So from MrsEd on the joys of postal voting in the US election (and, yes, it does suggest why Trump might have been smart to try and warn his voters off it).
She found the form quite fiddly to complete and there were three separate instances where her vote could be invalidated due to oversight - one, when she had completed everything, was about to seal it up and then the oath of declaration fell out, which she had to sign but the instructions forgot to mention; two, when it stated she should fill out her address but didn't state her US or UK one (it was US); and three, when she had to go to the post office and noticed, in small print, another line she had to fill out giving her address after her name and date.
She votes in California.
Another friend of ours similarly found the postal voting complex. She lives in the US (not sure whether Virginia or New York state).
Both these have MBA degrees and found the process complex and that it would have been easy to make a mistake that would have invalidated their vote.
Which makes me think DT was quite smart in warning his base off postal voting, especially given the heavier weighting to High School or less education and consequently the increased chances of messing things up
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
Also the fact that any lockdown wouldn't actually be solving anything, but just delaying things until the next outbreak in a few months where we'll be back in the same position again.
You can solve the issue if you have an effective test, trace and isolate scheme to hunt down the last carriers of the virus and extinguish it.
It's much easier to run such a scheme with a few hundred cases a day, rather than ten thousand, but the government messed up their first go at this. A lockdown would give another chance to do it properly.
I think it's unrealistic to have an effective track and trace system for the virus here.
So with a harsher lockdown, say pubs closing, no household mixing, granny doesn't get a hug.
What is the difference between this, for granny, if a bunch of 20-30yr olds minus those who must associate with vulnerable people are down the pub?
The difference for granny is that she is far, far less likely under the harsher lockdown to get the virus than if there is no lockdown. Especially if she needs any form of care which probably comes from 20-30 year olds.
If the virus is rife in the community then the people who care for the elderly will be infected and even with PPE will pass it on to the elderly.
You can argue its a price worth paying, but don't pretend please there's no difference. There absolutely is.
How so? Her carers aren't forced to go down the pub. They will take more care. But they might get the virus on the bus. Yes indeed they might and that is a difference. So work to make public transport safer by mask compliance and sanitation measures.
The question then becomes - is the chance of a carer getting the virus on public transport large enough to lock down a whole city.
If you think her carers, often working on minimum wage, will not be living their own lives when off the clock then that is entirely naive.
Do you honestly think that a young 20-something care worker on minimum wage never goes to the pub or does anything else same as everyone else their age?
Oh hold on Mr Libertarian.
So you are going to force the entire country into lockdown and many businesses to close permanently because a 20-yr old carer can't be trusted not to go down the pub?
Blimey - so much for personal responsibility.
No.
I said from the start "You can argue its a price worth paying, but don't pretend please there's no difference. There absolutely is." Did you not read that?
The idea we can hermetically seal the vulnerable from the general population is nonsense, since the vulnerable rely upon the general population. Roughly 5% of all jobs in this country are in adult social care - and this is without considering retail or any other vulnerabilities.
The idea we can save granny by just ignoring her is a nonsense, unless granny is fit and able to look after herself without any care - which isn't the case for those most at risk.
If you want to make an argument that it isn't worth locking the country down and if granny dies you can live with that then I respect that completely, that is an entirely valid libertarian argument. If you want to make an argument that you can save granny and avoid restrictions then that is just totally ignorant.
What an asinine post. You are talking in absolutes where no one else is.
I said: "But they [the carers] might get the virus on the bus. Yes indeed they might and that is a difference."
Neither am I ignoring granny. I am pointing out that in total lockdown she doesn't get to interact with her family, while if pubs are open - and people who go there realise they shouldn't go and hug granny - she doesn't get hugged either.
She does interact with her carers and yes, in society as a whole there would be a greater risk if 20-30yr olds were allowed to go to the pub.
I said there is a balance of risks and allowing economic activity to continue. And there could usefully be a discussion about whether the chances of carers going to the pub or being on a bus and contracting the virus, with the concomitant increase in mortality of those being cared for, should justify closing down the economy.
I think you are in one of your blind spots again Philip.
That's not what you said.
What you said is - and I quote: "What is the difference between this, for granny, if a bunch of 20-30yr olds minus those who must associate with vulnerable people are down the pub?"
I have explained what the difference is.
I haven't said whether I think the increased risk to the elderly justifies a lockdown or not. I have simply said make an informed decision.
All the talk of how well New Zealand have done. I actually think Australia is far more impressive. They are a large country, lots of travel from all around the world, especially to and from China, and have several very large dense cities.
And the most recent outbreak was due to something outside of the government control i.e. security staff bonking hotel guests. The logic was sound of ensuring arrivals quarantine.
Yes, the Victorian outbreak was handled extremely well. OTOH I have friends in Sydney who say the city centre is as bleak as central London at the mo. So it's not all good
It's quite interesting how the various countries compare. NZ does have it easy to some extent, but have done well. Certainly wouldn't disagree with your view on Australia. Vietnam was doing very well - I wonder if their essentially North-South linear layout has helped? France - all roads lead to Paris type thing clearly has not helped them, similarly with the UK. Italy was perhaps helped a little by the relatively small size and greater spread of its cities and towns.
If there is any final agreement on 'who did best' I suspect it'll not be an obvious country.
PS I was pondering what could be said about the Scottish changes - I idly wondered whether Scots drink more Scotch than other parts of the UK - I didn't actually find that, but I did find out that there seems to be quite a surprising world leader in Whisky drinking per capita. (Might be well known trivia)
The big question is whether behaviours been changed enough to stop cases from continuing at their current trajectory, or even reverse course?
It looked for a while like the rule of six might be having some effect, but it turns out that was just a data blip.
Sadly, I don't think the motivation for enough people to change behaviour will occurs until either:
1) Draconian rules are imposed, harming many businesses unfairly with less compensation 2) Hospitalisations and deaths rise to unsustainable levels (bringing back the "Save the NHS" mantra of April)
I hope we're able to avoid both, but it looks difficult from where we're starting.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
Also the fact that any lockdown wouldn't actually be solving anything, but just delaying things until the next outbreak in a few months where we'll be back in the same position again.
You can solve the issue if you have an effective test, trace and isolate scheme to hunt down the last carriers of the virus and extinguish it.
It's much easier to run such a scheme with a few hundred cases a day, rather than ten thousand, but the government messed up their first go at this. A lockdown would give another chance to do it properly.
That was what ought to have happened over the summer, and didn't. How long a lockdown might it take for this administration to be in a position to "do it properly" now ?
There was a good post yesterday from @Andy_Cooke which put it quite well.
I'm miffed because the "spit test" that was being trialled in June hasn't appeared to be pursued. Twenty minute results and could be mass-produced.
Even if it gave a handful of false negatives - it would still do the job of shoving down spread and allowing some areas to open up with reduced social distancing. Maybe not nightclubs, or concerts, but pubs and restaurants and cinemas could have reopened with reduced social distancing, and it would have helped shove the spread down a long way.
Schools and universities could have benefited from it as well.
The pooled testing approach and backwards tracing to pick up superspreaders - where's the work on this? Instead we get a curfew that appears to have come about because of an argument between Johnson and Sunak, with questionable benefit at best and very possibly negatives in terms of spread.
This is the sort of work to be done on "learning to live with it."
The risk segmentation approach doesn't really work out in practice (we can't separate out the population to the degree we need), but at least it was an attempt to come up with a "To-Be" state that wasn't "let it rip and don't do the arithmetic as to what would happen," which has become strongly associated with the "we'll just have to learn to live with it" crowd.
