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The developing empty shelves narrative could really damage Johnson and his government – politicalbet

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited July 2021 in General
imageThe developing empty shelves narrative could really damage Johnson and his government – politicalbetting.com

The Mail’s front page reflects a growing narrative that of itself could trigger panic buying and add to a developing sense of crisis. Pics of empty shelves are becoming an increasing feature of late sparked off not just by the so called pingdemic, but the shortage of drivers and Brexit itself.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    Similarly, we're starting to have frequent problems in collecting refuse in my borough - the combination of (a) pinging (b) actual Covid (c) no driving tests for new drivers for 18 months and (d) shortage of foreign drivers. The company is doing its best and it's so far only a few rounds each time. but it's a genuine problem that's difficult to solve.
  • Nunu3Nunu3 Posts: 178
    Boris will act......once its too late, again.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited July 2021
    Third rate. As ever.
    The government and me.
  • GnudGnud Posts: 298
    edited July 2021
    pigeon said:

    pigeon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Allie Hodgkins-Brown
    @AllieHBNews
    ·
    1m
    Thursday’s Daily TELEGRAPH: “Pingdemic disrupts supermarket food supplies” #TomorrowsPapersToday

    I noticed empty shelves in two mini-supermarkets today. It's definitely happening.
    I've not seen evidence of it at all yet, but Heaven forbid we should return to the bad old days of bog roll hoarding again. Although it would be fascinating watching Johnson trying to wibble his way out of that scenario...
    The bog roll wars were the nadir of covid hysteria. A very unedifying episode!
    Why anyone thought having a year's supply of bog roll was necessary when they only had a week's supply of food was totally beyond me.
    This was discussed extensively at the time. There was always food available. It might not have been particularly healthy food (I don't recall there being a chocolate shortage at any point during panic buying,) or food that one might particularly want to eat (even when the chiller aisles were pillaged, I remember there still being vegan ready meals available,) but if one's luck ran out when one went foraging in Tesco one could survive at a push. Aided by the fact that there were never wine shortages, either.

    Loo paper, on the other hand, regularly ran out completely, and it's also one of the few comestibles for which there is no acceptable substitute. Folk, generally speaking, will not accept wiping their backsides with their bare hands or with crude non-flushable substitutes (newspapers, bad paperback novels, Bacofoil and so on.) Hence the fact that, once a few people started buying more bog roll as a precaution, everybody started to join in. If you were one of those who tried to encourage sensible behaviour by resisting the urge, it simply made it more likely that you'd end up looking miserably at your hand, the roll of Bacofoil, and back again.
    I took the view at the time that the media talked a lot about toilet paper, thereby predictably triggering the hoarding, because

    a) people were thereby nudged away from hoarding food (flour and pasta were short and in many supermarkets they were on ration when available, not to mention the fact that the army had been sent to many supermarkets), and

    b) it's about bums and therefore sells newspapers.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    I can vaguely remember this woman being a TV doctor. It turns out she’s a nutter:

    https://twitter.com/gillianmckeith/status/1417883955462823944
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited July 2021
    7th

    MattW said:

    pigeon said:

    pigeon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Allie Hodgkins-Brown
    @AllieHBNews
    ·
    1m
    Thursday’s Daily TELEGRAPH: “Pingdemic disrupts supermarket food supplies” #TomorrowsPapersToday

    I noticed empty shelves in two mini-supermarkets today. It's definitely happening.
    I've not seen evidence of it at all yet, but Heaven forbid we should return to the bad old days of bog roll hoarding again. Although it would be fascinating watching Johnson trying to wibble his way out of that scenario...
    The bog roll wars were the nadir of covid hysteria. A very unedifying episode!
    Why anyone thought having a year's supply of bog roll was necessary when they only had a week's supply of food was totally beyond me.
    This was discussed extensively at the time. There was always food available. It might not have been particularly healthy food (I don't recall there being a chocolate shortage at any point during panic buying,) or food that one might particularly want to eat (even when the chiller aisles were pillaged, I remember there still being vegan ready meals available,) but if one's luck ran out when one went foraging in Tesco one could survive at a push. Aided by the fact that there were never wine shortages, either.

    Loo paper, on the other hand, regularly ran out completely, and it's also one of the few comestibles for which there is no acceptable substitute. Folk, generally speaking, will not accept wiping their backsides with their bare hands or with crude non-flushable substitutes (newspapers, bad paperback novels, Bacofoil and so on.) Hence the fact that, once a few people started buying more bog roll as a precaution, everybody started to join in. If you were one of those who tried to encourage sensible behaviour by resisting the urge, it simply made it more likely that you'd end up looking miserably at your hand, the roll of Bacofoil, and back again.
    Bacofoil required for hats :smile:

    The clue on the fake Macron quote is "adolescence of my daughters". He has no children of his own.
    Macron has step-children, no? Not sure if any are adolescent girls though. The reason it was a clue might be that French politicians tend not to talk about their families.
    Mons. Macron's arrangements and the story are rather 'French', but not one for this forum. I'm not a fan of the man's political behaviour but I wish him every domestic happiness.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    edited July 2021
    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    edited July 2021
    I saw empty shelves in a mini-supermarket yesterday. This certainly isn't an exaggerated problem. Maybe it's time for an extraordinary cabinet meeting to sort it out.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    Perhaps relatedly, after my drinks I walked home from Highgate to Camden, as the night is so beautiful and warm (and it is all downhill)

    Wow, north London feels edgy, sketchy and often deserted. It feels like it did in the early 1980s. Scruffy, sooty, silent, noisy, very un-chic, it is like 40 years of gentrification have been reversed in one and a half years of plague

    The one upside is the sense of youthfulness. You only see young people, apart from a few old school drinkers in the pubs
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    edited July 2021
    Boris obviously did the right thing in u-turning over his own self isolation, given the emerging 'empty shelves' problem.

    The government have to accept that a large proportion of people are gaming the pingdemic to their own advantage. Either you are self employed or a business owner, in which case you avoid taking tests, downloading the app, or anything that might lead to the risk of being required to self isolate; or you have a menial job which you hate, in which case you get a free paid holiday every time you get pinged so you would have no objection to the app. The only people who can truly afford to take this seriously are a certain limited category of corporate office worker, who can actually work from home; and the conscientious elderly.

  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    edited July 2021
    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Leon said:

    Perhaps relatedly, after my drinks I walked home from Highgate to Camden, as the night is so beautiful and warm (and it is all downhill)

    Wow, north London feels edgy, sketchy and often deserted. It feels like it did in the early 1980s. Scruffy, sooty, silent, noisy, very un-chic, it is like 40 years of gentrification have been reversed in one and a half years of plague

    The one upside is the sense of youthfulness. You only see young people, apart from a few old school drinkers in the pubs

    Was the age profile older in the early 80s?
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,835
    Leon said:

    Perhaps relatedly, after my drinks I walked home from Highgate to Camden, as the night is so beautiful and warm (and it is all downhill)

    Wow, north London feels edgy, sketchy and often deserted. It feels like it did in the early 1980s. Scruffy, sooty, silent, noisy, very un-chic, it is like 40 years of gentrification have been reversed in one and a half years of plague

    The one upside is the sense of youthfulness. You only see young people, apart from a few old school drinkers in the pubs

    Was dirt quiet up here too. I reckon the joy of some decent weather has been overtaken by a general lack of sleep.

