ADs and their very long lists!

[LivinLaVidaLoki]

We were up to 999 posts so thought we needed a new thread!

I’m a bit older than some of you as a ‘67 baby and had a great time growing up in the 80s. Was more of a goth though so never experienced the perm or shoulder pads.

Gosh @Seriouslymole, I loved Ulysses! And the theme tune.

How is everyone doing today? I’m not a fan of New Year’s Eve and never have been. Thought last year was bad after the end of my 26 year marriage but it was nothing compared to this one. Can’t wait for it to be over.

I think now, that once they have vaccinated a sufficient amount (which is probably lower than we think, and will be a cock up on every front more than likely) they (meaning the govenment) will gradually back away from every rule and regulation they have created. Test and trace will be stopped to 'save us money' and anything else created will be sidelined. This way the government can say they have done the job and squashed this terrible virus (with a 99.7% survival rate). They will also be hoping that this will push them back up the polls. Of course, covid will always be endemic now, but it will be generally ignored from then on. The emphasis will be on getting back to work and earning money to 'make Britain great, people. Get well and get working'. Can't you just hear Boris saying that?

I work in the charity sector, and I think the problems for us are just beginning, it took nearly 10 years to recover from the financial crash of 2008, and there's likely to be less funding around and more competition for funding for quite some time yet, at the same time as increased demand because of the financial and physical and mental health effects of covid. I'm looking forward to things opening up again socially, but work wise I think it's going to be grim.

I work in a mental health unit and our problems have already begun. Of course, nobody gives a shit about saving the NHS when it's 'just' mental health services

Van Tam said there are habits such as masks etc that people will choose to continue, but that will be personal choice. yes they must all fully be aware that once people are vaccinated they will be zooming along the motorway to hug grandchildren whether the government likes it or not. I really don’t see why you wouldn’t? They’ve sold it as “don’t kill Granny” so then when Granny has been vaccinated it stands to reason that you’d visit Granny as normal..?

My local Facebook groups have gone full dementor last night/this morning. People sounding off about how busy the local skatepark is, how busy the local beauty spot is etc. Apparently we should all be cowering at home. Apart from the people posting, who, it would seem are allowed out to report on how many other people are out 😫

I need to swerve fb today between tiers crap and new year. Not in the mood to do new year as it feels so meaningless. My optomism is in a box dated at the spring equinox... ironically that's a year and a day after the DCs came home from school for rather a long time...

@Reedwarbler, can see the get back to work coming a mile off, I think it will also be accompanied by stripping workers rights so it makes it easier for employers to hire / fire etc.

The Daily Mail types (on comfortable pensions and low house prices) will lap up it up as those hardest hit with no jobs are the younger generation and will be labeled as lazy feckless layabouts. 😡

... a big rant on some local FB pages here about kids and school - lots of shouldn’t be aloud/ hole day / virenble kids! I am very much judging the spelling and grammar.

Yes I agree to keeping away from Facebook, especially tonight. Don’t think I can cope with all the stay safe crap that is going to be posted.

There’s a prolific poster on our local rag website who thinks that the only people who qualify as key workers are NHS staff. Absolutely everyone who doesn’t come under this category should STAY HOME! His shouty capitals, not mine.

He appears to be unable to grasp that these key workers need food, light, heating, transport etc. As do the rest of us so you really can’t say NHS staff only.

I have a feeling he will also be complaining in a few months time that the unemployment figures are horrific and why should his taxes fund “layabouts”.

My betting is on Boris Johnson wanting to get back to normal just slightly under a year from the start of the first lockdown - to be able to say he (personally) defeated it in under a year

Just reading the schools situation. It's a mess.

I do think schools probably amount to spreading just as other businesses, hospitals etc are contributing to the spread but these need to be open for society to function but how the hell are people expected to work when they close them with little notice and don't provide any practical help. A lot of employers either aren't flexible or simply can't be flexible so what are those parents meant to do?

From what I understand of schools, they typically reflect the caseload of the communities they serve. They're not automatically pits of superspreading, and I'm sure that with the scale of the school system we'd have heard if superspreading was rife. When people talk about the disruption they've had, it only takes one case to disrupt a bubble. You can have half a school off on a handful of cases. In another large institution such as a hospital, it doesn't look so bad because you don't have that community disruption within the institution.

We've had 3/7 classes have a week of disruption (primary) I'm vaguely aware there was a case where a child tested positive without impacting the class because they were already isolating from the parent testing positive at work. I haven't heard of spread within the classes, and its a small school with a well developed grapevine.

I do think schools need to be in as much as possible and that disruption should be localised to where is necessary. I'm relieved its not a blanket ban. Children being off damages young people and their opportunities and puts huge pressure on their parents. 11-14 is not immune to that either although levels of coping are probably better than at primary- not that that's any comfort if you are struggling.

The levels of dementory behaviour today have broken the dial. You would think Covid was the bubonic plague. Either that, or we have a serious problem with divisions in society where people just hate other people and look for any reason to turn rabid.

I find the level of vitriol to be deeply alarming.

@rosettesforjill Absolutely. Saint Boris and his merry men are desperate for a way out of the hole into which they have dug themselves, so there is no doubt that he is going to crank the scaremongering spin machine into reverse when it suits him, and he's going to play just as dirty with the spin as he did for talking up the danger. No doubt his secret policies are going to be:

• Gagging orders, or bribes of silence for anyone who reacts badly to the vaccines.
• Hospitals ordered to peddle the line "it's getting better", whether it is or not.
• Death figures talked down, especially if they get near the six-figure mark.
• Those who continue to wear face nappies accused of spreading fear (oh, the irony if that becomes a government line one day!), and Boris might make a silly comment akin to people looking like letter boxes.

