When will covid end ? Please be nice and respectful to others

[Justiceforcedave]

7 hours ago, LJS said:

absolute bollocks as usual Barry.

 face coverings, for example – might be required in the longer-term to enable us to live with it with far fewer protective measures."

is not the same as

Sturgeon saying she thinks face masks might be mandatory in shops forever

 

 

 

 

Nasty Nicky says face masks forever!

Bed-wetting Scottish First Minister wants to keep face nappies.

 

He speaks in Daily Mail headlines (with all the exaggeration and “reinterpreting” of details that come with that). 😂

[LJS]

8 hours ago, Barry Fish said:

Thank fuck for Boris 😄

Jesus Christ!

 

[JoeyT]

hi ho hi ho it's back to the office you go...

 

[DeanoL]

I think that's a total mis-read. It's general worry and hesitation and uncertainty that's keeping the economy down (also it being January) - the WFH thing won't be helping but I think it's fairly minor all things considered. 

[Fuzzy Afro]

3 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I think that's a total mis-read. It's general worry and hesitation and uncertainty that's keeping the economy down (also it being January) - the WFH thing won't be helping but I think it's fairly minor all things considered. 

Disagree - mass working from home is very bad for the economy. 
 

A few behavioural things I’ve noticed:

 

- In London at least, people spend £6-£10 every day on lunch when they’re in the office. Only a few people are organised enough to meal prep and bring their own lunch, so Pret and their peers make an absolute killing from office workers. People working from home don’t tend to nip out to Pret at lunch time though, they’ll just go to the kitchen and cook something. Economy loses out.

 

- People aren’t going to pubs in the evening with their colleagues. Economy loses out.

 

- People aren’t meeting up with friends who work near them. I live out in Essex and most of my friends live in various Home Counties around London, we often go for drinks in the evenings after we all leave our respective offices in the city at 5pm. With everything working from home, these rendezvous just aren’t happening at all. Economy loses out. 

 

 

I know you work in events and it’s true that uncertainty is the main reason these are being cancelled rather than WFH, but the hospitality sector loses out massively from WFH guidance. 

[zahidf]

8 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I think that's a total mis-read. It's general worry and hesitation and uncertainty that's keeping the economy down (also it being January) - the WFH thing won't be helping but I think it's fairly minor all things considered. 

Im not 100% i agree. Most people will be more up for social stuff if they HAVE to go into work

[zahidf]

Sturgeon U turn

Just need the Drake to stop being an arse

[fraybentos1]

10 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Sturgeon U turn

Just need the Drake to stop being an arse

Well that was the most pointless restriction of the entire pandemic. And now cases are dropping she will claim it’s cause she capped outdoor events at 500 lol when it made fuck all difference. 
 

I think England making it through all of winter with no restrictions will be huge for the future and peoples morale 

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Disagree - mass working from home is very bad for the economy. 
 

A few behavioural things I’ve noticed:

 

- In London at least, people spend £6-£10 every day on lunch when they’re in the office. Only a few people are organised enough to meal prep and bring their own lunch, so Pret and their peers make an absolute killing from office workers. People working from home don’t tend to nip out to Pret at lunch time though, they’ll just go to the kitchen and cook something. Economy loses out.

 

- People aren’t going to pubs in the evening with their colleagues. Economy loses out.

 

- People aren’t meeting up with friends who work near them. I live out in Essex and most of my friends live in various Home Counties around London, we often go for drinks in the evenings after we all leave our respective offices in the city at 5pm. With everything working from home, these rendezvous just aren’t happening at all. Economy loses out. 

I don't disagree but people on the whole weren't going back into the office all the time when the WFH rules were dropped in the first place. Most people were doing 1-3 days a week. Because people were in different times that led to less socialising anyway.

I'm not saying the WFH guidance doesn't damage the economy a bit, obviously it does for all the reasons you point out. I'm just saying those reasons make up a very, very small bit of the economy, or even the hospitality sector. It's city centre pubs and Prets basically. "We need to drop the WFH guidance to help city centre pubs and Prets" is a fair enough approach. But it's not going to be the massive shot in the arm for the economy the government seems to think it will be. Especially in dry/vegan/no fun/ January or whatever.

[zahidf]

16 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I don't disagree but people on the whole weren't going back into the office all the time when the WFH rules were dropped in the first place. Most people were doing 1-3 days a week. Because people were in different times that led to less socialising anyway.

I'm not saying the WFH guidance doesn't damage the economy a bit, obviously it does for all the reasons you point out. I'm just saying those reasons make up a very, very small bit of the economy, or even the hospitality sector. It's city centre pubs and Prets basically. "We need to drop the WFH guidance to help city centre pubs and Prets" is a fair enough approach. But it's not going to be the massive shot in the arm for the economy the government seems to think it will be. Especially in dry/vegan/no fun/ January or whatever.

Itd be changed for Feb though, not for Jan

[hodgey123]

Does anyone know the likelihood of Drakeford relaxing the Welsh restrictions in any meaningful way over the next few weeks? I have tickets to the darts in Cardiff on 3 February but think that is looking very unlikely at the moment.

[zero000]

2 minutes ago, hodgey123 said:

Does anyone know the likelihood of Drakeford relaxing the Welsh restrictions in any meaningful way over the next few weeks? I have tickets to the darts in Cardiff on 3 February but think that is looking very unlikely at the moment.

It will be tight. Drakeford said that they weren’t anticipating changing the rules until they reached the peak and cases were dropping. Which they were anticipating would be around a week and half’s time. Might change sooner but the Welsh government have been very sluggish at dropping restrictions. 

