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Post by Deleted on Sept 20, 2020 1:21:01 GMT
I’m afraid the police have far better things to do than chase up people not wearing masks, some of whom may legitimately be exempt. In my corner of the UK, they’ve recently been dealing with XR, BLM, the far right and anti-mask idiots in Trafalgar Square, often while their numbers are reduced due to colleagues suffering from... yep, coronavirus. Quite possibly passed on to them by the afore-mentioned thoughtless groups they’ve had to deal with at very close quarters. All while also managing the ongoing terrorist threat, gang violence, drug crime, sex crime, increased domestic violence, and supporting vulnerable people on the streets. Which of these things should they stop doing to spend time instead talking to people not wearing face coverings? In an ideal world, we’d have enough coppers to do all of this. But we’re not in an ideal world. It is the polices’ job to enforce the law as set out by parliament. Ah yes, because Parliament only makes one law... Or do you expect resources to appear out of thin air so they can enforce every single breach of every single law? That would require a policeman or woman permanently stationed on every street corner, that is how unachievable it is. This is the real world, not fantasy idealism. |
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Post by Phantom of London on Sept 20, 2020 4:01:03 GMT
The real world as you eloquently point out is one where Covid is surging again, which will kill many Vulnerable people.
No point in making laws if you are not going to enforce them.
Get some of the police out of canteens and get them to do what they are paid for, get some of the thousands of police that are used for diplomatic protection to enforce, Failing any of that get the army.
So not fantasy idealism but the world needs protecting from idiots.
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Post by Someone in a tree on Sept 20, 2020 6:25:39 GMT
Out of the canteens?
Aren't workers allowed a break?
I work with the police regarding sexual abuse, domestic violence, trafficking etc and have found them to be very dedicated and hardworking. All workers have to prioritise one task over another and mask wearing is low down on the list and I totally see why. Yes Covid can be killer but so are a lot of other things. If our great Get brexit done-leader gave more funding then perhaps things would be different but it isn't and I'm not critising
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Post by theglenbucklaird on Sept 20, 2020 9:35:50 GMT
The real world as you eloquently point out is one where Covid is surging again, which will kill many Vulnerable people. No point in making laws if you are not going to enforce them. Get some of the police out of canteens and get them to do what they are paid for, get some of the thousands of police that are used for diplomatic protection to enforce, Failing any of that get the army. So not fantasy idealism but the world needs protecting from idiots. Really support the enforce laws you make, but really against the army on the streets |
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Post by theglenbucklaird on Sept 20, 2020 9:39:25 GMT
Less than eight weeks since Johnson's go for a patriotic pint message. The wrong man for the job Agreed. when pubs re-opened it was advertised as New Year without fireworks. Then the eat out to help out scheme introduced by the chancellor, was only going to go one way and we now see that in the sharp rises in cases. Less than three weeks since the get office workers back to work speech. The wrong man for the job |
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Post by talkingheads on Sept 20, 2020 15:26:11 GMT
Good news! The PM has reckons Covid is taking a 24 hour holiday at Christmas...
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Post by olliebean on Sept 20, 2020 16:17:44 GMT
Seems massively unlikely that the government will manage not to change their mind about what the rules are for the next three months. On recent performance, a fortnight seems to be about the limit.
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Post by kathryn on Sept 20, 2020 17:12:56 GMT
Bunch of numpties has now made it so anyone who will struggle to afford to self-isolate if they get symptoms definitely won’t get a test, because if they do have a positive test and then get caught not isolating they could get a £10k fine.
As long as they didn’t get tested they can’t get fined for not self-isolating.
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Post by talkingheads on Sept 20, 2020 18:27:03 GMT
As the second wave approaches and furlough ends, Sunak is considering a benefits freeze to 'balance the books':
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Post by talkingheads on Sept 21, 2020 10:49:12 GMT
I always feel duty bound to watch these important TV briefings even though I know I'll feel worse after. Anyway for anyone who didn't, this is the main point:
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Post by zahidf on Sept 21, 2020 10:51:23 GMT
A counterview
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Post by marcellus on Sept 21, 2020 11:24:12 GMT
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Post by theatreian on Sept 21, 2020 12:24:18 GMT
I think the point Chris Whitty makes is valid. Unless you live on your own on an island what you do impacts on others. If you increase your own risk, you increase others around you. We are just going to have to be a bit less selfish and do what is necessary in the short term for the longer term gain. At least there was some hopeful news on the vaccine front too.
I am as fed up as everyone else with the restrictions but we all have our part to play.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2020 12:41:51 GMT
Here's an interesting statistic. The number of Britons killed per month by Covid-19 since March is about the same as the number killed per month during the Second World War. This is not a problem that can be brushed aside as a mere annoyance. We're dealing with wartime-level casualties.
