COVID-19 Life now and beyond

[AnglianRed 6,320]

2 hours ago, wilsoncgp said:

The government makes decisions to open things up and encourage people to go back into areas which will cause the virus to spread easier and you still blame the people for that happening. Absolutely baffles me. How many transitions do you think have been caused by people not following rules vs. those following them? Do you really think it's more the former than the latter?

Yes, they opened things up while also telling people the basic precautions still applied.

Seems a lot of people chose to ignore that.

You've seen the signs and stripy tape markings all over shops, denoting 1-way systems, 2-metre zones, No Mask No Entry etc. Businesses have mostly done their best to comply with the rules, but as I said before a significant minority of people haven't.

You only have to read / watch the news or listen to the radio to see instances where shop owners have been abused for trying to make people leave, because they haven't been wearing masks.

Then there are the businesses who have flagrantly ignored the lockdown AND social distancing rules...notably gyms. For no other reason than they think the rules shouldn't apply to them. You can sanitise the equipment as much as you like, but when you've got a lot of hot, sweaty people puffing and panting (and also likely not wearing masks) the virus will still spread through the air.

Also heard a bloke on the radio trying to defend keeping swimming pools open, saying they were safe and sanitised. The pools themselves may be...but the locker rooms are still a great place for the virus to spread.

When you put that together with all the idiots having large / mass gatherings, thats more than enough to accelerate the spread of the virus.

So yeah...its mostly on people like this that we're back in lockdown. It should have been possible to open up the economy without the virus running riot again, if people had acted sensibly...which is what the government always tried to stress. But they didn't listen.

I don't deny the government hasn't done as well as it should...but I'm also saying that when you've got so many people failing to take even the most basic precautions, there is nothing it can do (short of resorting to martial law) to stop the spread.

 

[Duvel 2,446]

1 hour ago, Ash said:

Furlough scheme extended until March, I hope this doesn't point to us being in lockdown until then...

Boris said a few days ago that he believes we can beat this before the spring, that gave me the opinion that he's expecting a long, tough winter. 

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

I know that the hope is people can still see each other at Christmas and that this 4-week thing will help that to happen but we've always dealt with this as if Christmas is all but cancelled, keeping it in the household, at best we hope my Granddad and brother can make it to our Mam's house as they're on their own if they don't.

Also @AnglianRed, I think it's fair to say we're never going to agree on this so I'm gonna leave it there, we've both said our bit now amongst others and as per the above, just thinking about Christmas with COVID in our lives only makes me want to wish people well rather than have a hot-headed debate. 👍

[Duvel 2,446]

1 hour ago, AnglianRed said:

Yes, they opened things up while also telling people the basic precautions still applied.

Seems a lot of people chose to ignore that.

You've seen the signs and stripy tape markings all over shops, denoting 1-way systems, 2-metre zones, No Mask No Entry etc. Businesses have mostly done their best to comply with the rules, but as I said before a significant minority of people haven't.

You only have to read / watch the news or listen to the radio to see instances where shop owners have been abused for trying to make people leave, because they haven't been wearing masks.

Then there are the businesses who have flagrantly ignored the lockdown AND social distancing rules...notably gyms. For no other reason than they think the rules shouldn't apply to them. You can sanitise the equipment as much as you like, but when you've got a lot of hot, sweaty people puffing and panting (and also likely not wearing masks) the virus will still spread through the air.

Also heard a bloke on the radio trying to defend keeping swimming pools open, saying they were safe and sanitised. The pools themselves may be...but the locker rooms are still a great place for the virus to spread.

When you put that together with all the idiots having large / mass gatherings, thats more than enough to accelerate the spread of the virus.

So yeah...its mostly on people like this that we're back in lockdown. It should have been possible to open up the economy without the virus running riot again, if people had acted sensibly...which is what the government always tried to stress. But they didn't listen.

I don't deny the government hasn't done as well as it should...but I'm also saying that when you've got so many people failing to take even the most basic precautions, there is nothing it can do (short of resorting to martial law) to stop the spread.

 

This is exactly what the government wants you to think. Thats the easy explanation isn't it, just blame each other. 

The government has made a complete *** of the last 9 months and they've cost 10s of thousands of people their lives in the process. 

We were far too late to lockdown in March, we literally had weeks and weeks to plan and prepare for what was coming and the government did nothing. You could see what was spreading around Europe and we somehow thought we knew better. 

It would have been easier to control the spread compared to countries in Europe because we are an island with closed borders. There was no testing and no quarantining for people arriving here in the early stages, isn't this just basic common sense? 

The government have lied, deceived and gave out mixed messages throughout the pandemic. I've watched Boris stand there in press conferences not even knowing what the rules were in different areas. 

They were telling people to get out and enjoy the summer a few months ago when they should have been preaching caution and care. 

Johnson is supposed to be the leader of the country but you never see him the majority of the time, he wasn't bothering to attend cobra meetings when the 2hit was hitting the fan and he gave up with the press conferences during the summer when the virus was still around. 

Then we come to Cummings, after he went for his eye test all trust was lost in the government. It was clear that the rules for those in charge were different for everyone else. Johnson should have given him the boot, but he put himself first because he can't think without Cummings.  

Our track and trace system is failing because they decided to give the contract to their mates to run an incompetent system, rather than use an established method used by other countries. This has cost us, the tax payer billions.

