Christmas is saved

[MiaMarshmallows]

So happy that my partner and big family can all be together this year. We are all really close and get on brilliantly. So pleased at the news today!

[Sweetpea1532]

I know this thread was started weeks ago and nobody could predict the future
But...On 30 Nov my DD was traveling from the States to a country in the EU for essential business. She had a stopover at Heathrow to change planes...DD was shocked at the laissez-faire attitude by more than half of the airport workers..no masks, social distancing, etc. It was as if the 2 Dec lifting of the govt orders were soon enough "so let's just start now."...the airport workers were being exposed to people from all over the world and weren't taking even the most rudimentary precautions..After their shifts they were possibly riding the tube home, stopping at shops then going home to their families. Is it any wonder there has been an explosion of covid19 in the London area, enough to go into Tier 4 if the very people who are exposed to the outside world aren't following the rules?

All I can tell you is that my DD is one of the boldest risk-takers I know, and she decided it was 100% essential to use protective measures at all times and was completely shocked when she saw many people at Heathrow doing the opposite.
Just a real life observation from my DD, so please don't jump down my throat about it...she was there that day, and you were probably not. The end

[DameFanny]

I'm not sure what dealing with anything means these days. Just been keeping going and trying to look for the rainbows. And diving into favourite books when it all gets too much.

[HazeyJaneII]

Bloody hell Alexafrost, that sounds very hard. What a shitty year this has been. I'm so sorry for all your losses.

It's daft, DameFanny, but I was totally unprepared for my mum to die, and it was so sudden, and in this wierd bloody time, we haven't been able to deal with it all properly.

It's certainly going to be a strange Christmas.

[Alexafrost]

Thanks DameFanny, thanks Hazey.

Yes, it's hard. It doesn't help losing a beloved pet and then three family members in the space of three months. I don't think any of us will look back at 2020 with any fondness. It has been the annus horribilis par excellence.

[DameFanny]

It feels like once they get past a certain age we should be ready but I wasn't... for you too

[HazeyJaneII]

Sorry about your father too DameFanny.
My mum died suddenly in June, I go from it not feeling real to being hit by overwhelming sadness.
for us all.

[DameFanny]

I'm sorry you've lost your father Alexa. I lost mine last year, and I'm still stumbling over unexpected waves of grief. It's tough

[HazeyJaneII]

I am very sorry to hear about your father, Alexafrost.

I wish you well, and hope we can all get through this, whatever our views are on the handling of the pandemic.

[Alexafrost]

I'm one of a huge number who disagrees with the current policy of lockdown. I don't feel I am alone, merely on the losing side politically. I'm sorry you find me patronising but I can't say I care for your tone much either.

I'm sorry to hear your son has health problems and it definitely makes sense to shield him as I did with my elderly father before he died.

[HazeyJaneII]

Alexafrost, I understand your indignation, it is an overwhelming and incredibly frustrating situation...but you post as though you are the only one who has absorbed any information over the last few months. It must be incredibly frustrating for you to believe you are the only one who sees the truth, and I guess that is where your very patronising tone comes from. I will leave this thread now, as it is only going to go around and around until it eventually disappears up it's own fundament.
Yes, my son has underlying health conditions and the advice from his Drs is to continue shielding.

[DameFanny]

Yes dear

[Alexafrost]

Still not an argument and still absolutely nothing to back up anything you say. You've stopped making any sense by this point.

Don't bother posting any more insults Fanny, I'm not interested. Especially from the likes of you.

[DameFanny]

Oh dear, you still don't see it. Throwing in another allegation about the PCR test without even linking to that stupid meme with the guy who designed it - who was actually denying the existence of HIV/AIDS when he made the quote.

And you're the only one worried about public debt? Hardly.

But you're still just working through the list of 'talking points' or 'slam dunks' or whatever you've picked up on some Facebook page where you've been told that this conclusively proves something but you've not got the nous to understand that it doesn't, because you can't even demonstrate you know the difference between an opinion and a fact.

