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Coronavirus Discussion Thread


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David Hunter (If we follow Boris Johnson’s advice, coronavirus will spread, 11 May) highlights the danger of a partial return to work before a programme of “test, trace, isolate” is in place. He rightly identifies the government’s decision not to tap into unused capacity in local councils but fails to examine why. They have established a parallel central system which bypasses local public health, local councils and GPs. Testing centres (which are often difficult to access), three super-labs (still experiencing “teething problems”) and a contact tracing app of doubtful efficacy are all divorced from local control.

 

Control – and, presumably, a lot of public money – has been handed to Deloitte and private outsourcing companies with dubious records. An ideological commitment to private rather than public services is the real story behind the failure to institute an effective “test, trace, isolate” programme. The government must account for this misuse of public money when experienced public health capacity goes unused.

Professor Emeritus Nick Spencer

Leamington Spa, Warwickshire

 

• In support of the call to put openness at the very heart of the government’s Covid-19 response (Transparency is key in a crisis – so why isn’t the British government being straight with us?, 13 May), and in light of the earlier award of a £133m contract to produce testing kits to a commercial company without any competitive bidding process, can someone tell me how much the British taxpayer is paying Boots to set up and resource new drive-through testing stations for the virus?

An advert on the company’s website said it was looking for 1,000 current staff and volunteers to work at least 32 hours a week as Covid-19 swab testers across the UK. Local recruitment websites are also now carrying ads for volunteers for this scheme. But unless Boots is offering its services to the government for free, how can it be expecting anyone to do such vital work without being paid for it? And will the Boots UK CEO, Sebastian James (a former Bullingdon Club member alongside Boris Johnson), be volunteering on the frontline?

 

Instead of working with private companies that appear willing to use volunteers for profit, the government should be expanding the UK’s testing and tracing capacity by recruiting thousands of people through the NHS and local health authorities. And they should be paid a proper salary.

Dr Ian Davis

Gairloch, Wester Ross

 

From the Guardian today.

Edited by East Kent Saint
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I do wonder how labour would have handled this. The media should be absolutely ashamed of themselves they way they've carried on.

 

They are in Wales and it's been a bit of a mess. Lots of political point scoring but the other parties would have been the same if not worse.

 

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

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They are in Wales and it's been a bit of a mess. Lots of political point scoring but the other parties would have been the same if not worse.

 

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

They are in Wales and it's been a bit of a mess.

 

Bit of a mess is an understatement. I was reading today that test results take a day longer in Wales because the Labour Government refuse to use an English lab. They’ve set a target of 9,000 tests a day, but are averaging 700.

 

They advised people in North Wales to call 111, despite the fact no such service exists in north wales .

 

Sir Starmer & his cronies in the press have been critical of PHE sending people to care homes without testing, yet in Wales labour only stopped doing this on April 23rd. Even now, only people in care homes of over 50 are being tested.

 

Of course not a peep from Sir Starmer over this.

 

 

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Devolved parts of the UK , like local authorities, have the responsibility without the budget . An easy target if the Govt. want to deflect criticism.

Labour ‘playing politics’ said Boris !!!

 

Also Nice to see Tories are really worrying about disadvantaged children’s education so the schools/childminders must open on 1st June !

 

And now Williamson , poor poor children really must go back to school sob sob . Tell people what safety measures you are carrying out and when your 5 targets are met then talk about opening schools to the rest of the population.

Edited by East Kent Saint
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I am not happy to see us starting to remove parts of the lockdown. Easing restrictions for me will allow a huge influx of people flouting the rules. I really am not comfortable with the way we are easing restrictions before the death rate and contagious levels fall further.

Today on the news we have already seen people travelling to beauty spots etc and mixing with others. It takes just one person to have the virus to kick start an increase in corvid 19 contagions

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Bit of a mess is an understatement. I was reading today that test results take a day longer in Wales because the Labour Government refuse to use an English lab. They’ve set a target of 9,000 tests a day, but are averaging 700.

 

They advised people in North Wales to call 111, despite the fact no such service exists in north wales .

 

Sir Starmer & his cronies in the press have been critical of PHE sending people to care homes without testing, yet in Wales labour only stopped doing this on April 23rd. Even now, only people in care homes of over 50 are being tested.

 

Of course not a peep from Sir Starmer over this.

