When will this shit end?

[Cream Soda]

2 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

As has been pointed out, but see my post above. What was the announcement Boris made on the Sunday saying if you couldn’t work from home go back to work?

I had friends who work in construction and who are self employed who couldn’t work until that announcement.

Yes, it started out as "if you can't work from home then you are furloughed" (unless a key worker obviously) but then changed to "you should go back to work now if you can do so safely".

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

People who worked in construction and manufacturing shouldn’t have been in work until after 10th May:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-lockdown-boris-johnson-speech-construction-manufacturing-work-return-a9507671.html%3famp

[Crazyfool01]

4 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

Does anyone have some recommendations for masks that are reasonably comfortable and breathable but obviously still work? I've got some that we ordered early on but they're made from really thick material that makes it hard to breathe- maybe that's all there is but it would be nice if there was something that makes breathing a little easier...some I've seen people wearing don't look as bad

The ones with the filters seem to expel some of the heat when I’ve tried them compared with the standard ones ... and the shields are definately more comfortable with barely any heat increase  but not as handy to have in a pocket when you go shopping 

[zahidf]

 

 

 

[DeanoL]

6 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Ok apologies, I think I’m getting confused with when Boris came out on that Sunday and said if you can’t work from home go back to work. Up to then I had friends who were tradesman and builders etc who couldn’t work until that announcement.

The Leicester factory thing I’m not sure about. They clearly couldn’t work and socially distance, so were they doing something they were actually allowed to do?

This is the thing, the government offered guidelines for employees, not laws. That was the problem. 

Tradesmen and builders couldn't enter other people's homes, I think, so that restricted a lot of work. But everyone else was left to the companies in question to make the call. Many many factories and construction companies shut down. Partly because they didn't want their employees to get ill, partly because they wanted to do the right thing, partly because they could furlough staff anyway and partly because demand dropped hugely and their supply chains were massively disrupted.

But many others stayed open. Here's a letter from the government to the construction industry from 31 March:

Quote

The Government has advised that wherever possible, people should work at home. However, we know that for many people working in construction their job requires them to travel to their place of work, and they can continue to do so. This is consistent with the Chief Medical Officer’s advice.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877074/secretary-of-state-letter-construction-industry.pdf

 

[Ayrshire Chris]

A few tips if you wear glasses and they steam up if you wear a mask. Put the mask on first and have it high up on your cheekbones. Then put on your glasses over the mask. Isn’t perfect but a lot better.   Also you can put a piece of paper tissue along the top of the mask to act as a moisture barrier. That also helps.  Treating the lenses with detergent etc might also work but can damage them. 

[Freddyflintstonree]

14 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

40,000 deaths goes against doing ‘okay’. How offensive to the families of people that have list loved ones to say that even though so many have lost we have still done ‘okay’. I’ve seen the stress it’s out on people in the healthcare sector the added pressure of a government that’s had no clue what they are doing, to say we have done ‘okay’ is pretty horrendous for those people as well. 

You make it sound like the government is to blame for the virus and that a proper government would have managed 0 deaths. 

[DeanoL]

5 minutes ago, Cream Soda said:

Yes, it started out as "if you can't work from home then you are furloughed" (unless a key worker obviously) but then changed to "you should go back to work now if you can do so safely".

No. 

It was work from home unless you can't and it's "essential". 

The word "essential" was never legally defined, though it was made clear it didn't just mean "key workers". It was left up to individual companies what was considered "essential".

Let me put it another way. 

In the past three months, who here has bought anything online and had it delivered. Other than essentials?

Where do you think those things came from? 

Who picked and packed them?

Who do you think delivered them?

Key workers?!

 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

3 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

This is the thing, the government offered guidelines for employees, not laws. That was the problem. 

Tradesmen and builders couldn't enter other people's homes, I think, so that restricted a lot of work. But everyone else was left to the companies in question to make the call. Many many factories and construction companies shut down. Partly because they didn't want their employees to get ill, partly because they wanted to do the right thing, partly because they could furlough staff anyway and partly because demand dropped hugely and their supply chains were massively disrupted.

But many others stayed open. Here's a letter from the government to the construction industry from 31 March:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877074/secretary-of-state-letter-construction-industry.pdf

 

I take your points. The point I was trying to make was that with the benefit of hindsight a couple of months down the line, the absolute strictness of lockdown probably didn’t make a huge difference. Not when you consider now what you can actually ‘get away with’ and the infections still drop. The situation in Leicester is purely driven by absolute greed and maybe the government should’ve laid down actual laws to prevent it happening.

With regards to deaths. We’re seeing below excess deaths now. If that continues for the rest of the year then that may well bring us in line with other similar countries by the end of the year. Obviously a lot will depend on what happens with any second wave, but countries who fared better first time round may be hit worse second time around.

[Zoo Music Girl]

13 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

As has been pointed out, but see my post above. What was the announcement Boris made on the Sunday saying if you couldn’t work from home go back to work?

