Coronavirus

[Lord Duckhunter]

2 minutes ago, aintforever said:

The idea that you can shield the vulnerable and just crack on as normal is just fantasy.

Again, who is saying “crack on as normal”? 

[Lighthouse]

2 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Do you accept that lockdown will cause more  unemployment & poverty. Do you accept that it will affect some people’s mental health & do you accept that there will be poorer health outcomes in relation to other diseases. I don’t normally quote the Guardian, but this is what they wrote; 

“The number of people entering treatment for cancer has dropped significantly, meaning many patients who would have ordinarily been tested for cancer were not seen. In April 2019 almost 200,000 people were referred to a consultant for suspected cancer by their GPs. This April that figure fell to just 79,573”. 
 

So the question shouldn’t be “what other measures will lead to lower infections, without lockdown”. But is the lockdown proportionate, in terms of years saved & cost to the economy. 

I do accept all of that but your point about cancer deaths is counter to your argument, not in support of it. It’s because so much capacity is being taken up by the virus that consultations and scans are being missed or put back.

 

The lockdown is in proportion to not turning away people at the door of A&E, telling them to go home and die quietly because we don’t have the staff and infrastructure to cope.

[whelk]

15 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

I do accept all of that but your point about cancer deaths is counter to your argument, not in support of it. It’s because so much capacity is being taken up by the virus that consultations and scans are being missed or put back.

 

The lockdown is in proportion to not turning away people at the door of A&E, telling them to go home and die quietly because we don’t have the staff and infrastructure to cope.

Presumably lockdown means boom time for your deliveries? 
 

[whelk]

Any other species this would just be strengthening resilience in killing off the weak.

We just like to think we can prevent all death but not sure always much benefit prolonging your time in a care home. My mother in law is pretty matter of fact about it all as resigned that she is coming to end of life.

The pant pissers  can’t seem to cope with the fact that people die all the time

 

[aintforever]

32 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Again, who is saying “crack on as normal”? 

Plenty of people have been. There are obviously many downsides to lockdowns but there are few alternatives so there is no point moaning like a little bitch because your ale house is shut.

[Lord Duckhunter]

11 minutes ago, aintforever said:

so there is no point moaning like a little bitch because your ale house is shut.

It’s open, but apart from that ,  good point well made. 

Edited 27 December, 2020 by Lord Duckhunter

[egg]

2 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

I’ve not seen anyone advocating letting it run wild, only lockdown enthusiasts claiming it’s what other people  want. It’s not just lockdown or nothing, there’s lots of measures in between. 

Such as? 

[Weston Super Saint]

3 minutes ago, egg said:

Such as? 

Send all the over 60's to the Isle of Wight and rename it 'quarantine island'?

[egg]

Just now, Weston Super Saint said:

Send all the over 60's to the Isle of Wight and rename it 'quarantine island'?

That response highlights that there's no creditable alternative to doing what we're doing or opening things up and taking our chances. 

[Weston Super Saint]

2 minutes ago, egg said:

That response highlights that there's no creditable alternative to doing what we're doing or opening things up and taking our chances. 

It's one suggestion, there will be thousands of others from the ridiculous to the sublime.  Unless you've genuinely considered every other alternative and examined the 'science' for each and every one of them, you cannot seriously dismiss them all as being 'no creditable alternative'.

[Weston Super Saint]

There are thousands of cruise ships around the world not being used.  Put everyone that tests positive onto one of them for 10 days (taking them out of the general population) and the infection rate will plummet like a stone.

[egg]

Just now, Weston Super Saint said:

It's one suggestion, there will be thousands of others from the ridiculous to the sublime.  Unless you've genuinely considered every other alternative and examined the 'science' for each and every one of them, you cannot seriously dismiss them all as being 'no creditable alternative'.

And what's yours? I've heard loads of complaints about the current situation, people claiming that they're not saying that they seek a free for all, but unless I've missed something, no suggestions about what they say we should be doing. I'm genuinely interested in options because lock downs ain't working, but a free for all won't work. 

