Covid-19 and the madness of crowds

BaldFriede wrote: lazland wrote: richardh wrote: lazland wrote: With reference to the new variant of the lurg, what this tells us is that nobody in any corridor of power anywhere has learnt anything over the past nine months. Not a thing. Following Johnson’s u-turn at the weekend regarding “cancelling” Christmas, on Sunday, our esteemed Health Secretary, Mr Matt Wancock, was wheeled out to do the Sunday morning political show interviews. With a flunky obviously standing close by with another bag of sliced onions to draw out the tears, he informed the nation that the new variant was “out of control” as it had “mutated”, and that they had only been informed of this on the Friday afternoon by Doctors Doom and Gloom, and had acted “decisively” in changing the tier rules on Saturday, less than a week before Christmas, and, hilariously, three days after Boris had accused Keir Starmer of wanting to “cancel Christmas”. The great British press, including The Sunday Times which I buy, naturally led all of their front pages with headline gems such as “Mutant Virus Rages Across UK” or “Mutant Virus Cancels Christmas” and so on and so forth, ad nauseum.  Equally predictably, our European “friends” took Wancock at his word, declared an emergency so grave that they banned all travel to and from Britain, and, utterly gleefully on the part of France, banned freight travel to and from Dover, thus having the additional benefit of showing us precisely what a no deal Brexit might look like with days to go before the transition period end. So, absolutely no considered language, absolutely no nuance, absolutely no common sense or scientific rigidity at all, again. We have entered a new national lockdown, the third one, here in Wales, probably only because our Labour led devolved government simply love to clamp down harder than the evil Tories in London. Ditto Ma Kranky in Scotland. In Wales’ case, they were clearly following the lead of the beloved Dear Leader Starmer, who had called for stricter measures deliberately to have Johnson take the piss, a trap the PM incredibly fell into yet again. When will we ever learn? What have we done to deserve this? We have a population (and it is precisely the same across Europe with only a couple of exceptions) which has been both infantilised by ridiculous central edicts and petrified witless by the fear and loathing inflicted upon it by both government and media. Viruses spread. Viruses mutate. These are fundamental tenets of microbiology. You cannot, as our PM insists, “keep your foot on the throat” of a virus. You cannot stop a virus spreading when you do not lockdown, properly, an entire population and cannot get an effective testing and tracking regime in place. The measures being taken here are shockingly ineffective, and that ought to be obvious to all but the greatest moron by now. It is becoming apparently clear that this latest increase in infections is being led primarily by school children bringing it back home. Naturally, they are keeping the schools open until the next u-turn.  The measures are also having the most shocking impact on people’s lives, livelihoods, and are showing up just how sh*te our health and welfare infrastructures are, not to mention the shocking state of health amongst a large proportion of fatties and others ramming a diet of sh*t fast processed food down their necks on a daily basis. All this for a virus which you have a 99%+ chance of surviving. Before I get roasted for this, take a look at Qatar. They have tested 44% of their population, and found that something like 11% of them have had the lurg. Of these, the mortality rate is 0.2%, a figure which I have been pretty consistent in stating in this forum. Before people Sl*g me off, I have no doubt whatsoever that catching this thing is not pleasant, and can lead to fatalities in some. I would rather avoid catching it, although I think I caught a dose in March as I have relayed, and certainly don’t want to infect those I love. That is why I take sensible precautions. I ascertain risk and act accordingly. Like an increasing proportion now of our people, I absolutely despair at the incredibly stupid and incompetent rules being imposed upon us, and how all common sense has been abandoned in a “fight” against probably the weakest and least effective viral pandemic in the history of human mortality. What is the one lesson this has taught us all? The most effective regimes in combatting this thing have been those which utilise high levels of technology and coercion among their populations. If there is one thing worse than an authoritarian government, it is an incompetent one. Which is what we have right now. When people continually ask that government “help me”, “save me”, “do something, anything”, I hope that they will have learned by now to be extremely careful of what they wish for. Lastly, given that the pubs here have been closed again for weeks, and case numbers have continued to rise, any chance of our leaders admitting that said boozers are not the main culprit in the spread, and opening them up again so I can enjoy a few pints in front of a log fire? No, thought not........ a truly remarkable post I have to share that I lost my Dad to undiagnosed Motor Neurone Disease very recently. The worst thing about this was that he was isolated from his loving children and grand children for the last 9 months. I was lucky enough to speak to him before he died and had a proper conversation. I had completely forgotten what a joy it was to be beside him and have a proper chat. f**k COVID and the obsession with it. At the moment I am hoping where I live (Swindon) will stay out of Tier 4 for just a few more days so we can have a 'normal' Christmas Day (as normal as it can be without Dad) before the inevitable lock down. I feel so sorry for everyone that cannot. The mental toll and fall out could actually be far greater that the f**king thing itself. People have had enough that's for sure. Richard, so sorry to hear about your father. We send our best wishes to you from West Wales. MND is a horrible condition. Your story is, I am afraid, one which is being heard increasingly across the country, although not so much in the media, of the terrible costs being inflicted on people through undiagnosed conditions, cancelled procedures, and the denial of the simple joy of being with loved ones. Sorry, but are you serious with this comparison to Qatar? You can't compare the death rate of a disease in two different countries without comparing things like demographics, average income of the average worker, cost of living, healthcare standards etc. Just as an example: The average male in Qatar is about four years younger than the average male in the USA. For women the average age difference is eleven years even (the average woman in Qatar is actually 28.2 years old)! About 27% of the population in Qatar are women. All these factors have to be taken into account for a comparison. If you compare them all (as I did) it is not surprising that the Covid-19 death rate is much lower in Qatar than it is in the USA.

