The UK government, and probably other governments too, need to take a new information approach. The conspiracy view is now so widespread, that simply telling people the virus is safe, or shaming them into social distancing or taking the vaccine for others' benefit, is not necessarily going to be quite enough.
Some fairly intelligent social observers and ad men need to be employed by governments to explain to people why it's fairly unlikely that Bill and Melinda Gates are using a fake vaccine to initiate a push for global domination and The Great Reset, or "Agenda 201", in another of the various, increasingly common online tropes.
Personally I very much disagree with the "blood on their hands" school of motivating people to do the right thing. 100% disagree. I think it's an extremely unhelpful line of persuasion. I don't see that tack as being something that's very likely to change people's perspectives on it, merely reinforce the different perspectives that already exist in the population.
I agree. By accusing people who clearly do not see themselves in that light of being murderers, you effectively mute your own voice. No-one is going to listen to someone who tells them they are stupid or evil, let alone change their beliefs and behaviours on that basis.
But what else you do say to them??? PUT A BLOODY MASK ON
It is a basic message. If people won't hear it, how do you enforce it? Apart from scaring the shit out of them? Serious question.
Perhaps ACTUAL enforcement? As in, I understand you believe wearing a mask is an intolerable infringement on your sacred liberties AND I DON"T GIVE A SHIT! - do it or pay the piper.
Back in 1940, Churchill didn't rely (entirely) on moral suasion to enforce blackout rules, rationing & the like. He relied on the rigor of the law.
BTW, IF you want a bit of a bitter chuckle, read Boris Johnson's "biography" of WSC, which will take you about half and hour max and is still a utter waste of time.
Got my copy for a buck from a discount bin - and STILL got overcharged. Way I see it, BoJo owes ME money!
JFC Scotland's Covid case numbers have just gone nuclear unless there had been a reporting error.
Holiday catch-up reporting?
No, this is by specimen date figures not reporting date. It is grim.
But not unexpected. Given that Supercovid has infested Cumbria was there any reason to believe it would not rampage around neighbouring Scotland, apart from the innate brilliance of the SNP government basically "eradicating Covid" in the summer?
No, there was not. Ditto most of Europe and the USA, and probably elsewhere - Canada etc.
The UK Strain is everywhere in the West. It is a wildfire out of control. Strict lockdowns are no longer working, or no longer as effective. Vaccines are the only answer
For this reason I think HMG is right to go for a one-jab strategy. We are now in a fateful race against time: can we at least half-vaccinate enough people to stop Covid overwhelming our health systems?
If one dose of Pfizer mostly protects oldsters for a few precious weeks, then, yes, let them wait for jab 2, as we try to get as many people jabbed once, as is humanly possible.
It's a tough call, but this is a deadly plague.
Nobody who has tried to make "nur nur ne nur-nur" political point scoring about Covid has so far come out ahead. It has a dogged determination to make a twat out of you. Baptist preachers holding mass services? Dead of Covid. Czech Bye-bye Covid Parties? It's citizens now dying of Covid. Republican "It's only flu" politicians doing a conga-line? On ventilators. Relaxed Swedish "no big dealers"? Watching their economy slide away.
Do not try and take the piss and point score. It will have the last laugh.
Yep, the folk who were whooping and smacking their flippers at BJ’s ‘Scotland’s services are less resilient’ crack back in March must feel like right twats.
There you go, falling into the smug bastard trap....
Still, on balance better not to be a smug bastard at the beginning only to end up a twat at the hinner end.
He might try it but people are unlikely to be interested or receptive to that.. Most have already moved on.
If you read this forum you are in denial about most people moving on
With respect , we are part of the 'commentariat' and as such far from being representative of the typical voter! I have not encountered people discussing Brexit since last January - it is no longer at forefront of their consciousness. One of the reasons Johnson got his big win was the desperation of voters to move on and 'get Brexit done'. He is unlikely to be rewarded by any serious attempt to dig the issue up again - and I would not expect Starmer to engage. I fully expect it to return to being a minor , peripheral bacground issue as it was at elections pre-2015.
In the next few months, I would say that will only happen if it's completely swamped as a story by the virus story continuing to get worse. There will be plenty of coverage of business and bureaucracy impediments, and ports and infrastructure disruption, in the first half of the year, starting probably from a small base from tomorrow.
The UK government, and probably other governments too, need to take a new information approach. The conspiracy view is now so widespread, that simply telling people the virus is safe, or shaming them into social distancing or taking the vaccine for others' benefit, is not necessarily going to be quite enough.
