IOM Covid removing restrictions

[Black Mirror]

On 8/11/2020 at 6:25 PM, Frances said:

If you can tolerate The Spectator then
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/how-dangerous-is-covid-a-swedish-doctor-s-perspective
makes interesting reading - I'll leave it to Wrighty to dispute the comments but one is:
"I am not denying that Covid is awful for the people who do get really sick or for the families of the people who die, just as it is awful for the families of people who die of cancer, influenza, or an opioid overdose. But the size of the response in most of the world (not including Sweden) has been totally disproportionate to the size of the threat."

Frances: It is not true that Sweden is the only country that had more liberal policies; there is a whole list of others, some very reputable. Switzerland and Japan, for instance, never had mandatory stay-at-home orders; all the social distancing in those two countries was advised but on a voluntary basis. Japan never closed any business mandatorily; Switzerland did so for the riskiest activities such as pubs, but only quite temporarily, everything was re-opened on the 11th of May, including all trains running on normal schedule since then. Furthermore, Switzerland is fully connected with the outside would, with no quarantine requirements from nearly all European countries; and the few quarantine requirements from non-European countries deemed at high risk have no meaningful enforcement (one would have to “self-report” to the cantonal authorities, but there is no border check; basically the Swiss authorities have issued a wish-list of what one should do ideally; and their quarantine requirements don’t even mandate that one should not go out for exercise or not take a taxi if needed).

And don’t forget that in more than half of the world the stay-at-home thing is not really thinkable, because people wouldn’t be able to feed themselves if they were prevented from going to work. According to the bullshit (because frankly that is what it was) Imperial College model that led the UK government to lockdown, not-locking-down the world would have brought 40 million deaths during the first year, a figure stated clearly in the stupid paper. We had less than 700,000 deaths so far, and no sign that people will die in the millions by the end of this year. By comparison, the Hong Kong flu killed 4 million, and back then people just took it on the chin. We also had 50,000 death in the UK from flu and pneumonia during the 2018 winter, and it was a footnote on the newspapers.
 

[thesultanofsheight]

17 minutes ago, Black Mirror said:

And don’t forget that in more than half of the world the stay-at-home thing is not really thinkable, because people wouldn’t be able to feed themselves if they were prevented from going to work. According to the bullshit (because frankly that is what it was) Imperial College model that led the UK government to lockdown, not-locking-down the world would have brought 40 million deaths during the first year, a figure stated clearly in the stupid paper. We had less than 700,000 deaths so far, and no sign that people will die in the millions by the end of this year. By comparison, the Hong Kong flu killed 4 million, and back then people just took it on the chin. We also had 50,000 death in the UK from flu and pneumonia during the 2018 winter, and it was a footnote on the newspapers.

I sort of agree with that. In hindsight the main mistake has been underwriting it all because it turns out that the UK workforce is quite lazy and when offered the option to sit at home and get paid for nothing they did it in record numbers and now they can’t get them back to work. Plus employers got to take a huge amount of operational cost out of their businesses temporarily. In the countries that offered minimal support things have got back to normal quicker. I disagreed with our industry by industry approach to start with here but it was right. We have largely supported the industry’s that couldn’t survive without support not paid everyone to do absolutely jack shit for 6 months. As you say Hong Kong flu killed 4 million and we just got on with it. Because largely the people who ultimately succumbed were old and vulnerable and something would have got them anyway and the NHS just coped. The UK didn’t put over nine million people on furlough and shut the whole fucking country down. 

[Cambon]

Also, on reopening restaurants, the uk chancellor decided to cut VAT from 20%to 5% on food in restaurants to encourage people to eat out. It was supported by Alf over here. I am yet to find or hear of anywhere offering this discount or passing it on in any way. Alf said that they are not obliged to pass it on. 

Legalised theft from the tax payer.

