Covid-19 Virus

They could permit fewer kids to go to school, for one.

 

Sadly seems this way. Round my neck of the woods (NW London) for every person who gives you plenty of room and stops if necessary to let you pass or overtake, there are many more who show no common sense or consideration, eg those who walk abreast in the middle of a narrow pavement next to a busy road, teenage or older pavement cyclists, joggers who run far too close, people who gather in large groups in parks taking up more than half the width of a path, those who cut across a pavement with no warning without looking, people who amble in the middle of a pavement while wrapped up in a phone conversation, screaming teenage girls on buses without masks, people who block entrances to passages/parks seemingly oblivious to those approaching. And all this while the daily death count has been well into three/four figures, not near zero as it was in the summer.

Of course at times it’s not possible to keep two metres apart, but to keep as close to it as possible, surely it’s not hard to (a) keep on one side of the pavement, (b) walk in single file when in groups (c) confine jogging to parks, and if necessary jog on the grass (d) don’t cycle on the pavement and don’t have your kids riding scooters there?

 

I think that might be a small mass gathering.

 

There's lots of criticism that can be levelled at China, but I suspect the unfortunate reality is that the virus was out of the country before the Chinese authorities even became aware of it and bizarrely decided to cover it up. The chances of something this contagious not having left China's borders once until the weeks following their attempted cover up seem remote to me.

I don't think there was ever a realistic chance of this particular virus not getting out into the world.

 

Clearly the disobedient general public is to blame for the high Covid death toll. It’s got nothing to do with the lack of PPE, the failure to create dedicated hospitals for Covid patients, spunking tens of billions of pounds on a not-fit-for-purpose Test and Trace programme, building the Nightingales but not recruiting or training enough healthcare workers to staff them, decommissioning the Nightingales, failing to eliminate in-hospital infection and the ongoing scandal of secondary transmission in care homes…

 

The school is being extremely proactive in its communications:

 

Apologies if this has been posted elsewhere. Reported that Deeney wants football to stop for a while.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...T-football-Covid-messaging-contradictory.html

 

That's like blaming a burglary on cutting police numbers.

You can make all the excuses you like, but lack of PPE 9 months ago has little to do with lack of personal responsibility right now. I'm surprised you (of all people on this forum) thinks that personal responsibility can go out of the window.

No one is blaming the "general public", as the general public are mostly abiding with the rules. But it is being pointed out that some people are not. Surely you can see the difference.

 

Not sure I agree. Look at #6298 and #6302, As you say, we don’t really notice the vast majority who do comply, we only notice the rule-breakers. Of course those breaking rules are in the wrong and there is no doubt that this is contributing to rising rates, although I am sure it is not the only factor.

 

Wow. Troy getting headlines. What size and fitness would he be when it resumed ?

 

I was very angry with China at the start and of course their horrific wet markets have a lot to answer for, but ultimately we’re all to blame. This was a zoonotic disease and they will become more and more of an issue the more crowded this world gets and the more we encroach into natural habitats. As humans were all to blame for mass consumerism and eating meat that takes up vast swathes of natural habitat. The more we push into wildlife’s natural territory the more we’ll be exposed to diseases that leap from them to us.

 

I'm sure the number of people making major infringements of the rules is tiny, but I'm also convinced the the main driver for the spread of the virus is away from view, i.e. within private homes, where many people struggle to comply through no fault of their own.

 

But the whole pandemic response relies on the antithesis of personal responsibility. If it was about personal responsibility, people would have wide scope to decide what actions they want to take to mitigate the risk to them and their immediate loved ones and no more. This is about collective responsibility, as we've been told over and over. Mr X needs to change what he does to save Granny Y who he never has and never will meet.

In my view, from there you have two types who present a challenge - people who feel they have no responsibility to the collective (asocials essentially) and those for whom the government has not provided the right conditions so they can act to the benefit of the collective all of the time. You can't do much about the first lot. But I think the second lot is pretty big and growing. They're the rule benders, the ones who do what they should 90% of the time but occasionally act selfishly. I'm afraid that's where all the 'Covidiot' type talk comes back to bite, as does rhetoric about punishment, as the latter group doesn't feel it applies to them. By all means the government can continue talking up the tarring and feathering of the asocial group. But I reckon meantime the other group silently gets bigger as no effort is made to engage with them or, essentially, bribe them to stay on side.

 

Two relatives of mine have tested positive in the last few days, in both cases they have no idea how they got it as they had generally been at home for weeks with next to no contact with anyone else. This new strain is clearly getting around too easily and I wonder whether there is anything the government can really do more in the way of restrictions than is already the case.

Take people who live in tower blocks, there is going to be a lot of people traffic in the communal areas particularly on the ground floor. I think that contact in some cases is unavoidable and it looks like we will have to ride this out now as the horse has already bolted. Once the new strain takes hold elsewhere (yesterday Rep of Ireland reported more than 50% of new cases were the new strain) it's going to be rampant. The vaccine programme couldn't come soon enough.

