all are catastrophic, and all are low risk enough that I'm not going around wasting time worrying about them.
(To be honest, of those three, the Carrington Event is probably the least unlikely, but I'm still not spending too much time worrying about it).
I am confident that an effective vaccine can, or more precisely could be, found. I think people are maybe unrealistic that this vaccine can achieve its aim of painless herd immunity within a matter of months. A vaccine typically takes a decade to research, trial, certify, manufacture and universally adopt. Covid-19 is being run on an accelerated timeframe, which will hopefully feed into other vaccine programmes later on. Even so, I suspect it will take a couple of years, rather than a few months, to achieve full effectiveness. During which time Covid-19 will be running its deadly course.
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
But masks are mandatory on public transport.
And we've been assured that masks make people feel safer and encourage people to go to where they are mandatory.
Masks don't make people feel safe.
The most vocal mandatory mask advocates I've spoken to in person still say they'll be worried and won't be shopping as much.
I hope I'm wrong, but my background in retail suggests to me that scaring the bejesus out of people and making shopping an uncomfortably experience will reduce in person shopping. Especially for non essentials.
That sounds likely to me.
I wonder how many of the mask obsessives are cowering in their homes or working from home / shopping online with no intention of going out in any case.
On topic: this is exactly what I was afraid of, now that we've crossed the Rubicon with the shops. In a few weeks' time, the news will be that everyone will be breathing through rags, everywhere outside their own homes, for the rest of our lives. All bloody day, every day, forever.
I spend my day working in a well ventilated and really very large laboratory space with one other bloke. The way the work stations are arranged even keeps us two meters apart the entire time - and we'll still both end up with rags strapped to our faces all damned day. And make no mistake, this is it: it will NEVER end. Even in the unlikely event that a fully effective vaccine is ever developed, this misery will be enforced for all time *just in case* something like Covid ever happens again, or for some similar such spurious justification.
No shopping without rags, no travelling without rags, no sunbathing without rags, no walking alone through the middle of an empty field without rags. And when you finally kick the bucket they'll probably tell your family to bury your corpse wearing a fucking rag.
I hate this country.
No. It’s not. I get you’re down and lashing out rhetorically. This isn’t being done for a love of masks. No matter whether or not some people decide that “No, there’s no other logic, it’s the State deciding for some bizarre reason that they want everyone masked because they’re baddies, don’t you know.
Masks will be compulsory in a handful of enclosed spaces for as long as needed against covid. When a vaccine is here, they’ll be gone like last year’s snow.
What if we don’t get an effective vaccine and it turns out immune response from infection fades after months?
There’s still a lot of complacency that this is all a dream that will abruptly end. It might not. And once behavioural changes have been made, they’re very hard to undo.
Why would we not get an effective vaccine?
167 credible and potentially successful projects in operation. 29 of those already begun Phase 1 trials. 12 have begun Phase 2 already. 3 are already in large scale Phase 3 efficacy trials.
The virus is well and truly on the less-challenging end of the spectrum of vaccination difficulty - as shown by the rapidity at which the above has been happening (plus the unparallelled surge of activity to achieve it).
The chances of us getting an effective vaccine are overwhelming. I'm not, I believe, known around here for overoptimistic denialism of things being serious. If anything, I'm usually accused (if at all) of going the other way.
So, sure, what if we don't get a vaccine? Or what if there's a Carrington Event with the Sun in the next few months and most electronic systems are wiped out? Or what if one of the supervolcanoes around the world erupts and places us in a multi-year winter?
All are possible, all are catastrophic, and all are low risk enough that I'm not going around wasting time worrying about them.
(To be honest, of those three, the Carrington Event is probably the least unlikely, but I'm still not spending too much time worrying about it).
I am confident that an effective vaccine can, or more precisely could be, found. I think people are maybe unrealistic that this vaccine can achieve its aim of painless herd immunity within a matter of months. A vaccine typically takes a decade to research, trial, certify, manufacture and universally adopt. Covid-19 is being run on an accelerated timeframe, which will hopefully feed into other vaccine programmes later on. Even so, I suspect it will take a couple of years, rather than a few months, to achieve full effectiveness. During which time Covid-19 will be running its deadly course.
I think the survival of high living standards (this is what is frankly at stake now) will be something of an incentive to speed up the timeline.
I'd be surprised if the majority of the British public hadn't been vaccinated by the spring.
I would suggest the report of a possible winter covid crisis has given Boris the cover he needs to come out strongly in favour of masks and by mandating their use they will become accepted by most people, giving him the option to open more of the economy as today's GDP figures show is very urgent
it will have the opposite effect though. Wouldn't mind so much if it was effective in getting rid of covid -19 but it isn't
Only a vaccine will rid us of this deadly virus but as the economy opens and more close contact becomes inevitable, face mask use is likely to become the norm as is evident in China and the far east
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
But masks are mandatory on public transport.
And we've been assured that masks make people feel safer and encourage people to go to where they are mandatory.
Masks don't make people feel safe.
The most vocal mandatory mask advocates I've spoken to in person still say they'll be worried and won't be shopping as much.
I hope I'm wrong, but my background in retail suggests to me that scaring the bejesus out of people and making shopping an uncomfortably experience will reduce in person shopping. Especially for non essentials.
