IOM Covid removing restrictions

[Filippo]

On 5/3/2020 at 3:26 PM, The Chief said:

Filipo negated any points he had to make by quoting the confirmed homophobic racist Tucker Carlson and the conservative cesspool that is Fox news, all his other rants are irrelevant.

I already explained that I linked to Fox News because Youtube had censored the video and I had to google for a replacement, which I happened to find in Fox News. Your argument for rejecting my argument boils down to “I believe what I want to believe”. I had expected it in the end. We are a post-truth specie; people tend to conform to the point of view that best corresponds to their set of beliefs, regardless of objective evidence. I mainly wrote these postings as a provocation, too see how local people would react.

If you go to website “www.worldometers.info/coronavirus” you can track the evolution pandemic country by country. You will see that countries that have adopted more liberal forms of social distancing than lockdown Britain are having a better pandemic, so to speak. The indicators I suggest you to look at are the graph of cumulative fatalities on a log-scale and their daily average over the past week.

Look at the cases of Sweden, Netherlands and Switzerland. Sweden is the one country (in Europe, Mexico and a list of others across the world are also into it) that has pursued herd immunity as an openly stated aim; by no mean the only country that is mitigating rather than suppressing, since suppression is destructive of the fabric of society and likely doomed to fail in the end. Right now in Switzerland most things (fitness centres, restaurants, bars, hairdressers etc) have already be re-opened or they are scheduled to reopen this week. Sweden never closed those things, and the flattening out of the above mentioned curve shows that their policy is bringing their pandemic to an end sooner and of course they won’t need to worry about lifting of restrictions; there aren't that many restrictions to lift. We, Briton, will be stuck in a dystopian lockdown indefinitely.

IOM government will needs to decide what it wants for the island:

1) The island to be a geriatric facility?

2) The island be a place where the young and not-too-old can have a life worth living?

3) To keep those who are here because of the 0% corporation tax? Travel restrictions are a very serious logistic problem for them. As for the absurd curbs on personal freedoms and lifestyle activities… they are the kind of people who take a very dim view of that. They see those outrageous limitations as the harbinger of other policies that are typical of jurisdictions they wouldn’t touch with a bargepole.

4) Does it care for the independence of the island? A serious crisis in public finances risk starting a chain of events that may see bit and pieces of that independence whittled away over the years. There is not a magic money tree growing on the backyard of Tynwald. You can do the nativist/community thing with flags and festivals; but without the flow of money coming through… it would be a pathetic show.

In regard to (3), tax can be dodged elsewhere, even if in a less apparent manner than with having a 0% corporation rate. The nominal Swiss corporation tax rate is a little above 10%, in the most tax efficient cantons, however, it is affected by so many loopholes and deductions that for many “strategic” activities the effective rate is little above nil. And if you are a private investor, there are ways to structure a trust so that it is not taxable in Switzerland, for a non-Swiss national, if the trust has been formed before moving in there. I mention this to point out that there is plenty of tax competition from elsewhere and the 0% crowd should not given for granted.

I don’t know anyone with a functioning brain who is concerned about the virus itself rather than what the government is doing about it and the kind of society that will emerge from it.

Have a look at the following links. Switzerland's gyms can reopen on May 11th (most other things in there had already been reopened):

* https://www.thelocal.ch/20200430/update-how-switzerlands-gyms-plan-to-reopen-on-may-11th-after-coronavirus-lockdown

Hong Kong is re-opening all gyms, schools, bars and cinemas:

* https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-05/coronavirus-update-australia-covid19-china-hong-kong-britain/12213200#hongkong

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSaogOH0y7I

* https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3083377/coronavirus-hong-kong-bars-reopen-after-weeks

Notably, those Swiss cantons who cater to the 0% crowd (Nidwalden, Obwalden, Zug, Grisons etc and I know because I spent a lot of time in those places over the years) also have plenty of native cranks who like making a display of the national flag (you don’t see that much in Geneve or Zurich). The flag looks a bit different of course, but I would barely see any difference, as a proud citizen of nowhere.

Edited May 10, 2020 by Filippo

[P.K.]

12 minutes ago, Lost Login said:

I would suggest neither is yours. Based on your point I could argue that those who wanted to could simply "volunteer" to carry on as normal and risk catching the disease and it being a personal choice. Your response I am sure would be that by exercising that public choice they would be putting others at risk. Fine but there are plenty who have been very seriously affected during the TT by the actions of others through no fault of their own. Many take their own precautions by keeping off the roads or going away for the TT and you could argue that those worried about Covid 19 could take their own precautions. I am not advocating that I am just trying to stop this thread being diverted into a defend or attack the TT thread.

