Jump to content
  • Sign up for free and receive a month's subscription

    You are viewing this page as a guest. That means you are either a member who has not logged in, or you have not yet registered with us. Signing up for an account only takes a minute and it means you will no longer see this annoying box! It will also allow you to get involved with our friendly(ish!) community and take part in the discussions on our forums. And because we're feeling generous, if you sign up for a free account we will give you a month's free trial access to our subscriber only content with no obligation to commit. Register an account and then send a private message to @dave u and he'll hook you up with a subscription.

Coronavirus


Bjornebye

Recommended Posts

15 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

Labour have had a nightmare over schools during this. First we had ‘no ifs, no buts’ to get them back in September, then he’s calling for them to be closed just a month ago and he was also saying nurseries should be closed within the last fortnight! And now he wants to open them again before we’ve vaccinated all the vulnerable groups. 
 

 

Worra dick, absolutely fallen into a trap there.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Are there any legal eagles on here? It doesn't affect me personally but the driver training industry is headed up by the largest companies (BSM and The AA) and they operate a business to business contract with a fixed term of 24 months. Some people are further into their contracts than others but these companies are forcing their contracts to continue to be paid for. This can be over £1,000 per month easily in some cases.

 

Under consumer law, a contract can become 'frustrated' if circumstances mean that either side of a contract is unable to continue to provide the service paid for due to changes enforced upon them. With the Covid-19 lockdown laws preventing driver trainers from working, that means they are unable to generate an income from the service provided by The AA or BSM but they are still expected to pay them.

 

Is there a law that protects business to business contracts in the same manner as business to consumer contracts?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

52 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

Labour have had a nightmare over schools during this. First we had ‘no ifs, no buts’ to get them back in September, then he’s calling for them to be closed just a month ago and he was also saying nurseries should be closed within the last fortnight! And now he wants to open them again before we’ve vaccinated all the vulnerable groups. 
 

 

To be fair, it was not unreasonable to assume there may have been an adequate test and trace programme to go alongside it. That is the biggest failing of this whole pandemic - along with the correct rules to go with adequate test and trace. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

To be fair, it was not unreasonable to assume there may have been an adequate test and trace programme to go alongside it. That is the biggest failing of this whole pandemic - along with the correct rules to go with adequate test and trace. 

You’re right of course that Track and Trace has been a shitshow, but Starmer should be aware of the Tory fuckups and not call for schools to go back until he knows it’s up and running and working well. 
 

He’s been banging the drum for months about Johnson not following the science and now he wants to ignore the JCVI recommendations and bump teachers up with the aim of opening schools quicker when he must know it’ll increase the spread in the community and cause more illness and deaths. 
 

The fact he’s calling for this mere weeks after asking for schools and nurseries to close doesn’t sit well with me. 
 

Also, does anyone else’s autocorrect try and change ‘fuckups’ to ‘Duckula’ or is that just me?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

To be fair, it was not unreasonable to assume there may have been an adequate test and trace programme to go alongside it. That is the biggest failing of this whole pandemic - along with the correct rules to go with adequate test and trace. 

It's not even hypothetical - you only have to look at how New Zealand (and others) have approached this to see how it could be done.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

You’re right of course that Track and Trace has been a shitshow, but Starmer should be aware of the Tory fuckups and not call for schools to go back until he knows it’s up and running and working well. 
 

He’s been banging the drum for months about Johnson not following the science and now he wants to ignore the JCVI recommendations and bump teachers up with the aim of opening schools quicker when he must know it’ll increase the spread in the community and cause more illness and deaths. 
 

The fact he’s calling for this mere weeks after asking for schools and nurseries to close doesn’t sit well with me. 
 

Also, does anyone else’s autocorrect try and change ‘fuckups’ to ‘Duckula’ or is that just me?

So I don't get why they're making immunising teachers a hill to die on to be honest. 

