If you're still sticking to ALL the rules/guidance - why?

[RaspberryCoulis]

Will start by saying I am not sticking to the covid rules any more. Obviously I can't go places which aren't open. But we have had people in the house, kids are going out with friends probably in larger numbers than are permitted, we're crossing local authority boundaries which is supposedly illegal in Scotland. Why? Because we've been in lockdown for a year, cases here are very low, and some things are more important than Covid.

But on every thread there are people claiming that they are sticking rigidly to every single rule and guideline, never breaking ANY rule. They would probably say I was a selfish covid-denier who was hellbent on murdering their granny.

So if you're sticking to all the guidelines and rules, without fail - why? People who are clinically extremely vulnerable (officially) I can understand in part if they're not vaccinated. But the rest of you? Is it because you're scared of Covid, or scared of your neighbours, or scared of breaking the law by mistake?

@RichardMarxisinnocent

I actually pity anyone that is still vigorously sticking to these “rules” this virus is here to stay! I don't want or need your pity thank you. I'm not judging those who aren't sticking to the rules, please in return don't talk about me as if I am someone inferior to be pitied.

Of course it’s here to stay! You’re missing the point though. We still have to suppress it a bit. There is no one who believes we’re going to eradicate it.

@Fridget
*
This is true but I think we also have to acknowledge that following the rules is causing people a great deal of harm too.*
^^^

I don't think anyone disagrees but it been the lesser of 2 evils.

I'm sticking to the rules because I'm not a selfish twat.
People like you make me so cross.

I do think the 'meeting up' rules are different from the 'travel distance' ones.

If you are travelling in your car for say 10 miles to go somewhere less busy than your local area, that could be considered a judgement call. Whereas choosing to have someone in your house is less so.

@Colabottles29

Please just stop calling people thick and stupid because they don't share your opinion, it's rude, nasty and just makes you look really bad.

I think there should be general guidance but that the public should be trusted too.

In Texas, all restrictions including masks are gone and cases have been falling doro 17 days in a row. How does anybody explain that?

I think we shouldn't shame people for not following every single rule to the letter, for instance allowing somebody to use their toilet if meeting in the garden, meeting in a group of 7 instead of 6, meeting on the 28th instead of the 29th.

Texas has a different demographic, a different climate and is less densely populated than the UK. One thing that we have learned during the last year is that we can’t compare countries/states and one rule does not apply to all.

No risk management model can use ‘common sense’ as a mitigation or control. It’s very poor practice.

You sound selfish

@rookiemere

I'd feel more inclined to follow the rules religiously if they were the same for all parts of the UK. We're not a huge island, but very different restrictions and easing dates for England, Scotland and Wales.

The dates chosen for Scotland seem political rather than scientific and they really screwed over the teaching community with their everyone in before Easter but you must maintain social distancing nonsense.

If it's safe for me in England to holiday from 12th April, can't see why I've got to wait until 26th April in Scotland ( when Easter holidays are over) etc. etc. blanket policies throughout UK would make me more inclined to follow them.

This has already been explained to me on these boards, and I was called a moron who didn't know I was a moron for questioning it. Thanks for the education @user1471539324

Apparently the reasons for the unique situation are perfectly simple to understand. It is because life and circumstances are totally different in the different regions of the UK and hence are required to be risk assessed and managed differently by the leaders of Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, etc in order to account for each country's individual circumstances.

So if you people do something that's not against the law in England, that's perfectly OK with respect to not spreading Covid, simply because the law says you can do it.

If that same thing is against the law in (for example Scotland), and you do the same thing in Scotland, you are a terrible person for doing that because doing it is absolutely spreading Covid and as a result grannies will die. Simply because the law says you cannot do it.

So how dare you assume the different dates for release are anything to do with the SNP wanting an election bonus on back of the 'goodwill' of giving the country their freedom before the local elections, and everything to do with you not being able to spread Covid in Scotland by doing those things after the dates Nicola Sturgeon has specified. It's just a coincidence that all those dates are before May 6th, whereas in England you'll have to wait until late June.

other places seem to be doing weirdly well without lockdown eg Florida, India.