Why should most us stop thinking that it is not worse than Flu. For the majority of us if we catch it that is likely to be the case. It is more contagious than flu, roughly twice from what I have read, but less contagious than measles and MERS but on a problem with SARS. Those also affect people of all ages but again it is mainly, but not exclusively, the elderly and those with underlying conditions who suffer the worst and make up the majority of the fatalities. If there was a vaccine the elderly and the vulnerable would be vaccinated and the rest of us would simply have to have live, just as we do with flu.

I am not trying to suggest that Covid 19 is not harmful and serious to many, it is because of the number of infections and there is presently no vaccine or apparently any medical treatment by way medicine, injection that suppresses the vaccine in those that have it.  But neither is a killer apocalypse running amongst us as some seem to suggest. It would be great if there where no cases here but the important thing is to limit the number that the health service can cope with, hopefully whilst doing there normal day to day activities.

I think in the main the IoM and other places are doing a decent job to control Covid 19 and that needs to continue to be the case by taking appropriate action. I just don't think the disease is so serious that everything else should go out of the window and we essentially just focus on Covid 19. There is a balance to be had. The question is where?  If you offered me a complete lock down for a month and that is the end of Covid 19 on the IoM I would probably grab it, offer me go back to normal and we start having deaths in the 100s and I would not. Offer me a lock down for 12 months to ensure no cases/deaths or a fair way back to normality and a few deaths then I have to admit I would accept the latter.  Are 10 new cases of cancer not picked up at an early point a price worth paying for reducing Covid 19 deaths in the IoM by one? There is no back and white right answer unless you are one of those cases.

Despite the massive advantage of having the option of learning from the experiences of others, that Bozo and his Bungling Brexiteers threw away at the start of the pandemic, that doesn't mean we should do the same when coming out of it! Of course, idiot Bozo has upped the level of expectation that he probably can't meet. A dangerous fool.

Jersey are testing and presumably acting according to their results. South Korea similarly. Even basket-case Greece did far better than the UK.

Without widespread testing I think there is no way you can make a balanced judgement. Because until you do you have no idea of the size of the problem. In other words they have surrendered the initiative. If they ran a widespread testing regime then they would have proper data. As it is they can only be reactive.

Unfortunately you can't really make a balanced judgement in "wait and see" mode...

[Out of the blue]

23 minutes ago, Lost Login said:

I would suggest neither is yours. Based on your point I could argue that those who wanted to could simply "volunteer" to carry on as normal and risk catching the disease and it being a personal choice. Your response I am sure would be that by exercising that public choice they would be putting others at risk. Fine but there are plenty who have been very seriously affected during the TT by the actions of others through no fault of their own. Many take their own precautions by keeping off the roads or going away for the TT and you could argue that those worried about Covid 19 could take their own precautions. I am not advocating that I am just trying to stop this thread being diverted into a defend or attack the TT thread.

Why should most us stop thinking that it is not worse than Flu. For the majority of us if we catch it that is likely to be the case. It is more contagious than flu, roughly twice from what I have read, but less contagious than measles and MERS but on a problem with SARS. Those also affect people of all ages but again it is mainly, but not exclusively, the elderly and those with underlying conditions who suffer the worst and make up the majority of the fatalities. If there was a vaccine the elderly and the vulnerable would be vaccinated and the rest of us would simply have to have live, just as we do with flu.

I am not trying to suggest that Covid 19 is not harmful and serious to many, it is because of the number of infections and there is presently no vaccine or apparently any medical treatment by way medicine, injection that suppresses the vaccine in those that have it.  But neither is a killer apocalypse running amongst us as some seem to suggest. It would be great if there where no cases here but the important thing is to limit the number that the health service can cope with, hopefully whilst doing there normal day to day activities.

I think in the main the IoM and other places are doing a decent job to control Covid 19 and that needs to continue to be the case by taking appropriate action. I just don't think the disease is so serious that everything else should go out of the window and we essentially just focus on Covid 19. There is a balance to be had. The question is where?  If you offered me a complete lock down for a month and that is the end of Covid 19 on the IoM I would probably grab it, offer me go back to normal and we start having deaths in the 100s and I would not. Offer me a lock down for 12 months to ensure no cases/deaths or a fair way back to normality and a few deaths then I have to admit I would accept the latter.  Are 10 new cases of cancer not picked up at an early point a price worth paying for reducing Covid 19 deaths in the IoM by one? There is no back and white right answer unless you are one of those cases.

 

 

  

Well said LL, the current lockdown is an all encompassing blunt instrument that has worked well to date, it has given the NHS time to prepare, it has allowed the clinicians time to understand what we are dealing with, but it needs to be a lot more directed over the next few months.

