Coronavirus COVID-19 Thread

Aramsolari

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UK numbers from today Saturday 23rd of May:

Total cases 257,154 with 2,959 new, total dead 36,675 with 282 new.

Todays status is bought to us by the UK Prime Ministers chief advisor Dominic Cummings (mastermind of the successful Brexit vote), who decided to take a 260 mile journey while under lockdown, with virus symptoms, his wife who also had symptoms, and their child to live with family in Durham, mere days after Boris Johnson fell victim to the pathogen:
Rules for thee, but not for me.
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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Rules for thee, but not for me.
Some reports indicate he broke three of the rules:
- Leaving the house while symptomatic.
- Traveling, and staying overnight elsewhere.
- Having a person (his kid) go from one household to another. (This one is perhaps understandable if it were not for that household being 260 miles away)

The thing that's cutting through the usual "for fuch sake this again?" desensitized apathy for me is seeing the real world pain this is giving people who have observed the lockdown in the most extreme of circumstances reaction to this news.

I'm seeing people on my facebook saying they could not be at a loved ones side as they lay dying in hospital, going to a funeral only ten other people were permitted to attend and look at the coffin knowing they could not be there as they died alone and now also knowing all the people who dearly wanted to be there at the service but were not allowed were also in their own way suffering too, with no wake, and no contact even between the attendees.

And the only thing that gave them strength through it all was knowing that, even in those most extreme of circumstances, they were doing the right thing by complying by the rules of Lockdown, that the deceased would be proud of them knowing that they had helped to control the spread of the virus that had claimed them before their time.

Then you get "Cumbag" as I have seen one person now refer to him, state that his actions were "reasonable and legal" and government ministers saying "caring for your wife and child is not a crime".

Caring for someone close isn't a crime, no, but it is a thing many have been denied in lockdown under threats of substantial fines which, basically, does make it a crime, and in circumstances a lot more extreme than those highlighted as reason to travel 260 miles while ill with the contagion.

From where I am sitting there is little doubt taking the line of "caring isn't a crime" has seriously undermined their authority to ask for cooperation with restrictions, as there are so many cases people would view as having been more extreme, which would have justified their breaking the rules, such as their loved ones dying alone. After all, caring for them is not a crime, is it?
 
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Jolly_Green_Giant

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6 Days ago:




Last night:


 

Montoya

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At this point we have all the information and all the evidence we need based off other countries and their experience.

If after all that you want to go to a block party, or attend your mega-church service on Sunday, go for it.

Maybe you will be fine, maybe you infect your parents and they die, your choice, go roll the dice.
 

Montoya

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1590341297452.png


I remember explaining to my small child that the stove is hot and he should not touch it. Parents of toddlers know how this works.

You can warn them 1000 times, but some lessons are only learned through actual experience.
 

Jolly_Green_Giant

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Moving forward I believe this is the job for society and not the government, the path may be unclear but I think its the starting point. Most know what to do as far as social distancing goes and allowing the government to enforce "guidelines" is just a waste of resources. Its up to us as a community to tell people to wear a mask, or stay the fuck away from me or just for us to stay away from the places that have been locked down until you feel its safe to go out. Just like people are shunned in certain societies for doing things, I think over time we will build our new norms to adapt to the new world we live in. In the video i posted recently they brought up the point that everyone on the news, be it doctors, virologists, politicians, etc... all have jobs. They have been relatively unaffected and its hard for those who's livelihoods have been absolutely fucked to listen to them, especially when it seems there's still so much up for debate. I like to believe most people who are advocating for reopening and the like are absolutely willing to follow most guidelines so long as they can get their life back. I will never fault anyone who has an honest reason to be concerned for their livelihoods and on the other end I will never fault anyone for being concerned for their safety and that of others.

You wont see me or anyone else I know going to a block party. I would call my friends idiots if they told me they were going. They still want to go? Fine, but I'm not there and I did my part. Do I want the police to go in and break them up and arrest people? Only if they are doing something that would have been illegal before COVID 19 guidelines were put on the books and within reason of the state or national emergency powers. I saw a video of a police camera posted outside a gym taking pictures of everyone who went in or out and the gym was required to take the names down of everyone entering and exiting the premise. I'm not sure if I remember this correctly but I think It was the same gym that had a paper on the door from the police saying anyone using the gym is subject to arrest. Do I understand why theyre doing this? Of course, its a great idea for contract tracing. It's also something out of a dystopian novel.
 
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Montoya

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Moving forward I believe this is the job for society and not the government
Man is smart, people are stupid.

I have faith that society can make the right decisions for themselves if they are presented with the correct information and they are willing to act upon said information.

Unfortunately, when you see flat earth groups on facebook growing every day, when you see anti-vax groups protesting, when you see Q-anon insisting this is all a plot by Bill Gates, well, I have less faith in society to do the right thing.

I'm not sure if I remember this correctly but I think It was the same gym that had a paper on the door from the police saying anyone using the gym is subject to arrest. Do I understand why theyre doing this? Of course, its a great idea for contract tracing. It's also something out of a dystopian novel.
Its an interesting discussion for sure.

