Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[Sergeant Wilson]

2 minutes ago, Elixir said:

 Should we start shooting the folk in dinghies in the Channel in case they have the dreaded Omicron?

 

[williemillersmoustache]

26 minutes ago, Elixir said:

Is it just the UK Government that was too lax? Of course it just has to be their fault. The virus and variant is quite literally everywhere. The WHO (and the scientist who discovered Omicron) quite literally do not endorse border restrictions.

Would you like to explain this discrepancy between people in Africa and people in Europe when it comes to relative freedom of movement? You just cannot accept that the Scottish Government are endorsing such blatant dog whistle discrimination. Indeed, they have been among the worst culprits in screeching for border closures. I suggest you own it because it won't ever be forgotten.

Oh you're a fan of The WHO today. Well that's something. They've been simps and hysterics for months but now, gospel. 

There's no point in travel restrictions being anything other than UK wide, but that isnt convenient to your bizarre and frankly a little bit obsessive and creepy "I hate that bad Nicola" cant. 

 

 

Edited December 6, 2021 by williemillersmoustache

[Elixir]

Bairns as young as five excluded from standard daily life unless vaccinated. New York. 

 

[101]

Just now, Elixir said:

Bairns as young as five excluded from standard daily life unless vaccinated. New York. 

 

You're going to have some amount of free time when this is over.

[Elixir]

1 minute ago, williemillersmoustache said:

Or you're a fan of The WHO today. Well that's something. They've been simps and hysterics for months but now, gospel. 

There's no point in travel restrictions being anything other than UK wide, but that isnt convenient to your bizarre and frankly a little bit obsessive and creepy "I hate that bad Nicola" cant. 

Err, no. The fact that even the WHO sees border restrictions for what they are speaks volumes, you utter clown.

As for measures having to be UK-wide, well yes. Sturgeon is the one pushing for even more draconian measures at the border than this Brexit Tory Government. Deal with it.

[Elixir]

3 minutes ago, 101 said:

You're going to have some amount of free time when this is over.

Given the reaction to each new 'variant', probably never, then. Tbf, not bothering my arse with Twitter would probably have the same effect.

[williemillersmoustache]

Just now, Elixir said:

Err, no. The fact that even the WHO sees border restrictions for what they are speaks volumes, you utter clown.

As for measures having to be UK-wide, well yes. Sturgeon is the one pushing for even more draconian measures at the border than this Brexit Tory Government. Deal with it.

"I like this bit of WHO advice but I don't like this bit of WHO advice" is wild from someone who is literally screaming hypocrisy so loud and so high there are dogs taking shelter. 

[PedroMoutinho]

Looks like covid has been solved- we just need to ban talking 

 

[DeeTillEhDeh]

Err, no. The fact that even the WHO sees border restrictions for what they are speaks volumes, you utter clown.
As for measures having to be UK-wide, well yes. Sturgeon is the one pushing for even more draconian measures at the border than this Brexit Tory Government. Deal with it.

You do realise that border restrictions for diseases are not a new thing nor are they a UK-only thing?

For example, there are currently 17 African countries where vaccination for Yellow Fever at least a month before travel is mandatory.

In fact if countries followed WHO advice that list would be longer - 31 African countries and all of South America would be mandatory.

The FCO has a long history of placing travel restrictions on different countries, not just for issues such as terrorism or war, but also for diseases. For example, in 2014, the FCO barred all but essential travel to Sierra Leone due to an outbreak of Ebola.

This isn't a new phenomenon.

[Ross.]

4 hours ago, sparky88 said:

The Messi of 'bald speccy tubes'

Ronaldo.

[williemillersmoustache]

46 minutes ago, anotherchance said:

I don’t know your views on everything, but this is a take I see quite often.

Brexit for instance. There’s people who couldn’t can’t get a hospital appointment who voted accordingly based on the country being full. This was always, always portrayed by the left as a racist point of view, when it often wasn’t. Some people would use arguments like that as a cloak to hide their racism, but often it was mistaking immigration as the problem, when in fact it was more to do with chronic underfunding of public services and so on. They just got tossed into the racist bin regardless though.