 

 

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What is all this Starmer bashing all about? He's not managing the crisis. Boris is, apparently, albeit he's had a nightmare.

 

Starmer is right to criticise the sending of people to care homes without testing. Do you not agree with him?

 

Why would Starmer express any opinion about decisions taken by any of the 3 nations under devolved powers? That's a matter for the opposition in those 3 nations. Quite rightly he's spending his time exposing Boris's numerous errors.

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I am not happy to see us starting to remove parts of the lockdown. Easing restrictions for me will allow a huge influx of people flouting the rules. I really am not comfortable with the way we are easing restrictions before the death rate and contagious levels fall further.

Today on the news we have already seen people travelling to beauty spots etc and mixing with others. It takes just one person to have the virus to kick start an increase in corvid 19 contagions

 

Yep. But when you remove the words "stay at home", introduce a sign with chevrons pointing forward with green as the main colour, and then use the word "unlimited" re exercise and tell people they can drive wherever to do whatever, the results are inevitable.

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What is all this Starmer bashing all about? He's not managing the crisis. Boris is, apparently, albeit he's had a nightmare.

 

Starmer is right to criticise the sending of people to care homes without testing. Do you not agree with him?

 

Why would Starmer express any opinion about decisions taken by any of the 3 nations under devolved powers? That's a matter for the opposition in those 3 nations. Quite rightly he's spending his time exposing Boris's numerous errors.

 

Exactly. Even as a piece of whataboutery, it’s a pîss poor effort on lots of counts.

Edited by shurlock
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Exactly. Even as a piece of whataboutery, it’s a pîss poor effort on lots of counts.
Matt Hancock said they would recruit 18,000 by Mid-May. Well mid-May arrived and we've recruited only 1,500. Total, abject failure.

 

Of course, if this was happening in Wales Duckie would be absolutely hopping mad about, I tell you. Hopping mad.

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How many people under 60 with no underlying health conditions have died from covid19 in the U.K.? I believe you have more chance of dying from an unintentional injury / accident than corona virus. I wonder if people’s view on whether lockdown should be removed will change once the furlough scheme is removed

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We haven’t got a test , trace , isolate system in place yet so mass mixing will spark off a rapid spread of the virus. I agree if you are well any no one you know have the virus / died then you could wonder what all the fuss was about.

Relaxers say we are ok to make our own decisions but from what I have seen that’s not true . Tesco , Waitrose , Sainsbury’s all have systems ie clean trolleys, controlled numbers , a one way system and Controlled access to checkouts . I have been told that Aldi , Lidl and Morrison’s are a free for all , no distancing or control measures.

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How many people under 60 with no underlying health conditions have died from covid19 in the U.K.? I believe you have more chance of dying from an unintentional injury / accident than corona virus. I wonder if people’s view on whether lockdown should be removed will change once the furlough scheme is removed
This is a pointlessly tiresome but also incredibly c***ish question.

 

You do realise that "underlying health conditions" doesn't actually mean "would have died in Spring 2020 anyway".

 

People are still going to die from standing on a rake, or falling into a stream. This is utterly irrelevant to the topic of a global pandemic of a disease with no vaccine or treatment.

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We haven’t got a test , trace , isolate system in place yet so mass mixing will spark off a rapid spread of the virus. I agree if you are well any no one you know have the virus / died then you could wonder what all the fuss was about.

Relaxers say we are ok to make our own decisions but from what I have seen that’s not true . Tesco , Waitrose , Sainsbury’s all have systems ie clean trolleys, controlled numbers , a one way system and Controlled access to checkouts . I have been told that Aldi , Lidl and Morrison’s are a free for all , no distancing or control measures.

 

I no longer go to Tesco as so badly organised. Don’t have cause to go to Lidl much but they do have decent measures in place. M and S v good too.

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This is a pointlessly tiresome but also incredibly c***ish question.

 

You do realise that "underlying health conditions" doesn't actually mean "would have died in Spring 2020 anyway".

 

People are still going to die from standing on a rake, or falling into a stream. This is utterly irrelevant to the topic of a global pandemic of a disease with no vaccine or treatment.

 

It’s relevant when people’s businesses are going to the wall though. Altruism only goes so far.