    Though most aren't awakened by a fucking drum machine!!!!
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Perhaps relatedly, after my drinks I walked home from Highgate to Camden, as the night is so beautiful and warm (and it is all downhill)

    Wow, north London feels edgy, sketchy and often deserted. It feels like it did in the early 1980s. Scruffy, sooty, silent, noisy, very un-chic, it is like 40 years of gentrification have been reversed in one and a half years of plague

    The one upside is the sense of youthfulness. You only see young people, apart from a few old school drinkers in the pubs

    Was the age profile older in the early 80s?
    I witnessed it go from very old to very young from 1981-1987 (or so I perceive it)

    eg derelict areas like Docklands, Kings X, Spitalfields, South Bank, Wapping - and on and on - which were only inhabited by old tramps and old drunks and old people who never moved out - were suddenly flush with young people looking for cheap property in quite central areas with fab period buildings

    I believe we are now at the beginning of a long downswing for London, God knows how many years it will take for recovery to kick in. 5 years. 15. 50? The last major decline from 1930 took half a century to switch to renaissance

    But already you can see how one day it might recover. The young
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    dixiedean said:

    I can vaguely remember this woman being a TV doctor. It turns out she’s a nutter:

    https://twitter.com/gillianmckeith/status/1417883955462823944

    The woman who diagnosed folk by looking at their poo on TV?
    Turns out to be a nutter you say?
    German?
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279

    I can vaguely remember this woman being a TV doctor. It turns out she’s a nutter:

    https://twitter.com/gillianmckeith/status/1417883955462823944

    There's also American feminist writer Naomi Wolf, who used to be one of the most fashionable social commentators around. She was recently banned from Twitter for posting misinformation about Covid-19 and is now routinely accused of being a conspiracy theorist.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Leon said:

    Perhaps relatedly, after my drinks I walked home from Highgate to Camden, as the night is so beautiful and warm (and it is all downhill)

    Wow, north London feels edgy, sketchy and often deserted. It feels like it did in the early 1980s. Scruffy, sooty, silent, noisy, very un-chic, it is like 40 years of gentrification have been reversed in one and a half years of plague

    The one upside is the sense of youthfulness. You only see young people, apart from a few old school drinkers in the pubs

    Sounds like I will give it a miss.....
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,767
    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    Well, it will change.

    Fewer offices. But more entertainment.

    All that infrastructure - whether the tube, the apartments, the shopping centers, the hospitals, etc - will be used. The only question is what for, and who will pay for it.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    edited July 2021
    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    So what the fuck happens to it? And all the businesses that depend on it?

    It's all very well to airily make these predictions, but the ramifications are tremendous, and ominous - as these epochal and accelerated changes will be repeated in big cities across the world, esp in America and Europe

    My sense of London is that it is at the beginning of a chain reaction of terrible decline, as one business failure feeds into another, as one departed rich person leads to another round of debt, and the tax take falls, and the services are withdrawn, so more people leave, like New York in the 70s but on steroids

    Christ, I hope I am wrong, I fear I am right. And, as I say, I believe this is the fate of all the great cities

    We need the virus to fuck off very very quickly to avoid these things
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    Well, it will change.

    Fewer offices. But more entertainment.

    All that infrastructure - whether the tube, the apartments, the shopping centers, the hospitals, etc - will be used. The only question is what for, and who will pay for it.
    We have seen what happens, in London, say, from 1945-1980, or New York from 1965-1985. No one pays for it. Stuff gets shut. Everything declines. The basic infrastructure is kinda maintained but ewwww

    These are arguably more optimistic scenarios now. Just another secular decline, and then recovery, it happens, fair enough

    The extreme worst case scenarios point to Detroit. Or Rome in 400AD

  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Perhaps you are applying an outdated concept of the City. Much of what the it used to be, can be recreated virtually. So perhaps the ancient idea of the city has been hacked.

    I guess that the pre pandmic London isn't coming back. Some parts will disappear, like the millions of commuters coming in to the City every day. Other parts might stay. It is too early to tell.

    From around 2002 to 2010 London just became overcrowded. It would surely benefit from some depopulation to become more liveable.

    My guess is that it is the dormitory suburbs which will go downhill fast. Their only asset was proximity to central London, which is now substantially diminished in value.

  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    Well, it will change.

    Fewer offices. But more entertainment.

    All that infrastructure - whether the tube, the apartments, the shopping centers, the hospitals, etc - will be used. The only question is what for, and who will pay for it.
    It depends. If it is not safe for thousands to commute to work, why is it safe for thousands to come to the same places for entertainment or leisure? And if, on the other hand, Covid is beaten, why can't people return to work? You can't help wondering if some of those pontificating on either side have half an eye on their companies' property portfolios.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    U.S. reports nearly 59,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since April, amid surge in hospitalizations

    https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1418002144737828865
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,767
    edited July 2021

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    Well, it will change.

    Fewer offices. But more entertainment.

    All that infrastructure - whether the tube, the apartments, the shopping centers, the hospitals, etc - will be used. The only question is what for, and who will pay for it.
    It depends. If it is not safe for thousands to commute to work, why is it safe for thousands to come to the same places for entertainment or leisure? And if, on the other hand, Covid is beaten, why can't people return to work? You can't help wondering if some of those pontificating on either side have half an eye on their companies' property portfolios.
    That's a very black/white way of looking at things.

    You might be very willing to put yourself in a crowded situation (a concert) for something you really enjoy. But not for something that can be done just as well from home.

    I'm seeing young people coming back to the office already. We had no 20-somethings in our office in April/May. Now, all but one are back (sample size five people).

    Because (a) they're allowed, (b) home working isn't as much fun when you don't leave your bedroom all day, (c) they're sociable types who like hanging out with others, and (d) bars and restaurants are now open, so why not come into the centre?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274

    U.S. reports nearly 59,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since April, amid surge in hospitalizations

    https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1418002144737828865

    Florida is seeing a significant surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to federal data
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,767
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    Well, it will change.

    Fewer offices. But more entertainment.

    All that infrastructure - whether the tube, the apartments, the shopping centers, the hospitals, etc - will be used. The only question is what for, and who will pay for it.
    We have seen what happens, in London, say, from 1945-1980, or New York from 1965-1985. No one pays for it. Stuff gets shut. Everything declines. The basic infrastructure is kinda maintained but ewwww

    These are arguably more optimistic scenarios now. Just another secular decline, and then recovery, it happens, fair enough

    The extreme worst case scenarios point to Detroit. Or Rome in 400AD

    That's an excellent point. And entirely possible.

    But it is worth remembering that it wasn't cities in general that were declining in those periods, but specific cities.

    Is this a generalised death of the city? Or will it merely be a shake out?