I would assume that in India there is massive under-reporting, due to many people having little or no access to doctors.

Florida has a particularly good climate for older people: many older people in America move to Florida, or spend the winter there, just for that reason. For the same reason, it's much easier to spend time outdoors, and one thing we've learned about Covid is that transmission rates seem to be much worse indoors than outdoors.

The places that have managed best without significant lockdowns generally seem to be those which essentially suppressed the outbreak early on through extremely tight border control. Which would be difficult or impossible to ensure here, because of our economic dependence on international trade.

I don’t particularly care about the law but I’ve been mostly following the rules, because I don’t want to catch it.

@kellehi stop with the hyperbole. Nobody called you a moron.

@user1471539324

Texas has a different demographic, a different climate and is less densely populated than the UK. One thing that we have learned during the last year is that we can’t compare countries/states and one rule does not apply to all.

No risk management model can use ‘common sense’ as a mitigation or control. It’s very poor practice.

Perhaps you should compare Texas with the surrounding states then... don't forget to apply your critical thinking...

You can find the data here www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/

So that's Texas at 164 per 100,000, and the states bordering Texas, all with mask mandates and lockdowns

New Mexico - 186 per 100,000
Oklahoma (no mask mandate) - 122 per 100,000
Arkansas - 184 per 100,000
Louisiana - 216 per 100,000

So three out of four states and all with the mask mandate have higher cases than those without.

Ddl1 - to be honest my in laws in India are doing pretty well. My mother in law and her sister have been vaccinated. They're all doing rather well in the family and were having a meal out yesterday. Rather jealous if I'm honest. Not sure about underreported but on the face of it they seem pretty good.
Having said that, like everywhere it is political and they cannot be on lockdown just before the elections. They may consider a lockdown in a couple of weeks, after the elections.

[quote user1471539324]@kellehi stop with the hyperbole. Nobody called you a moron.[/quote]
I have to concede. The word 'moron' was not used by anybody

But thanks for not disputing that my post was an accurate summary of your position.

Yes, masks can make people complacent which is why in March 2020 initially (at least one of our reasons) we did not want people to wear them and rightly so.

I don't know why we are comparing US states with the UK. Perhaps you could think about:

climate
modes of transport etc
population per square mile

And then you might have some idea why the UK and any US state is not really comparable in terms of the transmission of disease. That last one is the biggie.

@kellehi I think my response to you on the Scotland point was perfectly polite

Not really relevant. It's a general trend of falling cases, population size and climate aren't the largest factors.

@kellehi

There are many factors which contribute to covid rates. You are picking one variable and attributing the rates to that. Correlation does not equal causation. Have you looked at:
-average household occupancy
-average house size
-density of populus
-method of covid reporting
-age demographics
-mask usage, rather than mask mandate
-population size
-ethnicity demographics
-cultural factors
-other legislation such as school or place of worship closure, retail closure
-availability of furlough payments
-support for those self employed
-support for those unemployed due to covid
-presence or absence of support to stay at home/isolation
-survey attitude to covid
-culture of extended family living in one household
-typical bubble size
-rule adherence
-presence or absence of fines for breaking covid guidelines
-funding of police
-funding for testing
-testing uptake
-healthcare access
-average household income

I could just as easily counter you by saying that European countries had a mask mandate much earlier than the UK, and the UK has some of the worst rates in Europe, but I won't say that because I've completed 11 years of university including a medical degree, I understand basic statistics, as well as the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy of which you have provided an excellent example.

[quote Robin233]@Fridget
*
This is true but I think we also have to acknowledge that following the rules is causing people a great deal of harm too.*
^^^

I don't think anyone disagrees but it been the lesser of 2 evils. [/quote]
I disagree that it’s the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately this will only become apparent in the course of time when unemployment soars, businesses go bust and cancer deaths rise. The long term damage will be horrendous. I very much doubt we’ll be saying it was a price worth paying in five or ten years time.

@ddl1

other places seem to be doing weirdly well without lockdown eg Florida, India.

I would assume that in India there is massive under-reporting, due to many people having little or no access to doctors.