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How many people under 60 with no underlying health conditions have died from covid19 in the U.K.? I believe you have more chance of dying from an unintentional injury / accident than corona virus. I wonder if people’s view on whether lockdown should be removed will change once the furlough scheme is removed

 

I'm guessing you've not lost any friends or family to covid yet, or even know of anyone who has really suffered from it. Come back and comment when it means something to you.

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This is a pointlessly tiresome but also incredibly c***ish question.

 

You do realise that "underlying health conditions" doesn't actually mean "would have died in Spring 2020 anyway".

 

People are still going to die from standing on a rake, or falling into a stream. This is utterly irrelevant to the topic of a global pandemic of a disease with no vaccine or treatment.

 

Given that millions have hypertension (considered a preexisting condition for covid-19), there's a misguided belief that only the very sickest or weakest have underlying health conditions. Only 34% of adults aged 20–79 years and 49% of adults aged 20–39 years in the UK are considered to have a normal blood pressure.

 

Or maybe they just think the great British public are like the extras in Sparta 300.

Edited by shurlock
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I'm guessing you've not lost any friends or family to covid yet, or even know of anyone who has really suffered from it. Come back and comment when it means something to you.

 

What’s your threshold for commenting. Does knowing someone with mild symptoms allow a comment, maybe they could be limited to number of words.

 

Knowing someone asymptomatic- 25 words

Mild symptoms-50 words

Severe symptoms- 100 words

 

Etc etc.

 

Presumably I’m allowed to comment, having lost someone, so I’ll answer the guys question. The ONS quote 92% of all victims had an underlying health condition, and they put up this on their website.

 

 

4ddf17a5ad1e0968a8d7bde5678e9cbb.jpg

 

 

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What’s your threshold for commenting. Does knowing someone with mild symptoms allow a comment, maybe they could be limited to number of words.

 

Knowing someone asymptomatic- 25 words

Mild symptoms-50 words

Severe symptoms- 100 words

 

Etc etc.

 

Presumably I’m allowed to comment, having lost someone, so I’ll answer the guys question. The ONS quote 92% of all victims had an underlying health condition, and they put up this on their website.

 

 

4ddf17a5ad1e0968a8d7bde5678e9cbb.jpg

 

 

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Behave Ducky. You're bright enough to understand my point and the context it was written. If not, the comment I replied to - (imo) sought to minimise the risk of covid. I don't agree with doing that. The government message has created a false sense of security that I disagree with.

 

Anyone who minimises the risk, imo, is either an idiot or has not experienced the pain covid can cause.

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Lots of self-righteous people, naysayers and doom-mongers on social media at the moment.

 

It helps nobody.

 

One mans realism is another mans doom mongering; one mans positivity is another mans naivety.

 

Imo thinking its OK to think things are OK, is what helps nobody.

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Not saying everything is ok. But we will come out of it.

 

Absolutely, but it'll take longer if people think its OK to live how they want. Speeding up will slow us down in the end.

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Absolutely, but it'll take longer if people think its OK to live how they want. Speeding up will slow us down in the end.

 

I haven’t said anything about breaking lockdown rules. The slight easing last week was ok in my opinion. As is the roadmap that is entirely conditional on the stats etc.

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I haven’t said anything about breaking lockdown rules. The slight easing last week was ok in my opinion. As is the roadmap that is entirely conditional on the stats etc.

I think the extent of the easing was a tad too much. The word "unlimited" re excersize was dangerous imo, as was going wherever to excersize. Some limit and restraint was needed. Whatever the extent of the relaxation, where I have an issue is the change of message from stay at home. Many have interpretated that as the end of lockdown, and for many people I've encountered, the end of social distancing. The message could have stayed the same, but with some sensible easing.

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It's facile to focus on the death rate as a sole, or maybe even principal, measure of whether to relax / tighten controls.

 

There seems to be growing evidence that the disease can cause long term lung and kidney damage: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52506669

 

On top of that, if it is running at high levels you will have a natural economic slow down as people stay at home, do less and take precautions (either through being too unwell to work and go out or in fear of infecting loved ones or themselves).

 

It's simple-minded to think of the economic impacts as being imposed solely by the government.

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I think the extent of the easing was a tad too much. The word "unlimited" re excersize was dangerous imo, as was going wherever to excersize. Some limit and restraint was needed. Whatever the extent of the relaxation, where I have an issue is the change of message from stay at home. Many have interpretated that as the end of lockdown, and for many people I've encountered, the end of social distancing. The message could have stayed the same, but with some sensible easing.