Or the "let people make their own choices on what risk they'll accept" option, which runs into the intractable problem that with an infectious disease, people end up necessarily making their choices on what risk they'll force others to take.
Fast, ubiquitous, cheap testing. Pooled testing and backwards tracing. Identifying the highest dispersion scenarios and avoiding those.
That's the pathway to learning to live with it. The danger is that if things keep going the way they are, the politicians will look at the only thing that correlated with going from rapidly rising to decently descending and re-do it...
Physics teacher estimate...
Getting from 16k a day to 2k a day is three halvings.
The UK's March lockdown halved cases every fortnight, the continental March lockdown halved cases every week, because it was stricter.
You pay your money, you take your choice.
Moral: let this thing get out of control, and it's expensive to clear up afterwards.
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
My apologies if this seems callous.
I am used to going out x times a week etc. I like my holidays. Group of friends etc..
Yet to me, bars closed, no travel, is something that I don't like, but must do.
I am can intellectualise why people find it life ending - but I struggle to internalise it. To really *feel* it.
Something like that revelation in Orwell, where he saw a woman in a grim slum, from a stopped train. In that moment he *felt* (he said) the realisation of her *knowing the awfulness of her situation*. Of not just being one of the "poor", but a person.
I explained in another comment why this is so particularly tough for some people: like my friend, just one example, who has lost his business from Covid and sees no business in the future, and has had suicidal thoughts thereby. He said what kept him going was seeing friends in the pub. He loves the pub and needs the friendship.
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
My apologies if this seems callous.
I am used to going out x times a week etc. I like my holidays. Group of friends etc..
Yet to me, bars closed, no travel, is something that I don't like, but must do.
I am can intellectualise why people find it life ending - but I struggle to internalise it. To really *feel* it.
Something like that revelation in Orwell, where he saw a woman in a grim slum, from a stopped train. In that moment he *felt* (he said) the realisation of her *knowing the awfulness of her situation*. Of not just being one of the "poor", but a person.
I explained in another comment why this is so particularly tough for some people: like my friend, just one example, who has lost his business from Covid and sees no business in the future, and has had suicidal thoughts thereby. He said what kept him going was seeing friends in the pub. He loves the pub and needs the friendship.
Regarding universities, the decision to allow students to return to campuses ranks right up there with some of the worst decisions taken during the epidemic. Yes to try and rescue the situation I would look to a managed shutdown now of halls of residences for those with a home to return to, subject to testing immediately prior to return. Teaching to continue online, practical work postponed until 2021.
Regarding schools, no, simply because of the huge constraint that places on most parents' ability to work other than from home.
If students wish to return from Halls of Residence to their parent's house, they should be allowed to. I bet almost all won't.
The assumption that every student has a large comfortable bedroom in a house with supportive parents is clearly wrong. Many students do not, and many will find it easier to work at their University town rather than home.
Note almost every Western country has allowed students back to their Universities (including Wales where Labour is in power), and almost all the teaching is already online.
However, as far as I am concerned, if students wish to return home, they should be let off any rent obligations and be permitted to do so. I don't believe many will. If the tuition is significantly compromised by being online (as it is in some subjects), then students deserve a partial rebate.
I didn't make the assumption that "every student has a large comfortable bedroom in a house with supportive parents" which is why I was careful to use the wording "with a home to return to". However, very few students spend 12 months of the year on campus. Halls of residence need to remain open only for those who can demonstrate that they have "good reason" to remain, leading to few opportunities for large scale socialising or unavoidable mixing in densely populated blocks of communal accommodation. The rest should be required to go back after testing. The only real argument for students to stay put is the questionmark over whether our testing system is sufficiently robust to prevent the spreading of the virus back into their family home, which I admit is a moot point.
Once you take the decision to move 100% to online tuition, working from home is just as practical as working from a small bedroom in communal accommodation a mile from your lecture theatre. These are after all people who were perfectly capable of working at their family home outside of school lessons when studying for A levels so it's hardly a novel experience.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
So with a harsher lockdown, say pubs closing, no household mixing, granny doesn't get a hug.
What is the difference between this, for granny, if a bunch of 20-30yr olds minus those who must associate with vulnerable people are down the pub?
The difference for granny is that she is far, far less likely under the harsher lockdown to get the virus than if there is no lockdown. Especially if she needs any form of care which probably comes from 20-30 year olds.
If the virus is rife in the community then the people who care for the elderly will be infected and even with PPE will pass it on to the elderly.
You can argue its a price worth paying, but don't pretend please there's no difference. There absolutely is.
How so? Her carers aren't forced to go down the pub. They will take more care. But they might get the virus on the bus. Yes indeed they might and that is a difference. So work to make public transport safer by mask compliance and sanitation measures.
The question then becomes - is the chance of a carer getting the virus on public transport large enough to lock down a whole city.
If you think her carers, often working on minimum wage, will not be living their own lives when off the clock then that is entirely naive.
Do you honestly think that a young 20-something care worker on minimum wage never goes to the pub or does anything else same as everyone else their age?
So pay them not to, it's cheaper to do this than destroy a whole industry.
That is 1.5 million people. Approximately 1,500,000 work in adult social care. How much are you going to pay that 1.5 million people not to socialise at all?
And how are you going to enforce that? Are we going to tag them all? Put ankle bracelets on them?
Furthermore what about their boyfriends/girlfriends/husbands/wives/children etc? Their friends? Their relatives they mingle with? When they go to the shops?
PS how much would you need to be paid to agree not to socialise at all with friends and family?
BUT THEY DON'T SOCIALISE IN LOCKDOWN EITHER!
Jeez Louise.
Yes the only way to stop them from socialising is having a lockdown.
If there's no lockdown, they will socialise.
Pay them lots of money not to. It's cheaper than lockdown.
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
Also the fact that any lockdown wouldn't actually be solving anything, but just delaying things until the next outbreak in a few months where we'll be back in the same position again.
You can solve the issue if you have an effective test, trace and isolate scheme to hunt down the last carriers of the virus and extinguish it.
It's much easier to run such a scheme with a few hundred cases a day, rather than ten thousand, but the government messed up their first go at this. A lockdown would give another chance to do it properly.
That was what ought to have happened over the summer, and didn't. How long a lockdown might it take for this administration to be in a position to "do it properly" now ?
There was a good post yesterday from @Andy_Cooke which put it quite well.
I'm miffed because the "spit test" that was being trialled in June hasn't appeared to be pursued. Twenty minute results and could be mass-produced.
Even if it gave a handful of false negatives - it would still do the job of shoving down spread and allowing some areas to open up with reduced social distancing. Maybe not nightclubs, or concerts, but pubs and restaurants and cinemas could have reopened with reduced social distancing, and it would have helped shove the spread down a long way.
Schools and universities could have benefited from it as well.
The pooled testing approach and backwards tracing to pick up superspreaders - where's the work on this? Instead we get a curfew that appears to have come about because of an argument between Johnson and Sunak, with questionable benefit at best and very possibly negatives in terms of spread.
This is the sort of work to be done on "learning to live with it."
The risk segmentation approach doesn't really work out in practice (we can't separate out the population to the degree we need), but at least it was an attempt to come up with a "To-Be" state that wasn't "let it rip and don't do the arithmetic as to what would happen," which has become strongly associated with the "we'll just have to learn to live with it" crowd.
Or the "let people make their own choices on what risk they'll accept" option, which runs into the intractable problem that with an infectious disease, people end up necessarily making their choices on what risk they'll force others to take.
