Jump to content

When will this shit end?


Chrisp1986

Recommended Posts

6 minutes ago, MEGABOWL said:

Thanks. Appreciate it. I fear for a lot of kids TBH. Hopefully they’re durable and all this weirdness doesn’t do any lasting damage.

I think kids are remarkably resilient and they should be able to recover fairly well after this. A concern I would have in general is the effect of washing/cleaning on children especially with OCD. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

19 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

True, but you're presuming that travellers would be able to travel as normal (and then quarantine).

That's not how NZ and Aus have done it. They've shut travel down to be a very small amount of the normal, and essentially said "tough shit on the people who want to travel but can't".

 

You still need to allow for the vast numbers of people that are already out the country. It's not just about people who want to leave then return to the UK.

Can you provide some links to the story that the NZ/Aus government have said tough shit to their citizens? Not seen anything on that 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

40 minutes ago, RobertProsineckisLighter said:

Man air traffic control messes with my head - something I'd Iove to do (I looked into it for a while) I understand distance and I understand the Z axis it's how busy the sky is that I struggle to comprehend. 

You get very well trained over a long period of time. I remember thinking ‘there’s no way I can do that’ when I was a trainee and listening to others doing busy spells. But a lot of it actually becomes routine even when it’s busy, though it never fails to be interesting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This is a very encouraging thread on how the vaccines should begin to have an effect on case numbers in the coming weeks (sorry if already posted). It’s a bit mathsy in places but the graphs speak for themselves.

Everything is grim right now, but there’s definitely a decent chance that if everything goes our way we could have quite a euphoric summer. Pub gardens won’t know what’s hit them. 
 

EDIT 

Seems that since I read that last night he’s corrected it and now it’s a little less optimistic. So... hmmm yeah lol sorry

Still think that pub gardens will be great this summer though, sticking by that!

Edited by Mimo
Link to comment
Share on other sites

New Zealand now has its first active case for months (a woman who had completed two weeks' quarantine from Europe). Unbelievably, this has prompted my otherwise lovely conservative voting aunty-in-law to go on Facebook and have a go at Ardern, saying it's her fault.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Paul ™ said:

Not sure you can compare NZ/Aus to here. Both very different scenarios and the very fact we have multiple trains/ferries/planes incoming and not just flights plus the whole haulage across the channel.

The number and types of access points is a complete irrelevance for this.

NZ & Aus basically shut down international travel. Just because travel in & out of the UK is different due to geography doesn't mean we couldn't do the same (excepting haulage). 

Like I say, I can't see it happening. When there's a big hole because of haulage it makes far less sense than it does for NZ & Aus.

But if the govt wanted to? They'd shut down the access points just the same as NZ & Aus have.

4 minutes ago, Paul ™ said:

Where are all these Australians stuck?

I guess you avoid the papers and TV. I've been seeing news stories every few weeks.

 

4 minutes ago, Paul ™ said:

Obviously they can only stay out the country so long either, so how does that work with visas etc?

Just because they can't get back to Aus doesn't mean they're stuck in one country. And visas get renewed and extended (and countries are probably being sympathetic because of the situation).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Homer said:

New Zealand now has its first active case for months (a woman who had completed two weeks' quarantine from Europe). Unbelievably, this has prompted my otherwise lovely conservative voting aunty-in-law to go on Facebook and have a go at Ardern, saying it's her fault.

That’s why a ‘zero Covid’ strategy is actually not all that sensible or realistic. The only way it would be completely effective is if you closed borders forever - and then sure you can eradicate it completely. But that isn’t going to happen, so NZ are going to see a rise in cases again at some point.
Assuming their strategy is to ease up once everybody is vaccinated and hopefully deaths will be low, but they’re certainly going to have an explosion of cases in the not too distant future. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, Paul ™ said:

Can you provide some links to the story that the NZ/Aus government have said tough shit to their citizens? Not seen anything on that 

This is one that stuck in my head so was easy to google for.

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/aug/22/shattered-heartbroken-financially-ruined-stranded-australians-plead-for-help

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 minutes ago, Paul ™ said:

You still need to allow for the vast numbers of people that are already out the country. It's not just about people who want to leave then return to the UK.

