Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[djchapsticks]

1 minute ago, Scosha said:

My work were bizarrely always against home/flexible working pre Covid as Senior Management basically didn’t trust anyone to be as productive. I suspect we’ll be in the minority but the company has had its best year to date this year with all of us at home. I doubt they’ll have a leg to stand on when folk ask if they can work from home more often whenever ‘normality’ returns. 

My work has absolutely exploded since WFH has came in but then we deal with manufacturing the covid tests that get distributed to the govt.

I'm literally collecting 10x as much money for them as I did in January 2020.

[well fan for life]

25 minutes ago, super_carson said:

I know P&B isn't exactly the most diverse cross-section of society, but even taking this as a tiny sample you can see people are fed up with this situation.  People, and I include myself in this, who were originally supportive of the first lockdown as a necessary evil are now wanting to know when this will end.  As more and more people become opposed to these restrictions (as will surely happen the longer they are enforced), governments will be pressurised into lifting restrictions - even if it goes against the science.  Eventually these advisers will take more of a back seat as we start to look at the impact on other areas of society.

I think this is where a lot of people, including myself, stand. Now I understand that we do need these restrictions I don't think it can be expected that people will just accept them and go about their lives. If they're wanting to keep people in lockdown then why not publish what we're measuring against and, fucking curse me into the oblivion of the Business Bullshit thread, publish a roadmap of how we expect to move out of the restrictions. The black box approach of placing us all in a lockdown for an unknown period of time due to unknown to the outside measures probably doesn't help. 

 

Just now, Scosha said:

My work were bizarrely always against home/flexible working pre Covid as Senior Management basically didn’t trust anyone to be as productive. I suspect we’ll be in the minority but the company has had its best year to date this year with all of us at home. I doubt they’ll have a leg to stand on when folk ask if they can work from home more often whenever ‘normality’ returns. 

My work are now shifting to majority of work done from home. I worked a couple of days at home anyway but shifting to it most of the time is new. There was the chat about not being as productive but I swear between like August - December that's the most we've ever achieved as a team. 

[hk blues]

1 minute ago, D.A.F.C said:

The £500 for isolating seems like a good idea but will be hard to execute.

Maybe better to give the money to a local team who can distribute medical stuff, food and help with bills or talk to employers?

I think the 450m it will cost per week could be better spent, in a more targeted way - just as you have suggested.

[djchapsticks]

2 minutes ago, D.A.F.C said:

The £500 for isolating seems like a good idea but will be hard to execute.

Maybe better to give the money to a local team who can distribute medical stuff, food and help with bills or talk to employers?

Having seen how local teams dealt with distributing school meals to children, I'd say you're better taking your chances with the money.

Unfortunately, I would not trust any private company or team to distribute goods to the value of X without skimming something off the top.

[btb]

PM doing a conference this afternoon and the "leaking" regarding what he might say is tending to think there'll be more bad news than good.

For a government that was mainly issuing optimistic summaries up until just before they cancelled Christmas I think this change is the main reason we're seeing PP in the last few weeks. Here she is in her true form...

Edit - If the news s the £500 grant to self isolate , that wouldn't be bad news and it might (in his own mind) be then three cheers for Uncle Boris.

Edited January 22, 2021 by btb

[Billy Jean King]

I don't know about any conspiracy theories involving the BBC as I don't watch it at home, but as far as care homes go the NCA 'guy could be right as the first line of defence against the virus is your own immune system. A good number of these elderly would  have low immunity in the first place so the vaccine could only do so much. 
There's always a need to back up so called claims, have a look around and see if there are numbers to back it up, see if it is false.
Regardless of any campaign if there is any, the vaccination of the population of the UK will end the lockdowns and the high level restrictions in areas for this virus this year, there is no if or buts about it.
 

Surely Covid protection via the vaccine isn't influenced by your immune system. The vaccine efficacy has got to have a zero immunity baseline. No way Pfizer are going to claim (for example) 90% efficacy then put in brackets and small print (unless you are already elderly and have weakened natural immunity). Or is it the case that a 90% in my example is an average and in effect it's almost 100% in a healthy 35yo but way lower in a care home bound 85yo ?

[101]

9 land borders seems like a tough ask to get to Zero Covid. Will be interesting if her sympathetic view turns into reality.

