Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Turkmenbashi]

1 minute ago, madwullie said:

Is there any actual reports or concrete numbers of suicides due to lockdown? I guess a way to measure, although pretty crude, would be to get the number for the same period last year and then look at it for this year. 

Only one I saw was a decrease of 20% in Japan. Although that seemed to be as a result of people not working 20 hours everyday and getting to spend time with family.

I doubt it would be applicable to the U.K.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

15 hours ago, beefybake said:

You'd be surprised.  I seem to recall something from the website

of the Flat Earth Society that described how popular they were,

and that they had many members all round the world.

"From all corners of the Globe" was the quote, I believe...

[parsforlife]

10 minutes ago, madwullie said:

Is there any actual reports or concrete numbers of suicides due to lockdown? I guess a way to measure, although pretty crude, would be to get the number for the same period last year and then look at it for this year. 

I think this will be very difficult to qualify right now.  I suspect there will be a fair bit of under reporting. A lot of the warning signs are simply not applicable just now. Someone on furlough isn’t going to be noticed that they didn’t turn up etc

Edited May 18, 2020 by parsforlife

[Wee Willie]

59 minutes ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

In 50 years when covid-69 is the big threat it would be interesting to revisit this and see what the ‘its ok when old people die’ type posters of today feel when their kids suggest the same.

I've marked that in my 100 year diary. I'm hoping I'll be around to prove or disprove that. Back in the day when I was in my early twenties and if someone said ,"I see so-and-so has deid", I used tae say, "How auld was he?", 75 or 69 or whatever and I would say, "Well at least he had a long life". Now I've revised that remark.

47 minutes ago, bendan said:

The irony for me is that the general policy of the NHS is that it's ok for old people to die, mainly because they wouldn't be able to afford trying desperately to prolong the life of every 80+ person with underlying health conditions that ended up in A&E. When my dad passed away at the age of 87, they told me (and him) that there was 'nothing they could offer'. Everyone knew they didn't mean that there were no possible solutions, it was just that they were expensive, invasive, and unlikely to be very successful in someone of his age. He was absolutely fine with that - it's basically what you have to accept in a socialised medical service, and my dad very much believed in the need for the NHS.

Before anyone has a go at me, I'm not suggesting that means I think we should just let people over 70 die of Covid-19. I just think we're in danger of losing perspective on things.

That's a comfort to me

 

Edited May 18, 2020 by Wee Willie

[expatowner]

Can anybody post a graph of global deaths say for the past 3 or 4 years that might, or might not, show a blip caused by Corona virus?

[jamamafegan]

When are we due the next update on lockdown restrictions in Scotland?

[Donathan]

When are we due the next update on lockdown restrictions in Scotland?

I believe I read that NS is planning to announce the “road map” tomorrow

[WhiteRoseKillie]

13 hours ago, bendan said:

I'm pretty gobsmacked by how many people see any notion of loosening the lockdown as right wing. Twitter is much worse than here for that though. 

The people who are going to suffer most from the economic consequences of this are the poor and those in insecure employment. A lot of middle class liberals can easily work from home while wailing about the deaths, but they won't face the worst of the coming storm.

Not any notion - just the blatantly obvious attempt to get the serfs back to work while minimising their activities outside of their economic contribution. It's frankly disgraceful, and the fact that the majority of the media-consuming public are allowing it to happen with no comment other than "when can we..." fills me with despair.

 

Can anybody tell me why it is considered safe for me to work five days a week in a place where there are over seven hundred prisoners (a demographic notoriously not in tune with Government Guidelines, or Laws as the rest of us call them) and almost two hundred staff who, while I value and appreciate them, I cannot vouch for their personal hygiene habits or adherence to Guidelines, and yet;

I am not allowed to see (not touch, simply be in the same garden/open space as) my children and grandchildren.

That fucking buffoon in Downing Street talks about Common Sense. So explain that one through that filter. OR

Explain how Mrs WRK will, this week, get to see Rosette No. 1 and her two kids, Rosette No. 2 and her daughter, and both of her parents - all of these meetings taking place IN THE AFOREMENTIONED RELATIVES' HOMES, without breaking the Guidelines, yet I cannot.

Common Sense, my arse.

[Detournement]

Just go and see them.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

13 hours ago, Gordon EF said:

I think society has generally taken some kind of collective responsibility to make things like racism, homophobia, sexism much smaller problems than they have been in the past. We're generally moving towards taking more responsibility for things like climate change. These things improve through a fairly slow and painful evolution of how society thinks and functions, not because some charismatic person with a great idea comes along and tells everyone how wrong they've been.

Is tht why most American cities have a Collective Responsibility Boulevard, and the third monday every January is CR Day throughout the States?

[madwullie]

I mean, it's pretty clear that the govt's sole interest in relaxing the rules is to get people working because the economy is fucked. Anyone that imagines for even a second that Johnston and co give the tiniest shit about people's mental health is smoking some decent gear. 

