When will this shit end?

[MEGABOWL]

The Government has been awful. They’ve been too strict when they didn’t need to and too soft when they needed to be more decisive. However  there is a tendency to put absolutely everything on them which isn’t 100% right. 
 

Many people are non-complying but not all of them are selfish idiots. It’s  just that what’s being asked of them isn’t possible for the period of time it’s been asked for.

 

Walking in others shoes-or at least trying to-is very important at this time.

[RobertProsineckisLighter]

3 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

 

 

Problem is they're life saving in some circumstances- if my dad hadnt been helping my grandad throughout he wouldn't have got any food in, had his bed changed, his washing done, any cleaning done or his bins taken out. Ban that and any small quality of life he has is gone.

Alternative being a professional person who's been in loads of other houses or a care home which he doesnt really need ( just has some mobility issues). Both options probably leading to covid at some point in the time if we're honest. 

Ha. Goalposts are already moving with this south african strain being mentioned. I am confident that won't be the case.

Support bubbles are 100% needed for the reasons you mention there is no other practical way to support those who need bubbles long term. 

The guidance could be a little clearer but it's not hard to understand. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/making-a-support-bubble-with-another-household

Like most of the .gov.uk site it's layed out well andodtky easy to understand. Government guidance is that government websites are in language a primary school child can understand. 

Ignorance shouldn't just be excused by saying it's all the government's fault because in this instance it isn't all their fault.

 

[gigpusher]

2 hours ago, RobertProsineckisLighter said:

While I don't totally disagree there is a fairly clear policy and has been for a while - they don't keep changing adding a new Tier isn't exactly unreasonable as the situation changes.

The Tiers are pretty clear and people know they are breaking the rules. They just don't care. 

So while.commnincation could perhaps be improved - although there are plenty of ways to check your tier and the restrictions online. Most local authority websites explain it, local papers and I've had 2 letters from the council telling me the rules (when restrictions changed) telling me what they are and where to check them.

I agree about enforcement, but that is a slippery slope. People just don't care my small street is full of what are on the face of it normal law abiding citizens constantly breaking the rules. 

House opposite has people staying over Xmas, and other occasions. Few doors up has throughout had a steady processions of grown up kids and their families daily. The Sunday dinner crowds at a couple.of other houses. I know through friends that the local authority here had to send out some strongly worded reminders to staff about their responsibility to follow the rules after a number of infections brought about by inter household mixing while in T3. How do.you enforce that? Short of knocking on doors and asking who is in there, which isn't going to end well.

A woman my other half works with must have more bubbles than a cellar of champagne - claims she doesn't know the rules or understand the rules, she's a well paid Business Analyst she's not stupid and she's more than capable of finding them she just doesn't think they should apply to her and her kids. Other excuses peddled out are but schools are open so what's the point? How do you combat that sort of attitude? 

Its not hard to follow the rules, and it's not hard to find them out if your not sure. The problem is there are a lot of dicks and nothing ANY government will do can fix that. 

I think someone quoted a tweet though where it said roughly that the Dominic Cummings incident was the defining moment for that. I noticed where I live that adherence to the rules changed massively after that. I think it basically went something like first the public were thinking right what do we need to do to help to suddenly thinking how can I get around/away with this? 

I think the key thing for a lot of people is their tolerance for making sacrifices went down when the government weren't prepared to make them themselves and when they were asked to constantly put themselves at more risk for work whilst still being restricted with family etc. I met someone while walking the dog one day who was practically in tears after a call to her Mum. She said her Mum wouldn't come around for her son's birthday because it would mean there were 7 of them (this was when the rule of 6 was a thing) but yet at work every day she was expected to work in a bubble of 120 (she worked at a school) I'll be honest knowing she worked in such a large bubble I personally wouldn't want to be putting my family member at risk but I could also see her point that for the economy she was expected to put herself at tremendous risk but for love, comfort and support not even allowed to take a small risk. 

Edited January 4, 2021 by gigpusher

[TheNewUnion]

22 minutes ago, RobertProsineckisLighter said:

,,,Far too much willful ignorance.

Correct. Some people are just following the rules, probably a lot of people are following their own version of the rules and some just ignoring everything. You could have a Tier 10 but no tier would work if there is a wilful disregard. 

Edited January 4, 2021 by TheNewUnion
clarification

[zahidf]

For people who say we should be like South Korea... do you want to accept a LOT more state surveillance?

