[COVID-19] General Discussion

[ncurd]

Mainly yes. There was a big BLM in Leicester over 2 weeks ago and this along with opening of religious buildings and also the lack of responsibility from some employers has caused this spike.

However Leicester was heading for a car crash before then I suggest looking at PMQ clash between Starmer and Johnson on this one. Startmer wanted to know why considerations from 18th June they knew it was headed for a spike considering what the health secretary said. Johnson replied they'd been "on top of it" in Leicester since the 8th June......

 

[ncurd]

https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/sta.../www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-53248402

Here's the exchange...

 

[McTallshort]

https://twitter.com/BBCPolitics/status/1278285163047333888?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1278285163047333888|twgr^&ref_url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-politics-53248402

Here's the exchange...

Interesting thanks although if there were already problems in Leicester a big rally in the town centre would have massively increased the infection rate.

I know its not PC to say this but however noble the BLM rallies were they broke all the social distancing guidelines and could have set this country back a number of months in terms of recovery from this virus and anyone who took part in them are no better than the people who go to the beach or ignore the guidelines while shopping. They are all irresponsible.

 

[ncurd]

Interesting thanks although if there were already problems in Leicester a big rally in the town centre would have massively increased the infection rate.

I know its not PC to say this but however noble the BLM rallies were they broke all the social distancing guidelines and could have set this country back a number of months in terms of recovery from this virus and anyone who took part in them are no better than the people who go to the beach or ignore the guidelines while shopping. They are all irresponsible.

I don't know about 'no better' but I'm in agreement they were foolish. They should of looked at alternative forms of protest such as the take a knee protests with people spaced out. Gathering on mass for marches sadly at this time will likely causes thier communities more harm than good. East to say that when racial injustice isn't a part of your life mind.

 

[Reiser99]

Interesting thanks although if there were already problems in Leicester a big rally in the town centre would have massively increased the infection rate.

I know its not PC to say this but however noble the BLM rallies were they broke all the social distancing guidelines and could have set this country back a number of months in terms of recovery from this virus and anyone who took part in them are no better than the people who go to the beach or ignore the guidelines while shopping. They are all irresponsible.

Simple fact is there have been many examples of people breaking guidance for a variety of reasons, yet you seem to suggest that the BLM protests are the main cause. There is no evidence for this and it's ridiculous to suggest that they are the primary reason when people have been having illegal gatherings, crowding public spaces combined with an inept government.

 

[McTallshort]

Simple fact is there have been many examples of people breaking guidance for a variety of reasons, yet you seem to suggest that the BLM protests are the main cause. There is no evidence for this and it's ridiculous to suggest that they are the primary reason when people have been having illegal gatherings, crowding public spaces combined with an inept government.

Yes I am suggesting that. There have been illegal gatherings but not on that scale, the government can take a lot of blame for what has happened but people also need to take personal responsibility for their own actions and if you were on a BLM march 2 weeks ago then your actions were irresponsible and foolish. Like NCurd said there were better ways of making the point.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

I follow a few techno pages on social media and the amount of illegal raves and house parties going on over there is mad, (there's a few here too) no chance you come out of a rave without COVID if someone brought it in. I think there's so many things contributing.

Had 1,000 packed into the woods on the outskirts of my village a few weeks ago - mental. Didn't even really know people knew they existed, beyond the odd dog walker.
Proper arse end of nowhere - miles from the nearest train or bust station, God knows how they all got there.
Proper ruined the woods though, cans bottles and whippets everywhere - police helicoptors cutting about at 2am, it was mental.

 

[Gavin]

Northern Ireland has taken a step back with the funeral of Bobby Storey and the hundreds of people who lined the streets, with the procession lead by the leaders of Sinn Fein.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-53246224

The hardcore loyalists are now using this as an excuse to push for 12th parades to happen and 11th night bonfires. In my town a lot of bonfire material has appeared in the past 24 hours at their usual site.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

I follow a few techno pages on social media and the amount of illegal raves and house parties going on over there is mad, (there's a few here too) no chance you come out of a rave without COVID if someone brought it in. I think there's so many things contributing.

And these so called Raves have in large part been organized by drug dealers paying the local DJs so they can carry on their business as usual.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

Melbourne has decided to lock down hotspot suburbs, booze bus type set ups around the out skirts of those suburbs checking addresses on drivers licences

I see what they're trying to do, keep the rest of the city going, but it's just causing unrest because people now feel they're being targeted

should have just hit down the city again

also reports of the security at our quarantine hotels sleeping with "guests" and the obviously going home and spreading the virus, hope they get the book thrown at them

 

[Vieux Talonneur]

Not sure what the right words are - tone deaf, crass or plain stupid. But, whatever, this government seems to have an inexhaustible supply of it.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...lash-after-hailing-pubs-reopening-on-saturday

And I do hope Bojo's Dad enjoys his trip to Greece to COVID proof his villa for the letting season. Essential business my ar*e. Straight out of the Cummings "Rules apply to other people" play list.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/stanley-johnson-greece-coronavirus-travel-instagram-a4486631.html%3Famp

 

[big ginger 8]

Tony Holohan to step back from role as chief medical officer (via @IrishTimes) https://www.irishtimes.com/news/hea...-from-role-as-chief-medical-officer-1.4294754

My respect for Dr Holohan was already very high, but seeing what he was dealing with this whole time it has absolutely skyrocketed. He's done this nation a great service.