[Weston Super Saint]

2 minutes ago, egg said:

And what's yours? 

I've given you two...  It's not up to me to solve the Coronavirus pandemic, but I'm realistic enough to know that there are alternative options available and haven't dismissed them all in one fell swoop!

[egg]

6 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

I've given you two...  It's not up to me to solve the Coronavirus pandemic, but I'm realistic enough to know that there are alternative options available and haven't dismissed them all in one fell swoop!

Two ridiculous suggestions. It's not any of our jobs to solve the crisis, but nobody should shout something down where there is no sensible alternative available. I've read pages of whingeing on here, but not one sensible alternative to what we've got. Not one. 

[Whitey Grandad]

Could it be this simple? Getting a good night’s sleep?

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/12/covid-19-sleep-pandemic-zzzz/617454/

Early to bed and early to rise...

[Whitey Grandad]

34 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Send all the over 60's to the Isle of Wight and rename it 'quarantine island'?

I thought they were there already?

[StDunko]

1 minute ago, Whitey Grandad said:

I thought they were there already?

Here's a man that's never been to Eastbourne.

[Weston Super Saint]

37 minutes ago, egg said:

Two ridiculous suggestions. 

Lol. You claim the second one is ridiculous, yet that is exactly what the Chinese and Italians have been doing - albeit they have used "hotels" rather than cruise ships...

[egg]

6 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Lol. You claim the second one is ridiculous, yet that is exactly what the Chinese and Italians have been doing - albeit they have used "hotels" rather than cruise ships...

Still no suggestions for how to do with the reality we face.

What to do? Carey on as we are, crack on and hope for the best, or something else? If its the latter, what do you say it should be other than squeezing millions of people onto the IOW or ferries? 

[Lord Duckhunter]

41 minutes ago, egg said:

Two ridiculous suggestions. It's not any of our jobs to solve the crisis, but nobody should shout something down where there is no sensible alternative available. I've read pages of whingeing on here, but not one sensible alternative to what we've got. Not one. 

Theres loads of lockdown rules that don’t make a blind bit of difference to infection rates, but make a hell of a difference to the economy. I’d also have thought Doctors surgeries working normally would also be quite a good idea.

 

[egg]

Just now, Lord Duckhunter said:

Theres loads of lockdown rules that don’t make a blind bit of difference to infection rates, but make a hell of a difference to the economy. I’d also have thought Doctors surgeries working normally would also be quite a good idea.

 

I'll ask the question again. Lockdown isn't working, you've said elsewhere that you're not suggesting a free for all, so what are you suggesting that we do? 

[spyinthesky]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

There are thousands of cruise ships around the world not being used.  Put everyone that tests positive onto one of them for 10 days (taking them out of the general population) and the infection rate will plummet like a stone.

Wes
Carnival and Fred Olsen were two of the cruise ship operators who offered up their vessels to assist with the Covid crisis.
The US also positioned two of their specialist hospital ships to assist.
None of these options were taken.

[Weston Super Saint]

10 minutes ago, spyinthesky said:

Wes
Carnival and Fred Olsen were two of the cruise ship operators who offered up their vessels to assist with the Covid crisis.
The US also positioned two of their specialist hospital ships to assist.
None of these options were taken.

That's because Egg thinks they are ridiculous.

[buctootim]

The NHS is of the size necessary to deal with normal health demands. There is very little reserve capacity because it is cash limited service  - we don't want to pay for services which wont regularly be used or are too expensive. The new covid related care is at the expense of other patients who have had appointments and screenings cancelled. 

Given over half of covid deaths are amongst the over 80s, there is an argument that the care of people with fewer remaining years is being prioritised over the rest, on average younger, population. Without advocating euthanasia, it is worth considering at what point you stop fighting for the life of someone and who you are prepared to sacrifice in that fight.  