 

As for the "he shouldn't have called for the schools go back until it was shown there was a good test and trace", the government said it was world leading! Yes, it proved not to be, but how else do we prove that without using it? The schools going back was what proved the system inadequate - and starmer couldn't have possibly known they're hired it full of students who promptly returned to uni a week after schools reopened. Starmer's position in August was absolutely spot on, it's not his fault this government fucked it up. 

 

And no spell check thing for me..that may be a reflection of how often I type fuckups (although strangely then I types an "o" and not a "p" and it spell checked to dickheads!)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

So I don't get why they're making immunising teachers a hill to die on to be honest. 

 

As for the "he shouldn't have called for the schools go back until it was shown there was a good test and trace", the government said it was world leading! Yes, it proved not to be, but how else do we prove that without using it? The schools going back was what proved the system inadequate - and starmer couldn't have possibly known they're hired it full of students who promptly returned to uni a week after schools reopened. Starmer's position in August was absolutely spot on, it's not his fault this government fucked it up. 

 

And no spell check thing for me..that may be a reflection of how often I type fuckups (although strangely then I types an "o" and not a "p" and it spell checked to dickheads!)

I don’t agree, he should have called for a  very cautious reopening with a staggered return, much better safety measures in schools, maybe even one week in one week off at first, instead there was a rush to completely open them with barely any measures such as masks and he played a key role in that happening. ‘No ifs, no buts’. I think he was wrong then, and he’s making the same mistake now. 
 

Around that time they were also threatening people would lose their jobs if they didn’t return to the office, eat out to help out and all kinds of shit in addition to wanting schools fully open. 
 

In fact I think one of the worst things about this whole thing is that politicians of all stripes keep on setting an arbitrary date for things to reopen rather than being guided by the data on when the right time should be.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

I don’t agree, he should have called for a  very cautious reopening with a staggered return, much better safety measures in schools, maybe even one week in one week off at first, instead there was a rush to completely open them with barely any measures such as masks and he played a key role in that happening. ‘No ifs, no buts’. I think he was wrong then, and he’s making the same mistake now. 
 

Around that time they were also threatening people would lose their jobs if they didn’t return to the office, eat out to help out and all kinds of shit in addition to wanting schools fully open. 
 

In fact I think one of the worst things about this whole thing is that politicians of all stripes keep on setting an arbitrary date for things to reopen rather than being guided by the data on when the right time should be.

Personally I don't think politicians are in any way qualified to be responsible for the effects of a global pandemic. It seems to me the countries who did the best almost certainly made decisions based on good scientific reasoning rather than political reasoning.

 

Politics normally results in slopy shoulders where no-one makes decisions for fear of getting it wrong, setting up blame games for those decisions or getting to the point where there is no choice but to do the only option left. Just imagine if politics was used for making decisions in every day life. It simply wouldn't work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

53 minutes ago, Sugar Ape said:

I don’t agree, he should have called for a  very cautious reopening with a staggered return, much better safety measures in schools, maybe even one week in one week off at first, instead there was a rush to completely open them with barely any measures such as masks and he played a key role in that happening. ‘No ifs, no buts’. I think he was wrong then, and he’s making the same mistake now. 
 

Around that time they were also threatening people would lose their jobs if they didn’t return to the office, eat out to help out and all kinds of shit in addition to wanting schools fully open. 
 

In fact I think one of the worst things about this whole thing is that politicians of all stripes keep on setting an arbitrary date for things to reopen rather than being guided by the data on when the right time should be.

As I say, I don't understand what he's doing now. But after 6 months out of school it was not unreasonable for him to expect the government to get it right. I don't disagree they maybe should have staggered it, reduced class sizes (maybe a week at home a week in school or whatever), but the bottom line is it wasn't unreasonable to expect all of those measures to be in place. Litterally everything stopped in the summer and that's not starmer's fault, it's Johnson and his shower of cunts. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Barrington Womble said:

As I say, I don't understand what he's doing now. But after 6 months out of school it was not unreasonable for him to expect the government to get it right. I don't disagree they maybe should have staggered it, reduced class sizes (maybe a week at home a week in school or whatever), but the bottom line is it wasn't unreasonable to expect all of those measures to be in place. Litterally everything stopped in the summer and that's not starmer's fault, it's Johnson and his shower of cunts. 