[Alexafrost]

"A large chunk of my post said exactly why I think the Barrington Declaration and focused protection is bullshit....you responded with 'if you think it's bullshit, then you have to have argument why'. I double checked, I definitely posted my reasons!"

Not really. You said you think it's bullshit without actually dealing with official government figures which plainly show most of the deaths occur within one specific group and don't range broadly over the entire population. Knowing that it is easy to target those people without widening restrictions unnecessarily and doing great harm in the process.

"Why do you think I believe in the lockdown line in my heart? What a strange view to take. As I said in my post - we are in a situation of repeated lockdowns because this shit show of a government didn't organise a decent testing system, a decent contact tracing system or put in proper protective measures during the first lockdown, when they had time to do that."

It's not a strange view to me. I look at the evidence and I don't see the reason for lockdown. I look at the criticisms of the testing system, a test which was never designed for this kind of diagnosis without supporting evidence and the failure to acknowledge false positive rates and my faith in it evaporates. It puzzles me why you have come to a different conclusion (as I'm sure my view puzzles you) and why the questions and reservations about the tests don't concern you at all.

It worries me most when people (especially those in government) talk of 'the science' because I know immediately that they don't understand how science works. It worries me when government advisers and the PM himself use data and predictions which are out of date and Johnson continues to do so after this has been pointed out. Then I start to suspect that I'm being sold something.

It worries me most of all that many in the general public and many in public office seem to have such little concern about the levels of debt being accrued and the damage being done to the economy. It worries me when the government themselves think more people will die from the lockdown than from Covid itself. Doesn't that concern you too?

"I know you don't believe that Covid deserves this response, and that's fine. My information comes from the same sources as everyone else - the press, social media, the government, scientists (of every opinion), people that work in the medical profession - and most importantly from a personal point of view, the Drs that provide my son's care - when they tell me that it is important that he stays home because of the risk of Covid, then I tend to listen."

Does your son have a serious health condition? Covid hasn't proved dangerous to children as an age group but obviously there will be exceptions based on other factors.

[Alexafrost]

So, as I thought DameFanny you don't have a cogent argument and you're just wind added to which you're astonishingly pompous with your self appointed role as protector against "bluster and blatherskite". Pity you don't deal with your own.

[HazeyJaneII]

A large chunk of my post said exactly why I think the Barrington Declaration and focused protection is bullshit....you responded with 'if you think it's bullshit, then you have to have argument why'. I double checked, I definitely posted my reasons!

I was asking you if you believe in the lockdown line in your heart. To me it seems like a quasi religious position so I wonder how you came by it, from research or faith in authority or some other reason.
Why do you think I believe in the lockdown line in my heart? What a strange view to take. As I said in my post - we are in a situation of repeated lockdowns because this shit show of a government didn't organise a decent testing system, a decent contact tracing system or put in proper protective measures during the first lockdown, when they had time to do that.

I know you don't believe that Covid deserves this response, and that's fine. My information comes from the same sources as everyone else - the press, social media, the government, scientists (of every opinion), people that work in the medical profession - and most importantly from a personal point of view, the Drs that provide my son's care - when they tell me that it is important that he stays home because of the risk of Covid, then I tend to listen.

[DameFanny]

Like I said, you're the one telling us the arguments against lockdown and masks are so very strong. And failing to back up even one tiny point.

I haven't been defending lockdown with religious zeal - just saying that the alternatives look worse, and pointing at the USA which is a great big example of the worse right now.

So no, I'm not going to engage as if you're making a valid scientific or medical argument, I just hope that I've made it clear to anyone else reading this that your bluster and blatherskite is just that, and shouldn't be taken seriously.

[Alexafrost]

I was asking for an argument from DameFanny as he/she has failed to provide one and instead endlessly demands from me what he/she isn't prepared to provide.

