When will this shit end?

[stuartbert two hats]

3 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

Didn’t you say glasto 2021 would defo be on? We have all made mistakes and wrong calls here and easter was defo highlighted numerous times by the gov tbf and Is the start of better weather 

I certainly did! 😄

[zahidf]

1 minute ago, Ozanne said:

Looks like you were wrong then. Plenty of people here told you at the time there would be restrictions in place through Easter but you chose to ignore everyone and wildly claiming by Easter social distancing would be scrapped. People suggested you should curb your expectations, maybe you should listen to them. 

Tbf that was based on them saying all group 1-9 would have a vaccine then and then deaths would be 98% down. Now all of a sudden thats 'not enough'

[xxialac]

5 minutes ago, Gilgamesh69 said:

Can someone change my mind about Starmer? I don't get it. 

 

He just seems like another tory-lite, with no ideology of his own. I doubt he truly believes in half the stuff he says; seems to just be picking whatever he thinks will be popular, and often flip flops.  He's poor opposition and it seems like he's only putting the party's agenda as just sliiightly left of the tories. Starmer and the PLP seem to care more about winning than about actually making any progress. On top of that, he's really uncharismatic. He's like the very worst of New Labour. 

 

Fuck Starmer. (I'll possibly still vote for him lmao, but it'll only be to get the Tories out)

In his teenage years Starmer was active in Labour politics, and was a member of the East Surrey Young Socialists. At university Starmer edited the radical magazine, Socialist Alternatives.

At this point he's barely 20 years old...

Whatever you may think of the man, he's a man with evidencable and longstanding left wing values.

Compare that with Johnson, a man with no views of his own and who simply goes wherever the wind is blowing.

It's night and day.

 

[fraybentos1]

3 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Looks like you were wrong then. Plenty of people here told you at the time there would be restrictions in place through Easter but you chose to ignore everyone and wildly claiming by Easter social distancing would be scrapped. People suggested you should curb your expectations, maybe you should listen to them. 

You really are the most insufferable know-it-all 

[Ozanne]

Just now, zahidf said:

Tbf that was based on them saying all group 1-9 would have a vaccine then and then deaths would be 98% down. Now all of a sudden thats 'not enough'

They have never said no social distancing by Easter though, that's what you have thought up. No one has changed any goalposts because they hadn't even put them into the ground yet. I'm pretty sure they said from the beginning of this period that they will go slowly.

[xxialac]

6 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

It's not about appearing virtuous- we're in a pandemic,  if we all just say "I'll do whatever is best for me" , we're all screwed (in this situation helping others is actually helping yourself).

Nearly every step of the way the government has been too slow and too lax, and part of that is because every step of the way you have people being outraged at every restriction saying they're not necessary and nearly every time that's lead to disaster, but there's next to no learning from the experience so we just repeat the same mistakes over and over again (and have wracked up 115,000 deaths) 

 A wonderful analysis.

[BobWillis]

10 minutes ago, xxialac said:

Great to see so many well articulated counterpoints here.

It's verging on the conspiracy theory to think that the government and scientists are going to impose restrictions for longer than is necessary. No government wants that - and they are in control. 

As some have said, it's not as simple as opening everything up once the vulnerable and target age groups are vaccinated. Cases cannot be allowed to get out of control. Variants are an unknown factor to contend with.

Then we are NEVER getting out of this fully if that’s the logic. 
 

Vaccines don’t stop transmission so variants will always be in play. 
If it takes weeks to make a vaccine for the variant, plus testing and then rolling it out...by the time that’s finished there will be another variant and so on and so forth. 

[Ozanne]

3 minutes ago, xxialac said:

In his teenage years Starmer was active in Labour politics, and was a member of the East Surrey Young Socialists. At university Starmer edited the radical magazine, Socialist Alternatives.

At this point he's barely 20 years old...

Whatever you may think of the man, he's a man with evidencable and longstanding left wing values.

Compare that with Johnson, a man with no views of his own and who simply goes wherever the wind is blowing.

It's night and day.

 

But did he get stuck on a zip wire? 

[Memory Man]

We have to wait until we know what the restrictions look like. They vary so wildly from oppressive to barely an inconvenience. Just to get pubs and restaurants back now with your own household would feel like a decent win. 
slowly but surely it will all unravel to the point of almost being completely back to the before times but its got to be gradual and careful until all adults have their 2 doses.