Some fairly intelligent social observers and ad men need to be employed by governments to explain to people why it's fairly unlikely that Bill and Melinda Gates are using a fake vaccine to initiate a push for global domination and The Great Reset, or "Agenda 201", in another of the various, increasingly common online tropes.
Personally I very much disagree with the "blood on their hands" school of motivating people to do the right thing. 100% disagree. I think it's an extremely unhelpful line of persuasion. I don't see that tack as being something that's very likely to change people's perspectives on it, merely reinforce the different perspectives that already exist in the population.
I agree. By accusing people who clearly do not see themselves in that light of being murderers, you effectively mute your own voice. No-one is going to listen to someone who tells them they are stupid or evil, let alone change their beliefs and behaviours on that basis.
But what else you do say to them??? PUT A BLOODY MASK ON
It is a basic message. If people won't hear it, how do you enforce it? Apart from scaring the shit out of them? Serious question.
Telling people to put a bloody mask on is reasonable. Saying that basically you're a murderer if you don't is not reasonable. We still have exemptions for mask-wearing as well, for legitimate reasons, noone's saying those folk should automatically be pointed as as evil murderers.
If you've tested positive then run round the supermarket coughing in folks' faces then maybe someone could reasonably say you've got blood on your hands, but otherwise...
The problem is that face masks are just one element of a myriad number of rules that people are supposed to be following when it comes to covid. Masks just happen to be one of the most visible and obvious rules. I very much doubt many people in the country could honestly claim they have followed every single rule to both the absolute letter and the intended spirit for the entirety of this crisis, so therefore probably most of us would have blood on our hands if we thought that way. Where would it end? If you've not washed your hands enough you've got blood on your hands? If you've not kept 2m distance in that instance you've got blood on your hands?
We need to keep some sense of perspective - it's the virus that kills people. It's evolved itself to transmit itself between us. All we can do is reasonably try to limit that spread. You're not going to get public buy-in for the rules if you scream that they're murderers at them for every lapse, any more than you're going to get buy-in for the climate change fight if you scream at them that they're killing people and polar bears and the planet every time they get in their car.
The UK government, and probably other governments too, need to take a new information approach. The conspiracy view is now so widespread, that simply telling people the virus is safe, or shaming them into social distancing or taking the vaccine for others' benefit, is not necessarily going to be quite enough.
Some fairly intelligent social observers and ad men need to be employed by governments to explain to people why it's fairly unlikely that Bill and Melinda Gates are using a fake vaccine to initiate a push for global domination and The Great Reset, or "Agenda 201", in another of the various, increasingly common online tropes.
That was actually quite scary - the pregnant lady part was also pretty distressing
Only heard a snippet on the radio, so I don’t know if she has sadly passed, but also no context given (age, state of health) etc. Not that that matters really, but as ever in this pandemic, context is important. Message should be heard though but I suspect the twats who just don’t seem to give a f*#k, still won’t.
She passed away - no details of age etc - nor what happened to the baby.
I recall a PB discussion early this year, when we all wondered if Covid might be especially bad for pregnant women. Hm.
Also, the idea of Covid "wiping out whole families" clearly implies it is killing young people, even kids. Is that true?
I am not accusing this doctor of hyperbole, but wow, if it if is true.... I'd just like some data to back it up.
Not necessarily. It could be parents in their sixties and seventies living with their still at home son...
Yes, that's kinda what I mean. "Whole families" as a phrase certainly IMPLIES children, to most people - yet it could be just as you say. Nonagenarian parents living with a bachelor son in his 60s.
Which is still very sad, but less frightening by an order of magnitude than children dying.
I wish there had been follow up questions, and some more specific evidence or examples. As far as I know, deaths from Covid are still exceptionally rare in young otherwise-healthy people, especially kids
He might try it but people are unlikely to be interested or receptive to that.. Most have already moved on.
If you read this forum you are in denial about most people moving on
With respect , we are part of the 'commentariat' and as such far from being representative of the typical voter! I have not encountered people discussing Brexit since last January - it is no longer at forefront of their consciousness. One of the reasons Johnson got his big win was the desperation of voters to move on and 'get Brexit done'. He is unlikely to be rewarded by any serious attempt to dig the issue up again - and I would not expect Starmer to engage. I fully expect it to return to being a minor , peripheral bacground issue as it was at elections pre-2015.
Well, nothing brexity has happened yet, has it, in practical terms? Maybe nothing will happen, in which case you are right, but there's three and a third years before the next GE for the effects of brexit for good or ill to impinge on the public consciousness.
He might try it but people are unlikely to be interested or receptive to that.. Most have already moved on.