    I'm glad I don't own really expensive real estate in London and Los Angeles. Oh wait...
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    So what the fuck happens to it? And all the businesses that depend on it?

    It's all very well to airily make these predictions, but the ramifications are tremendous, and ominous - as these epochal and accelerated changes will be repeated in big cities across the world, esp in America and Europe

    My sense of London is that it is at the beginning of a chain reaction of terrible decline, as one business failure feeds into another, as one departed rich person leads to another round of debt, and the tax take falls, and the services are withdrawn, so more people leave, like New York in the 70s but on steroids

    Christ, I hope I am wrong, I fear I am right. And, as I say, I believe this is the fate of all the great cities

    We need the virus to fuck off very very quickly to avoid these things
    Someone here will know the exact stats, but I think Liverpool went from something like 800,000 to 400,000 people in the post war period. It happens.

    For a liverpool / detroit process to occur there needs to be massive depopulation. I can't see that happening in the case of London - purely because the demand for housing is so great, due to the constrained supply that currently exists. People have to live somewhere.

    I think the issue you are describing could get bad in the suburbs, rather than the centre. Central London is massively desirable, the suburbs much less so.

  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Tokyo 2020 social media teams banned from showing athletes taking the knee

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/21/tokyo-2020-olympics-social-media-teams-banned-from-showing-athletes-taking-the-knee

    It wouldn’t surprise me to find that the UK government has been lobbying behind the scenes.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787

    U.S. reports nearly 59,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since April, amid surge in hospitalizations

    https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1418002144737828865

    Florida is seeing a significant surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to federal data
    I think the vaccination percentage among vulnerable groups will turn out to be the key metric that determines future mortality.

    Two countries that both have 60% of the population vaccinated will have very different outcomes if one of them includes almost everyone over 50 and the other is evenly spread across all ages.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,767
    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Perhaps you are applying an outdated concept of the City. Much of what the it used to be, can be recreated virtually. So perhaps the ancient idea of the city has been hacked.

    I guess that the pre pandmic London isn't coming back. Some parts will disappear, like the millions of commuters coming in to the City every day. Other parts might stay. It is too early to tell.

    From around 2002 to 2010 London just became overcrowded. It would surely benefit from some depopulation to become more liveable.

    My guess is that it is the dormitory suburbs which will go downhill fast. Their only asset was proximity to central London, which is now substantially diminished in value.

    There are numerous trends going on.

    People now want homes that are big enough to have a home office. This means the overall volume of residential property people want to have grows. Or to put it another way, the total number of square footage in homes needs to rise.

    And young people, by and large, don't want to work from home. They don't have apartments of their own. They are in shared places. They want to be back in the office and not worryign about their dirty boxers shorts being in shot on a Zoom call. Plus, they want to catch the eye of their manager, and they need to learn.

    So, while there may not be so many oldies coming in, and there'll be more hybrid. Do we really think that the value of spending time with other human beings for work reasons has gone to zero?
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    Well, it will change.

    Fewer offices. But more entertainment.

    All that infrastructure - whether the tube, the apartments, the shopping centers, the hospitals, etc - will be used. The only question is what for, and who will pay for it.
    It depends. If it is not safe for thousands to commute to work, why is it safe for thousands to come to the same places for entertainment or leisure? And if, on the other hand, Covid is beaten, why can't people return to work? You can't help wondering if some of those pontificating on either side have half an eye on their companies' property portfolios.
    That's a very black/white way of looking at things.

    You might be very willing to put yourself in a crowded situation (a concert) for something you really enjoy. But not for something that can be done just as well from home.

    I'm seeing young people coming back to the office already. We had no 20-somethings in our office in April/May. Now, all but one are back (sample size five people).

    Because (a) they're allowed, (b) home working isn't as much fun when you don't leave your bedroom all day, (c) they're sociable types who like hanging out with others, and (d) bars and restaurants are now open, so why not come into the centre?
    Even before Covid, we could work from home. Many preferred to come into the office, especially the more extravert types. Those who usually worked from home would have dedicated home office space in a posh shed or repurposed spare bedroom.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274

    U.S. reports nearly 59,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since April, amid surge in hospitalizations

    https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1418002144737828865

    Florida is seeing a significant surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to federal data
    I think the vaccination percentage among vulnerable groups will turn out to be the key metric that determines future mortality.

    Two countries that both have 60% of the population vaccinated will have very different outcomes if one of them includes almost everyone over 50 and the other is evenly spread across all ages.
    US have missed Biden's targets for 4th July and there are states where vaccine uptake is really low.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,767

    U.S. reports nearly 59,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since April, amid surge in hospitalizations

    https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1418002144737828865

    Florida is seeing a significant surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to federal data
    Florida has stopped publicising hospitalisation data.

    I think DeSantis's removal of the rights of cities and towns to set their own rules will go down as a major unforced error.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    edited July 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    U.S. reports nearly 59,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since April, amid surge in hospitalizations

    https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1418002144737828865

    Florida is seeing a significant surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to federal data
    Florida has stopped publicising hospitalisation data.

    I think DeSantis's removal of the rights of cities and towns to set their own rules will go down as a major unforced error.
    What reason did they have for doing that?

    Edit: stopping the publication of data, that is.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    rcs1000 said:

    U.S. reports nearly 59,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since April, amid surge in hospitalizations

    https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1418002144737828865

    Florida is seeing a significant surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to federal data
    Florida has stopped publicising hospitalisation data.

    I think DeSantis's removal of the rights of cities and towns to set their own rules will go down as a major unforced error.
    Hopefully nobody has much money on him for GOP POTUS candidate...
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926

    Tokyo 2020 social media teams banned from showing athletes taking the knee

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/21/tokyo-2020-olympics-social-media-teams-banned-from-showing-athletes-taking-the-knee

    It wouldn’t surprise me to find that the UK government has been lobbying behind the scenes.

    I'd be astonished if the government gave a toss either way. More likely the IOC is worried about political statements. It's not quite stripping medals over Black power salutes, yet.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Part of the explanation for delivery driver shortages is 18 months without courses for new drivers. This is another:

    backlog of 1.4 million cases at DVLA

    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57916619.amp
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    O/T

    It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    So what the fuck happens to it? And all the businesses that depend on it?

    It's all very well to airily make these predictions, but the ramifications are tremendous, and ominous - as these epochal and accelerated changes will be repeated in big cities across the world, esp in America and Europe

    My sense of London is that it is at the beginning of a chain reaction of terrible decline, as one business failure feeds into another, as one departed rich person leads to another round of debt, and the tax take falls, and the services are withdrawn, so more people leave, like New York in the 70s but on steroids

    Christ, I hope I am wrong, I fear I am right. And, as I say, I believe this is the fate of all the great cities

    We need the virus to fuck off very very quickly to avoid these things
    Someone here will know the exact stats, but I think Liverpool went from something like 800,000 to 400,000 people in the post war period. It happens.

    For a liverpool / detroit process to occur there needs to be massive depopulation. I can't see that happening in the case of London - purely because the demand for housing is so great, due to the constrained supply that currently exists. People have to live somewhere.

