Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Aladdin]

I think there is a big difference between stopping travel between a county or territory had a clear problem with a VOC (namely, India, which we didnt bother doing) and the nonsensical travel rules that were in place when we had just about every variant under the sun and some of the highest case rates in the world.

[Elixir]

4 hours ago, The Moonster said:

Businesses are free to do what they like but I can't help but feel these folk are missing the fact that they, as an elderly and vulnerable person, have most likely avoided contact with the virus through their own actions (avoiding social contact/increased cleaning) and that is their most effective means of protection, coupled with continued vaccines, going forward. Other folk wearing masks during a 3 minute interaction has very little effect. 

The fact it's in the middle of nowhere with far fewer tourists than normal for the best part of two years will also have helped.

 

3 hours ago, Aladdin said:

I think there is a big difference between stopping travel between a county or territory had a clear problem with a VOC (namely, India, which we didnt bother doing) and the nonsensical travel rules that were in place when we had just about every variant under the sun and some of the highest case rates in the world.

But in the end the result is the same: you can't stop it. Even a delay by a week or two is not an acceptable or proportionate trade-off for slamming borders shut, which invariably then take much longer to reopen.

[Todd_is_God]

5 hours ago, Aladdin said:

I think there is a big difference between stopping travel between a county or territory had a clear problem with a VOC (namely, India, which we didnt bother doing) and the nonsensical travel rules that were in place when we had just about every variant under the sun and some of the highest case rates in the world.

The issue stems from the complete abandonment of any previous pandemic plans because of the desire to paint SARS-CoV-2 as some marvel; completely unlike any virus which came before it.

This, despite seemingly not being questioned by anyone even once, was ultimately shown to be complete bollocks (it behaves exactly like you'd expect a respiratory virus to behave).

I've said this before, but I still believe it to be true. This would have been completely different if social media didn't exist - without it you would not have experts coming out with the utter shite they did in a blatant attempt to become household names and bathe in the unexpected sunlight.

If we genuinely want to be in a better place for any future pandemics, then it needs to start with the emptying of charlatans like Leitch & Sridhar from positions of any influence.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Todd_is_God

[Elixir]

[NorthernLights]

16 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

The issue stems from the complete abandonment of any previous pandemic plans because of the desire to paint SARS-CoV-2 as some marvel; completely unlike any virus which came before it.

This, despite seemingly not being questioned by anyone even once, was ultimately shown to be complete bollocks (it behaves exactly like you'd expect a respiratory virus to behave).

I've said this before, but I still believe it to be true. This would have been completely different if social media didn't exist - without it you would not have experts coming out with the utter shite they did in a blatant attempt to become household names and bathe in the unexpected sunlight.

If we genuinely want to be in a better place for any future pandemics, then it needs to start with the emptying of charlatans like Leitch & Sridhar from positions of any influence.

I had a glance at the plans the other day after the news about international travel and how it was now being judged as unfairly targeted.

It is amazing just how much of these plans we ended up doing the complete opposite of. I know it was a coronavirus and not a flu virus and the plans do state they were aimed at a flu pandemic. However the SARS outbreak in 2003 should have meant that the concept of a novel coronavirus appearing with pandemic potential shouldn't have been a surprise.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf

I really hope that if (or more likely when) we face a situation like this again we have a robust plan in place as this one fell apart upon first contact with the enemy that would even make a Russian general blush.

While you need to adjust the plan as things develop I really hope we don't get the "making it up as we go along" thing we got in 2020/21. I still have a laugh about the levels systems and how utterly pointless they became in a rather rapid fashion before we were all thrown back into a lockdown.

And lockdowns must not become the default response unless we are facing some mutate strain of Mega Ebola crossed with Super AIDS..

[effeffsee_the2nd]

9 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

One quote from that paper stands out.

4.13 Facemasks, or surgical masks, are primarily designed to protect the environment from particles expelled by the wearer. If fitted properly, and used and changed in accordance with manufacturers instructions, they provide a physical barrier to large droplets but will not provide full respiratory protection against smaller particles such as aerosols.

So it really begs the question of why they persisted in legally mandating their use for 2 years. What the f**k was all that about?

4.15 Although there is a perception that the wearing of facemasks by the public in the community and household setting may be beneficial, there is in fact very little evidence of widespread benefit from their use in this setting. Facemasks must be worn correctly, changed frequently, removed properly, disposed of safely and used in combination with good respiratory, hand, and home hygiene behaviour in order for them to achieve the intended benefit. Research also shows that compliance with these recommended behaviours when wearing facemasks for prolonged periods reduces over time.

 

13 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

It would be lovely if at some point the politicians who were in charge of decisions about covid restrictions genuinely came clean about their motives for doing what they did.

One things for sure - whatever reason they gave us for each and every restriction imposed, you can be absolutely certain that the real reason was something else entirely and for some reason they didn't want to be straight with people. It would be nice to know exactly what their thinking was. This is vitally important because the next pandemic might be a lot more serious and swathes of people might not be listening to them.

china's doing X so we must do X

[Todd_is_God]

12 minutes ago, oaksoft said:

So it really begs the question of why they persisted in legally mandating their use for 2 years. What the f**k was all that about?