 

 

[vikingTON]

39 minutes ago, super_carson said:

People like Sridhar will advocate that position because it is, undoubtedly, the best course of action with regards to her getting a cushier job.  

FTFY

The issue of course is that we're just not seeing enough of these necessary, different perspectives in the mainstream news media though. It is wall to wall public health officials and hospital shots and weepy ICU updates which yeah is quite clearly a critical issue right now but is also being conflated with what should be done in the spring as well. There's no rational debate because these other perspectives have been crowded out.

[Billy Jean King]

I mean I wouldn't go as far as 'conspiracy theory' but there is a clear and consistent narrative to the tone of almost every story they chuck out.
I can sort of understand. Throwing a lot of positive spins on proceedings may well pose a risk of those reading the stories being lulled into a false sense of everything being OK  and not being as stringent with following guidelines so I do get the point of driving home how serious the situation is at the current moment.
But the constant barrage we are seeing of projecting terrible, bleak news months and even in some cases years forward is horribly irresponsible at a point where a lot of anxious people still look to the BBC as a source of information. Particularly at a time in the pandemic where there is actual cause for optimism and hope.
You are allowed to be understanding of the graveness of the situation and severity of restrictions in this point without essentially hinting to people that if you don't behave now, this will last forever. I'd argue that it's actually counterintuitive to take this approach. 

Exactly my point

[Dons_1988]

7 minutes ago, well fan for life said:

I think this is where a lot of people, including myself, stand. Now I understand that we do need these restrictions I don't think it can be expected that people will just accept them and go about their lives. If they're wanting to keep people in lockdown then why not publish what we're measuring against and, fucking curse me into the oblivion of the Business Bullshit thread, publish a roadmap of how we expect to move out of the restrictions. The black box approach of placing us all in a lockdown for an unknown period of time due to unknown to the outside measures probably doesn't help. 

For me the worry is the change from a year ago where the idea of the government locking people in your homes was seen as an absolute extreme measure, whereas now we're being lulled into accepting this sliding scale of 'measures' where we're all grateful to be allocated 2 hours in the pub, with a limited number of people and as long as you have a 'substantial meal'.

As has been said the scientists/epidemiologists are having their day in the sun due to the hospitals situation. As soon as that eases I would hope we'll see a much more balanced take on when the government should be relinquishing their emergency powers.

[Gaz FFC]

11 minutes ago, Scosha said:

My work were bizarrely always against home/flexible working pre Covid as Senior Management basically didn’t trust anyone to be as productive. I suspect we’ll be in the minority but the company has had its best year to date this year with all of us at home. I doubt they’ll have a leg to stand on when folk ask if they can work from home more often whenever ‘normality’ returns. 

In my line of work working from home isn't an option so I'm no expert here but surely if an employee was keen to work from home the company would realise by the work produced whether that employee is slacking or not?

If an employee is happy and the same level of work produced, that is a no brainer.

 

[Honest Saints Fan]

9 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

34 minutes ago, Snafu said:

I don't know about any conspiracy theories involving the BBC as I don't watch it at home, but as far as care homes go the NCA 'guy could be right as the first line of defence against the virus is your own immune system. A good number of these elderly would  have low immunity in the first place so the vaccine could only do so much. 
There's always a need to back up so called claims, have a look around and see if there are numbers to back it up, see if it is false.
Regardless of any campaign if there is any, the vaccination of the population of the UK will end the lockdowns and the high level restrictions in areas for this virus this year, there is no if or buts about it.
 

Surely Covid protection via the vaccine isn't influenced by your immune system. The vaccine efficacy has got to have a zero immunity baseline. No way Pfizer are going to claim (for example) 90% efficacy then put in brackets and small print (unless you are already elderly and have weakened natural immunity). Or is it the case that a 90% in my example is an average and in effect it's almost 100% in a healthy 35yo but way lower in a care home bound 85yo ?

Of course its influenced by the persons immune system. It works by causing an immune response. If you don't have an immune system to begin with your response is going to be a lot lower (if at all) than those who do have one. 