 

[User1245]

Having seen the data my predictions is countries like Italy, USA and Brazil are mostly out of the woods.

In the USA deaths have strongly declined despite a second bigger spike in infections.

Countries like Australia and New Zealand which tried to kill it instead of flattening the curve, have just kicked the can down the road. I think those governments lost sight of the original goal of flattening the curve. All the reports I've seen suggest the vaccine will be underwhelming and this was always the expectation.

What's happening in Victoria at the moment is ridiculous. Whoever decided that that strategy should be fired.

 

[TRF_Olyy]

Those June 28th figures are really screwing with the 3 day average
285 on June 28th and then 764 on 30th (and just under 700 on the 1st).

Considering how much the number of cases has sky rocketed the last couple weeks, and how it usually takes a couple weeks for the disease to get bad, I think that thinking the USA has somehow beat the disease is.....blindly optimistic at best.


Edit: When you look at America's reporting it does look a little bit fucky - every day of the week is about the same and then Sundays are 30% of that - it's not like the deaths were registered on the Monday instead because the Monday figures are consistent with every other day of the week.
Do people just....decide not to die on a Sunday?

Double Edit: Not sure what you're looking at with Brazil? Their death rate is about the same as it has been the last month, and their active cases is only increasing.


Lumping those two in with Italy is wild, when Italy is on very low levels of both cases and deaths, these days (they've not had triple figure deaths since May)

 

[Kiwiwomble]

Having seen the data my predictions is countries like Italy, USA and Brazil are mostly out of the woods.

this is the first time i've heard the US and Brazil referred to anything better than a dumpster fire or similar

 

[User1245]

snip

Optimistic, yes. Blindly, no.

You're right there is some big differences between those countries but I think the commonality is that the worst is over for all three. More and more it's looking like herd immunity is the only way to stop this thing.

Italy lost control and had a big spike, essentially the worst case scenario with the health care system overwhelmed. Big ripping off of the band-aid that ironically has put them ahead in terms of recovery.

The infection and death rate basically mirror each other.

Brazil is in the middle at the moment but you can already see the deaths have started to dip despite rising infections, and I expect it to continue on that path. Brazil's average age is about 31 whereas Italy's is 45, and we already know this disproportionately affects people above 65. I think in Italy half of the people who died were around 80 with at least 3 underlying conditions.

USA past the crisis stage and won't have another big spike in deaths, certainly not proportional to the infection rate like we've seen before. They're probably the closest to what properly flattening of the curve would look like based on the data, mostly by default because of the different approaches by the states. Except New York which lost control for awhile but that was because of a policy decision that I won't get into in this post.

The latest up tick in infections started to really kick is in around 20 June (13 days ago) so I might be premature in my prediction but I don't think we'll see much in terms of deaths, maybe a small bump. You'll notice the deaths continued to decline despite infections flat lining during the period beginning of May to beginning of June.

I guess we'll know about a month from now.

Edit: the scientist I've been following during this pandemic is Mark Levitt. South African born Professor of Structural Biology at the Stanford School of Medicine, and winner of the 2013 Nobel Prize for Chemistry. A lot of what he said months ago seems to be on the money although this isn't his field. The more clever people looking at the data the better I reckon.

This article summarized what he has said before well. I haven't watched the video in the article though, I watched interviews with him elsewhere.

https://unherd.com/thepost/nobel-pr...-the-covid-19-epidemic-was-never-exponential/

 

[User1245]

this is the first time i've heard the US and Brazil referred to anything better than a dumpster fire or similar

Maybe diversify who you're listening to, look at the data/evidence and then decide for yourself?

 

[User1245]

I totally forgot about Sweden which never shutdown schools or cafes/pubs from what I've read. Actually they seem to be only country to have a coordinated flattening of the curve that seems to be working.

Deaths rapidly dropping off despite the past month's infections being the highest they've ever been.

This is the way I wish Australia went.

 

[Kiwiwomble]

whats the total deaths in Sweden? because aussie is 104...so unless its less than that i think aussie did ok

 

[Which Tyler]

whats the total deaths in Sweden? because aussie is 104...so unless its less than that i think aussie did ok

What do you mean? You don't think that thousands of unecessary deaths isn't a price worth paying for freedumb? How does that sort of thing help the mega-wealthy? Or are you just admitting that you're a filthy communist?