Edited 27 December, 2020 by buctootim

[Lord Duckhunter]

3 minutes ago, egg said:

I'll ask the question again. Lockdown isn't working, you've said elsewhere that you're not suggesting a free for all, so what are you suggesting that we do? 

God, it’s like trying to explain offside to my snap dragon. It’s not a question of  lockdown, or no lockdown, but of getting the balance between sensible measures and harming the economy. The problem with lockdown enthusiasts is their answer to everything is more lockdown. If lockdown doesn’t work and the infection rates go up , let’s lockdown harder. It’s a circle that can never be broken. If you’re measuring everything by Covid infection rates alone, then only severe lockdowns will “work”. If you’re judging it by future prosperity, other health outcomes, mental health issues, as well as Covid rates, then  taking sensible precautions whilst shielding the most at risk makes more sense. 

[egg]

1 minute ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

God, it’s like trying to explain offside to my snap dragon. It’s not a question of  lockdown, or no lockdown, but of getting the balance between sensible measures and harming the economy. The problem with lockdown enthusiasts is their answer to everything is more lockdown. If lockdown doesn’t work and the infection rates go up , let’s lockdown harder. It’s a circle that can never be broken. If you’re measuring everything by Covid infection rates alone, then only severe lockdowns will “work”. If you’re judging it by future prosperity, other health outcomes, mental health issues, as well as Covid rates, then  taking sensible precautions whilst shielding the most at risk makes more sense. 

If this is how you explain stuff, your snapdragon has no chance of ever understanding offside.

I'm no lockdown enthusiast. They haven't worked and won't. Opening it up won't work. What's this magical balance that nobody else has been able to find if it's not what has been happening between lock downs? 

[Lord Duckhunter]

2 minutes ago, buctootim said:

The NHS is of the size necessary to deal with normal health demands. There is very little reserve capacity because it is cash limited service  - we don't want to pay for services which wont regularly be used or are too expensive. As a result the new covid related care is at the expense of other patients who have had appointments and screenings cancelled. 

Given over half of covid deaths are amongst the over 80s, there is an argument that the care of people with fewer remaining years is being prioritised over the rest, on average younger, population. Without advocating euthanasia, it is worth considering at what point you stop fighting for the life of someone and who you are prepared to sacrifice in that fight.  

Exactly right, and in normal years NICE take these things into consideration when  providing  guidance.  

[buctootim]

Just now, Lord Duckhunter said:

Exactly right, and in normal years NICE take these things into consideration when  providing  guidance.  

Yep. If we aren't careful in we are going end up with a spike in deaths of younger people because their conditions weren't picked up as promptly as normal  

[egg]

10 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

That's because Egg thinks they are ridiculous.

Putting all our vulnerable people on ferries is utterly ridiculous. That's why no other country has done it. Or would. Or could given the numbers involved. 

Thought of any actual alternatives to what we're doing or a free for all yet?

[Turkish]

1 minute ago, egg said:

If this is how you explain stuff, your snapdragon has no chance of ever understanding offside.

I'm no lockdown enthusiast. They haven't worked and won't. Opening it up won't work. What's this magical balance that nobody else has been able to find if it's not what has been happening between lock downs? 

If people in this country weren’t so thick and entitled Lockdown the most vulnerable and everyone else carry on with the equivalent of tier 2 rules. The trouble is with all the anti lockdown, anti vaccine, ITS AGAINST MY RIGHTS bell ends then you’ll still have f*ck wits breaking them. 

[AlexLaw76]

Over 75s represent 𝟭𝟬% of the population but 𝟴𝟱% of COVID hospital admissions. Only 𝟲% are under 65s. 7% of the population have life-limiting illness, 40% of the over 65s. How is it sensible to lockdown the majority but not feasible to protect the vulnerable minority?majority but not feasible to protect the vulnerable minority?