[super_carson]

4 minutes ago, virginton said:

FTFY

The issue of course is that we're just not seeing enough of these necessary, different perspectives in the mainstream news media though. It is wall to wall public health officials and hospital shots and weepy ICU updates which yeah is quite clearly a critical issue right now but is also being conflated with what should be done in the spring as well. There's no rational debate because these other perspectives have been crowded out.

More cushty than working at Edinburgh Uni? She'll probably get a gig on GMB that amount she's on it just now...

There is no scope for balanced debate it seems.  All of the media reports and government messages are overly fear-driven and put paid to any attempt at a rational discourse.  There's a lot of idiots on social media, of course, but just have a look at any Twitter or Facebook post where someone dares to question the impact of lockdown - you're invariably shouted down, called a granny killer, heartless, uncaring etc.  That all stems from the overly emotional messaging - NS saying the summer that no death from covid was acceptable being a prime example.  While that's a great soundbite and is true at a personal level (no reasonable person would ever say 'oh well, tough luck' to someone that's lost a family member), it is not how a government should operate.  Of course, take steps to limit that as much as reasonably possible, but these scorched-earth policies can only have so much of an impact without creating more problems for decades to come.  

[well fan for life]

2 minutes ago, Dons_1988 said:

For me the worry is the change from a year ago where the idea of the government locking people in your homes was seen as an absolute extreme measure, whereas now we're being lulled into accepting this sliding scale of 'measures' where we're all grateful to be allocated 2 hours in the pub, with a limited number of people and as long as you have a 'substantial meal'.

As has been said the scientists/epidemiologists are having their day in the sun due to the hospitals situation. As soon as that eases I would hope we'll see a much more balanced take on when the government should be relinquishing their emergency powers.

Aye. I think we all, or at least mostly, agreed that the March lockdown probably was necessary. Where I think I am struggling now is that there's no end in sight. It's impossible to plan anything to look forward to, or do anything that would have been done previously to blow off some steam.  Now I'm not suggesting we just open everything up and see what happens but, sooner or later, things need to have some kind of normality. 

[Scosha]

6 minutes ago, Gaz FFC said:

In my line of work working from home isn't an option so I'm no expert here but surely if an employee was keen to work from home the company would realise by the work produced whether that employee is slacking or not?

If an employee is happy and the same level of work produced, that is a no brainer.

 

You would think so but the mindset of management is very old school. Thankfully there's a few fresh faces that have come in since last year which should bring a more modern approach. I've never really understood the argument against home working. As long as you get your work done on time who really gives a f*ck where and when you do it? 

[djchapsticks]

1 minute ago, Snafu said:

If the BBC isn't for you, don't watch it. There are other news sites and media who can give out a more balanced take on current news events. We could really do with having a TV news channel that is relevant to Scotland and focuses on Scotland and the news and issues everyday, the current BBC set up as everyone is aware by now, does not bother its arse with a Scottish view point, it doesn't do much for NI or Wales either......or even the north of England. Scotland is still regarded as a region and largely irrelevant.

My first point of call in the morning to catch up is this thread and I can get a pretty good picture of what's going on within minutes.

You guys on here are on the ball.

My point was more in relation to their general tone of stories conveyed to the public, many of whom - particularly of the older generation - still rely on the BBC as their sole or primary news source. Their words and tone are still highly influential and they still get to hide behind the cloak of impartiality.

I still peruse the BBC website but I try and read a variety of news and viewpoints on any subject.

[Rugster]

1 hour ago, D.A.F.C said:

I'm sure you'd excel talking to another country in a foreign language about technical stuff while being paid peanuts right enough.

From my experience indians are more proficient with English than most locals. 

Probably because English is one of the two official languages of India. 

[Have some faith in Magic]

1 hour ago, MixuFruit said:

That's exactly what someone asking that would look like

 

 

 

If they did grow on trees you would still get c***s moaning about the woods being too busy when I was down there. 

[Have some faith in Magic]

https://bylinetimes.com/2021/01/21/boris-johnsons-ultimate-trick-turning-personal-responsibility-into-collective-blame/

[The Moonster]

1 hour ago, D.A.F.C said:

I'm sure you'd excel talking to another country in a foreign language about technical stuff while being paid peanuts right enough.

From my experience indians are more proficient with English than most locals. 

It's the second largest English speaking country in the world. More Indians speak English than there are people in Britain.