Fast, ubiquitous, cheap testing. Pooled testing and backwards tracing. Identifying the highest dispersion scenarios and avoiding those.
That's the pathway to learning to live with it. The danger is that if things keep going the way they are, the politicians will look at the only thing that correlated with going from rapidly rising to decently descending and re-do it...
Wife works at PHE - they are trialling spit tests against the PCR swab currently (in a big marquee, and using staff as guinea pigs). Does mean the wife gets a regular test, but reports the swab is icky. She also spent several hours back a while generating saliva. So, be patient, the spit tests are coming.
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
Also the fact that any lockdown wouldn't actually be solving anything, but just delaying things until the next outbreak in a few months where we'll be back in the same position again.
You can solve the issue if you have an effective test, trace and isolate scheme to hunt down the last carriers of the virus and extinguish it.
It's much easier to run such a scheme with a few hundred cases a day, rather than ten thousand, but the government messed up their first go at this. A lockdown would give another chance to do it properly.
That was what ought to have happened over the summer, and didn't. How long a lockdown might it take for this administration to be in a position to "do it properly" now ?
There was a good post yesterday from @Andy_Cooke which put it quite well.
I'm miffed because the "spit test" that was being trialled in June hasn't appeared to be pursued. Twenty minute results and could be mass-produced.
Even if it gave a handful of false negatives - it would still do the job of shoving down spread and allowing some areas to open up with reduced social distancing. Maybe not nightclubs, or concerts, but pubs and restaurants and cinemas could have reopened with reduced social distancing, and it would have helped shove the spread down a long way.
Schools and universities could have benefited from it as well.
The pooled testing approach and backwards tracing to pick up superspreaders - where's the work on this? Instead we get a curfew that appears to have come about because of an argument between Johnson and Sunak, with questionable benefit at best and very possibly negatives in terms of spread.
This is the sort of work to be done on "learning to live with it."
The risk segmentation approach doesn't really work out in practice (we can't separate out the population to the degree we need), but at least it was an attempt to come up with a "To-Be" state that wasn't "let it rip and don't do the arithmetic as to what would happen," which has become strongly associated with the "we'll just have to learn to live with it" crowd.
Or the "let people make their own choices on what risk they'll accept" option, which runs into the intractable problem that with an infectious disease, people end up necessarily making their choices on what risk they'll force others to take.
Fast, ubiquitous, cheap testing. Pooled testing and backwards tracing. Identifying the highest dispersion scenarios and avoiding those.
That's the pathway to learning to live with it. The danger is that if things keep going the way they are, the politicians will look at the only thing that correlated with going from rapidly rising to decently descending and re-do it...
Physics teacher estimate...
Getting from 16k a day to 2k a day is three halvings.
The UK's March lockdown halved cases every fortnight, the continental March lockdown halved cases every week, because it was stricter.
You pay your money, you take your choice.
Moral: let this thing get out of control, and it's expensive to clear up afterwards.
My point is that without better systems in place post lockdown, it will just be rinse and repeat. We had a good three months over the summer to get better organised.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
No old firm games!
All the pubs will shut as there will not be enough business between 6-6 but by doing this the Scottish Government will not have to put a financial package in place to help the staff as they can open.
If bars and restaurants are so fucking dangerous how come Sweden isn't mired in plague?
With 582 deaths/million, Sweden is mired in plague compared to its similar neighbours Denmark (114/million), Finland (62/million) and Norway (51/million). If we're looking for Scandinavian role models, Norway's the one we should be considering.
Edit: Sweden's economy also seems to have fared worse than those of its neighbours:
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
No old firm games!
All the pubs will shut as there will not be enough business between 6-6 but by doing this the Scottish Government will not have to put a financial package in place to help the staff as they can open.
I wouldn't be wanting to work in a Glasgow pub trying to explain to people why they can't have any booze. They'll have to empty every bar out, or they'll have riots.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
No old firm games!
I love Glasgow. But closing the pubs won't make that big a difference - the real hard cases buy from the offie and drink enough to provide a warm piss-stained sweary welcome to tourists as they get off the train at Central station.
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
My apologies if this seems callous.
I am used to going out x times a week etc. I like my holidays. Group of friends etc..
Yet to me, bars closed, no travel, is something that I don't like, but must do.
I am can intellectualise why people find it life ending - but I struggle to internalise it. To really *feel* it.
Something like that revelation in Orwell, where he saw a woman in a grim slum, from a stopped train. In that moment he *felt* (he said) the realisation of her *knowing the awfulness of her situation*. Of not just being one of the "poor", but a person.
I explained in another comment why this is so particularly tough for some people: like my friend, just one example, who has lost his business from Covid and sees no business in the future, and has had suicidal thoughts thereby. He said what kept him going was seeing friends in the pub. He loves the pub and needs the friendship.
His marriage is in tatters because Covid.
I have a working class friend, who steadily, over a decade, went through several skilled trades. Each time he went through his wages and conditions being eroded down to minimum wage, reduced hours each week etc. Steadily hammered downwards.
Yet, in all this, he did not suffer depression or do anything other than move forward.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
No old firm games!
All the pubs will shut as there will not be enough business between 6-6 but by doing this the Scottish Government will not have to put a financial package in place to help the staff as they can open.
Indeed. It will be too depressing to go to a pub "for coffee" and too cold to sit outside so the pubs will close, as no one will turn up.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
No old firm games!
All the pubs will shut as there will not be enough business between 6-6 but by doing this the Scottish Government will not have to put a financial package in place to help the staff as they can open.
I wouldn't be wanting to work in a Glasgow pub trying to explain to people why they can't have any booze. They'll have to empty every bar out, or they'll have riots.
Or, you'll get people taking their own booze 'to' the pub, and sneaking it in. Good luck policing that.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
No old firm games!
All the pubs will shut as there will not be enough business between 6-6 but by doing this the Scottish Government will not have to put a financial package in place to help the staff as they can open.
Indeed. It will be too depressing to go to a pub "for coffee" and too cold to sit outside so the pubs will close, as no one will turn up.
And people think she is decent, she should have shut the pubs and helped the staff.
All the talk of how well New Zealand have done. I actually think Australia is far more impressive. They are a large country, lots of travel from all around the world, especially to and from China, and have several very large dense cities.
And the most recent outbreak was due to something outside of the government control i.e. security staff bonking hotel guests. The logic was sound of ensuring arrivals quarantine.
Other countries have also done well.
The nonsense that the only way to avoid our current purgatory is by giving up and stoically accepting tens, or hundreds, of thousands more dead is dangerous. We can do better.
So with a harsher lockdown, say pubs closing, no household mixing, granny doesn't get a hug.
What is the difference between this, for granny, if a bunch of 20-30yr olds minus those who must associate with vulnerable people are down the pub?
The difference for granny is that she is far, far less likely under the harsher lockdown to get the virus than if there is no lockdown. Especially if she needs any form of care which probably comes from 20-30 year olds.
If the virus is rife in the community then the people who care for the elderly will be infected and even with PPE will pass it on to the elderly.
You can argue its a price worth paying, but don't pretend please there's no difference. There absolutely is.
How so? Her carers aren't forced to go down the pub. They will take more care. But they might get the virus on the bus. Yes indeed they might and that is a difference. So work to make public transport safer by mask compliance and sanitation measures.
The question then becomes - is the chance of a carer getting the virus on public transport large enough to lock down a whole city.