Everyone knew the appropriate safety measures weren’t in place and if Starmer didn’t then he should have. 
 

Rather than focusing on safety in schools (not saying he didn’t mention it at all) he pushed this ‘no ifs, no buts I demand they open’ line which gave the government cover to reopen schools without the necessary measures in place imo. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My best mate’s father-in-law passed away from Covid last night, devastated for his wife and kids. He’d been in hospital with it for just over three weeks and seemed to be getting better, but his oxygen levels dropped a few days ago and he was taken back into ICU. He was put in an induced coma yesterday as he had pneumonia, and his wife got a call last night telling her and her daughter to come to the hospital as he had a blood clot on his lung that was causing problems with his heart and he wasn’t expected to see out the night. He was only 70 and they discovered he had COPD when he was first admitted to hospital, but he was hardly on deaths door.
 

I’m gutted myself as I knew the fella really well as he used to come with me and my mate to watch Runcorn play (my mate is a massive blue so the non-league is the only way we can watch footy together). 

  • Upvote 6
Link to comment
Share on other sites

26 minutes ago, Vincent Vega said:

My best mate’s father-in-law passed away from Covid last night, devastated for his wife and kids. He’d been in hospital with it for just over three weeks and seemed to be getting better, but his oxygen levels dropped a few days ago and he was taken back into ICU. He was put in an induced coma yesterday as he had pneumonia, and his wife got a call last night telling her and her daughter to come to the hospital as he had a blood clot on his lung that was causing problems with his heart and he wasn’t expected to see out the night. He was only 70 and they discovered he had COPD when he was first admitted to hospital, but he was hardly on deaths door.
 

I’m gutted myself as I knew the fella really well as he used to come with me and my mate to watch Runcorn play (my mate is a massive blue so the non-league is the only way we can watch footy together). 

Sorry to hear this, mate. It’s just absolutely heartbreaking.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, Vincent Vega said:

My best mate’s father-in-law passed away from Covid last night, devastated for his wife and kids. He’d been in hospital with it for just over three weeks and seemed to be getting better, but his oxygen levels dropped a few days ago and he was taken back into ICU. He was put in an induced coma yesterday as he had pneumonia, and his wife got a call last night telling her and her daughter to come to the hospital as he had a blood clot on his lung that was causing problems with his heart and he wasn’t expected to see out the night. He was only 70 and they discovered he had COPD when he was first admitted to hospital, but he was hardly on deaths door.
 

I’m gutted myself as I knew the fella really well as he used to come with me and my mate to watch Runcorn play (my mate is a massive blue so the non-league is the only way we can watch footy together). 

Really sorry to hear this, it’s a horrid disease.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Bruce Spanner said:

With the worst possible irony Major Tom is hooked to machines with it and not looking good.

 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9207467/Captain-Tom-Moore-admitted-hospital-testing-positive-Covid-family-reveal.html

I swear to god there's some kind of malevolent intelligence pulling the strings of this fucking virus. What next, Japan to ban all foreign visitors for the next 10 years? Scientists discover it makes blonde women's breasts smaller? Cunt virus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Sugar Ape said:

Everyone knew the appropriate safety measures weren’t in place and if Starmer didn’t then he should have. 
 

Rather than focusing on safety in schools (not saying he didn’t mention it at all) he pushed this ‘no ifs, no buts I demand they open’ line which gave the government cover to reopen schools without the necessary measures in place imo. 

Maybe he is trying to win the teachers round as he refused to back them when they had serious health and safety doubts sarly in the piece. Allegedly the main reason he got rid of Rebecca Long Bailey who was on the teachers side.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, sir roger said:

Maybe he is trying to win the teachers round as he refused to back them when they had serious health and safety doubts sarly in the piece. Allegedly the main reason he got rid of Rebecca Long Bailey who was on the teachers side.

