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

bloomberg.com

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

#321

Post by pjc50 »

morlockabove wrote: post #299
pjc50 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 oth…

There's a lot of under 80s who are now experiencing "long covid" semi-disabling symptoms weeks or months after infection. I know a few personally.

Getting the measures right gets rid of covid and lets people get back to normal. Bad measures give the worst of both worlds, prolonging the problem.

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

#322

Post by bsder »

dehrmann wrote: post #93
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…

Masks might slow it, but they're everywhere in the Bay Area, and cases are rising faster than ever, and we're setting new records for new cases, so "just wear a mask in public" isn't enough.

Welcome to the Thanksgiving bump. People didn't listen and stay home. And, if they got together, they didn't wear masks.

I got Covid from community transmission. I quarantined in my house, away from my wife, and wore a mask 24/7.

She didn't get my Covid.

Masks work, but people have to bloody well use them.

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

#323

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

morlockabove wrote: post #291
beaker52 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Some of you will still get Long Covid, which may leave you with permanent breathing issues and other health problems.

The biggest lie is that if you're under 30 you're immune. You're not - not even slightly. You're far less likely to die than someone who is 85 and obese with diabetes and high blood pressure. But no one knows what the long term health implications are for younger people who make a partial recovery. And there's been a non-negligible number of those.

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

#324

Post by refurb »

jl6 wrote: post #50
the8472 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't need to wonder, we can look at nations that succeeded in controlling the spread from the start and now are reaping the benefits.

The data is so noisy though. Earlier in the year you could point to Germany as an example of a nation doing it right - but look at them now.

Indeed. Back in Oct Canada was doing quite well and now they have 25x number of cases in 2 months.

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

#325

Post by hexedpackets »

pjc50 wrote: post #312
tedivm wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That is astonishingly high and may be counted differently (people living insecurely on couches)

Not sure about the UK, but any kind of insecure or temporary housing is counted for the US - including people living on couches.

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

#326

Post by marcosdumay »

EliRivers wrote: post #194
rhino369 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty shocked staff in supermarket employees aren't required to wear masks in London. But this isn't really true: "One staff member with covid will rapidly infect a few 1000 people given how busy they are on a Saturday morning. Covid is pretty contagious, but you really need to be around someone for ~15 minutes to have a good chance of infecting them. Superspreading events can occur, but they are fairly rare. I…

Covid is pretty contagious, but you really need to be around someone for ~15 minutes to have a good chance of infecting them. Does that mean that someone has to breath in my virus for 15 minutes before there's enough of it inside them to infect them? Or does it mean that if I'm the infected staff member constantly spewing virus near an ever-changing cast of shoppers, I can expect to infect about 4 people an hour, som…

> Does that mean that someone has to breath in my virus for 15 minutes before there's enough of it inside them to infect them?

This one. Kinda. The timing may vary, and it's a risk distribution, so there are tails on the low and high ends.

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

#327

Post by mafribe »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #319
mafribe wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Londoner here too and I agree with your observations about compliance. Tons of rule breaking. The dance studio next to my dwelling has been running popular dance classes as recently as last night. I think it's mostly an age thing: the under 20s almost completely ignore covid restrictions, and so does a substantial part of the under 30s. I can't even blame them as it doesn't affect them. And they mostly lack an unders…

Some countries have done better than others. Spain, France, and Italy have all done badly, but Germany and Portugal have much better outcomes than the UK. The point about test and trace plus limited lockdowns is that you can play whack-a-mole with clusters, which does a far better job of preventing transmission than anything short of a vaccine. Countries with aggressive test and trace and compulsory self-isolation ha…

  aggressive test and trace 
  compulsory self-isolation
Yes.

An interesting question is why that has not been possible in European countries. A high-ranking politician of my acquaintance stated privately, and very clearly, that it was exaggerated concern for privacy (of a population that has no concern using the products of Facebook, Google and similar trackers, not to mention mobile phones), stoked by a "privacy maffia", made meaningful test and trace (along the lines of Taiwan and other SE Asian states) political suicide, which is why him and others, despite knowing better, did not bother floating this.

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

#328

Post by nicoburns »

mafribe wrote: post #301
beaker52 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Londoner here too and I agree with your observations about compliance. Tons of rule breaking. The dance studio next to my dwelling has been running popular dance classes as recently as last night. I think it's mostly an age thing: the under 20s almost completely ignore covid restrictions, and so does a substantial part of the under 30s. I can't even blame them as it doesn't affect them. And they mostly lack an unders…

> the under 20s almost completely ignore covid restrictions, and so does a substantial part of the under 30s. I can't even blame them as it doesn't affect them.

I think it's less because the disease doesn't affect them, and more because the restrictions do. If you're living as a family unit then restrictions are tough, but it's something else entirely if you're a single person living alone (or with people you don't like).

Indeed I've seen a similar attitude (although perhaps less actual rule breaking) from at-risk old people saying damn the rules, they'd like to see their relatives.

Not that I think this excuses it.

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

#329

Post by zepearl »

DenisM wrote: post #302

Apropos of other comments. What do we think about the mask “issue”? Some people vehemently refuse to wear them, others take “just go with flow” attitude, yet others approach it with outsized religious zeal, hounding the heretics or at least giving them the stink eye. It also seems some people take great comfort on the mask, wearing it even inside their cars or waaay out in the open. Are we witnessing a religious schi…

> It also seems some people take great comfort on the mask, wearing it even inside their cars or waaay out in the open.

Initially, in March, I had similar thoughts - in my case it's currently like this:

- with the temperature being 0-5 Celsius throughout the day the mask keeps my face a bit warmer than when not wearing it. I do like it in this context :)

- as I have to get off&on the bus and 2 trains, I just keep it on all the time while commuting. The recommendations are not to touch the mask's external surface (and not to indirectly get in contact with it), keeping it on all the time seems to be the least dangerous option.

- wearing glasses while wearing as well a mask can be very challenging (fogging); once I finally manage to make everything work (dozens of tiny adjustments) I "freeze" my setup and keep it like that until I know that I won't need the mask anymore.

Therefore, nothing extreme going on if you see me driving or walking alone with the mask on - just being practical :)

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

#330

Post by gotaran »

jonplackett wrote: post #222
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 in London and 100% agree. I’ve barely been to a shop in 8 months because of this. For some reason we can manage to prevent drunk agro people entering a club with the wrong shoes, but 8 months into a pandemic we can’t make people wear a bloody mask? It’s insane. The government are partly to blame for making rules so haphazardly that even someone like me who reads EVERYTHING and wants to do the right thing 100% of…

> For some reason we can manage to prevent drunk agro people entering a club with the wrong shoes

At least in the US, dress codes in nightclubs exist as a deterrent to individuals with gang affiliations. It's pretty racist.

Guess which race anti-maskers are predominantly.

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