That sounds likely to me.
I wonder how many of the mask obsessives are cowering in their homes or working from home / shopping online with no intention of going out in any case.
This was pretty much the indication that Jeremy Vine's callers yesterday lunch time gave me.
I am very, very relieved to have an online business. I nevertheless expect the next three months to be harder than the previous three.
If the government wants to avoid the possibility of a second wave then correcting their big mistake in February and March is the key.
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
If people are up in arms because they have to wear a mask, quarantining them for a fortnight after their annual holiday to Wuhan will send them apoplectic with rage.
Its how the virus entered the country with the government doing nothing to stop it.
It is.
Don't hold your breath for a speedy reintroduction of the earlier quarantine regulations.
I wont.
The government seems desperate to encourage people to go to pubs/restaurants and on foreign holidays.
I suspect they think this will make people feel happier and so more likely to support the government.
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
But masks are mandatory on public transport.
And we've been assured that masks make people feel safer and encourage people to go to where they are mandatory.
Masks don't make people feel safe.
The most vocal mandatory mask advocates I've spoken to in person still say they'll be worried and won't be shopping as much.
I hope I'm wrong, but my background in retail suggests to me that scaring the bejesus out of people and making shopping an uncomfortably experience will reduce in person shopping. Especially for non essentials.
It absolutely has and its a problem. People in shop are sticking to lists more than ever. Not wanting to browse. Not wanting to walk down any more aisles than they have to. And online shops are a pain in the bum for browsing, with supermarket systems set up to get people to reorder favourites.
We launched new products in April. They are really struggling because people aren't looking for new unless they have to. Whats more almost every new product launch this year is struggling for the same reasons. The grocery industry is scratching its head and wondering what the hell to do about it. I know of one major supermarket who is going to run its autumn range review event (fixed windows in the calendar where new products launch and the dross gets removed) and relaunch everything they launched in April...
I thought Mr Gove thought it was only polite to wear masks in shops and takeaways? Yet here he is, strolling out of Pret sans mask. What a fucking hypocrite.
Not a hypocrite, surely, just impolite?
And he appears to have something exciting going on with the seam at the top of his trouser legs.
Excitement at the prospect of a successful leadership challenge!
I am confident that an effective vaccine can, or more precisely could be, found. I think people are maybe unrealistic that this vaccine can achieve its aim of painless herd immunity within a matter of months. A vaccine typically takes a decade to research, trial, certify, manufacture and universally adopt. Covid-19 is being run on an accelerated timeframe, which will hopefully feed into other vaccine programmes later on. Even so, I suspect it will take a couple of years, rather than a few months, to achieve full effectiveness. During which time Covid-19 will be running its deadly course.
That sounds right to me. There will be an issue if a vaccine appears to work for some people with non-trivial side-effects - the authorities will be under pressure to approve it quickly, but instant global use is unlikely to be wise. My experience of the industry is over 20 years old now - it'd be interesting to hear Charles's view as I believe he's still involved.
If the government wants to avoid the possibility of a second wave then correcting their big mistake in February and March is the key.
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
Still is being applied now for visitors from Brazil, the USA, Sweden etc
It might be applied but is it being enforced ?
And if there is a new outbreak in Spain or Italy in the winter then the virus could be here before it is even known about let alone restrictions imposed.
The government will be blamed if that happens and rightly so.
Yes it is being enforced but of course mandatory mask wearing will help reduce the spread of any second wave coming in from abroad from say Italy or Spain until quarantine imposed on coming from there too
I was told just yesterday by people on here that face masks in shops was nothing to worry about,.
just a minor inconvenience,
a tiny sacrifice,
honestly what is your problem,
by people who think they are intelligent.
But the thing is that once you give authoritarians an inch, they will take a mile. Once you roll over on one freedom, they will take them all, step by step.
And we read today that after our freedoms, the next thing they are coming for is our money, via enormous increases in CGT.
I was told just yesterday by people on here that face masks in shops was nothing to worry about,.
just a minor inconvenience,
a tiny sacrifice,
honestly what is your problem,
by people who think they are intelligent.
But the thing is that once you give authoritarians an inch, they will take a mile. Once you roll over on one freedom, they will take them all, step by step.
And we read today that after our freedoms, the next thing they are coming for is our money, via enormous increases in CGT.
And that's just the start.
New normal? there's nothing normal about it.
Last week stamp duty was cut and a VAT holiday given ie both tax cuts, CGT is imply being reviewed that is all
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
But masks are mandatory on public transport.
And we've been assured that masks make people feel safer and encourage people to go to where they are mandatory.
Masks don't make people feel safe.
The most vocal mandatory mask advocates I've spoken to in person still say they'll be worried and won't be shopping as much.
I hope I'm wrong, but my background in retail suggests to me that scaring the bejesus out of people and making shopping an uncomfortably experience will reduce in person shopping. Especially for non essentials.
It absolutely has and its a problem. People in shop are sticking to lists more than ever. Not wanting to browse. Not wanting to walk down any more aisles than they have to. And online shops are a pain in the bum for browsing, with supermarket systems set up to get people to reorder favourites.