    I think the issue you are describing could get bad in the suburbs, rather than the centre. Central London is massively desirable, the suburbs much less so.

    If you’re right, and the Home Counties are headed for strategic decline, what does that tell us about the Blue Wall?
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    rcs1000 said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Perhaps you are applying an outdated concept of the City. Much of what the it used to be, can be recreated virtually. So perhaps the ancient idea of the city has been hacked.

    I guess that the pre pandmic London isn't coming back. Some parts will disappear, like the millions of commuters coming in to the City every day. Other parts might stay. It is too early to tell.

    From around 2002 to 2010 London just became overcrowded. It would surely benefit from some depopulation to become more liveable.

    My guess is that it is the dormitory suburbs which will go downhill fast. Their only asset was proximity to central London, which is now substantially diminished in value.

    There are numerous trends going on.

    People now want homes that are big enough to have a home office. This means the overall volume of residential property people want to have grows. Or to put it another way, the total number of square footage in homes needs to rise.

    And young people, by and large, don't want to work from home. They don't have apartments of their own. They are in shared places. They want to be back in the office and not worryign about their dirty boxers shorts being in shot on a Zoom call. Plus, they want to catch the eye of their manager, and they need to learn.

    So, while there may not be so many oldies coming in, and there'll be more hybrid. Do we really think that the value of spending time with other human beings for work reasons has gone to zero?
    I think your second point is a particularly interesting one. Perhaps a positive conclusion of this is that housing will be cheaper (and better) for young people in London. Because the situation was terrible before.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Mexico reports 15,198 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since January, and 397 new deaths
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    edited July 2021

    Mexico reports 15,198 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since January, and 397 new deaths

    Delta is gonna fuck the world. Not an ideal time to hold the Olympic Games, inter alia

    ‘Mayo Clinic expert warns delta variant will infect everyone who is not immune hill.cm/v3VDvcY’


    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1418010927325138945?s=21
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    So what the fuck happens to it? And all the businesses that depend on it?

    It's all very well to airily make these predictions, but the ramifications are tremendous, and ominous - as these epochal and accelerated changes will be repeated in big cities across the world, esp in America and Europe

    My sense of London is that it is at the beginning of a chain reaction of terrible decline, as one business failure feeds into another, as one departed rich person leads to another round of debt, and the tax take falls, and the services are withdrawn, so more people leave, like New York in the 70s but on steroids

    Christ, I hope I am wrong, I fear I am right. And, as I say, I believe this is the fate of all the great cities

    We need the virus to fuck off very very quickly to avoid these things
    Someone here will know the exact stats, but I think Liverpool went from something like 800,000 to 400,000 people in the post war period. It happens.

    For a liverpool / detroit process to occur there needs to be massive depopulation. I can't see that happening in the case of London - purely because the demand for housing is so great, due to the constrained supply that currently exists. People have to live somewhere.

    I think the issue you are describing could get bad in the suburbs, rather than the centre. Central London is massively desirable, the suburbs much less so.

    If you’re right, and the Home Counties are headed for strategic decline, what does that tell us about the Blue Wall?
    Its not really the Home Counties, it is places like Harrow, Enfield I had in mind. But the Home Counties could also take a hit as much of their desirability is rooted in proximity to the City.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,767
    RobD said:

    rcs1000 said:

    U.S. reports nearly 59,000 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since April, amid surge in hospitalizations

    https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1418002144737828865

    Florida is seeing a significant surge in COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to federal data
    Florida has stopped publicising hospitalisation data.

    I think DeSantis's removal of the rights of cities and towns to set their own rules will go down as a major unforced error.
    What reason did they have for doing that?

    Edit: stopping the publication of data, that is.
    Covid is over, so we don't to keep publishing unnecessary data.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Andy_JS said:

    O/T

    It's currently 22 degrees in Bristol. Must be close to a record for a night time temperature.

    Lucky you. We get that every year in Sweden. It’s called “tropical nights” - when the nighttime temperature does not fall below 20. We’ve just had a fortnight of it. Daytime temp hit 30 several times. You get used to it, but I laugh when my Highland mum describes anything over 16 as “a heatwave “.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    So what the fuck happens to it? And all the businesses that depend on it?

    It's all very well to airily make these predictions, but the ramifications are tremendous, and ominous - as these epochal and accelerated changes will be repeated in big cities across the world, esp in America and Europe

    My sense of London is that it is at the beginning of a chain reaction of terrible decline, as one business failure feeds into another, as one departed rich person leads to another round of debt, and the tax take falls, and the services are withdrawn, so more people leave, like New York in the 70s but on steroids

    Christ, I hope I am wrong, I fear I am right. And, as I say, I believe this is the fate of all the great cities

    We need the virus to fuck off very very quickly to avoid these things
    Someone here will know the exact stats, but I think Liverpool went from something like 800,000 to 400,000 people in the post war period. It happens.

    For a liverpool / detroit process to occur there needs to be massive depopulation. I can't see that happening in the case of London - purely because the demand for housing is so great, due to the constrained supply that currently exists. People have to live somewhere.

    I think the issue you are describing could get bad in the suburbs, rather than the centre. Central London is massively desirable, the suburbs much less so.

    If you’re right, and the Home Counties are headed for strategic decline, what does that tell us about the Blue Wall?
    Its not really the Home Counties, it is places like Harrow, Enfield I had in mind. But the Home Counties could also take a hit as much of their desirability is rooted in proximity to the City.
    Surely if partial working from home continues to grow then it will increase the desirability of the Home Counties?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Leon said:

    Mexico reports 15,198 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since January, and 397 new deaths

    Delta is gonna fuck the world. Not an ideal time to hold the Olympic Games, inter alia

    ‘Mayo Clinic expert warns delta variant will infect everyone who is not immune hill.cm/v3VDvcY’


    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1418010927325138945?s=21
    I think history is going to give a poor verdict on these games. It’ll earn the worst reputation since Berlin 36.

    In retrospect the Euros should have been cancelled too, and the formula one, and the Tour de France and many other events. The coming football season is bound to be a superspreader opportunity.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237

    Leon said:

    Mexico reports 15,198 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since January, and 397 new deaths

    Delta is gonna fuck the world. Not an ideal time to hold the Olympic Games, inter alia

    ‘Mayo Clinic expert warns delta variant will infect everyone who is not immune hill.cm/v3VDvcY’


    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1418010927325138945?s=21
    I think history is going to give a poor verdict on these games. It’ll earn the worst reputation since Berlin 36.

    In retrospect the Euros should have been cancelled too, and the formula one, and the Tour de France and many other events. The coming football season is bound to be a superspreader opportunity.
    The Games already have the whiff of tragedy, with a hint of farce. I can’t see how that is dispelled.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021

    Leon said:

    Mexico reports 15,198 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since January, and 397 new deaths

    Delta is gonna fuck the world. Not an ideal time to hold the Olympic Games, inter alia

    ‘Mayo Clinic expert warns delta variant will infect everyone who is not immune hill.cm/v3VDvcY’


    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1418010927325138945?s=21
    I think history is going to give a poor verdict on these games. It’ll earn the worst reputation since Berlin 36.

