Tiery Weary & Crackers!

[Bikingbear]

As a carry on from the last thread

Honestly? I'm not sure, I certainly don't want to go down a route of Russian/Chinese plots, I think that a narrative has been created and no-one at that point wanted to deviate from it. Panic, loss of face, enjoying the power, taking advantage of population control etc etc ??

We've chosen to continue to fuck our economy after evidence/science has changed.

Lets not forget that the initial Imperial data was based on 6 people on 6 flights from Wuhan and the whole world based their strategy on projections from that and continued to do so even when it became clear quickly that that data was flawed.

Yes. I think there’s a compulsion to be seen to be Doing Something, even if the something is useless.

But I am puzzled by the acquiescence

Well my brains cells have been blown to bits watching that!

I'm speechless, I was of the view that the lockdowns had to be doing 'something'. At one point it thought it had to be the High schools with asymptomatic spread, I still don't see much difference between Uni students and upper high school kids.

Something that has been bothering me they were banging on about the first wave of the vaccine, basically over 70s, that would cut 99% of deaths. I'm not saying 70+ don't matter but are many of them past their best before date???

I've been cynical enough to think SG sent infected people to care homes with the sort of view it would solve the funding issues, within the sector. Sick, sad but I can't think why else they'd do that. Ok you might make the mistake early on but once they'd emptied a few homes surely they should have stopped.

@Bikingbear I found it really interesting too. Makes sense

Just had a quick nosy at the PHE data for N Ireland. The numbers (cases, deaths, hospital) have been stable for last 2 months and actually hospital numbers are reducing.

I know I hate the SNP and Nicola, but I don't think it was a deliberate strategy. The panic was to empty hospitals ready for the mass influx of covid patients. They didn't want to wait to test people, they just wanted them out.

That strategy was wrong. The hospitals didn't need to be emptied so quickly and that's not even with hindsight. All they had to do was send home people who were ready or near ready to go home, then just test and release in stages. If it got to the point where they needed the space, that was the point where they needed another strategy, move all untested to one area, clear out a care home etc etc.

So it was stupidity, panic and incompetence, I really don't believe it was deliberate.

Ivor has done loads of videos and is increasingly featuring eminent medical experts etc.

I've been watching for months, this is why I'm always so hacked off.

The vast majority of deaths in this country (whilst very sad) are in the population who already had a DNR or were elderly and who would have probably succumbed to the Flu over the last couple of years had we not had a very soft flu season. A significant amount were already over the average age of death. We've fucked up the economy, sentenced people of all ages to death due to lack of cancer diagnosis, destroyed the mental health of most of the country, I honestly have to stop thinking about it as it makes me so angry and meanwhile people moaning that we aren't doing lockdowns well enough.

So @Dinnafashyersel how does that square with the doom referred to above?

@WaxOnFeckOff I agree it’s incompetence abd a desire to be seen to be doing something.

It then got caught up in the Biden (masks) good; Trump (no masks) bad in the US.

The care homes thing is just proper bad though

The lock downs aren't really working because we are all inside. Ventilation aspect has been played down other than saying open windows.

DH does covid response so keeps up with the research a case study in Asia found a positive woman sat under a air circulation system. People up to 26ft facing the direction of the vents then tested positive a few days later. Those sat opposite not facing the vents didn't.

Cases are rising as people do their Xmas shopping, cafes and are indoors in places with less ventilation in the summer more of us were outside.

We will also be going to a new tier 3 English area for Xmas as reality is we will then be locked down til February at the earliest and I need a break from 24/7 wfh and toddler care!

People in care homes still dying

I think it’s all about arrogance & the illusion of control. Humans need to feel that we have control over this new big bad meanwhile perfectly evolved virus gonna virus.

Anyway back to the important stuff - 2m crackers I’ve been thinking a paper tube reinforced with thin card strips so that they alternate where they cross the centre - resulting in only the paper to actually pull apart but the card for structure. Also can be loaded flat then rolled.
I really don’t want to make a 2m cracker because we have far too many bloody crackers in the house already but I want to play!

