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Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

bbc.co.uk

31–40 of 231 posts

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#31

Woohoo - more inconsistent and unscientific policies! * Restaurants can continue to offer delivery for food, but takeaway alcohol will be banned __ So alcohol spreads COVID? Good thing restaurants don't count on alcohol sales to stay afloat. * Amateur team sports are not allowed, but elite sport such as Premier League football can continue __ 'Elite' athletes, as is the case for the rest of the 'elites', should not h…

Alcohol spreads COVID. Not exactly ... but it breaks down social barriers and can cause people to be careless. If we had banned or at least curtailed alcoholic sales I can guarantee you probably the numbers would be half what they are now. A big problem is that once you close pubs clubs and other outlets then people start having secret house parties and these are very hard to police. I guarantee you, that even the best intentioned host will have a super spreader event on their hands before long. It doesn’t take many - 10 even to churn the virus among themselves and then head off home to give it to whomever is there.

I’m really sorry that you feel your rights are being curtailed, but what we are living through is hopefully a once in a lifetime event that if we could have just knuckled down at the start and endured some discomfort we would be pretty much over it by now.

So much for that “blitz spirit” all we hear is moan moan moan ...

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#32

In the UK, 95% of the deaths are people over 60. There are more deaths for people over 90 than under 70. When are we going to start putting all these efforts and resources into focusing on the vulnerable populations and not painting with a broad brush. We know that lockdowns are too blunt an instrument which is why most of Europe is having to engage in ever more draconian measures. We are mortgaging our future here,…

Lockdowns trade away the life, health, mental health, education, and social development of children and young people for the safety of less than 1% of the population that are either aged or unhealthy as it is, and who can be protected in other ways.

And even mentioning this cost, which is becoming quite extreme (look at youth suicidality numbers, and childhood depression rates), causes you to be accused of not caring about elderly people.

The devastation that Covid lockdowns have caused will last far longer than the disease itself.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#33

Woohoo - more inconsistent and unscientific policies! * Restaurants can continue to offer delivery for food, but takeaway alcohol will be banned __ So alcohol spreads COVID? Good thing restaurants don't count on alcohol sales to stay afloat. * Amateur team sports are not allowed, but elite sport such as Premier League football can continue __ 'Elite' athletes, as is the case for the rest of the 'elites', should not h…

If England stopped football there'd be riots the next day.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#34

Woohoo - more inconsistent and unscientific policies! * Restaurants can continue to offer delivery for food, but takeaway alcohol will be banned __ So alcohol spreads COVID? Good thing restaurants don't count on alcohol sales to stay afloat. * Amateur team sports are not allowed, but elite sport such as Premier League football can continue __ 'Elite' athletes, as is the case for the rest of the 'elites', should not h…

This reminds me of how the Massachusetts governor closed hair salons and golf courses ... between the hours of 9:30 pm and 5 am. I'm sure ladies getting their hair done at midnight were the real super spreaders /s.

Honestly, its not hard to see how government's hypocrisy and inconsistency fuels conspiracy theories. Another example is the Massachusetts mask mandate that explicitly requires masks when nobody is near you. I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt, that this is just to remove ambiguity and make enforcement easier. But its not hard to imagine the reaction of someone who is prone to tinfoil hatting when they are told they must always wear a mask outside, even if miles away from the nearest human.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#35
post #8

Woohoo - more inconsistent and unscientific policies! * Restaurants can continue to offer delivery for food, but takeaway alcohol will be banned __ So alcohol spreads COVID? Good thing restaurants don't count on alcohol sales to stay afloat. * Amateur team sports are not allowed, but elite sport such as Premier League football can continue __ 'Elite' athletes, as is the case for the rest of the 'elites', should not h…

> * Restaurants can continue to offer delivery for food, but takeaway alcohol will be banned Is restaurant takeaway alcohol even a thing in normal times in the UK? In CA at least, the state temporarily removed the normal restriction on takeaway alcohol in order to help restaurants during lockdowns.

