Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Todd_is_God]

15 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

Quite an odd theme starting to develop here of folk going with "its going to take as long as it takes and you're not as switched on as me if you dont realise that" and using it as some sort of straw man against people questioning WHY it's going to take as long....

These people look like this

[madwullie]

7 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

These people look like this

As opposed to

 

Edit: people actually have pretty similar opinions imo. Everyone wants (and thinks) restrictions will start to be eased as we move into the summer. Noone wants them further than that, and only a solitary poster or two actually believes they will be in place into the late autumn

Edited February 19, 2021 by madwullie

[Jan Vojáček]

23 minutes ago, Paco said:

It struck me this morning about the messaging in England when Johnson cancelled Christmas for the South days beforehand, having literally the day before said it would be ‘inhuman’. It was reported as ‘make Easter the new Christmas’. I can’t find Boris Johnson actually saying those words, but Robert Jenrick did and it was on dozens of front pages.

The thought was that since Christmas was punted, things would be much better by Easter and the traditional Christmas gatherings with your whole family could take place then instead. ‘Normality by Easter’ is a direct Johnson quote (plus Hancock and Dowden).

The reason I bring this up - Nicola Sturgeon has said holidays by Easter simply won’t be happening. Mark Drakeford is ‘hopeful’ Welsh people will be able to go to caravans in Wales by Easter. Johnson will release the government plans on Monday but I think one thing we can all be sure of is that there will be no allowance for multi-household, multi-generational indoor gatherings in order to ‘make Easter the new Christmas’. I can’t understand why there’s no outcry about this down South, it’s almost Stockholm Syndrome type stuff. They just seem happy to let Johnson run along to his next ‘target’ with no consequences or even murmurs of discontent.

The UK minister quotes came in late December when the direction of travel of the virus was known, the vaccinations were known, the delivery schedules for the vaccinations were known, variants were known and the possible impact of the variants on the vaccine were known. In other words, nothing particularly unexpected has happened since then. I think we’d all agree that up until this stage, the vaccination programme has been a huge success and credit must go where it’s due to the UKG for it. It couldn’t really have went much better realistically.

So what did Johnson, Hancock, Dowden and Jenrick expect to have happened by now, that hasn’t? What’s changed since these comments were made, that has impacted them so significantly? Or, whisper it. Did they just say what people wanted to hear?

Sturgeon would quite rightly be getting hounded on these pages for the same thing, just look at the reaction to the Freeman ‘million vaccinations by the end of January’ comment, made before delivery schedules were known (the number was hit on Feb 9th). Her tone on Tuesday was miles off and has me concerned she’s lost touch with reality, the pelters were deserved.

But don’t let the murmurings of doom fool you into thinking the UK Government end result will be much different. It’ll be broadly the same, and no amount of Johnson or backbench morons telling you to want to hear will change that.

Excellent post.

I got a comment from the leader of West Dunbartonshire Council for an article on Covid on Monday, that said: "Lapses in judgement can have serious consequences for those not yet inoculated, and we need to get the rate down to give us the best possible chance of returning to something closer to normal by the end of the year.”

I wonder how much longer people will take seeing industries they work in wiped out, being told not to see friends and family, not to go to gigs and sports events and not to shop for clothes on the basis that "it will help us get back to normal by X". As far as I'm concerned, once my grandparents have their second dose I'll wait three weeks and then I'll be visiting them like normal. I've barely seen them for a year and (lets be brutally honest) they don't have much longer left. I'm not going to wait until April 2022 to see them - because they might not be here.

Keeping us in tight restrictions all the way until at least the end of 2021 (as he suggests could be the case, albeit only as a council leader) would be a total failure of government. 

Personally though, and it may be me trying to be too optimistic, I feel like all this messaging is designed to stop people getting complacent. If they said the vaccine was working and the most vulnerable were now in a really decent position, then there would be intense pressure to open up pronto. Both governments want to be cautious to avoid another spike, so they have ramped up the fear messaging. Or at least that's what I'm trying to tell myself.

[Todd_is_God]

Young man became tired. It can happen to anyone

Maybe i'm in the minority, but I feel the SG have missed the boat by an absolute mile with these adverts.

Edited February 19, 2021 by Todd_is_God

[ICTChris]

https://unherd.com/2021/02/the-fantasy-of-english-freedom/

Quote

The British are, in fact, quite conformist and placid. The French riot about literally anything, while after epic levels of political incompetence and 120,000 deaths, the worst that’s happened here is someone projecting “Boris is a wet wipe” on Parliament.

 

Edited February 19, 2021 by ICTChris

[Honest_Man#1]

7 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Young man became tired. It can happen to anyone

Saw that one earlier. At least it’s not a beached whale this time, but when the extent of it was “I felt energy drained” it again actually seems to be pushing the opposite message to what I think they’re aiming for. 

[Bairnardo]

I feel energy drain with a cold tbh, so I fail to see how that sets the benchmark for all the businesses across Scotland being torched. 

What an embarrassment from the Scotgov pearl clutchers. 

[djchapsticks]

Isn't the line 'with more infectious strains emerging' on that tweet just a blatant lie as well? 

We've only been told that the 'Kent variant' is more infectious and that isn't emerging, its now fully established and embedded.

I mean we hear constantly of a possibility of more variants coming in time but that's purely hypothetical at present. 

So what are these other 'more infectious' strains that are emerging? 

Edited February 19, 2021 by djchapsticks

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, Honest_Man#1 said:

Saw that one earlier. At least it’s not a beached whale this time, but when the extent of it was “I felt energy drained” it again actually seems to be pushing the opposite message to what I think they’re aiming for. 

My thoughts exactly. I don't know what they are trying to achieve here, or what they think anyone who watches that is going to think.