lazland wrote: richardh wrote: lazland wrote: With reference to the new variant of the lurg, what this tells us is that nobody in any corridor of power anywhere has learnt anything over the past nine months. Not a thing. Following Johnson’s u-turn at the weekend regarding “cancelling” Christmas, on Sunday, our esteemed Health Secretary, Mr Matt Wancock, was wheeled out to do the Sunday morning political show interviews. With a flunky obviously standing close by with another bag of sliced onions to draw out the tears, he informed the nation that the new variant was “out of control” as it had “mutated”, and that they had only been informed of this on the Friday afternoon by Doctors Doom and Gloom, and had acted “decisively” in changing the tier rules on Saturday, less than a week before Christmas, and, hilariously, three days after Boris had accused Keir Starmer of wanting to “cancel Christmas”. The great British press, including The Sunday Times which I buy, naturally led all of their front pages with headline gems such as “Mutant Virus Rages Across UK” or “Mutant Virus Cancels Christmas” and so on and so forth, ad nauseum.  Equally predictably, our European “friends” took Wancock at his word, declared an emergency so grave that they banned all travel to and from Britain, and, utterly gleefully on the part of France, banned freight travel to and from Dover, thus having the additional benefit of showing us precisely what a no deal Brexit might look like with days to go before the transition period end. So, absolutely no considered language, absolutely no nuance, absolutely no common sense or scientific rigidity at all, again. We have entered a new national lockdown, the third one, here in Wales, probably only because our Labour led devolved government simply love to clamp down harder than the evil Tories in London. Ditto Ma Kranky in Scotland. In Wales’ case, they were clearly following the lead of the beloved Dear Leader Starmer, who had called for stricter measures deliberately to have Johnson take the piss, a trap the PM incredibly fell into yet again. When will we ever learn? What have we done to deserve this? We have a population (and it is precisely the same across Europe with only a couple of exceptions) which has been both infantilised by ridiculous central edicts and petrified witless by the fear and loathing inflicted upon it by both government and media. Viruses spread. Viruses mutate. These are fundamental tenets of microbiology. You cannot, as our PM insists, “keep your foot on the throat” of a virus. You cannot stop a virus spreading when you do not lockdown, properly, an entire population and cannot get an effective testing and tracking regime in place. The measures being taken here are shockingly ineffective, and that ought to be obvious to all but the greatest moron by now. It is becoming apparently clear that this latest increase in infections is being led primarily by school children bringing it back home. Naturally, they are keeping the schools open until the next u-turn.  The measures are also having the most shocking impact on people’s lives, livelihoods, and are showing up just how sh*te our health and welfare infrastructures are, not to mention the shocking state of health amongst a large proportion of fatties and others ramming a diet of sh*t fast processed food down their necks on a daily basis. All this for a virus which you have a 99%+ chance of surviving. Before I get roasted for this, take a look at Qatar. They have tested 44% of their population, and found that something like 11% of them have had the lurg. Of these, the mortality rate is 0.2%, a figure which I have been pretty consistent in stating in this forum. Before people Sl*g me off, I have no doubt whatsoever that catching this thing is not pleasant, and can lead to fatalities in some. I would rather avoid catching it, although I think I caught a dose in March as I have relayed, and certainly don’t want to infect those I love. That is why I take sensible precautions. I ascertain risk and act accordingly. Like an increasing proportion now of our people, I absolutely despair at the incredibly stupid and incompetent rules being imposed upon us, and how all common sense has been abandoned in a “fight” against probably the weakest and least effective viral pandemic in the history of human mortality. What is the one lesson this has taught us all? The most effective regimes in combatting this thing have been those which utilise high levels of technology and coercion among their populations. If there is one thing worse than an authoritarian government, it is an incompetent one. Which is what we have right now. When people continually ask that government “help me”, “save me”, “do something, anything”, I hope that they will have learned by now to be extremely careful of what they wish for. Lastly, given that the pubs here have been closed again for weeks, and case numbers have continued to rise, any chance of our leaders admitting that said boozers are not the main culprit in the spread, and opening them up again so I can enjoy a few pints in front of a log fire? No, thought not........ a truly remarkable post I have to share that I lost my Dad to undiagnosed Motor Neurone Disease very recently. The worst thing about this was that he was isolated from his loving children and grand children for the last 9 months. I was lucky enough to speak to him before he died and had a proper conversation. I had completely forgotten what a joy it was to be beside him and have a proper chat. f**k COVID and the obsession with it. At the moment I am hoping where I live (Swindon) will stay out of Tier 4 for just a few more days so we can have a 'normal' Christmas Day (as normal as it can be without Dad) before the inevitable lock down. I feel so sorry for everyone that cannot. The mental toll and fall out could actually be far greater that the f**king thing itself. People have had enough that's for sure. Richard, so sorry to hear about your father. We send our best wishes to you from West Wales. MND is a horrible condition. Your story is, I am afraid, one which is being heard increasingly across the country, although not so much in the media, of the terrible costs being inflicted on people through undiagnosed conditions, cancelled procedures, and the denial of the simple joy of being with loved ones.