    In retrospect the Euros should have been cancelled too, and the formula one, and the Tour de France and many other events. The coming football season is bound to be a superspreader opportunity.
    I have said this before there are going to be kids in 50-100 years in their history class looking at the photos from the great plague of the early 2020s and saying were people in 2020 total morons?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Mexico reports 15,198 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since January, and 397 new deaths

    Delta is gonna fuck the world. Not an ideal time to hold the Olympic Games, inter alia

    ‘Mayo Clinic expert warns delta variant will infect everyone who is not immune hill.cm/v3VDvcY’


    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1418010927325138945?s=21
    I think history is going to give a poor verdict on these games. It’ll earn the worst reputation since Berlin 36.

    In retrospect the Euros should have been cancelled too, and the formula one, and the Tour de France and many other events. The coming football season is bound to be a superspreader opportunity.
    The Games already have the whiff of tragedy, with a hint of farce. I can’t see how that is dispelled.
    At this rate the 2021 version of Eric the Eel is going to get a medal in a event because they were one of the only one not testing positive....
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,237
    Why ARE they holding the Games?! Is it really just the greed of the IOC? The Japanese people are, understandably, dead against. The Japanese government knows this

    As a frightening new strain of the plague sweeps the world, WTAF?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021
    Leon said:

    Why ARE they holding the Games?! Is it really just the greed of the IOC? The Japanese people are, understandably, dead against. The Japanese government knows this

    As a frightening new strain of the plague sweeps the world, WTAF?

    Japan has sunk an incredible amount of money into them. They spent some crazy amount on the main stadium, the architect went with some insane design, they started with it, then went oh shit that's not going to work, scrap it, total redesign....
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    edited July 2021
    New daily records for cases in South Korea and New South Wales…

    Edit: And Thailand.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279

    Leon said:

    Mexico reports 15,198 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since January, and 397 new deaths

    Delta is gonna fuck the world. Not an ideal time to hold the Olympic Games, inter alia

    ‘Mayo Clinic expert warns delta variant will infect everyone who is not immune hill.cm/v3VDvcY’


    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1418010927325138945?s=21
    I think history is going to give a poor verdict on these games. It’ll earn the worst reputation since Berlin 36.

    In retrospect the Euros should have been cancelled too, and the formula one, and the Tour de France and many other events. The coming football season is bound to be a superspreader opportunity.
    A lot of people had their spirits raised by the football tournament. It would have been grim without it.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Mexico reports 15,198 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since January, and 397 new deaths

    Delta is gonna fuck the world. Not an ideal time to hold the Olympic Games, inter alia

    ‘Mayo Clinic expert warns delta variant will infect everyone who is not immune hill.cm/v3VDvcY’


    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1418010927325138945?s=21
    I think history is going to give a poor verdict on these games. It’ll earn the worst reputation since Berlin 36.

    In retrospect the Euros should have been cancelled too, and the formula one, and the Tour de France and many other events. The coming football season is bound to be a superspreader opportunity.
    The Games already have the whiff of tragedy, with a hint of farce. I can’t see how that is dispelled.
    At this rate the 2021 version of Eric the Eel is going to get a medal in a event because they were one of the only one not testing positive....
    Yes, that’s one of the problems. 2021 medals are going to be devalued if too many top competitors are excluded. And the exclusions are going to be pretty random, unlike the Moscow and Los Angeles boycotts.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Leon said:

    Why ARE they holding the Games?! Is it really just the greed of the IOC? The Japanese people are, understandably, dead against. The Japanese government knows this

    As a frightening new strain of the plague sweeps the world, WTAF?

    I’m afraid the answer is very simple and very ugly: money and politics.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279

    Leon said:

    Why ARE they holding the Games?! Is it really just the greed of the IOC? The Japanese people are, understandably, dead against. The Japanese government knows this

    As a frightening new strain of the plague sweeps the world, WTAF?

    I’m afraid the answer is very simple and very ugly: money and politics.
    I don't understand why they didn't originally postpone it for two years. One year was always going to be risky.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Mexico reports 15,198 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since January, and 397 new deaths

    Delta is gonna fuck the world. Not an ideal time to hold the Olympic Games, inter alia

    ‘Mayo Clinic expert warns delta variant will infect everyone who is not immune hill.cm/v3VDvcY’


    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1418010927325138945?s=21
    I think history is going to give a poor verdict on these games. It’ll earn the worst reputation since Berlin 36.

    In retrospect the Euros should have been cancelled too, and the formula one, and the Tour de France and many other events. The coming football season is bound to be a superspreader opportunity.
    A lot of people had their spirits raised by the football tournament. It would have been grim without it.
    But it just prolonged the pandemic. The Wembley scenes were horrific, and folk spread the virus all over the place.

    Covid19 has just proved once again that the human race can be incredibly stupid and we never learn from our mistakes. God help us if a *proper* nasty disease ever hits: it’ll knock us back to the Middle Ages. Covid19 could come to be seen as a little cuddly beast in comparison.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021
    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Why ARE they holding the Games?! Is it really just the greed of the IOC? The Japanese people are, understandably, dead against. The Japanese government knows this

    As a frightening new strain of the plague sweeps the world, WTAF?

    I’m afraid the answer is very simple and very ugly: money and politics.
    I don't understand why they didn't originally postpone it for two years. One year was always going to be risky.
    Essentially, it would mess up the whole international sporting calendar e.g. football world cup and world championship athletics are held in the even years between the Olympics.

    Nobody would be happy with that, the sports, the sponsors, etc.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Why ARE they holding the Games?! Is it really just the greed of the IOC? The Japanese people are, understandably, dead against. The Japanese government knows this

    As a frightening new strain of the plague sweeps the world, WTAF?

    I’m afraid the answer is very simple and very ugly: money and politics.
    I don't understand why they didn't originally postpone it for two years. One year was always going to be risky.
    Essentially, it would mess up the whole sporting calendar e.g. football world cup and world championship athletics are held in the even years between the Olympics.
    So what?

    In a global pandemic you have to make tough choices. Too many decision-makers have abrogated their responsibilities.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Why ARE they holding the Games?! Is it really just the greed of the IOC? The Japanese people are, understandably, dead against. The Japanese government knows this

    As a frightening new strain of the plague sweeps the world, WTAF?

    I’m afraid the answer is very simple and very ugly: money and politics.
    I don't understand why they didn't originally postpone it for two years. One year was always going to be risky.
    Essentially, it would mess up the whole sporting calendar e.g. football world cup and world championship athletics are held in the even years between the Olympics.
    So what?

    In a global pandemic you have to make tough choices. Too many decision-makers have abrogated their responsibilities.
    I am not agreeing, I am saying why they came to that decision.

    The international sporting calendar (and along with all the money) is set around Olympics every 4 years, World Cup and loads of other major sports events in the even years between. Remember for lots of sports as well the only way they survive is Olympics and their own world championships.