I’ll only be truly happy once gigs and festivals are back and there is no way those will be allowed until everyone is vaccinated with 2 shots. But we will have wins before that we can enjoy. We just need to be patient a little longer but the vaccines will get us out of this

and for god sake shut the flipping borders!! Quarantine everyone not just red list

[squirrelarmy]

2 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

But did he get stuck on a zip wire? 

Boris did a rugby tackle during a charity football match. Top bloke! Definitely someone worthy of leading a country. 

[xxialac]

1 minute ago, Ozanne said:

But did he get stuck on a zip wire? 

No and he's boring whereas 'not boring' Johnson has proven the enormous value not being boring brings to the health, economic wellbeing, unity and status of the nation.

Kerry Katona for next PM. She's fun!

[Gilgamesh69]

2 minutes ago, xxialac said:

In his teenage years Starmer was active in Labour politics, and was a member of the East Surrey Young Socialists. At university Starmer edited the radical magazine, Socialist Alternatives.

At this point he's barely 20 years old...

Whatever you may think of the man, he's a man with evidencable and longstanding left wing values.

Compare that with Johnson, a man with no views of his own and who simply goes wherever the wind is blowing.

It's night and day.

 

But is he still like that? He's 58 now, and people's politics can change a lot in that time. Perhaps he was a good socialist at one point, but considering he's now a sir, a former head of the CPS, as well as all the other roles he's had... I really doubt he has the same class consciousness that he once had. 

[Chapple12345]

 

[Toilet Duck]

6 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

The trial data seems pretty conclusive to me. You can still catch the virus after having the AZ vaccine. I'm right aren't I @Toilet Duck. At least that's what they were saying on Talking Virology today.

Yes, you can still catch the virus after vaccination (either after 1 or 2 doses). In the AZ interim data they suggested maybe a 50%+ reduction in asymptomatic cases (which had a pretty big confidence interval on it), their more recent data (suggesting a 67% drop in transmission) actually only had about a 20% reduction in asymptomatic cases. We’ll get better data over the next while. The different vaccines will cut infections by the looks of it, how much remains to be seen. How robust the massive increases in neutralising antibodies after the 2nd dose of Pfizer or Moderna are, we still don’t know either. Much of what we have been assuming has been based on how long neutralising antibodies hang around after natural infection, but a 1000 fold increase after vaccination might well last a good bit longer, suggesting protection from infection might too. There’s substantial variation in the nature of the immune response from person to person though and that variation will allowed continued infection and onward transmission. 

[xxialac]

8 minutes ago, Gilgamesh69 said:

But is he still like that? He's 58 now, and people's politics can change a lot in that time. Perhaps he was a good socialist at one point, but considering he's now a sir, a former head of the CPS, as well as all the other roles he's had... I really doubt he has the same class consciousness that he once had. 

That's absolutely fair. I guess I was comparing him to Johnson (a very low bar).

[Gilgamesh69]

3 minutes ago, xxialac said:

That's absolutely fair. I guess I was comparing him to Johnson (a very low bar).

I just wish I could have half as much faith in him as some others do. As it stands, I feel like our country is absolutely fucked and only radical changes could improve it. The kind of changes that don't come about by voting for rich yt men...

[xxialac]

3 minutes ago, Gilgamesh69 said:

I just wish I could have half as much faith in him as some others do. As it stands, I feel like our country is absolutely fucked and only radical changes could improve it. The kind of changes that don't come about by voting for rich yt men...

Didn't we try radical with the one before? Can't remember how that ended...

[mazola]

14 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

It's not about appearing virtuous- we're in a pandemic,  if we all just say "I'll do whatever is best for me" , we're all screwed (in this situation helping others is actually helping yourself).

Nearly every step of the way the government has been too slow and too lax, and part of that is because every step of the way you have people being outraged at every restriction saying they're not necessary and nearly every time that's lead to disaster, but there's next to no learning from the experience so we just repeat the same mistakes over and over again (and have wracked up 115,000 deaths) 

Yeah I know mate, I agree with everything you said.  But wanting to come out of lockdown ASAP shouldn't be frowned upon if the numbers back it up.

As you say yourself the Government have dithered and delayed every step of the way during this pandemic, making the necessary changes weeks or months after they should have done. My fear is they will on the way out of it as well.

 

 

[stuartbert two hats]

2 minutes ago, mazola said:

Yeah I know mate, I agree with everything you said.  But wanting to come out of lockdown ASAP shouldn't be frowned upon if the numbers back it up.

