Coronavirus

[Alex 35095]

17 minutes ago, TheGingerQuiff said:

No I think it's polarised because anything the nasty tories suggest will be attacked and will be wrong. If they'd suggested keeping masks then something else would be picked up on

Yeah, I get how you’re trying to argue that from a ridiculous position to garner attention. It’s why I tend to ignore you 

[TheGingerQuiff 2412]

1 minute ago, Alex said:

Yeah, I get how you’re trying to argue that from a ridiculous position to garner attention. It’s why I tend to ignore you 

Evidently

[Rayvin 5223]

4 hours ago, TheGingerQuiff said:

No I think it's polarised because anything the nasty tories suggest will be attacked and will be wrong. If they'd suggested keeping masks then something else would be picked up on

 

I really don't think this is what's happening. Starmer doesn't have enough loyalty amongst even most people on here for that to be the truth. I couldn't give a fuck what he thinks we should do and frankly, I don't even know what his position is.

 

Also fwiw, I'm open minded about this in general as long as someone, somewhere has given an evidence based assessment of why opening back up is a good idea. If the government have expert advice that has supported them in developing a position based on available data, then I'm all for it. I'll continue wearing a mask myself because I wouldn't want to risk the lives of even antivaxxers tbh, but that's just a personal choice that I'm ok with.

 

This is the common issue though - it's not polarised by left versus right - it's polarised by informed versus uninformed. And you can freely argue that it cuts both ways - but you'd need to have the evidence. If the evidence is there, I would suggest most on here would be open minded enough to support the point. And I mean serious evidence i.e. not given by someone in government. Although I would accept information given by credible healthcare professionals who work for the government.

Edited July 6, 2021 by Rayvin

[TheGingerQuiff 2412]

1 minute ago, Rayvin said:

 

I really don't think this is what's happening. Starmer doesn't have enough loyalty amongst even most people on here for that to be the truth. I couldn't give a fuck what he thinks we should do and frankly, I don't even know what his position is.

 

Also fwiw, I'm open minded about this in general as long as someone, somewhere has given an evidence based assessment of why opening back up is a good idea. If the government have expert advice that has supported them in developing a position based on available data, then I'm all for it. I'll continue wearing a mask myself because I wouldn't want to risk the lives of even antivaxxers tbh, but that's just a personal choice that I'm ok with.

 

This is the common issue though - it's not polarised by left versus right - it's polarised by informed versus informed. And you can freely argue that it cuts both ways - but you'd need to have the evidence. If the evidence is there, I would suggest most on here would be open minded enough to support the point. And I mean serious evidence i.e. not given by someone in government. Although I would accept information given by credible healthcare professionals who work for the government.

That BBC article articulates my what my position is pretty well

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57678942

[Isegrim 9798]

Anyway, how about some gardening advices how to keep up against foreign aggressive pests. Let’s hear what thoughts Priti has to offer.

[TheGingerQuiff 2412]

Perhaps we could send them to CONCENTRATION CAMPS.

 

 

 

 

Sorry.

[Gemmill 44940]

Funnily enough, Patel has just proposed "offshore centres", the little fucking witch. 

[TheGingerQuiff 2412]

have we ever had a less palatable politician?

[Rayvin 5223]

10 minutes ago, TheGingerQuiff said:

That BBC article articulates my what my position is pretty well

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57678942

 

This article appears to just present the information on both sides. In fact it's not especially clear on the benefit of opening up other than sending children back to school and keeps referring to it as a big gamble. I'm curious about the logic there a bit though, given kids will be on summer holidays soon anyway - so effectively back at home either way. Why has the BBC not listed any other positives? Presumably there's a huge economic benefit to opening back up as well? In fact I would have thought that was the primary driver, how bizarre that they'd give a solitary example of a benefit. That's got nothing to do with the argument mind you, just fucking weird from the BBC.

 

But to take the article in good faith, the claim is that we should be the guinea pig for the rest of the world by opening back up because the worst case estimates of doing so are that we end up with 1000 hospital admissions every day by the end of summer, and we believe that the NHS can cope with that on the basis that it's no more than what we'd expect during winter as a consequence of the flu.

 

That on its own isn't enough for me, but that's more on the pathetic writing in the article than the actual reality of the argument. When you put the hospital admissions against a context of economic benefit, then the picture may be enough to convince me that we should do this. It's a shame they've not bothered to make that case. Assuming you're armed with the facts on the estimated weekly cost of continuous lockdowns or some manner of economic measure of the harm it's doing, I could potentially see how you got to where you are. Unless your metric is also children being able to go to school again which would be fine I guess but I wouldn't agree that it's all that important at this stage in the academic year.

