When will this shit end?

[zahidf]

 

 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

6 minutes ago, maelzoid said:

Yes, I think you are missing something...

"presumably if you don’t want to and you’re employed you can be furloughed?"

This is the bit. I think many people will find themselves being pressured to returned to work by companies that want to start trading again, even though the situation for staff won't be at all safe. The furlough scheme only works if the company supports it and I expect many will rather get back to work. It's unfair, possibly criminal, but I bet it will happen widely.

Well it’s certainly a tricky one, my understanding was that an employee can ask to be furloughed if they really want, but the flipside is if the company really need them to be working then longer term that is a positive from that point of view. With the economy crumbling and millions of job losses coming down the line, having a job that is actually required is surely no bad thing, if your employer can provide a safe environment working environment for you that is.

[DeanoL]

10 minutes ago, Doug85 said:

The only thing that is clear from Boris is that he still wants Herd Immunity. Seems as though we may reach that through utter negligence and needless death. We need the antibody test, they should be pushing for that rather than forcing people back out before that. 

Well there are only two options: herd immunity or vaccine. 

The thing is, if you catch it, one of three things is going to happen:

1) You're fine

2) You die, and nothing could be done about it

3) You get very ill, but you're okay as long as you can get sufficient hospital treatment.

So short of a vaccine, there's only two things we can do, other than continue lockdown.

First, you ensure that you save pretty much everyone in category three. This means not having too many people get ill at once so they can all get the best treatment possible. But people in category two are still going to catch it and still going to die regardless.

Secondly, if you have underlying health conditions, or are elderly, or a number of other factors, you are more likely to be in group two than group three. So for these people, we try and ensure they don't catch it all. You likely need at least 80% of the population to get it to create herd immunity, which means you can effectively save about 20% of the population from ever needing to catch it.

But that's the maths on this. Unless you are willing and able (financially) to self-isolate until there's a vaccine, then unless you're in the "20% most likely to die" category, you have to go out and get it, roll the dice, and hope you don't die. Most of us here will have to go do that at some point. That's the scary fucking reality no-one wants to straight up tell you about. They just don't want us all to do it at once as that would overwhelm the NHS, leading to more deaths than necessary. But make no mistake: they do want us all to do it. 

It's sort of handy at the moment we've got people happily volunteering to do so, but believe me in three months things are going to look very, very different. It's going to be a problematic number of cautious people wanting to stay indoors and isolate because they don't want to risk death, and the government trying to force these people out to build herd immunity.

[Neil]

Just now, DeanoL said:

Well there are only two options: herd immunity or vaccine.

not true.

There's the third option of track & trace - which has the advantage of keeping death numbers waaaaay lower than the UK has been having.

Spaffer's way is to not give a fuck about how many will die, the measure of success is the NHS and the deaths don't matter.

[DeanoL]

18 minutes ago, hfuhruhurr said:

I'm no economist, so if there's one in the house, I'd really appreciate some education. Here's my question:

I'm imagining that the vast majority of UK hospitality (and I include entertainment and the arts in that), is (a) shut and (b) would normally get a lot of it's revenue from UK based people. Those UK based people aren't spending that money, but presumably that money still exists. e.g. the money I would have spent in the pub, at concerts, festivals, holidays - is all still in my pocket. So is there a mechanism whereby all the lucky sods (like me) who are able to work from home can be taxed to pay for the unlucky sods who can't work? I'm not talking about voluntary donations, I'm talking about some form of PAYE thing which would say "hey, lucky arse, you worked normally all during the virus, so you get to pay".

Can the recession/unfairness be mitigated by extracting the unspent cash from the white collars? 

Or is my economics really awful?

I think retroactively it'd be difficult, going forward some sort of "home-working" tax could work.

What I think is more likely is something significant like a penny on the base rate for income tax.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

25 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

The ‘fuss’ has come from the governments poor communication and poor overall message. It gives differing groups differing things that they can do.

 

You’re kind of doing it here, putting any confusion onto the people are steering it away from the government. For once can’t you admit that the governments handling of this has been bad. 

I’d say it wasn’t communicated in the best way yesterday, Boris talked for far too long to deliver what is ultimately a very simple message.

But I think people need to rely on their common sense as well, read between the lines a bit and not have to have every single thing spelt out to them.

If the government say you can go and visit your family but only in their garden, what do the people without gardens then say?

The biggest risk of spreading the virus is within households, if everyone is encouraged to go to their families gardens, how many, nationwide, actually end up going in the house, touching surfaces etc etc?

So is it a surprise that they aren’t actually openly encouraging that?

