COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[Chippy_boy]

I believe some students in isolation are being given food in boxes now. For a huge personal debt I hope they are getting lobster although pot noodle and a banana will be closer to the mark.

Yes because the debt they incur isn't to fund their education at all. It's simply for the lobsters. And to fuel those fat cat, bearded and dungaree wearing tutors with their Rolls-Royces and their mansions, the bastards.

 

[cleavers]

They should have been told to stay at home.

I didn't say they shouldn't, I merely posed a question, I thought it was ludicrous to move thousands of prople around as the virus was taking hold again, especially into areas already getting large numbers of cases.

 

[blueparrot]

It makes you wonder if this was all some sort of "calculated risk" by the scientists advising government to send students back ? To get it to spread widely in their age group. If so, it was either very stupid, or carefully planned to get the most people affected the quickest, to get this "wave" over by the real start of winter.

I guess if it goes through the student population now, by the time they go home to family for Christmas they won’t be contagious.Whereas if they were staying home studying on line they would still be meeting each other in pubs and elsewhere then taking ithome to family. I don’t know if that was a plan or part of a calculated gamble., but could have been a consideration.
The only problem is they are in city centres using pubs, restaurants,cafes, clubs mixing with non student population who do then take it home to families. Or they were.

 

[Healdplace]

What the fuck is a ‘pop score’ @Healdplace ?

Short for population score.

It is basically cases per 100,000 people - so it measures how two places with different population sizes compare with one another and how fast or slow this number rises tells you how good or bad they are doing against elsewhere.

When you see on the news things like Manchester has a rate of 450 and is worst in the UK they are telling you a version of the pop score or a daily average (usually taken over a period of time). And a few days old.

Every location starts at 0 on day one of the pandemic and the cases per 100,000 added daily so the cummulative number rises daily and is a reliable comparison with other places that smooths out the varying numbers who live in each place - be it a big city like Manchester or Liverpool or a small town like Wigan or Stockport - ior a collection of villages on the Fylde coast.

Each will add cases daily and only by judging them against the population of that area (as all will be different) can you see if they are faring well or nor as the numbers change day to day.

100 cases added to a large city means a very different thing to 100 added to a small village. The pop score will show that as it would rise less for the city than the village.

 

[inchy14]

Why the fuck are they allowing meaningless friendlies to go ahead? Surely they should be limited to ‘proper’ games!! This is just ridiculous. No lads you can’t play your semi pro or non league football games but we’re allowing meaningless friendliest do we can get some cash in through the tv and advertising.

 

[cleavers]

I have talked about the war analogy in here before because I grew up when rationing was just ending and there were bomb sites all over Manchester still. And my parents inspired me with tales of how they did their bit as teenagers/young adults. Volunteer firefighting in the Manchester blitz (my dad) and a land army girl (my mum).

Its not the similarity or difference between Covid and the Nazis as the enemy that is the problem its that then there was only really one source of information and you all trusted it - the BBC. What it said was what was happening. Though spin existed even then nobody was looking for it or presuming it underpinned every decision. It made the desire to stick together so much easier.

Yes there was the odd dispute and some make a buck spivs but the majority saw it as a common battle and there were not a million different versions of every event to disect endlessly with a thousad others at the press of a button.

The internet is a wonderful thing in many ways but it sure has made fighting a pandemic much harder in some regards because it has allowed everyone with a theory - be it sane or crackpot - to have an audience better than even the KIng could command on the radio if some message was in need to be conveyed to the nation.

Our global village of instant communication has fractured the sense of pulling together in your owm small patch of Earth and the oneness that briefly surfaced with the clap for carers and Captain Tom stories was sadly transient. Though emotionally very beneficial when it flickered at the time.

Now we have all been saturated in a bath of Covid theories, hopes, dreams, conspiracy claims and at heart everyone is just trying to make sense and find hope and make this work within their life, their family, their job.

Every human has a coping mechanism in a crisis. Mine is keeping on top of the data as it creates an illusion of control that I know is not real but gets me through the day to feel like I am in some way contributing something useful. At my age a good thing.

Some find trying to uncover what is really happening helpful to them. Hence the multiplicity of argument and theory. Others just want it all to go away and life get back to normal so they put up shields of normality around them to live as if there is no Covid.

There is no right or wrong way to get by here. And we should make space to accept how others need to handle this even if we feel it very wrong. But we really are missing that sense of all in this together which was I think the biggest reason we fought for 6 years and won that war against tyranny. Because far more then trusted others to have their back just as they would reciprocate if needs be.

The internet has brought many benefits but it has made us into a shallow society which now seems to have made arguing and being proven right an art form to be cherished under the guise of made up names and avatars.

Life moves on. So will this terrible period end too. But it is a shame we cannot recapture more of that wartime spirit of community becuse it would get many through these next few months in better fettle than just letting off steam invisibly on a forum.

Though in of itself that does have a part to play in easing the mental angst these torrid times are going to stir into wakefulness like a behemoth rising up from slumber within the depths of our soul.

Great post HP.

 

[cleavers]

I guess if it goes through the student population now, by the time they go home to family for Christmas they won’t be contagious.Whereas if they were staying home studying on line they would still be meeting each other in pubs and elsewhere then taking home to family. I don’t know if that was a plan or part of a calculated gamble., but could have been a consideration.
The only problem is they are in city centres using pubs, restaurants,cafes, clubs mixing with non student population who do then take it home to families. Or they were.

It does make you wonder though ?

 

[Blue Maverick]

Why the fuck are they allowing meaningless friendlies to go ahead? Surely they should be limited to ‘proper’ games!! This is just ridiculous. No lads you can’t play your semi pro or non league football games but we’re allowing meaningless friendliest do we can get some cash in through the tv and advertising.

Because like the restart last season it was for the good of the nation of course, how dare you suggest it’s about money

 

[cleavers]

Why the fuck are they allowing meaningless friendlies to go ahead? Surely they should be limited to ‘proper’ games!! This is just ridiculous. No lads you can’t play your semi pro or non league football games but we’re allowing meaningless friendliest do we can get some cash in through the tv and advertising.

I think you answered your own question.

 

[blueparrot]

It does make you wonder though ?

Yes, it’s why it’s a lot more difficult to be sure the right and the wrong decision while we are in the midst of this. Arguments aren’t black and white it’s all more nuanced and decisions a balancing act until we look back on what worked and what didn’t work. Hopefully we’ll be able to look back in the not too distant future.