I had friends who work in construction and who are self employed who couldn’t work until that announcement.

Your friends might not have been, but lots were during that first phase. I remember it being a bit of a controversial issue, particularly around construction. I saw construction workers doing roadworks etc during that first phase. The carpet company we'd been talking to offered to do a fitting then too, so sure they were for others. (We still haven't had it fit though.)

[Cream Soda]

2 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

No. 

It was work from home unless you can't and it's "essential". 

The word "essential" was never legally defined, though it was made clear it didn't just mean "key workers". It was left up to individual companies what was considered "essential".

Let me put it another way. 

In the past three months, who here has bought anything online and had it delivered. Other than essentials?

Where do you think those things came from? 

Who picked and packed them?

Who do you think delivered them?

Key workers?!

 

Wasn't there a list drawn up of those who were considered as key/essential workers?  Not sure exactly what was on it though.

[squirrelarmy]

My work has brought back the bare minimum of staff required to fufill what orders we have coming in, mainly from online shopping.

Being at higher risk and not required for general production work I've been kept on furlough. 

I can work from home to some extent but a lot of my work I need to be on site for when developing the new products. 

[Crazyfool01]

Pretty sure I saw an increase in mask usage today amongst customers .... not massive but noticeable 

[DeanoL]

2 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

I take your points. The point I was trying to make was that with the benefit of hindsight a couple of months down the line, the absolute strictness of lockdown probably didn’t make a huge difference. Not when you consider now what you can actually ‘get away with’ and the infections still drop. The situation in Leicester is purely driven by absolute greed and maybe the government should’ve laid down actual laws to prevent it happening.

Right - and as I mentioned earlier, I don't entirely disagree with you. 

But here's the two important things:

• We didn't (and still don't) really understand the virus. 
• "Lockdown" isn't just a single thing, it's a combination of measures.

We can look back now and say that some elements of lockdown where we were less strict were right. It didn't make much difference if exercise was limited to an hour a day or not. It didn't make much difference if supermarkets were shut and food was delivery only or left open. We probably didn't need to move people on from parks. Turns out the virus doesn't do well outdoors. 

On the flip side of this, it turns out that viral load seems to make a huge difference in the severity of symptoms, and hence spending lots of time in close quarters with infected people is a major problem. That's why so many doctors got so ill, it's why carehomes were a mess, and why factories and industry that's stayed open has been a problem.

So if we're being results-oriented, we can look back and say "yeah, the government got it right on everything except carehomes and factories". 

But that's just chance. The point of a lockdown is you don't really understand the virus, so you take a blunt instrument to it and do whatever you can to stop it spreading however it might spread. Some of those measures are bound to prove unnecessary. Others will prove to be crucial. But our government didn't act the way it did because it had special knowledge that certain things weren't necessary. They acted that way because they figured it was worth the risk to keep some of the economy going.

In some areas, that gamble paid off. And those are the examples you're using to justify it being the right choice all along.

In other areas, the ones I'm pointing out, it didn't. And those are the areas the government is trying to cover up and acting like the rules were different to what they were.

And it's worked. 

People in this thread, so people who have been engaged with this whole thing, reading about it, watching the daily briefings. People here now think that the government said things in March that they didn't say. That the rules were one thing when they weren't. You have ask how and why that's happening. Why people think things happened that never happened. And realise that you're being screwed with, just like we have been on Brexit.

[st dan]

Wondering if anybody from this shambles of a government will attempt to explain the dramatic u-turn in regards to the wearing of masks? There needs to be some explanation to the reasons why they are suddenly deemed so necessary despite previous advice - although we know they will just hide behind ‘the science’. 

[DeanoL]

16 minutes ago, Cream Soda said:

Wasn't there a list drawn up of those who were considered as key/essential workers?  Not sure exactly what was on it though.

"Key-workers" is a defined term and there's a list of people who are considered as such. Those people could also still send children to school and a few other things. But the law wasn't about key-workers. It was "unless it's essential". That was never legally defined.

Equally at work, people were told to maintain social distancing "where possible" - the employer could determine if it were possible.

Here's another source:

https://www.pinsentmasons.com/out-law/news/manufacturing-exempt-uk-coronavirus-lockdown

Quote

"There has been much confusion over the past 48 hours as to whether or not manufacturing businesses should remain open if they provide non-essential products or services," Livesey said. "It is now clear that the government currently wants business to continue and so all manufacturers can remain open but should abide by the government guidance – people should work from home where possible and if they cannot, the public health guidelines should be followed."

 

[Cream Soda]

3 minutes ago, st dan said:

Wondering if anybody from this shambles of a government will attempt to explain the dramatic u-turn in regards to the wearing of masks? There needs to be some explanation to the reasons why they are suddenly deemed so necessary despite previous advice - although we know they will just hide behind ‘the science’. 

They will just say the science has changed.  I get that new discoveries have occurred since the start of all this but in the past couple of weeks since pubs opened?  I agree they should explain their reasoning.

