What's life like in other countries at the moment?

[ChaosTrulyReigns]

I seem to recall tales of Lockdown in France, Spain, Italy and even Sweden taking up a lot of news columns in the spring.

But there seems to be very little now. Obviously there's a lot to fill the papers with currently, so maybe that's the reason?

If you're not in The UK, how's life for you?

I agree too, Sasha. Even as an ex journalist I felt the media let the country down really badly.

@MarshaBradyo

The amount of people who can be manipulated so easily with blatant and obvious lies highlights a huge, systematic problem with UK education.

What messaging are you referring to?

Most of it has been packaged as simple but easy to get.

I do think people need to better read the media as that is very strong on speculation and generating clicks in U.K. over neutral reporting

Just the latest from yesterday's radio ad

"Only leave home for food, medical reasons, exercise, education or work"
That covers basically everything.

"Stay alert. Control the virus. Save lives"
This is bullshit. Doesn't say anything but costs a lot.

Almost all gov msging was bollocks and full of u-turns, misrepresentation of data and the leaking of documents/ideas is appalling.

Mass events are cancelled but schools are allowed. They ARE mass events happening daily.
Remember GCSE/A-levels? Or food for kids? Or furlough? Or testing?
Manchester money? Lockdowns?
I actually challenge you to please give me evidence where they have communicated clearly that:
this is the science
this is what we will be doing
AND THEN DOING THAT

Almost all msgs are "....if you are able" of ffs....

A large part of it was we’ve been in a bit of a vacuum. For periods there wasn’t much new to say on CV. So the media stir every day. Speculate and demand and create strong narratives where not necessary.

Yes collectively the media let the country down. That’s a good way to put it. Will they be held accountable? Misunderstanding graphs, data, sometimes on purpose imo. Misrepresenting what Boris or other gov ministers had said. Creating confusion and chaos rather than clear communication

TheSun I admit I skew my reception towards Whitty / Valance / Sunak and try to filter noise. I have found the CMO in particular very good at messaging.

As for short slogans I don’t mind them, short can work better although the alert one didn’t go down that well. We are actually pretty good on behavioural science in UK, as in we have some top people globally.

A friend of mine has just posted a video of him and his daughter at a stadium watching a game. They’re all sat next to each other, fair few hundred people, no masks etc..seems so surreal, but so lovely 💓this is in Nsw, Australia. Are there no masks there, nothing now? Why is it so different in Europe? Just literally size and amount of people?

@MarshaBradyo

TheSun I admit I skew my reception towards Whitty / Valance / Sunak and try to filter noise. I have found the CMO in particular very good at messaging.

As for short slogans I don’t mind them, short can work better although the alert one didn’t go down that well. We are actually pretty good on behavioural science in UK, as in we have some top people globally.

People en mass read the evening/DM and other toilet paper substitutes.

re:media. in the 90-s in eastern europe when I was at uni studying to be a journalist the BBC or CNN was the golden standard and pinnacle of journalism.
If someone offered me a journo job at the BBC today I would run screaming :(
Thank god I gave up on those dreams quite early on.

mask only in mandated in Victoria and are advised when travelling interstate by plane afaik

Yes I liked the scientists, I understood what they were saying, I understand the risks and the balancing act and why there will always be ifs and buts and why things aren’t set in stone. I think most people do tbh.
Yes schools are still open yet mass gatherings are not allowed but I understand that is because education is a priority more than say watching live football or theatre. Some might disagree but that is the balancing act. And the science changes, April is not October. We know more now than we did.
Anyway, it is interesting and I am sure it’ll be discussed for a long time to come.

@MarshaBradyo
not on covid, but just think back to all the brexit slogans... £350m PER WEEK! to Nhs. It is so clearly a lie, but yet not many "man of the street" questioned it...

TheSun interesting background re studying in EE. Yes agree I am not the norm with media consumption but we did a lot of critical theory at university has inoculated me a bit! I rely on R4 but not BBC print anymore. And The Guardian has been bad in many ways. I don’t bother with the tabloid anyway.

[quote TheSunIsStillShining]@MarshaBradyo
not on covid, but just think back to all the brexit slogans... £350m PER WEEK! to Nhs. It is so clearly a lie, but yet not many "man of the street" questioned it...[/quote]
Totally, there was a programme on this with Benedict C which was fascinating. Brexit was a real introduction to winning by three word slogan.

@sashagabadon

Yes I liked the scientists, I understood what they were saying, I understand the risks and the balancing act and why there will always be ifs and buts and why things aren’t set in stone. I think most people do tbh. Yes schools are still open yet mass gatherings are not allowed but I understand that is because education is a priority more than say watching live football or theatre. Some might disagree but that is the balancing act. And the science changes, April is not October. We know more now than we did. Anyway, it is interesting and I am sure it’ll be discussed for a long time to come.

Yes I’m broadly in agreement with priorities which helps

Surely first 3 word slogan was Obama’s Yes We Can!
And I keep hearing Biden talking about Building Better - that is Boris’s slogan too Build Back Better. Everyone’s saying it

Haha yeh they circulate

I’m sure Labour used Take Back Control the other day on some topic

I'm in Finland. In my particular area (small town) life isn't much different to normal. People are working from home if possible but its a factory town so not possible for many people. Shops, schools, sports and activities etc. are all open but with mask and distancing recommendations (the only place I know that has made masks mandatory is the ice rink for watching matches). I see maybe 15% of people wearing masks in the shops but a month or so ago it was almost 0% so its increasing.