[Lost Login]

17 minutes ago, P.K. said:

Despite the massive advantage of having the option of learning from the experiences of others, that Bozo and his Bungling Brexiteers threw away at the start of the pandemic, that doesn't mean we should do the same when coming out of it! Of course, idiot Bozo has upped the level of expectation that he probably can't meet. A dangerous fool.

Jersey are testing and presumably acting according to their results. South Korea similarly. Even basket-case Greece did far better than the UK.

Without widespread testing I think there is no way you can make a balanced judgement. Because until you do you have no idea of the size of the problem. In other words they have surrendered the initiative. If they ran a widespread testing regime then they would have proper data. As it is they can only be reactive.

Unfortunately you can't really make a balanced judgement in "wait and see" mode...

The UK is in a very different case to the IoM as are Greece and South Korea. I also don't see the reply is at all relevant to what I posted. Presumably you quoted the wrong post in your reply

[P.K.]

2 minutes ago, Lost Login said:

The UK is in a very different case to the IoM as are Greece and South Korea. I also don't see the reply is at all relevant to what I posted. Presumably you quoted the wrong post in your reply

Not at all.

As has been pointed out S Korea loosened their lockdown and tightened it up again. And they are massive on testing. Jersey have been doing testing to gain data on which to make decisions.

So what is the scale of those infected on the IOM?

[Max Power]

I think it's slowly beginning to dawn that we are getting into an impossible situation, we really don't know which way to to go for the best and I can't foresee things improving any time soon. Government are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The only certainty is that the general public will soon start taking things into their own hands. It's already manifesting itself in downright disobedience and even in the milder elements of society with VE conga lines and parties. I can see more brutal measures being taken to enforce order until we get some sort of vaccine. The UK may have flattened the curve but deaths are still climbing at an unacceptable pace.

[The Chief]

Filipo negated any points he had to make by quoting the confirmed homophobic racist Tucker Carlson and the conservative cesspool that is Fox news, all his other rants are irrelevant.

[Uhtred]

12 minutes ago, Max Power said:

I think it's slowly beginning to dawn that we are getting into an impossible situation, we really don't know which way to to go for the best and I can't foresee things improving any time soon. Government are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The only certainty is that the general public will soon start taking things into their own hands. It's already manifesting itself in downright disobedience and even in the milder elements of society with VE conga lines and parties. I can see more brutal measures being taken to enforce order until we get some sort of vaccine. The UK may have flattened the curve but deaths are still climbing at an unacceptable pace.

Ah yes,  but you see Britain is special! We defeated the dastardly Hun; can go it alone; don’t need European partners for acquiring ventilators and PPE; don’t need European partners at all in fact; benefit from a jolly, cheerful old Etonian PM, not like that dour old (yes, admittedly competent) woman in Berlin, or that fresh-faced maiden in New Zealand; we’ve got Farage bravely patrolling Dover to fight off those awful foreign types (don’t want any of those in the frontline of the NHS). Thank God Britain is so very, wonderfully, special and will emerge from all this nastiness with minimal deaths and its international reputation intact. Rule Britannia!

[Lost Login]

20 minutes ago, P.K. said:

Not at all.

As has been pointed out S Korea loosened their lockdown and tightened it up again. And they are massive on testing. Jersey have been doing testing to gain data on which to make decisions.

So what is the scale of those infected on the IOM?

If you think that dealing with a pandemic in South Korea or the UK is the same as dealing with in the IoM I really have very little to say to you. But even if was not it does not address my fundamental point which is having zero cases and fatalities in the IoM from Covid 19 to the detriment of anything else be the aim of the IoM. As I said we are prepared to have deaths from Flu every year in the IoM. If for every 1 life we save from Covid 19 we miss at an early stage 10 cases of cancer is that acceptable. Your posts give the impression that you consider having no more Covid 19 deaths in the IoM is the only position that is acceptable. I believe it is far more nuanced than that as there are knock on effects from whatever action we take, both positive and negative. Fatalities from Covid 19 are not welcome and ideally there would be 0 in the IoM but we should not get blinded by Covid 19 and ignore everything else.  

[P.K.]

14 minutes ago, Max Power said:

I think it's slowly beginning to dawn that we are getting into an impossible situation, we really don't know which way to to go for the best and I can't foresee things improving any time soon. Government are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The only certainty is that the general public will soon start taking things into their own hands. It's already manifesting itself in downright disobedience and even in the milder elements of society with VE conga lines and parties. I can see more brutal measures being taken to enforce order until we get some sort of vaccine. The UK may have flattened the curve but deaths are still climbing at an unacceptable pace.

Have to agree.

Last week the amount of traffic on UK roads went up by 11%. No doubt it will go up by a similar amount next week as well.

As to the curve it seems that the number of those infected in the UK is sort-of staying steady. Which is probably the result of actually doing some real testing.