We launched new products in April. They are really struggling because people aren't looking for new unless they have to. Whats more almost every new product launch this year is struggling for the same reasons. The grocery industry is scratching its head and wondering what the hell to do about it. I know of one major supermarket who is going to run its autumn range review event (fixed windows in the calendar where new products launch and the dross gets removed) and relaunch everything they launched in April...
That is interesting, and entirely unsurprising, sadly.
I never worked on a supermarket project, to my shame. Did the luxury end instead. Luckily out of the consulting game, though. I can't imagine there is going to much call for consultants for luxury retail in the coming year....
On topic: this is exactly what I was afraid of, now that we've crossed the Rubicon with the shops. In a few weeks' time, the news will be that everyone will be breathing through rags, everywhere outside their own homes, for the rest of our lives. All bloody day, every day, forever.
I spend my day working in a well ventilated and really very large laboratory space with one other bloke. The way the work stations are arranged even keeps us two meters apart the entire time - and we'll still both end up with rags strapped to our faces all damned day. And make no mistake, this is it: it will NEVER end. Even in the unlikely event that a fully effective vaccine is ever developed, this misery will be enforced for all time *just in case* something like Covid ever happens again, or for some similar such spurious justification.
No shopping without rags, no travelling without rags, no sunbathing without rags, no walking alone through the middle of an empty field without rags. And when you finally kick the bucket they'll probably tell your family to bury your corpse wearing a fucking rag.
I hate this country.
No. It’s not. I get you’re down and lashing out rhetorically. This isn’t being done for a love of masks. No matter whether or not some people decide that “No, there’s no other logic, it’s the State deciding for some bizarre reason that they want everyone masked because they’re baddies, don’t you know.
Masks will be compulsory in a handful of enclosed spaces for as long as needed against covid. When a vaccine is here, they’ll be gone like last year’s snow.
What if we don’t get an effective vaccine and it turns out immune response from infection fades after months?
There’s still a lot of complacency that this is all a dream that will abruptly end. It might not. And once behavioural changes have been made, they’re very hard to undo.
Why would we not get an effective vaccine?
167 credible and potentially successful projects in operation. 29 of those already begun Phase 1 trials. 12 have begun Phase 2 already. 3 are already in large scale Phase 3 efficacy trials.
The virus is well and truly on the less-challenging end of the spectrum of vaccination difficulty - as shown by the rapidity at which the above has been happening (plus the unparallelled surge of activity to achieve it).
The chances of us getting an effective vaccine are overwhelming. I'm not, I believe, known around here for overoptimistic denialism of things being serious. If anything, I'm usually accused (if at all) of going the other way.
So, sure, what if we don't get a vaccine? Or what if there's a Carrington Event with the Sun in the next few months and most electronic systems are wiped out? Or what if one of the supervolcanoes around the world erupts and places us in a multi-year winter?
All are possible, all are catastrophic, and all are low risk enough that I'm not going around wasting time worrying about them.
(To be honest, of those three, the Carrington Event is probably the least unlikely, but I'm still not spending too much time worrying about it).
I am confident that an effective vaccine can, or more precisely could be, found. I think people are maybe unrealistic that this vaccine can achieve its aim of painless herd immunity within a matter of months. A vaccine typically takes a decade to research, trial, certify, manufacture and universally adopt. Covid-19 is being run on an accelerated timeframe, which will hopefully feed into other vaccine programmes later on. Even so, I suspect it will take a couple of years, rather than a few months, to achieve full effectiveness. During which time Covid-19 will be running its deadly course.
I think the survival of high living standards (this is what is frankly at stake now) will be something of an incentive to speed up the timeline.
I'd be surprised if the majority of the British public hadn't been vaccinated by the spring.
That would be nice, but it may just be wishful thinking. I suppose that the 'incentive' would be enough for governments to throw money at trying to develop a vaccine, but trials take time regardless of how much money you have and there is no guarrantee of success.
I was told just yesterday by people on here that face masks in shops was nothing to worry about,.
just a minor inconvenience,
a tiny sacrifice,
honestly what is your problem,
by people who think they are intelligent.
But the thing is that once you give authoritarians an inch, they will take a mile. Once you roll over on one freedom, they will take them all, step by step.
And we read today that after our freedoms, the next thing they are coming for is our money, via enormous increases in CGT.
And that's just the start.
New normal? there's nothing normal about it.
The difference is that this restriction applies equally (indeed more so, given the media) to our lawmakers, and they won't like it any more than the rest of us.
If the government wants to avoid the possibility of a second wave then correcting their big mistake in February and March is the key.
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
If people are up in arms because they have to wear a mask, quarantining them for a fortnight after their annual holiday to Wuhan will send them apoplectic with rage.
Its how the virus entered the country with the government doing nothing to stop it.
It is.
Don't hold your breath for a speedy reintroduction of the earlier quarantine regulations.
I wont.
The government seems desperate to encourage people to go to pubs/restaurants and on foreign holidays.
I suspect they think this will make people feel happier and so more likely to support the government.
It is necessary to help the economy begin to recover and if HMG gets a bounce so be it
If the government wants to avoid the possibility of a second wave then correcting their big mistake in February and March is the key.