richardh wrote: lazland wrote: With reference to the new variant of the lurg, what this tells us is that nobody in any corridor of power anywhere has learnt anything over the past nine months. Not a thing. Following Johnson’s u-turn at the weekend regarding “cancelling” Christmas, on Sunday, our esteemed Health Secretary, Mr Matt Wancock, was wheeled out to do the Sunday morning political show interviews. With a flunky obviously standing close by with another bag of sliced onions to draw out the tears, he informed the nation that the new variant was “out of control” as it had “mutated”, and that they had only been informed of this on the Friday afternoon by Doctors Doom and Gloom, and had acted “decisively” in changing the tier rules on Saturday, less than a week before Christmas, and, hilariously, three days after Boris had accused Keir Starmer of wanting to “cancel Christmas”. The great British press, including The Sunday Times which I buy, naturally led all of their front pages with headline gems such as “Mutant Virus Rages Across UK” or “Mutant Virus Cancels Christmas” and so on and so forth, ad nauseum.  Equally predictably, our European “friends” took Wancock at his word, declared an emergency so grave that they banned all travel to and from Britain, and, utterly gleefully on the part of France, banned freight travel to and from Dover, thus having the additional benefit of showing us precisely what a no deal Brexit might look like with days to go before the transition period end. So, absolutely no considered language, absolutely no nuance, absolutely no common sense or scientific rigidity at all, again. We have entered a new national lockdown, the third one, here in Wales, probably only because our Labour led devolved government simply love to clamp down harder than the evil Tories in London. Ditto Ma Kranky in Scotland. In Wales’ case, they were clearly following the lead of the beloved Dear Leader Starmer, who had called for stricter measures deliberately to have Johnson take the piss, a trap the PM incredibly fell into yet again. When will we ever learn? What have we done to deserve this? We have a population (and it is precisely the same across Europe with only a couple of exceptions) which has been both infantilised by ridiculous central edicts and petrified witless by the fear and loathing inflicted upon it by both government and media. Viruses spread. Viruses mutate. These are fundamental tenets of microbiology. You cannot, as our PM insists, “keep your foot on the throat” of a virus. You cannot stop a virus spreading when you do not lockdown, properly, an entire population and cannot get an effective testing and tracking regime in place. The measures being taken here are shockingly ineffective, and that ought to be obvious to all but the greatest moron by now. It is becoming apparently clear that this latest increase in infections is being led primarily by school children bringing it back home. Naturally, they are keeping the schools open until the next u-turn.  The measures are also having the most shocking impact on people’s lives, livelihoods, and are showing up just how sh*te our health and welfare infrastructures are, not to mention the shocking state of health amongst a large proportion of fatties and others ramming a diet of sh*t fast processed food down their necks on a daily basis. All this for a virus which you have a 99%+ chance of surviving. Before I get roasted for this, take a look at Qatar. They have tested 44% of their population, and found that something like 11% of them have had the lurg. Of these, the mortality rate is 0.2%, a figure which I have been pretty consistent in stating in this forum. Before people Sl*g me off, I have no doubt whatsoever that catching this thing is not pleasant, and can lead to fatalities in some. I would rather avoid catching it, although I think I caught a dose in March as I have relayed, and certainly don’t want to infect those I love. That is why I take sensible precautions. I ascertain risk and act accordingly. Like an increasing proportion now of our people, I absolutely despair at the incredibly stupid and incompetent rules being imposed upon us, and how all common sense has been abandoned in a “fight” against probably the weakest and least effective viral pandemic in the history of human mortality. What is the one lesson this has taught us all? The most effective regimes in combatting this thing have been those which utilise high levels of technology and coercion among their populations. If there is one thing worse than an authoritarian government, it is an incompetent one. Which is what we have right now. When people continually ask that government “help me”, “save me”, “do something, anything”, I hope that they will have learned by now to be extremely careful of what they wish for. Lastly, given that the pubs here have been closed again for weeks, and case numbers have continued to rise, any chance of our leaders admitting that said boozers are not the main culprit in the spread, and opening them up again so I can enjoy a few pints in front of a log fire? No, thought not........ a truly remarkable post I have to share that I lost my Dad to undiagnosed Motor Neurone Disease very recently. The worst thing about this was that he was isolated from his loving children and grand children for the last 9 months. I was lucky enough to speak to him before he died and had a proper conversation. I had completely forgotten what a joy it was to be beside him and have a proper chat. f**k COVID and the obsession with it. At the moment I am hoping where I live (Swindon) will stay out of Tier 4 for just a few more days so we can have a 'normal' Christmas Day (as normal as it can be without Dad) before the inevitable lock down. I feel so sorry for everyone that cannot. The mental toll and fall out could actually be far greater that the f**king thing itself. People have had enough that's for sure.