 

Edited January 4, 2021 by zahidf

[RobertProsineckisLighter]

10 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

I think someone quoted a tweet though where it said roughly that the Dominic Cummings incident was the defining moment for that. I noticed where I love that adherence to the rules changed massively after that. I think it basically went something like first the public were thinking right what do we need to do to help to suddenly thinking how can I get around/away with this? 

I think the key thing for a lot of people is their tolerance for making sacrifices went down when the government weren't prepared to make them themselves and when they were asked to constantly put themselves at more risk for work whilst still being restricted with family etc. I met someone while walking the dog one day who was practically in tears after a call to her Mum. She said her Mum wouldn't come around for her son's birthday because it would mean there were 7 of them (this was when the rule of 6 was a thing) but yet at work every day she was expected to work in a bubble of 120 (she worked at a school) I'll be honest knowing she worked in such a large bubble I personally wouldn't want to be putting my family member at risk but I could also see her point that for the economy she was expected to put herself at tremendous risk but for love, comfort and support not even allowed to take a small risk. 

I completely agree, Cummings and others changed the tone. The other defining moment was when they regionally split the rules there was no in this together feeling - but that itself is probably the right thing to do aswell.

[Matt42]

Page 2020

[Matt42]

My friend in China had their first vaccine today. Aged 24.

China apparently making it available to anyone who wants it. Regardless of your age.

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, Matt42 said:

My friend in China had their first vaccine today. Aged 24.

China apparently making it available to anyone who wants it. Regardless of your age.

Wish we were more like China. And South Korea. etc forever.

[Chef]

For me the lack of adherence to the rules is the big elephant in the room. We have wall to wall coverage and conversations on how bad the government has been, and rightly so, but there is very little said on whether or not individuals are acting responsibly and doing what is asked of them. It almost feels that as soon as people do they are shot down with "here we go, Tories blaming the people" and "yeah but the Government has been worse" arguments - both of which are valid and true but as others have pointed out, not mutually exclusive. 

I have seen many people breaking Tier 4 rules where I live over the Christmas break from groups of families out for walks and in parks, friends carrying on with their Christmas and NYE plans (one friend said that as his in laws had already bought all the food it was just as risky going to Waitrose!) and neighbours teenage children having groups of friends over. Whilst this is anecdotal I suspect it its fairly representative of a lot of areas currently. 

High profile rule breakers (Cummings, footballers, Prof Ferguson et al) don't help the cause but none of this makes the issue go away - if blanket restrictions are the only way to get this message across then so be it, but I think something needs to be done. 

 

Edited January 4, 2021 by Chef

[steviewevie]

Hard to quantify how many people are breaking the rules...I'm sure a lot do to some degree, I have a few times...but to what extent, who knows? From what I can see in my day to day life most people seem to be following them as much as possible.

[Leyrulion]

Right got a phone call this morning to take part in the Johnson and Johnson vaccine trial. Booked in for next week!

Guess I should double check that it's not going to give me 2 heads now. 

@Toilet Duckthis is a promising candidate right?

[Ted Dansons Wig]

After having just spent Xmas and NY going nowhere and seeing no one including our own grown up kids and their partners, seeing others just flaunt the rules is more than a little frustrating.

[Zoo Music Girl]

1 minute ago, Chef said:

For me the lack of adherence to the rules is the big elephant in the room. We have wall to wall coverage and conversations on how bad the government has been, and rightly so, but there is very little said on whether or not individuals are acting responsibly and doing what is asked of them. It almost feels that as soon as people do they are shot down with "here we go, Tories blaming the people" and "yeah but the Government has been worse" arguments - both of which are valid and true but as others have pointed out, not mutually exclusive. 

I have seen many people breaking Tier 4 rules where I live over the Christmas break from groups of families out for walks and in parks, friends and families carrying on with their Christmas and NYE plans (one friend said that as his in laws had already bought all the food it was just as risky going to Waitrose!) and neighbours teenage children having groups of friends over. Whilst this is anecdotal I suspect it its fairly representative of a lot of areas currently. 

High profile rule breakers (Cummins, footballers, Prof Ferguson et al) don't help the cause but none of this makes the issue go away - if blanket restrictions are the only way to get this message across then so be it, but I think something needs to be done. 

