BBC1 news tonight

[Pomegranatespompom]

Did anyone watch the poverty and covid report? It was incredibly sad, people living in absolutely awful circumstances. There was no SD/mask wearing,. An utterly depressing watch.

@Mumof3andlovingit as an island we had the ability to stop this and instead we have the worst death rate in Europe.

We could have shut down much earlier, we knew it was coming in January, instead we sent our kids off skiing and then allowed them to come back into schools. We had a PM who boasted about shaking hands of Covid patients, we allowed patients to go back into care homes, our world beating track and trace system is a joke.

These are things that the government could have sorted in the last 10 months, but they don't listen and the scary thing is, the next GE they will probably be elected back in.

[quote Sobeyondthehills]@Mumof3andlovingit as an island we had the ability to stop this and instead we have the worst death rate in Europe.

We could have shut down much earlier, we knew it was coming in January, instead we sent our kids off skiing and then allowed them to come back into schools. We had a PM who boasted about shaking hands of Covid patients, we allowed patients to go back into care homes, our world beating track and trace system is a joke.

These are things that the government could have sorted in the last 10 months, but they don't listen and the scary thing is, the next GE they will probably be elected back in.[/quote]
Yes I definitely agree with this.
However, once that window of opportunity was missed I think other than locking the nation down there wasn’t any other choice unfortunately

Poorer people paid the price so the Chelsea set could go skiing.

@Mumof3andlovingit

Would you say this lockdown was a lockdown though?

Lets face it, I couldn't afford to go to the pub or eat out before this and now my partner has lost his job (due to the lockdown) we certainly can't now. I still take my son to school, we can travel to the next town, which is a different county.

If so minded, I can still buy books, DVDs, magazines, newspapers, clothes. I can still see my family, alright I can't hug them, but I can see them. Come Christmas I can go to my sister's house.

This lockdown was bullshit, I agreed with the first one, but only because the government screwed up so badly that we had to and they keep screwing up, so it is the general public which have to pay the price and then what really blew my mind is when Johnson comes out with you can have Christmas but you have to be sensible, why couldn't he say that in November, before shutting down so many businesses for no real reason.

Its because of loads of previous governments that we have so much poverty at the moment and we keep voting in these selfish fuckers year after year.

Incase it was in some doubt I am really angry at this government

We will all look back on this time and say 'what the fuck were we thinking?'

Superb posts, TheDailyCarbuncle, and you're especially right here - though by that time the current crop of imbecile politicians will either be nowhere to be seen or just parroting "we followed the science"

At least, though, it's the answer to "what happens when the next similar virus arrives?", because by then the consequences of these appalling choices will be so clear that they won't be repeated

Or maybe I'm wrong and memories are even shorter than I thought ...

@Puzzledandpissedoff

We will all look back on this time and say 'what the fuck were we thinking?'

Superb posts, TheDailyCarbuncle, and you're especially right here - though by that time the current crop of imbecile politicians will either be nowhere to be seen or just parroting "we followed the science"

At least, though, it's the answer to "what happens when the next similar virus arrives?", because by then the consequences of these appalling choices will be so clear that they won't be repeated

Or maybe I'm wrong and memories are even shorter than I thought ...

I very much doubt it.

More like we’ll look back and think thank fuck we got a vaccine.

And it really was spiralling towards economic demise. And bloody hell what a break through.

I dont think people are going to forget the mask exemption hatred very easily.

We’ll move in from it all.

The only thing we’ll lack is a specific it’s over day

On

Evidence from America that if you dont introduce restrictions your economy suffers anyway. Businesses close for lack of custom when there is a pandemic because, quite reasonably, intelligent people try to avoid catching the virus. And as intelligent people tend to have more money you cant keep going on the rest.

Evidence from many countries that those who control the virus have less economic damage.

(Data on the data thread, studies corner or both).

What anti-lockdowns are really after is killing off the old and the vulnerable, without any medical care to ease their passing. They want the refrigerated vans storing corpses. They want your money, they are not in the slightest interested in anything else. Dont let them fool you.

I dont think I'm going to forget the supreme selfish disregard for others that's been shown over the last 9 months. Its changed my view of the society in which I life forever and not in a good way.

@alreadytaken

Evidence from America that if you dont introduce restrictions your economy suffers anyway. Businesses close for lack of custom when there is a pandemic because, quite reasonably, intelligent people try to avoid catching the virus. And as intelligent people tend to have more money you cant keep going on the rest.

Evidence from many countries that those who control the virus have less economic damage.

(Data on the data thread, studies corner or both).

What anti-lockdowns are really after is killing off the old and the vulnerable, without any medical care to ease their passing. They want the refrigerated vans storing corpses. They want your money, they are not in the slightest interested in anything else. Dont let them fool you.

Thats just so untrue that all people who are anti lockdown are rightwing lunatics who want to kill off the old and steal your money. It literally makes me cry to see what we have done to so many vunerable people in the name of saving them.

I'm a left wing, labour party member who opposes lockdowns now. I also work as a supportworker for vunerable people who have been absolutely forgotten in this pandemic, people who have had their day centres closed, their social interation removed and their independence taken away, all because people with no idea what their lives are like think they're "protecting" them. Children are starving, people have no hope, the economic damage from this will mean the meagre saftey net we had before will be whittled down even further, leaving thousands more to slip through the gaps, into the forgotten side of society like those in the video.

So stop with the sanctimonious preaching and look at whats really happened to people by volunteering at your local food bank, or domestic violence shelter or age UK. See then if we've really protected the vunerable, or if we've protected those fortuanate enough to be able to WFH in houses with heating and enough to eat.