Contact tracing and quarantining of exposed people, there's currently two infection chains in town, one in the school and that's where it falls apart a bit because they haven't tested the children exposed, just quarantined them but children are so often asymptomatic so they might have spread to their families who weren't quarantined but I suppose we'll find out in a week if they did spread or not. Currently only had 31 cases in my town in the whole pandemic.

In the cities I imagine its less normal, more mask wearing, more keeping away from people, more working from home.

In Iceland, we're hopefully just coming out of the current 'wave' and I'm hoping to see restrictions eased again very soon. It's quite restrictive at the moment for us. Gyms, swimming pools, hairdressers and bars are closed, no organised sports allowed. High schools and universities online. 10 people limit on gatherings. Restaurants, cafés, shops are all open but in some cases only 10 people are allowed in at once. Compulsory schools and preschools are open 2 metre rule. Masks required on buses and in most shops. In terms of personal lives, there aren't any official limits on who you can see or anything, as long as you don't gather in a group of more than 10.

The emphasis here has always been on testing, contact tracing, quarantining people who may have been exposed and isolating people who have been confirmed infected. The idea I believe is that a more focused approach can avoid heavy handed blanket restrictions on healthy people. A key metric for success of the strategy is the percentage of cases detected in people who were already in quarantine (it's around 60% overall).

Unfortunately we are now in a pretty severe phase but as I said, things are looking promising and I hope things will be easing off fairly soon.

covid.is/data

Compulsory schools and preschools are open 2 metre rule.

Should have been a full stop in there! There is no 2 metre rule for children in preschools and the lower years of compulsory school, but I think it is the case for older years.

Cayman Islands - same as NZ.

Life as normal, no masks, kids in school - all returning residents must quarantine in gov facility for 14 days and released after any positive Covid result becomes negative.

Tourism is proper fucked though, major hotels are running on limited staff - USA is our largest tourism sector so until they get their shit together and get vaccines, we will remain strictly closed.

We've recently started inviting people of independent means to come and live for 2 years who can WFH (with a job in another country), but individuals must earn a minimum of $100k.

I am thrilled for NZ and Australia. And very jealous They did the right thing for their countries and fair play to them.

On the vaccine though, I think it’s fair to recognise that it is volunteers in other countries taking the risk trialling the vaccines. NZ having no community transmission means it has to rely on safety trials elsewhere surely? That’s fine, I don’t think anyone would begrudge a vaccine to people everywhere, or expect JA not to do the best thing for her country just so NZ could do safety trials, but doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

NZ gambled on a timely vaccine which it couldn’t produce alone. That gamble has paid off it seems and it’s bloody fantastic.

In terms of people begrudging New Zealand, that is true. However I also see a lot of people willing Sweden to fail which blows my mind. Firstly, basic human decency - no one should want any country to fail. Secondly, it’s great news about the vaccine but if it turns out there is benefit to population immunity in terms of infection levels going forward, surely that is good news for us all? And bad fucking news if Sweden were wrong about that and it all goes tits up?

That being said, we locked down hard and entirely from 13 March until end of June!
Total lockdown, had to go to supermarkets on surname letter days, no bars/pubs - everything shut down. Very strict protocols and police presence stopping all cars on road and if you were traveling anytime between 7pm-7am you had to have a gov mandated exemption letter to outline your authorization to travel.
Could only exercise between hours of 7am-7pm etc.

@Strokethefurrywall
do you have a link to this scheme or should I just google?
I might try to convince my husband :) I'd love to go.....

@Frazzled2207 this isn't correct though, most UK cities have a much higher density compared to Australian cities. Some examples...So Melbourne is about the same size as London and Paris but has less than half the population. Brisbane is a similar size to Milan, with half the population. Perth is larger than Berlin, but has around half the population. Sydney has a similar population as Barcelona but is almost four times larger.

On the vaccine though, I think it’s fair to recognise that it is volunteers in other countries taking the risk trialling the vaccines. NZ having no community transmission means it has to rely on safety trials elsewhere surely? That’s fine, I don’t think anyone would begrudge a vaccine to people everywhere, or expect JA not to do the best thing for her country just so NZ could do safety trials, but doesn’t mean it isn’t true

NZ gambled on a timely vaccine which it couldn’t produce alone. That gamble has paid off it seems and it’s bloody fantastic.

This is so frustrating. I wish people would read just a little of what COVAX is about. It's about pooling resources (whether that's expertise, lab facilities, knowledge, suitable trial locations, manufacturing, logistics ...) and spreading risk globally so that all promising vaccine candidates receive investment and no country has to take a gamble on a single vaccine that may or may not prove safe and effective.

www.gavi.org/vaccineswork/covax-explained

Yes, you posted that upthread and I read it.

How many of the safety trials are in New Zealand?

My cousin who I am very close to is a volunteer on the Oxford trial. Thank God, he seems fine and looks likely he will stay that way - but he took the risk. It might not have been fine. I think it’s ok to want that acknowledged.

Which of my two comments do you find “frustrating” or untrue?

1. No safety trials can take place in NZ
2. NZ could not produce the vaccine alone.

You’re acting like I said NZ had nothing to do with the vaccine. Where did I say that?