NPR has an informative article about the new variant:

The covid death statistics don't tell the whole story, I now know of at least two people who died from non-covid problems, but could not get the help they needed because the nearest hospital was full.
One was my best friend's Godmother in Poland, she died at home from an infection from a broken hip. The other was a local radio personality, he died while in route to a hospital in northern Arkansas that had room for him.

I won't argue about what governments should or should not do. I know how to take care of myself, I'm over 60 and I have emphysema. My doctor tells me I should be careful so I am. Whatever my government decides to do will not have much effect on me. I'm staying away from news stories about this and not arguing with anybody about what is best, just taking care of myself, that's all.

Lewian wrote: lazland wrote: Lewian wrote: This... https://www.containcovid-pan.eu ...makes a lot of sense to me.   A glorious example of persons wishing for even more centralised government-led action, inflicting untold harm amongst hundreds of millions of people. As I have said before, be careful what you wish for. Their point is basically that not reducing numbers will inflict more harm (of the same kind, besides the deaths of course), and what you have written up to now doesn't exactly convince me otherwise.

lazland wrote: With reference to the new variant of the lurg, what this tells us is that nobody in any corridor of power anywhere has learnt anything over the past nine months. Not a thing. Following Johnson’s u-turn at the weekend regarding “cancelling” Christmas, on Sunday, our esteemed Health Secretary, Mr Matt Wancock, was wheeled out to do the Sunday morning political show interviews. With a flunky obviously standing close by with another bag of sliced onions to draw out the tears, he informed the nation that the new variant was “out of control” as it had “mutated”, and that they had only been informed of this on the Friday afternoon by Doctors Doom and Gloom, and had acted “decisively” in changing the tier rules on Saturday, less than a week before Christmas, and, hilariously, three days after Boris had accused Keir Starmer of wanting to “cancel Christmas”. The great British press, including The Sunday Times which I buy, naturally led all of their front pages with headline gems such as “Mutant Virus Rages Across UK” or “Mutant Virus Cancels Christmas” and so on and so forth, ad nauseum.  Equally predictably, our European “friends” took Wancock at his word, declared an emergency so grave that they banned all travel to and from Britain, and, utterly gleefully on the part of France, banned freight travel to and from Dover, thus having the additional benefit of showing us precisely what a no deal Brexit might look like with days to go before the transition period end. So, absolutely no considered language, absolutely no nuance, absolutely no common sense or scientific rigidity at all, again. We have entered a new national lockdown, the third one, here in Wales, probably only because our Labour led devolved government simply love to clamp down harder than the evil Tories in London. Ditto Ma Kranky in Scotland. In Wales’ case, they were clearly following the lead of the beloved Dear Leader Starmer, who had called for stricter measures deliberately to have Johnson take the piss, a trap the PM incredibly fell into yet again. When will we ever learn? What have we done to deserve this? We have a population (and it is precisely the same across Europe with only a couple of exceptions) which has been both infantilised by ridiculous central