    All the pressure is in one direction.

    Its why the Euros had to be this year (or they wouldn't have happened).
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Tokyo 2020 social media teams banned from showing athletes taking the knee

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/21/tokyo-2020-olympics-social-media-teams-banned-from-showing-athletes-taking-the-knee

    It wouldn’t surprise me to find that the UK government has been lobbying behind the scenes.

    I'd be astonished if the government gave a toss either way. More likely the IOC is worried about political statements. It's not quite stripping medals over Black power salutes, yet.
    But as the article says: “… found the IOC’s stance odd given the organisation celebrates iconic pictures of protest – including Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists to protest against the unfair treatment of black people in the United States at the 1968 Olympics.“

    Why is one political statement lauded whereas the other is censored? The irony is that both are campaigning for the same end: racial equality.

  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279
    Guardian report:

    "Supermarkets struggle to stock shelves as ‘pingdemic’ havoc spreads
    Ministers urged to include retail staff and lorry drivers in exemption as self-isolating workers causes shortages"

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/21/iceland-aim-to-recruit-2000-staff-due-to-pingdemic-absences
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Why ARE they holding the Games?! Is it really just the greed of the IOC? The Japanese people are, understandably, dead against. The Japanese government knows this

    As a frightening new strain of the plague sweeps the world, WTAF?

    I’m afraid the answer is very simple and very ugly: money and politics.
    I don't understand why they didn't originally postpone it for two years. One year was always going to be risky.
    Essentially, it would mess up the whole sporting calendar e.g. football world cup and world championship athletics are held in the even years between the Olympics.
    So what?

    In a global pandemic you have to make tough choices. Too many decision-makers have abrogated their responsibilities.
    I am not agreeing, I am saying why they came to that decision.

    The international sporting calendar (and along with all the money) is set around Olympics every 4 years, World Cup and loads of other major sports events in the even years between. Remember for lots of sports as well the only way they survive is Olympics and their own world championships.

    All the pressure is in one direction.

    Its why the Euros had to be this year (or they wouldn't have happened).
    Aha. Sorry.

    Experience tells us that the folk that run international sporting bodies are even more incompetent and crooked than the folk running governments. Human failure is normal, and boy are we getting that message loud and clear right now!
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926

    Tokyo 2020 social media teams banned from showing athletes taking the knee

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/21/tokyo-2020-olympics-social-media-teams-banned-from-showing-athletes-taking-the-knee

    It wouldn’t surprise me to find that the UK government has been lobbying behind the scenes.

    I'd be astonished if the government gave a toss either way. More likely the IOC is worried about political statements. It's not quite stripping medals over Black power salutes, yet.
    But as the article says: “… found the IOC’s stance odd given the organisation celebrates iconic pictures of protest – including Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists to protest against the unfair treatment of black people in the United States at the 1968 Olympics.“

    Why is one political statement lauded whereas the other is censored? The irony is that both are campaigning for the same end: racial equality.

    At the time (1968) the athletes were thrown out, not lauded.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Tokyo 2020 social media teams banned from showing athletes taking the knee

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/21/tokyo-2020-olympics-social-media-teams-banned-from-showing-athletes-taking-the-knee

    It wouldn’t surprise me to find that the UK government has been lobbying behind the scenes.

    I'd be astonished if the government gave a toss either way. More likely the IOC is worried about political statements. It's not quite stripping medals over Black power salutes, yet.
    But as the article says: “… found the IOC’s stance odd given the organisation celebrates iconic pictures of protest – including Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists to protest against the unfair treatment of black people in the United States at the 1968 Olympics.“

    Why is one political statement lauded whereas the other is censored? The irony is that both are campaigning for the same end: racial equality.

    At the time (1968) the athletes were thrown out, not lauded.
    Yes, even the (white) Australian bronze medalist who joined in was subsequently hounded and bullied. The Olympics can be as ugly as they can be beautiful.

    The IOC are making a mistake in censoring taking the knee. And I’ll bet behind the scenes the UK government have been pulling strings. The IOC specifically named the GB women’s soccer team. Very suspicious. This is why the men’s federations doing touch the Olympics with a shitty stick.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926

    Tokyo 2020 social media teams banned from showing athletes taking the knee

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/21/tokyo-2020-olympics-social-media-teams-banned-from-showing-athletes-taking-the-knee

    It wouldn’t surprise me to find that the UK government has been lobbying behind the scenes.

    I'd be astonished if the government gave a toss either way. More likely the IOC is worried about political statements. It's not quite stripping medals over Black power salutes, yet.
    But as the article says: “… found the IOC’s stance odd given the organisation celebrates iconic pictures of protest – including Tommie Smith and John Carlos raising their fists to protest against the unfair treatment of black people in the United States at the 1968 Olympics.“

    Why is one political statement lauded whereas the other is censored? The irony is that both are campaigning for the same end: racial equality.

    At the time (1968) the athletes were thrown out, not lauded.
    Yes, even the (white) Australian bronze medalist who joined in was subsequently hounded and bullied. The Olympics can be as ugly as they can be beautiful.

    The IOC are making a mistake in censoring taking the knee. And I’ll bet behind the scenes the UK government have been pulling strings. The IOC specifically named the GB women’s soccer team. Very suspicious. This is why the men’s federations doing touch the Olympics with a shitty stick.
    GB vs Chile was the first match. That is probably why. There is a men's football tournament at the Olympics but it is a modified under-23s.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    Andy_JS said:

    Guardian report:

    "Supermarkets struggle to stock shelves as ‘pingdemic’ havoc spreads
    Ministers urged to include retail staff and lorry drivers in exemption as self-isolating workers causes shortages"

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/21/iceland-aim-to-recruit-2000-staff-due-to-pingdemic-absences

    At some point the government needs to sit down with SAGE and work out what the pings are intended to achieve, rather than have ad hoc exceptions based on industry lobbying, all pending changes due next month anyway.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279

    Andy_JS said:

    Guardian report:

    "Supermarkets struggle to stock shelves as ‘pingdemic’ havoc spreads
    Ministers urged to include retail staff and lorry drivers in exemption as self-isolating workers causes shortages"

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/21/iceland-aim-to-recruit-2000-staff-due-to-pingdemic-absences

    At some point the government needs to sit down with SAGE and work out what the pings are intended to achieve, rather than have ad hoc exceptions based on industry lobbying, all pending changes due next month anyway.
    Let's hope the meeting takes place tomorrow.
  • Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    I saw a yoof wearing a '2016 Koh Tao pub crawl' t-shirt yesterday. It induced in me the most visceral reaction. A sense of immense and irretrievable loss. The death of a world we used to know.

    I now seriously doubt if those carefree days will return in our lifetimes.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    I saw a yoof wearing a '2016 Koh Tao pub crawl' t-shirt yesterday. It induced in me the most visceral reaction. A sense of immense and irretrievable loss. The death of a world we used to know.