What lengths should a government go to in order to protect the lives of its citizens.

If people attending a block party can be traced to three deaths two weeks later. What lengths should the government take to save the lives of three more people?

What is the magic number? 3? 5? 10? 50? At what point do authorities step in and say you need to stop doing this thing that ends up killing others?
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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UK numbers for today Sunday 24th of May.

Total confirmed 259,559 with 2,409 new, total dead 36,793 with 118 new (in all settings including hospitals, but hospitals had 171... there'll be some repositioning of the numbers or some such nonsense)

Chartorama24-05-20.jpg


The current status comes to us off the back of the government announcing at 5pm that we've all been doing lockdown and quarantine wrong, in that when falling will with symptoms one is not to stay home and quarantine in place for 14 days as previously thought, one is to drive almost the entire length of the country and serve out ones illness wherever the hell one feels they are going to get the best child care (other options were available locally) because that is totally legal and not at all likely to spread the virus across the country:


Good to know, i'll amend my plans for when/if I fall ill, after all looking after ones wife and child (and ones self) is not a crime.

The Status Outlook is a cautionary tale:
If one swears ones foot size is in direct relation to the size of ones manhood, and wears clown shoes to make it seem as proof that they have a big willy, one had better learn how to throw a custard pie and use a squirty flower for if those versed in the ways of the clown catch on he is not one of them, woe will betide a man trying to run for his life in clowns shoes who is not a clown or doth not have huge feet befitting the footware.
 
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Radegast74

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I remember explaining to my small child that the stove is hot and he should not touch it. Parents of toddlers know how this works.

You can warn them 1000 times, but some lessons are only learned through actual experience.
The big problem with the virus is "faulty learning"....this really hits humans where we are weakest:

If you touch a hot stove, or you stick your finger in a light socket, you get *instantaneous* feedback, and you LEARN that you should NOT do that.

With the virus, if you go out...nothing happens immediately. So you think you are ok, you go out more and more and more...you "learn" to ignore it... and *if* you happen to get it, you don't find out for another 5-7 days.

(A big problem is that, with a most people observing social/physical restrictions, it makes it less likely people will come into contact with the virus and contract it...so far. If a lot of people contract it as they increase social & physical contact, we may see an increase in cases...I hope we don't but this seems to make it more likely).
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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Office Of National Statistics graph for deaths over average up to 8th of May (it takes time to register so more recent numbers would be inaccurate in the extreme):

1590388507749.png


Two things to point about about death numbers above: It's only England and Wales, so misses out 50% of the Union, and also being the number of people who have passed away, it doesn't give any indication as to the scope of the contagion - if the hospitals are getting better at treating and keeping victims alive, or if there is a natural remedy out in the wilderness (I dunno, like Crumpets and Tea for instance) it still doesn't give an indication as to whats actually going on with the contagion, where its hot-spots are, what it's actually doing in the general population and where mutations - both good in that it could evolve out of eating lungs, or bad in that it could become even more fatal - are likely to occur.

1590388832044.png


Again the above chart is minus 50% of the Union, however looking at the below average trend before the pandemic took hold, it appears the greater level of testing may have had a positive effect in being able to determine if a fatality outside of a hospital was COVID related.

For lots more interesting figures, please see: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/latest
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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Scientists advise government position on lockdown breaches by senior officials has "Fatally undermined" efforts to contain the pandemic in the UK:


Scientist says 'debacle' over Cummings has 'fatally undermined' efforts to fight coronavirus.
A member of the government’s advisory group on behavioural science has said the “debacle” over Dominic Cummings has “fatally undermined” efforts to fight coronavirus.

Prof Stephen Reicher told Good Morning Britain:

"If you look at the research it shows the reason why people observed lockdown was not for themselves, it wasn’t because they were personally at risk, they did it for the community, they did it because of a sense of ‘we’re all in this together’.

If you give the impression there’s one rule for them and one rule for us you fatally undermine that sense of ‘we’re all in this together’ and you undermine adherence to the forms of behaviour which have got us through this crisis."
 

Bambooza

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Man is smart, people are stupid.

I have faith that society can make the right decisions for themselves if they are presented with the correct information and they are willing to act upon said information.

Unfortunately, when you see flat earth groups on facebook growing every day, when you see anti-vax groups protesting, when you see Q-anon insisting this is all a plot by Bill Gates, well, I have less faith in society to do the right thing.



Its an interesting discussion for sure.

What lengths should a government go to in order to protect the lives of its citizens.

If people attending a block party can be traced to three deaths two weeks later. What lengths should the government take to save the lives of three more people?

What is the magic number? 3? 5? 10? 50? At what point do authorities step in and say you need to stop doing this thing that ends up killing others?

It is an interesting question. It can also be asked if we do too much to try and protect everyone instead of allowing nature to prune the branches.

