Coronavirus

[Captain Turdseye]

31 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

I don't have any advice. I'm not an armchair expert. But surely you need to balance deaths from economic impact against deaths from the virus.

Surely we should be at least matching the efforts of the French and the Germans at restricting the spread. Even America, where Trump’s been slated/mocked for not doing more, has now started to take more action than us. 

[Bjornebye]

2 minutes ago, Captain Turdseye said:

Surely we should be at least matching the efforts of the French and the German’s at restricting the spread. Even America, where Trump’s been slated/mocked for not doing more, has now started to take more action than us. 

Agreed. 
 

SD has a point to an extent to be fair. The problem is he is doing it to make a point rather than do it to speak humanely. 

[TheHowieLama]

For the first time since the coronavirus has reached the United States, an employee of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reportedly been diagnosed with the illness via CDC testing.

 

 

Uh - oh.

[Captain Turdseye]

The Dutch, the Irish and even the fucking Hungarians on this forum are having more concern shown for them by their respective governments than we are.

 

Look at the financial promises made by the French and German governments today to try and aid business and minimise damage to their economies. They’re 300 and 500 times what ours our. What exactly are the government doing here? Asking Rolls Royce and Jaguar Land Rover if they can borrow warehouse space, telling us to stay in and wash our hands and asking us nicely to stay out of the pub for a while. 

[TheHowieLama]

Trump has taken to calling is the Chinese Virus.

[Red Phoenix]

1 hour ago, Rico1304 said:

But how do we isolate if people are allowed in and to move about? It makes no sense. A vaccine could be years away.  

 

I don't know, I'm sure the governments, scientists and health organisations can work something out though instead of allowing it to sweep through countries constantly killing large amounts of people. One of the main aims of a government is to protect a population, not carry out herd immunity experiments with killer viruses.

[Jose Jones]

16 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

Okay, well I'd love to hear your solution to what seems to me to be a pretty big fucking problem. But I'd hope we can at least acknowledge that locking the country down for months carries an enormous economic cost, because hardly anyone here seems to be factoring that into their calculations, which is not a luxury the government has.

Well, it is not something that government can entirely control of course - because corporations and decision makers therein will also need to make decisions on whether to hoard wealth or help people get treatment and eat.

 

The "economic cost" is a fugazi though - 4% of GDP, 8% of GDP - what's the difference in the long run?  That is a rhetorical question, because the answer is bugger all.

 

If the government and major corporates - like we've seen with Branson - treat the situation as business as normal, but bail out the rich so that they may deign to keep employing the poor if they want to, then things might not go so well. 

 

The government will need to nationalise some companies in areas of major infrastructure, etc.  And choose to support smaller to medium businesses along the supply chains who have less cash at hand and no borrowing capabilities, in order to keep things running and people in jobs.

 

Obviously the NHS being run deliberately badly for a decade or so is a problem too long term to fix in this short time period.

[Barrington Womble]

25 minutes ago, Rico1304 said:

It’s impossible to control. It’s out there with no vaccine. The minute people are able to travel again it’ll be back.  Good luck trying to keep people at home for a couple of years. 
 

A smarter man than me would be able to go in the Tory and Brexit thread and see posts about old people dying from the usual suspects.  

But it is possible to control. The Asian countries are showing that right now. And you might be right, as soon as you let people move, it'll start again, but it's under control. But what we've got now, is no movement, no going the anywhere, no going the shop, no going on holiday, the economy going to shit and the virus is out of control . I'm currently under a 14 day home quarantine as my daughter has a cough. If we could test her I could perhaps go to work as chances are it is just a cough and not coronavirus, instead the whole family is confined to the house, As it is I'm self employed and stuck at home because we can't be bothered to test anyone. How is that good for the economy? What part of this strategy so far has worked? It's been a complete shit show.

 

We've shutdown economy, have no view on how the virus is spreading because we don't test anyone, absolutely everything that has happened to now has failed. I do a bunch of work for an Asian  based bank. Today they've had to put tighter restrictions on the working practices on British workers than their Asian based workers and they're tighter than they even had to do in China at any point. That just about sums up the mess we're in. Not just us, the whole casual attitude of the UK, EU and USA. 

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

For starters, we could save billions by jibbing off that high speed train which won't be a priority for the country if the hit from this is as bad as predicted. 

[Red Phoenix]

49 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

I don't have any advice. I'm not an armchair expert. But surely you need to balance deaths from economic impact against deaths from the virus.

 

Governments can make the economy work so it isn't causing deaths, they can't allow a virus with a 1-3% death rate to go through a population without causing deaths though if there's no vaccine. So our ecomony always comes second because it can be altered, the virus can't be altered to kill less.