 

So what sort of contact did they have out of interest?

 

My uncle only lives with my aunt, he only went out to do shopping once a week. He lives in Andover, which is only a small town. As he drives a school bus for a private school, he and all staff were tested in preparation of a new term, he was one of about 4 members of staff to be tested positive. Although he's in his mid-60s and overweight he had no symptoms at all, not even a cough. Because the school only provided the quick tests he was sent to a hospital to have the more accurate test. Over Christmas they had no visitors, I'm not sure what tier Hampshire was in prior to Christmas but I think it was 3.

My brother's wife, she's 40, was feeling under the weather got tested over the weekend. They live in the sticks near Corfe Castle, they get all of their shopping by delivery. Their children hadn't returned to school last Monday as the were preparing to return for this week, their oldest child is under SEN provision so is entitle to go to school but won't now for a couple of weeks. My brother works in an office in Muff but doesn't really encounter too many people, that's a possible route I guess; they did go to a restaurant for Christmas lunch near where they live.

 

The point I was making is that the Government's cack-handed performance has had a far more significant impact on the body count than a few teenagers hanging around in the local park that was so upsetting the poster my comment was aimed at. To me, the current obsession with 'cracking down' on those that don't follow the guidance to the letter of the law has a whiff of the politics of blame avoidance. When Governments fail, they blame the governed

 

I knew the point you were making, but I disagree with it.

I suggest that even if the government had handled things perfectly (and of course they havn't), I think it would now be right for the government, and everybody else, to try and improve compliance. The government is not "blaming the general public" they are trying to improve compliance as we are in a national emergency and highlighting non compliance is one way it can be publicised.

I don't see it as an "obsession" at all, but a necessity. Neither do I think the government, by highlighting current non-compliance now, would believe it has any reduction in their own culpability throughout last year.

 

Perhaps all 'non-compliers' should have a yellow star stitched to their coats. It is easy for those of us with plenty of living space and pleasant gardens to grumble about non-compliance but I suspect if we were living on the 15th floor of a tower block we'd go out for some fresh air - even if the parks are crowded and it meant we weren't following the rules. And do you think publicising acts of 'non-compliance' such as meeting a friend for a stroll in the countryside or sitting on a park bench, makes people more or less likely to follow the rules?

 

You are quite right. The Government is not in the business of blaming people for their non-compliance and hasn’t been for some time.

 

You couldn't miss that one! That was an open goal.

 

Where's an ED209 when you need one?
beware NSFW

Spoiler

 

A trifle harsh, but would refocus the public’s attention.

 

But they weren’t obviously flouting the rules anyway. So it shouldn’t have been a matter of “luck”.

 

Has anyone done a Covid-19 song to the tune of Come on Eileen ? Would work very well.

 

I am not sure if that is being proactive but more about being responsible which you would expect from a SEN school. At my wife's school one of the bubbles has also gone down with Covid but the rest of the school remains open. Between September and December she has already had to isolate on three occasions (each time for 14 days which was the rule at the time).

There is one particular set of parents that don't believe Covid exists and refuse to wear masks or obey rules. While the parents are banned from the school premises, their child cannot be refused schooling as she is vulnerable. The staff still have to collect the child from just outside the school from the parents and hand the child back in the same way after school finishes. I only know of this one set of parents but I guess there may be other parents at the school who think similarly. If this is replicated throughout SEN schools then this is surely a conduit for spreading the virus. The children may not be affected severely by the virus but they are passing it on to teachers who in turn are likely to spread it to others. While I do understand that you are happy with the way things are being handled at your childs school do you think the teachers feel the same way and will they do so going forward, especially if more cases start to arise?

 

It's surprising as the school's usual mode of communication is pisspoor.

OK today was only day no.2 of their "virtual school" I'm pretty happy with what I've seen so far. It's his usual class and teacher which has two of his classmates actually in school (extremely vulnerable children) and three attending online - normal class size is eight. Teacher was unmasked and today after the "...after lunch catch up... " at 13h45 (the last thing online) she asked for me to talk. I asked about the future of this and her own welfare and she remarked that she had minimal worries about her own safety due to the stringent social distancing measures that have were put in place in the school during the autumn term.

The school are so confident of the social distancing measures they've introduced they will be inviting pupils back into school for their Meningitis and DTP jabs later on this month.

 

The NHS is doing a great job, imagine what it could do if it was funded and ran properly.

 

That is interesting. Many of the children at my wife's school, with the best will in the world, don't have the capacity to understand social distancing regardless of the discussions in school. What I would say is that the head does do her best and all the teachers do everything they can to ensure safe practices but it does still feel inevitable that more pupils and teachers at the school are likely to contract the virus.

 

Now that we have left Europe, with the money promised by Brexit, the NHS will do just fine.