Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Binos]

6 minutes ago, John MacLean said:

11 minutes ago, Binos said:

I genuinely don't think people are concerned about living their lives to the full, could be wrong
More their livelihoods being eliminated

It's all linked together though. What do we work/study for if not to try and make the most of our lives?

Exactly, so restricting a society for any more than a very short term

Simply doesn't work

[Binos]

The death rate if we just let it go round are absolutely horrific, 500,000 estimate in UK

It would be like living through an apocalypse for 6 months

But I do not see a solution from long term lockdowns) shielding

What if a vaccine doesn't come by the spring

What do we do

 

[Alert Mongoose]

20 minutes ago, John MacLean said:

It was clear when this all started that this virus was going to lead to some pretty big societal changes. Not least in how and where we work and how and where we enjoy our leisure activities.

I don't know about anyone else but I found the first weeks really tough but at the same time I felt something positive. I felt that just for a brief period we had a more caring, more compassionate society. Don't judge me too harshly but I found the very first 'Clap for Carers' quite moving. Everyone was largely stuck indoors those first few weeks and I felt in coming to our windows we were as much clapping ourselves and checking on each other as we were clapping the frontline care workers.

But as restrictions have loosened I think we have more and more moved towards thinking of ourselves primarily as individuals and not as a wider collective.

Yes, the virus has a greater direct impact on certain demographics and I totally get the frustrations of those who will likely not end up in a hospital bed or a morgue if they pick up the infection having restrictions placed on them that prevent them from living their lives to the full.

Is it beyond the human race though, even for a relatively brief interval, to act not with their own individual wants and needs front and centre but with those of the most vulnerable?

As I said at some point yesterday our individual actions may seem small and insignificant but if widely repeated they can have, both positively and negatively, collective impact.

Sorry of all the crap I've posted on here that's probably the most cringe worthy. Guess I woke up in a strange mood.

While I agree with the general sentiment, it’s brought a smile on my evening walk to see the park chok full of kids and adults all playing football and doing exercise groups. I think it’s possible that it might bring us all slightly closer together in the longer term under the auspices of a shared experience.

[Binos]

1 minute ago, Alert Mongoose said:

While I agree with the general sentiment, it’s brought a smile on my evening walk to see the park chok full of kids and adults all playing football and doing exercise groups. I think it’s possible that it might bring us all slightly closer together in the longer term under the auspices of a shared experience.

Like rationing after the war

[Alert Mongoose]

1 minute ago, Binos said:

Like rationing after the war

When I look in the mirror I wonder if rationing might be a useful tool.

[scottmcleanscontacts]

If you can go between top quality German beers where you currently live, and top quality T when you return to Fife, and yet find yourself consuming Brewdog, I will gladly put you out of your misery.

Animal.

Regardless of where one lives, there is better beers than Brewdog. I'll never understand the fascination with it.

[Inanimate Carbon Rod]

1 hour ago, dirty dingus said:

And this is why we can't get a handle on it and are going for black and white thinking, everything open/everything shut. The UK, a collective of entitled c***s from top to bottom.

Oh without a doubt, its all the absolute knuckle draggers out and about doing it. The turks obviously have had large outbreaks, they have a lot of rural poor communities which have been hit, but adherence to guidelines has been really good from them and most tourists. The local and military police go about and use loud hailers telling folk to get masks on etc, most people adhere but the British walking about open mouthed in their Millwall/West Brom full kit efforts or Castore Rip offs with the union jack mask tucked under their chin. 

Edited September 19, 2020 by Inanimate Carbon Rod

[djchapsticks]

56 minutes ago, John MacLean said:

Is it beyond the human race though, even for a relatively brief interval, to act not with their own individual wants and needs front and centre but with those of the most vulnerable?
 

Nope, it's most certainly not and we saw that when as a society, people decided for the most part to suck it up and go with it, understanding that the sacrifices made were for the sake of the most vulnerable.

The issue is though that not even the long term, but the medium terms benefits of that lockdown at this point are now almost zero. All that was achieved was that the virus was just driven back down to a low point from which to just start spreading again. It's akin to hiding from it and hoping it goes away rather than genuinely trying to put measures in place to stem and contain it. That was the case the first time and people went with it as it was such a fast moving situation that there was no other choice, really.

Now however, it's been around for almost 9 months. A lot has been learned about the cause, the spread and the suppression of it. Of course we're a long way from fully understanding it but a lot further on than we were in March. So a second lockdown to me, is a 6 month backwards step that ultimately solves nothing.

There will come point where, like it or not, people's own wants and needs WILL come to the forefront. That's human nature. Potentially millions of job losses, widespread severe depression and anxiety, physical health crises from lack of exercise and inactivity.....these are already going to be very real and long-lasting issues from the first lockdown. The thought of adding to that pile which is going to have a massive societal impact for years to come by locking people, businesses and public spaces down a second (then potentially third, fourth, fifth etc when it goes around again) time, to me, from a purely human point of view is absolutely unfathomable.

 

[djchapsticks]

1 minute ago, welshbairn said:

We'll be the judges of that!

[bendan]

1 hour ago, Billy Jean King said:

You are in effect asking a government tasked with public health to deem a level of deaths as acceptable. That is never an option even more so from a viral infection. And you want them to do this as part of an "adult conversation ". You have massively misconstrued that phrase if that's the context you assumed it would take.
 

I know it's been said before, but this is precisely what governments do all the time with all kinds of policies related to health and safety. They specifically employ economists to help them do this. You might even say it's one of the responsibilities of a serious government that distinguishes them from a populist rabble. 

 

[Guest Jedi]

4 hours ago, Alert Mongoose said:

Sadly there are people that still think like this.  It renders everything else you say on the subject untrustworthy.