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
If people are up in arms because they have to wear a mask, quarantining them for a fortnight after their annual holiday to Wuhan will send them apoplectic with rage.
Its how the virus entered the country with the government doing nothing to stop it.
It is.
Don't hold your breath for a speedy reintroduction of the earlier quarantine regulations.
I wont.
The government seems desperate to encourage people to go to pubs/restaurants and on foreign holidays.
I suspect they think this will make people feel happier and so more likely to support the government.
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
But masks are mandatory on public transport.
And we've been assured that masks make people feel safer and encourage people to go to where they are mandatory.
Masks don't make people feel safe.
The most vocal mandatory mask advocates I've spoken to in person still say they'll be worried and won't be shopping as much.
I hope I'm wrong, but my background in retail suggests to me that scaring the bejesus out of people and making shopping an uncomfortably experience will reduce in person shopping. Especially for non essentials.
It absolutely has and its a problem. People in shop are sticking to lists more than ever. Not wanting to browse. Not wanting to walk down any more aisles than they have to. And online shops are a pain in the bum for browsing, with supermarket systems set up to get people to reorder favourites.
We launched new products in April. They are really struggling because people aren't looking for new unless they have to. Whats more almost every new product launch this year is struggling for the same reasons. The grocery industry is scratching its head and wondering what the hell to do about it. I know of one major supermarket who is going to run its autumn range review event (fixed windows in the calendar where new products launch and the dross gets removed) and relaunch everything they launched in April...
It's odd that no supermarket has gone big on the Amazon approach of recommending similar things to those you have purchased previously, along the lines of "people who enjoyed this also enjoyed these...."
On topic: this is exactly what I was afraid of, now that we've crossed the Rubicon with the shops. In a few weeks' time, the news will be that everyone will be breathing through rags, everywhere outside their own homes, for the rest of our lives. All bloody day, every day, forever.
I spend my day working in a well ventilated and really very large laboratory space with one other bloke. The way the work stations are arranged even keeps us two meters apart the entire time - and we'll still both end up with rags strapped to our faces all damned day. And make no mistake, this is it: it will NEVER end. Even in the unlikely event that a fully effective vaccine is ever developed, this misery will be enforced for all time *just in case* something like Covid ever happens again, or for some similar such spurious justification.
No shopping without rags, no travelling without rags, no sunbathing without rags, no walking alone through the middle of an empty field without rags. And when you finally kick the bucket they'll probably tell your family to bury your corpse wearing a fucking rag.
I hate this country.
No. It’s not. I get you’re down and lashing out rhetorically. This isn’t being done for a love of masks. No matter whether or not some people decide that “No, there’s no other logic, it’s the State deciding for some bizarre reason that they want everyone masked because they’re baddies, don’t you know.
Masks will be compulsory in a handful of enclosed spaces for as long as needed against covid. When a vaccine is here, they’ll be gone like last year’s snow.
What if we don’t get an effective vaccine and it turns out immune response from infection fades after months?
There’s still a lot of complacency that this is all a dream that will abruptly end. It might not. And once behavioural changes have been made, they’re very hard to undo.
Why would we not get an effective vaccine?
167 credible and potentially successful projects in operation. 29 of those already begun Phase 1 trials. 12 have begun Phase 2 already. 3 are already in large scale Phase 3 efficacy trials.
The virus is well and truly on the less-challenging end of the spectrum of vaccination difficulty - as shown by the rapidity at which the above has been happening (plus the unparallelled surge of activity to achieve it).
The chances of us getting an effective vaccine are overwhelming. I'm not, I believe, known around here for overoptimistic denialism of things being serious. If anything, I'm usually accused (if at all) of going the other way.
So, sure, what if we don't get a vaccine? Or what if there's a Carrington Event with the Sun in the next few months and most electronic systems are wiped out? Or what if one of the supervolcanoes around the world erupts and places us in a multi-year winter?
All are possible, all are catastrophic, and all are low risk enough that I'm not going around wasting time worrying about them.
(To be honest, of those three, the Carrington Event is probably the least unlikely, but I'm still not spending too much time worrying about it).
I am confident that an effective vaccine can, or more precisely could be, found. I think people are maybe unrealistic that this vaccine can achieve its aim of painless herd immunity within a matter of months. A vaccine typically takes a decade to research, trial, certify, manufacture and universally adopt. Covid-19 is being run on an accelerated timeframe, which will hopefully feed into other vaccine programmes later on. Even so, I suspect it will take a couple of years, rather than a few months, to achieve full effectiveness. During which time Covid-19 will be running its deadly course.
I think the survival of high living standards (this is what is frankly at stake now) will be something of an incentive to speed up the timeline.
I'd be surprised if the majority of the British public hadn't been vaccinated by the spring.
That would be nice, but it may just be wishful thinking. I suppose that the 'incentive' would be enough for governments to throw money at trying to develop a vaccine, but trials take time regardless of how much money you have and there is no guarrantee of success.
Given the vaccine for which we have priority access is in phase 3 trials, and all indications so far are good, I'm baffled by the bearishness.
China's population is projected to fall by half between now and 2100. That has huge implications for China's economic and military heft.
