CV19 - Cure worse than the disease? (Vol 3)

[sim72]

[redacted]

[WindyCommon]

Elysium said:

I was musing on our predicament this morning and had an idea.

Why don't we simply drop all measures for 1 week, then reinstate them and wait 2 weeks?

This is pretty low risk, there are hardly any cases now and if the number of people with the virus doubles in a week its no great shakes. We could take some extra steps to keep the elderly and vulnerable out of the way, so very low risk in terms of fatalities and no threat to hospital capacity.

If nothing bad happens, we drop everything permanently and try to figure out why we did all these things in the first place.

Seems like a good plan to me.

Or reinstate a more intrusive / restrictive regime in one randomly selected mid-sized city, conduct a detailed pre-reinstatement survey and see if the outcomes there are different to the rest of the country. Hang on a moment...

[MDMetal]

alangla said:

sambucket said:

It's a combination of three things.

1. Increased Peer pressure. There are exceptions, but most countries apart from UK increasingly wear masks in public. Even USA is better than us. If UK holds out on masks and ends up on top of deaths per capita, that's not going to look good.

2. Emerging evidence. A bit like steroids, everyone kind of knew masks helped but it takes time to prove it. That evidence is coming in.

3. Ambition. Scotland is increasingly ambitious for very low case numbers. Elimination seemed like a joke a month ago, but is looking more likely now. Masks may be one of the extra steps required to achieve these more aggressive targets.

Edited by sambucket on Saturday 4th July 20:10

The chart you posted above from Travelling Tabby shows that this is basically gone in most of Scotland and has been gone in some of the islands since mid-April. I don’t understand what criminalising someone who walks into Tesco in Stornaway without a mask is really going to do.

It's very clear what it does, it signals the government was in control and the government beat the virus along with a lot of graphs that look like they support that idea. Of course it's all nonsense and when great poverty and delayed health treatments start to add up the graphs will provide a nice fig leaf to show that these were required steps and the rest will be washed away in a sea of "someone else's fault"

The fact that most of the population either go along with this or even demand it is amazing. Nobody was short of an opinion about proroguing parliament being all about denying the ability to change brexit but now it's healthcare and pretty graphs you can fool anyone into anything it seems, genuinely frightening!

I took my son to the park finally today (mostly empty a few other sceptical parents happy to rant at the current policies) and I thought how quickly and easily the idea of going to a playground had vanished. My son got tired of asking by week 6, the parks were always closed, today he didn't believe me that they were open "park closed park closed" he chanted over and over. We often think huge shifts take long periods of time but we're dangerously close to sleep walking into a giant shift in terms of our lives and our rights and most people just keep clapping on.

[anonymous-user]

MDMetal said:

It's very clear what it does, it signals the government was in control and the government beat the virus along with a lot of graphs that look like they support that idea.

yes I'm sure there is a bit of that.

But it's such a cheap measure, doesn't really cost the government anything to mandate snoods etc. So even if it's only 1% reduction, it's hard to argue against from gov's perspective.

Pain in the arse perhaps but you can see why the measure is so popular.

[MDMetal]

sambucket said:

MDMetal said:

It's very clear what it does, it signals the government was in control and the government beat the virus along with a lot of graphs that look like they support that idea.

yes I'm sure there is a bit of that.

But it's such a cheap measure, doesn't really cost the government anything to mandate snoods etc. So even if it's only 1% reduction, it's hard to argue against from gov's perspective.

Pain in the arse perhaps but you can see why the measure is so popular.

Popular measures hard to argue against blah blah the usual lazy thinking. Nobody thinks about the long term issues and the tipping points and maybe while wearing mask isn't that it is just another thing that chips away at things until we don't realise where we are

[TheDrBrian]

Interesting take on the 95% of ICU beds being in use in Texas

https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/12790883900...

[isaldiri]

MDMetal said:

Popular measures hard to argue against blah blah the usual lazy thinking. Nobody thinks about the long term issues and the tipping points and maybe while wearing mask isn't that it is just another thing that chips away at things until we don't realise where we are

Agreed. It's the creeping intrusion based on bogus evidence. It might be a small thing but that just leaves the next thing that 'isn't a big deal' to be imposed.