Now it’s coming the other way with COVID, the progressives say need to use nuance, healthcare and immigration have to be seen separately, and we can’t possibly just throw accusations of racism or lack of progressiveness at people without considering their concerns in detail.

I get the angle you’re arguing at, but there’s a lot of hypocrisy from a lot of my chums at the moment who like to proclaim to be progressive left wingers.

 

This is a good post and deserves a bit more of a reply in particular regarding the brexit analogy. 

The point about poor services being blamed on immigration was absolutely and wrongly, or very crudely attributed to individuals being racist, is a good one. What was at issue was the motherfuckers who cut these services, were the same motherfuckers who blamed immigration rather then their fiscal choices and then many of them were the same motherfuckers who then used that demonising of immigrants to make the case for brexit. By playing to some peoples existing, even low level prejudices they then gave an excuse or validated these views. That was the problem. They created the issue, then blamed foreigners for it, then leveraged that unease or outrage to achieve their goals with brexit. I don't see the comparison here with covid.

I genuinely believe that public health measures, screening, quarantine and testing have a valid role in tackling this or any pandemic and one of my biggest frustrations and reasons to be angry is we did not deploy them, at the right times or in the right way. When we had the time, the means and the ability to do so. 

People have asked why not other countries which have omicron? And I agree, all international arrivals should be doing pre departure, day 2 & 8 PCRs and isolating until the all clear from day 8. But that would f**k the travel industry, who UK Gov aren't willing to support further so we have these half measures of only only doing arrival PCRs, red listing certain countries and only deploying pre departure tests (now), in order to slow the importation of Ο.

Now an argument I would be more sympathetic to or have more time for than "this is discrimination/racist/machine gun dinghies in the channel" would be either do border screening properly or don't do it at all. But that doesn't mean people like me, or the First Minister shouldn't be making the case to do it properly in the first place. 

[Elixir]

1 hour ago, williemillersmoustache said:

"I like this bit of WHO advice but I don't like this bit of WHO advice" is wild from someone who is literally screaming hypocrisy so loud and so high there are dogs taking shelter. 

Advice that doesn't indulge in hysteria is most welcome, yes.

 

51 minutes ago, DeeTillEhDeh said:

You do realise that border restrictions for diseases are not a new thing nor are they a UK-only thing?

For example, there are currently 17 African countries where vaccination for Yellow Fever at least a month before travel is mandatory.

In fact if countries followed WHO advice that list would be longer - 31 African countries and all of South America would be mandatory.

The FCO has a long history of placing travel restrictions on different countries, not just for issues such as terrorism or war, but also for diseases. For example, in 2014, the FCO barred all but essential travel to Sierra Leone due to an outbreak of Ebola.

This isn't a new phenomenon.

The travel policies we have seen since March 2020 are not comparable to anything that has come before. It is utterly disingenuous to suggest otherwise. The yellow fevor vaccination criteria would be comparable if you could travel freely with a Covid vaccine and no testing, mask requirements, etc - but it isn't.

 

28 minutes ago, williemillersmoustache said:

This is a good post and deserves a bit more of a reply in particular regarding the brexit analogy. 

The point about poor services being blamed on immigration was absolutely and wrongly, or very crudely attributed to individuals being racist, is a good one. What was at issue was the motherfuckers who cut these services, were the same motherfuckers who blamed immigration rather then their fiscal choices and then many of them were the same motherfuckers who then used that demonising of immigrants to make the case for brexit. By playing to some peoples existing, even low level prejudices they then gave an excuse or validated these views. That was the problem. They created the issue, then blamed foreigners for it, then leveraged that unease or outrage to achieve their goals with brexit. I don't see the comparison here with covid.

I genuinely believe that public health measures, screening, quarantine and testing have a valid role in tackling this or any pandemic and one of my biggest frustrations and reasons to be angry is we did not deploy them, at the right times or in the right way. When we had the time, the means and the ability to do so. 

