Coronavirus (2021) thread

[sky tot]

So much for getting out of jail
We are all still on parole and wearing ankle tags for the foreseeable.

Quite good for you Matt

 

[kevin horlocks wand]

So much for getting out of jail
We are all still on parole and wearing ankle tags for the foreseeable.

a Mask around my ankle would be more comfortable, I have to wear mine on my face!

 

[BLUEMATT23]

Quite good for you Matt

Actually I nicked it from one of the papers !

 

[Franny's toilet roll]

Importance diminishing and research grants disappearing. Just remember, you’re not allowed to say such things. Welcome to the world of being anti-society and a Covid denier........

All joking aside though, given that press conference, there must be another agenda in play here. Whitty confirms Covid is here in perpetuity, the vaccine roll out and success unimagined a few months ago, all the data pointing to great success and yet we will need social distancing and masks until at least next year? Bypassing parliament for vaccine passports?
Remember 3 weeks to flatten the curve. Then temporary tiers. Then no schools as they put up the R number by at least 0.7. A second lockdown to save Christmas, Christmas cancelled to prevent another lockdown, a third lockdown to save Easter with a promise of normality is the vaccine was a success. Data not dates, but only if the data is worse, it’s dates not data if that’s not the case. Restrictions lifted in June provided no new bad data. There is no new bad data and yet it’s all change yet again. That’s without everyone taking 2 Covid test a week. Assuming a false positive rate of only 0.1% and 80 million tests a week, that’s a false posited number of 80000 a week or 11200 a day. Bearing in mind that the FP rate is reckoned to be 4 times that at 0.4%, it can never end.
Good job he’s passing legislation to ban protests or people might start getting a tad hacked off. The goalposts haven’t just been moved but they are on a different continent and moving further away every week....

A good summary of what we've been through and of what is likely to happen going forward. I'd rather do 1 test every 2 weeks if it was accurate. Going to be so much white noise with twice weekly inaccurate testing, the government and their scientists will be able to bullshit anything through. They are simply too scared to try to return to a normal life. We are too scared to be one of the countries leading the way out of this shit show.

 

[BLUEMATT23]

It really isn’t. It has been for a long time, but now we are finally seeing the end of the road. It might not be as close as we thought, but it’s definitely much closer than this time last year. Even January, 6 weeks ago, things were looking terrible. Now figures are good. Kids are in school and we are monitoring figures whilst partially reopening more and more each month.

OK but why did last night feel so depressing?
I'm convinced that some of the science experts are actually enjoying all of this.
Its there big moment to shine and they don't want to let go
Maybe I'm just getting to cynical.

 

[M18CTID]

A good summary of what we've been through and of what is likely to happen going forward. I'd rather do 1 test every 2 weeks if it was accurate. Going to be so much white noise with twice weekly inaccurate testing, the government and their scientists will be able to bullshit anything through. They are simply too scared to try to return to a normal life. We are too scared to be one of the countries leading the way out of this shit show.

Apart from the fact that we were the first country in the world to start vaccinations, and also have a roadmap out of lockdown with clear dates, all of which have been adhered to so far. But yeah, despite that we're too scared to be one of the countries leading the way out of this shit show.

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

don't know what people expected, this was never going to be over by 21 June. That's not how these things have ever worked.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Do you really think the Corbyn, Abbott, Ashworth dream team would have done better?

And yet, they’ve still not worked out the most basic thing. They’re busy spaffing billions in testing, not tracing, opening Nightingale and not using them, PPE supplied by mates who‘ve never done anything like it and countless other complete wastes of our money (not Rishi’s money, btw) but the one thing that would have made the biggest difference is paying people a level of sick pay (not £95 pw) that meant they didn’t need to go to work for a week or two if they were ill. Whitty said yesterday that, going forward, any social distancing measures will need to include staying at home when you aren’t well, which just hasn’t been happening because people can’t afford it.
It’s really not complicated but there is absolutely no sign they will do anything about it. The usual Tory fear is that someone will be getting something they’re not entitled to, which only seems to matter if it’s a few quid at the poorer end of society, not huge amounts at the other end.

 

[shemnel]

Christ you're insufferable.

Clearly, available and rapid testing is required to help identify outbreaks and shut them down asap. Do you want your freedoms or not? Do you have a better plan to achieve post-pandemic utopia?

Do you see the mass LFT programme being robust though?

Personally I can't see a huge uptake, a lot of people don't want the risk of isolating based on a test that has a lower chance of being correct that the regular PCR one, expressly one where it's shown that the less expert the tester (in this case it'll usually be Joe bloggs) then the much higher the rate of error. And that's both ways, missing out the real positive cases too.

I do have that creeping feeling that the mass test initiative is a bit of a vanity project, and a huge huge misappropriation of public money

 

[M18CTID]

And yet, they’ve still not worked out the most basic thing. They’re busy spaffing billions in testing, not tracing, opening Nightingale and not using them, PPE supplied by mates who‘ve never done anything like it and countless other complete wastes of our money (not Rishi’s money, btw) but the one thing that would have made the biggest difference is paying people a level of sick pay (not £95 pw) that meant they didn’t need to go to work for a week or two if they were ill. Whitty said yesterday that, going forward, any social distancing measures will need to include staying at home when you aren’t well, which just hasn’t been happening because people can’t afford it.
It’s really not complicated but there is absolutely no sign they will do anything about it. The usual Tory fear is that someone will be getting something they’re not entitled to, which only seems to matter if it’s a few quid at the poorer end of society, not huge amounts at the other end.

I agree they should've done more to help with sick pay for those who test positive. Perhaps even allow people to be furloughed for a couple of weeks at least, especially as it's estimated that furlough has cost billions in fraudulent claims, yet those who have to isolate due to Covid are only entitled to £95 per week. On the flip side to that, all these people who have Covid but can't afford to isolate - what exactly do they do when they're off sick for any other reason? If they can't get into work because they're floored with the flu or have broken an ankle, etc, can they all of a sudden afford a couple of weeks or so off work on SSP for those reasons but not when they have Covid?