Lockdown does work if you go in hard and fast enough, which our lockdowns haven't.
People's behaviour does affect the spread otherwise why is Stirling so different from Merthyr Tydfil?
Doesn't mean it's not seasonal too but the lockdowns were designed to stop hospitals being overwhelmed not to stop anyone at all catching it, thats a luxury only islands can have ( well islands with decisive governments).
They probably know that the lockdowns can't make the virus disappear but they can't say that out loud because then we'd all ignore the rules and everywhere would be like Merthyr (what have they been up to there? House parties?).
The post match analysis is going to be interesting.

@Scottishskifun the graphs show a very similar trajectory, seasonal based, no matter what measures are in place

@Wbeezer that’s not what the science shows.

Hard lockdown/no lockdown it all goes the same way.

But Scottish sun. We are all wearing masks. Everywhere. I see people on their own walking outside wearing masks 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️

We wear them in all shops an£ supermarkets

We take them off our faces in cafes to eat but cafes are very quiet.

I feel your toddler pain. Impossible.

So weary with being indoors with 3 small people.

It’s not the fault of “bad behaviour”

I've created a game with mask wearing 3 points for each "willy" you see over the top (nose not covered) 2 points for a chinner (pulled down around the chin when leaving a shop) a 1 point for a toucher (constantly touching the front) it makes things more entertaining. First person to spot gets the points. I scored 40 in one 20 minute walk the other day.

Masks don't stop people catching it unless it's a ffp2/3 and reduces large droplets not the very small ones. Plus with chiners anything on the front then gets pulled around the neck and then back inside the mask when pulling it back up.

2 m crackers sounds like great fun kitchen roll tubes would work well duct tape the majority of the joins for stability leaving the middle one with a paper join should work!

I listen to people like Ivor Cummins and what he says seems so sensible and believable to me. But I must be wrong because the governments of the world are acting on completely different advice and I just don't understand.
If I live to be 150 I'll never live through anything as bizarre as this.

I'm talking about Isle of Man/New Zealand style lockdowns you can't say they haven't kept numbers down, but obviously not feasible everywhere.
I understand that it's a bit like a brush fire burning more fiercely because the previous years dead undergrowth wasn't removed/burnt in smaller fires.
Even if it's seasonal (it obviously is) we can't prove that lockdown didn't have any effect, we don't know what our numbers would have been without it because you can't compare countries with different geography and demographics and social attitudes.
I'm not defending the SG just saying that I'm going to reserve judgement on the "it's seasonal" guy just as much as the scientists he's disagreeing with.
It reminds me of having "nature v nurture" arguments, sitting listening to both sides and thinking "Doesn't it usually turn out to be a mixture?"

I dunno, the king or price of sweden was wailing that they'd chosen the wrong strategy as they'd done so much worse than Norway/Finland/Denmark. However, the other 3 had had hard previous winter death rates for 2 years and Sweden had really low, and basically if you took the excess deaths of 2020 and put them into the troughs in 2018 and 19, their curve was pretty much the same as the rest of the them, just a different year. The big BUT here is that sweden did a very light initial lock down and then more or less got back to normal, no fucked economy etc. And sweden still did better than us, italy, spain, germany etc

www.economist.com/asia/2020/12/12/the-japanese-authorities-understood-covid-19-better-than-most
This is an interesting shortish article.

@Rae36 islands who can stop travel is one of the exemptions he mentions to the lockdowns don’t work rule

And the health of a population too influences death rates.
So, Japan, low obesity etc better placed,
But mostly the trajectory is the same no matter what the country did.
It’s unpalatable as it means there’s really not much you can do to stop it. But accepting that is the way forward.

I agree that you can't stop it but I do think you can mitigate it to an extent accepting one doesn't preclude accepting the other.

I do accept early on there were mistakes made discharging people into care homes but it seems like it's still happening which is questionable.

Scottishskifun- it's so true the amount of people who don't ware masks properly and the cloth ones that are worn for days on end.

As much as Britain is an island there is so much traffic in and out that really we are part of mainland Europe. Zero cases is never going to happen. All it takes is a couple of asymptomatic truckers and boof it would be spreading again.

I have heard the theory that the schools have been kept open because children are low risk and it helps build immunity within the population.