[egg]

1 minute ago, Turkish said:

If people in this country weren’t so thick and entitled Lockdown the most vulnerable and everyone else carry on with the equivalent of tier 2 rules. The trouble is with all the anti lockdown, anti vaccine, ITS AGAINST MY RIGHTS bell ends then you’ll still have f*ck wits breaking them. 

Yep. That would have worked, but we are a nation of entitled idiots. People everywhere trying to circumvent the rules, the spread is too wide to do that now, and people have shown themselves to be selfish idiots. 

Sensible debate on it on here - present company excepted - is pointless. Nobody likes where we are, anyone with half a brain knows that a free for all or something close to it will end up in carnage, you get the ridiculous comments that the NHS ain't coping anyway so we may as well open things up, but nobody can actually say what the credible alternatives now are. Weston has had a crack but can't go further than cramming the millions of elderly and infirm on boats, and Duck hasn't said anything other than some condescending waffle about his missus and offside. 

 

[Lord Duckhunter]

7 minutes ago, egg said:

Yep. That would have worked, but we are a nation of entitled idiots. People everywhere trying to circumvent the rules, the spread is too wide to do that now, and people have shown themselves to be selfish idiots. 

Sensible debate on it on here - present company excepted - is pointless. Nobody likes where we are, anyone with half a brain knows that a free for all or something close to it will end up in carnage, you get the ridiculous comments that the NHS ain't coping anyway so we may as well open things up, but nobody can actually say what the credible alternatives now are. Weston has had a crack but can't go further than cramming the millions of elderly and infirm on boats, and Duck hasn't said anything other than some condescending waffle about his missus and offside. 

 

You’re only reading what you want to read. 
 

Did you miss this bit, a direct quote from a post I wrote. It’s pretty similar to Turkish’s suggestion  that you creamed yourself over. 

“then  taking sensible precautions whilst shielding the most at risk makes more sense”. 

 

 

[Weston Super Saint]

55 minutes ago, egg said:

Putting all our vulnerable people on ferries is utterly ridiculous. That's why no other country has done it. Or would. Or could given the numbers involved. 

Thought of any actual alternatives to what we're doing or a free for all yet?

Where did I say we should put vulnerable people on ferries?

[Weston Super Saint]

46 minutes ago, egg said:

 

Sensible debate on it on here - present company excepted - is pointless.

Weston has had a crack but can't go further than cramming the millions of elderly and infirm on boats

 

You're right. Sensible debate does seem pretty pointless when you only read what you want to hear, then decide to make a load of shit up!!

Read the cruise ship sentence again - what I actually wrote, rather than what you decided it said...

[Winnersaint]

3 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

scans are being missed or put back

I  know a bit about this as my wife has had more scans than a tin of beans at Tesco's since 28th March. She has an oncology consultant at RBH in Reading, a radiotherapy consultant at Churchill Hospital in Oxford and a cancer surgeon, Alex Mirnezami involved in Southampton they are all part of her MDT. She's rightly in contact with many in a similar situation to her and whilst there are those who are struggling it is apparent that this may not be the case in Berkshire ,Oxfordshire and Hampshire. Every consultation has been followed through with dates and deadlines all of which have been kept. In November she had a CT, MRI and PET scan all in the space of 8 days. Aware that this may not be the case nationwide, but our experience of cancer care during lockdowns has been nothing but positive.

[egg]

49 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

You’re only reading what you want to read. 
 

Did you miss this bit, a direct quote from a post I wrote. It’s pretty similar to Turkish’s suggestion  that you creamed yourself over. 

“then  taking sensible precautions whilst shielding the most at risk makes more sense”. 

 

 

Nope. I read it. The difference between your comment and Turkish is that a) yours contained your usual condescending bollox and pointless reference to your snapdragon, and b) suggests that shielding the most at risk will actually work. Turkish acknowledged that we're a nation of entitled idiots saying of any effort to do that "then you’ll still have f*ck wits breaking them. " 

Sadly, you just whinge about how shit it is, but despite suggesting that there's loads of options other than managing as we have and opening things up completely, the best you can come up with is keep the vulnerable locked away. We've done that, pretty much, for 9 months and it hasn't worked.