If you read this forum you are in denial about most people moving on
With respect , we are part of the 'commentariat' and as such far from being representative of the typical voter! I have not encountered people discussing Brexit since last January - it is no longer at forefront of their consciousness. One of the reasons Johnson got his big win was the desperation of voters to move on and 'get Brexit done'. He is unlikely to be rewarded by any serious attempt to dig the issue up again - and I would not expect Starmer to engage. I fully expect it to return to being a minor , peripheral bacground issue as it was at elections pre-2015.
I'd agree, apart from us being part of the commentariat. Sub-commentariat perhaps.
The UK government, and probably other governments too, need to take a new information approach. The conspiracy view is now so widespread, that simply telling people the virus is safe, or shaming them into social distancing or taking the vaccine for others' benefit, is not necessarily going to be quite enough.
Some fairly intelligent social observers and ad men need to be employed by governments to explain to people why it's fairly unlikely that Bill and Melinda Gates are using a fake vaccine to initiate a push for global domination and The Great Reset, or "Agenda 201", in another of the various, increasingly common online tropes.
That was actually quite scary - the pregnant lady part was also pretty distressing
Only heard a snippet on the radio, so I don’t know if she has sadly passed, but also no context given (age, state of health) etc. Not that that matters really, but as ever in this pandemic, context is important. Message should be heard though but I suspect the twats who just don’t seem to give a f*#k, still won’t.
She passed away - no details of age etc - nor what happened to the baby.
I recall a PB discussion early this year, when we all wondered if Covid might be especially bad for pregnant women. Hm.
Also, the idea of Covid "wiping out whole families" clearly implies it is killing young people, even kids. Is that true?
I am not accusing this doctor of hyperbole, but wow, if it if is true.... I'd just like some data to back it up.
Not necessarily. It could be parents in their sixties and seventies living with their still at home son...
Yes, that's kinda what I mean. "Whole families" as a phrase certainly IMPLIES children, to most people - yet it could be just as you say. Nonagenarian parents living with a bachelor son in his 60s.
Which is still very sad, but less frightening by an order of magnitude than children dying.
I wish there had been follow up questions, and some more specific evidence or examples. As far as I know, deaths from Covid are still exceptionally rare in young otherwise-healthy people, especially kids
He did mention I think two parents in one familiy, then describing that as a family, but it would be reasonable to expect him to clarify any statement like that. He sounds understandably at the end of his tether , though, and perhaps not weighing every statement as he usually might. The NHS clearly needs more help from the public than its getting, even though I know many people are also at the end of their tether psychologically and socially.
He might try it but people are unlikely to be interested or receptive to that.. Most have already moved on.
If you read this forum you are in denial about most people moving on
With respect , we are part of the 'commentariat' and as such far from being representative of the typical voter! I have not encountered people discussing Brexit since last January - it is no longer at forefront of their consciousness. One of the reasons Johnson got his big win was the desperation of voters to move on and 'get Brexit done'. He is unlikely to be rewarded by any serious attempt to dig the issue up again - and I would not expect Starmer to engage. I fully expect it to return to being a minor , peripheral bacground issue as it was at elections pre-2015.
Well, nothing brexity has happened yet, has it, in practical terms? Maybe nothing will happen, in which case you are right, but there's three and a third years before the next GE for the effects of brexit for good or ill to impinge on the public consciousness.
But whatever happens, Labour is not going to be advocating rejoining the EU in 2024. Such an option is unlikely before circa 2035 - if it happens at all.
The Met office has a warning of icy roads in Devon
From 18:00 GMT on Thu 31 December To 09:00 GMT on Fri 1 January
and forecasts temps of -1 until and including 0900, 0 at 1000, then rising to a max of 3 over the day. What do they think happens to the ice at 0901?
I suspect it is just that they normally use 3 hour steps for weather warnings, so it was a choice of 09:00 or 12:00.
It is much more dangerous at night, anyway.
Not in these parts, the ditches of Dartmoor are full of the cars of moronic daytrippers from Plymouth.
The inherent danger is less during the day, even if there is an increase in muppets. The muppets aren't the Met Office's fault.
I might be unusual but I usually put winter tyres on late Nov - March. It doesn't cost any more as you just wear two sets instead of one and if you use cheap steel rims you don't ruin your alloys either. They work better any time the temperature is below about 8C and not just in snow (although they work extremely well in snow too).
No, but a non-zero percentage of the muppets might be put off by a proper warning.
Nah. They saw snow and thought it would be a good idea to drive to Dartmoor - during a pandemic. I doubt they'd care whether the warning said 9am or 12am.