People have asked why not other countries which have omicron? And I agree, all international arrivals should be doing pre departure, day 2 & 8 PCRs and isolating until the all clear from day 8. But that would f**k the travel industry, who UK Gov aren't willing to support further so we have these half measures of only only doing arrival PCRs, red listing certain countries and only deploying pre departure tests (now), in order to slow the importation of Ο.

Now an argument I would be more sympathetic to or have more time for than "this is discrimination/racist/machine gun dinghies in the channel" would be either do border screening properly or don't do it at all. But that doesn't mean people like me, or the First Minister shouldn't be making the case to do it properly in the first place. 

I can still remember when Trump wanted to ban Chinese folk etc from entering the US. I can also still remember the outrage from the 'progressives'.

Then, the 'progressives' heard of someone called Jacinda Ardern on her South Pacific island in the middle of nowhere and realised it looked good, as did using it as a stick to beat those evil right-wingers with, and everything that went with it. Enter the pivot.

Forcing everyone to isolate would ruin more than just the travel, tourism, and aviation industries, champ. It's a disgusting policy that keeps millions of families isolated. It has been two years.

[Elixir]

1 hour ago, PedroMoutinho said:

Looks like covid has been solved- we just need to ban talking 

Trisha clearly isn't right and needs psychological help.

[MP_MFC]

So if the window from infection to infectiousness is now smaller is that not a good thing? Pre-symptomatic spread was a bit of an issue with original strains we it not as you were kicking about for a couple of days infecting folk and not knowing so presumably if this is the case people are less likely to do this and as such it’s becoming more and more like all other coronavirus

[Detournement]

1 hour ago, Elixir said:

Bairns as young as five excluded from standard daily life unless vaccinated. New York. 

 

So are you worried about this yet?

[Michael W]

1 hour ago, PedroMoutinho said:

Looks like covid has been solved- we just need to ban talking 

 

This is one of these things that seems like it ought to be sarcasm, but then you check the source of it and then realise it almost certainly isn't. 

[williemillersmoustache]

4 minutes ago, Elixir said:

I can still remember when Trump wanted to ban Chinese folk etc from entering the US. I can also still remember the outrage from the 'progressives'.

You're oh so close to getting it, I wonder if you will? Banning "Chinese folk" is obviously racist.  Banning people travelling from China, not racist. 

And while we are here:

New Zealand deaths from Covid 19 : 44

"bUt RaCiSm" tho. 

Do you think 9000 or 150,000 is a smaller number than 44? 

[Shadow Play]

Covid Scotland: Negative lateral flow accepted in place of vaccine passport from today
 

I’m not the brightest person alive so perhaps the good people of P&B could explain to me what is to stop people registering a negative lateral flow test when they haven’t done the test properly, or indeed done a test at all?   Seems to me, on the face of it, it is all being done on trust.  

Edited December 6, 2021 by Shadow Play

[Elixir]

38 minutes ago, Detournement said:

So are you worried about this yet?

No.

 

17 minutes ago, williemillersmoustache said:

You're oh so close to getting it, I wonder if you will? Banning "Chinese folk" is obviously racist. Banning people travelling from China, not racist.

Are you actually expecting to be taken seriously with drivel like this?

 

Quote

And while we are here:

New Zealand deaths from Covid 19 : 44

"bUt RaCiSm" tho. 

Do you think 9000 or 150,000 is a smaller number than 44?

Are you trying to go over the laughable UK and New Zealand comparison again?

It would have been impossible and ruinous. I am extremely relieved we didn't try it.

[Elixir]

5 minutes ago, Shadow Play said:

Covid Scotland: Negative lateral flow accepted in place of vaccine passport from today

I’m not the brightest person alive so perhaps the good people of P&B could explain to me what is to stop people registering a negative lateral flow test when they haven’t done the test properly, or indeed done a test at all?   Seems to me, on the face of it, it is all being done on trust.  

Nothing. It's just more pointless theatre.