[ALTO77]

isaldiri said:

MDMetal said:

Popular measures hard to argue against blah blah the usual lazy thinking. Nobody thinks about the long term issues and the tipping points and maybe while wearing mask isn't that it is just another thing that chips away at things until we don't realise where we are

Agreed. It's the creeping intrusion based on bogus evidence. It might be a small thing but that just leaves the next thing that 'isn't a big deal' to be imposed.

Totally agree, I wonder what the next small change will be? How about keeping all public toilets closed for ever, just for, well safety, everything has to be safe. All adults must wear a nappy, I think if the government mandated this we would have lots of people wearing them, just as long as it helps keep us all safe.

[voyds9]

[redacted]

[johnboy1975]

[redacted]

[jamoor]

Once we leave the EU I propose we reduce the VAT on dining in restaurants, pubs etc to 5% or something to stimulate demand.

[sim72]

jamoor said:

Once we leave the EU I propose we reduce the VAT on dining in restaurants, pubs etc to 5% or something to stimulate demand.

Bit difficult to stimulate demand once the economy has fallen off a cliff face, why not do it now?

[jamoor]

sim72 said:

jamoor said:

Once we leave the EU I propose we reduce the VAT on dining in restaurants, pubs etc to 5% or something to stimulate demand.

Bit difficult to stimulate demand once the economy has fallen off a cliff face, why not do it now?

I don't think its possible to reduce it due to EU rules?

[sim72]

jamoor said:

I don't think its possible to reduce it due to EU rules?

Eh, no. Local purchase taxes aren't subject ot any EU rules.

[jamoor]

sim72 said:

jamoor said:

I don't think its possible to reduce it due to EU rules?

Eh, no. Local purchase taxes aren't subject ot any EU rules.

Are you sure?
VAT has to be a minumum of 15%

[johnboy1975]

jamoor said:

sim72 said:

jamoor said:

Once we leave the EU I propose we reduce the VAT on dining in restaurants, pubs etc to 5% or something to stimulate demand.

Bit difficult to stimulate demand once the economy has fallen off a cliff face, why not do it now?

I don't think its possible to reduce it due to EU rules?

How about duty then? That's got to be 50p a pint.

Think in the main people are happy to pay a premium price for a premium product in a premium venue (if not, go to Wetherspoons lol). My big objection to pubs pricing is 2.50 for a pint of diet coke which costs them pennies, and 5.95 for a tiny slice of cheesecake. I'd rather buy a whole one from Asda for £2 and have that when I get home

[Andy888]

Pull your sleeves up people, the mass vaccination programme is coming to town.

“UK orders 65 mln injection devices from Becton Dickinson for vaccine program”

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/uk-orders-65-mln-i...

[Stay in Bed Instead]

Andy888 said:

Pull your sleeves up people, the mass vaccination programme is coming to town.

“UK orders 65 mln injection devices from Becton Dickinson for vaccine program”

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/uk-orders-65-mln-i...

They ordered seven Nightingale hospitals too.

[grumbledoak]

Andy888 said:

Pull your sleeves up people, the mass vaccination programme is coming to town.

“UK orders 65 mln injection devices from Becton Dickinson for vaccine program”

https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/uk-orders-65-mln-i...

Mandatory - if you want to go anywhere or do anything - is in the pipeline too:

https://apnews.com/036d8848e9f5eee78b116d3d97e9e5b...

[No ideas for a name]

grumbledoak said:

Mandatory - if you want to go anywhere or do anything - is in the pipeline too:

https://apnews.com/036d8848e9f5eee78b116d3d97e9e5b...

Interesting. Loads of words in that press release which make sense on their own, but when put together appear to be a load of bull.
The company behind it V Health Passport seems to have existed since 22 June 2020
Evolved from or in the same group as dissolved companies dealing with Vcode Currency.
I do hope our Government has done due diligence before handing over OUR money.

EDIT: Actually, I don't see UK in the list of countries involved.

Edited by No ideas for a name on Sunday 5th July 09:04