General Chat

The COVID patients at our local hospital are all unvaccinated.

....and lockdown isn't fully over yet.....

Over 4000 positive cases today, yet only a week or so ago it was hovering around 2000. :-\

There ought to have been a 'window' of three or so days for UK RESIDENTS only to return to the UK. For goodness sake, how long can people dither over whether to get back home or stay where they are?

Well said, names!

But how many people really HAD to go abroad/come into this country?

My niece came over from Dubai in early December last year - whe the Government said it was safe - intending to go back after Christmas.
When she heard flights into Dubai would be stopped - she went back early, before Christmas, because she couldn't risk either losing her job through not being able to get back, or going into quarantine for however long it may have been.

I think the biggest mistake was not reducing the amount people coming into the UK early enough.

But when you hear the whingers and whiners complaining about having to isolate at home or in a hotel you can almost appreciate why it has been so slow.

Compare the previous timeline - where nothing was done to protect the public until April, to the House of Commons timeline below - where arrangements we being made in March!

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/house-of-commons-coronavirus-timeline/

Thanks Maggie

That was really interesting. During Feb & early March last year we were closely following the news. My BIL died in early Feb and the funeral was delayed for a month due to the international mourners
Some came from Belgium and Holland - those who had been in Northern Italy remained at home. We were all aware of the looming pandemic which hadn't really quite taken off.
A few days later there was the Cheltenham Festival ...................

That was interesting, Maggie.

I think anyone who believes it would be safe to open up completely in June is a fool! I am usually an optimist but even I can see the dangers in opening up in June.

From the Indian variant hotspot in our area, many people use public transport to travel into town for work. It seems to me to be only a matter of time ........ If they drag their feet vaccinating the under-20s, we may see a similar situation as last year when unis went back.

The crows have flown into the darkness!

This is an interesting timeline of the first 6 months (January 2020 - June 2020) of the pandemic, in newspaper headlines.

https://timeline-of-failure.com/

That sounds bad.

A probably 'incorrect' paper is reporting on an ONS survey and a map from Imperial college - I don't like this bit:

Imperial's map analyses trends in positive coronavirus tests to try and work out the probability of certain areas seeing an outbreak in the near future.

It works out hotspots by estimating how likely it is that a place's infection rate will rise above a certain threshold, which changes depending on the size of the national outbreak.

Areas that have a 75 to 100 per cent probability of having the above-threshold rate are the predicted hotspots.

Its furthest ahead prediction now suggests that, by June 13, Bedford, Kirklees, Manchester, Bury, Bolton, Rossendale, Blackburn and Burnley are all highly likely to be hotspots.

Others that might be include most other boroughs of Greater Manchester, as well as Leicester, Birmingham, Worcester, Reading, Kingston upon Thames, Lambeth and Canterbury.

I just happen to like crows. ;-)

It's very similar to apparently, being unable to read the 'correct' newspaper,
whatever that is :-D

Very brave of you to mention crows. I got reported for trying to humerously point out a typo.

I'd totally forgotten about the 'Express' Names!
Their weather forecasts are hilarious.
Must go ahd have a peek now. :-D :-D

After that, I'll attempt to work out my own opinion!!!!!!!!!

Oh yes, and I really MUST have a look at pictures of CROWS . :-D :-D

When I am feeling down and in need of a good laugh I love to read the online version of the Daily Express. It always cheers me up!

When I want to know what is actually going on I read something else, but it doesn’t have me giggling :-D

A few years ago there was a Belgian tv thriller where they blocked all the streets with shipping containers and let the people inside die from whatever contagion they had.

I agree with Sharron and Allan.

Dealing with the unknown, which is what Covid is, means you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. The number of times I've heard the Scientists, when asked a question, say "we simply don't know"!

We in the UK have a large populace in a relatively small area and to contain transmission is neigh impossible unless policing of rules is similar to those in a police state.

Then there is the question of how lockdown affects business and therefore people's livelihood.

Any decision made has a knock on effect and implications which need to be addressed before they can be implemented.

Yes, with hindsight some decisions perhaps could have been made differently but hindsight is easy, foresight is difficult.

As for Cummings, well surely he has now made himself unemployable. It's easy for someone who doesn't actually make decisions and doesn't have to bare the consequences to be critical or was it just revenge? He now says his Durham trip was for security reasons, I'm sure if that were true that would have been mentioned at the outset. Also, it was amazing that he couldn't recall certain things when asked questions about those that he favoured!

I too would hate to have to make some of the decisions that have had to be made:-(