Everything else is 'untrustworthy'........when what I have said is...

Schools have re-opened at full capacity, rather than a blended model (and the highest number of positive tests in the last few weeks have occurred in the younger age group) (Source BBC News)

Cancer treatments in Scotland have been paused.

Catherine Calderwood was not sacked, but given the chance to resign

Deaths were high in Care homes in Scotland (proportionately)

Scotland has proportionately the third highest rate of excess deaths in Europe

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18618596.coronavirus-scotland-third-highest-rate-excess-deaths-europe-england-spain/

The Westminster govt has done a bad job of handling the virus

Scotland receives furlough funding from the UK Treasury....(source below)

https://www.scotsman.com/business/one-third-scottish-workforce-being-paid-uk-government-2882236

Which ones are wrong/untrsutworthy?

On the subject of NS receiving an easier time from the media....looking at the questions posed to her in the daily briefings which come from mainstream media, I haven't heard many tough questions asked since the Calderwood situation. 

Edited September 19, 2020 by Jedi

[Billy Jean King]

Anything under 10% of the normal expected daily deaths.
What would you expext an "adult conversation" with regards to covid-19 looks like?

I never for one second thought an adult conversation was "how many deaths are acceptable ".

I think you place way too much emphasis on that phrase. Government make decisions they think are right, not really sure how there really can be much conversation when decisions need to be made so quickly that the normal parliamentary process is by-passed hence the whining from Tory back benches at WM.

[parsforlife]

23 minutes ago, bendan said:

I know it's been said before, but this is precisely what governments do all the time with all kinds of policies related to health and safety. They specifically employ economists to help them do this. You might even say it's one of the responsibilities of a serious government that distinguishes them from a populist rabble. 

 

They do.  However they aren’t being questioned on other causes of death daily.  If they were constantly being asked ‘how many road deaths are acceptable?’ They’d need to answer 0.  Even though we all know that there is a level of deaths that is acceptable without reducing speed limits or spending billions on the infrastructure to make every road extra safe or ultimately banning cars.     There is however a level of deaths where if it gets too high on a certain section of road you might reduce the speed limited there,  or re-design the junction.    Publicly naming that number puts them on very shaky grounds though.  

[Todd_is_God]

7 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

I never for one second thought an adult conversation was "how many deaths are acceptable ".

I think you place way too much emphasis on that phrase. Government make decisions they think are right, not really sure how there really can be much conversation when decisions need to be made so quickly that the normal parliamentary process is by-passed hence the whining from Tory back benches at WM.

Why shouldn't I?

I didn't stand at a podium and promise one, but NS did. So let's have it.

The SG are good at creating soundbites to appease people ("timetable for referendum next year" being a particular favourite), but delivering them is a very different story.

Edited September 19, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Wee Willie]

1 hour ago, Binos said:

Like rationing after the war

Gawd, that brings back memories - I still got my concentrated orange juice, cod liver oil and malt extract- happy daze

[bendan]

7 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

 Publicly naming that number puts them on very shaky grounds though.  

Yes, that's the problem. When it's the centre of attention they have to say 'zero' to satisfy naive journalists and f******s on social media. 

BJK seems to be saying, or at least implying, that it's wrong to even be thinking about a number, yet it's their responsibility to do just that.

 

[Jacksgranda]

22 hours ago, John MacLean said:

I don't disagree with much, or indeed most, of that. 

I think Governments world wide have faced/are facing the dilemma of trying to deal with the threat to people's health while not doing irreparable damage to the economy and/or as you put it "trash the futures of the working age population" in the process. I don't pretend to have the answers. 

I think in a lot of respects the non-compliance is more subtle than it was and I don't think sometimes people are truly aware that they are being non-compliant. 

To illustrate the above I had a conversation yesterday with someone who was complaining about house parties but also said that she had a friend round at the weekend (she lives in an area where that is currently prohibited) and said "ach, they don't mean things like that - they mean big parties". Well, yes big house parties are clearly more dangerous than two wummin gabbing over tea and cakeo but if we all think that our individual behaviour is exempt then collectively it becomes a problem. 

@ mrs pozbaird

[hk blues]

22 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

Firstly, you assume the level of deaths would remain steady. It doesn't, it declines over time.

Secondly, 3,500 from a population of 5.45m is nothing.

Thirdly, a chunk of that 3,500 would have likely died within that year regardless.

Firstly, I'm not assuming anything - you gave a number and I put some context to it.

Secondly, at the risk of you yet again coming out with the birthday card pish chat, 3,500 is not nothing to the 3,500 folks' family and friends. You seem to have an absolute disregard for the value of a life. We all know there will be a level of casualty but it doesn't mean we should dismiss them with a shrug of the shoulders.

Thirdly, a chunk? How many - 10%, 50%, 90%? You're almost heading into wtf does it matter if we die of Covid, we're all going to die anyway. Almost, I said.

[Honest Saints Fan]

21 minutes ago, Jedi said:

 

Cancer treatments in Scotland have been paused.

Cancer treatments were only paused for those patients that were deemed clinically safer to go without treatment rather than come into hospital and catch covid. Like me. It was safer for me to stop a medication completely rather than go into hospital every 4 weeks.

 

 

[Jacksgranda]

12 hours ago, Jedi said:

'Nicola is doing a wonderful job, though, showing leadership throughout, in contrast to Westminster, if only she was on the telly more'

Despite Scotland having the third highest rates in Europe, the care home situation, the pause on cancer treatments, the decision to go for full capacity on schools rather than the blended model, (to appease the Us for Them campaign), Catherine Calderwood (not sacked, but enabled to 'resign'), Scotand using a furlough scheme which is funded by the UK Treasury...

Scotland is in the UK, and contributes to said Treasury