@user1471588124 - whichever way it is played out, it’s the vulnerable who suffer the most and the vulnerable who are most likely to die. This is just the start - just wait for global warming, Brexit and continuing world instability to exacerbate the problems.

@alreadytaken

Evidence from America that if you dont introduce restrictions your economy suffers anyway. Businesses close for lack of custom when there is a pandemic because, quite reasonably, intelligent people try to avoid catching the virus. And as intelligent people tend to have more money you cant keep going on the rest.

Evidence from many countries that those who control the virus have less economic damage.

(Data on the data thread, studies corner or both).

What anti-lockdowns are really after is killing off the old and the vulnerable, without any medical care to ease their passing. They want the refrigerated vans storing corpses. They want your money, they are not in the slightest interested in anything else. Dont let them fool you.

This.

It's very telling that those behind the anti restrictions are from the extreme right. A group that has always held unsavoury views on the vulnerable. What's especially sickening is there's much kinder ways. As Switzerland has demonstrated through assisted suicide. Covid is a cruel way to do it.

Lockdown didn't save lives.

This is utter rubbish. Compare Australia (lockdown & very few deaths) with the US (no lockdown and 250,000 deaths) to see that lockdown works.

@WineAndHobnobs

Lockdown didn't save lives.

This is utter rubbish. Compare Australia (lockdown & very few deaths) with the US (no lockdown and 250,000 deaths) to see that lockdown works.

You are comparing apples to oranges. As I pointed out earlier in the thread, an early lockdown to prevent the virus becoming endemic would have been effective and short and saved waaaay more lives than it costed. What our Government has done is the worst of all worlds and not remotely comparablevto countries like Australia where people are living relatively normal lives now (just no foreign holidays). It is not the same, at all. For lockdown to have worked in the UK it needed to happen in late Jan/ early Feb at the latest. Those of us actually looking at the data at that time and suggesting it were accused of "scaremongering". To lock down in a light way once the virus had already spread amongst the population is totally different, it prevents few deaths and causes many more because the duration of the lockdown is far longer.

We will move on from it all???????

You reckon @MarshaBradyo ???

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9015419/Grant-Shapps-announces-quarantine-exemption-business-travellers.html?ito=social-twitter_dailymailUK

@user1471588124 I'm a regular donor to the local food bank, always have been. In my area they dont often need to ask for donations because we look after our community. The local schoolchildren all get fed in the holidays and no-one "slips through the gaps" if they are willing to ask for help. Our local businesses are all surviving, some doing better than usual.

You are just another lying story who wants to use this an excuse to kill off anyone who is not economically active. Anyone can claim to be anything on the internet and this is just fake "concern" trying to whip up hatred.

I did a food bank shop today, don't be put off by some of the posters on here, they need donations however small.

@Pomegranatespompom

I did a food bank shop today, don't be put off by some of the posters on here, they need donations however small.

I really can't fathom how you got the message that people were trying put you off donating to the foodbank.

Do you really not understand what was said to you in this thread?

Are you always so sanctimonious and patronising? I don't want to engage with you.

[quote alreadytaken]@user1471588124 I'm a regular donor to the local food bank, always have been. In my area they dont often need to ask for donations because we look after our community. The local schoolchildren all get fed in the holidays and no-one "slips through the gaps" if they are willing to ask for help. Our local businesses are all surviving, some doing better than usual.

You are just another lying story who wants to use this an excuse to kill off anyone who is not economically active. Anyone can claim to be anything on the internet and this is just fake "concern" trying to whip up hatred.[/quote]
Yeah, not everyone is willing to ask for help, thinks they deserve help or knows there's help available amd they still need help too. Im genuinly glad your community is doing so well, many others are not so lucky.

I want the "ecomically inactive" people i support to lead full and meaninhful libes, not lives so restricted they've not seen the outside of their house for nine months. If you think this isn't happening and its all lies made up by right wing extremists then these people really have been forgotton.

@WineAndHobnobs

Lockdown didn't save lives.

This is utter rubbish. Compare Australia (lockdown & very few deaths) with the US (no lockdown and 250,000 deaths) to see that lockdown works.

Australia has a very small population of 25 million where because of the huge distances there is limited movement between cities. Rural areas are in the middle of nowhere. Think of a cattle ranch the size of Belgium. It's huge. It's also isolated in comparison to the USA which has land borders. Compare with the US which has huge cities with a lot of movement between areas and a huge population of 320 million.

So you don't know what you're talking about . . .

We could have shut down much earlier, we knew it was coming in January,

Problem is hindsight is a wonderful thing...

If I'm remembering events and timings correctly (and I admit I may not be) even Singapore, which was much closer to the source of the outbreak, had been on the edge of the SARs epidemic a while back and as a result much better prepared for this sort of event than pretty much anywhere in Europe hadn't gone much beyond straightforward temperature checks on arrival at airports and closing some public areas/venues until mid/late Feb..

Where I'd agree the UK does seem to have been an outlier in terms of delay is the timing of it's lockdown relative to the timing in other western European countries...

Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, and Japan are all densely populated. Like Australia, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, and New Zealand, they took effective containment measures.

Lockdowns do work. Short and strict. The key is border control. As in shut - save for genuinely essential travel (clue, that's not a ski trip). Proper quarantine too.

But even our very half hearted lockdown (airports wide open, etc) has indeed saved lives. As explained by scientific and medical experts.

I know it requires a tiny bit of imagination but just try, just this once. Completely unchecked Covid = hospitals completely overrun (that's one way to lower the average age of death), and mass staff sickness across the UK. No deliveries, power, or schools (due to lack of staff).