The populations of the USA and UK will hardly change over that period. And, Nigeria could be the second most populous country on Earth, although it seems to me that population growth on that scale could provoke massive civil conflict.
Projecting demographic trends over the rest of the century is pure guesswork.
Not as much as you imagine. Much of those trends are baked in already. While 2100 is a long way off, the projections for 2030 are fairly accurate for example. The fertile young mothers of Nigeria and the Congo in 2050 are being born today.
I was told just yesterday by people on here that face masks in shops was nothing to worry about,.
just a minor inconvenience,
a tiny sacrifice,
honestly what is your problem,
by people who think they are intelligent.
But the thing is that once you give authoritarians an inch, they will take a mile. Once you roll over on one freedom, they will take them all, step by step.
And we read today that after our freedoms, the next thing they are coming for is our money, via enormous increases in CGT.
And that's just the start.
New normal? there's nothing normal about it.
Last week stamp duty was cut and a VAT holiday given ie both tax cuts, CGT is imply being reviewed that is all
The housing market in attractive rural and coastal areas was already buzzing and hardly needed the added 'stimulus' of a stamp duty suspension.
I wonder if someone has come up with the idea that mask wearing in offices will make workers feel safer and so more likely to want to work in offices ?
1. Its clearly Not Safe for people to be indoors with lots of other people 2. But the economy is dying so we want people to do unsafe things if there's money to be made 3. Most big cities rely on public transport to move people. Despite all the PT operators being effectively bankrupt we can't change the don't travel advice because its not safe to be indoors with lots of people 4. But our cities are dying so stop WFH and head to the office. No you don't need a mask on in the office because its safe to be indoors with lots of people 5. Oh, ok, except for where we've said it isn't safe 6. So stop WFH. Get on the rolling virus tube with a mask. Don't forget to buy that expensive coffee on the way in. Work the job you were doing in comfort and safety at home from your office desk in fear in a mask. Go out and buy an expensive lunch please. Then after work 5 pints with your colleagues please - we'll let you take your mask off as its safe to be indoors with lots of people. Then home on PT with your mask on as remember its not safe to be indoors with lots of people
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
But masks are mandatory on public transport.
And we've been assured that masks make people feel safer and encourage people to go to where they are mandatory.
Masks don't make people feel safe.
The most vocal mandatory mask advocates I've spoken to in person still say they'll be worried and won't be shopping as much.
I hope I'm wrong, but my background in retail suggests to me that scaring the bejesus out of people and making shopping an uncomfortably experience will reduce in person shopping. Especially for non essentials.
I think that's right, though what is essential is individual and will ease if the infection rate stays low. My watch battery ran out - I put up with not having the watch for a few weeks, but when the pandemic eased I popped into Timpsons. Not essential and I waited outside while the battery was changed, but still. I think that Northern Al is right about changing shopping, though - the shift out of the centre was already happening and is an established US trend (Los Angeles doesn't really have an identifiable centre in the London sense), so people will readily get used to local shopping centres being the place to go. It's not as though co,,uting to the centre was fun in itself.
I was told just yesterday by people on here that face masks in shops was nothing to worry about,.
just a minor inconvenience,
a tiny sacrifice,
honestly what is your problem,
by people who think they are intelligent.
But the thing is that once you give authoritarians an inch, they will take a mile. Once you roll over on one freedom, they will take them all, step by step.
And we read today that after our freedoms, the next thing they are coming for is our money, via enormous increases in CGT.
I was told just yesterday by people on here that face masks in shops was nothing to worry about,.
just a minor inconvenience,
a tiny sacrifice,
honestly what is your problem,
by people who think they are intelligent.
But the thing is that once you give authoritarians an inch, they will take a mile. Once you roll over on one freedom, they will take them all, step by step.
And we read today that after our freedoms, the next thing they are coming for is our money, via enormous increases in CGT.
And that's just the start.
New normal? there's nothing normal about it.
Last week stamp duty was cut and a VAT holiday given ie both tax cuts, CGT is imply being reviewed that is all
If the government wants to avoid the possibility of a second wave then correcting their big mistake in February and March is the key.
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
If people are up in arms because they have to wear a mask, quarantining them for a fortnight after their annual holiday to Wuhan will send them apoplectic with rage.
Its how the virus entered the country with the government doing nothing to stop it.
It is.
Don't hold your breath for a speedy reintroduction of the earlier quarantine regulations.
I wont.
The government seems desperate to encourage people to go to pubs/restaurants and on foreign holidays.
I suspect they think this will make people feel happier and so more likely to support the government.
It is necessary to help the economy begin to recover and if HMG gets a bounce so be it
Encouraging people to go on foreign holidays and spend their money in other countries is unlikely to help the UK economy. Especially when the UK is getting so few foreign tourists.
On topic: this is exactly what I was afraid of, now that we've crossed the Rubicon with the shops. In a few weeks' time, the news will be that everyone will be breathing through rags, everywhere outside their own homes, for the rest of our lives. All bloody day, every day, forever.
I spend my day working in a well ventilated and really very large laboratory space with one other bloke. The way the work stations are arranged even keeps us two meters apart the entire time - and we'll still both end up with rags strapped to our faces all damned day. And make no mistake, this is it: it will NEVER end. Even in the unlikely event that a fully effective vaccine is ever developed, this misery will be enforced for all time *just in case* something like Covid ever happens again, or for some similar such spurious justification.