They are surely in danger of undermining their vaccine roll out to this demographic later in the year? Unless, of course (tinfoil hat time), that's the plan.

[Michael W]

12 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

https://unherd.com/2021/02/the-fantasy-of-english-freedom/

 

Spot on. 

The supposedly "freedom loving Brits" (to paraphrase Boris Johnson) have well and truly outed themselves as snide authoritarians during this pandemic. 

[Wee Bully]

Nah the theme here is everyone actually having pretty much the same opinion, but factions forming that shout down each other because they don't conform exactly 100% to the same hysteria as one another. 

Correct - everyone wants lockdown lifted as quickly as possible and a return to full normality as quickly as possible.

The real issue is the lack of an ability to have the “adult conversation” so many claim to crave. Everything is reduced to a single sound bite, taken out of context and magnified.

It’s happened on both sides of the debate - there were people sharing video of Boris talking about herd immunity, whilst cutting out the vital next sentence where he specifically said that that was not what he was seeking.

It’s the same with things like VaRiEnTs. What is being said is that IF a variant emerges which is vaccine resistant AND drives up hospitalisations in the way we have previously seen, then we might have to lockdown again. A fairly sensible caveat which covers bases which seems to have morphed into “we’re going to lockdown BECAUSE of unknown varients”

[Ron Aldo]

Young man became tired. It can happen to anyone [emoji24]
Maybe i'm in the minority, but I feel the SG have missed the boat by an absolute mile with these adverts.

Aye I don't really see the point they're trying to get across. That anyone can get it? Is that REALLY news to anyone?

[Left Back]

2 minutes ago, djchapsticks said:

Isn't the line 'with more infectious strains emerging' on that tweet just a blatant lie as well? 

We've only been told that the 'Kent variant' is more infectious and that isn't emerging, its now fully established and embedded.

I mean we hear constantly of a possibility of more variants coming in time but that's purely hypothetical at present. 

So what are these other 'more infectious' strains that are emerging? 

Did that not start off as 70% more, then it was rowed back to 50%, now it's just more infectious without a specific number.  I have to admit I didn't look into any of the detail about how those numbers were calculated but it did seem like the initial headlines were way OTT.

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, Wee Bully said:

Correct - everyone wants lockdown lifted as quickly as possible and a return to full normality as quickly as possible.

The real issue is the lack of an ability to have the “adult conversation” so many claim to crave. Everything is reduced to a single sound bite, taken out of context and magnified.

It’s happened on both sides of the debate - there were people sharing video of Boris talking about herd immunity, whilst cutting out the vital next sentence where he specifically said that that was not what he was seeking.

It’s the same with things like VaRiEnTs. What is being said is that IF a variant emerges which is vaccine resistant AND drives up hospitalisations in the way we have previously seen, then we might have to lockdown again. A fairly sensible caveat which covers bases which seems to have morphed into “we’re going to lockdown BECAUSE of unknown varients”

How have you managed to spell variant wrong twice, in the same paragraph you've got it right

[madwullie]

3 minutes ago, Wee Bully said:

Correct - everyone wants lockdown lifted as quickly as possible and a return to full normality as quickly as possible.

The real issue is the lack of an ability to have the “adult conversation” so many claim to crave. Everything is reduced to a single sound bite, taken out of context and magnified.

It’s happened on both sides of the debate - there were people sharing video of Boris talking about herd immunity, whilst cutting out the vital next sentence where he specifically said that that was not what he was seeking.

It’s the same with things like VaRiEnTs. What is being said is that IF a variant emerges which is vaccine resistant AND drives up hospitalisations in the way we have previously seen, then we might have to lockdown again. A fairly sensible caveat which covers bases which seems to have morphed into “we’re going to lockdown BECAUSE of unknown varients”

I deleted that post because I couldn't face the back and forth today  

[Wee Bully]

How have you managed to spell variant wrong twice, in the same paragraph you've got it right

Because, of the 2 misspellings, one was the “Facebook maw” version, and the other one was my quote of what others seem to be saying on here.

The correctly spelled one was in my argument.

It was, sadly, a pathetic attempt to further undermine the whiners by placing bad spelling into their mouths.

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, Left Back said:

Did that not start off as 70% more, then it was rowed back to 50%, now it's just more infectious without a specific number.  I have to admit I didn't look into any of the detail about how those numbers were calculated but it did seem like the initial headlines were way OTT.

The end result is that we've got a variant that is only maybe a tiny bit more infectious (with no evidence to support the claim), but has resulted in the UK being blacklisted as a "Mutation Zone"

A truly calamitous outcome for what was, essentially, an excuse to roll back the Christmas relaxation whilst saving maximum face.

[vikingTON]

5 minutes ago, Wee Bully said:

It’s the same with things like VaRiEnTs. What is being said is that IF a variant emerges which is vaccine resistant AND drives up hospitalisations in the way we have previously seen, then we might have to lockdown again. A fairly sensible caveat which covers bases which seems to have morphed into “we’re going to lockdown BECAUSE of unknown varients”

Drivel. What is actually happening is that the risk of this magical super-variant emerging is being used to justify pre-emptive restrictions being added/remaining in place indefinitely. That's what the international travel quarantine is all about, given that vaccination is absolutely crushing the outbreak among the UK's most vulnerable groups. 

[Todd_is_God]

1 minute ago, Wee Bully said:

Because, of the 2 misspellings, one was the “Facebook maw” version, and the other one was my quote of what others seem to be saying on here.

The correctly spelled one was in my argument.

It was, sadly, a pathetic attempt to further undermine the whiners by placing bad spelling into their mouths.

Far too early for such nuances!

[Wee Bully]

Far too early for such nuances!

I apologise. It sounded good in my head though!