Lockdown? Bah Humbug!!

[tomskip]

Frankito Wrote:

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> Crystal Palace...

So very witty and so helpful.

[ianr]

tomskip Wrote:

> Frankito Wrote:

> ----------------

>> Crystal Palace...

> So very witty and so helpful.

Certainly doesn't score high on any co-operative principle rating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle

[Frankito]

I didn?t realise we were all being rated.... Perhaps you?d like to share your ratings...

ianr Wrote:

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> tomskip Wrote:

> > Frankito Wrote:

> > ----------------

> >> Crystal Palace...

>

> > So very witty and so helpful.

>

> Certainly doesn't score high on any co-operative

> principle rating.

> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principl

> e

[Penguin68]

You seem to envisage some kind of step function relating time spent talking together and infection risk.

As do 'the scientists'. The longer you are in contact with someone who is infected, the higher the chance that they will pass the infection to you - talking with someone means that you and they are breathing at each other - and probably not maintaining a 2 metre gap. If you are inside the risk is increased, if you are both wearing masks decreased. The rule of thumb is that conversations of under 10 minutes duration have an acceptable risk, over, less so.

If your contact is outside then the risk is much reduced, as the virus intensity will be dissipated - that is why we are encouraged to keep windows open if meeting people inside, to mimic external conditions (air conditioning actually makes things worse, however). In the summer, sunlight also acts to attenuate the viral effect.

[jimlad48]

We could just pause a moment and go - this is a bug with a roughly 99.96% survival rate, that is unpleasant but which like many other bugs causes harm.

There is nothing wrong with exercising a little bit of common sense, but we've lost it completely over COVID. We're running scared, and we're destroying our economy and society for something that will have negigible if any impact on the overwhelming number of people it touches. The actual number of people dying only from COVID is tiny and if you look closely at the DH announcements, its clear usually almost all of those who die had significant pre-existing health conditions - COVID was merely one other thing.

Some people will always be at risk of something - I'm sorry, but thats the reality of the world we live in. I'm afraid we need to get on with life, not live scared of something that for most of us is harmless.

If you feel this is grim, then I'd point out we do this every year by imposing a risk based decision on all manner of illnesses and viruses, and the population at risk from them. We accept annual fatalities every year from flu, pneumonia and other illnesses, yet accept this as part of life. COVID isn't nice, but its no reason to destroy our economy and way of life. We need to get on with life, not live in fear.

This Spectator blog sums up how I feel - traffic lanes, not traffic lights. Let people choose themselves what they want to do, and let them live their lives appropriately. https://unherd.com/2020/11/the-covid-tiers-cant-go-soon-enough/

Having spoken to plenty of people recently, all of whom myself included have followed the rules, there is growing fatigue among many about the draining impact of these regulations that make seemingly little difference. We're tired of ever changing goalposts, of not being able to see people inside, of elderly relatives who are dying in distress and loneliness because to 'protect them' we've been forced to abandon them.

The utter inhumanity and pure evil of some of what is being done here appals me. We're taking decisions on the basis that we must only protect life, without asking those at risk what they want - hearing stories of friends whose grandparents are confused and feel they've been abandoned and don't understand why they cannot be visited is heartbreaking.

[Nigello]

There were about nine or so families on Friday morning (young, wealthy-looking) in the Dulwich playpark despite there being signs saying it was closed. It is ironic because they look precisely the type to get their kiddies to draw rainbows to hang in their front windows and to clap for the NHS. I left a message for the parky (who has a much more elevated title)!

[Nigello]

I agree with some thigns you say but point out that is the corollary of unchecked Covid - the impact on the NHS and other public services - that is driving the shutdown.

An answer would be for everyone (pro or anti) to write to their MP asking that taxes and NI be raised to fund a better-equipped and resourced NHS.

I'll hold your beer....

[jimlad48]

Its all well and good saying we need to pay more taxes for COVID, but where is the tax revenue coming from? I took flak for this on this very forum back in April making this point.

We can lock down for as long as we like, but if we destroy private industry in the process, we won't have the means to fund an NHS that we want in the medium term. Private industry needs to be given as much ability as possible to work, because without it, the tax revenues won't exist.

[Penguin68]

its clear usually almost all of those who die had significant pre-existing health conditions

But you must note that many of those 're-existing conditions' were not in themselves imminently, or at all, life threatening. People can live many years with diabetes, or high blood pressure, or with asthma; and many other conditions, even where eventually fatal, could still have been 'lived with' for many years. Indeed there are few people over 70 (I'm one) who do not have 'pre-existing conditions' - and still will happily live (fingers crossed!) for a further 10 or 15 years.

Some are using the pre-existing conditions mantra as a get out of jail free card - but it's not. The trick is to look at excess deaths over 'average' - and these are a clear and positive number.

Current stats for excess death https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surveillance/excess-mortality-in-england-latest.html

[Sidll1]

I don?t know what you think you are doing on this forum jimlad48. There?s never previously been a place for reasoned, well set out arguments on here.