Doing something and a refusal to recognise they got something wrong.

Covid was originally said to be spread by droplets, yet when it was found not to be, the things in place to protect people from droplets weren't removed / corrected. We even had goons like the BST tweeting ridiculous memes to support masking.

Amazing how many SNP bootlickers believe that NS cared so much more about people than those granny killers down South because she made people wear completely ineffective face coverings.

[ICTChris]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-61227709

 

[Suspect Device]

29 minutes ago, ICTChris said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-61227709

 

 

She must be devastated that her father died at the young age of 88. He had so much to look forward to in the years/months/days ahead of him in the care home.

 

 

 

 

[George Parr]

1 hour ago, Suspect Device said:

 

She must be devastated that her father died at the young age of 88. He had so much to look forward to in the years/months/days ahead of him in the care home.

 

 

 

 

What's your point here? She should have been ok with her old man dying because he happened to be really old?

[Detournement]

The High Court in England have ruled that the Department of Health and Social Care acted unlawfully by discharging patients from hospitals to care homes without testing them for Covid. 

Sturgeon is warming up to throw Cathy Freeman under the bus that is currently heading for Matt Hancock. 

[MP_MFC]

Might be better to aim it at Jeane Freeman.

[Suspect Device]

14 minutes ago, George Parr said:

What's your point here? She should have been ok with her old man dying because he happened to be really old?

OK, no. Accepting that old people in care homes die, yes. They died before covid and they will die of other things. Not sure why you would take this to court. 

And it's not a big bad Westminster thing. All governments did the same when they thought they'd need the hospital beds. 

It was understandable when they didn't know how the pandemic was going to pan out.

[Left Back]

21 minutes ago, Suspect Device said:

OK, no. Accepting that old people in care homes die, yes. They died before covid and they will die of other things. Not sure why you would take this to court. 

And it's not a big bad Westminster thing. All governments did the same when they thought they'd need the hospital beds. 

It was understandable when they didn't know how the pandemic was going to pan out.

They should have been tested before being emptied out of hospital.  Moving people with Covid into settings where the residents were some of the most vulnerable people in society seeded the virus in care homes and caused tens of thousands of deaths that may have been avoided. 

The only place you could get  tested at that time was in hospital so the care homes were basically defenceless.  If I remember correctly one of the things Cummings attacked Hancock for was this very act as Hancock had stated people would be tested before being punted back to care homes.

Just because other governments also did this it doesn't make it right and they should all be held to account for it.  Basic precautions not to seed the virus into care homes weren't taken.

[Elixir]

2 hours ago, Suspect Device said:

She must be devastated that her father died at the young age of 88. He had so much to look forward to in the years/months/days ahead of him in the care home.

Succumbing to Covid rather than postponing the inevitable by seeing out another few months in a care home, let alone during the Covid hysteria times, would be a preferable outcome IMO.

[Michael W]

Chucking oldies into care homes full of people that are either incapable or are too unwell to look after themselves without bothering to check if they had covid was a predicable disaster. The virus could well have ended up in care homes anyway, but it's a reasonable conclusion that the policy resulted in more people dying at the time. It's astonishing it was allowed to happen when people had no such vulnerabilities were very quickly locked down and allowed out their house once a day to go for a walk. 

That this happened all across the UK despite devolution points at a wider issue, IMO. It's not just your Hancocks and Freemans of this world that ought to be infront of an inquiry answering questions on this matter.

Edited April 27, 2022 by Michael W

[Left Back]

1 minute ago, Michael W said:

Chucking oldies into care homes full of people that are either incapable or are too unwell to look after themselves without bothering to check if they had covid was a predicable disaster. The virus could well have ended up in care homes anyway, but it's a reasonable conclusion that the policy resulted in more people dying at the time. It's astonishing it was allowed to happen when people had no such vulnerabilities were very quickly locked down and allowed out their house once a day to go for a walk. 

That this happened all across the UK despite devolution points at a wider issue, IMO. It's not just your Hancocks and Freemans of this world that ought to be infront of an inquiry answering questions on this matter.

Conveniently neither are now in post so we all know what's going to happen.

Cummings and Hancock  with their public spat have already laid the groundwork to get the rest of the UK government off the hook.

[Elixir]

* completely normal people *

 

[Left Back]

1 minute ago, Elixir said:

* completely normal people *

 

Will one of these masks do the trick?  Asking for a friend.

[101]

7 minutes ago, Michael W said:

Chucking oldies into care homes full of people that are either incapable or are too unwell to look after themselves without bothering to check if they had covid was a predicable disaster. The virus could well have ended up in care homes anyway, but it's a reasonable conclusion that the policy resulted in more people dying at the time. It's astonishing it was allowed to happen when people had no such vulnerabilities were very quickly locked down and allowed out their house once a day to go for a walk. 

That this happened all across the UK despite devolution points at a wider issue, IMO. It's not just your Hancocks and Freemans of this world that ought to be infront of an inquiry answering questions on this matter.

They have already been found to have acted unlawfully in the handling of Covid contracts. Absolutely no one is going to be facing and kind of punishment for their actions.