Most people don't remember very much of weather forecasts anyway, if they even see them (there have been studies in to this).
Doesn't that depend on how much the viewer is, er, 'distracted' by the person giving the forecast?
The UK government, and probably other governments too, need to take a new information approach. The conspiracy view is now so widespread, that simply telling people the virus is safe, or shaming them into social distancing or taking the vaccine for others' benefit, is not necessarily going to be quite enough.
Some fairly intelligent social observers and ad men need to be employed by governments to explain to people why it's fairly unlikely that Bill and Melinda Gates are using a fake vaccine to initiate a push for global domination and The Great Reset, or "Agenda 201", in another of the various, increasingly common online tropes.
Personally I very much disagree with the "blood on their hands" school of motivating people to do the right thing. 100% disagree. I think it's an extremely unhelpful line of persuasion. I don't see that tack as being something that's very likely to change people's perspectives on it, merely reinforce the different perspectives that already exist in the population.
I agree. By accusing people who clearly do not see themselves in that light of being murderers, you effectively mute your own voice. No-one is going to listen to someone who tells them they are stupid or evil, let alone change their beliefs and behaviours on that basis.
But what else you do say to them??? PUT A BLOODY MASK ON
It is a basic message. If people won't hear it, how do you enforce it? Apart from scaring the shit out of them? Serious question.
Telling people to put a bloody mask on is reasonable. Saying that basically you're a murderer if you don't is not reasonable. We still have exemptions for mask-wearing as well, for legitimate reasons, noone's saying those folk should automatically be pointed as as evil murderers.
If you've tested positive then run round the supermarket coughing in folks' faces then maybe someone could reasonably say you've got blood on your hands, but otherwise...
The problem is that face masks are just one element of a myriad number of rules that people are supposed to be following when it comes to covid. Masks just happen to be one of the most visible and obvious rules. I very much doubt many people in the country could honestly claim they have followed every single rule to both the absolute letter and the intended spirit for the entirety of this crisis, so therefore probably most of us would have blood on our hands if we thought that way. Where would it end? If you've not washed your hands enough you've got blood on your hands? If you've not kept 2m distance in that instance you've got blood on your hands?
We need to keep some sense of perspective - it's the virus that kills people. It's evolved itself to transmit itself between us. All we can do is reasonably try to limit that spread. You're not going to get public buy-in for the rules if you scream that they're murderers at them for every lapse, any more than you're going to get buy-in for the climate change fight if you scream at them that they're killing people and polar bears and the planet every time they get in their car.
Very fair.
I think Sea Shanty is right. What we need to do is simply enforce the law - or the rules. Rather than saying YOU ARE A MURDERER, just make the rules work.
Unless you have a legal exemption, you should wear a mask in shops, on public transport, and so forth. If you haven't got a mask, you should be offered one. And if you still don't wear it, then you should be fined a significant amount of money. Let it sting. Do it calmly but rigorously.
It would not take many fines for people to get the message.
I know, I know, western freedoms and individualism, blah blah, but right now the west is committing cultural suicide, compared to the mask-wearing obedient Asians, so our freedoms won't be worth much when we are all enslaved by China.
That Royal London letter has now been published in full.
Does it justify the tweet? [snipped]
QTWAIN. Disguting ambulance chasing media whoring. What a misrepresentation of the email.
I don't understand how it's a misrepresentation. She has included a direct quote from the email, then said it is a shocking situation, which is a statement of opinion. You may disagree with the opinion, but how is that misrepresentation?
The Tweet exaggerates the email taking a line out of context then hinting that the whole email is "SHOCKING" rather than the most 'shocking' line being the one quoted out of context.
The rest of the email is absolutely not "SHOCKING".
All quotation is "out of context."
When you put this one back into context, what specific part of the context renders it less shocking than the standalone quote?
This part:
Dear all,
We hope you had reasonable Christmases. Thank you to those of you who were working, in whatever capacity.
Weekly emails no longer seem sufficient as things are changing so fast. We now have over 90 patients on ACCU across the two floors (6 pods of roughly 15 patient each). The number of people with Covid continues to rise rapidly.
Every hospital in North East London is struggling, some with insufficient oxygen supplies, all with insufficient nursing numbers. Believe it or not, Royal London critical care is coping well relative to some sites. We have often had to help out our neighbours by taking patients they simply do not have capacity to manage. General medical bed numbers (so called ‘G&A beds’) are being increased as well as critical care beds.
Kent is in a similar, if not worse, position. You may have heard on the news that they are sending patients to South West England. The rest of London is probably a couple of weeks behind NEL, but their hospitals too are filling up. NHS London have asked the other sectors to expand capacity in much the same was as we have.