If you think her carers, often working on minimum wage, will not be living their own lives when off the clock then that is entirely naive.
Do you honestly think that a young 20-something care worker on minimum wage never goes to the pub or does anything else same as everyone else their age?
So pay them not to, it's cheaper to do this than destroy a whole industry.
That is 1.5 million people. Approximately 1,500,000 work in adult social care. How much are you going to pay that 1.5 million people not to socialise at all?
And how are you going to enforce that? Are we going to tag them all? Put ankle bracelets on them?
Furthermore what about their boyfriends/girlfriends/husbands/wives/children etc? Their friends? Their relatives they mingle with? When they go to the shops?
PS how much would you need to be paid to agree not to socialise at all with friends and family?
BUT THEY DON'T SOCIALISE IN LOCKDOWN EITHER!
Jeez Louise.
Yes the only way to stop them from socialising is having a lockdown.
If there's no lockdown, they will socialise.
Pay them lots of money not to. It's cheaper than lockdown.
How much? How much will you pay them not to socialise? Remembering that it is 1.5 million people we are talking about, how much do you think it is appropriate to pay someone not to socialise while everyone else can?
And does that extend to their partners and children and family and friends too? How would it work?
I'm not trying to be awkward, if you've got an answer I'd love to hear it. It just seems to me to be implausible.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
No old firm games!
All the pubs will shut as there will not be enough business between 6-6 but by doing this the Scottish Government will not have to put a financial package in place to help the staff as they can open.
Indeed. It will be too depressing to go to a pub "for coffee" and too cold to sit outside so the pubs will close, as no one will turn up.
Yep, I think the sitting outside to 10pm in Scotland in October is...ahem 'optimistic'.
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
Also the fact that any lockdown wouldn't actually be solving anything, but just delaying things until the next outbreak in a few months where we'll be back in the same position again.
You can solve the issue if you have an effective test, trace and isolate scheme to hunt down the last carriers of the virus and extinguish it.
It's much easier to run such a scheme with a few hundred cases a day, rather than ten thousand, but the government messed up their first go at this. A lockdown would give another chance to do it properly.
That was what ought to have happened over the summer, and didn't. How long a lockdown might it take for this administration to be in a position to "do it properly" now ?
There was a good post yesterday from @Andy_Cooke which put it quite well.
I'm miffed because the "spit test" that was being trialled in June hasn't appeared to be pursued. Twenty minute results and could be mass-produced.
Even if it gave a handful of false negatives - it would still do the job of shoving down spread and allowing some areas to open up with reduced social distancing. Maybe not nightclubs, or concerts, but pubs and restaurants and cinemas could have reopened with reduced social distancing, and it would have helped shove the spread down a long way.
Schools and universities could have benefited from it as well.
The pooled testing approach and backwards tracing to pick up superspreaders - where's the work on this? Instead we get a curfew that appears to have come about because of an argument between Johnson and Sunak, with questionable benefit at best and very possibly negatives in terms of spread.
This is the sort of work to be done on "learning to live with it."
The risk segmentation approach doesn't really work out in practice (we can't separate out the population to the degree we need), but at least it was an attempt to come up with a "To-Be" state that wasn't "let it rip and don't do the arithmetic as to what would happen," which has become strongly associated with the "we'll just have to learn to live with it" crowd.
Or the "let people make their own choices on what risk they'll accept" option, which runs into the intractable problem that with an infectious disease, people end up necessarily making their choices on what risk they'll force others to take.
Fast, ubiquitous, cheap testing. Pooled testing and backwards tracing. Identifying the highest dispersion scenarios and avoiding those.
That's the pathway to learning to live with it. The danger is that if things keep going the way they are, the politicians will look at the only thing that correlated with going from rapidly rising to decently descending and re-do it...
Physics teacher estimate...
Getting from 16k a day to 2k a day is three halvings.
The UK's March lockdown halved cases every fortnight, the continental March lockdown halved cases every week, because it was stricter.
You pay your money, you take your choice.
Moral: let this thing get out of control, and it's expensive to clear up afterwards.
Point of order: our lockdown halved *recorded* cases every two weeks.
So with a harsher lockdown, say pubs closing, no household mixing, granny doesn't get a hug.
What is the difference between this, for granny, if a bunch of 20-30yr olds minus those who must associate with vulnerable people are down the pub?
The difference for granny is that she is far, far less likely under the harsher lockdown to get the virus than if there is no lockdown. Especially if she needs any form of care which probably comes from 20-30 year olds.
If the virus is rife in the community then the people who care for the elderly will be infected and even with PPE will pass it on to the elderly.
You can argue its a price worth paying, but don't pretend please there's no difference. There absolutely is.
How so? Her carers aren't forced to go down the pub. They will take more care. But they might get the virus on the bus. Yes indeed they might and that is a difference. So work to make public transport safer by mask compliance and sanitation measures.
The question then becomes - is the chance of a carer getting the virus on public transport large enough to lock down a whole city.
If you think her carers, often working on minimum wage, will not be living their own lives when off the clock then that is entirely naive.
Do you honestly think that a young 20-something care worker on minimum wage never goes to the pub or does anything else same as everyone else their age?
Oh hold on Mr Libertarian.
So you are going to force the entire country into lockdown and many businesses to close permanently because a 20-yr old carer can't be trusted not to go down the pub?
Blimey - so much for personal responsibility.
No.
I said from the start "You can argue its a price worth paying, but don't pretend please there's no difference. There absolutely is." Did you not read that?
The idea we can hermetically seal the vulnerable from the general population is nonsense, since the vulnerable rely upon the general population. Roughly 5% of all jobs in this country are in adult social care - and this is without considering retail or any other vulnerabilities.
The idea we can save granny by just ignoring her is a nonsense, unless granny is fit and able to look after herself without any care - which isn't the case for those most at risk.
If you want to make an argument that it isn't worth locking the country down and if granny dies you can live with that then I respect that completely, that is an entirely valid libertarian argument. If you want to make an argument that you can save granny and avoid restrictions then that is just totally ignorant.
What an asinine post. You are talking in absolutes where no one else is.
I said: "But they [the carers] might get the virus on the bus. Yes indeed they might and that is a difference."
Neither am I ignoring granny. I am pointing out that in total lockdown she doesn't get to interact with her family, while if pubs are open - and people who go there realise they shouldn't go and hug granny - she doesn't get hugged either.
She does interact with her carers and yes, in society as a whole there would be a greater risk if 20-30yr olds were allowed to go to the pub.
I said there is a balance of risks and allowing economic activity to continue. And there could usefully be a discussion about whether the chances of carers going to the pub or being on a bus and contracting the virus, with the concomitant increase in mortality of those being cared for, should justify closing down the economy.
I think you are in one of your blind spots again Philip.
That's not what you said.
What you said is - and I quote: "What is the difference between this, for granny, if a bunch of 20-30yr olds minus those who must associate with vulnerable people are down the pub?"
I have explained what the difference is.
I haven't said whether I think the increased risk to the elderly justifies a lockdown or not. I have simply said make an informed decision.
You said that the difference is that she is far, far less likely to get the virus under harsher lockdown conditions. But of course you don't trust her 20-yr old carers not to go boozing it up down the pub after their 14hr shift (with 2x half-hour breaks). I think that you should trust people and that if (big if for you, I see) people are sensible then any increased risk could be mitigated.
I also said that there should be a discussion around those balance of risks.
A friendly warning to those in Scotland who think that voting for independence is a good idea.