Nah more the middle class housewives whose rugrats are getting in the way of their careers and vino.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 minutes ago, sir roger said:

Maybe he is trying to win the teachers round as he refused to back them when they had serious health and safety doubts sarly in the piece. Allegedly the main reason he got rid of Rebecca Long Bailey who was on the teachers side.

 

1 minute ago, Section_31 said:

Nah more the middle class housewives whose rugrats are getting in the way of their careers and vino.

Yeah I’m with Sec. This will be focus group shit about a demographic he’s been told he has to win over. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Vincent Vega said:

My best mate’s father-in-law passed away from Covid last night, devastated for his wife and kids. He’d been in hospital with it for just over three weeks and seemed to be getting better, but his oxygen levels dropped a few days ago and he was taken back into ICU. He was put in an induced coma yesterday as he had pneumonia, and his wife got a call last night telling her and her daughter to come to the hospital as he had a blood clot on his lung that was causing problems with his heart and he wasn’t expected to see out the night. He was only 70 and they discovered he had COPD when he was first admitted to hospital, but he was hardly on deaths door.
 

I’m gutted myself as I knew the fella really well as he used to come with me and my mate to watch Runcorn play (my mate is a massive blue so the non-league is the only way we can watch footy together). 

Condolences mate. Awful news.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Tony Moanero said:

Sorry to hear this, mate. It’s just absolutely heartbreaking.

 

1 hour ago, suzy said:

Really sorry to hear this, it’s a horrid disease.

Thanks Tony, thanks Suzy.

 

My mate lost his mum back in March (thankfully not Covid related), so his two kids have lost two grandparents in the space of 10 months. They’re 22 and 18 so not little kids, but they’ll still both be grief stricken as they were really close to them.

 

I now know two people who have died from Covid, a guy who was a good mate of my dad when he was alive lost his wife to it in the first wave in April. She was only in her late 50’s. 
 

 

  • Upvote 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

A great advertisment for the UK's Covid-19 response...

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-55830497

UK's first Covid evacuees: 'I wish I'd stayed in Wuhan and missed flight'

When Matt Raw was given an instruction to "get out of Wuhan" he took the advice seriously.

 

Exactly one year on, he wishes he had "never got on that flight" back to the UK.

 

Along with his wife and mother, the 39-year-old from Cheshire was among 83 Britons evacuated from the Chinese city on 31 January 2020.

 

Wuhan, which had been identified as the source of Covid-19, had gone into lockdown as the numbers of cases and deaths there and across eastern Asia rose alarmingly.

 

The flight to RAF Brize Norton was meant to bring British citizens and their families to safety, but Mr Raw says he feels he was "duped" and "brought here under false pretences".

 

In fact, he never planned to be on it originally. Initially, the UK government had said the flight was reserved for British nationals.

 

That meant Mr Raw faced the prospect of leaving his wife, a Chinese citizen, behind. As a result, they decided to stay put.

 

Mr Raw said he even left his tools by the front door because he was going to help build hospitals in Wuhan the next day.

 

 

However, a few hours before the flight was due to depart, the UK government announced family members with Chinese passports were welcome to join their spouses.

 

Mr Raw says he got the news at 04:00 and they quickly "threw some things in a suitcase" and headed for the airport.

But he says he now wishes he had "never got on that flight".

 

"They lied to us," he says of the UK authorities. "We're being told to get out of Wuhan, 'come back to England, you'll be safe here'.

 

"We would have been safer and much more freer if we stayed in China. They tackled it short and sharp and locked down the cities and it was the right thing to do."

 

Fellow passenger Liping Duan says she remembers having misgivings about the safety of the flight itself.

 

When Wuhan was locked down, the 59-year-old Londoner was five days into her trip visiting family for Chinese New Year.

 

While glad to be on board the plane home, she says fears of catching the new virus made it a "pretty nerve-wracking" flight.

 

"Two English guys couldn't get on the plane, because they had a high temperature," she remembers.

 

"It was so quiet [on board]; you might hear a baby crying, but none of the adults were talking.