As you say yourself the Government have dithered and delayed every step of the way during this pandemic, making the necessary changes weeks or months after they should have done. My fear is they will on the way out of it as well.

 

 

Yeah, that's it - if the numbers back it up. And they might, but they might not.

I'm cautiously hopeful they'll be fine. We'll see.

[mazola]

1 minute ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Yeah, that's it - if the numbers back it up. And they might, but they might not.

I'm cautiously hopeful they'll be fine. We'll see.

Yep, and this is what we need on 22nd (even this date seems like it might get kicked down the road now ffs). A clear set of milestones based on hospitalisations / deaths

Nothing should be date driven, but I want to see a clear path pretty much exactly like someone on here posted a couple of days ago (sorry, can't remember who said it, something along the lines if x then y this opens)

Edited February 11, 2021 by mazola
forgot to actually write something

[Gilgamesh69]

1 minute ago, xxialac said:

Didn't we try radical with the one before? Can't remember how that ended...

Wasn't radical enough then. In a system like ours, true change won't come through a ballot box. Plus for the record, Corbyn had the media and even factions of his own party against him. The fact that he did as well as he did - often being ahead of the tories in polls - is pretty impressive. Of course, that unfortunately failed so now we're stuck with either blue tories or red tories. Hooray! 

[squirrelarmy]

8 minutes ago, Gilgamesh69 said:

I just wish I could have half as much faith in him as some others do. As it stands, I feel like our country is absolutely fucked and only radical changes could improve it. The kind of changes that don't come about by voting for rich yt men...

 

4 minutes ago, xxialac said:

Didn't we try radical with the one before? Can't remember how that ended...

To oversimplify things.

The Tories are like bathing in boiling water, Corbyn was like bathing in a bath of ice. 
 

Both polar opposites to each other and neither of them tolerable to the masses. 
 

Starmer is luke warm water. He isn’t the perfect temperature for taking a bath, he might be a little too hot for some but he’s going to be far more appealing to a wider range of people than either of the extreme opposites.
 

There will be those who love and thrive off the ice baths as well as those who have the protection to withstand the heat of the boiling water. With the case of Starmer he’s that little bit of cold water you add to your bath make it possible to climb in. 

[zahidf]

I feel like it's the attitude that leads to neverending lockdown for fear of the next mutation. The aim has to be to turn COVID into a flu like virus that can be dealt with by vaccinating the at risk population in September every year. It can't turn into forever lockdown and forever social distancing, that will lead to actual rioting.

[stuartbert two hats]

4 minutes ago, squirrelarmy said:

 

To oversimplify things.

The Tories are like bathing in boiling water, Corbyn was like bathing in a bath of ice. 
 

Both polar opposites to each other and neither of them tolerable to the masses. 
 

Starmer is luke warm water. He isn’t the perfect temperature for taking a bath, he might be a little too hot for some but he’s going to be far more appealing to a wider range of people than either of the extreme opposites.
 

There will be those who love and thrive off the ice baths as well as those who have the protection to withstand the heat of the boiling water. With the case of Starmer he’s that little bit of cold water you add to your bath make it possible to climb in. 

I like that, except you have Corbyn and The Tories the wrong way round. The ideal would be between Starmer and Corbyn, not closer to the Tories.

Unless you like a cold bath?

[Gilgamesh69]

13 minutes ago, squirrelarmy said:

 

To oversimplify things.

The Tories are like bathing in boiling water, Corbyn was like bathing in a bath of ice. 
 

Both polar opposites to each other and neither of them tolerable to the masses. 
 

Starmer is luke warm water. He isn’t the perfect temperature for taking a bath, he might be a little too hot for some but he’s going to be far more appealing to a wider range of people than either of the extreme opposites.
 

There will be those who love and thrive off the ice baths as well as those who have the protection to withstand the heat of the boiling water. With the case of Starmer he’s that little bit of cold water you add to your bath make it possible to climb in. 

But ice baths are good for the muscles. This country needs some muscle so it can be strong and care for its people. In Starmer's bathtub, we'll just sit in there doing fuck all, our skin shrivelling up. Meanwhile the babies sticking a spoon in the socket but hey "at least i'm alright, who cares about anyone else?". Anyway, stop using this horseshoe theory nonsense. A far left labour is absolutely not the same as tory scum.

 

Edited February 11, 2021 by Gilgamesh69