Iceni warrior

In the meantime, London has lost more bus drivers to the bug than doctors. Buses crammed full of construction workers because they felt that they should be able to go to work if they wanted to and could keep 6' apart when they got there. The bus drivers who died weren't elderly or near the end of their lives, they left behind families who now have their lives ruined. We're talking about a few weeks here, time to let the infection rates drop, time to get our shit together with testing and providing PPE for everyone who needs it. What people don't seem to realise is that if things open up and the death rate starts to climb we'll just have to shut down again prolonging the whole thing even longer.

No need to shout, we heard you the first time. However the 1.5% fatality rate would have been higher if health services had been swamped and social distancing won't work on its own. We need much better testing and tracking to prevent new outbreaks and a lot more PPE before we can safely re-open. The numbers of new infections also need to be a lot lower than they are right now too.

That's not necessarily true. Places like Thailand exploit certain beautiful locations until they are spoilt and then simply move on to the next unspoilt location along the coast. The resources are used up and pollutants are spilled into the environment. Untreated sewage and massive use of fresh water are prime examples.

Let's not completely discount that option until we have heard all the pro's and con's.

Perhaps not if they have to claw back the losses they have suffered or have to fly half empty planes due to a reluctancy of people to cram into small spaces while a potentially fatal virus is still doing the rounds. There are likely to be fewer airlines too by the end of all this.

The fear of going into big supermarkets and their empty shelves has been a real positive for the smaller, local suppliers here. Let's hope that trend continues.

Some tourist industries are extremely damaging to their environment too. If this crisis results in a few airlines putting up their prices to survive and fewer people fly in future it wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing.

How? What's the point in keeping bars and shops open if they are running at a loss anyway because people are choosing to stay at home?

Sure, that may be true but do you want to compare deaths per million even though they are further along the curve?

The problems are not with the advice but the reactions to that advice. The UK and US were slow to impliment the advice and poorly prepared to mitigate the spread and have suffered far more as a result.

How many deaths worldwide do you think there would have been without the ''overreaction'' to the Coronavirus? All you are really doing here is showing that the shutdowns have been very successful.

The difference is that she understands and reacts accordingly to those experts. There is no doubt that Germany has had far better results in handling the virus (despite any problems the country has had with immigration) and will be in a position to end their shutdown long before many others.

Sure, we can use your letters to your Governor as evidence of how you put love of money above lives when Coronavirus deaths begin to rise again.

That is part of it but their early action, better testing and draconian surviellance systems allowing for better tracking probably play a bigger part. Those pointing to SK as an example we should have all followed conveniently ignore the fact that most countries, including my own, were nowhere near as well prepared for this pandemic as South Korea. We simply didn't have the testing capacity or the stockpiles of PPE necessary to enable us to resist locking down for a long period of time like they could. We have a less compliant society and fewer systems able to record each citizen's movements and therefore track and control the spread of the virus.

I got in some trouble on here for suggesting that there is no such thing as degrees of shutdown. You either do it properly or you don't. Sweden appears to be the ulimate proof of this. The counties which enforced the strictest lockdown measures such as New Zealand are the ones able to open up first. They have also performed best in terms of lives lost. Geographical isolation also plays a part in this. Greece has done well by European standards but it is a nation made up of thousands of easily isolated islands.

For accuracy, Sweden has not kept everything open. Schools and colleges have been shut down and gatherings of over 50 people have been banned. They have been less strict than most other countries but they are still recommending social distancing. The bars are open but they are imposing a strict 2m rule. Incidentally, bars are seeing a 75% reduction in customers and are running at a loss despite staying open. Government policy or not people are still staying at home. Sweden is not the study in completely ignoring Covid 19 that some are making it out to be.

I had a look without answering any questions. It is so simplistic that I have trouble understanding how it can be of any use at all.

I'm in favour of banning all flights permanently but for reasons other than Covid 19. It was too late and it didn't work. To find out if it was racist I'd have to get inside Trump's head but despite all the wide open space it's not somewhere I want to go.

You can take the advice of Trump over that of medical experts like Fauci and the CDC if you want. TDS indeed.

Which, of course, Trump claimed the credit for...

A potential treatment is worth investigating. What a fucking genius. Now all we have to do is find someone who thinks it isn't worth investigating possible treatments to make Trump's deflection valid. Of course, some might say that Trump is spending so much time hyping an unproven drug in order to calm the markets and increase his chances of reelection. Not me though, now you have shown what a genius he is for saying it is worth investigating potential treatments I shall be mounting a campaign to get him the Nobel prize for chemistry he so clearly deserves.

To be fair, it's probably a small circle of friends.

It's not accurate to portray opinions on the EU as left/right. Certainly in the UK the dividing line was as much regional as party political. Don't forget that all the major parties campaigned against Brexit in the run up to the referendum. Class also played a major part with the working class left more likely to be pro-Brexit than the middle class right. Corbyn himself had fought the EU for 40 years and went very quiet during the build up to the vote. Cameron was very much in the Remain camp as were the majority of his MPs.

You're right, the shrinks will do well out of this too.