 

It is perfectly clear what the message is. It’s just people pretending they don’t understand it to either, moan about the Government, or do their own damn thing. If you gave people £100 to explain the new guidelines, 99.9% of the population would be able to. Only a half wit would think dropping the “stay at home” bit equates to ending lockdown, and anyone who thinks social distancing has ended, needs to be sectioned. They’re clearly incapable of understanding basic instructions. **** me, do we need to wet nurse everyone?

 

 

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Edited by Lord Duckhunter
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It is perfectly clear what the message is. It’s just people pretending they don’t understand it to either, moan about the Government, or do their own damn thing. If you gave people £100 to explain the new guidelines, 99.9% of the population would be able to. Only a half wit would think dropping the “stay at home” bit equates to ending lockdown, and anyone who thinks social distancing has ended, needs to be sectioned. They’re clearly incapable of understanding basic instructions. **** me, do we need to wet nurse everyone?

 

 

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I don't know if you exercise outside or shop in supermarkets, but if you did, you would realise that a hell a lot of people this last week are acting as if we're back to normal, no attempt to distance, shopping with kids running around, etc. That change has come since last weekend - I went to the same supermarket the same time last Sunday and today. The difference was night and day. If it's not the government message that's brought about that change, what has?

 

What was wrong with keeping the old message and relaxing the guidelines?

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Keep “stay at home”, even though you don’t want people to do so. Yeah, great plan. That won’t confuse people, will it?

 

 

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Errr, errr, where have I said I don't want people to stay at him? I've said that the stay at home message should remain as teh general message, but, that there should be a slight relaxing of the excersize rules. Until this week, the government message was once for an hour max, but the law was unlimited anyway. What, imo, was needed was an expansion of what the public believed the position to be to say twice per day up to a max of say 2 hours combined, meeting up to say 2 others (to Inc both parents) and drive say a max of 10 miles to exercise.

 

What do you say the government should have done/said?

 

Answers to my other questions?

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Errr, errr, where have I said I don't want people to stay at him? I've said that the stay at home message should remain as teh general message, but, that there should be a slight relaxing of the excersize rules. Until this week, the government message was once for an hour max, but the law was unlimited anyway. What, imo, was needed was an expansion of what the public believed the position to be to say twice per day up to a max of say 2 hours combined, meeting up to say 2 others (to Inc both parents) and drive say a max of 10 miles to exercise.

 

What do you say the government should have done/said?

 

Answers to my other questions?

 

I didn’t say you that you didn’t want people to stay at home, you do. The Government, however, do not. They had to change the “stay home” message, because basically, they didn’t want people to “stay home”. It’s not that hard to understand. What would you say if their message was “stay home, go to work”, I’m sure the “I don’t understand” gang would have a field day.

 

There’s not much wrong with the messaging. Personally, I’d have gone with “be sensible” rather than “stay alert”, but people are deliberately being obtuse. They can’t write guidelines for every scenario known to man, nor would I want them to. We don’t need nannying.

 

 

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People are still dying. The nhs and care homes have been unable to prepare for this or any similar pandemic because of a lack of funds.Things will get a lot worse but all we seem to hear and see are idiots mouthing off and blaming the government. Both the Tories and Labour have to hold up their hands for failing them. This government has only been in power for a short time and were ill prepared for such a crisis.

We have a history since as far back as I can remember of Labour blowing fortunes and the Tories having to make cuts to cut our deficits.

 

It is time we had a parliamentary sysrem whereby the best interest of the country was decided by more than one single party. Time for all to work together.

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This Government has been in power for 10 years. Is that a short amount of time?

 

It would be nice if all parties could work together. Believe it or not there are some sensible MP's out there on all sides who would probably quite like to do that, and in some cases (select committees being a good example) they do.

 

Sadly a lot of the others are in it for their own self interest, to swell the coffers with consultancy jobs and look after their mates. Maybe they don't really care enough about the wider public to join forces and make the best decisions for society as a whole.

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This is a pointlessly tiresome but also incredibly c***ish question.

 

You do realise that "underlying health conditions" doesn't actually mean "would have died in Spring 2020 anyway".

 

People are still going to die from standing on a rake, or falling into a stream. This is utterly irrelevant to the topic of a global pandemic of a disease with no vaccine or treatment.