The point I was trying to make to LL and others is that at least Jersey is making an effort but be warned. The Gold Standard for test, trace and quarantine S Korea relaxed their guard and got bit in the bum. And if it can happen to them....

I'm not aware of the IOM doing mass testing to be able to size the problem.  If mass testing is not an option then it will probably be the last infection reported plus two weeks.

Bummer.

[Lost Login]

17 minutes ago, Max Power said:

I think it's slowly beginning to dawn that we are getting into an impossible situation, we really don't know which way to to go for the best and I can't foresee things improving any time soon. Government are damned if they do and damned if they don't. The only certainty is that the general public will soon start taking things into their own hands. It's already manifesting itself in downright disobedience and even in the milder elements of society with VE conga lines and parties. I can see more brutal measures being taken to enforce order until we get some sort of vaccine. The UK may have flattened the curve but deaths are still climbing at an unacceptable pace.

The rate of deaths from Covid 19 in the UK is probably falling. Certainly the statistics show it is but they only account for a partial number of cases. Deaths from any disease are unwelcome and anything reasonable and practicable that can be done to reduce should be done but it is down to the public. The public may be very happy to have very strict measures to stop Covid 19 in the UK or elsewhere, alternatively they may just prefer to say it is ever body for themselves and hang the consequences. Short of being in a totalitarian state you have to carry the public with you wherever you are on the line and unfortunately I expect the longer tis goes on many will move along the line away from accepting any action to stop the spread.      

[P.K.]

1 minute ago, Lost Login said:

If you think that dealing with a pandemic in South Korea or the UK is the same as dealing with in the IoM I really have very little to say to you. But even if was not it does not address my fundamental point which is having zero cases and fatalities in the IoM from Covid 19 to the detriment of anything else be the aim of the IoM. As I said we are prepared to have deaths from Flu every year in the IoM. If for every 1 life we save from Covid 19 we miss at an early stage 10 cases of cancer is that acceptable. Your posts give the impression that you consider having no more Covid 19 deaths in the IoM is the only position that is acceptable. I believe it is far more nuanced than that as there are knock on effects from whatever action we take, both positive and negative. Fatalities from Covid 19 are not welcome and ideally there would be 0 in the IoM but we should not get blinded by Covid 19 and ignore everything else.  

Of course it's different in S Korea. They were so efficient they didn't need a lockdown!

The IOM by it's geographic nature has the opportunity to manage to reach zero cases. Therefore that should be the aim. It won't take long to see if it's possible.

The references to cancer etc are a nonsense. That's not the real world. However folks are now wary of going to hospital for very obvious reasons. We also have a vaccine for flu as opposed to Covid-19 with it's much higher fatality rate.

Lots of obfuscation going on here....

[P.K.]

3 minutes ago, Lost Login said:

The rate of deaths from Covid 19 in the UK is probably falling. Certainly the statistics show it is but they only account for a partial number of cases. Deaths from any disease are unwelcome and anything reasonable and practicable that can be done to reduce should be done but it is down to the public. The public may be very happy to have very strict measures to stop Covid 19 in the UK or elsewhere, alternatively they may just prefer to say it is ever body for themselves and hang the consequences. Short of being in a totalitarian state you have to carry the public with you wherever you are on the line and unfortunately I expect the longer this goes on many will move along the line away from accepting any action to stop the spread.      

This is unfortunately true.

The UK with it's very high Fuckwit Factor is a prime candidate to undo all the efforts put in to date.

I suspect there will also be a lot of disappointed / angry folks at reality not meeting expectations this evening...

[Lost Login]

9 minutes ago, P.K. said:

Have to agree.

Last week the amount of traffic on UK roads went up by 11%. No doubt it will go up by a similar amount next week as well.

As to the curve it seems that the number of those infected in the UK is sort-of staying steady. Which is probably the result of actually doing some real testing.

The point I was trying to make to LL and others is that at least Jersey is making an effort but be warned. The Gold Standard for test, trace and quarantine S Korea relaxed their guard and got bit in the bum. And if it can happen to them....

I'm not aware of the IOM doing mass testing to be able to size the problem.  If mass testing is not an option then it will probably be the last infection reported plus two weeks.

Bummer.

The IoM is doing more tests per head of population that the Channel Islands and is doing 4 times more testing per head of population than S Korea. Testing though is pretty meaningless unless targeted. Figures from here and I hope I have not misread. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

[P.K.]

1 minute ago, Lost Login said:

The IoM is doing more tests per head of population that the Channel Islands and is doing 4 times more testing per head of population than S Korea. Testing though is pretty meaningless unless targeted. Figures from here and I hope I have not misread. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

So what is the level of infection in the IOM?

Jersey have a figure I believe...