No shopping without rags, no travelling without rags, no sunbathing without rags, no walking alone through the middle of an empty field without rags. And when you finally kick the bucket they'll probably tell your family to bury your corpse wearing a fucking rag.
I hate this country.
No. It’s not. I get you’re down and lashing out rhetorically. This isn’t being done for a love of masks. No matter whether or not some people decide that “No, there’s no other logic, it’s the State deciding for some bizarre reason that they want everyone masked because they’re baddies, don’t you know.
Masks will be compulsory in a handful of enclosed spaces for as long as needed against covid. When a vaccine is here, they’ll be gone like last year’s snow.
What if we don’t get an effective vaccine and it turns out immune response from infection fades after months?
There’s still a lot of complacency that this is all a dream that will abruptly end. It might not. And once behavioural changes have been made, they’re very hard to undo.
Why would we not get an effective vaccine?
167 credible and potentially successful projects in operation. 29 of those already begun Phase 1 trials. 12 have begun Phase 2 already. 3 are already in large scale Phase 3 efficacy trials.
The virus is well and truly on the less-challenging end of the spectrum of vaccination difficulty - as shown by the rapidity at which the above has been happening (plus the unparallelled surge of activity to achieve it).
The chances of us getting an effective vaccine are overwhelming. I'm not, I believe, known around here for overoptimistic denialism of things being serious. If anything, I'm usually accused (if at all) of going the other way.
So, sure, what if we don't get a vaccine? Or what if there's a Carrington Event with the Sun in the next few months and most electronic systems are wiped out? Or what if one of the supervolcanoes around the world erupts and places us in a multi-year winter?
All are possible, all are catastrophic, and all are low risk enough that I'm not going around wasting time worrying about them.
(To be honest, of those three, the Carrington Event is probably the least unlikely, but I'm still not spending too much time worrying about it).
I am confident that an effective vaccine can, or more precisely could be, found. I think people are maybe unrealistic that this vaccine can achieve its aim of painless herd immunity within a matter of months. A vaccine typically takes a decade to research, trial, certify, manufacture and universally adopt. Covid-19 is being run on an accelerated timeframe, which will hopefully feed into other vaccine programmes later on. Even so, I suspect it will take a couple of years, rather than a few months, to achieve full effectiveness. During which time Covid-19 will be running its deadly course.
I think the survival of high living standards (this is what is frankly at stake now) will be something of an incentive to speed up the timeline.
I'd be surprised if the majority of the British public hadn't been vaccinated by the spring.
That has been my best forecast for a while. Q2 next year for rollout of a vaccine.
But I'm having a mood change. I now sense that is optimistic.
I know Stockholm and Goteborg (#1 & #3 Swedish cities well). Density is far lower than London
Stockholm - 4 638/km2 London - 5 327/km2
Not vastly lower at all.
That's pretty misleading. Stockholm doesn't have large parks, instead it has lots of water that's not included in the size figures. And London is also a bit of a donut, with some outer London boroughs having very low population density that drags the number down.
I doubt there is any part of Stockholm that is as crowded - on a day to day basis - as Camden, Brent, or any of the other inner London Boroughs.
It's your post that's misleading. Stockholm is 40% green space, while London is 33%, according to this site:
And Stockholm has lots of low-density outer areas too, in one of which I stayed the last time I was there.
The last paragraph is just an empty assertion and I think it's probably wrong because in my time in Stockholm I saw some dense inner city areas, but if you can provide any numbers to back it up I'll be happy to fact-check it.
People have a rather romantic idea of what Stockholm and other Scandinavian cities are like. I think the reality would shock most folk.
Global fertility rate to fall to 1.7 and global population to fall below 9 billion by 2100.
The population of Italy and Japan will more than halve and India will overtake China as the most populous nation with Nigeria becoming the second most populous
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
But masks are mandatory on public transport.
And we've been assured that masks make people feel safer and encourage people to go to where they are mandatory.
Masks don't make people feel safe.
The most vocal mandatory mask advocates I've spoken to in person still say they'll be worried and won't be shopping as much.
I hope I'm wrong, but my background in retail suggests to me that scaring the bejesus out of people and making shopping an uncomfortably experience will reduce in person shopping. Especially for non essentials.
It absolutely has and its a problem. People in shop are sticking to lists more than ever. Not wanting to browse. Not wanting to walk down any more aisles than they have to. And online shops are a pain in the bum for browsing, with supermarket systems set up to get people to reorder favourites.
We launched new products in April. They are really struggling because people aren't looking for new unless they have to. Whats more almost every new product launch this year is struggling for the same reasons. The grocery industry is scratching its head and wondering what the hell to do about it. I know of one major supermarket who is going to run its autumn range review event (fixed windows in the calendar where new products launch and the dross gets removed) and relaunch everything they launched in April...
Though there are some different things I'm now buying because I couldn't find my normal brands, bought something else and continued with the new brands.
Pasta and flour are two things where the choice seems to have increased.