[thesultanofsheight]

6 minutes ago, Cambon said:

Also, on reopening restaurants, the uk chancellor decided to cut VAT from 20%to 5% on food in restaurants to encourage people to eat out. It was supported by Alf over here. I am yet to find or hear of anywhere offering this discount or passing it on in any way. Alf said that they are not obliged to pass it on. 

Legalised theft from the tax payer.

What part of that do you not understand? On that basis how is that theft? 

[Frances]

I was intrigued to learn that the covid infected head of the NZ household worked at a refrigerated food depot - my guess that frozen meat may have been the vector seems not too far out - the Wuhan seafood market was supposedly an initial 'hotspot' of infection - it seems that the virus likes cold wet situations - can't then understand why warm beer English pubs are also infection hotspots unless too much cold lager is involved.

[Non-Believer]

7 minutes ago, Frances said:

I was intrigued to learn that the covid infected head of the NZ household worked at a refrigerated food depot - my guess that frozen meat may have been the vector seems not too far out - the Wuhan seafood market was supposedly an initial 'hotspot' of infection - it seems that the virus likes cold wet situations - can't then understand why warm beer English pubs are also infection hotspots unless too much cold lager is involved.

Bearing in mind that outbreak at the German meat plant too.

[Frances]

there was a much nearer case of an infected meat plant on the other Mona

[Banker]

1 hour ago, Cambon said:

Also, on reopening restaurants, the uk chancellor decided to cut VAT from 20%to 5% on food in restaurants to encourage people to eat out. It was supported by Alf over here. I am yet to find or hear of anywhere offering this discount or passing it on in any way. Alf said that they are not obliged to pass it on. 

Legalised theft from the tax payer.

McDonald's have, Comis & Mona Lisa 2 others, have been to all 3 & prices reduced by 15%.

[Cambon]

1 hour ago, thesultanofsheight said:

What part of that do you not understand? On that basis how is that theft? 

I said legalised theft there is a big difference. Not passing it on is against the spirit of the gesture. The Shore, Gansey, The Bay, Port Erin, The Hawthorn, Port Erin Chippy to name a few are not passing it on and I will boycott them until they do. 

[thesultanofsheight]

10 minutes ago, Cambon said:

I said legalised theft there is a big difference. Not passing it on is against the spirit of the gesture. The Shore, Gansey, The Bay, Port Erin, The Hawthorn, Port Erin Chippy to name a few are not passing it on and I will boycott them until they do. 

What a tight cunt you are. I bet you got paid right the way through for not doing too much either. 

[Nellie]

57 minutes ago, Banker said:

McDonald's have, Comis & Mona Lisa 2 others, have been to all 3 & prices reduced by 15%.

To my surprise, all IOM Breweries pubs dropped their food and soft drink prices by between 15% and 20%, immediately the rate changed, so fair play to them. Beer did go up though!

Last time I was there, the Creg-ny-Baa had actually put their prices up, despite the VAT drop.

[Gladys]

1 hour ago, Frances said:

there was a much nearer case of an infected meat plant on the other Mona

Which other Mona?

[Roger Mexico]

2 minutes ago, Gladys said:

Which other Mona?

Anglesey (known to the Romans as Mona) which has a number of meat processing plants one of which had a serious Covid-19 outbreak.  Actually meat processing plants have been Covid-19 hot-spots all over the world.

[Gladys]

The UK are revising how they categorise deaths from Covid as they have been overstating it from the get go.  This was reported in the i in the very early stages of the pandemic - that if anyone who died had the virus, that was the cause of death regardless of any other factors.

I have always thought that the cure was worse than the disease - we may have a vaccine for the virus at some point, but there will be no vaccine for the economic, social and health issues the "cure" has incubated. 

 

[Gladys]

Just now, Roger Mexico said:

Anglesey (known to the Romans as Mona) which has a number of meat processing plants one of which had a serious Covid-19 outbreak.  Actually meat processing plants have been Covid-19 hot-spots all over the world.

Thank you, I never knew that.