Yes it's shit, but let's be sensible and accept that as things stand, there's no sensible alternative to managing things as best we can pending mass vaccinations. 

[Lighthouse]

4 hours ago, whelk said:

Presumably lockdown means boom time for your deliveries? 
 

It also means the aviation industry I’ve worked in my whole life up until March basically no longer exists. As far as my personal interests go, open everything up but that’s not what’s right for the world.

 

We’re a couple of months away from having the majority of at risk citizens vaccinated. Combine that with intermittent national lockdowns to cut the R number as needed and we can get through this.

[egg]

24 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

You're right. Sensible debate does seem pretty pointless when you only read what you want to hear, then decide to make a load of shit up!!

Read the cruise ship sentence again - what I actually wrote, rather than what you decided it said...

You wrote "There are thousands of cruise ships around the world not being used.  Put everyone that tests positive onto one of them for 10 days (taking them out of the general population) and the infection rate will plummet like a stone". 

Ask yourself if that'll really work. Ask yourself how we'd get Barry from Birmingham onto a ship/ferry. Would people who won't self isolate really go on a ship/ferry? 

It's a ridiculous suggestion. That's why it hasn't been done. 

 

[Turkish]

 

 

16 minutes ago, egg said:

You wrote "There are thousands of cruise ships around the world not being used.  Put everyone that tests positive onto one of them for 10 days (taking them out of the general population) and the infection rate will plummet like a stone". 

Ask yourself if that'll really work. Ask yourself how we'd get Barry from Birmingham onto a ship/ferry. Would people who won't self isolate really go on a ship/ferry? 

It's a ridiculous suggestion. That's why it hasn't been done. 

 

I don’t think you’d had an issue getting Barry from Birmingham onto the ferry, the problem you’d have is he’d think he was getting a free holiday and refuse to stay in his cabin, complain about the food, conditions, probably start protesting after a couple of days that he’s in prison for being ill. Rather than actually thinking of anyone other than himself

in Israel theyve got Covid hotels where people with positive tests can go and stay, with a 10m population and 400k infections they’ve don’t slightly better per head but with a younger more healthy population, better climate and generally a less twatish population I’m not convinced it’s that effective anyway. 

Edited 27 December, 2020 by Turkish

[Weston Super Saint]

9 minutes ago, egg said:

You wrote "There are thousands of cruise ships around the world not being used.  Put everyone that tests positive onto one of them for 10 days (taking them out of the general population) and the infection rate will plummet like a stone". 

Ask yourself if that'll really work. Ask yourself how we'd get Barry from Birmingham onto a ship/ferry. Would people who won't self isolate really go on a ship/ferry? 

It's a ridiculous suggestion. That's why it hasn't been done. 

 

You're very blinkered aren't you?

It may have escaped your attention but we live on an island. From memory, I don't think there is anywhere in the UK that is more than 100 miles from the sea - I'll give you one guess where the hundreds of cruise ships feel more comfortable...

Parliament managed to get many new, temporary, laws passed in very short time, so there's nothing to stop a new one being passed to ensure everyone that tests positive is whisked off to a waiting ship.

Just because you've decided it won't work, doesn't mean it won't!

Like I said, the Chinese have managed something very similar as well as the Italians.

Have you managed to find the bit where I said we should lock all the vulnerable people on a ferry yet?

[egg]

11 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

You're very blinkered aren't you?

It may have escaped your attention but we live on an island. From memory, I don't think there is anywhere in the UK that is more than 100 miles from the sea - I'll give you one guess where the hundreds of cruise ships feel more comfortable...

Parliament managed to get many new, temporary, laws passed in very short time, so there's nothing to stop a new one being passed to ensure everyone that tests positive is whisked off to a waiting ship.

Just because you've decided it won't work, doesn't mean it won't!