 

"I was trying to stay away from other people and wore my mask the whole time.

 

"I couldn't breathe properly and it was exhausting."

 

Despite the fact the flight landed two days after the UK had identified its first Covid-19 case, she says no-one at the airport wore any personal protection equipment.

 

"I told them, 'stand back, we've come from Wuhan', but nobody cared," she says.

 

Fears about the virus, though, meant everybody who had been on the flight was taken by coach, under police escort, to Arrowe Park Hospital in Wirral for two weeks' quarantine.

 

Mr Raw says the 180-mile (290km) journey was "gruelling to say the least", while Ms Duan says she was shocked to see that the coach driver was not even wearing a mask.

 

On arrival, they were moved into a staff accommodation block, which had been cordoned off behind the hospital, sharing apartments with communal kitchens.

 

Mr Raw's family were quarantined with another woman and her two-year-old daughter.

 

Fortunately, he says they "got on like a house on fire".

 

He says they were "quite happy", adding: "The staff at Arrowe Park were amazing."

 

He says one doctor "had put in about 157 hours" and that the "dedication" of those who cared for them was "astounding".

 

Even the usual winter weather helped with quarantine, since "the entire two-week period was rotten".

 

"I don't recall weather that vicious in a long time," Mr Raw remembers. "I thought 'I don't want to go out at all'."

 

The hospital's medical director Dr Nikki Stephenson says she remains "hugely proud" of the care her staff provided.

 

"We only had 48 hours' notice to expect their arrival, so it was a very frenetic time.

 

"The feedback was amazing and they all left with a full bill of health, despite not really knowing about coronavirus, so I am immensely proud of how it all went."

 

Ms Duan says they were all "so lucky" to have tested negative for coronavirus.

 

"If one person had it, we could have all got it."

 

After 14 days, the evacuees were allowed to leave.

 

Ms Duan says quarantine was a "special" experience but she was so "relieved" to return to her home in London.

 

She says her family in Wuhan now worry about her being in the UK because of coronavirus, but she tells them "people don't panic here".

 

Mr Raw and his family set up a new home in Knutsford.

 

He says he almost immediately had to begin dealing with abuse online from people who believed the first repatriation flights were responsible for the presence of Covid-19 in the UK.

 

That abuse, he says, continues to this day.

 

"It is heartbreaking that people actually think that. We were the ones who told the government their original plan [for us] to make our own way home to self-isolate after arriving was not on.

 

"We didn't want to bring it to England. None of us wanted that.

 

"We have done everything we possibly can - we've had one outing this year."

 

He says he cannot return to Wuhan because his mother has dementia and the strict quarantine procedures that are in place for entering China would be too difficult for her.

 

"It's another two weeks' isolation at each stage of the journey and individual person quarantine," he says.

 

"They don't do things half-heartedly. Hats off to them for doing that."

 

He says he is "one of the lucky ones" from the repatriation flights as he had already decided to look after his mother full-time, while others have told him they have been left bankrupt or still staying with family.

 

He adds that he still regrets the decision to board the plane.

 

"In Wuhan, it would have been uncomfortable in our small apartment for two or three months, but then they got rid of the virus and life has returned to normal," he says.

 

"I wish I'd stayed in bed and gone to help build that hospital.

 

"Here, we have my little house and my little fish pond in the Cheshire countryside, but we're trapped here. It's still our prison."

Presentational grey line
Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Sugar Ape said:

Everyone knew the appropriate safety measures weren’t in place and if Starmer didn’t then he should have. 
 

Rather than focusing on safety in schools (not saying he didn’t mention it at all) he pushed this ‘no ifs, no buts I demand they open’ line which gave the government cover to reopen schools without the necessary measures in place imo. 

We won't agree on this. I don't believe the role of the opposition is to accept the government are shit and then make a new plan for them because of their deficiencies. Their job is to hold them to account. So if you have a "world best track and trace", prove it. Don't assume it's shit and give them an alternative.  You seem to be confusing opposition with government from where I'm sitting.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


×
×
  • Create New...