If that happens you will get this sort of thing on a permanent basis from Sturgeon and her Green helpers - please think about your freedom and quality of life first before you vote for independence!
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
My apologies if this seems callous.
I am used to going out x times a week etc. I like my holidays. Group of friends etc..
Yet to me, bars closed, no travel, is something that I don't like, but must do.
I am can intellectualise why people find it life ending - but I struggle to internalise it. To really *feel* it.
Something like that revelation in Orwell, where he saw a woman in a grim slum, from a stopped train. In that moment he *felt* (he said) the realisation of her *knowing the awfulness of her situation*. Of not just being one of the "poor", but a person.
I explained in another comment why this is so particularly tough for some people: like my friend, just one example, who has lost his business from Covid and sees no business in the future, and has had suicidal thoughts thereby. He said what kept him going was seeing friends in the pub. He loves the pub and needs the friendship.
Thanks for the clarification. I am sure that many people in Scotland are unaware of the fact that a few small areas of the Central Belt account for most of the population...
All the talk of how well New Zealand have done. I actually think Australia is far more impressive. They are a large country, lots of travel from all around the world, especially to and from China, and have several very large dense cities.
And the most recent outbreak was due to something outside of the government control i.e. security staff bonking hotel guests. The logic was sound of ensuring arrivals quarantine.
Other countries have also done well.
The nonsense that the only way to avoid our current purgatory is by giving up and stoically accepting tens, or hundreds, of thousands more dead is dangerous. We can do better.
So with a harsher lockdown, say pubs closing, no household mixing, granny doesn't get a hug.
What is the difference between this, for granny, if a bunch of 20-30yr olds minus those who must associate with vulnerable people are down the pub?
The difference for granny is that she is far, far less likely under the harsher lockdown to get the virus than if there is no lockdown. Especially if she needs any form of care which probably comes from 20-30 year olds.
If the virus is rife in the community then the people who care for the elderly will be infected and even with PPE will pass it on to the elderly.
You can argue its a price worth paying, but don't pretend please there's no difference. There absolutely is.
How so? Her carers aren't forced to go down the pub. They will take more care. But they might get the virus on the bus. Yes indeed they might and that is a difference. So work to make public transport safer by mask compliance and sanitation measures.
The question then becomes - is the chance of a carer getting the virus on public transport large enough to lock down a whole city.
If you think her carers, often working on minimum wage, will not be living their own lives when off the clock then that is entirely naive.
Do you honestly think that a young 20-something care worker on minimum wage never goes to the pub or does anything else same as everyone else their age?
So pay them not to, it's cheaper to do this than destroy a whole industry.
That is 1.5 million people. Approximately 1,500,000 work in adult social care. How much are you going to pay that 1.5 million people not to socialise at all?
And how are you going to enforce that? Are we going to tag them all? Put ankle bracelets on them?
Furthermore what about their boyfriends/girlfriends/husbands/wives/children etc? Their friends? Their relatives they mingle with? When they go to the shops?
PS how much would you need to be paid to agree not to socialise at all with friends and family?
BUT THEY DON'T SOCIALISE IN LOCKDOWN EITHER!
Jeez Louise.
Yes the only way to stop them from socialising is having a lockdown.
If there's no lockdown, they will socialise.
Pay them lots of money not to. It's cheaper than lockdown.
How much? How much will you pay them not to socialise? Remembering that it is 1.5 million people we are talking about, how much do you think it is appropriate to pay someone not to socialise while everyone else can?
And does that extend to their partners and children and family and friends too? How would it work?
I'm not trying to be awkward, if you've got an answer I'd love to hear it. It just seems to me to be implausible.
Yes, it is highly implausible. My mother, for example, requires two visits from carers every day. These are generally women in their 30s or 40s who typically have a husband and children. There is simply no way that these people could be cut off from their families for weeks on end. The whole idea is quite ridiculous.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
Glasgow is pretty balmy in the winter.
lol. I've been there in the winter. It is Satanic. It may not be freezing cold like Svalbard but it has that awful damp chilliness, which eats into your bones. Feeezing dry cold is nicer, crisper, healthier.
And then, of course, there is the darkness, which begins at about 1pm, shortly after dawn.
In early January Glasgow is one of the most depressing cities on earth, only saved from complete horror by the bustling pubs.....
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
Also the fact that any lockdown wouldn't actually be solving anything, but just delaying things until the next outbreak in a few months where we'll be back in the same position again.
You can solve the issue if you have an effective test, trace and isolate scheme to hunt down the last carriers of the virus and extinguish it.
It's much easier to run such a scheme with a few hundred cases a day, rather than ten thousand, but the government messed up their first go at this. A lockdown would give another chance to do it properly.
Not if they have the same incompetents in charge as last time, which they do.
Competence is the only way out of this that doesn't involve mass death.
I think we should concentrate on that, rather than to try and force everyone to choose between mass death and existing under lockdown, because the incompetents cannot lead a successful antiviral health strategy.
Lockdown is not good. Lockdown is a sign of failure. But mass death is worse. Isolate the virus and we escape.
All the talk of how well New Zealand have done. I actually think Australia is far more impressive. They are a large country, lots of travel from all around the world, especially to and from China, and have several very large dense cities.
And the most recent outbreak was due to something outside of the government control i.e. security staff bonking hotel guests. The logic was sound of ensuring arrivals quarantine.
Other countries have also done well.
The nonsense that the only way to avoid our current purgatory is by giving up and stoically accepting tens, or hundreds, of thousands more dead is dangerous. We can do better.
This is also good news (though the headline is a little misleading, as there will be only around 50k doses of the effective combination therapy, as opposed to the single antibody shot, by the year end).
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
My apologies if this seems callous.
I am used to going out x times a week etc. I like my holidays. Group of friends etc..
Yet to me, bars closed, no travel, is something that I don't like, but must do.
I am can intellectualise why people find it life ending - but I struggle to internalise it. To really *feel* it.
Something like that revelation in Orwell, where he saw a woman in a grim slum, from a stopped train. In that moment he *felt* (he said) the realisation of her *knowing the awfulness of her situation*. Of not just being one of the "poor", but a person.
I explained in another comment why this is so particularly tough for some people: like my friend, just one example, who has lost his business from Covid and sees no business in the future, and has had suicidal thoughts thereby. He said what kept him going was seeing friends in the pub. He loves the pub and needs the friendship.
His marriage is in tatters because Covid.
I have a working class friend
How ghastly for you.
How nice of you to snear. And remove the context.
He lived through a staggeringly shit time. His response - went from overweight to running marathons. Because, he said, I can afford a pair of trainers.
Perhaps he was stupid to grin and bear it. Perhaps.. But I was impressed. Maybe that makes me a fool.
All the talk of how well New Zealand have done. I actually think Australia is far more impressive. They are a large country, lots of travel from all around the world, especially to and from China, and have several very large dense cities.
And the most recent outbreak was due to something outside of the government control i.e. security staff bonking hotel guests. The logic was sound of ensuring arrivals quarantine.
Other countries have also done well.
The nonsense that the only way to avoid our current purgatory is by giving up and stoically accepting tens, or hundreds, of thousands more dead is dangerous. We can do better.
I don't think SK-levels of surveillance would go down all that well.
If SK style surveillance could save the country from a 10-20% drop in GDP, and a 2nd total national lockdown inducing mass suicide and nationwide depression, then I expect it would be welcomed by 99.8% of the country.
The big question is whether behaviours been changed enough to stop cases from continuing at their current trajectory, or even reverse course?