Just catching up on the apocalyptic debate over the death of central London. Isn't it just simply that central London will remain quiet as long as people are reluctant to use public transport? To socialise in the West End, most folk use the tube, some the bus. They don't want to risk it for non-essential journeys. So they're staying local and going out in Hackney, Islington, Brixton or wherever they live - such areas are quite busy. The West End will revive once public transport is seen as safe.
But masks are mandatory on public transport.
And we've been assured that masks make people feel safer and encourage people to go to where they are mandatory.
Masks don't make people feel safe.
The most vocal mandatory mask advocates I've spoken to in person still say they'll be worried and won't be shopping as much.
I hope I'm wrong, but my background in retail suggests to me that scaring the bejesus out of people and making shopping an uncomfortably experience will reduce in person shopping. Especially for non essentials.
That sounds likely to me.
I wonder how many of the mask obsessives are cowering in their homes or working from home / shopping online with no intention of going out in any case.
Depends on your personal psychology, doesn't it? If you're risk-averse, you'll probably not be keen on going out in general and you'll be in favour of public mask-wearing. The reverse being true for those more accepting of risk.
It may seem unfair, but by definition a second wave isn't going to be caused by the first category in any event; instead, it's most important to cut down transmission within the latter group who are likely to be out and about and less concerned about safety measures. It sucks, but there we are.
If the government wants to avoid the possibility of a second wave then correcting their big mistake in February and March is the key.
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
If people are up in arms because they have to wear a mask, quarantining them for a fortnight after their annual holiday to Wuhan will send them apoplectic with rage.
Its how the virus entered the country with the government doing nothing to stop it.
It is.
Don't hold your breath for a speedy reintroduction of the earlier quarantine regulations.
I wont.
The government seems desperate to encourage people to go to pubs/restaurants and on foreign holidays.
I suspect they think this will make people feel happier and so more likely to support the government.
It is necessary to help the economy begin to recover and if HMG gets a bounce so be it
Encouraging people to go on foreign holidays and spend their money in other countries is unlikely to help the UK economy. Especially when the UK is getting so few foreign tourists.
It is only part of the overall need to get our economy moving, and to be honest demand for foreign holidays this year is going to be greatly subdued
If the government wants to avoid the possibility of a second wave then correcting their big mistake in February and March is the key.
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
If people are up in arms because they have to wear a mask, quarantining them for a fortnight after their annual holiday to Wuhan will send them apoplectic with rage.
Its how the virus entered the country with the government doing nothing to stop it.
It is.
Don't hold your breath for a speedy reintroduction of the earlier quarantine regulations.
I wont.
The government seems desperate to encourage people to go to pubs/restaurants and on foreign holidays.
I suspect they think this will make people feel happier and so more likely to support the government.
It is necessary to help the economy begin to recover and if HMG gets a bounce so be it
Encouraging people to go on foreign holidays and spend their money in other countries is unlikely to help the UK economy. Especially when the UK is getting so few foreign tourists.
These moves by the government will only ensure one thing
Their dead cat economic bounce is even deader that is otherwise would have been,
Comments
Your standards are slipping.
For the rest of the time I lived on the Edmonton / Enfield border. Edmonton was just a place I caught public transport (hated it otherwise). Enfield a nice enough little town. When I was in the office I might go out in London - I wouldn't haul myself in from Zone 4 otherwise. There must be a LOT of people in outer zones who work in Zone 1 who like me don't normally head into town for the hell of it. I assume that is why its is so dead - no tourists, no workers. Haven't been into the centre of ANY big city since this started so no idea if that is just a London problem or not, but I can understand why people don't want to go there. I didn't.
Ghost town exploration should be a booming business in the 22nd century
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53409521
It’s very tough to keep it under control when you have an unpoliced border with other states that are more lax.
And they’ve been pretty firm in acting now. LA and SD school districts, for example, have announced that next semester will be distance learning
I shall finish my book on the noble revolt against Charles I and then read the Silent Spring instead
But seriously, if you are going to have to Zoom each other in the office why go back?
Ladbrokes now has separate markets on who will be nominated and who will be the candidate on election day. Biden is 1/25 for the nomination but only 1/8 for election day, and 9/2 not to be.
For Donald Trump to be candidate on election day: yes 1/10; no 11/2.
Leaving aside questions of taste and value, I'd imagine there might be definition problems as well in the event of a very late change.
He stated wearing a mask would make him less likely to want to shop. He asked if the government had discussed enforcement with the chief constable of Hampshire.
You can certainly infer from those points that he doesn’t like the idea of compulsory mask wearing. But which of those comments/questions is unreasonable and shouldn’t be asked?
"People are taught from birth to avoid personal contact, and live on huge estates, either alone or with their spouse only. Face-to-face interaction (referred to in the book as "seeing"), and especially impregnating a woman, when replacement of a descendent is necessary, was seen as a dirty chore"
😂
BTW, did you read the three novels or Foundation's Edge as well?
167 credible and potentially successful projects in operation.
29 of those already begun Phase 1 trials.
12 have begun Phase 2 already.
3 are already in large scale Phase 3 efficacy trials.
The virus is well and truly on the less-challenging end of the spectrum of vaccination difficulty - as shown by the rapidity at which the above has been happening (plus the unparallelled surge of activity to achieve it).
