COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[mancity2012_eamo]

Lovely man.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Just Karl-Heinz Karl-Heinzing.

Joking aside, for once, he is actually being truthful. They will only postpone games and/or suspend their season when players and staff begin to become infected.

As all of us know, finances are the main factor in quite a bit of the decision making happening right now. I am not saying it is not an important factor, as we do need to limit economic impact so there’s some semblance of a country (wherever you live) when the outbreak is over.

But some of the decisions being made appear to be focused on optimising economic outcomes over health outcomes, and even as a trained economist/data scientist I will never find that sort of action less than abhorrent. I have seen far too much suffering based on that sort of ‘optimisation’ working for several health organisations to tolerate such inhuman(e) strategies.

 

[hello]

Agree with this. What concerns me is what plans do the government have in place? What are they preparing? All the communications so far have been on general health advice. They should be reassuring people by providing the facts. How many beds have we got, how many staff, etc etc. All we have been told so far is about the illness. The communications have been appalling. They need to be transparent about our resources even if they are poor. What the Government have done is leave an information vacuum which is rapidly being filled by ill-informed comments. They are treating us all as if we are idiots. It's a sort of "does he take sugar" approach.

When we respond as a collective by buying shit roll then unfortunately we are making the idiots in government seem correct in their assumption that we are idiots that cant be trusted with truthful information.

 

[purplenose]

My argument is to give those hired the benefit of doubt with a plan that’s long term, rather than short term.

Nothing more or less.

You hire these people to make these decisions so why must at least give them the chance.

The problem is this is just a little bit to big to trust people put in place by a group of other people with an astonishing track record of lying and using everything to their own advantage.

Its surely natural for us peasant to have grave reservations about how this is being handled by this country when just about every other country is doing it quite different.

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

Think he is seeking the job of Police and Crime commissioner in Merseyside - so probably just part of his drive to be visible etc.

He is a controversial figure and left-wing politically but he is a leading expert in his field and is very experienced at managing disease outbreaks. He is someone whose views can't be ignored on this issue.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Don’t believe the hype mate. People were cunts then as well. They just didn’t include that in the Pathé propaganda newsreels.

I’m not saying that many people weren’t cunts back then; human nature is unchanged, but to me, the notion that the people as a whole would make the same levels of self-sacrifice, especially in terms of enlisting and putting their lives on the line in the way people did 80 or so years ago, doesn’t bear any objective scrutiny to the extent I would describe the suggestion as absurd.

People are less deferential now (probably a good thing) far less community minded (a bad thing) and years of rising and relatively high living standards has made them (generally) more self-centred and entitled. The welfare state has probably accentuated all this, although that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been an overall force for good.

People were far more easily shamed back then too, which broadly acted as a positive force for public spirited actions. Now people can act in a way that fails to take into account the interests of the wider community without being subject to any meaningful form of shunning; this has also made people more selfish, individually and collectively.

So, I would contend that I’m not believing any hype and am surprised that you would conclude otherwise. You may not agree with my conclusion, but it is based on careful and considered observations of social history over the course of the last century.

 

[Shaelumstash]

What is clear is that the hope of 1% or lower, goes out of the window if we can't treat those in a critical condition.

I don't want to scaremonger any more than I already have, so take this on face value and make up your own minds. But I cannot see any possibility of us bring able to handle the likely numbers of cases coming down the track

That's not scaremongering. It's exactly what the government's graph yesterday showed - if we have a spike like Italy had, it goes way above the capacity of the NHS.

That's why they're advising people to pretty much carry on as normal, in contrast to the rest of the world. They want people to get infected now and slowly drip feed in to the system.

 

[mancity2012_eamo]

I knew we should have built a wall, a big wall, a beautiful wall which would have been the greatest wall ever:-)

Two walls surely? One for Scotland and one for Wales. ;-)

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

That has to be fake news. Surely even a fascist crook like Rummenigge couldn't really have said that.

 

[hilts]

What is clear is that the hope of 1% or lower, goes out of the window if we can't treat those in a critical condition.

I don't want to scaremonger any more than I already have, so take this on face value and make up your own minds. But I cannot see any possibility of us bring able to handle the likely numbers of cases coming down the track

This is really the main point the difference between people getting medical help or not. It doesn’t matter what the fatality rate should be 1 2 or 3% if people who should have lived die anyhow. Can those who are willing to accept the government position tell us how much extra beds and equipment the govt currently have in place and how much is this increasing weekly?

If not it looks like a hard nosed cost per death approach to me.