 

I agree with all this - it's not a binary thing and is possible for both the government to be shit and for people to not be following the rules properly. Both just extend the crisis sadly.

Apart from my neighbour, who has constantly had family over throughout, it's actually hard for me to say if people in my tier 4 area are following the rules or not as I barely go anywhere to witness it! Some groups in parks look quite big I guess. But I've no real way of knowing how much household mixing is going on. The figures suggest it must be, though, and I do know of some tier 4 people who went ahead with Christmas plans.

One thing that my partner and I have noticed on several walks is team football for kids going on in the local park. Seems to be an organised thing as they have bibs etc and there are loads of parents watching, adults in charge etc. That's not allowed in tier 4 is it? Or am I wrong about that? As it's outdoors I'm not sure how risky it is, but I am always surprised to see it going ahead so publicly if not allowed.

I hate to say it as was really sad to see them all locked up in March, but maybe not the most sensible to have public playgrounds open at this time? The ones near us are always packed. I know it's shit for kids to close them, but I have friends who are avoiding them at the moment anyway as seems an obvious place to spread when kids from all over the area are in such close contact and sharing surfaces while groups of parents stand around and chat. Not really for me to say, though, as I don't have kids.

[Chawk]

2 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

Right got a phone call this morning to take part in the Johnson and Johnson vaccine trial. Booked in for next week!

Guess I should double check that it's not going to give me 2 heads now. 

You get a free bottle of baby oil too

[Guest]

46 minutes ago, RobertProsineckisLighter said:

Its not about letting the government off the hook - they have got some things wrong like every other government in the world. Its a changing situation nobody is going to get it right all the time first time. It just doesn't happen. As you can see in every single country in the world - there will be things they would do differently now.

Surely you must be able to see it's not the government that are making people go to other houses etc... 

Our government have got many, many things wrong and have repeatedly refused to learn from those mistakes. That right there is unforgivable. If they learnt from their mistakes and acted quicker things wouldn’t be as bad as they are now. It doesn’t matter what another party might or might not have done, because another party aren’t in power. The Tories are and they aren’t learning from the past. 

[DeanoL]

21 hours ago, jannybruck said:

Curfews and schools closed are the only cards they have left to play at this points, they've fucked everything else. But combined with Tier 4 non-essentials closed then it could have a decent impact.

That's not entirely true. Schools are the big one, but there's lots of other little things left. Problem is that you could shutter all these little things, and collectively doing all of them would have an impact, but the impact on the economy would be far worse. For example, business travel is still allowed. Which means that although the guidance literally says "hotels have to close" it then says that they don't actually, as they can remain open for business travel and other exempt reasons. I discovered the weekend that most TravelLodges across the country are still open. As there are various legit reasons for buying them. Including "for reasons relating to moving house". You can still do house viewings and stuff. But if you shut that you shut the housing market which is a huge part of the economy and obviously doesn't involve much contact with other people, but does involve some.

Same with takeout services - it still involves often standing in a queue indoors with other people. Not a major vector for transmission but it exists. But the cost of forcing all those places to close to the economy seems far worse.

Schools are a weird one as there's little economic cost to closing them, but there's kid's futures instead. I've said this a few times, but my solution is to close schools fully for the next month. No remote learning, they're just shut. Then extend the school year to mid-August and reduce the summer holidays to two weeks. Yes, it's not great for teachers and families who will want a summer holiday, but you still get two weeks, and international travel will probably still be dicey in August anyway. 

A-levels and the university admittance timetable would be the biggest obstacle, but if people actually got behind it, solutions could be found.

15 hours ago, RobertProsineckisLighter said:

Its easy to suggest that online learning is the answer - it isn't that easy. Our lad does 1 hour a week Spainish on Skype and has done for a few years now, this is something he enjoys and wants to do but sometimes he struggles with that as in his head he is at home not at school. 

Given how things are changing in the workplace, learning to effectively work from home is probably one of the most important skills kids can pick up right now!

14 hours ago, squirrelarmy said:

My mates school is having an additional training day and teachers are going in to discuss what to do. 

I have a feeling that's not going to end with a sensible result!

13 hours ago, RobertProsineckisLighter said:

Who are all these other people the kids spread it too though? Kids could pass it onto their parents (like they could thigh the pandemic) but other than that the kids, not the parents should be coming into close proximity with anyone else because we are all subject to more stringent restrictions that the actual children themselves - or am I missing something?

