COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[True_Blue69]

I don't know about this viral load argument. It seems plausible, but I really don't know.

What is f***ing obvious however is that you catch this thing by ingesting virus through your nose and mouth, and you get it into your nose and mouth by either inhaling it, or by getting your hands contaminated and touching your nose or mouth.

If everyone wears a face mask then (a) you don't inhale other peoples' coughed up mucus and (b) surfaces have got less virus on them because infected people are not coughing virus onto their hands and spreading it that way. Also, you don't put you hand in your own mouth when you have your own mask on.

So universal mask-wearing, on it's own, makes a HUGE difference. This has always been the case and it's shameful that we never drove this point home right from the beginning. The best thing the government could do would be to rigorously enforce - with the threat of very severe fines or imprisonment - everyone to wear a mask in public, and especially when indoors.

Anyone choosing to wilfully ignore the rules should be punished severely so as to make an example of them. Noel Gallagher - for whom a £10k fine means nothing - should be given 6 months in prison, for example. This is not a game. Other reckless behaviour which endangers the lives of others can result in custodial sentences, and so should this.

Can't you catch it through your eyes? You missed mandatory goggles for all.

 

[twosips]

I don't know about this viral load argument. It seems plausible, but I really don't know.

What is f***ing obvious however is that you catch this thing by ingesting virus through your nose and mouth, and you get it into your nose and mouth by either inhaling it, or by getting your hands contaminated and touching your nose or mouth.

If everyone wears a face mask then (a) you don't inhale other peoples' coughed up mucus and (b) surfaces have got less virus on them because infected people are not coughing virus onto their hands and spreading it that way. Also, you don't put you hand in your own mouth when you have your own mask on.

So universal mask-wearing, on it's own, makes a HUGE difference. This has always been the case and it's shameful that we never drove this point home right from the beginning. The best thing the government could do would be to rigorously enforce - with the threat of very severe fines or imprisonment - everyone to wear a mask in public, and especially when indoors.

Anyone choosing to wilfully ignore the rules should be punished severely so as to make an example of them. Noel Gallagher - for whom a £10k fine means nothing - should be given 6 months in prison, for example. This is not a game. Other reckless behaviour which endangers the lives of others can result in custodial sentences, and so should this.

As much as I think there is a benefit for masks, and I do wear them, I think that's ridiculously authoritarian. The science isn't anywhere near 100% refutable enough to warrant prison sentences. If there is clear, demonstrable evidence that can be shared widely, and not just graphs of 'look this country wears them and they have lower cases', then please share it. You can't blame some parts of the public for not fully trusting their effectiveness when there are numerous very qualified people out there, and literal professors, who argue against their benefits. They are just believing one scientist over another.

I don't agree with them personally, but I can see where the mistrust arises given the contrary voices on everything. If you can produce the 100% stonewall evidence, great, otherwise, with prison sentences etc, you're opening up a can of worms that would be impossible to close. That is ripe for abuse in terms of human rights and society would fall apart an awful lot quicker than it's already going to. This fucking awful government having that power is terrifying. Once again, I wear a mask when I'm meant to and I think they're useful.

EDIT - the viral load thing is pretty much accepted throughout most of the scientific community. It's one of the arguments for masks! Masks don't stop you breathing it in. Just less of it. So you get a milder case. They also stop you breathing out dangerous doses of it too.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Even I think that's OTT.

Edit @twosips : this answers your post too.

The issue with crime and punishment is you need either very high levels of detection, combined with modest punishment. OR lower detection rates combined with massive punishment. You need one or the other.

If you have low detection rates - little chance of being caught - and light punishment if you are caught, then too many people will think "fuck it - they won't catch me and it's not the end of the world if they do".

People speed on roads because chances are there isn't a speed camera around the corner, and even if there is, it may not be active and even if it is, then it's only like £60 and not the end of the world. If we had a fixed £1,000 fine for speeding, most people would not speed: The chance of being caught might be slim, but the consequences if you are caught is severe. Or alternatively, we could have cameras everywhere. So it's only £60, but you ARE going to have pay it every day. That would work as well.

But if you combine bugger all chance of detection and bugger all punishment if you are caught (which is what we have with breaking COVID rules) it just means whole swathes of tossers choose to ignore the rules. We don't have the police bandwidth to be inside every shop, cafe etc. So we need severe punishment when we find people wilfully flouting the rules. They need to understand these rules are not optional.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

My wife conducted a junior Yr 3 reading assessment yesterday of her Yr 4 class, just to recap and establish where they are.

It's a school in a poor district and the reading levels are way short of where they should be. She was shocked and angry in equal measure that most of them couldn't even manage a page of relative ease.

My wife is a great teacher and my little girl had read all the Harry Potter books by herself by the time she was eight.

Teachers are being hung out to dry here. It's a disgrace.

She says parents at her school see them more as a babysitting service and it clear none of them were arsed what their kids were doing during lockdown.

These kids don't stand a chance - and neither do our teachers.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Anyone choosing to wilfully ignore the rules should be punished severely so as to make an example of them. Noel Gallagher - for whom a £10k fine means nothing - should be given 6 months in prison, for example. This is not a game. Other reckless behaviour which endangers the lives of others can result in custodial sentences, and so should this.

Quite apart from Covid I think 6mths in nick would do Noel the world of good. Anyone who throws a party for a 100+ in their back garden might well be trying it on and could have the £10k sitting on the sideboard in the lounge, but a week at HM's pleasure would be more appropriate, and as we have opened Nightinghale Hospitals we could reopen, say, Dartmoor, and rechristen it Nightingale Dartmoor. I think it is the only thing that would bring it home to some of the idiots who think it is some kind of amusement or entertainment.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Just when you thought people couldn't be any thicker...