 

 

Why, just because I’m not running round scared witless by a virus that is highly unlikely to kill me let alone make me seriously ill.

 

Yes people are dying earlier than they otherwise may have done but those at risk could be self isolating much more effectively. If the care homes were locked down at the beginning of February then the numbers dead would be radically different.

 

How many people will die from undetected cancers, socio economic issues created by lack of hospital treatment because if fo using in the virus and the econmomic fall out?

 

 

Just because believe the lockdown was the incorrect decision doesn’t make me a **** nor does you thinking hiding away mean you are one too. Even the modelling created by prof neil Ferguson that scarred the government into a uturn of strategy is now hitting MSM as a flawed model.

 

The answer was 238 on 7th may by the way.

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I'm guessing you've not lost any friends or family to covid yet, or even know of anyone who has really suffered from it. Come back and comment when it means something to you.

 

I work in London, I know one elderly person who had died from corona and numerous people that have had it (although only mild symptoms). May I have an opinion now?

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Obviously you can't not include politics in a topic like this but discussions about Brown and Labour budgets from 10 years ago are a bit of a stretch and not particularly interesting.

 

By all means carry on the debate on the numerous Lounge threads, like this one

 

https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?54675-All-things-Labour-Party#.XsG9f2hKiUk

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Obviously you can't not include politics in a topic like this but discussions about Brown and Labour budgets from 10 years ago are a bit of a stretch and not particularly interesting.

 

By all means carry on the debate on the numerous Lounge threads, like this one

 

https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?54675-All-things-Labour-Party#.XsG9f2hKiUk

 

Started as slight distinction as lounge Coronavirus thread was about the virus and politics and the Saints one was more about football impact Now we just seem to have two threads discussing same thing

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Only a half wit would think dropping the “stay at home” bit equates to ending lockdown, and anyone who thinks social distancing has ended, needs to be sectioned.

In which case a significant proportion of the adult population are half-wits, and they had better repurpose the Nightingales as mental wards.

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In which case a significant proportion of the adult population are half-wits, and they had better repurpose the Nightingales as mental wards.

 

Yep. I can only assume Duck is a hermit. If not he'd see for himself that people behaved last week as if there was no virus or risk. Its astonishing.

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It is simply a case of people getting fed up with the restraints imposed. If those idiots want to risk spreading the virus then that will be on them.

If you see how many behaved in that way you will see that it was a very small number in ratio to the number of adults in this country.

 

As one who is waiting for news of how the Bundesliga return went I am hoping it went well and we will see our football restart soon.

 

As long as the idiots don't screw things up for us.

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Yep. I can only assume Duck is a hermit. If not he'd see for himself that people behaved last week as if there was no virus or risk. Its astonishing.

 

Just because you’re scared half to death, doesn’t mean everyone else has to be. I walked the dog on sandbanks beach Sat & Bournemouth beach Sun. everybody I saw was acting in a perfectly reasonable way.

 

We’re breeding a nation of do gooders, Lockdown Mary Whitehouses pointing their fingers at the great unwashed, overcome by moral outrage. The British people have taken the closing of their pubs & social life pretty damn well, they’ve “saved” the NHS from toppling over, they don’t need the self righteous constantly telling them to hide under their beds.

 

 

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Just because you’re scared half to death, doesn’t mean everyone else has to be. I walked the dog on sandbanks beach Sat & Bournemouth beach Sun. everybody I saw was acting in a perfectly reasonable way.

 

 

 

 

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Ditto. I'm not seeing the mass abandonment of social distancing being alleged.

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Ditto. I'm not seeing the mass abandonment of social distancing being alleged.

 

From my experience it's mainly groups of kids, probably aged 14-18 who are the worst culprits. Just walked back through the park and there about 30 of them on the skate ramps together or sat about in groups.

 

If you drive 90 minutes to the beach, as the family on the news did last night, and then get annoyed that there are loads of people there you need to have a look at yourself really.

 

It's like anything really, you'll always get people who stick to the rules and others who disobey them.

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Excellent timing by Patel to put forward the immigration bill. NHS and Care workers from abroad have had to pay a big visa fee plus a large ‘you can use the NHS’ fee . After a year they are out !

So thank you for keeping our NHS and care system going despite the risk of dying but at the end of the year you are deported , die or f*** off is the new slogan.

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