edicts and petrified witless by the fear and loathing inflicted upon it by both government and media. Viruses spread. Viruses mutate. These are fundamental tenets of microbiology. You cannot, as our PM insists, “keep your foot on the throat” of a virus. You cannot stop a virus spreading when you do not lockdown, properly, an entire population and cannot get an effective testing and tracking regime in place. The measures being taken here are shockingly ineffective, and that ought to be obvious to all but the greatest moron by now. It is becoming apparently clear that this latest increase in infections is being led primarily by school children bringing it back home. Naturally, they are keeping the schools open until the next u-turn.  The measures are also having the most shocking impact on people’s lives, livelihoods, and are showing up just how sh*te our health and welfare infrastructures are, not to mention the shocking state of health amongst a large proportion of fatties and others ramming a diet of sh*t fast processed food down their necks on a daily basis. All this for a virus which you have a 99%+ chance of surviving. Before I get roasted for this, take a look at Qatar. They have tested 44% of their population, and found that something like 11% of them have had the lurg. Of these, the mortality rate is 0.2%, a figure which I have been pretty consistent in stating in this forum. Before people Sl*g me off, I have no doubt whatsoever that catching this thing is not pleasant, and can lead to fatalities in some. I would rather avoid catching it, although I think I caught a dose in March as I have relayed, and certainly don’t want to infect those I love. That is why I take sensible precautions. I ascertain risk and act accordingly. Like an increasing proportion now of our people, I absolutely despair at the incredibly stupid and incompetent rules being imposed upon us, and how all common sense has been abandoned in a “fight” against probably the weakest and least effective viral pandemic in the history of human mortality. What is the one lesson this has taught us all? The most effective regimes in combatting this thing have been those which utilise high levels of technology and coercion among their populations. If there is one thing worse than an authoritarian government, it is an incompetent one. Which is what we have right now. When people continually ask that government “help me”, “save me”, “do something, anything”, I hope that they will have learned by now to be extremely careful of what they wish for. Lastly, given that the pubs here have been closed again for weeks, and case numbers have continued to rise, any chance of our leaders admitting that said boozers are not the main culprit in the spread, and opening them up again so I can enjoy a few pints in front of a log fire? No, thought not........

No sl*g.ing from me old boy. You have every right to feel as you do and to say what you feel.

Edited by SteveG - December 22 2020 at 11:22

With reference to the new variant of the lurg, what this tells us is that nobody in any corridor of power anywhere has learnt anything over the past nine months. Not a thing.

chopper wrote: SteveG wrote: Back to reality. Great Britain is now under a Tier 4 lockdown due to this new variant strain of covid. I'm trying to get more details from my in-laws in Newcastle. Very sad news as I'm not sure the new vaccine will help. It's been said that there is no evidence that the new vaccine will be ineffective against this new strain, but they don't know for sure. It's not supposed to be any more dangerous to health but it spreads 70% more than the original.