We are currently working on 4E, 4F, 15C, and 15E (both sides). As in the first wave, many nursing staff from a variety of areas have been redeployed to help. ICU nurses from Barts are now a regular feature. We have also been joined by ICU consultants and trainees from Barts.
We will soon by joined by Barts cardiology registrars, to populate a further tier of senior trainees. The anaesthetic department are providing consultants to cover all off-unit calls which would normally be attended by ACCU doctors (trauma calls, code blacks, and cardiac arrests), a consultant to run one of our pods, and will be providing extra airway cover at night (to help with proning/deproning, head turns, managing deteriorations etc.) The comms team is again being boosted in numbers.
No it doesn't. What, in that lot, modifies or detracts from the words quoted?
All of it.
Specifically in the paragraph she edited the sentence. It doesn't say "We are now in disaster mode" it actually says "We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the fact we are now in disaster medicine mode" so she snipped out part of the sentence and falsely capitalised the W of the mid-sentence we to falsely imply that was the start of the sentence. It isn't news that they are in disaster mode, that was previously announced and it is being reiterated.
As the paragraph ends then: "While this is far from ideal, it’s the way things are, and the way they have to be for now."
So she took out the fact it was a reiteration of a previous announcement and that they knew that it is the way things are, and the way they have to be for now - to falsely portray a narrative that it is SHOCKING.
Liar, liar pants on fire.
Um - to be fair, “we are still in disaster mode” doesn’t really detract from the point that they are in disaster mode. If anything, it arguably makes it worse - that usually disaster mode can’t be sustained for long and now it is sustained...
Some people just can't seem to comprehend having a year without a vacation.
Apparently, and brilliantly, he recorded a Christmas pep-talk for Ontario voters, to be broadcast in late December, complete with roaring fire behind him, and glass of egg-nog at his side, as if it was live, and he was talking from his home, where he was sensibly sheltering in place like all good Canadians during a pandemic.
Unfortunately, in reality, he was in the Caribbean.
Some politicians seem to be a very special kind of Stupid. Or Entitled.
On a par with writing a column about surviving London lockdown whilst in Durham.
Comments
Back in 1940, Churchill didn't rely (entirely) on moral suasion to enforce blackout rules, rationing & the like. He relied on the rigor of the law.
BTW, IF you want a bit of a bitter chuckle, read Boris Johnson's "biography" of WSC, which will take you about half and hour max and is still a utter waste of time.
Got my copy for a buck from a discount bin - and STILL got overcharged. Way I see it, BoJo owes ME money!
If you've tested positive then run round the supermarket coughing in folks' faces then maybe someone could reasonably say you've got blood on your hands, but otherwise...
The problem is that face masks are just one element of a myriad number of rules that people are supposed to be following when it comes to covid. Masks just happen to be one of the most visible and obvious rules. I very much doubt many people in the country could honestly claim they have followed every single rule to both the absolute letter and the intended spirit for the entirety of this crisis, so therefore probably most of us would have blood on our hands if we thought that way. Where would it end? If you've not washed your hands enough you've got blood on your hands? If you've not kept 2m distance in that instance you've got blood on your hands?
We need to keep some sense of perspective - it's the virus that kills people. It's evolved itself to transmit itself between us. All we can do is reasonably try to limit that spread. You're not going to get public buy-in for the rules if you scream that they're murderers at them for every lapse, any more than you're going to get buy-in for the climate change fight if you scream at them that they're killing people and polar bears and the planet every time they get in their car.
Which is still very sad, but less frightening by an order of magnitude than children dying.
I wish there had been follow up questions, and some more specific evidence or examples. As far as I know, deaths from Covid are still exceptionally rare in young otherwise-healthy people, especially kids
I think Sea Shanty is right. What we need to do is simply enforce the law - or the rules. Rather than saying YOU ARE A MURDERER, just make the rules work.
Unless you have a legal exemption, you should wear a mask in shops, on public transport, and so forth. If you haven't got a mask, you should be offered one. And if you still don't wear it, then you should be fined a significant amount of money. Let it sting. Do it calmly but rigorously.
It would not take many fines for people to get the message.
I know, I know, western freedoms and individualism, blah blah, but right now the west is committing cultural suicide, compared to the mask-wearing obedient Asians, so our freedoms won't be worth much when we are all enslaved by China.
https://twitter.com/jamesdoleman/status/1344770195592769538?s=21
If anything, it arguably makes it worse - that usually disaster mode can’t be sustained for long and now it is sustained...
https://twitter.com/scmpnews/status/1344659577615364096?s=21