COVID-19 UK & Beyond

[woolley]

8 hours ago, quilp said:

Dear me, I'm almost embarrassed on your behalf... 

You can actually sense his pulse rate rising with each successive post. Had it not been for Brexit, the virus wouldn't have happened. 

Edited July 6, 2020 by woolley

[quilp]

"Boris and his bungling brexiteers."

More melodramatic mediocrity from "M-town." 

[TheTeapot]

10 minutes ago, quilp said:

"Boris and his bungling brexiteers."

More melodramatic mediocrity from "M-town." 

I know PK exaggerates everything like crazy, but he's not wrong. I don't see how anyone can possibly defend the way the government is handling things. They're dreadful at everything.

[woolley]

11 minutes ago, TheTeapot said:

I know PK exaggerates everything like crazy, but he's not wrong. I don't see how anyone can possibly defend the way the government is handling things. They're dreadful at everything.

I have some sympathy with that in general. There is an air of bull in a china shop about them, but with specific reference to the virus, they cannot just take the most cautious medical advice and go with that. It would be an indefinite lockdown. There are all of the other aspects of maintaining an advanced economy to take into consideration. We need to continue to function or the virus will destroy the fabric of society. Therefore, they do need to open up. Do you level the same criticisms at say Spain and Greece who are opening up to tourism for much the same reasons? 

[woolley]

On 7/5/2020 at 9:57 AM, Uhtred said:

Scenes from various urban centres (e.g. Soho) last night illustrate the serious risk of a major ‘spike’ now occurring. And who else saw the classy ‘Don’t pee in the street’ mobile illuminated sign deployed in Hackney? What a grubby little hole Johnson’s England has become.

Of course, the media will go to the exceptional hotspots where there are idiots larking around but it appeared that most people were just sensibly enjoying a nice evening. There weren't reports of stupidity around the country in general. 

[manxman1980]

19 minutes ago, woolley said:

I have some sympathy with that in general. There is an air of bull in a china shop about them, but with specific reference to the virus, they cannot just take the most cautious medical advice and go with that. It would be an indefinite lockdown. There are all of the other aspects of maintaining an advanced economy to take into consideration. We need to continue to function or the virus will destroy the fabric of society. Therefore, they do need to open up. Do you level the same criticisms at say Spain and Greece who are opening up to tourism for much the same reasons? 

Greece remains closed to British tourists... unless of course you travel via Bulgaria a la Johnson senior.

My issue with the UK governments approach was the failure to shut the borders (very ironic in a post Brexit world) early to limit the spread of the virus into the UK.  The herd immunity approach was also the wrong way to go given the average age of the UK population and was always going to cause an increase in deaths.

The 'furlough scheme' was a positive but was largely made up as they went along especially when extended to self-employed.

As for the "world" class track and trace system...  as Kier Starmer said this morning, they do not need a world class system just one that works would be fine.

[TheTeapot]

Both Spain and Greece took the virus a lot more seriously I would say. By not taking the necessary strict and early measures it will be harder to recover. The thing I don't get is that countries spend time and money on planning these kind of things, yet so many of them have seemingly got it wrong. The UK had a major exercise (Cygnus) in 2016, for a flu pandemic, but has refused to release the results publicly because they were 'too terrifying'. You would expect then, that that should have been a very strong warning to them of the dangers of exactly this kind of situation, yet they have never ever seemed in control. The UK approach to a novel virus of letting it spread just seems crackers, the further you let it spread the harder it is to get over it. The idea of herd immunity might work, but for a virus you know nothing about it is a dangerous approach, and arguably completely the wrong one. 

I know that indefinite lockdowns will cause huge economic pain, even a short one has consequences, and it is all a balancing act, but letting it spread wide is stupid, and opening up too early is even more stupid, as you are now seeing in the southern US. And on the economic front, this is causing damage all across the world, the most important thing how to get going again. Getting a firm grip early is the answer, and the UK has failed in that for sure.

[TheTeapot]

I should add that planning exercises happen everywhere, and the failure of them is not exclusive to the UK. I'm also surprised at the lack of international cooperation, it seems like its been every country for itself, when really working together should have been a better approach. The EU leadership has been alarmingly absent.

[P.K.]

1 hour ago, woolley said:

It says that hospitality is struggling against an existential threat from lockdown. No secret. Same reason other countries are opening up to tourism. Schools being closed until September is not threatening livelihoods as the government is obliged to pay everyone in any event. 

What planet are you living on?

The last number I recall was only about 25% of UK families now had one of the poor bastards staying at home as a full-time parent.