Parents go to work. Like I mentioned earlier, there's a fair few non "key" sectors where work can't be done at home. That's the other thing with all this, last lockdown schools closed, but remained open for kids of key workers, and it was easy enough as every other work was furloughed or at home. That's not the case now. We're allowing a lot more stuff. Partly that's because we understand how the virus spreads more, so we know what is high or low risk. But all this business travel happening (I have to laugh a bit at people complaining about landing in Heathrow and having the checks be really poor - stop flying!) is mostly not key workers. Restaurants / cafes doing takeout need cooks, baristas, and servers... what do those people do with their kids? While those in office jobs are mostly still WFH, much more of the economy is open now. It's not as simple as it was in March when it was fine as you could probably just ask to be furloughed.

[tigger123]

Just now, Zoo Music Girl said:

I agree with all this - it's not a binary thing and is possible for both the government to be shit and for people to not be following the rules properly. Both just extend the crisis sadly.

Apart from my neighbour, who has constantly had family over throughout, it's actually hard for me to say if people in my tier 4 area are following the rules or not as I barely go anywhere to witness it! Some groups in parks look quite big I guess. But I've no real way of knowing how much household mixing is going on. The figures suggest it must be, though, and I do know of some tier 4 people who went ahead with Christmas plans.

One thing that my partner and I have noticed on several walks is team football for kids going on in the local park. Seems to be an organised thing as they have bibs etc and there are loads of parents watching, adults in charge etc. That's not allowed in tier 4 is it? Or am I wrong about that? As it's outdoors I'm not sure how risky it is, but I am always surprised to see it going ahead so publicly if not allowed.

I hate to say it as was really sad to see them all locked up in March, but maybe not the most sensible to have public playgrounds open at this time? The ones near us are always packed. I know it's shit for kids to close them, but I have friends who are avoiding them at the moment anyway as seems an obvious place to spread when kids from all over the area are in such close contact and sharing surfaces while groups of parents stand around and chat. Not really for me to say, though, as I don't have kids.

When walking the dog, I've definitely noticed lots of people breaking the rules. In Tier 4, you're limited to only meeting one person outside, but I've seen multiple groups of people walking with more than one other, for e.g. 6 adults and 3 babies/young children. Now unless they have a very peculiar living arrangement, I'd bet that they're not all from the same household. 

I worry that like the virus, breaking of the rules rises exponentially, with some people (clearly incorrectly) going well if the family at number 15 are breaking the rules, then why shouldn't we. I think the more it's obvious that others are breaking the rules, which if you're out and about you definitely notice it is, then I think this could compel others to tempt them to do the same.

[Andre91]

School return Day 1 update: 

What a fucking shambles and waste of everyone's time. 

I taught Year 7 Period 1 to one child in the classroom and the rest at home streaming. 

I am currently teaching Year 11 to one child in the classroom, with none of the other students bothering to join the stream from home. 

I am teaching Year 10 after lunch tp zero children actually in school, so the entirety of that lesson will be streaming to kids at home. 

 

The whole of Year 7 (which I am Assistant Head of Year for) has 12 students in school today. 

The whole of Year 9 has 13 students in school today. 

The whole of Year 11 has 13 students in school today. 

I haven't scouted Years 8 and 10 yet  but i think it can safely be assumed that there will be similar numbers in those year groups too. 

Also, to add to the madness, I thought it was just the teaching staff who were told they have to be in school today. Oh, no. Oh, no no no. All office and admin staff have been made to come in too. It is insane. 

 

My colleague's children's school has put whole year groups in ICT rooms with access to computers and told the students coming into school to bring headphones so that they can listen to their teachers streaming from home and SMT/SLT are staffing the ICT rooms. 

Why the hell would you make your entire staff come in?  

[alanr]

13 minutes ago, Chef said:

For me the lack of adherence to the rules is the big elephant in the room. We have wall to wall coverage and conversations on how bad the government has been, and rightly so, but there is very little said on whether or not individuals are acting responsibly and doing what is asked of them. It almost feels that as soon as people do they are shot down with "here we go, Tories blaming the people" and "yeah but the Government has been worse" arguments - both of which are valid and true but as others have pointed out, not mutually exclusive. 