Florida has a particularly good climate for older people: many older people in America move to Florida, or spend the winter there, just for that reason. For the same reason, it's much easier to spend time outdoors, and one thing we've learned about Covid is that transmission rates seem to be much worse indoors than outdoors.

The places that have managed best without significant lockdowns generally seem to be those which essentially suppressed the outbreak early on through extremely tight border control. Which would be difficult or impossible to ensure here, because of our economic dependence on international trade.

It's amusing isn't it, how there's always an excuse for not being able to compare any countries with the UK, when they are countries which haven't gone down the lockdowns and mask mandates route, yet 'the UK is the country with the worst death rate in the world' is regularly shouted out...

Sweden - 'Oh, you can't compare Sweden to the UK, they are much less densely populated - despite almost 90% of the population living in cities of greater or equal population density than UK cities

Texas - 'Oh, you can't compare Texas to the UK, different demographic, different climate, different population density'... Strange how all the states surrounding Texas, except Oklahoma, itself with no mask mandate or restrictions have worse rates. And 85% of Texans live in densely populated urban areas, similar to the situation in Sweden

Florida - 'Oh, you can't compare Florida to the UK, the climate is so good for older people'

India - 'Oh, you can't compare India to the UK'

etc etc

@Colabottles29 I'm just suggesting that comparing a US state to the UK is not helpful when it comes to disease transmission because we live differently. I have no interest in getting into a detailed discussion of the benefits of mask wearing or any other measure because I've made the decision to let the government do that scientific work for me. If I had the appropriate scientific training I might feel differently.

You will tend to find that people who don't stick to the rules have the luxury of living in places where you can leave the house without seeing someone else. It is much easier to see the point of all the rules if you live in a densely populated area.

[quote Fridget]@kellehi I think my response to you on the Scotland point was perfectly polite[/quote]
Yes, I wasn't referring to your post, it was another poster who suggested my failure to understand was 'classic Dunning-Kruger effect'

We are all capable of the dunning Kruger effect. But your opinions were simplistic and didn’t factor in many things that someone with formal training would consider. You don’t know what you don’t know, effectively.

Regarding the southern states - it’s early days and there are many variables to consider. Everyone was advocating for the Swedish method early on, yet they ended up faring worse than their Scandinavian neighbours.

[quote LAgeDeRaisin]@kellehi

There are many factors which contribute to covid rates. You are picking one variable and attributing the rates to that. Correlation does not equal causation. Have you looked at:
-average household occupancy
-average house size
-density of populus
-method of covid reporting
-age demographics
-mask usage, rather than mask mandate
-population size
-ethnicity demographics
-cultural factors
-other legislation such as school or place of worship closure, retail closure
-availability of furlough payments
-support for those self employed
-support for those unemployed due to covid
-presence or absence of support to stay at home/isolation
-survey attitude to covid
-culture of extended family living in one household
-typical bubble size
-rule adherence
-presence or absence of fines for breaking covid guidelines
-funding of police
-funding for testing
-testing uptake
-healthcare access
-average household income

I could just as easily counter you by saying that European countries had a mask mandate much earlier than the UK, and the UK has some of the worst rates in Europe, but I won't say that because I've completed 11 years of university including a medical degree, I understand basic statistics, as well as the "post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy of which you have provided an excellent example.[/quote]
Have you taken these into account? I await your analysis.

Failing that, I'm sure you will be able to provide me with the peer reviewed papers of all of the distinguished authors that you have read that take into account the interactions of all those... no less than TWENTY FOUR unique variables before you came to that conclusion, so I might be in a position to be better informed...

Otherwise it's just 'I have 11 years of university, so my opinions matter more than yours'... Interesting how I'm the only one being attacked for using correlation does not equal causation, when you skip over posters who say 'Texas has a different demographic, a different climate and is less densely populated than the UK', that's why they have lower numbers...

Did you challenge them whether they have considered each of those twenty four variables in determining why Texas is doing better? Did you brag about your years of university education in a reply? It seems to me the reason for the lack of challenge is their position broadly aligning with yours... Oh no, I just done a post hoc ergo propter hoc again...

I don't need to take anything into account because I haven't made any claims.

I'm merely pointing out that picking one variable and drawing a conclusion from it is fallacious.