[Fuzzy Afro]

1 hour ago, DeanoL said:

I don't disagree but people on the whole weren't going back into the office all the time when the WFH rules were dropped in the first place. Most people were doing 1-3 days a week. Because people were in different times that led to less socialising anyway.

I'm not saying the WFH guidance doesn't damage the economy a bit, obviously it does for all the reasons you point out. I'm just saying those reasons make up a very, very small bit of the economy, or even the hospitality sector. It's city centre pubs and Prets basically. "We need to drop the WFH guidance to help city centre pubs and Prets" is a fair enough approach. But it's not going to be the massive shot in the arm for the economy the government seems to think it will be. Especially in dry/vegan/no fun/ January or whatever.

This is another point I disagree on. Hybrid working in practice has meant the city of London being an absolute ghost town Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with most people choosing to attend their offices on Thursdays and/or Tuesdays.

 

This will probably correct itself in time when companies downsize and adopt hot desking, necessitating a rota system on what days people go to the office. 

[TheSheriff]

1 hour ago, hodgey123 said:

Does anyone know the likelihood of Drakeford relaxing the Welsh restrictions in any meaningful way over the next few weeks? I have tickets to the darts in Cardiff on 3 February but think that is looking very unlikely at the moment.

Last Friday he said that he didn’t anticipate changing anything for at least a fortnight when he expected the peak to be over. You could argue we are over the peak. I expect he’ll be sluggish to release restrictions sorry “protections”

[zahidf]

AND HES STILL THERE

 

At the time of the Downing Street party, the Welsh first minster, Mark Drakeford, was living in a hut in the bottom of his garden to protect shielding relatives, Welsh Labour has pointed out

[efcfanwirral]

 

If they extend them in the near future, it's hard to imagine they'll go away at all 

[fraybentos1]

5 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

 

If they extend them in the near future, it's hard to imagine they'll go away at all 

I don’t agree with them (mainly cause I don’t see any evidence they work) but I highly doubt they’ll be around in a few years. Also nowhere really checks them now as it is. One time I’ve had mine checked that’s it.

[zahidf]

2 hours ago, hodgey123 said:

Does anyone know the likelihood of Drakeford relaxing the Welsh restrictions in any meaningful way over the next few weeks? I have tickets to the darts in Cardiff on 3 February but think that is looking very unlikely at the moment.

he Welsh first minister, Mark Drakeford, is resisting pressure for large crowds to be allowed back into football and rugby grounds.

Drakeford’s Labour government has been criticised for its restrictions, which include a limit of 50 people meeting at an outdoor event.

At first minister’s questions, the Tory leader, Andrew RT Davies, said Wales had become an “outlier” by maintaining such restrictions and called for a clear roadmap out.

Drakeford said that Wales remained “in the teeth of the Omicron storm”, adding:

We have the latest modelling - it shows that the peak of the on wave is yet to be reached in Wales, we may be 10 days away form the peak. Every week we take advice from the chief medical officer and others. When they tell us it is safe to lift restrictions, we are eager to do that. We are not in that situation yet.

[efcfanwirral]

17 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

I don’t agree with them (mainly cause I don’t see any evidence they work) but I highly doubt they’ll be around in a few years. Also nowhere really checks them now as it is. One time I’ve had mine checked that’s it.

Will be a nightmare for pubs if they're expected to

[fraybentos1]

21 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

Will be a nightmare for pubs if they're expected to

Yeah there’s no chance pubs would do it imo. I’ve had it checked at one small gig venue and that’s it. Football games it isn’t checked 

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, efcfanwirral said:

 

If they extend them in the near future, it's hard to imagine they'll go away at all 

At this point it's health theatre, and we can all point and laugh at that and say "it's so stupid, I wouldn't fall for that" but the flip side of it is the stark reality that: it works. It's how you make people feel comfortable getting back to normal.

37 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

Will be a nightmare for pubs if they're expected to

The same pubs that, when cases were up but there were no restrictions in December, were complaining that their numbers were down? I'm convinced with Omicron the pandemic is essentially over, but convincing people of that, after so many false starts, will be challenging. Especially as the whole "freedom day" thing is something you only get to do once. Confidence this time is going to return more slowly.

[balthazarstarbuck]

3 hours ago, hodgey123 said:

Does anyone know the likelihood of Drakeford relaxing the Welsh restrictions in any meaningful way over the next few weeks? I have tickets to the darts in Cardiff on 3 February but think that is looking very unlikely at the moment.

I’d say a combination of Sturgeon relenting and the 6 nations starting in 3 and a half weeks makes it unlikely the restrictions will make it to February.

1 hour ago, efcfanwirral said:

 

If they extend them in the near future, it's hard to imagine they'll go away at all 

No chance. It’s totally performative. Ive never once had my qr code scanned, and I’ve been to plenty of places that “require” them. I could have shown them a Ryanair ticket and they’d have waved it through.

[efcfanwirral]

5 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

At this point it's health theatre, and we can all point and laugh at that and say "it's so stupid, I wouldn't fall for that" but the flip side of it is the stark reality that: it works. It's how you make people feel comfortable getting back to normal.

The same pubs that, when cases were up but there were no restrictions in December, were complaining that their numbers were down? I'm convinced with Omicron the pandemic is essentially over, but convincing people of that, after so many false starts, will be challenging. Especially as the whole "freedom day" thing is something you only get to do once. Confidence this time is going to return more slowly.

Guess its a gamble that there are more people who currently are too scared to do things and would feel safer going out if everyone was vaccinated vs those who wouldn't go to those places if it was asked for. I think the former will just about outweigh the latter but I'm not sure it'll be a big boom for business. Maybe just about even

Edited January 11, 2022 by efcfanwirral

[JoeyT]

 

[hodgey123]

2 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Oh my....

Last Tuesday artificially high as following a bank holiday.