It looked for a while like the rule of six might be having some effect, but it turns out that was just a data blip.
Sadly, I don't think the motivation for enough people to change behaviour will occurs until either:
1) Draconian rules are imposed, harming many businesses unfairly with less compensation 2) Hospitalisations and deaths rise to unsustainable levels (bringing back the "Save the NHS" mantra of April)
I hope we're able to avoid both, but it looks difficult from where we're starting.
I think there is an effect of the rule of six, plus the general ramping up of the rhetoric, to be seen in the ONS data and the ZOE ap data. These show a stabilising, or slowing of the rate of increase. Not yet a decline.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
Glasgow is pretty balmy in the winter.
lol. I've been there in the winter. It is Satanic. It may not be freezing cold like Svalbard but it has that awful damp chilliness, which eats into your bones. Feeezing dry cold is nicer, crisper, healthier.
And then, of course, there is the darkness, which begins at about 1pm, shortly after dawn.
In early January Glasgow is one of the most depressing cities on earth, only saved from complete horror by the bustling pubs.....
You absolute pussy.
Now Edinburgh. Edinburgh in the winter is cold as fuck but Glasgow is a delight.
A friendly warning to those in Scotland who think that voting for independence is a good idea.
If that happens you will get this sort of thing on a permanent basis from Sturgeon and her Green helpers - please think about your freedom and quality of life first before you vote for independence!
As someone who's never been much into pubs, I don't really understand why it's going to be illegal to drink a glass of beer indoors but legal to drink a glass of Coke. What is the thinking here? - that if you get pissed you'll weave around the place and forget about social distancing, whereas if you drink Coke you'll preserve a judicious distance? Forgive the ignorance here - I'm just trying to follow the reasoning.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
Glasgow is pretty balmy in the winter.
lol. I've been there in the winter. It is Satanic. It may not be freezing cold like Svalbard but it has that awful damp chilliness, which eats into your bones. Feeezing dry cold is nicer, crisper, healthier.
And then, of course, there is the darkness, which begins at about 1pm, shortly after dawn.
In early January Glasgow is one of the most depressing cities on earth, only saved from complete horror by the bustling pubs.....
You absolute pussy.
Now Edinburgh. Edinburgh in the winter is cold as fuck but Glasgow is a delight.
I`m still reeling that Glasgow has been compared to Svalbard.
I fully supported the lockdown. I think the government's actions since have been shambolic in regard to track and trace, not testing at borders, the whole gamut of things that have been debated on here constantly.
I think we need to let the virus rip now. Why are we waiting for a vaccine if people under, what was the age mooted the other day, 50?, 60?, aren't going to be vaccinated anyway? We can't go on having lockdowns, we're not going to vaccinate everyone, so those people who aren't going to be vaccinated need to get it. There's no other option.
Vulnerable people need to be shielded, maybe subject to more proscriptive restrictions. That is unfair, people will go absolutely mental, I get that.
But, really, what's the alternative? For the bulk of people who will get mild, or no, symptoms, we need to let it rip.
That's not an appealing prospect but it seems to me to be the least worst option. Keep pubs open, get gigs going, theatres, football matches, the whole shebang. Let people vote with their feet. Because I, and millions and millions of the working age population, won't be vaccinated so at some point, presumably, we're going to get it, mildly or asymptomatically, so why not sooner rather than later?
It's getting closer to me personally. My mate who I had a beer with on Friday night had to have a test yesterday because someone he was working closely with last week has tested positive. My mate has no symptoms, if I was exposed to it I have no symptoms as yet. Part of me hopes I get it because the chances are I will be perfectly fine, a relatively mild illness or asymptomatic. Then I'll at least have immunity for some period of time.
We can't obliterate the economy anymore to shield vulnerable people. Stricter restrictions, or lockdowns, for vulnerable people are needed and everyone else needs to be left to get on with it, to take their own risks, make their own decisions. That's not fair but life's not fair. This virus isn't fair. I can't see any other way of getting through this now.
Good question on Twitter: why has Sturgeon banned drinking in restaurants? What difference does it make if you have a glass of wine with your roast lamb??
Regarding universities, the decision to allow students to return to campuses ranks right up there with some of the worst decisions taken during the epidemic. Yes to try and rescue the situation I would look to a managed shutdown now of halls of residences for those with a home to return to, subject to testing immediately prior to return. Teaching to continue online, practical work postponed until 2021.
Regarding schools, no, simply because of the huge constraint that places on most parents' ability to work other than from home.
If students wish to return from Halls of Residence to their parent's house, they should be allowed to. I bet almost all won't.
The assumption that every student has a large comfortable bedroom in a house with supportive parents is clearly wrong. Many students do not, and many will find it easier to work at their University town rather than home.
Note almost every Western country has allowed students back to their Universities (including Wales where Labour is in power), and almost all the teaching is already online.
However, as far as I am concerned, if students wish to return home, they should be let off any rent obligations and be permitted to do so. I don't believe many will. If the tuition is significantly compromised by being online (as it is in some subjects), then students deserve a partial rebate.
I didn't make the assumption that "every student has a large comfortable bedroom in a house with supportive parents" which is why I was careful to use the wording "with a home to return to". However, very few students spend 12 months of the year on campus. Halls of residence need to remain open only for those who can demonstrate that they have "good reason" to remain, leading to few opportunities for large scale socialising or unavoidable mixing in densely populated blocks of communal accommodation. The rest should be required to go back after testing. The only real argument for students to stay put is the questionmark over whether our testing system is sufficiently robust to prevent the spreading of the virus back into their family home, which I admit is a moot point.
Once you take the decision to move 100% to online tuition, working from home is just as practical as working from a small bedroom in communal accommodation a mile from your lecture theatre. These are after all people who were perfectly capable of working at their family home outside of school lessons when studying for A levels so it's hardly a novel experience.
I get frustrated that some don't realise there are elements of a lot of Uni courses that cannot be taught exclusively online, notably in the sciences and engineering.
Good question on Twitter: why has Sturgeon banned drinking in restaurants? What difference does it make if you have a glass of wine with your roast lamb??
Good question on Twitter: why has Sturgeon banned drinking in restaurants? What difference does it make if you have a glass of wine with your roast lamb??
This seems to be puritanism for the sake of it.
I presume to avoid rule skirting "is it a pub is it a restraunt" situations.
Good question on Twitter: why has Sturgeon banned drinking in restaurants? What difference does it make if you have a glass of wine with your roast lamb??
This seems to be puritanism for the sake of it.
Otherwise every pub re-defines itself as a restaurant - in about 15 seconds.
Good question on Twitter: why has Sturgeon banned drinking in restaurants? What difference does it make if you have a glass of wine with your roast lamb??
This seems to be puritanism for the sake of it.
It's certainly a good way of maximising the hit to the restaurant's income.
All the talk of how well New Zealand have done. I actually think Australia is far more impressive. They are a large country, lots of travel from all around the world, especially to and from China, and have several very large dense cities.
And the most recent outbreak was due to something outside of the government control i.e. security staff bonking hotel guests. The logic was sound of ensuring arrivals quarantine.
Other countries have also done well.
The nonsense that the only way to avoid our current purgatory is by giving up and stoically accepting tens, or hundreds, of thousands more dead is dangerous. We can do better.
I don't think SK-levels of surveillance would go down all that well.
If SK style surveillance could save the country from a 10-20% drop in GDP, and a 2nd total national lockdown inducing mass suicide and nationwide depression, then I expect it would be welcomed by 99.8% of the country.