[JohnL]

jimlad48 Wrote:

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> Its all well and good saying we need to pay more

> taxes for COVID, but where is the tax revenue

> coming from? I took flak for this on this very

> forum back in April making this point.

>

> We can lock down for as long as we like, but if we

> destroy private industry in the process, we won't

> have the means to fund an NHS that we want in the

> medium term. Private industry needs to be given as

> much ability as possible to work, because without

> it, the tax revenues won't exist.

Silicon Valley and it's high tech mates as well as companies like Peloton are doing very well thank you.

We all use them rather than walking to Top Shop to buy a hat but how do you tax them

Oh yes - and many of us can work from home because work has been shifted from workplaces to places like Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure.

[jimlad48]

So in other words you think we can tax the living daylights out of the online high street and thats all thats needed? Thats a very 'optimistic' approach that will end in tears.

If you want a world class NHS then you need to open the economy up - every day you delay is making it harder and harder to recover from this self-inflicted disaster.

[JohnL]

jimlad48 Wrote:

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> So in other words you think we can tax the living

> daylights out of the online high street and thats

> all thats needed? Thats a very 'optimistic'

> approach that will end in tears.

>

> If you want a world class NHS then you need to

> open the economy up - every day you delay is

> making it harder and harder to recover from this

> self-inflicted disaster.

I'm not supplying answers - just suggesting that things have changed and they won't change back.

Our IT teams spent the last few years moving things to the cloud - it was just coincidence that just as we got to the point we could work remotely we had to work remotely. I assume (as is usually the case) other companies are doing exactly the same (by the way this isn't brilliant for me as a legacy network guy - but I'll be retired in 10 years)

[JohnL]

Telecoms, call centers - 3 years ago the managers of these were saying how do you move to the cloud -now that's all been done.

Companies save on corporate rental - they didn't think about the support industries like hospitality.

[Penguin68]

Companies save on corporate rental - they didn't think about the support industries like hospitality.

I think that you'll find, over time, that this sorts itself out (there will certainly be casualties and hardship before it does) - hospitality will realign to where workers now are - that may mean more distributed sites (and more distribution, come to that) - but e.g. in ED lunchtime trade may move (grow) from yummie mummies to home-office workers. And rather than grabbing a drink in town before coming home, now it'll be drinks locally. And possibly starting earlier/ going on later as commuting time becomes drinking time.

As I said, there will be casualties, but the model will eventually just be seen as flexing. You may even get more inner city living, and not just working, as office blocks get changed to high(er)-end apartments.

Short-term it won't be nice - long(er) term it could get better.

[JohnL]

Yes - you can guess I hate it - but I hated it when servers stopped being located in a back room of every office in the early 2000s :)

[gabys1st]

elpais.com/society/2020-10-28/a-room-a-bar-and-a-class-how-the-coronavirus-is-spread-through-the-air.html?ssm=FB_CC

Duggest tht those non mask wearers shd take a look at above...it has illustrations so shd beeasy to understand!!!!

[Dogkennelhillbilly]

Nigello Wrote:

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> There were about nine or so families on Friday

> morning (young, wealthy-looking) in the Dulwich

> playpark despite there being signs saying it was

> closed. It is ironic because they look precisely

> the type to get their kiddies to draw rainbows to

> hang in their front windows and to clap for the

> NHS. I left a message for the parky (who has a

> much more elevated title)!

I don't think the playparks are closed. The stickers on the gate (if that's what you mean) have been up (and not taken down) since the first lockdown. Did the parkie reply saying the playpark WAS supposed to be closed?

[Blah Blah]

Jimlad, you just don't understand what the problem really is do you? We have 9 million people over the age of 70 in the UK. 1 in 20 of those who get covid, die (according to available data so far). Now let's see how that scales up to half that age group getting infected. That is potentially at least 400k deaths. Now add the many more that need ICU treatment but recover. We do not have that NHS capacity....nothing like it. No country in the world does. THAT is why most of it have shut down their economies.

If you really think governments willingly trash their economies then you must live in an alternate universe. Stop looking at the numbers of death as they are, because they have been kept down by the restrictions and ask yourself how much higher you would be prepared to see them go so that you can have less restrictions. When you have decided what your personal limit is, come back to me and we can discuss how palatable that would be to both the public and a government who will seek re-election in four years time.

[DuncanW]

The ones at Peckham Rye and Goose Green are definitely open.

I would have thought that was a Southwark wide (at least) directive.

[Blah Blah]

jimlad48 Wrote:

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> So in other words you think we can tax the living

> daylights out of the online high street and thats

> all thats needed? Thats a very 'optimistic'

> approach that will end in tears.

>

> If you want a world class NHS then you need to

> open the economy up - every day you delay is

> making it harder and harder to recover from this

> self-inflicted disaster.

Taxes have been arguably too low for some time. You can't have good public services and ever falling taxes. At the same time, the wage gap has been increasing. The top ten percent are responsible for more than half the income tax receipts collected.

As for the NHS, we spend less on universal healthcare than most other countries in Europe but get extremely good value from it.