 

[hilts]

Two walls surely? One for Scotland and one for Wales. ;-)

We are taking them with us the Scots can provide the beer, the welsh the singing and the English will wave our money in the air as we take our last drowning breath.

 

[AlgarveBlu]

Think that is exactly what is driving the government policy as they seek to spread the peak load on the ICUs

Isn't the modelling on this based upon the 'warmer spring weather' scenario being the lynch pin of the strategy? - genuinely asking as I think I recall someone posting some graphs on this but I don't recall correctly it was based on presumed ICU vacancies in previous years in that period versus projected hospitalisation cases in that period by pushing the spike out there as well.

 

[BobKowalski]

That's not scaremongering. It's exactly what the government's graph yesterday showed - if we have a spike like Italy had, it goes way above the capacity of the NHS.

That's why they're advising people to pretty much carry on as normal, in contrast to the rest of the world. They want people to get infected now and slowly drip feed in to the system.

We aren’t carrying on as normal though. Football suspended, large events will end up being cancelled by organisers if not by Govt, working from home where possible. Holidays will be cancelled, care homes are banning visits. No point Govt cracking on with a strategy if the population, businesses etc are doing the opposite.

 

[Shaelumstash]

I’m not saying that many people weren’t cunts back then; human nature is unchanged, but to me, the notion that the people as a whole would make the same levels of self-sacrifice, especially in terms of enlisting and putting their lives on the line in the way people did 80 or so years ago, doesn’t bear any objective scrutiny to the extent I would describe the suggestion as absurd.

People are less deferential now (probably a good thing) far less community minded (a bad thing) and years of rising and relatively high living standards has made them (generally) more self-centred and entitled. The welfare state has probably accentuated all this, although that doesn’t mean it hasn’t been an overall force for good.

People were far more easily shamed back then too, which broadly acted as a positive force for public spirited actions. Now people can act in a way that fails to take into account the interests of the wider community without being subject to any meaningful form of shunning; this has also made people more selfish, individually and collectively.

So, I would contend that I’m not believing any hype and am surprised that you would conclude otherwise. You may not agree with my conclusion, but it is based on careful and considered observations of social history over the course of the last century.

Good post and all fair points. But I think crisis' often brings out the best in people, at least that's the hope.

 

[hilts]

That's not scaremongering. It's exactly what the government's graph yesterday showed - if we have a spike like Italy had, it goes way above the capacity of the NHS.

That's why they're advising people to pretty much carry on as normal, in contrast to the rest of the world. They want people to get infected now and slowly drip feed in to the system.

Why would that slowly drip feed into the system? I don’t think Italy intended to get so many infected but when it happened it was hardly a drip

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

When we respond as a collective by buying shit roll then unfortunately we are making the idiots in government seem correct in their assumption that we are idiots that cant be trusted with truthful information.

The problem is the Government has not even communicated this information to senior people in the NHS and Local Government yet never mind the rest of us.

 

[gordondaviesmoustache]

Good post and all fair points. But I think crisis' often brings out the best in people, at least that's the hope.

I hope you’re right, mate.

 

[pirate]

on a side note with all this cancelled football, I reckon many, many, many clubs are going to fail FFP.\

also many, many clubs are going to go out of business unless they get a sugar daddy to bail them out, especially those clubs carrying lots of debt

 

[mexico1970]

Good post and all fair points. But I think crisis' often brings out the best in people, at least that's the hope.

Great intentions bud and I mirror those in hope, but they're scrapping over bog roll pasta and hand sanitiser, bearing in mind this epidemic hasn't even hit yet I have very little hope (But optimism) that there are enough warts in society to make it very very difficult for the country to run properly.

 

[Shaelumstash]

We aren’t carrying on as normal though. Football suspended, large events will end up being cancelled by organisers if not by Govt, working from home where possible. Holidays will be cancelled, care homes are banning visits. No point Govt cracking on with a strategy if the population, businesses etc are doing the opposite.

The message from Boris yesterday was to carry on as normal, but don't go on a cruise if you're over 70.

The general public isn't buying it.

After seeing every other developed nation suspend mass gatherings, the NBA suspended, La Liga, Serie a, people were dumfounded as to why the PL wasn't.

As of 9.30 last night, the PL was carrying on as normal. It was only at about 10.30 when it was confirmed Arteta was infected that they said they would review it in the morning.

Today players and managers at Everton, Leicester, Watford, West Ham, City and Chelsea have all either being diagnosed with it, or are self-isolating.

Yet the official government figures say there are only 600 confirmed cases in the entire country!

We're moving way too slow on this imo, and the only justification I can see for it is some psedo behavioural science theory that if you isolate people too early, they'll get bored and rebel against it.