When will this shit end?

[zahidf]

 

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, zahidf said:

 

there he goes promising stuff...I guess he's under some pressure from some in his own govt and mps

[steviewevie]

 

[MEGABOWL]

4 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

Somebody get a grip. It’s a different member of the Government speculating on a different timeline every bloody day. Sometimes more than once a day.

[eFestivals]

Just now, steviewevie said:

there he goes promising stuff...I guess he's under some pressure from some in his own govt and mps

it's probably more about kicking that pressure from his own MPs down the road than it's meant seriously.

Then again there's the chance the data will show a vaccine effect by then, so he might get to relax a few measures anyway (although it's difficult to think what they might be when schools look like remaining closed).

[fraybentos1]

4 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

I'd rather they just kept us in lockdown Jan and Feb which are shite months anyway to get numbers lower and allow vaccinations to have more impact. Then start easing in March (iff possible)

[JoeyT]

3 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

3 times seems a bit excessive to me... perhaps he should look at his daily activities and come in to contact with less people? 

[MEGABOWL]

8 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

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.

I wonder how early we would have had to lock down to achieve the same? Early February? As much as the current lot are a disaster I don’t believe any U.K. Government would have done that.

That bit about entering without a warrant is a bit (shudder) as well.

 

[Zoo Music Girl]

23 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

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.

Haven't they been having festivals in New Zealand though? After following a tough strategy?

[Fuzzy Afro]

9 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

I am surprised by this but I’d have to assume that the thing he is looking to relax must be seen as very low risk environments. Maybe the rule of 6 outdoors? 

[DeanoL]

1 minute ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

Haven't they been having festivals in New Zealand though? After following a tough strategy?

But in order to make that happen they're also locking large areas down at very short notice. We we adapting the New Zealand strategy, and there was a small outbreak in Bristol the second week of June, Glastonbury would then be off. Which would bankrupt the festival. I don't know if NZ are doing an insurance scheme to help with that sort of thing though?

[st dan]

4 minutes ago, Mimo said:

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.

I know it’s been said numerous times before, but NZ is an isolated island in the Pacific Ocean with a population of less than 5m - which are major factors that has allowed them to aim for a zero Covid strategy pretty easily, backed by strong government leadership. 

Zero Covid is not, and can not, be an actual exit strategy for the vast majority of counties given the sheer scale of the initial outbreak - they’ve all been chasing their tails. However hopefully we can aim to manage and live with the virus in the years to come - are NZ going to be locking down for 6-8 weeks every year if/when cases crop up? That surely isn’t manageable or an effective strategy either long term. 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

4 minutes ago, MEGABOWL said:

I wonder how early we would have had to lock down to achieve the same? Early February? As much as the current lot are a disaster I don’t believe any U.K. Government would have done that.

That bit about entering without a warrant is a bit (shudder) as well.

 

Out first confirmed case was a month before NZ (31st Jan) so yeah, you’d have to say early Feb at the latest. 

[Zoo Music Girl]

6 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

But in order to make that happen they're also locking large areas down at very short notice. We we adapting the New Zealand strategy, and there was a small outbreak in Bristol the second week of June, Glastonbury would then be off. Which would bankrupt the festival. I don't know if NZ are doing an insurance scheme to help with that sort of thing though?

Fair point. No idea on the insurance.

[steviewevie]

8 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

I am surprised by this but I’d have to assume that the thing he is looking to relax must be seen as very low risk environments. Maybe the rule of 6 outdoors? 

maybe the younger years at primary schools will be allowed back?

[Ozanne]

17 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

there he goes promising stuff...I guess he's under some pressure from some in his own govt and mps

It seems to directly contradict what he was saying on Friday in the Press Conference. 

[Reckoner]

13 minutes ago, Mimo said:

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.

This is correct. It's been the same for Sydney  over Xmas and here in Singapore over the last week. Long periods of no community transmission followed by the odd flare up, usually having seeped out of a quarantined case. As mentioned above though, the low cases mean that resources can be thrown at testing and tracing and squash out the outbreaks. 

On that point though, "Zero-Covid" doesn't mean stopping it completely but stopping it in the community. Nobody can keep themselves completely closed off from the world and there will be imported cases arriving due to the situation everywhere else. It's about managing that though, and not allowing people to travel back from overseas (for example influencers and footballers returning from Dubai) and starting new chains of transmission in the community. Below is the Singapore chart. We have cases every day but they are identified at entry or in Quarantine rather than after a period of shedding virus all over the place.

[BobWillis]

25 minutes ago, zahidf said:

 

He needs to start following the rules. 

[zahidf]

 

[Ozanne]

50 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

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.

How are you are your Mrs doing after last week? I hope you are guys are holding up ok. 

[mazola]

3 hours ago, xxialac said:

Classic virtue signalling to defend people accused of virtue signalling.

OK, I'll elaborate since a few people don't seem to like the term virtue signalling.

My comment was directed at someone who said they would be happy to wait for their vaccine so an 80 year old in Iraq could get theirs first. Just this one 80 year old Iraq? Or does this apply to everyone in the world in a more vulnerable position?

How long would you be prepared to wait for everyone the world in a more vulnerable category than you to get their vaccine. 1 year? 2 years?

It's easy to say you would knowing full well this is not a decision you have any control over. When it gets to your turn will you refuse the vaccine on moral grounds as there is someone in the world more in need of it? Of course not.

But because I've pointed this out, obviously I'm an unfeeling, unempathetic monster who would push old ladies out of the way so I can get my jab first.

[DeanoL]

2 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

How are you are your Mrs doing after last week? I hope you are guys are holding up ok. 

Thanks for asking - as well as we can hope I think. It's still bizarre, we're having to contemplate whether to actually hold a funeral or not as it would just be the two of us there (there's a few other relatives but they're shielding so wouldn't be able to attend). Not a question we ever thought we'd be asking as in normal times you'd just have one and see if anyone turned up, whereas now it's sort of, why take the risk when we can just do something private ourselves.

[Zoo Music Girl]

2 minutes ago, mazola said:

OK, I'll elaborate since a few people don't seem to like the term virtue signalling.

My comment was directed at someone who said they would be happy to wait for their vaccine so an 80 year old in Iraq could get theirs first. Just this one 80 year old Iraq? Or does this apply to everyone in the world in a more vulnerable position?

How long would you be prepared to wait for everyone the world in a more vulnerable category than you to get their vaccine. 1 year? 2 years?

It's easy to say you would knowing full well this is not a decision you have any control over. When it gets to your turn will you refuse the vaccine on moral grounds as there is someone in the world more in need of it? Of course not.

But because I've pointed this out, obviously I'm an unfeeling, unempathetic monster who would push old ladies out of the way so I can get my jab first.

To be fair he was responding to a direct and hypothetical question rather than just saying it off the cuff.

[JoeyT]

 

[steviewevie]

9 minutes ago, mazola said:

OK, I'll elaborate since a few people don't seem to like the term virtue signalling.

My comment was directed at someone who said they would be happy to wait for their vaccine so an 80 year old in Iraq could get theirs first. Just this one 80 year old Iraq? Or does this apply to everyone in the world in a more vulnerable position?

How long would you be prepared to wait for everyone the world in a more vulnerable category than you to get their vaccine. 1 year? 2 years?

It's easy to say you would knowing full well this is not a decision you have any control over. When it gets to your turn will you refuse the vaccine on moral grounds as there is someone in the world more in need of it? Of course not.

But because I've pointed this out, obviously I'm an unfeeling, unempathetic monster who would push old ladies out of the way so I can get my jab first.

you didn't point any of this out, you just said he was virtue signalling.