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London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

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Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#291

Post by morlockabove »

beaker52 wrote: post #239
LatteLazy wrote: post #59

I live in London. The core issue here is that the government hasn't really taken any action. There are "rules" but they are full of loopholes and totally unenforced. 2 cases in particular stand out to me: Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%. "Covid enforcement" officers walk around about one train in 50, and despite it being 8 months since this started, "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to w…

Also a Londoner. Whilst I've observed greater mask compliance, shops, cafes, bars and restaurants have been packed. I've been to bars freely serving alcohol with no need to buy food, just like the old days. Definitely seeing rule breaking. And I've had a friend who wanted to beat the travel restrictions by leaving London before midnight. That's rule beating. I see it everywhere. A PSA because it's important: I can pr…

Go and gather in groups where all are below 50 with no underlying conditions, instead.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#292

Post by morlockabove »

dehrmann wrote: post #274
standardUser wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"so "just wear a mask in public" isn't enough." Did someone claim it was? The name of the game is and has always been suppressing the transmission rate of the virus. Masks are a low impact way to help a little bit towards that goal, nothing more.

I was responding to someone in London saying they don't see most people wearing masks in public places. They didn't explicitly say it was enough, but since that was their main criticism of how London is responding, it read like that. Here's what Biden said: > The first day I'm inaugurated to say I'm going to ask the public for 100 days to mask. Just 100 days to mask, not forever. One hundred days. Again, he didn't sa…

Why do we care about the justification biden gives?

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#293

Post by Kuraj »

randomsearch wrote: post #139
lefrenchy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not like no nation in the world has succeeded at containing this virus. Thailand, Vietnam, South Korea, New Zealand. We have the solutions, we just refuse to do what it takes to solve it. Western nations are taking half measures with poor enforcement, and blaming individuals for failures that should be attributed to institutions.

These comparisons are so lax. NZ is in summer right now, and is a remote island on the other side of the planet from Italy where the virus first really went crazy. The U.K. government is beyond contempt, but these comparisons don’t help. NZ is not an international flight hub. Heathrow was the busiest airport in Europe prior to COVID (it is not anymore).

I don't understand why you're being downvoted.

NZ has done exceptionally well and I don't want to take away from it at all! But it would be dishonest to say that they faced challenges of the same magnitude.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#294

Post by timr »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #243
war1025 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the argument is that masks are an essentially effortless tactic Masks are effortless, but there is also a lot of reason to believe they are not nearly as effective as was sold to people in the early summer. At some point we get into "just wear a crucifix to ward off the Devil" territory of superstition. Masks are obviously helpful at preventing transmission of some illnesses, but I've seen enough evidence t…

> there is also a lot of reason to believe they are not nearly as effective as was sold to people in the early summer. Mayeb you can post some (preferably peer-reviewed) literature links that show "a lot of reason" to believe this.

The only peer-reviewed RCT ever conducted for Covid-19 and masks found no statistically significant protective effect:

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-6817

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#295

Post by tedivm »

spoonjim wrote: post #264
dboreham wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. Here in deepest Republican middle America mask wearing by _staff_ in supermarkets is universal. Customers around 90% if you count "nose-slingers" as non compliant. Pretty much nobody just swanning around with no mask these days. Costco has heavy mask enforcement -- they will hunt down and eject anyone with their nose out. Where masks are not worn here is in smaller family owned businesses. Some have notices requ…

Staff enforcement is much easier in the US since losing your job results in homelessness.

The US has a homelessness rate of 6.2%, while the UK has a homelessness rate of 7.7%.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#296

Post by DenisM »

LatteLazy wrote: post #59

I live in London. The core issue here is that the government hasn't really taken any action. There are "rules" but they are full of loopholes and totally unenforced. 2 cases in particular stand out to me: Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%. "Covid enforcement" officers walk around about one train in 50, and despite it being 8 months since this started, "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to w…

> One staff member with covid will rapidly infect a few 1000 people given how busy they are on a Saturday morning

Is that really so? As I recall the viral load has to cross a minimal threshold before infection develops, and even then the lower the load the milder the illness.

A store employee with his mouth shut whom you pass by in about 3 seconds is a far cry from someone who is singing at you at 10 ft distance for an hour, or eating and chatting for that same hour.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#297

Post by morlockabove »

dehrmann wrote: post #284
650REDHAIR wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try smaller stores. Gas stations, corner stores, non-chain places. I see little to no compliance with customers or shop keepers in places like that. I also saw lots of maskless partying and social drinking in November.

> I also saw lots of maskless partying and social drinking in November. This is the bigger problem.

Remember to snitch on your neighbours.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#298

Post by lend000 »

elyobo wrote: post #166
lend000 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And islands. Australia may be a continent, but its low population density and lack of roads connecting it to more populous regions is certainly a contributing factor. All of the countries doing best are either authoritarian or effectively political islands (Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, China).

"Australia" has a low population density because most of it has close to no population; it's easy to be mislead by this if you're not aware of how the population is distributed within a huge area, but the areas where most people live do not have low population density. It's heavily urbanised (more so than the UK), with the vast majority of the population living in reasonably dense metropolitan areas. It's the willing…

If geography and population density have nothing to do with it, then I suppose California isn't one of the world epicenters right now.

Australia has a lower population than California, by the way. Obviously, its pop is mostly spread over the east coast, but compared to the UK it's extremely sparse, with no tunnels connecting it to the mainland. It's disingenuous (at best) to think that the island nations that had successful lockdowns were all doing something magically better than other places with significant restrictions to daily life like France, Italy, California, etc. because they couldn't realistically close their borders to ground traffic.

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#299

Post by morlockabove »

pjc50 wrote: post #105
LatteLazy wrote: post #59

I live in London. The core issue here is that the government hasn't really taken any action. There are "rules" but they are full of loopholes and totally unenforced. 2 cases in particular stand out to me: Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%. "Covid enforcement" officers walk around about one train in 50, and despite it being 8 months since this started, "I don't have one" is an acceptable answer to w…

> The attitude here is rapidly becoming "why should I bother if no one else is?". And frankly, I think the government know and encourage this. Its all but policy. Time and again we see them decline scientific advice, then act surprised when infection rates spike. They always believed in "herd immunity", so they're going to run with the minimum restrictions that achieve an ""acceptable"" death rate. We still don't hav…

People are operating on instincts that amount to something like 'the choices are the 80-year olds die im five years instead of now, or we all ruin years of our lives and hand over more power to the petty little tyrants who thrive under lockdowns. Sorry, grandma, but you were on your way out, anyway'. Of course, that's not acceptable to say. Hence all the normal people say whatever they have to to get along and do otherwise (as usual) and True Believers are increasingly confused, angry, and disillusioned (as usual).

Re: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

#300

Post by asdff »

jdhn wrote: post #174
asdff wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally I know a family where every member tested positive for COVID in the spring with severe symptoms at the time. They recovered, then over thanksgiving they started experiencing very mild symptoms (some none at all, others loss of taste and smell to more typical cold like symptoms), and all tested positive once again. It might be that after you contracted COVID once, or a particular strain of COVID once, that…

>but this certainly doesn't bode well How doesn't it bode well? If you get one strain of covid, get over it, then catch another strain and your symptoms are much less than the first time due to your body having the proper defenses against covid, then that's your immune system working as intended.

It doesn't bode well that you can get it twice to begin with.
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