So you can meet one member of your family in a park or public space and stay two metres apart, in theory that’s uniform and fair to everyone and avoids a situation where people might end up gathering in their homes.

But overall, as I said surely just use your common sense. If you can go and visit your family in their garden and stay safe, why wouldn’t you? If they’re in a high risk group them don’t.

It’s clearly quite a complex situation which requires people just to use some intelligence, read between the lines a bit and not require everything to be spelt out individually for them. 

Edited May 11, 2020 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

6 minutes ago, Neil said:

not true.

There's the third option of track & trace - which has the advantage of keeping death numbers waaaaay lower than the UK has been having.

Spaffer's way is to not give a fuck about how many will die, the measure of success is the NHS and the deaths don't matter.

Does that it require a decent uptake or the app though, which has failed to be the case in pretty much all countries? Somebody posted something on here where pretty much every country had abandoned it. 

[maelzoid]

20 minutes ago, hfuhruhurr said:

I'm no economist, so if there's one in the house, I'd really appreciate some education. Here's my question:

I'm imagining that the vast majority of UK hospitality (and I include entertainment and the arts in that), is (a) shut and (b) would normally get a lot of it's revenue from UK based people. Those UK based people aren't spending that money, but presumably that money still exists. e.g. the money I would have spent in the pub, at concerts, festivals, holidays - is all still in my pocket. So is there a mechanism whereby all the lucky sods (like me) who are able to work from home can be taxed to pay for the unlucky sods who can't work? I'm not talking about voluntary donations, I'm talking about some form of PAYE thing which would say "hey, lucky arse, you worked normally all during the virus, so you get to pay".

Can the recession/unfairness be mitigated by extracting the unspent cash from the white collars? 

Or is my economics really awful?

Basically we will have to increase taxes to pay for this. I'm all for a rise in the basic income tax rate.

One thing that frustrates me is that the Tories have suggested a PAYE increase that is ring-fenced for the NHS. This is just PR bullshit. People will be happy to stump up extra for the NHS, but that just frees up the rest of the tax revenue to be spent on what the gov't like, useful stuff like trident, or revenue cuts elsewhere, like tax-cuts for the wealthy, which we have already seen.

[DeanoL]

4 minutes ago, Neil said:

not true.

There's the third option of track & trace - which has the advantage of keeping death numbers waaaaay lower than the UK has been having.

Spaffer's way is to not give a fuck about how many will die, the measure of success is the NHS and the deaths don't matter.

That's true - getting numbers down to a low enough level, then track and trace until there's a vaccine is a possible way forwards. But that's going to have to include some measure of a social distancing still until there's a vaccine. The vaccine is still the end game there.

Interestingly, if we did go that route, which is probably the most sensible one if we can get the tech working and the initial numbers low enough, things like arena gigs and festivals would likely still be out as too risky - we'd probably see a cap on events at 1500 or 5000 people. Even if the tech works perfectly, being able to tell that someone who went to Glastonbury had it and so now all 250,000 people that were there get an alert that they're at risk in places all over the country/world doesn't help.

[zahidf]

[efcfanwirral]

Just now, DeanoL said:

Well there are only two options: herd immunity or vaccine. 

The thing is, if you catch it, one of three things is going to happen:

1) You're fine

2) You die, and nothing could be done about it

3) You get very ill, but you're okay as long as you can get sufficient hospital treatment.

So short of a vaccine, there's only two things we can do, other than continue lockdown.

First, you ensure that you save pretty much everyone in category three. This means not having too many people get ill at once so they can all get the best treatment possible. But people in category two are still going to catch it and still going to die regardless.

Secondly, if you have underlying health conditions, or are elderly, or a number of other factors, you are more likely to be in group two than group three. So for these people, we try and ensure they don't catch it all. You likely need at least 80% of the population to get it to create herd immunity, which means you can effectively save about 20% of the population from ever needing to catch it.

But that's the maths on this. Unless you are willing and able (financially) to self-isolate until there's a vaccine, then unless you're in the "20% most likely to die" category, you have to go out and get it, roll the dice, and hope you don't die. Most of us here will have to go do that at some point. That's the scary fucking reality no-one wants to straight up tell you about. They just don't want us all to do it at once as that would overwhelm the NHS, leading to more deaths than necessary. But make no mistake: they do want us all to do it. 

It's sort of handy at the moment we've got people happily volunteering to do so, but believe me in three months things are going to look very, very different. It's going to be a problematic number of cautious people wanting to stay indoors and isolate because they don't want to risk death, and the government trying to force these people out to build herd immunity.

I agree completely but also think it's too early for this conversation to be playing out. In this country, because we seem so economically fragile and run by business essentially, we have to do it now. Racing to reopen continues their incorrect assumption that it's only the flu and you'll either die or recover. What's to say it isnt more nuanced than that?

