COVID-19 — Coronavirus

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gordondaviesmoustache said:
My bother’s a doctor and undertakes regular post-mortems. He told me last week the increase in suicides and alcohol related deaths (from people drinking themselves to death at home) has increased enormously since lockdown.

The picture is never quite as simple or straightforward as some would like to paint it.
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as opposed to drinking themselves to death in the pub? Or going to the pub, catching Covid and their drinking/mental health vulnerability exacerbating the situation? It's a shit situation and people are going to defend what they relate to the most. If we hadn't stopped in March, you saw the figures of how many people were being crippled or dying and what the trajectory was, we all did. Once you have made the decision to stop, it's not really reasonable in my view to start again unless it's safe, which it isn't, as the past few weeks is already proving. People wanting to game the system to keep alive the way it used to be will eventually lose out anyway because the world isn't going back there, no matter how much people want it to.
 
Went to an Italian restaurant on Saturday for a meal with the missus - one table had 14 people on it, another had 8 (and that one was quite obviously 3 separate households as they departed separately in taxis - after they had all taken group photos and hugs). It's ridiculous that restaurants can take bookings of so many in a group. Tempted to report them.
 
The rate of infections in Leeds has more than doubled since their championship title celebrations. That said, they are still way below Manchester.
 
PannickAtTheDisco said:
as opposed to drinking themselves to death in the pub? Or going to the pub, catching Covid and their drinking/mental health vulnerability exacerbating the situation? It's a shit situation and people are going to defend what they relate to the most. If we hadn't stopped in March, you saw the figures of how many people were being crippled or dying and what the trajectory was, we all did. Once you have made the decision to stop, it's not really reasonable in my view to start again unless it's safe, which it isn't, as the past few weeks is already proving. People wanting to game the system to keep alive the way it used to be will eventually lose out anyway because the world isn't going back there, no matter how much people want it to.
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You’re doing it again - over-simplifying things, and your comment about people drinking themselves to death betrays a complete lack of understanding about the impact being isolated has on certain individuals.

‘pub’ covers a wide range of premises ranging from tiny back street boozers with no outdoor space, through to large establishments with expansive outdoor areas, many of which have taken significant steps to further mitigate risk of infection. I presently choose to avoid the former and (with care) attend the latter. I’m less careful than I was in April, but much more careful than I was in February. It’s a called a proportionate response.

Your last point is a non-sequitur and again demonstrates an apparent inability to think along anything other than linear lines.

Just because things won’t go back to where they were, it doesn’t mean that some semblance of normality can’t return.
 
kaz7 said:
Tbf if I was 86 I would think fuck it as I might die tomorrow so I am not going to spend more time locked in my house,that age are very stubborn as they have seen it all before
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That is more or less what she says and I do understand that, Kaz as we have been friends a long time (despite being a United fan!) I could only warn her about what I was seeing. The choice always then has to be a personal one about how you manage that risk and balance your life.

As true if you are 18 or in your 80s.

The only thing I would say is that you also have to balance that personal choice with the potential impact on others if you get sick and pass it on to other vulnerable people before you realise that you are ill. Because their choice might not be yours.

In our current situation we all have to learn to balance self interest and concern for others. We are all in this together regardless of age.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
You’re doing it again - over-simplifying things, and your comment about people drinking themselves to death betrays a complete lack of understanding about the impact being isolated has on certain individuals.

‘pub’ covers a wide range of premises ranging from tiny back street boozers with no outdoor space, through to large establishments with expansive outdoor areas, many of which have taken significant steps to further mitigate risk of infection. I presently choose to avoid the former and (with care) attend the latter. I’m less careful than I was in April, but much more careful than I was in February. It’s a called a proportionate response.

Your last point is a non-sequitur and again demonstrates an apparent inability to think along anything other than linear lines.

Just because things won’t go back to where they were, it doesn’t mean that some semblance of normality can’t return.
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You can have the patronising tone all you want, it doesn't add any weight to your view. I'm well aware of the impact the isolation is having as I've been trying to support friends/family who are shielding through it. What is overlooked in my view is the alternative side which is the impact of throwing away all of those sacrifices by opening everything up so people can have a jolly up, which to me is not proportionate to everything we've tried to achieve in the prior 4 months.

The definition of the establishment is irrelevant, it is the nature of the people attending the premises that is the overriding issue and weakness in the application of the rules.

A proportionate response is subjective, and it's why you and I have different views. Some semblance of normality can resume, my contention is that opening pubs isn't part of that solution, presents more dangers than benefits and is putting too many innocent people at risk. There were many measures that could have been implemented to make it a safer practice, but as demonstrated even the most basic measures fall on deaf ears because of the nature of a significant proportion of the people who want the pubs open to start with. That's been demonstrated thus far.

For me, the priority for having a semblance of normal is getting things like schools open, not pubs which are leisure when there are other measures such as parks and open spaces that are safer which cover the social interaction issues. If the answer is "I need alcohol in a social interaction to function", there are more pressing and difficult questions to ask than "when can we open the pubs?".
 
shemnel said:
simple but effective analysis - something the govt are not really willing to accept at the moment. I think this all still lies in the margin of error.

not that we should stop being courteous and thoughtful of others, but this sort of simple approach needs to be highlighted
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That was a good analysis. Thanks for finding it. It is is why I publish the data on hospital admissions every evening here and have noted the serious oddity of the Leicester data as throughout their lockdown (caused by far higher numbers than GM towns have as yet) admissions and deaths both fell in the same way they did in other areas where cases were not high.

Something has changed in the data and this wave of cases is not the same as the one in April It might be partly a change in the virus but if it was we would likely know that by now. It might be social factors - that the young and less likely to be seriously ill are causing the case number rise but the really vulnerable ones are keeping out of their way by choice unlike before.

There is a big spike in cases and testing increases have a part to play in that. But its not the only thing happening here. Note that Nicola Sturgeon saw this weeks ago and introduced the idea of not just saying we found 100 cases today but accompanying that with a % figure - say - 0.5% This measures the number of new cases out of the tests done that day.

I have been doing that now for a while in my posts on all the data here as it shows clearly how things change day to day better than just raw numbers of new cases.

Some leaders choose to inform and some choose to obscure - by accident or design. But as I have said a few times recently the numbers are bad. They will get worse unless we moderate our behaviour. But this is not like it was in April when the consequence of that was hundreds dying.

At present that is not happening. We have to be aware of the risk that it might. And hope that it does not.
 
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