    I now seriously doubt if those carefree days will return in our lifetimes.
    You're not serious?
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    I saw a yoof wearing a '2016 Koh Tao pub crawl' t-shirt yesterday. It induced in me the most visceral reaction. A sense of immense and irretrievable loss. The death of a world we used to know.

    I now seriously doubt if those carefree days will return in our lifetimes.
    Maybe not for a couple of years - how long do you expect to live?
  • Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    I saw a yoof wearing a '2016 Koh Tao pub crawl' t-shirt yesterday. It induced in me the most visceral reaction. A sense of immense and irretrievable loss. The death of a world we used to know.

    I now seriously doubt if those carefree days will return in our lifetimes.
    You're not serious?
    Yep totally. I know Asia well and I have first hand reports of what's going on out there.

    Carlotta's hope that it will just be a couple of years is wildly optimistic. I don't think we will ever return to how things were.
  • Mike compares to the year 2000 but this is starting to remind me more of the winter of discontent in 1978/9.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    Mexico reports 15,198 new coronavirus cases, the biggest one-day increase since January, and 397 new deaths

    Delta is gonna fuck the world. Not an ideal time to hold the Olympic Games, inter alia

    ‘Mayo Clinic expert warns delta variant will infect everyone who is not immune hill.cm/v3VDvcY’


    https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1418010927325138945?s=21
    I think history is going to give a poor verdict on these games. It’ll earn the worst reputation since Berlin 36.

    In retrospect the Euros should have been cancelled too, and the formula one, and the Tour de France and many other events. The coming football season is bound to be a superspreader opportunity.
    A lot of people had their spirits raised by the football tournament. It would have been grim without it.
    But it just prolonged the pandemic. The Wembley scenes were horrific, and folk spread the virus all over the place.

    Covid19 has just proved once again that the human race can be incredibly stupid and we never learn from our mistakes. God help us if a *proper* nasty disease ever hits: it’ll knock us back to the Middle Ages. Covid19 could come to be seen as a little cuddly beast in comparison.
    What basis is there for saying it “prolonged” the pandemic? If anything it quite likely accelerated it. What the scientists/govt won’t say amid all the discussions about isolation/pingdemic etc, is that Govt policy is de facto for Covid to rush through the population as rapidly as possible (as long as the NHS can, just about, cope). If Delta can’t be stopped then suppression=prolonging.
  • I remember walking barefoot along Lonely Beach on Koh Chang island. Like the smattering of other hippy types, there wasn't a care in the world.

    Those days are irretrievably gone, and not just for me.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,735
    ✍🏻 OLYMPICS LATEST: Kentaro Kobayashi, creative director of the Opening Ceremony was fired for joking about the Holocaust as part of a skit in 1998 when he worked as a comedian.

    Kobayashi: “…I understand that my stupid choice of words at that time was wrong, and I regret it.”
    https://twitter.com/rumireports/status/1418077592226197505/photo/1
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    darkage said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    If it was just death, that would perhaps be easier to live with. The problem is rooted in trying to control the virus by changing human behaviour. It has all sorts of unintended consequences.
    Big cities cannot function in prolonged plagues with endless lockdown and quarantine. As this thread shows: a few pings and we have shortages. And if people are too terrified to congregate together, then cities will be slowly but relentlessly abandoned - what is the point of them? Cities ARE crowds.

    As "civilisation" depends entirely on functional cities - by definition - that is extremely bad news for everyone. Even those now feeling smug in their garden suburbs, market towns and leafy villages, depend on big cities to keep the money turning and society thinking
    Former CBI head Howard Davies has just said the City of London will never be the same again with large number of office workers commuting into work each day. I can't see how it can survive without that huge volume of people.
    So what the fuck happens to it? And all the businesses that depend on it?

    It's all very well to airily make these predictions, but the ramifications are tremendous, and ominous - as these epochal and accelerated changes will be repeated in big cities across the world, esp in America and Europe

    My sense of London is that it is at the beginning of a chain reaction of terrible decline, as one business failure feeds into another, as one departed rich person leads to another round of debt, and the tax take falls, and the services are withdrawn, so more people leave, like New York in the 70s but on steroids

    Christ, I hope I am wrong, I fear I am right. And, as I say, I believe this is the fate of all the great cities

    We need the virus to fuck off very very quickly to avoid these things
    Someone here will know the exact stats, but I think Liverpool went from something like 800,000 to 400,000 people in the post war period. It happens.

    For a liverpool / detroit process to occur there needs to be massive depopulation. I can't see that happening in the case of London - purely because the demand for housing is so great, due to the constrained supply that currently exists. People have to live somewhere.

    I think the issue you are describing could get bad in the suburbs, rather than the centre. Central London is massively desirable, the suburbs much less so.

    If you’re right, and the Home Counties are headed for strategic decline, what does that tell us about the Blue Wall?
    Its not really the Home Counties, it is places like Harrow, Enfield I had in mind. But the Home Counties could also take a hit as much of their desirability is rooted in proximity to the City.
    Surely if partial working from home continues to grow then it will increase the desirability of the Home Counties?
    The biggest benefit will be to more affordable places where commuting daily isn’t practicable but visiting town a few times a month is. Because people have discovered the benefits of a bit more space and a quieter pace of life. Those parts of the Home Counties already clearly inside the commuter benefit already have the inflated housing costs that mean moving there doesnt offer a better standard of housing.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715

    I remember walking barefoot along Lonely Beach on Koh Chang island. Like the smattering of other hippy types, there wasn't a care in the world.

    Those days are irretrievably gone, and not just for me.

    I remember the sense of relief we had when it was announced that there would be no more National Service call-up. And we'd managed to miss it.
    Suddenly there was a future.
    And I remember, much more recently the day after I retired from work. Walked down to the restaurant in the centre of our small town for lunch. Like being on holiday, but at home, and this was what it was going to be like.

    So, cheer up. Something or other happens to all generations.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540

    I remember walking barefoot along Lonely Beach on Koh Chang island. Like the smattering of other hippy types, there wasn't a care in the world.

    Those days are irretrievably gone, and not just for me.

    The world keeps changing. Remember the “carefree days” before 9/11 and none of the security palaver at airports? Or before the liquid bomb plot and the “no bigger than 100ml in a plastic bag”? Or if you’re older the “carefree days before AIDS”.

    Somehow we’ve struggled on.

    Next year I would hope we have the capacity to vaccinate at least half the planet - and the rest of it the following year.

    But by then you may be reminiscing about the “carefree days” before mortgage and kids!
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,571
    Some more detail on the ivermectin fraud:
    https://gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on-fraudulent-research-5cc079278602

    And another decent sized study demonstrating its ineffectiveness against Covid:
    https://bmcinfectdis.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12879-021-06348-5
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 4,087
    Andy_JS said:

    Guardian report:

    "Supermarkets struggle to stock shelves as ‘pingdemic’ havoc spreads
    Ministers urged to include retail staff and lorry drivers in exemption as self-isolating workers causes shortages"

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/21/iceland-aim-to-recruit-2000-staff-due-to-pingdemic-absences

    Off down Tesco after work today to buy a family-sized pack of bog paper and to restock the freezer. Not getting caught out this time.