So the blatant absurdities in the rules don't matter, because absolutely everything is geared towards people going back to work. 

Edited May 18, 2020 by madwullie

[cambozpar]

57 minutes ago, Donathan said:

 

I’m losing out of what should be one of the best years of my life and forced to stay at home watching fucking repeats of the office.

That’s basically house arrest.

 

[Detournement]

1 hour ago, MixuFixit said:

Working to the most pessimistic assumption would be my minimum expecation of how our public health experts manage this.

Do also you want them to make pessimistic assumptions about the links between unemployment and mortality rates?

[Gordon EF]

10 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Is tht why most American cities have a Collective Responsibility Boulevard, and the third monday every January is CR Day throughout the States?

Well, yes. That's mostly why I wrote that. People have a tendency to think of large societal changes through the prism of personalities. It's a well know phenomenon in History and I'm sure someone who knows more about it could confirm.

The idea that MLK could have achieved what he did without a society that had already massively shifted from where it was decades previously is ridiculous.

Of course many movements etc do require some kind of figure head. The idea that they're completely the catalyst for wide scale societal change is ludicrous.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Gordon EF

[vikingTON]

1 hour ago, Inanimate Carbon Rod said:

In 50 years when covid-69 is the big threat it would be interesting to revisit this and see what the ‘its ok when old people die’ type posters of today feel when their kids suggest the same.

If we deal with the next fifty coronavirus cases by shutting down the economy for ten weeks because the government can't think of a more nuanced strategy then we'll all be living under cardboard boxes like tramps anyway. 

The real question is whether boomers think it would be okay to raid their pensions over the next few years to pay for the current mess, instead of passing another bucket of shite down to another generation to deal with. 

[Granny Danger]

3 minutes ago, madwullie said:

I mean, it's pretty clear that the govt's sole interest in relaxing the rules is to get people working because the economy is fucked. Anyone that imagines for even a second that Johnston and co give the tiniest shit about people's mental health is smoking some decent gear. 

So the blatant absurdities in the rules don't matter, because absolutely everything is geared towards people going back to work. 

You’re 100% correct.  I don’t think everyone who wants the economy reopened is a raging right winger but I’m pretty certain that the government’s agenda in this matter has fùck all to do with anything other than protecting the interests of their supporters.

I also think that in U.K. terms nothing positive will come out of this.  The idea that the “we’re all in this together” mantra will continue beyond this crisis is laughable.  The poorest and most vulnerable will pay the harshest price for COVID-19 and the clappers and pot bashers will turn out to vote Tory again next time around.

The one positive for me is that this terrible event will strengthen the case for Scottish Independence.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

11 hours ago, pandarilla said:

You've completely misrepresented my post.

I made it clear that it was generally agreed by all rational folk that the lack of preparation and the slow response were huge errors, and both are completely political in terms of right wing ideology.

But the argument is about what to do now, and how much we strive to either keep the lockdown in place, or start to find a way to ease it.

The phrase 'even a stopped clock is right twice a day' comes to mind. Just because boris and his tory pals want to get the country back to normal quickly doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't the right thing to do for society as a whole, and especially the most vulnerable.

But all too often you seem incapable of having a mature and rational conversation about these topics. I find that particularly baffling because i agree with your opinion so regularly.
You've just blown my mind.

Are you seriously suggesting that the areas where the lockdown is being eased, and more importantly being maintained, are not all about getting the resource units back into production while maintaing control of any dissent there may be?

 

[peasy23]

So we can add writer Neil Gaiman to the c**t list. Why only a talking to though?

 

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-52697289&ved=2ahUKEwid5I73lL3pAhXEZxUIHWBKC2AQiJQBMAN6BAgKEAc&usg=AOvVaw14ahoWxWOKIlI-l3QyWoUh&ampcf=1

 

 

[Wee Willie]

8 minutes ago, Granny Danger said:

You’re 100% correct.  I don’t think everyone who wants the economy reopened is a raging right winger but I’m pretty certain that the government’s agenda in this matter has fùck all to do with anything other than protecting the interests of their supporters.

I also think that in U.K. terms nothing positive will come out of this.  The idea that the “we’re all in this together” mantra will continue beyond this crisis is laughable.  The poorest and most vulnerable will pay the harshest price for COVID-19 and the clappers and pot bashers will turn out to vote Tory again next time around.

The one positive for me is that this terrible event will strengthen the case for Scottish Independence.

Hopefully

[pandarilla]

So we can add writer Neil Gaiman to the c**t list. Why only a talking to though?
 
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-52697289&ved=2ahUKEwid5I73lL3pAhXEZxUIHWBKC2AQiJQBMAN6BAgKEAc&usg=AOvVaw14ahoWxWOKIlI-l3QyWoUh&ampcf=1
 
 

Him and his wife agreed 'that we needed to give each other some space'.

Brilliant. Read between the lines there and either his marriage is fucked, or he's decided that that excuse might get him off.