Like I said, the Chinese have managed something very similar as well as the Italians.

Have you managed to find the bit where I said we should lock all the vulnerable people on a ferry yet?

It's not geography. It's mentality. Turkish makes the points. When we have a few thousand cases and people hadn't shown themselves as utter helmets, this may have worked. Now we're having 30k + cases a day, I think it's a stupid idea. You are entitled to think differently. Perhaps lobby your MP to implement your tremendous idea. 

RE the last bit, I overlooked that you were sending all the elderly etc to the IOW, and every single person who'd tested positive to boats. I somehow managed to fuse your two fantastic ideas together. 

Edited 27 December, 2020 by egg

[Plastic]

Well reading that has made me smile. Put 30k+ people a day onto cruise ships. Amazing!

[whelk]

39 minutes ago, egg said:

It's not geography. It's mentality. Turkish makes the points. When we have a few thousand cases and people hadn't shown themselves as utter helmets, this may have worked. Now we're having 30k + cases a day, I think it's a stupid idea. You are entitled to think differently. Perhaps lobby your MP to implement your tremendous idea. 

RE the last bit, I overlooked that you were sending all the elderly etc to the IOW, and every single person who'd tested positive to boats. I somehow managed to fuse your two fantastic ideas together. 

You are right it is a fucking stupid idea. 

[whelk]

Could we get them all on a space station?

[Turkish]

5 minutes ago, whelk said:

Could we get them all on a space station?

Probably. Although with the talk that Mars might be inhabitable maybe send all the vulnerable there. If it turns out it’s not no harm done, they were going to die soon anyway, Covid or not 

[Weston Super Saint]

8 hours ago, Plastic said:

Well reading that has made me smile. Put 30k+ people a day onto cruise ships. Amazing!

Again, it's a very simple concept that means we wouldn't be putting 30k people per day on cruise ships.

IF - and it's a big if as nowhere have I stated that this IS the plan we should follow, more a hypothetical answer to Egg who asked what other ways COULD the virus be tackled - we had followed this from the outset we wouldn't be seeing the levels of infection that we are seeing now.

The virus needs people in order to spread - I think that concept is so simple that everyone can understand it, right?  If you take the infected people and put them all together - say, for example, on a cruise ship - then the virus would have no more 'healthy' people to spread to and therefore the number of infections would shrink very rapidly.

[aintforever]

Cruise ships

So let me get this straight. I have just tested positive for Covid and instead of just staying in and watching Netflix for 2 weeks I get dragged from my house by the police or army and flown by helicopter to a cruise ship full of Covid positive prisoners moored off of the south coast somewhere?

Who would you get to crew these ships?

Edited 28 December, 2020 by aintforever

[Weston Super Saint]

9 hours ago, egg said:

It's not geography. It's mentality.

I understand there are barriers.  If you mentioned before this year that the entire country would be 'locked down', then a thousand different barriers to success would have been raised.  Parliament simply passed temporary laws to try and mitigate for these.

Combatting the virus basically has two answers.

1. Remove the population from the virus to stop / slow the spread - aka lockdown.

2. Remove the virus from the population - either using an effective vaccine or by removing those that are infected from society, as has happened in China, Korea etc.

So far we (the UK) has only tried number 1.  The vaccine is currently being rolled out which will eventually give us number 2.  Doesn't mean that other elements of number 2 couldn't / shouldn't have been tried in the meantime.

You asked for alternatives, I've given you some.  The fact that they have barriers to their success is irrelevant in this argument as it shows that other alternatives exist - I appreciate that no matter what anyone suggests you are going to find the negatives and say it 'won't work', but that says more about your ability to think about other ways to combat the issue.

[Weston Super Saint]

15 minutes ago, aintforever said:

Cruise ships

What's your point?

12 hours ago, spyinthesky said:

Carnival and Fred Olsen were two of the cruise ship operators who offered up their vessels to assist with the Covid crisis.