We are basically hanging on for a vaccine because the govenment is unable to manage the situation. I know this is an unprecedented event and mistakes were going to be made but the way the Tories have dealt with this is chronic. We are committing the same mistakes that we made in March, at some point we should be learning from our mistakes. 

Yes some people are not complying but thats not the big problem, you need a government to lead and manage a situation and we've had neither. 

[DanFromDownSouth 1,706]

@Duvel The Government tender process needs to be seriously reviewed after the pandemic. We need some real heavy checks and balances on it.

There are countless stories of some unscrupulous dealings surrounding the processes at the moment. I saw that a firm linked to the Tory party was given a £3 Million contract, without going through the tender process. Then there are the countless stories of Tory donor's getting contracts worth hundreds of millions, of which the businesses are not delivering what they've been paid to do. Then worst of all there are "Special Procurement Channels" for VIP's and cabinet contacts that they can go through to get awarded this contracts.

[Duvel 2,446]

17 minutes ago, DanFromDownSouth said:

@Duvel The Government tender process needs to be seriously reviewed after the pandemic. We need some real heavy checks and balances on it.

There are countless stories of some unscrupulous dealings surrounding the processes at the moment. I saw that a firm linked to the Tory party was given a £3 Million contract, without going through the tender process. Then there are the countless stories of Tory donor's getting contracts worth hundreds of millions, of which the businesses are not delivering what they've been paid to do. Then worst of all there are "Special Procurement Channels" for VIP's and cabinet contacts that they can go through to get awarded this contracts.

Yes there are numerous stories about contracts being given to companies without going through any tender process. What makes it worse is that some of those companies have no background of delivering the services they've been paid to provide. 

I was thinking recently about how easily we as a country accept these things, its bordering on fraud but we all just sit back and accept it. 

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

9 minutes ago, Duvel said:

Yes there are numerous stories about contracts being given to companies without going through any tender process. What makes it worse is that some of those companies have no background of delivering the services they've been paid to provide. 

I was thinking recently about how easily we as a country accept these things, its bordering on fraud but we all just sit back and accept it. 

Well, those who try to point these dirty things out are often called communists. Which is utterly maddening.

There's really so little room for genuine information any more. It no longer matters what the facts are, all that matters is who says they're facts. And whilst experts are referred to in inverted commas, we will get our 'facts' from people who benefit from telling people information in the way that benefits them.

[Duvel 2,446]

10 hours ago, wilsoncgp said:

Well, those who try to point these dirty things out are often called communists. Which is utterly maddening.

There's really so little room for genuine information any more. It no longer matters what the facts are, all that matters is who says they're facts. And whilst experts are referred to in inverted commas, we will get our 'facts' from people who benefit from telling people information in the way that benefits them.

Yeah politics has been dumbed down to the simplest form, facts don't matter any more its all about 3 or 4 word slogans and truth is almost irrelevant. 

[oldman 155]

Oh dear this board is beginning to look like FMTTM all over again.

[Duvel 2,446]

5 minutes ago, oldman said:

Oh dear this board is beginning to look like FMTTM all over again.

Maybe stick to football threads then, its not hard to avoid the politics on here. 

[Ash 167]

19 hours ago, Duvel said:

Boris said a few days ago that he believes we can beat this before the spring, that gave me the opinion that he's expecting a long, tough winter. 

I hope that's the case but I think it will just keep spiking again and again because it's been handled so badly and because of the idiots that refuse to adhere to simple rules. I think it's fair to say this Winter is going to be horrible for all of us, as has the entire pandemic, but it's quite possible that it's going to be even worse through the Winter months than it was in the first few months it started.

[AnglianRed 6,320]

32 minutes ago, Ash said:

I hope that's the case but I think it will just keep spiking again and again because it's been handled so badly and because of the idiots that refuse to adhere to simple rules. I think it's fair to say this Winter is going to be horrible for all of us, as has the entire pandemic, but it's quite possible that it's going to be even worse through the Winter months than it was in the first few months it started.

I think this particular lockdown is aimed at preventing the NHS getting overwhelmed...but if that is the intention then it really needed to last until February-March. I don't see 1 month achieving anything other than putting a temporary dent in the stats.

But then that would also do even more damage to the economy, peoples' livelihoods etc. even with the extension of the furlough scheme.

A classic "rock and a hard place" situation.

 

[Ash 167]

1 hour ago, AnglianRed said:

I think this particular lockdown is aimed at preventing the NHS getting overwhelmed...but if that is the intention then it really needed to last until February-March. I don't see 1 month achieving anything other than putting a temporary dent in the stats.

But then that would also do even more damage to the economy, peoples' livelihoods etc. even with the extension of the furlough scheme.

A classic "rock and a hard place" situation.

 

I think it will last until then, or they will ease the lockdown for Christmas then put us back in for another couple of months. Everyone is fed up of all this now but the first lockdown should have been handled better and maybe things would have been closer to normality by now.

Yes, I agree. You can't really win with whichever route you take here. It's honestly horrible seeing how many people are losing their jobs, I haven't had any work since March and there isn't a lot of jobs going with everything that's happening. I do count myself very lucky though as I don't have kids to feed or a mortgage to pay like a lot of people do. I dread to think how many people have committed suicide because of it too.

[Denzel Zanzibar 6,972]

Boris is going to open the country up for Christmas (because economy) and then put us back into nationwide lockdown on January 1st because "the public just couldn't behave themselves" you can just see it already.

[wilsoncgp 9,283]

Probably just loony lefties having communist parties at the Universities causing the issue anyway.

😬