[Ozanne]

43 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I'm not sure if you're willfully misinterpreting me or just being argumentative here? Our death count isn't loads higher than other countries, so comparatively we did okay. That's the only sensible way of measuring it.

I guess you don't think any country has done well then? Because if you say Norway handled it "well" it's offensive to the 252 people who died there?

Ok is another way of saying you are content with things. So are you saying you are content with 40k plus deaths, highest death count in Europe? If you are then I don’t know what else to say to you.

None if this has been ‘okay’, we should be content with any of this. We should constantly demand better of our public servants especially now when they have handling things as badly as they have. 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

14 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Right - and as I mentioned earlier, I don't entirely disagree with you. 

But here's the two important things:

• We didn't (and still don't) really understand the virus. 
• "Lockdown" isn't just a single thing, it's a combination of measures.

We can look back now and say that some elements of lockdown where we were less strict were right. It didn't make much difference if exercise was limited to an hour a day or not. It didn't make much difference if supermarkets were shut and food was delivery only or left open. We probably didn't need to move people on from parks. Turns out the virus doesn't do well outdoors. 

On the flip side of this, it turns out that viral load seems to make a huge difference in the severity of symptoms, and hence spending lots of time in close quarters with infected people is a major problem. That's why so many doctors got so ill, it's why carehomes were a mess, and why factories and industry that's stayed open has been a problem.

So if we're being results-oriented, we can look back and say "yeah, the government got it right on everything except carehomes and factories". 

But that's just chance. The point of a lockdown is you don't really understand the virus, so you take a blunt instrument to it and do whatever you can to stop it spreading however it might spread. Some of those measures are bound to prove unnecessary. Others will prove to be crucial. But our government didn't act the way it did because it had special knowledge that certain things weren't necessary. They acted that way because they figured it was worth the risk to keep some of the economy going.

In some areas, that gamble paid off. And those are the examples you're using to justify it being the right choice all along.

In other areas, the ones I'm pointing out, it didn't. And those are the areas the government is trying to cover up and acting like the rules were different to what they were.

And it's worked. 

People in this thread, so people who have been engaged with this whole thing, reading about it, watching the daily briefings. People here now think that the government said things in March that they didn't say. That the rules were one thing when they weren't. You have ask how and why that's happening. Why people think things happened that never happened. And realise that you're being screwed with, just like we have been on Brexit.

I don’t disagree with any of that, and I agree a lot of it is luck rather than judgement.

I just don’t necessarily get the link between how our lockdown “wasn’t as strict” and the chances of a second wave here, which was the point I was trying to make to the person I originally quoted.

We at least know more now about what does and doesn’t have an impact. If we do have a second wave the government will obviously have a choice about how to deal with it, but I don’t think how they dealt with the first one means the outcome of the second one will somehow automatically be worse.

[Mr.Tease]

12 minutes ago, st dan said:

Wondering if anybody from this shambles of a government will attempt to explain the dramatic u-turn in regards to the wearing of masks? There needs to be some explanation to the reasons why they are suddenly deemed so necessary despite previous advice - although we know they will just hide behind ‘the science’. 

Because we're British mate! Then several weeks later realise that this doesn't actually offer any special protection from the virus and so have to implement what every other country has done.

Once you understand that every proposal has to first overcome that entrenched initial ignorance, you understand the time lags of every step taken

[Ozanne]

Lol

[steviewevie]

1 hour ago, DeanoL said:

The thing is, I think he has a point. A lot of the fuss that has been made about beach parties and protests and stuff turned out to not really have any impact (though we weren't to know that at the time). The government didn't make the best decisions, but they didn't make particularly bad ones. Our handling of it was basically "okay". Except for two areas: mismanaging carehomes, and not shutting down non-essential industry.

That the focus is on if we're wearing masks a few weeks too late while not reporting on these elements is very much the problem.

I think some NHS workers might disagree with some of that...

[steviewevie]

8 minutes ago, Ozanne said:

Ok is another way of saying you are content with things. So are you saying you are content with 40k plus deaths, highest death count in Europe? If you are then I don’t know what else to say to you.

None if this has been ‘okay’, we should be content with any of this. We should constantly demand better of our public servants especially now when they have handling things as badly as they have. 

Isn't it 65k+ excess deaths.....

[Ozanne]

Just now, steviewevie said:

Isn't it 65k+ excess deaths.....

Well yeah 65k I was trying to give some skew to the government by going the lowest possible figure. I’m happy to be proven wrong though, it’s even worse than I said. 

[steviewevie]

22 minutes ago, st dan said:

Wondering if anybody from this shambles of a government will attempt to explain the dramatic u-turn in regards to the wearing of masks? There needs to be some explanation to the reasons why they are suddenly deemed so necessary despite previous advice - although we know they will just hide behind ‘the science’. 

I think that the science did change a bit..the aerosol effect etc...plus probably focus groups with people concerned we were the only country not enforcing it...