The other thing to remember is the medical and scientific community has made a lot of bad calls over the past few months as well, most notably WHO saying it was not human transferable as late as Jan 20th, and then masks are useless. That standard incubation practice of critically ill patients does more harm than good. This is not to say these things do not get corrected just it's hard to justify government policies based upon unproven hypotheses. It's still uncertain if the shutdown has achieved anything over doing nothing or if a less aggressive response would have been far more effective.

I just hope going forward we take this as a great learning moment and implement a better response as we had opportunities in the past with MAR's, SAR's, and Swine flu.
 
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Jolly_Green_Giant

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You bring up excellent points montoya.


At what point do authorities step in and say you need to stop doing this thing that ends up killing others?

The question of the millennium. Morals, ethics, individual values, cultural beliefs, governance, education... all come into play with this question. It's a question that has probably been asked since the dawn of civilization and will continue to be asked well beyond our lifetimes. It's a question that has to be answered by those in power unfortunately, and this is where you would hope everyone has equal representation. To one extreme, you have the waco siege where the government waaaay overstepped their authority, massacring innocent lives because some bad actors at the ranch were putting peoples lives at risk. The FBI / ATF killed 76 people, 25 of which were children, I think most of them burned to death. Maybe their intent was good, as to protect society from the bad actors at the ranch, but look at the cost. Then on the other end you have Jonestown. Stupid people believing stupid things but they all agreed as a collective to do the stupid shit, which resulted in the deaths of over 900 people, no government intervention from what I understand. Maybe I'm comparing apples to oranges but I think you get what I'm saying.

There is no magic number, it will never be that simple but I do understand what you're saying. Thinking about this question just opens up a huge rabbit hole, to the point I'm sure you could have a few college lectures / discussions on it.

Remember, our actions now set a precedent for our country until it meets its end. We may have a lot of people die now, but who knows if our actions will end up killing more in the future. Is that even a good way to look at it? Do people really even care anymore about the future of our country decades and centuries to come?

A really simple question to ask if you wanted to get people thinking would be this: How much power are you willing to hand over to Donald Trump?
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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The press conference for one of the Prime Ministers top aides who drove 260 miles while transporting someone with symptoms and likely asymptomatic themselves has concluded with an account of their reasoning for breaking several of the lockdown restrictions they themselves helped to draw up, and that because they had a child, it was okay to do in that specific situation.

They did sympathize for people who may feel outrage about this, however didn't apologize, indicating in cases such as this it is down to parental judgement as to how they conducted themselves and that, with their reasoning laid out, they hoped that people would understand.

I feel sympathy for the position he found himself in, however I feel sympathy and respect for the tens of thousands of others in the UK who found themselves in similar or even the same position and managed to conduct themselves without breaking any restrictions.

He also pointed out at the time he and Boris Johnson fell ill, there was no testing in the team to confirm if they had the virus and I find it incredible that the people at the head of the nations response to the Corona Virus were not considered to be Key Workers who would be tested regularly to ensure they were not subject to the contagion and passing it around others who are pivotal to the countries response to the crisis.

As such, with the national response team failing to even conduct it's own operations in a defensive way, I feel there is little point in continuing to track virus numbers for the UK so will conclude here.

Good night, and good luck.
 

Montoya

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A really simple question to ask if you wanted to get people thinking would be this: How much power are you willing to hand over to Donald Trump?
The only reason we are even having this discussion is that one party decided to fan the flames that being anti-government is the truly American thing to do.

It could have very easily gone the other way if Trump wanted it to.

A simple red MAGA mask, or an American flag mask being sold for $10 and all funds raised going to towards disabled veterans. There as so many ways this could have been spun to make it a matter of national pride to protect one another.
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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Notable COVID occurrences in the UK today:

Scientist says Sport and other large gathering lockdowns occurred too late to save lives:


Remdesvir OK'd for use in UK while trials continue, effectiveness is still pegged at reducing illness by around four days:


Because the PM's chief adviser has not quit, another MP has. He's still an MP but has walked away from his cabinet position:

"While the intentions may have been well meaning, the reaction to this news shows that Mr Cummings interpretation of the government advice was not shared by the vast majority of people who have done as the government asked."

"I have constituents who didn't get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didn't visit sick relatives because they followed the guidance of the government."

"I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the government was right."

 
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Jolly_Green_Giant

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The only reason we are even having this discussion is that one party decided to fan the flames that being anti-government is the truly American thing to do.

It could have very easily gone the other way if Trump wanted it to.

A simple red MAGA mask, or an American flag mask being sold for $10 and all funds raised going to towards disabled veterans. There as so many ways this could have been spun to make it a matter of national pride to protect one another.
Yeah! Those stupid republicans!

A simple hammer and sickle tote bag full of tyrany could be given out for free compliments of Nancy Pelosi. Theres so many ways this could have been spun to make it about FREEDOM.

I hope you god damn commies get an ankle bracelet and a vaccine full of mind control serum in that tote bag as well.

Your opinions are stupid montoya.



EDIT: /s
 
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