And I absolutely agree that Saint Boris will try to take all the credit for himself, possibly allowing one last deification of the NHS. Fingers crossed that such a self-affirming speech will swiftly be followed by his resignation.

From what I understand of schools, they typically reflect the caseload of the communities they serve. They're not automatically pits of superspreading, and I'm sure that with the scale of the school system we'd have heard if superspreading was rife. When people talk about the disruption they've had, it only takes one case to disrupt a bubble. You can have half a school off on a handful of cases.

One family with children in multiple years groups with postive test and you could get half my DC secondary school off - as they've done year bubbles.

DD1 revision is going poorly or not at all she's not her usual focused self. She has mocks in January but then internals GCSE exams start Feb and externals in May - but her teachers apparently don't know what she'll be examined on yet and they haven't finished teaching the syllabuses - so wonder even if she does okay if they'll be knowledge gaps going into A-levels.

@Packingsoapandwater

The levels of dementory behaviour today have broken the dial. You would think Covid was the bubonic plague. Either that, or we have a serious problem with divisions in society where people just hate other people and look for any reason to turn rabid.

I find the level of vitriol to be deeply alarming.

The level of hatred is really getting to me. I was on the thread about London patients coming up to Yorkshire trying to keep things sane. Some people would rather see patients die than have Londoners come up.

I am in Yorkshire, I get the frustration with the constant underfunding and the perceived unfairness of Tiers but how have people so quickly switched to blaming each other and not government policy? Divide and conquer as effective as ever it seems.

I swear if one more fucker sees the need to share the "tier 4 stay home" shite to the local FB groups to be SEEN to be sharing it... I'll murder 'em.

@ShoeJunkie

My local Facebook groups have gone full dementor last night/this morning. People sounding off about how busy the local skatepark is, how busy the local beauty spot is etc. Apparently we should all be cowering at home. Apart from the people posting, who, it would seem are allowed out to report on how many other people are out 😫

I hate this so much and have seen so much of it over the last 9-10 months. People angry that the park and playground are rammed, that national trust gardens are rammed .. maybe because everything else is closed?? It’s not like people have just discovered the woods or the park (which is the unspoken implication I’m sure- we can go to the park because we’ve always taken our children to the park, but the plebs who normally go to soft play should get out) it’s just that they used to alternate it with other things.

Do you remember when McDonalds opened for Drive-Thru in maybe June? (Why was that shut in the first place though, really?) There were queues for miles on the motorway and people were going crazy on Twitter. It was pure snobbery as no one ever tweeted photos making fun of mile long queues for expensive delis.
You’re paying people furlough to sit at home bored out of their minds and then something opens and it’s the only place you can legally go .. well of course people queued for hours. They had nothing else to do.

We’ve got people moaning that tier 4 doesn’t go far enough! What else is there to close FFS!

Don’t hospitals always transfer patients anyway? I used to be NHS admin many moons ago and shared an office with the bed manager who was always ringing around trying to get patients into another hospital when ours was full. Not great in a pandemic but it’s hardly a new practice.

Our local FB groups are also in full dementor mode too. The local hospital has been on the news with the inevitable rows of ambulances outside a&e, which is reported every winter but of course nobody was up in arms then.

I've really had to force myself not to dip into 'that' other board today as its even more dementor than ever!

Morning all. for everyone struggling. Acorn I hear you and understand. Take care of yourself x

Small acts of tier 4 rebellion abound in this ‘ere house. We saw BIL, SIL and the kids the other day under the auspices of exchanging Christmas presents. Distance was kept but we all went for a boring nice walk around the park. They’ve all had covid, we’ve had covid, we went near no one else, so we saw minimal harm. And I took the car out yesterday and — gasp — crossed a county line. No police in sight, except for the usual speed trap officers on the A road.

Dementing levels at category five around here too though. DH’s father does a grim line in ‘distance dementing’ via WhatsApp. All the juiciest corona-gore sprayed about like a malfunctioning town crier. I’ve had to mute him the last few days.

And our local Ban Hammer has been all over the residents’ forum demanding that everyone is sealed into their homes. He seems to think that ‘70% more transmissible’ means it kills seventy times as many people. What an absolute weapon.

I was rather encouraged by Jonathan Van Tamm yesterday. He’s a very clear communicator, not afraid to give a (clearly signposted) personal opinion. That remark about people ‘choosing’ to continue with masks etc was very telling. It was basically ‘this won’t be policy for much longer’.

I also noted his warning shot to the media about their inaccurate reporting of ‘comparing’ vaccines effectiveness.

I generally take all these bully pulpit utterances with a wheelbarrow of salt but compared to some of the Whitby et al doomcasts it wasn’t bad.

Oops

Whitby should be Whitty

@NastyBlouse
*I was rather encouraged by Jonathan Van Tamm yesterday. He’s a very clear communicator, not afraid to give a (clearly signposted) personal opinion. That remark about people ‘choosing’ to continue with masks etc was very telling. It was basically ‘this won’t be policy for much longer’.

I also noted his warning shot to the media about their inaccurate reporting of ‘comparing’ vaccines effectiveness.*

That's what I thought too. I did feel slightly better after watching last night. He has a very clear way of explaining things and he seems a lot more trustworthy than the gruesome twosome (valance and whitty)

Anyone seen the new match image all over FB now leaked into Instagram one extra match you know what will happen!!!