I was asking you if you believe in the lockdown line in your heart. To me it seems like a quasi religious position so I wonder how you came by it, from research or faith in authority or some other reason.

However, if you want to end the conversation that's fine with me.

[HazeyJaneII]

You keep asking for arguments, people give you arguments, but it doesn't matter...because you then say....give me an argument. To be honest it's like shouting into an empty bucket, so I guess that means the conversation is at an end (praise the lord)

[Alexafrost]

"Again with the blanket statements like "Given that we know the predictions the government have used have been consistently and hopelessly wrong"

We don't know anything of the kind. Show your workings fgs."

No, I'm not showing you anything until you make an actual argument. If you will not then our conversation is at an end. .

If you want to see the early death rate predictions and compare them to the actual death rate use google. I am not your servant. All the facts you need are at your fingertips.

[Alexafrost]

It's fine to think the Barrington declaration is bullshit and that the Swedish approach is hopeless but you'd need to say why.

I am arguing against the restrictions because I, like many others in and out of the scientific world think we are doing vastly more damage by locking down than Covid would do left to its own devices. I don't see lockdowns as being the least bit inevitable as they have never been before.

Do you honestly believe looking at the death figures and comparing overall death rates with death rates in previous years that Covid 19 warrants this degree of upset?

Do you honestly believe that we will come out of this relatively unscathed financially and there won't be an appalling price to pay economically?

Do you honestly not believe that the government's own predictions of a high death rate due to lockdown is not going to happen?

I was partly serious about shielding the vulnerable in good hotels. I would be vastly less expensive and damaging to the economy than what we're currently doing and more likely to save the lives of those who are actually dying of the virus at around 95% of deaths.

It isn't that some people are deemed vulnerable. It's that some people really are far more vulnerable than others. The pattern of deaths is crystal clear. We can certainly agree on who are the vulnerable. It is people over 65, particularly people over 65 in poor health. The majority of deaths are of people in their 80s.

I agree the vulnerable are a part of society which is why it was such a tragedy that we didn't shield them and allowed the disease to run rampant through the care homes. Sweden made that same mistake, as did Spain and the US and various countries that took different approaches to the virus.

There are questions about track and trace and the issue of false positives.

Again it is of little interest to me whether mine is the majority or minority viewpoint. I am working on what I believe to be basic logic and the death rate worldwide. Scientists who agree with me are putting forward their evidence.

One thing I can say that if the vaccine isn't a success there will come a time when all governments will have to abandon most or all restrictions or terrible face riots as more and more people are forced out of their jobs and into poverty and the money runs out to fund the health service we are so busy protecting at any cost.

[HazeyJaneII]

[quote Alexafrost]"@DameFanny, I applaud your patience, calm and eloquence, in the face of such blather and bullshit."

So, you don't have an argument then just insults.[/quote]
Sorry, I thought Dame Fanny was doing a better job than I could...my brain is slightly frazzled by another week of remote learning.

I do believe it's blather and bullshit though. When I asked earlier who should be shielded and how - your suggestion (tongue in cheek, I guess) was We could put them up in first class hotels and have dedicated carers in protective gear...no real suggestion was offered, and to be honest that seems to have been the nature of lots of your posts, so I couldn't really be arsed.

Lots of these threads end up with the huffing of hot air and hyperbole, but basically come down to Great Barrington Declaration and Sweden Got It Right. I think both things are bullshit.

I wrote this on another thread a while ago, when I had more energy...

I am not in favour of continual lockdowns, but they are now inevitable.

I was in favour of fully locking down earlier than we did, and getting a decent system of testing and contact tracing up and running before a gradual re-opening.
I believe social distancing, good hygeine, the wearing of masks and as much being done outside as possible alongside a quick, efficient and readily available system of testing, contact tracing and isolating where everyone abides by the rules....should have and would have made a huge difference whilst we wait for a vaccine.
The government fucked up on this on a mammoth scale...leaving us in the shite we are in now.