I have seen many people breaking Tier 4 rules where I live over the Christmas break from groups of families out for walks and in parks, friends carrying on with their Christmas and NYE plans (one friend said that as his in laws had already bought all the food it was just as risky going to Waitrose!) and neighbours teenage children having groups of friends over. Whilst this is anecdotal I suspect it its fairly representative of a lot of areas currently. 

High profile rule breakers (Cummings, footballers, Prof Ferguson et al) don't help the cause but none of this makes the issue go away - if blanket restrictions are the only way to get this message across then so be it, but I think something needs to be done. 

 

The big problem is that the government did not condemn these breaches, and in  the case of cummings bent over backwards to justify his actions and avoid any form of apology. I think most of the population still respect the rules, but unfortunately there is a large minority whom are now always seeking ways to  bend the rules to their own selfish short term advantage

[RobertProsineckisLighter]

9 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Our government have got many, many things wrong and have repeatedly refused to learn from those mistakes. That right there is unforgivable. If they learnt from their mistakes and acted quicker things wouldn’t be as bad as they are now. It doesn’t matter what another party might or might not have done, because another party aren’t in power. The Tories are and they aren’t learning from the past. 

That will be a no then. 

[zahidf]

 

[DeanoL]

 

17 hours ago, Ozanne said:

That's not very fair on the people that were saying Christmas relaxations would lead too this and that for this one Christmas a January lockdown wasn't worth it. The point being that the people that really wanted Christmas got a version of what they wanted so now we have to have a lockdown. I think I asked the question a month ago, something like, 'how many people wanting Christmas will moan about the January lockdown?' (I'm not saying you are moaning btw).

I mean, some of them did. No-one in Tier 4 did (which was what, 40% of the population?), no-one who doesn't drive or live walking distance from family did (no public transport on Xmas day), no-one who lived more than say 3 hours' drive from their family did (can't really do any more there in back in a day, sensibly).

I don't really think it's fair to blame the current spike on those who mixed within the rules on Xmas day. I actually think the current numbers are likely from the mass London tier 4 exodus from right before Xmas. I'm sort of hopeful we will see some levelling off as the benefits of schools being close for two weeks start to trickle through.

15 hours ago, ace56blaa said:

Yeah same situation here, literally knew no one personally with the virus until xmas when 4 or 5 people i know got it and then family members of others

There's some interesting maths going on here I guess. Generally, you don't get it twice. So everyone who has got it, isn't in the pool of people would could possibly get it again. If we imagine that the virus infects people entirely at random, and infects say 1% of the population a day (figures made up) - on day 1 your chances of getting it are 1 in 100, but then on day 2 they are 1 in 99, then 1 in 98 and so on.

The infection rate going up actually means you're more likely to get it on two counts: there's more infections, and there's fewer people available to infect.

(Of course, the virus doesn't infect people at random, which is sort of interesting, and maybe explains some things. Some people will have more contacts than others, because of jobs, etc. Those people are more likely to catch it, but then can't recatch it - so in theory the remaining pool of people that haven't had it consists more of people who are able to isolate better, so lockdowns actually improve over time. But if you suddenly open something up, say schools, families who were previously able to isolate, and so have had very few infections, are now having loads more contacts, so there's a whole new group of previously isolate people for the virus to rip around.)

12 hours ago, Chapple12345 said:

I could see them doing a no leaving your county rule instead unless you had an essential reason e.g. local supermarket being over a county border 

Depends what the essential reasons are. As I mentioned last post, currently the essential reasons in tier 4 include business travel and house viewings. So none of this is enforceable without changing a lot of that.

[RobertProsineckisLighter]

2 minutes ago, alanr said:

The big problem is that the government did not condemn these breaches, and in  the case of cummings bent over backwards to justify his actions and avoid any form of apology. I think most of the population still respect the rules, but unfortunately there is a large minority whom are now always seeking ways to  bend the rules to their own selfish short term advantage

Its not just about individuals now either though - the stories of pubs in Tier 2 areas giving out garlic bread and things so people could drink didn't help. Granted the government rules on that were a little odd - but that doesn't give other businesses the green light to be frankly irresponsible.

[topmarksbri]

13 hours ago, MEGABOWL said:

They can. You’re assuming everyone is aiming for the same goal and that measures are consistently effective (and as a side issue, that China is completely truthful).

Ok, if you don't want larger lockdowns or more intrusive track and trace/monitoring then you have to accept rises in cases and therefore deaths. You can basically choose 2 out of 3.