[TheGingerQuiff 2412]

Even those that are hospitalised aren't dying at the same rate as before as well. And even those that do are largely people that've opted against a vaccine. It might be seen as a gamble but it's a calculated one that I expect will work

[Rayvin 5223]

4 minutes ago, TheGingerQuiff said:

Even those that are hospitalised aren't dying at the same rate as before as well. And even those that do are largely people that've opted against a vaccine. It might be seen as a gamble but it's a calculated one that I expect will work

 

I mean, what do you mean by 'work'? What is success?

[Isegrim 9798]

13 minutes ago, Gemmill said:

Funnily enough, Patel has just proposed "offshore centres", the little fucking witch. 

She is probably just trying to do Josef Mengele proud…

[TheGingerQuiff 2412]

30 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

 

I mean, what do you mean by 'work'? What is success?

That the wave will peak and cases will fall without any significant spike in deaths

[Rayvin 5223]

1 minute ago, TheGingerQuiff said:

That the wave will peak and cases will fall without any significant spike in deaths

 

Right but that can't be all of it. If minimising deaths was the only metric for success here then the gamble wouldn't be worth taking. I mean it would be a wholly unnecessary risk when you could achieve at worst the same result by locking down.

 

The metric for success in this gamble, I'd imagine, is GDP versus lives. If a 1% GDP boost only costs 100 lives, maybe we have put a price on life and decided that we can live with that. If its 10,000 then maybe not.

 

Or according to the BBC, how many children missing school is each death worth.

 

Something like that needs to be our measure for success I would think - so what the BBC should be telling us is how many deaths the GDP boost or whatever it is, is worth. That's what it would take for me to be able to make an informed opinion on this - and while they're giving us vague nonsense like that article, it makes me concerned that no one has done the numbers, or they're higher than they think people would want them to be.

 

For what it's worth, I do believe that there is a lives versus GDP trade off line, sad as that might be.

[TheGingerQuiff 2412]

I mean people die and respiratory illnesses have always been one of the causes. We can't get caught up in some crusade to eradicate them because it isn't going to happen

[Rayvin 5223]

I know. I wasn't arguing otherwise. I was asking what actual benefit is of opening up - not about the number of deaths, not about what we think the disease will do, just the benefit of opening back up again - because that's the "prize" for the gamble. And it'll be weighed in pounds sterling clearly, so I was wondering if there was any actual data on the cost benefit.

 

I'm getting the sense that you just want to open up for life to go back to normal again - which is fine but that's not quite where I am on this. If the cost benefit is solid I'm all for opening up, but that's the line for me I suppose. Given that we don't have any real appraisal of this that I can see, I remain fairly hesitant.

[Gemmill 44940]

Anyone that can't stop arguing with Quiff has to self isolate from this thread for 10 days. 

[Rayvin 5223]

1 minute ago, Gemmill said:

Anyone that can't stop arguing with Quiff has to self isolate from this thread for 10 days. 

 

I'm not arguing per se, I'm just trying to understand the rationale so I can form an opinion

[TheGingerQuiff 2412]

Yeah it's about getting to normal. But also if not now then when? We are never going to get to zero cases so what criteria do we use? We've practically stopped it killing people. 

[Rayvin 5223]

18 minutes ago, TheGingerQuiff said:

Yeah it's about getting to normal. But also if not now then when? We are never going to get to zero cases so what criteria do we use? We've practically stopped it killing people. 

 

I mean yeah fair enough, although the article you cited mentions that the SAGE is advocating for waiting until September - ties in with school return, all adults will be double vaccinated by then, etc.

 

I think the decision is between July 19th or September - at least based on what the BBC says anyway.

[NJS 4389]

Everyone fully vaccinated including kids older than 12 would be my best case scenario. 

[Ayatollah Hermione 13884]

They’ll not vaccinate the kids because 90% of them test better than their privately tutored little shitcunts

[Toonpack 9445]

13 hours ago, Isegrim said:

Anyway, how about some gardening advices how to keep up against foreign aggressive pests. Let’s hear what thoughts Priti has to offer.

Not foreign, but on my clematis the fucking huge bastard, it’s fucked off now leaving eggs behind.

Any advice ??

[Gemmill 44940]

Scrambled. 

[Monkeys Fist 42460]

15 hours ago, Rayvin said:

 

I'm not arguing per se, I'm just trying to understand the rationale so I can form an opinion

WUM fishing for bites- getting them. 😉