The big problem with #3 in your list is that we have no idea the long term effects. Read around online and there are a lot of accounts of people having  this lasting SINCE March. Those who had it quite bad, then recovered for a few weeks only to be slammed by it again. Some who have been ill for many weeks. Others who have recovered but their lungs burn whenever they try to do anything like walking up stairs. There was an early article from Holland where asymptomatic patients had scans that showed lung damage. 

That doesnt make the papers because it'll scare people. Plus our deference to newspapers in this country means many people see every social media post as fake, and the only things "real" spoon fed by the hate rags. R/covid19positive but do not read that if you're prone to medical anxiety. 

If there is permanent damage alongside a herd immunity plan...well at least we'll have saved the economy eh. 

[hfuhruhurr]

5 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I think retroactively it'd be difficult, going forward some sort of "home-working" tax could work.

What I think is more likely is something significant like a penny on the base rate for income tax.

My issue with that is 1p or so, would hit everyone, it would be better to magically be able to target the white collars who are right now saving cash.

[efcfanwirral]

And I really hope this seeing people outdoors thing is definitely safe and not just appeasement because people want it. The girlfriend is of course planning  a nice long walk with her friend this week. Because you can easily stay 2 metres apart on a small walking path with bikes constantly whizzing past. 

I've resigned myself to not seeing any friends til a vaccine. I just dont see it as worth the risk however small but I know people are different and need this sort of interaction.

[Wooderson]

18 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Well there are only two options: herd immunity or vaccine. 

The thing is, if you catch it, one of three things is going to happen:

1) You're fine

2) You die, and nothing could be done about it

3) You get very ill, but you're okay as long as you can get sufficient hospital treatment.

So short of a vaccine, there's only two things we can do, other than continue lockdown.

First, you ensure that you save pretty much everyone in category three. This means not having too many people get ill at once so they can all get the best treatment possible. But people in category two are still going to catch it and still going to die regardless.

Secondly, if you have underlying health conditions, or are elderly, or a number of other factors, you are more likely to be in group two than group three. So for these people, we try and ensure they don't catch it all. You likely need at least 80% of the population to get it to create herd immunity, which means you can effectively save about 20% of the population from ever needing to catch it.

But that's the maths on this. Unless you are willing and able (financially) to self-isolate until there's a vaccine, then unless you're in the "20% most likely to die" category, you have to go out and get it, roll the dice, and hope you don't die. Most of us here will have to go do that at some point. That's the scary fucking reality no-one wants to straight up tell you about. They just don't want us all to do it at once as that would overwhelm the NHS, leading to more deaths than necessary. But make no mistake: they do want us all to do it. 

It's sort of handy at the moment we've got people happily volunteering to do so, but believe me in three months things are going to look very, very different. It's going to be a problematic number of cautious people wanting to stay indoors and isolate because they don't want to risk death, and the government trying to force these people out to build herd immunity.

The binary herd immunity/vaccine alternatives is misleading.

The state can test/trace/react furiously. It is not as bleak a lottery as you suggest.

Not sure where you get your info from but it looks to be quite narrow.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

4 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

I agree completely but also think it's too early for this conversation to be playing out. In this country, because we seem so economically fragile and run by business essentially, we have to do it now. Racing to reopen continues their incorrect assumption that it's only the flu and you'll either die or recover. What's to say it isnt more nuanced than that?

The big problem with #3 in your list is that we have no idea the long term effects. Read around online and there are a lot of accounts of people having  this lasting SINCE March. Those who had it quite bad, then recovered for a few weeks only to be slammed by it again. Some who have been ill for many weeks. Others who have recovered but their lungs burn whenever they try to do anything like walking up stairs. There was an early article from Holland where asymptomatic patients had scans that showed lung damage. 

That doesnt make the papers because it'll scare people. Plus our deference to newspapers in this country means many people see every social media post as fake, and the only things "real" spoon fed by the hate rags. R/covid19positive but do not read that if you're prone to medical anxiety. 

If there is permanent damage alongside a herd immunity plan...well at least we'll have saved the economy eh. 

You’re proving your own point though. That’s all anecdotal internet gossip. Plenty of bad stuff makes the news, the media deliberately go out of their way to dramatise it and make it worse where they can, if there was evidence for consistent long term damage it would be heavily featured in the media, they’d absolutely lap it up. No doubt there is long term damage in some cases, just like with any illness. It’s no different to the reports about people getting reinfected, or the babies and teenagers that have died from it. In a situation like this with a global pandemic then those stories will actually rise to the top and be more prominent than anything, they’re the bits of information that will actually be pounced on, but in the main are not actually the norm.

