[Misc] COVID… again

Weststander said:

During the Pandemic people talking the UK down as an obsession often quoted the continent as a paragon of Covid virtue. Including the nordic nations, then NZ was mentioned relentlessly. O’Brien and the NSC left were obsessed. O’Brien lied on a daily basis that the UK had the highest per capital death rate in Europe, he must’ve got bollocked because be revised it to countries with a population greater than 15m. Italy and Spain were worse. Eventually the lies quietly disappeared.

On this forum the Nordic nations and NZ were put forward as paragons of virtue, how was it that the UK didn’t have their Covid death rates.

On a trip to Norway during a break from lockdowns, Norwegians said to us why do Brits keep saying that. We have a low population, low population density, we’re not an international airport hub.

So why did the party politicised about everything bang on about the EU, nordic nations and NZ? When the metrics on much of mainland Europe were awful too, when as you say outlier locations have a different circumstance.

My other point is that people wouldn’t put up with all the tough measures a second time. Sweden can offer small alternative routes. Stuff here or in mainland Europe such as one outdoor walk per day, not meeting up with friends or family in a park, I think they’d be ignored. Quite possibly a lot more besides.

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Bry Nylon said:

Unless the pupils at the school and their parents - plus anybody they may come into contact with - has zero association with the world outside of the school and are living in a hermetically-sealed bubble, then I’d maintain it is a futile exercise.

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ROSM said:

I'm not going to get into the politics of this. As much of what you and others have said about others (on both sides) misinformation was information that was right at a point in time

There is one simple inescapable fact and that is the uk was poorly prepared for a pandemic that was predictable and due based on historical data. The reasons for it's unpreparedness was poor investment in health services, poor stocks of ppe based on market force provisioning policies and when this was pointed out in 2016, to disband the body who could have fixed it and metaphorically putting fingers in their ears and saying 'blah blah blah I can't hear you'

We also as a country had moved to a culture of not trusting experts so we ended up with the worst possible govt (note I am talking people not politics) when we needed them most.

This is what led to longer and deeper action including full lockdowns. Earlier more structured activity including A/B shift working, remote working, retail and leisure social distancing, protection of care homes and health facilities and if we wanted to go back further, improved public health awareness ahead of a pandemic etc would have been very useful

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dsr-burnley said:

You're certainly correct about protection of care homes, but for the rest, I doubt that any degree of lockdown would have done any good. This thing was just too infectious. China tried full lockdowns (ie. boarding up the buildings with people still inside) and that still wasn't enough to stop it.

Too many people are needed to move about and interact (food industry and carers, especially) to make lockdown practical for this virus. This is presumably one of the reasons that we are no longer told to test and isolate - even though it can still be a serious illness - because isolating will make very little difference. (It doesn't help that this virus is at its most infectious before the symptoms appear.)

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Weststander said:

The rich got richer from the Pandemic. Way beyond PPE crooks.

The wealth gap grew. Half the UK used it to save £338b, whilst the other half saw any savings wiped out.

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jcdenton08 said:

I have a few kits on hand which I bought from Amazon, because I care for my Mum and if she gets covid it could be fatal, so I make sure to test whenever I have symptoms in order to self-isolate/take extra precautions to minimise risk of infecting her.

But I wouldn’t need tests to know I’ve got it if I didn’t have them, it’s all the same symptoms as the first time I had it but even worse.

Tight chest, asthmatic sounding constant cough, whistling when breathing and hurting to breathe/short on breath, on top of the sore throat, dizziness, fatigue and weakness.

I feel f***ing terrible.

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vegster said:

I'm 64 with no underlying conditions but, not been offered a covid jab since the second one ?

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Weststander said:

During the Pandemic people talking the UK down as an obsession often quoted the continent as a paragon of Covid virtue. Including the nordic nations, then NZ was mentioned relentlessly. O’Brien and the NSC left were obsessed. O’Brien lied on a daily basis that the UK had the highest per capital death rate in Europe, he must’ve got bollocked because be revised it to countries with a population greater than 15m. Italy and Spain were worse. Eventually the lies quietly disappeared.

On this forum the Nordic nations and NZ were put forward as paragons of virtue, how was it that the UK didn’t have their Covid death rates.

On a trip to Norway during a break from lockdowns, Norwegians said to us why do Brits keep saying that. We have a low population, low population density, we’re not an international airport hub.

So why did the party politicised about everything bang on about the EU, nordic nations and NZ? When the metrics on much of mainland Europe were awful too, when as you say outlier locations have a different circumstance.

My other point is that people wouldn’t put up with all the tough measures a second time. Sweden can offer small alternative routes. Stuff here or in mainland Europe such as one outdoor walk per day, not meeting up with friends or family in a park, I think they’d be ignored. Quite possibly a lot more besides.

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Bry Nylon said:

Unless the pupils at the school and their parents - plus anybody they may come into contact with - has zero association with the world outside of the school and are living in a hermetically-sealed bubble, then I’d maintain it is a futile exercise.

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ROSM said:

We no longer test because following various mutations and with the vaccine provisioning it's largely the same as other flu (which in itself is a killer for many).

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jcdenton08 said:

Seriously considering hospital. Waiting for a call back from 111 about what to do; very laboured breathing and waking up gasping for air. Not good

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Zeberdi said:

Just to be clear, the Coronavirus is cold virus not a flu virus and which can have more lasting effects.

The flu virus has a much higher death rate at the moment cf to Covid but that doesn’t mean to say Covid is not still potentially lethal for some people who are clinically very vulnerable (like myself) but as strains get increasingly weaker, it’s hoped SARSCoV2 will just become the 5th strain of the common cold virus already endemic to humans.

Agree with the rest of your post

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The Clamp said:

Never had it. Which was a f***ing miracle given where I worked all through Covid and that I didn’t really pay much attention to the rules* when I wasn’t at work.


*not because I don’t think infection control isn’t important but because the government and WHO had a lot of it wrong. Most of the restrictions were an ineffectual nonsense. And I don’t adhere to nonsense. Law or no law.

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jcdenton08 said:

Which bits did they have wrong?

Most of it made sense to me, face masks, washing your hands, social distancing - all of these helped minimise the infection spread, right?

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The Clamp said:

It was the application and enforcement of it all they got wrong.

Half measures.

I can’t be arsed to go into it all now so long after the fact.

Anyway. It’s been downgrade now from global emergency to just another mild winter concern for the vulnerable. So my opinion on the details of 4 years ago is largely irrelevant.

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