[P.K.]

1 hour ago, TheTeapot said:

I know PK exaggerates everything like crazy, but he's not wrong. I don't see how anyone can possibly defend the way the government is handling things. They're dreadful at everything.

Be aware I ALWAYS check my numbers.

I'll have no truck with anything from the likes of that "bring back hanging" one hand band nutter Guido nor purely propaganda mouthpieces like Russia Today. It turns out the only trusted media outlets (non-financial) in the UK are still the Beeb and the Guardian. The rest are alternative reality bollox for the gullible and hard of thinking.

The supposed lack of a central EU response was inevitable given the fact that EU members are sovereign nations in their own rights deploying their resources to fit their needs. Plus from a leadership and medical resources perspective you had Germany at the top and the UK at the bottom. Hence the massive disparity in excess deaths. But it's a huge difference in capabilities across the EU countries. An area where one size most definitely does not fit all because what the various EU sovereign nations spend on healthcare is entirely down to the individual states.

However that did not prevent Germany taking in Covid patients from both France and Italy.

[woolley]

1 hour ago, TheTeapot said:

I should add that planning exercises happen everywhere, and the failure of them is not exclusive to the UK. I'm also surprised at the lack of international cooperation, it seems like its been every country for itself, when really working together should have been a better approach. The EU leadership has been alarmingly absent.

I think it shows the nature of the EU and was entirely predictable. When push comes to shove it's every man for himself. Solidarity is an illusion. Get ready for a carbon copy repeat in a second wave. To be fair to the Brussels elite, they were giving out guidelines to which the resounding response was "Sod off. We're shutting our borders."

[P.K.]

7 minutes ago, woolley said:

I think it shows the nature of the EU and was entirely predictable. When push comes to shove it's every man for himself. Solidarity is an illusion. Get ready for a carbon copy repeat in a second wave. To be fair to the Brussels elite, they were giving out guidelines to which the resounding response was "Sod off. We're shutting our borders."

What part of this is it that you failed to understand?

34 minutes ago, P.K. said:

The supposed lack of a central EU response was inevitable given the fact that EU members are sovereign nations in their own rights deploying their resources to fit their needs. Plus from a leadership and medical resources perspective you had Germany at the top and the UK at the bottom. Hence the massive disparity in excess deaths. But it's a huge difference in capabilities across the EU countries. An area where one size most definitely does not fit all because what the various EU sovereign nations spend on healthcare is entirely down to the individual states.

However that did not prevent Germany taking in Covid patients from both France and Italy.

 

[woolley]

1 hour ago, manxman1980 said:

 

My issue with the UK governments approach was the failure to shut the borders (very ironic in a post Brexit world)

Very easy to look back in hindsight and say such things. Even now, we don't know what are the best measures to take. To think that Brexit is about closing borders and cutting Britain off from the world is to misunderstand the aims. It's about the direction the country takes in the future and who sets the course. If the government was about restricting entry it wouldn't be extending invitation of entry to Hong Kong citizens. 

[woolley]

3 minutes ago, P.K. said:

What part of this is it that you failed to understand?

 

And of course Germany bsnned export of PPE. 

[P.K.]

Amid the havoc wreaked by coronavirus, there is another danger we've forgotten

To the untrained eye, the choice of a Saturday for the great unlocking might seem a tad rash, when Monday was available to ease people in gradually. That point was put to Boris Johnson on LBC but he couldn’t offer even an approximation of an answer. Which leaves us to conclude that his government of geniuses picked Saturday solely because of the pleasing headlines that the Fourth of July suggested – rather forgetting that this is the day when Americans celebrate their escape from the rule of a dysfunctional London elite headed by a man with more children than you could count and prone to gibbering in public.

 

And yet 4 July does not mark last week’s most reckless date. With much less fanfare, another milestone was passed, one that could wreak a havoc all its own – especially in combination with the pandemic.

I’m speaking of 11pm on 30 June, the moment at which Britain lost the ability to seek an extension of the Brexit Transition Period. Unless we reach a new free trade agreement with the European Union in the next six months, we will be crashing out of the EU with no deal on 31 December.

Everyone can surely see that now is absolutely not the time to submit Britain to the economic shock of a chaotic break from our nearest trading partners. Recall that the Bank of England has warned that the UK faces its deepest recession since the Great Frost of 1709; that the OECD forecasts that the UK will suffer the worst recession in the developed world; that three quarters of British Manufacturing expect to cut jobs this year.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/03/coronavirus-boris-johnson-no-deal-brexit-pandemic