The chances of us getting an effective vaccine are overwhelming. I'm not, I believe, known around here for overoptimistic denialism of things being serious. If anything, I'm usually accused (if at all) of going the other way.
So, sure, what if we don't get a vaccine? Or what if there's a Carrington Event with the Sun in the next few months and most electronic systems are wiped out? Or what if one of the supervolcanoes around the world erupts and places us in a multi-year winter?
All are possible, all are catastrophic, and all are low risk enough that I'm not going around wasting time worrying about them.
(To be honest, of those three, the Carrington Event is probably the least unlikely, but I'm still not spending too much time worrying about it).
Quarantine on people entering the UK will need to be applied.
The virus is so deadly that people have it and don't know they have it.
(I know, I know, won't someone think of the grandmothers...)
And we've been assured that masks make people feel safer and encourage people to go to where they are mandatory.
As soon as humanly possible (i.e. when it becomes clear that Covid is all but eradicated), I'll not be wearing a mask in shops or on trains. If the law lags the reality, I'm pretty sure most Brits will follow suit.
Agree re UK population and ghost town comment is indeed interesting (see Detroit)
1. 2 day quarantine on arrival and then a test, a positive result gets you another 12 days of quarantine, a negative result and you're free to go.
Or
2. 14 days quarantine.
Both options are at the expense of the person travelling in from the hotzone.
If they were going to, they would have done by now. I've walked past about 25 people so far this morning, none have been wearing masks.
That's what he means when he says the police in Hampshire will have to enforce it against him and some angry constituents.
The most vocal mandatory mask advocates I've spoken to in person still say they'll be worried and won't be shopping as much.
I hope I'm wrong, but my background in retail suggests to me that scaring the bejesus out of people and making shopping an uncomfortably experience will reduce in person shopping. Especially for non essentials.
Don't hold your breath for a speedy reintroduction of the earlier quarantine regulations.
Mask usage as a norm goes back centuries in Japan, for example:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/07/04/national/science-health/japans-history-wearing-masks-coronavirus/
And if there is a new outbreak in Spain or Italy in the winter then the virus could be here before it is even known about let alone restrictions imposed.
The government will be blamed if that happens and rightly so.
I wonder how many of the mask obsessives are cowering in their homes or working from home / shopping online with no intention of going out in any case.
I'd be surprised if the majority of the British public hadn't been vaccinated by the spring.
I do not see it as permanent feature of our culture
I am very, very relieved to have an online business. I nevertheless expect the next three months to be harder than the previous three.
The government seems desperate to encourage people to go to pubs/restaurants and on foreign holidays.
I suspect they think this will make people feel happier and so more likely to support the government.
We launched new products in April. They are really struggling because people aren't looking for new unless they have to. Whats more almost every new product launch this year is struggling for the same reasons. The grocery industry is scratching its head and wondering what the hell to do about it. I know of one major supermarket who is going to run its autumn range review event (fixed windows in the calendar where new products launch and the dross gets removed) and relaunch everything they launched in April...
just a minor inconvenience,
a tiny sacrifice,
honestly what is your problem,
by people who think they are intelligent.
But the thing is that once you give authoritarians an inch, they will take a mile. Once you roll over on one freedom, they will take them all, step by step.
And we read today that after our freedoms, the next thing they are coming for is our money, via enormous increases in CGT.
And that's just the start.
New normal? there's nothing normal about it.
I never worked on a supermarket project, to my shame. Did the luxury end instead. Luckily out of the consulting game, though. I can't imagine there is going to much call for consultants for luxury retail in the coming year....
I suppose that the 'incentive' would be enough for governments to throw money at trying to develop a vaccine, but trials take time regardless of how much money you have and there is no guarrantee of success.
2. But the economy is dying so we want people to do unsafe things if there's money to be made
3. Most big cities rely on public transport to move people. Despite all the PT operators being effectively bankrupt we can't change the don't travel advice because its not safe to be indoors with lots of people
4. But our cities are dying so stop WFH and head to the office. No you don't need a mask on in the office because its safe to be indoors with lots of people
5. Oh, ok, except for where we've said it isn't safe
6. So stop WFH. Get on the rolling virus tube with a mask. Don't forget to buy that expensive coffee on the way in. Work the job you were doing in comfort and safety at home from your office desk in fear in a mask. Go out and buy an expensive lunch please. Then after work 5 pints with your colleagues please - we'll let you take your mask off as its safe to be indoors with lots of people. Then home on PT with your mask on as remember its not safe to be indoors with lots of people
Yeah, that'll do it.
https://twitter.com/crsdavies/status/1283291991523176454?s=20
But I'm having a mood change. I now sense that is optimistic.
The population of Italy and Japan will more than halve and India will overtake China as the most populous nation with Nigeria becoming the second most populous
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53409521
Pasta and flour are two things where the choice seems to have increased.
It may seem unfair, but by definition a second wave isn't going to be caused by the first category in any event; instead, it's most important to cut down transmission within the latter group who are likely to be out and about and less concerned about safety measures. It sucks, but there we are.
Their dead cat economic bounce is even deader that is otherwise would have been,