UK Lockdown

[Alistair20000]

How soon people forget about 1800 deaths being posted in one day and numbers in hospitals nudging around 40K, that was the situation in January. The last four months have been spent vaccinating the at risk groups not wilfully trying to cheese off people by not allowing them to go about their daily business. Businesses and their employees are being supported through this period and were given a date in February where some semblance of normality might return in June. Things are looking good, and the vaccine looks to be the game changer we were told it might be. The plan is cautious, but it’s working. Looking forward to my first pint in the Cornish Arms beer garden in Tavvy next week.

Not all businesses are being supported sufficiently and there are plenty of deserving cases who slip through the net of the various support schemes.

 

[InTheBigBank]

No more than those who despite the world suffering from a once in a century global medical emergency are convincing themselves that one of the worlds great democracies is constituting (just for the hell of it seems) an authoritarian power grab because it got drunk on the power it’s deployed thus far to fight a very nasty virus.

I don’t think it’s a case of being an authoritarian power grab by design.

But so much political weight has been placed on a futile attempt to control a sub-microscopic pathogen, that our elected leaders and their opposition have backed themselves into a corner, a corner in which their only ammo is authoritarianism.

Any consideration of people’s right to a life has been cast away, they are running around like blue arsed flies panicked & desperate to appease the electorate and score political points.

Look at the total and utter devastation to all facets of society Covid policy is doing. I truly believe Johnson and Starmer don’t give one iota of a monkey’s toss about saving lives. To them it is all about playing politics.

We are mere pawns in their game of authoritarian chess, drones to be shuffled around according to their whim and all encompassing need to be the World’s No1 Covid destroyer.

 

[Alistair20000]

No more than those who despite the world suffering from a once in a century global medical emergency are convincing themselves that one of the worlds great democracies is constituting (just for the hell of it seems) an authoritarian power grab because it got drunk on the power it’s deployed thus far to fight a very nasty virus.

Comparatively low level of restrictions were your words. I disagree as there have been huge restrictions placed on us impairing nearly all our basic civil liberties. For example:

People placed under de facto house arrest.
People not able to visit friends and relatives or invite into their houses who they want to.
Businesses shut down and livelihoods ruined with no evidence published that the action forced on them is in any way justified.
People prohibited from travelling around the countryside or abroad.
Visits to outdoor attractions, churches etc prohibited.

Whether these restrictions were and still are justified is a separate question.

 

[RedPaul]

How soon people forget about 1800 deaths being posted in one day and numbers in hospitals nudging around 40K, that was the situation in January. The last four months have been spent vaccinating the at risk groups not wilfully trying to cheese off people by not allowing them to go about their daily business. Businesses and their employees are being supported through this period and were given a date in February where some semblance of normality might return in June. Things are looking good, and the vaccine looks to be the game changer we were told it might be. The plan is cautious, but it’s working. Looking forward to my first pint in the Cornish Arms beer garden in Tavvy next week.

I haven't forgotten about any of that. Indeed I was arguing loudly for tighter restrictions in December rather than the farce of xmas we ended up with, and then 2 weeks of dither before locking down 5 hours after the kids went back to school in January. Those three weeks have cost us hugely, and many thousands of lives.

What I object to is the endless moving of the goalposts. We were told that "if the vaccine works" it will see the return back. It has worked better than anyone dared hope, and has been rolled out quicker than anyone could have dreamed of. We are down to a handful of deaths a day, remembering of course that 1800 people die on a normal day in the UK. And yet the doom mongers persevere. The micro-management gets worse, not better.

I am not advocating the end of all restrictions, and I have been supportive of the "roadmap". The problem is the absolute in suffering detail behind each release stage of the roadmap. I know I hark on about cricket, but seriously the ECB have set out that 'touch points' should be wiped down every hour. What amateur cricket club in the country is going to have an army of volunteers ready to wipe down door handles and the like every hour? And by setting 25 pages of rules, you are inclined to say "feck it" and not bother with any of them.

Meanwhile 30%-40% of covid cases are still caught in hospital and no-one does anything about it. Where is Hancock these days by the way?

 

[Alistair20000]

Where is Hancock these days by the way?

As far as I am concerned the least I see of that particular To55er the better.

Maybe with lower infection rates, deaths and hospitalisations Bunter prefers to “lead” the pressers ?

 

[RedPaul]

As far as I am concerned the least I see of that particular To55er the better.

Maybe with lower infection rates, deaths and hospitalisations Bunter prefers to “lead” the pressers ?

Hopefully Hancock is busy working out a comprehensive plan to deal with the horrendous backlog of other treatments
Or he is sitting smugly in his chair looking at vaccine charts.

 

[tavyred]

I think it’s the hyperbolic use of language like ‘authoritarianism’ that grips my s***.
No one is getting welded inside their homes like we saw in China ffs.
As far as I can see the one basic civil liberty being denied us is the right to association, which considering we’re dealing with a nasty virus that relies on humans being in close proximity to each other to spread, sounds eminently sensible to me, at least until we can test the success or otherwise via the data of the vaccines being deployed.
There is no descent into a post-pandemic dystopian Britain being planned, just a country that’s been hit hard thus far trying to make this period the final act in a pretty dreadful 12 months.

 

[Alistair20000]

Hopefully Hancock is busy working out a comprehensive plan to deal with the horrendous backlog of other treatments
Or he is sitting smugly in his chair looking at vaccine charts.

Probably the latter.

 

[Alistair20000]

I think it’s the hyperbolic use of language like ‘authoritarianism’ that grips my s***.
No one is getting welded inside their homes like we saw in China ffs.
As far as I can see the one basic civil liberty being denied us is the right to association, which considering we’re dealing with a nasty virus that relies on humans being in close proximity to each other to spread, sounds eminently sensible to me, at least until we can test the success or otherwise via the data of the vaccines being deployed.
There is no descent into a post-pandemic dystopian Britain being planned, just a country that’s been hit hard thus far trying to make this period the final act in a pretty dreadful 12 months.

Please flesh out what you mean here.

 

[Grecian2K]

Exclusive footage released of Prof Whitty out collecting data for the next SAGE meeting.
(348) Monty Python and the Holy Grail: Bring Out Your Dead - YouTube