Eighty years ago people had to endure restrictions for six years of war and for some time afterwards. They pulled together and got through it. They'd be disgusted by the way people today are giving up after a few months. "We're all in this together" didn't last long, did it?
Not long ago I read an article where people who'd moved to North America or Western Europe talked about the things they found remarkable that the natives took for granted. Being able to contact the emergency services and have them turn up even if you weren't a Party member. The military being something the government funds, not something they are. Not having to know who your local warlord or drug baron is. Being able to go out at night without fear of being murdered for the change in your pocket. Insurance being a thing you pay in case something bad happens, not a thing you pay to make sure it won't. Not having "murdered by the government" as a statistically significant cause of death.
We're all immensely privileged by the standards of most of the world. Even during the worst of the lockdown, and no matter how difficult we found it, we were all living far easier lives than many people have to put up with every single day. Do those people complain about it? Of course they do, because their lives f—ing suck. But ours don't suck anywhere near as much. All we're facing is a few restrictions on our freedom, and we have absolutely no right to whine about it as if not being able to do every single thing we want means we're suffering more than any human has ever suffered. Even under lockdown and with all the continuing restrictions we are still some of the luckiest humans who have ever lived.
So you have to follow a few rules and can't have a party with your mates or do other things that involve large groups. Get over it. All we need to do to save hundreds of thousands of lives and keep our economy bubbling along is be slightly less privileged for a while. Is that too much to ask? Apparently the answer is yes.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2020 14:54:50 GMT
All we're facing is a few restrictions on our freedom, and we have absolutely no right to whine about it as if not being able to do every single thing we want means we're suffering more than any human has ever suffered. Just when I think the hyperbole on this forum can't get any worse. Your posts would be so much more persuasive if you didn't see the worst in everyone and make out every single person to be pretty much the equivalent of a major criminal because they dare to mention that there just might be adverse impacts of this pandemic other than deaths from COVID... Most people arent saying anything like "we are suffering more than any human has ever suffered", but people are raising perfectly legitimate concerns about mental health, missed diagnoses, poverty and other issues which cannot simply be sparked because of one virus. This is not at all "just a few restrictions on our freedom", for many people it is struggling even to keep their heads above water, staring hunger and homelessness in the face because their livelihoods have disappeared and they are struggling to find other jobs. That is so much more than "just a few restrictions", and reducing it to that shows a fundamental disregard for the true impact of this pandemic, just like you have ignored the broader impacts of WWII. The situations are not comparable. |
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Post by theglenbucklaird on Sept 21, 2020 16:11:30 GMT
All we're facing is a few restrictions on our freedom, and we have absolutely no right to whine about it as if not being able to do every single thing we want means we're suffering more than any human has ever suffered. Just when I think the hyperbole on this forum can't get any worse. Your posts would be so much more persuasive if you didn't see the worst in everyone and make out every single person to be pretty much the equivalent of a major criminal because they dare to mention that there just might be adverse impacts of this pandemic other than deaths from COVID... Most people arent saying anything like "we are suffering more than any human has ever suffered", but people are raising perfectly legitimate concerns about mental health, missed diagnoses, poverty and other issues which cannot simply be sparked because of one virus. This is not at all "just a few restrictions on our freedom", for many people it is struggling even to keep their heads above water, staring hunger and homelessness in the face because their livelihoods have disappeared and they are struggling to find other jobs. That is so much more than "just a few restrictions", and reducing it to that shows a fundamental disregard for the true impact of this pandemic, just like you have ignored the broader impacts of WWII. The situations are not comparable. I might be wrong, but there is not a chance any of Matthew's comments were aimed at anybody suffering or affected by anything that you have mentioned |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2020 17:21:39 GMT
All we're facing is a few restrictions on our freedom, and we have absolutely no right to whine about it as if not being able to do every single thing we want means we're suffering more than any human has ever suffered. Just when I think the hyperbole on this forum can't get any worse. From the person who claimed Covid-19 was less dangerous than driving. You keep bringing up this strawman argument where fighting back against Covid-19 means completely ignoring the economy and disregarding any mental health or other health issues, but nobody other than you has ever presented the situation like that. I've said over and over again that it's important to get the economy moving and to free up medical resources to treat all types of problems other than Covid-19, but unlike you I understand that we do that by keeping the number of infections low, not by letting them spiral out of control and hoping that somehow people won't die this time around. That's what the experts are saying, and that's what almost every government is doing. What makes you think you're right and everyone else — including people whose life's work is to understand exactly these matters — is wrong?