Can you provide some links to the story that the NZ/Aus government have said tough shit to their citizens? Not seen anything on that 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-year-after-covid-19-emerged-australians-still-cant-get-home-11610015403

 

I have friends trying to get back to Australia. One of them was planning on retuning permanently in March. Her flight home got cancelled. She has been unable to get on another flight because she can't afford premium ontop of paying 3k in quarantine and moving costs. Her dad passed away late last year she asked the consulate if she could be put on a repatriation flight. They said she isn't a priority as her dad is already dead. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

 guess you avoid the papers and TV. I've been seeing news stories every few weeks

Yes as am not in the UK, it's pretty easy to do in a van in the middle of nowhere in Portugual! 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/23/2021 at 12:04 PM, xxialac said:

True all of that. 

But given the imperative not to bring in variants from abroad and the very limited number of people flying, they should make a priority of getting staff in and managing the queues.

Other countries can effectively quarantine, which involves complicated logistics.

We can't even do the basics.

The problem its, getting more people in to administrate means putting those people at risk too. And those people have not chosen to fly. The people who have chosen to fly have already been sat on a plane with the people they are in a queue with for hours. Spacing them out more once they're queuing would have an impact, but is it worth putting ten more staff at risk to help with that?

Especially as those flyers will now have to isolate for two weeks, so won't cause any further infections if they are positive. Whereas staff obviously won't be able to do that, they'll have to come back into work the next day.

I'm sure there's a better way to do it, just have wider queues that are unmanned and do it without having additional staff on site - but equally if those scenes put people off flying, I feel like that's probably a good thing.

On 1/23/2021 at 7:41 PM, Freddyflintstonree said:

Do we really believe that any government in the UK could have controlled Covid so dramatically differently so as to have allowed for a Glastonbury to go ahead this year? 

I will be the first to say Boris has been an utter, utter shambles, and that it could have been handled 100+ times better than it has been, but based on the very nature of Covid and how it's developed across the world.. I think I'd argue Glastonbury was never going to be possible this year. 

I'd love to have a genuine discussion about this if there really is a strong feeling it could have with a better government. (Just to reiterate, Boris and the government are a steaming turd, that's not my question). 

Technically they could have, but not in any reasonable way. Like, they could have just gambled and started vaccinating people in November before the vaccines were actually approved. That way they would have reached the numbers they needed to by June. 

But I think any different or harsher measures in terms of lockdowns and so on would also have meant no Glastonbury in June, because not having huge mass gatherings would still be one of those measures. You'd need a theoretical government that clamped down hard in terms of lockdown throughout the entire thing, then lost its mind in June and decided that Glastonbury was okay to go ahead. 

We could definitely have got ourselves in the position to be able to run Glastonbury this year, but the sort of extremely lockdown heavy, super-cautious government that would be needed to enable that, would never then allow it go ahead.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 1/23/2021 at 8:13 PM, Ozanne said:

I do believe that another government could've handled this better to enable festivals this year.

We need a government that when they get this advise from their advisors and experts warning them of a very really incoming issue to listen and act, quickly and decisively. I believe that nearly anything other government would have done those things and as such we would be in a better position than we are now.

The problem is that those same advisors and experts would tell them we still need to avoid super-spreader events like Glastonbury festival in June. What you'd need is a government that listened to the experts on everything *except* whether to have Glastonbury or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

And visas get renewed and extended (and countries are probably being sympathetic because of the situation).

Here's hoping that is an option as we're not in a hurry to return 😆

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Again can't really compare these situations as you can only fly to those countries which are a huge expense at best of times.

It's far easier to return to the UK via tunnel or ferry with a vehicle for about 100 quid.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

I think kids are remarkably resilient and they should be able to recover fairly well after this. A concern I would have in general is the effect of washing/cleaning on children especially with OCD. 

Yes I can see that being an issue. Adults have a clear idea of what ‘normal’ means and what they’re trying to revert to, but some kids might be really knocked off balance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, steviewevie said:

Poor kid. Hopefully things start to improve soon and they can get schools back asap.

Cheers. Sturgeon was talking about getting them back in up here for a day or two a week after Half term. I’m not getting my hopes up but that would make a huge difference.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

The problem its, getting more people in to administrate means putting those people at risk too. And those people have not chosen to fly. The people who have chosen to fly have already been sat on a plane with the people they are in a queue with for hours. Spacing them out more once they're queuing would have an impact, but is it worth putting ten more staff at risk to help with that?

Especially as those flyers will now have to isolate for two weeks, so won't cause any further infections if they are positive. Whereas staff obviously won't be able to do that, they'll have to come back into work the next day.