I think herd immunity, focused protections, Great Barrington Declarations or 'protecting the vulnerable' is a nice lie to tell ourselves that it is possible for 'most if us' to get back to some sort of normality, whilst segregating those who have been deemed vulnerable. It is a completely flawed concept.

The huge flaws in this are

• no one can agree onwhothe vulnerable are
• the highest numbers of deaths in the 'first wave' were the moderately vulnerable..not the extremely clinically vulnerable.
• 'the vulnerable' are part of society, and live and work with everyone else, go to school, go to hospital...are us.
• death isnt the only negative outcome of Covid - we need to learn more about the myriad ways it affects people long term from PIMS to the various consequences being seen in long covid.

This article is good for a couple if opposing views from scientists to the Barrington Bunch (and by the way there are a hell of a lot more in the scientific community who oppose their views, than the signatories and supporters)
//www.wired.co.uk/article/great-barrington-declaration-herd-immunity-scientific-divide

Prof Devi Sridhar is a good person to follow in Twitter for an opposing view. In March she tweeted about lockdowns...unfortunately the government utterly fucked up on the mess testing tracing and isolating, failing to take advantage of an early hard lockdown....which is why we have ended up with a series of lockdowns.

[DameFanny]

Again with the blanket statements like "Given that we know the predictions the government have used have been consistently and hopelessly wrong"

We don't know anything of the kind. Show your workings fgs.

[Alexafrost]

"Alexa - you're the one stating opinions that go against general medical and scientific opinion, you're the one that needs to bring evidence to support those opinions."

There is no general medical opinion. There's just the official government position. Opinion is divided and science doesn't work by general consensus but by evidence. Political actions are a matter of logic and weighing the dangers of not locking down against the dangers of locking down, or at least they should be.

You have the greater need to prove your position as you are the one supporting the removal of some of our most basic civil liberties and the gradual destruction of many people's livelihoods as well as endangering their treatments for life threatening diseases such as cancer. The onus is on your camp to show that taking such drastic action is not only sensible but absolutely vital without any shadow of a doubt and that the death rate justifies it in comparison to all other pandemics where we didn't take this course of action.

Given that we know the predictions the government have used have been consistently and hopelessly wrong can you prove that we needed the lockdown, that hospitals would have been overwhelmed without it to the point that excess deaths from that will outnumber those from lockdown, that lockdowns work as a long term solution to infection and that the death rate from lockdown will be less than Covid?

"Your statement "But do you really need evidence that people don't replace and wash masks? Wouldn't personal observation suffice?" - No, personal observation does not suffice, unless you're omnipresent and omniscient, because anecdote is not data."

Observation is certainly evidence. I don't know if anyone has done an in depth study on the use of masks by the general public. Many kinds of masks have been criticised as totally ineffective by pro-maskers and there is no government standard on masks so it's not unreasonable to suppose people are not using the 'correct' masks or using them properly. I believe it was someone at the WHO who actually made this argument about masks in the early days but I can't find his name at the moment.

[Alexafrost]

"You're the one that keeps presenting crap as known fact, and repetition doesn't make a thing true. But even for Donald Trump."

What crap? You haven't actually presented a cogent argument yet.

"That's what I'm asking you to prove. You haven't done so, just added more and more opinions. If you genuinely can't understand the difference than that explains your posts."

You have also just stated an opinion as well, scarcely even that really. You've made criticisms without argument. You haven't actually refuted a thing you've just called everything you don't agree with some variation of crap and made ad hominem attacks. Apparently you don't understand the difference between insults and arguments.

There is no definitive proof to be had. There is only opinion, logic and some evidence. The facts about the death rate, the age of those who have died, previous death rates in other years and other countries are easy enough to find as are the predictions of deaths from Covid the government used and their predictions of deaths from lockdown. Everything else is a waiting game.