    Johnson won't act on all these critical staff shortages until it is way, way too late. This Government seems incapable of getting anything right by design. I'm coming to regard the relative success of the vaccination drive as an exemplar of the stopped clock principle.
  • state_go_awaystate_go_away Posts: 5,415
    edited July 2021
    pigeon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Guardian report:

    "Supermarkets struggle to stock shelves as ‘pingdemic’ havoc spreads
    Ministers urged to include retail staff and lorry drivers in exemption as self-isolating workers causes shortages"

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/21/iceland-aim-to-recruit-2000-staff-due-to-pingdemic-absences

    Off down Tesco after work today to buy a family-sized pack of bog paper and to restock the freezer. Not getting caught out this time.

    Johnson won't act on all these critical staff shortages until it is way, way too late. This Government seems incapable of getting anything right by design. I'm coming to regard the relative success of the vaccination drive as an exemplar of the stopped clock principle.
    I just dont understand this. the government have rightly (in my view) opened up everything and said we should not obsess about covid now . Yet it backs a out of control test and trace system that makes everyone worry about covid becasue of the effects of getting pinged both as an individual (having to unecessarily isolate) and as a country (stopping essential work ) . Everyone I know has switched off the damn thing . What the hell are you doing government?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    Leon said:

    dixiedean said:

    This week has been the worst yet for my family's mental health.
    Eldest home after Uni, and youngest finished school has really shifted a comfortable dynamic off its axis.
    Too many adults at home all day in too small a house.

    I had drinks with some lefty friends today, normally very peaceable

    At one point my Remainer mate was ranting about Brexit, to the extent of yelling the words "the Tory Nazis". It was a bit embarrassing TBH. His partner intervened and calmed him down

    I've no doubt he is angry about Brexit - he always has been - but this was a new level of unhinged fury. Notably, he had been talking about the Delta Variant quite a lot, just before

    I reckon the pandemic is now pushing a lot of people to the brink - and the idea that it might go on for many months more is basically intolerable
    My partner says the suicide stats are quite eye opening. Not at all what the non-professional might assume.
    Though the decision of 2 of the 4 adults to purchase a drum machine without any consultation or usual channels hasn't helped.
    At fucking all.
    I estimate we are two more variants away - ie 12-18 added months of variously cycling lockdown, death, infection and fear - from critical societal collapse across the West
    I saw a yoof wearing a '2016 Koh Tao pub crawl' t-shirt yesterday. It induced in me the most visceral reaction. A sense of immense and irretrievable loss. The death of a world we used to know.

    I now seriously doubt if those carefree days will return in our lifetimes.
    I found a couple of diving certificates from my time in Koh Tao in 2002. Great time, great place
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901

    pigeon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Guardian report:

    "Supermarkets struggle to stock shelves as ‘pingdemic’ havoc spreads
    Ministers urged to include retail staff and lorry drivers in exemption as self-isolating workers causes shortages"

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/21/iceland-aim-to-recruit-2000-staff-due-to-pingdemic-absences

    Off down Tesco after work today to buy a family-sized pack of bog paper and to restock the freezer. Not getting caught out this time.

    Johnson won't act on all these critical staff shortages until it is way, way too late. This Government seems incapable of getting anything right by design. I'm coming to regard the relative success of the vaccination drive as an exemplar of the stopped clock principle.
    I just dont understand this. the government have rightly (in my view) opened up everything and said we should not obsess about covid now . Yet it backs a out of control test and trace system that makes everyone worry about covid becasue of the effects of getting pinged both as an individual (having to unecessarily isolate) and as a country (stopping essential work ) . Everyone I know has switched off the damn thing . What the hell are you doing government?
    This was predicted. Government is sending mixed messages, ignoring data and creating perverse incentives.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,715
    edited July 2021

    pigeon said:

    Andy_JS said:

    Guardian report:

    "Supermarkets struggle to stock shelves as ‘pingdemic’ havoc spreads
    Ministers urged to include retail staff and lorry drivers in exemption as self-isolating workers causes shortages"

    https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/21/iceland-aim-to-recruit-2000-staff-due-to-pingdemic-absences

    Off down Tesco after work today to buy a family-sized pack of bog paper and to restock the freezer. Not getting caught out this time.

    Johnson won't act on all these critical staff shortages until it is way, way too late. This Government seems incapable of getting anything right by design. I'm coming to regard the relative success of the vaccination drive as an exemplar of the stopped clock principle.
    I just dont understand this. the government have rightly (in my view) opened up everything and said we should not obsess about covid now . Yet it backs a out of control test and trace system that makes everyone worry about covid becasue of the effects of getting pinged both as an individual (having to unecessarily isolate) and as a country (stopping essential work ) . Everyone I know has switched off the damn thing . What the hell are you doing government?
    Has there ever been a time when the Test and Trace system was fit for purpose? 'Expert' on BBC East the other day said that one should check out of a venue as well as check in, but as far as I can see one can't, without, for example, getting an official NHS QR code poster to record that one's got home.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Go early and get to zero they said.

    Well 100 cases and still in lockdown for 5 weeks. It’s as if zero covid isn’t an exit strategy after all.


    https://twitter.com/thatryanchap/status/1415191448400637952?s=21
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,583

    I remember walking barefoot along Lonely Beach on Koh Chang island. Like the smattering of other hippy types, there wasn't a care in the world.

    Those days are irretrievably gone, and not just for me.

    The world keeps changing. Remember the “carefree days” before 9/11 and none of the security palaver at airports? Or before the liquid bomb plot and the “no bigger than 100ml in a plastic bag”? Or if you’re older the “carefree days before AIDS”.

    Somehow we’ve struggled on.

    Next year I would hope we have the capacity to vaccinate at least half the planet - and the rest of it the following year.

    But by then you may be reminiscing about the “carefree days” before mortgage and kids!
    Johnson promised us Brexit could return us to those heady carefree days pre-Common Market.

    Indeed wasn't the TARDIS set for the chocolate box world of the 1950s? Red telephone boxes, and half-timbered cars. Well mission accomplished, it looks like we could well have rationing on the horizon by the end of the week.

    Anyone care for a Woodbine?
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 14,911

    I remember walking barefoot along Lonely Beach on Koh Chang island. Like the smattering of other hippy types, there wasn't a care in the world.

    Those days are irretrievably gone, and not just for me.

    The lights are going out all over Europe. We won't see them lit again in our lifetime...
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    If people are
    I. Double jabbed
    Ii. Can not work from home
    Iii. Are not living with a covid + contact
    Iv. Were classified as a key worker

    They should lft daily when pinged and continue to work.

    Key workers should be able to double jab quicker than 8 weeks too.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,735
    Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng tells @KayBurley the list of workers exempt from isolation rules will be “quite narrow”

    He insists list will come “very soon”… but refuses to say if that means today or even by the end of the week

    https://twitter.com/johnestevens/status/1418093592116178950

    That exemption list in full:

    "Boris Johnson".

    https://twitter.com/DPJHodges/status/1418094174340014080
This discussion has been closed.