No - but lots of places (particularly pubs) had started doing takeaway alcohol last year in order to have _some_ sales, there was some general restriction-lifting to help with that kind of thing.

There's of course not any evidence that it's a meaningful contributor to infection, but lockdown is such a crude tool that it's going to hit it regardless.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#36
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you on the football thing, although the players will be getting regular tests, and the sport generates a tonne of cash. The rest of it make sense to me. Your example of golf: the sport includes the whole social aspect (the golf club rooms etc). Remember they have to keep the rules simple. Also allowing people to order alcohol to be delivered within the hour probably isn't the smartest!

> Also allowing people to order alcohol to be delivered within the hour probably isn't the smartest! Why? What is the difference vs someone who keeps a quantity on alcohol in their house (other than being exorbitantly more expensive)?

The same reason why we have limits of where and when you can buy alcohol - because it's a licensed drug.

Why are people confused about this?

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#38
post #22

Woohoo - more inconsistent and unscientific policies! * Restaurants can continue to offer delivery for food, but takeaway alcohol will be banned __ So alcohol spreads COVID? Good thing restaurants don't count on alcohol sales to stay afloat. * Amateur team sports are not allowed, but elite sport such as Premier League football can continue __ 'Elite' athletes, as is the case for the rest of the 'elites', should not h…

> So alcohol spreads COVID? This always gets me. Isn’t it obvious that alcohol consumption is a social activity? Not all of it, but to a large degree. Limiting the consumption seems logical. Of course, you can’t assess the impact of individual measures at the moment, as you need a controlled experiment and proper statistics. But is this measure really something to be that upset about?

> Limiting the consumption seems logical.

Lots of "plans" seem logical and this is precisely why technocracy is a vexation on society.

Unintended consequences. The presumption of knowledge and control.

All of these elite presumptions are illusory and fundamentally hubristic.

You know why "limiting the consumption" of alcohol is a dumb suggestion? We have tons of evidence that it was a massive failure: Prohibition and the War on Drugs.

No matter how well-intended you are - it'll backfire and people will ignore it.

Humans are fundamentally social creatures. Millions of years of evolution have seared into their biology the instinct to be social.

The idea that we can force humans into acting against their fundamental instincts to socialize is folly. Not only folly - but abuse.

But seriously, it's bizarre. The obdurance of so-called experts set on working against the grain of every human instinct, as though that's likely to maximize the success of their plans.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#39

In the UK, 95% of the deaths are people over 60. There are more deaths for people over 90 than under 70. When are we going to start putting all these efforts and resources into focusing on the vulnerable populations and not painting with a broad brush. We know that lockdowns are too blunt an instrument which is why most of Europe is having to engage in ever more draconian measures. We are mortgaging our future here,…

Everybody is asking the hard questions and the hard answer is that it is downright impossible to isolate the most vulnerable from the general population. Tried and attempted in multiple places; turns out you only need one nurse, one doctor, one caretaker, one young kid in a large household to infect those people.

Maybe, just maybe, the experts (and I mean the people who have spent their lifetimes studying the transmission of respiratory diseases) have already weighed in, their answers don't look that different from when things started, and their assessments turned out to be mostly correct?

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#40
post #28

In the UK, 95% of the deaths are people over 60. There are more deaths for people over 90 than under 70. When are we going to start putting all these efforts and resources into focusing on the vulnerable populations and not painting with a broad brush. We know that lockdowns are too blunt an instrument which is why most of Europe is having to engage in ever more draconian measures. We are mortgaging our future here,…

Hospitals are quickly filling up, young people need hospitals as much as anyone. What's your suggestion, allow elderly covid patients to die at home?

No they aren't. NHS occupancy in 2020 was lower than in 2019. We are currently 50% below our peak ventilator usage in April and the 7 day trend is very flat.

This is just not true. Go look at the data instead of parroting headlines.

EDIT Lol again downvotes but no replies. Does anyone want to bother educating me on this topic and showing me where hospitals are filling up? I would love to see it, because the NHS figures certainly don't show it.

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