I'm sure there's a better way to do it, just have wider queues that are unmanned and do it without having additional staff on site - but equally if those scenes put people off flying, I feel like that's probably a good thing.

Technically they could have, but not in any reasonable way. Like, they could have just gambled and started vaccinating people in November before the vaccines were actually approved. That way they would have reached the numbers they needed to by June. 

But I think any different or harsher measures in terms of lockdowns and so on would also have meant no Glastonbury in June, because not having huge mass gatherings would still be one of those measures. You'd need a theoretical government that clamped down hard in terms of lockdown throughout the entire thing, then lost its mind in June and decided that Glastonbury was okay to go ahead. 

We could definitely have got ourselves in the position to be able to run Glastonbury this year, but the sort of extremely lockdown heavy, super-cautious government that would be needed to enable that, would never then allow it go ahead.

We would’ve needed a government that completely sealed off our borders at some point in February and ideally January, but nobody in Europe obviously did that because everyone in Europe underestimated it initially. Italy was already fucked from ski season and god knows how many people we’d had fly in and out with it during December/January.

If you look at New Zealand’s timeline in terms of how they dealt with it, it isn’t even that remarkable (although of course it was a lot more remarkable by comparison)

 

On 28 February 2020, New Zealand confirmed its first case, a woman in her 60s who had recently visited Iran and returned to Auckland on 26 February 2020.[31][32]

New Zealand confirmed its second case on 4 March 2020, a woman in her 30s who had recently returned from northern Italy.[33] The number of cases continued to rise significantly through March 2020, reaching a total of 647 (600 confirmed and 47 probable) and 74 recoveries by 31 March.[34]

In response to rising cases from overseas travel and within the community, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardernclosed the country's borders to non-citizens and non-residents on 19 March 2020.[66][67] On 21 March, the Government introduced a four-tier alert level system, which placed much of the country's population and economy into lockdown from 25 March.[68][69] Due to the success of the Government's elimination strategy in reducing the spread of COVID-19, lockdown restrictions on mobility, social gatherings and economic activities were progressively lifted on 28 April,[70] 11 May,[71]25 May,[72] and 8 June.[73] The lifting of Alert Level 1 restrictions on 8 June eliminated social distancing and lockdown restrictions but retained border restrictions.[73] On 13 May, the Government passed the controversial COVID-19 Public Health Response Act 2020 which empowered law enforcement to enter homes and other premises without a warrant in order to enforce lockdown restrictions.[74][75]
 

Basically they had imported cases from massive hot spots such as Iran and Italy, but didn’t actually close their borders for two weeks. I’m not knocking that in the slightest, but the point is even when they had known confirmed cases they didn’t actually do anything much about it for two weeks, because like most places including here they didn’t really know how serious it was to start with. The timeline of their subsequent lockdown was then pretty much inline with ours, but they clearly had significantly lower levels of virus in the first place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, Paul ™ said:

Again can't really compare these situations as you can only fly to those countries which are a huge expense at best of times.

It's far easier to return to the UK via tunnel or ferry with a vehicle for about 100 quid.

not if the UK govt doesn't let the trains or ferries run (or doesn't let domestic travellers onto them, or limits numbers of travellers).

Australia placed a cap on the number of people it would allow in each day, and limited flights so the number wasn't exceeded.

There's not any real difference between limiting flights, and limiting flights and trains and ferries. If the govt wants to set limits it can.

And as you've already pointed out that it couldn't deal with trying to quarantine unrestricted numbers, the logical thing to do would be to restrict numbers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, st dan said:

That’s why a ‘zero Covid’ strategy is actually not all that sensible or realistic. The only way it would be completely effective is if you closed borders forever - and then sure you can eradicate it completely. But that isn’t going to happen, so NZ are going to see a rise in cases again at some point.
Assuming their strategy is to ease up once everybody is vaccinated and hopefully deaths will be low, but they’re certainly going to have an explosion of cases in the not too distant future. 

Strongly disagree.

Having followed a zero covid strategy NZ are in the highly enviable situation of being able to throw huge resources at any cases that do occur and squash them quick. Imagine how many people they’ll have working on that single case right now. If there is a larger outbreak they could just lockdown for 7/8 weeks again and get rid of it, then back to normal having suffered minimal deaths.

For them at least that’s a viable strategy for as long as they need it to be, especially when they have the motivation of looking at the awful cost the virus has inflicted on other societies such as ours.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



×
×
  • Create New...