Bit late now, though. I think most countries have had to live with the systems they have in place, and ours are frankly a bit crap. Though if we'd had a team of Hunt and Paul Nurse running Dido's outfit for the last three months, we'd very likely be in a better place.
Scotland - LOL pubs open 6am to 6pm only! Let's all get pissed in the daytime instead!
No, they won't be serving alcohol at all.
Let's see how 'temporary' the 16 day closure is!
Yes. Experience shows that these lockdowns get extended, and extended. The Scottish govt probably knows that they may need these rules in place for many weeks, but can't admit it as too many Glaswegians will hang themselves.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
No old firm games!
All the pubs will shut as there will not be enough business between 6-6 but by doing this the Scottish Government will not have to put a financial package in place to help the staff as they can open.
Indeed. It will be too depressing to go to a pub "for coffee" and too cold to sit outside so the pubs will close, as no one will turn up.
And people think she is decent, she should have shut the pubs and helped the staff.
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
My apologies if this seems callous.
I am used to going out x times a week etc. I like my holidays. Group of friends etc..
Yet to me, bars closed, no travel, is something that I don't like, but must do.
I am can intellectualise why people find it life ending - but I struggle to internalise it. To really *feel* it.
Something like that revelation in Orwell, where he saw a woman in a grim slum, from a stopped train. In that moment he *felt* (he said) the realisation of her *knowing the awfulness of her situation*. Of not just being one of the "poor", but a person.
I explained in another comment why this is so particularly tough for some people: like my friend, just one example, who has lost his business from Covid and sees no business in the future, and has had suicidal thoughts thereby. He said what kept him going was seeing friends in the pub. He loves the pub and needs the friendship.
His marriage is in tatters because Covid.
I have a working class friend
How ghastly for you.
How nice of you to snear. And remove the context.
He lived through a staggeringly shit time. His response - went from overweight to running marathons. Because, he said, I can afford a pair of trainers.
Perhaps he was stupid to grin and bear it. Perhaps.. But I was impressed. Maybe that makes me a fool.
Why did you feel his working classness was of particular note?
The way that Biden keeps holding up at 1.54 with BF and has done all day is really something given the polls. Either their are plenty of punters still fancying Trump or it is the bookies balancing their books.
All the talk of how well New Zealand have done. I actually think Australia is far more impressive. They are a large country, lots of travel from all around the world, especially to and from China, and have several very large dense cities.
And the most recent outbreak was due to something outside of the government control i.e. security staff bonking hotel guests. The logic was sound of ensuring arrivals quarantine.
Other countries have also done well.
The nonsense that the only way to avoid our current purgatory is by giving up and stoically accepting tens, or hundreds, of thousands more dead is dangerous. We can do better.
Lol. How bad must the Covid shitshow be about to get if they're deploying the Brexit shitshow as a dead cat?
I think they're resigned to not getting the EU to budge, and they think with Covid they can sufficiently deflect blame for the upcoming catastrophe from themselves.
I don't see how 16 days does much....again we either put things in place for the long term or not e.g I thought Scotland decision to stop household mixing was very sensible.
Good question on Twitter: why has Sturgeon banned drinking in restaurants? What difference does it make if you have a glass of wine with your roast lamb??
This seems to be puritanism for the sake of it.
Otherwise every pub re-defines itself as a restaurant - in about 15 seconds.
Then enforce a law that they cannot do that. Send the cops round if they do. This stuff is already regulated: pubs are legally defined etc.
Then at least allow people to have a drink with a meal, and save the restaurant sector from bankruptcy, even if you have to sacrifice the pubs. This is bollocks from Sturgeon
All the talk of how well New Zealand have done. I actually think Australia is far more impressive. They are a large country, lots of travel from all around the world, especially to and from China, and have several very large dense cities.
And the most recent outbreak was due to something outside of the government control i.e. security staff bonking hotel guests. The logic was sound of ensuring arrivals quarantine.
Other countries have also done well.
The nonsense that the only way to avoid our current purgatory is by giving up and stoically accepting tens, or hundreds, of thousands more dead is dangerous. We can do better.
I don't think SK-levels of surveillance would go down all that well.
If SK style surveillance could save the country from a 10-20% drop in GDP, and a 2nd total national lockdown inducing mass suicide and nationwide depression, then I expect it would be welcomed by 99.8% of the country.
Pleased to see that you think Sir Keir has the answer.
Bet she`s shitting herself about going up against that razor-sharp wit and intellectual tour de force that is Mike Pence.
Pence isn't but he is calm and measured. He doesn't get flustered.
Harris can be an attack dog but, as she showed against Tulsi Gabbard, she is prone to getting flustered when challenged, and making facial expressions that don't look great.
I don't see much chance of Pence making a big blunder but I can see Harris potentially doing so.
As I said, look out for what the ratings look like for this one
I can see widespread disobedience and possible civil resistance. A sunny spring lockdown was tolerable, once. An indefinite autumn and winter lockdown will send people mad. Fuck this insanity.
a second lock down won't be as effective as it requires consent and there'll be less of it. Still a majority consent, easy, but effectiveness will be lower with even a little less compliance.
An entire British autumn and winter without pubs, restaurants, society, parties, theatres, anything. It's..... dystopian. I'd literally prefer it if we were at war. At least that would be dramatic. This is just unremitting bleakness. The mental health impacts are going to be catastrophic
I have close friends who are already tipping towards mental breakdown. No exaggeration.
Also the fact that any lockdown wouldn't actually be solving anything, but just delaying things until the next outbreak in a few months where we'll be back in the same position again.
You can solve the issue if you have an effective test, trace and isolate scheme to hunt down the last carriers of the virus and extinguish it.
It's much easier to run such a scheme with a few hundred cases a day, rather than ten thousand, but the government messed up their first go at this. A lockdown would give another chance to do it properly.
That was what ought to have happened over the summer, and didn't. How long a lockdown might it take for this administration to be in a position to "do it properly" now ?
There was a good post yesterday from @Andy_Cooke which put it quite well.
I'm miffed because the "spit test" that was being trialled in June hasn't appeared to be pursued. Twenty minute results and could be mass-produced.
Even if it gave a handful of false negatives - it would still do the job of shoving down spread and allowing some areas to open up with reduced social distancing. Maybe not nightclubs, or concerts, but pubs and restaurants and cinemas could have reopened with reduced social distancing, and it would have helped shove the spread down a long way.
Schools and universities could have benefited from it as well.
The pooled testing approach and backwards tracing to pick up superspreaders - where's the work on this? Instead we get a curfew that appears to have come about because of an argument between Johnson and Sunak, with questionable benefit at best and very possibly negatives in terms of spread.
This is the sort of work to be done on "learning to live with it."
The risk segmentation approach doesn't really work out in practice (we can't separate out the population to the degree we need), but at least it was an attempt to come up with a "To-Be" state that wasn't "let it rip and don't do the arithmetic as to what would happen," which has become strongly associated with the "we'll just have to learn to live with it" crowd.
Or the "let people make their own choices on what risk they'll accept" option, which runs into the intractable problem that with an infectious disease, people end up necessarily making their choices on what risk they'll force others to take.
Fast, ubiquitous, cheap testing. Pooled testing and backwards tracing. Identifying the highest dispersion scenarios and avoiding those.
That's the pathway to learning to live with it. The danger is that if things keep going the way they are, the politicians will look at the only thing that correlated with going from rapidly rising to decently descending and re-do it...
Physics teacher estimate...