It was all a few restrictions on our freedom, a few weeks ago. The lockdown was tough, yes, but that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what has happened since. The lockdown was effective and got the number of infections down to such a low level that there were entire weeks where a third of lower tier local authorities were reporting no new infections at all. And it stayed that way through July and most of August, and it could have stayed that way indefinitely. All we had to do was keep it there and we could have carried on with no chance of another lockdown, gradually sorting things out so everyone was properly supported through the restrictions that remained.
Once the lockdown was over there were loads of things people could do with their time that were completely safe or very low risk, and if everyone had the approach I was referring to in my earlier post then we wouldn't be seeing a massive increase in cases now. But no. It wasn't enough for some people to make small changes in their behaviour. It wasn't enough for people to say, perhaps I'll go for a picnic in the country instead of to that crowded beach. It wasn't enough for people to say, maybe I'll have a quiet birthday at home instead of a huge party. After months of news reports saying "Look at all these irresponsible idiots doing all these dangerous things that could cause us to have another lockdown" people were still going out and doing exactly the things they knew they shouldn't be doing. It was all under control and now it isn't and that's entirely down to people who wouldn't change their behaviour even a little bit in order to make things better for everyone.
Your approach is all about "it's my risk", and despite your repeated claims it's absolutely not seeing the bigger picture. The bigger picture is that just for once people needed to look beyond what they wanted to do and think about the effect of their actions on others and on the country as a whole, and many of them just couldn't do it. "It's my risk" is why things are going so wrong.
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Post by lynette on Sept 21, 2020 17:44:01 GMT
People do what they do, beach parties, etc, unless 1. They will suffer personally or 2. They get slammed by society ie a big fine, imprisonment etc. If there is a 3. Helping everyone to stay safe, then I don't see it happening.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2020 18:02:40 GMT
People do what they do, beach parties, etc, unless 1. They will suffer personally or 2. They get slammed by society ie a big fine, imprisonment etc. If there is a 3. Helping everyone to stay safe, then I don't see it happening. That's what I find so depressing about the current situation. The threat of another lockdown bothers me because I was self-harming like crazy last time, but the fact that we failed so badly that we got to the state where we might need another one bothers me even more. Everyone was so united back in the spring and I naively hoped it would carry on that way.
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Post by kathryn on Sept 21, 2020 18:24:02 GMT
Beach parties are unlikely to be the problem - beaches have been busy for months without seeing spikes in cases.
Indoor spaces are where most people get infected. The spikes have basically followed people going back to crowded workplaces in factories, people socialising in homes, and 'Eat Out to Help Out'.
If only they'd stuck with 'don't meet people inside' - spend as little time in crowded indoor spaces as humanly possible, have people over in the garden or meet in the park - yes, even if there's lots of you there, it's the airflow that's important in diluting the number of virus particles. Wear a mask indoors and you can take it off once you're outside.
That might have been simple enough for people to understand.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2020 19:16:07 GMT
Beach parties are unlikely to be the problem - beaches have been busy for months without seeing spikes in cases. Indoor spaces are where most people get infected. The spikes have basically followed people going back to crowded workplaces in factories, people socialising in homes, and 'Eat Out to Help Out'. Yeah, you're probably right about beaches. For me it's more what they represent: people were specifically told not to go to crowded beaches and parks and went anyway. There was no confusion over messages there: it was a straight "I will intentionally do the wrong thing".
But I don't think the pubs are the problem either, or at least not the food pubs. They've been open since the start of July and it wasn't until two months later there was a serious upturn in cases.
I think the government could have done a better job with the mask regulations, and it wasn't a good idea to allow customer-facing staff to be exempt. Of the four pubs I go to regularly two require masks for all bar staff when not behind the bar while the other two don't bother. Guess which ones I want to go back to. People need to feel safe if they're to get out and spend more and they're not going to feel safe if the most visible part of a business is doing the absolute bare minimum. And it's not just about feeling safe; I want to reward the places that show they care about their customers. |
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Post by talkingheads on Sept 21, 2020 21:58:18 GMT
Curfew for pubs and restaurants at 10PM from Thursday:
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Post by olliebean on Sept 21, 2020 23:26:50 GMT
Curfew for pubs and restaurants at 10PM from Thursday: Because the virus gets more contagious after 10pm? |
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Post by talkingheads on Sept 21, 2020 23:29:04 GMT
Curfew for pubs and restaurants at 10PM from Thursday: Because the virus gets more contagious after 10pm? I know, madness isn't it? Not to mention the people who will likely now cram as much drink in before 10PM as they can. |
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Post by distantcousin on Sept 21, 2020 23:47:27 GMT
Completely reject what Witty says. Can't wait for the growing number of scientific figures to discredit him.
His defintion of risk is highly exagerrated and makes no allowances for the economy. The old and vulnerable should be shielded, and let the rest get on with it. End of.
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