Franklin Graham (son of Bible-thumper Billy) has organised a 200,000 people prayer march on the Washington Monument for Sept 26.

Apparently prayer and God will deliver us all from this. Funnily enough, Trump says it can go ahead.

Prayer and God might work but only if people stayed at home.

 

[purplenose]

As much as I think there is a benefit for masks, and I do wear them, I think that's ridiculously authoritarian. The science isn't anywhere near 100% refutable enough to warrant prison sentences. If there is clear, demonstrable evidence that can be shared widely, and not just graphs of 'look this country wears them and they have lower cases', then please share it. You can't blame some parts of the public for not fully trusting their effectiveness when there are numerous very qualified people out there, and literal professors, who argue against their benefits. They are just believing one scientist over another.

I don't agree with them personally, but I can see where the mistrust arises given the contrary voices on everything. If you can produce the 100% stonewall evidence, great, otherwise, with prison sentences etc, you're opening up a can of worms that would be impossible to close. That is ripe for abuse in terms of human rights and society would fall apart an awful lot quicker than it's already going to. This fucking awful government having that power is terrifying. Once again, I wear a mask when I'm meant to and I think they're useful.

EDIT - the viral load thing is pretty much accepted throughout most of the scientific community. It's one of the arguments for masks! Masks don't stop you breathing it in. Just less of it. So you get a milder case. They also stop you breathing out dangerous doses of it too.

I think there is enough evidence that mask wearing is at least helpful in many situations. Probably enough to warrant it being compulsory to the degree it is now. I for one detest them and will wear one only if i absolutely have to, which in turn means that I only go somewhere that requires one when only absolutely necessary. Each time I dont have something from the supermarket or shop that I would have bought had masks not been required I put the money aside. I already have enough to spend some time in Portugal come better times.

For me its quite simple if I need to wear a mask I wont do it unless its a matter of urgency.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Can't you catch it through your eyes? You missed mandatory goggles for all.

I didn't miss it, any more than I missed mandating everyone has to wear a hazmat suit 24x7. Neither would be justified. Requiring people to wear a mask when in a shop is entirely justified. If we stopped most of the infections through nose and mouth then we'd be in a much, much better place, wouldn't we.

The problem is not the people who are reasonable and responsible. The problem is the people who are too rebellious or just too "couldn't give a toss" to follow the rules. It is such people who are responsible for the rise in infection rates we have seen.

 

[twosips]

Edit @twosips : this answers your post too.

The issue with crime and punishment is you need either very high levels of detection, combined with modest punishment. OR lower detection rates combined with massive punishment. You need one or the other.

If you have low detection rates - little chance of being caught - and light punishment if you are caught, then too many people will think "fuck it - they won't catch me and it's not the end of the world if they do".

People speed on roads because chances are there isn't a speed camera around the corner, and even if there is, it may not be active and even if it is, then it's only like £60 and not the end of the world. If we had a fixed £1,000 fine for speeding, most people would not speed: The chance of being caught might be slim, but the consequences if you are caught is severe. Or alternatively, we could have cameras everywhere. So it's only £60, but you ARE going to have pay it every day. That would work as well.

But if you combine bugger all chance of detection and bugger all punishment if you are caught (which is what we have with breaking COVID rules) just means whole swathes of tossers choose to ignore the rules.

Sure, but none of that really answers my concerns. I get the logic behind it, but I don't think the foundations are demonstrably strong enough to rest all that on. At least in the eyes of a large percent of the public anyway. Everyone knows if you hit someone going faster in a car, they'll likely die. I don't think the perception of the mask thing is anywhere near the same in society. You have to remember that our medical officers and government spent weeks and weeks downplaying the importance of masks citing 'little proof' of their effect on all of this, only to one day a u-turn and say they are.

They've literally not shared any empirical evidence to the public to show why they've changed their minds too. You can't blame the public for being highly cynical as a result. Putting people in prison for this would cause ridiculous amounts of unrest. They've absolutely handled it terribly. What we need is a campaign around why they are useful, presenting data, being honest about why they never recommended them in the first place (PPE shortages, but that's political so they won't fucking admit to making a mistake) and then maybe some will change their minds. As it is though, they've destroyed all confidence in them for many by their own mistakes. Put people in prison for not wearing one now = an even angrier, more segregated society.

Also, once again, this criminally inept government having that power is terrifying. It would be abused, or something similar at some point in the future would be anyway.

EDIT - once again, I am pro masks, just in case anyone thinks i'm arguing against them. I'm not. I think before it gets to the point where you're throwing people in prison, you should probs try and communicate why they're important in a useful manner first.

 

[mosssideblue]

Edit @twosips : this answers your post too.

The issue with crime and punishment is you need either very high levels of detection, combined with modest punishment. OR lower detection rates combined with massive punishment. You need one or the other.

If you have low detection rates - little chance of being caught - and light punishment if you are caught, then too many people will think "fuck it - they won't catch me and it's not the end of the world if they do".

People speed on roads because chances are there isn't a speed camera around the corner, and even if there is, it may not be active and even if it is, then it's only like £60 and not the end of the world. If we had a fixed £1,000 fine for speeding, most people would not speed: The chance of being caught might be slim, but the consequences if you are caught is severe. Or alternatively, we could have cameras everywhere. So it's only £60, but you ARE going to have pay it every day. That would work as well.

But if you combine bugger all chance of detection and bugger all punishment if you are caught (which is what we have with breaking COVID rules) it just means whole swathes of tossers choose to ignore the rules. We don't have the police bandwidth to be inside every shop, cafe etc. So we need severe punishment when we find people wilfully flouting the rules. They need to understand these rules are not optional.

Absolutely spot on