 

You don't have to be an expert in anything to understand that.

[Duff Man]

 

About sums it up.

[sir roger]

I reckon more people will be killed by relatives stuck together for 14 days than the virus.

[Captain Turdseye]

5 minutes ago, sir roger said:

I reckon more people will be killed by relatives stuck together for 14 days than the virus.

A row broke out about this last night between two women in a chat group I’m in. One was saying that forcing people to stay indoors would lead to a huge increase in domestic violence. Absolute nonsense. If Mrs Turdseye was being as stupid as that she’d get a smack in the mouth. 

[General Dryness]

3 hours ago, Lee909 said:

Woo

High blood pressure - Check

Type 1 diabetes - Check

 

 

So according to the government I'll get a letter, stay home for 3 months. All well and good but how exactly do I pay my rent and other bills

I have high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes.

 

Haven't got Woo though.

[General Dryness]

28 minutes ago, Captain Turdseye said:

A row broke out about this last night between two women in a chat group I’m in. One was saying that forcing people to stay indoors would lead to a huge increase in domestic violence. Absolute nonsense. If Mrs Turdseye was being as stupid as that she’d get a smack in the mouth. 

Whose arms would you borrow for that?

[TheHowieLama]

5 minutes ago, General Dryness said:

I have high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes.

 

Haven't got Woo though.

I thought he was chained to Usher's boiler cranking out 10,000 words a day.

[General Dryness]

Just now, TheHowieLama said:

I thought he was chained to Usher's boiler cranking out 10,000 words a day.

Well its a good thing I haven't got him then.

[TheHowieLama]

Florida is going forward with its primary tomorrow. They drive thousands of senior citizens from retirement homes in buses to vote at the local polling stations.

[Jose Jones]

3 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

Florida is going forward with its primary tomorrow. They drive thousands of senior citizens from retirement homes in buses to vote at the local polling stations.

Should just get Stig to set it up as a poll on here.

[Evelyn Tentions]

2 hours ago, Liverpool lad said:

I need this summed up

We're doomed.

[Dr Arthur De Sabre]

12 hours ago, Leyton388 said:

Richard Branson is one cheeky cunt. Wants 7.5bn bailout money from the government but has told his staff at Virgin Atlantic to take 8 weeks unpaid leave. 

 

 

It’s would be great if every fucker boycotted the absolute shite hawk and his services.

i pinged a tweet at VirginActive Australia earlier, asking what they intend to do as regards their staff as I am willling to keep paying fees even though I cannot attend, but this should be to keep staff fluid not for fucking profit.

[Dr Arthur De Sabre]

11 hours ago, Karl_b said:

Fucking bats. That article reads like the start of Justin Cronin's trilogy of books, The Passage, about a pandemic, stemming from bats, that causes people to turn in to 'virals' (vampires) and destroy most of the world. 

 

Between years of reading and watching dystopian fiction and playing the Pandemic board game, I'm well sorted to see this through. Err, apart from the being vulnerable to the virus thing. But APART from that.

My missus is gonna regret never wanting to play pandemic, she’s gonna have to become a fucking expert now due to isolation.

[PestiRed]

3 hours ago, Captain Turdseye said:

The Dutch, the Irish and even the fucking Hungarians on this forum are having more concern shown for them by their respective governments than we are.

 

Look at the financial promises made by the French and German governments today to try and aid business and minimise damage to their economies. They’re 300 and 500 times what ours our. What exactly are the government doing here? Asking Rolls Royce and Jaguar Land Rover if they can borrow warehouse space, telling us to stay in and wash our hands and asking us nicely to stay out of the pub for a while. 

Hey, I object to that. Not all Hungarians are fucking all of the time, sometimes we’re eating goose liver to get the energy back up

 

[Bobby Hundreds]

Need to invest massively in production and testing for the virus. People should know if they have it, if they can work, can be tested multiple times over a period of time. Expensive and a massive taking but the cost of doing nothing would be far greater on the economy and human cost. 

[Moctezuma]

6 minutes ago, Bobby Hundreds said:

Need to invest massively in production and testing for the virus. People should know if they have it, if they can work, can be tested multiple times over a period of time. Expensive and a massive taking but the cost of doing nothing would be far greater on the economy and human cost. 

All this talk of ramping up testing is daft we don't really have the capacity, our Pathology labs are drowning in the workload already and we are only just starting.

 

You cannot run your health system into the ground over a period of 10 years and hope it will be ok when a pandemic hits.