[mcshed]

10 minutes ago, zahidf said:

The thing I hate about all this billionaires want to save the economy stuff is in a recession particularly with a Tory government who is going to suffer the most? It certainly isn't the rich.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

Just now, Cream Soda said:

No government can say anything is definitely safe.  There is always going to be some element of risk, no matter how small, like with everything in life.  It's our personal choice as adults to decide if we want to go walking on a narrow path with bikes going past or choose to go somewhere more open where we know we can socially distance or choose not to go at all.  

Beat me to it. While the virus exists nothing is ‘safe’. People have to use their common sense and carry out their own personal risk assessments still. If anyone believes that because the government have said we can meet family members in a public space as long as we stay 2 metres apart, then that’s the governments personal guarantee it’s completely ‘safe’ to do so, it’s probably best you stay in doors for all our sakes.

[Wooderson]

10 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Beat me to it. While the virus exists nothing is ‘safe’. People have to use their common sense and carry out their own personal risk assessments still. If anyone believes that because the government have said we can meet family members in a public space as long as we stay 2 metres apart, then that’s the governments personal guarantee it’s completely ‘safe’ to do so, it’s probably best you stay in doors for all our sakes.

You think this is constructive? Just want to give you benefit of the doubt.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

4 minutes ago, Wooderson said:

You think this is constructive? Just want to give you benefit of the doubt.

Yes I do. Do you think the government should be used as a direct replacement for people’s own common sense?

[efcfanwirral]

4 minutes ago, Cream Soda said:

No government can say anything is definitely safe.  There is always going to be some element of risk, no matter how small, like with everything in life.  It's our personal choice as adults to decide if we want to go walking on a narrow path with bikes going past or choose to go somewhere more open where we know we can socially distance or choose not to go at all.  

To be fair I'm of the opinion that we should've had the type of lockdown Spain had to get the numbers down then test and trace. I actually think from a long term point of view to help both health and economy there is an argument for tightening restrictions for a couple of weeks (he could sell it as a war like "one last push"). 

But we've chosen a path where test and trace surely can't work because I just don't see the numbers going down sufficiently at any point with these relaxations and vague messages. People will now expect more concessions towards socialising as more workplaces open, so double the risk of spread.

I actually like the roadmap and caveated reopening dates as it does show a desire to follow the numbers. But relaxing things this week will surely put the numbers up, and the economy won't wait so they'll need to find a way to accelerate.

I honestly do think herd immunity is the answer now as we've started the process of reopening way before numbers have gone down enough

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Yes I do. Do you think the government should be used as a direct replacement for people’s own common sense?

People’s so called common sense got us a Tory government and brexit didn’t it ? 

[efcfanwirral]

18 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Beat me to it. While the virus exists nothing is ‘safe’. People have to use their common sense and carry out their own personal risk assessments still. If anyone believes that because the government have said we can meet family members in a public space as long as we stay 2 metres apart, then that’s the governments personal guarantee it’s completely ‘safe’ to do so, it’s probably best you stay in doors for all our sakes.

Haha dont worry I'm planning on doing that 😂. I live with my parents so not taking risks with their lives for anything

[efcfanwirral]

4 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Yes I do. Do you think the government should be used as a direct replacement for people’s own common sense?

It was aimed at me and I agree it was constructive as well. I'm one of these who's scared of catching  the virus to a ridiculous extent, and to be honest that isn't helping anyone at the moment.

Edited May 11, 2020 by efcfanwirral

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

3 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

It was aimed at me and I agree it was constructive as well. I'm one of these who's scared of catching  the virus to a ridiculous extent, and to be honest that isn't helping anyone at the moment.

If you’re that scared then your own personal risk assessment will be different to other people’s. Entering into a public space is not risk free and the government are not suggesting for a second that it is. They’re relaxing the current measures slightly with guidelines to stay 2 metres apart from a family member in a public space etc. There is still a low risk of either of you catching the virus through doing this. If a low risk is an intolerable one to either then don’t do it.

Edited May 11, 2020 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[DeanoL]

43 minutes ago, Wooderson said:

The binary herd immunity/vaccine alternatives is misleading.

The state can test/trace/react furiously. It is not as bleak a lottery as you suggest.

Not sure where you get your info from but it looks to be quite narrow.

I still see that as essentially being "lockdown until vaccine" - it'd be a lighter lockdown but it certainly wouldn't be "back to normal". Mass gatherings and foreign travel would still be out entirely. And it'd probably need a more stringent lockdown initially to get us to a spot where numbers are low enough.