Getting from 16k a day to 2k a day is three halvings.
The UK's March lockdown halved cases every fortnight, the continental March lockdown halved cases every week, because it was stricter.
You pay your money, you take your choice.
Moral: let this thing get out of control, and it's expensive to clear up afterwards.
Point of order: our lockdown halved *recorded* cases every two weeks.
Fair point. If No 10 are watching, this is why you don't just let physicists run everything. Even the delightful ones. (Though from memory, the death curve for the UK also showed a two week halving... at least to start with.)
Comments
Its very sad but others don't.
She found the form quite fiddly to complete and there were three separate instances where her vote could be invalidated due to oversight - one, when she had completed everything, was about to seal it up and then the oath of declaration fell out, which she had to sign but the instructions forgot to mention; two, when it stated she should fill out her address but didn't state her US or UK one (it was US); and three, when she had to go to the post office and noticed, in small print, another line she had to fill out giving her address after her name and date.
She votes in California.
Another friend of ours similarly found the postal voting complex. She lives in the US (not sure whether Virginia or New York state).
Both these have MBA degrees and found the process complex and that it would have been easy to make a mistake that would have invalidated their vote.
Which makes me think DT was quite smart in warning his base off postal voting, especially given the heavier weighting to High School or less education and consequently the increased chances of messing things up
What you said is - and I quote: "What is the difference between this, for granny, if a bunch of 20-30yr olds minus those who must associate with vulnerable people are down the pub?"
I have explained what the difference is.
I haven't said whether I think the increased risk to the elderly justifies a lockdown or not. I have simply said make an informed decision.
https://twitter.com/BBCPhilipSim/status/1313842318286479362
If there is any final agreement on 'who did best' I suspect it'll not be an obvious country.
PS I was pondering what could be said about the Scottish changes - I idly wondered whether Scots drink more Scotch than other parts of the UK - I didn't actually find that, but I did find out that there seems to be quite a surprising world leader in Whisky drinking per capita. (Might be well known trivia)
It looked for a while like the rule of six might be having some effect, but it turns out that was just a data blip.
Sadly, I don't think the motivation for enough people to change behaviour will occurs until either:
1) Draconian rules are imposed, harming many businesses unfairly with less compensation
2) Hospitalisations and deaths rise to unsustainable levels (bringing back the "Save the NHS" mantra of April)
I hope we're able to avoid both, but it looks difficult from where we're starting.
Imagine a Glasgow winter with no pubs. Cold darkness of December, freezing empty streets, everyone hiding at home. My God.
Getting from 16k a day to 2k a day is three halvings.
The UK's March lockdown halved cases every fortnight, the continental March lockdown halved cases every week, because it was stricter.
You pay your money, you take your choice.
Moral: let this thing get out of control, and it's expensive to clear up afterwards.
Once you take the decision to move 100% to online tuition, working from home is just as practical as working from a small bedroom in communal accommodation a mile from your lecture theatre. These are after all people who were perfectly capable of working at their family home outside of school lessons when studying for A levels so it's hardly a novel experience.
As per usual she will look to London to pay for the cost in benefits etc to pay for the lost jobs, ruined businesses and social harm.
Edit: Sweden's economy also seems to have fared worse than those of its neighbours:
Sweden's GDP slumped 8.6% in Q2, more sharply than its neighbors despite its no-lockdown policy
This.
Yet, in all this, he did not suffer depression or do anything other than move forward.
It truly is difficult to walk in anothers shoes.
The nonsense that the only way to avoid our current purgatory is by giving up and stoically accepting tens, or hundreds, of thousands more dead is dangerous. We can do better.
And does that extend to their partners and children and family and friends too? How would it work?
I'm not trying to be awkward, if you've got an answer I'd love to hear it. It just seems to me to be implausible.
Harris should bring her own.
https://twitter.com/GeoffRBennett/status/1313802603923419136
Colder conditions will presumably help organic stuff decay more slowly in the air and on surfaces etc.
However greater deployment of Bovril will clearly be a factor the other way.
https://twitter.com/simon_telegraph/status/1313844863830560768?s=20
I also said that there should be a discussion around those balance of risks.
If that happens you will get this sort of thing on a permanent basis from Sturgeon and her Green helpers - please think about your freedom and quality of life first before you vote for independence!
https://twitter.com/GalloVOA/status/1313658776252149760?s=19
And then, of course, there is the darkness, which begins at about 1pm, shortly after dawn.
In early January Glasgow is one of the most depressing cities on earth, only saved from complete horror by the bustling pubs.....
I think we should concentrate on that, rather than to try and force everyone to choose between mass death and existing under lockdown, because the incompetents cannot lead a successful antiviral health strategy.
Lockdown is not good. Lockdown is a sign of failure. But mass death is worse. Isolate the virus and we escape.
https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1313847283927179264
He lived through a staggeringly shit time. His response - went from overweight to running marathons. Because, he said, I can afford a pair of trainers.
Perhaps he was stupid to grin and bear it. Perhaps.. But I was impressed. Maybe that makes me a fool.
Now Edinburgh. Edinburgh in the winter is cold as fuck but Glasgow is a delight.
I think we need to let the virus rip now. Why are we waiting for a vaccine if people under, what was the age mooted the other day, 50?, 60?, aren't going to be vaccinated anyway? We can't go on having lockdowns, we're not going to vaccinate everyone, so those people who aren't going to be vaccinated need to get it. There's no other option.
Vulnerable people need to be shielded, maybe subject to more proscriptive restrictions. That is unfair, people will go absolutely mental, I get that.
But, really, what's the alternative? For the bulk of people who will get mild, or no, symptoms, we need to let it rip.
That's not an appealing prospect but it seems to me to be the least worst option. Keep pubs open, get gigs going, theatres, football matches, the whole shebang. Let people vote with their feet. Because I, and millions and millions of the working age population, won't be vaccinated so at some point, presumably, we're going to get it, mildly or asymptomatically, so why not sooner rather than later?
It's getting closer to me personally. My mate who I had a beer with on Friday night had to have a test yesterday because someone he was working closely with last week has tested positive. My mate has no symptoms, if I was exposed to it I have no symptoms as yet. Part of me hopes I get it because the chances are I will be perfectly fine, a relatively mild illness or asymptomatic. Then I'll at least have immunity for some period of time.
We can't obliterate the economy anymore to shield vulnerable people. Stricter restrictions, or lockdowns, for vulnerable people are needed and everyone else needs to be left to get on with it, to take their own risks, make their own decisions. That's not fair but life's not fair. This virus isn't fair. I can't see any other way of getting through this now.
This seems to be puritanism for the sake of it.
I think most countries have had to live with the systems they have in place, and ours are frankly a bit crap.
Though if we'd had a team of Hunt and Paul Nurse running Dido's outfit for the last three months, we'd very likely be in a better place.
It wasn't me doing the patronising.
Then at least allow people to have a drink with a meal, and save the restaurant sector from bankruptcy, even if you have to sacrifice the pubs. This is bollocks from Sturgeon
The ones we have aren't working.
There is no other way to square the circle.
Harris can be an attack dog but, as she showed against Tulsi Gabbard, she is prone to getting flustered when challenged, and making facial expressions that don't look great.
I don't see much chance of Pence making a big blunder but I can see Harris potentially doing so.
As I said, look out for what the ratings look like for this one
https://twitter.com/JesseOSheaMD/status/1313847847897489408
(Though from memory, the death curve for the UK also showed a two week halving... at least to start with.)