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Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

bbc.co.uk

61–70 of 231 posts

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#61
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?

If you want high compliance, the rules need to be perceived as fair and just. Telling people they can't have beer with their dinner is plainly frustrating.

Not to mention that people can just get their takeaway from the restaurant, and then walk next door to the corner store and go "food shopping" to pick up a 6 pack.

If there was evidence that drinking alcohol spreads covid, I would expect that to be a clear message from the government and for there to be consistent restrictions on alcohol. Instead, we get silly rules with silly workarounds.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#62
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?

Overflow hospitals in the UK have never been used:

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/covid-patients-england-ni...

The UK Government is arresting people who film empty hospitals:

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/13619752/moment-anti-covid-loc...

Meanwhile less than 400 people under age 50 have died with/of COVID in the UK.

The fundamental driver of this pandemic is the ill-health of the population - driven by sugar (obesity), coal and oil (air pollution), as well as Vitamin (D) deficiencies - but these factors receive no attention.

Meanwhile in Sweden - without hard lockdown - deaths are up only 3.2% above 2018, and even then explained by mortality shifting from 2019 and 2021.

Even Ukraine without hard lockdown over Winter has had far fewer deaths per Capita than the UK and has a much more rudimentary healthcare system.

Lockdown seems to drive deaths, at huge social and economic cost, rather than prevent them.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#63
post #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 be…

This is complete and total arbitrary nonsense. You're taking a conclusion and trying to walk back a path of logic to some type of justification.

Let's see this for what it is: arbitrary decisions that curtails the human rights of all human beings by politicians who are figuratively drunk with power. They are banning things for the common people while they leave their regions, have expensive $1k dinners for their political backers and ignoring all the rules they've imposed on the population. From Canada to California to the UK, we watch elected leaders ignore the bullshit rules they put on people, either because they think it doesn't apply to them or they've seen the numbers and know the risks are bullshit.

We're talking about a disease that's literally has over a 98% survival rate if you're under 55 (which causes people to spout more "long COVID" narrative media non-sense). 100 years from now, do you really think scholars will see 2020 and 2021 as anything other than the largest cast of mass hysteria to date?

Let's isolate the elderly and vulnerable, or anyone who wants to be isolated, and let the rest of the world evaluate their own risks again.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#64
post #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 be…

>. If we had banned or at least curtailed alcoholic sales I can guarantee you probably the numbers would be half what they are now.

but that's not what's happening. You can still get beer by going to a physical store, you just can't have it delivered to your house.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#65
post #6

What are the reasons why we can’t have a very hard 4-week long Chinese style total shutdown?

Because UK is not a dictatorship. China is.

By that logic when the UK should have done nothing as Germany Invaded Poland and France. And then nothing as German troops landed.

The real fact is people that argue and resist taking action against Covid because 'mah freedumbs' are seriously undermining democratic governments. Basically making authoritarian governments point for them.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#67
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?

Except they are not, vast majority of people infected with covid do not require hospitalization.

If the hospital can't handle this virus then the health care system must be really bad in the first place. The solution is to fix and improve it, not lockdown.

Lockdown measures is just cop out.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#68
I live in Southwark, and it's always astonishing how people don't wears masks around here.

Customers, Cashiers, Barbers... Iceland, Off-license, Asda...

It's like people don't care at all. Only about 50% of people are wearing masks.

Sharp contrast with France where people need to wear masks all the time, and it's heavily enforced.

I don't expect the number of cases to go down TBH.

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#69
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?

On a tangential note, there's a clinical trial[1] currently underway for exploring the use of alcohol vapor inhalation (with aspirin) as a potential treatment for COVID-19.

[1]: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04554433

Re: Covid: New lockdown for England as cases surge

#70

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,…

If you get a bad dose and you can’t get a respirator you’re in big trouble. Guess what happens when there are so many sick that respirators run out. What happens when hospitals are overrun with patients with ‘mild’ symptoms? We’ve been talking about this for nine months and you’re still at the marginal deaths stage of reasoning. Do you need a picture drawn for you or something?
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