OK, straight into the strictest level 4 lockdown for an initial 3 days. No fecking around. Well done Govt. This will mean back to normal life earlier.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
-
In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) is joined by CEO Duncan Drasdo and Financial Director Andy Green from the Manchester United Supporters Trust for a special episode on all things behind the scenes at Old Trafford including a brief history of MUST and their aims today, views on INEOS and Sir Jim Ratcliffe so far, and the Old Trafford regeneration.
I hope you’re right. That’s not how things have panned out in Australia. The arrival of Delta in a country with incomplete vaccination and no prior exposure to the virus seems to be an absolute nightmare to contain, no matter how extreme the lockdown.
I hope I dont offend any of the Aussies but their NSW lockdown was hopeless in its restrictions. Ours is super strict. Its worked quickly for us in the past. the last time was for 3 days. Of course this new variant changes the game. Still looking forward to when i can finally get to the UK again. We havent had to deal with the difficulties elsewhere which on one level is a bit of a negative, the rest of the world has learned to live with it. We havent yet.
We are seeing another spike now.
Just reading about this and the case hasn’t been confirmed as delta yet. So you might have dodged a bullet. Fingers crossed for you.
' "I want to assure New Zealand that we have planned for this eventuality. Going hard and early has worked for us before," she said.
It has worked perfectly fine hasnt it, with 20% of the population being fully vaccinated. Is there a vacine hecistency over there or other reasons that its only 20% ?
Last edited:
Supply issues. They used their first batches of Pfizer but have had to order extra and they are still waiting in the queue for the bulk of that.
They're one of the countries who had put in big orders for Novavax (still not approved, due to delays in getting bulk manufacturing up to speed) but won't see that until Q4 at earliest. They ordered J&J but that's still in short supply globally and is not deployed in NZ so far. They ordered AZ but by the time any was available for export to NZ, AZ had already picked up its "use with older age groups" warnings in Australia and elsewhere, and people had started asking for Pfizer by name - which is what the NZ government seem to be working on providing now.
We fecked around for 7 weeks in NSW not locking down very hard at all. Even now we aren't locked down as hard as Victoria or NZ.
Our right wing politicians fail us yet again.
Last edited:
Offend? No chance. You are spot on. Gladys fecked this outbreak up good and proper.
Who is we?
The reason we have only 20% vaccinated is that we took our time choosing which vaccine and only gave approval for the Pfizer vaccine in Feb. Because of that we were late to the ordering of the vaccine and consequently lower on Pfizers priority ladder. We took our time because we were in a position where the urgency wasnt as acute as for other countries. The rollout has us as fully vaccinated as possible by December. Our opposition parties are arguing that we should have ordered vaccines before our medical systems approval processes and that we should have been vaccinated by now.
Last edited:
They’re not wrong. You really should be vaccinated by now. A hell of a lot more than 20% anyway.
It really is wild the way the perception of threat to kids is perceived so differently on different sides of the Atlantic. A great example of what should be an objective interpretation of data being politicised to the extent that completely rational scientists interpret the same data very differently.
Wow...170 deaths reported :/
(UK)
(UK)
Well, Tropical Storm Fred is headed through here now and we just might have to all crowd into hallways and classrooms to shelter in place for a tornado warning. Can’t make this shit up.
The Govts overall approval ratings have slipped a fair bit in the last couple of months, the slow vaccination rate being one of a few factors.
who can’t let go of their new found power?
The governments who keep out us in lockdowns. But I'm biased, having been in lockdown for longer than anywhere else in the world.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57079577
Come on, Dwayne. You don’t seriously think that any government is implementing lockdown as some sort of power trip?
If anything, the governments that don’t push back against medical expert groups who recommend lockdown are being too reluctant to wield the power that comes with their role.
power trips do exsist. We have a minister-president in our country who has a large list of lying and he pretends as if he can’t remember them or he gaslights the answer. Unfortuntaly politicans arent all morally guided to act in the best interest of their people. We have many more examples (in our country) of politicans setting strict lockdown rules and they themselves breaking it either by attending a party, not wearing a mask or any other regulated guideline. I’m sure these examples are also to be found globally.
I want to specify here that I am specifically referring to politicans breaking the rules they themselves set a policy with consequences if not followed.
Like I said, I'm heavily biased. I don't think the lockdowns were implemented as a power trip but I do think some governments will be very reluctant to let them go.
I see it more as decisions based on fear, rather than a thirst for power. They don’t want to be the person who gets blamed for thousands of deaths. If they rigorously stick to whatever advice they get from the medical expert groups then they avoid ever being taken to task for any decisions they made during the pandemic.
I can’t see any other upside for them in persisting with lockdown longer than necessary. Can you?
there were articles coming out of countries who used the ‘worse case’ scenario’s to install fear in order for justification of severe measurements during the lockdown.
this created a Pandora box of discussion. Is it ethically and morally justified to intentionally create fear for more acceptance of the strict policies or is it as they say in war and love all is allowed.
Or course it is. Just like it’s ethically and morally justified to encourage seatbelt wearing by alluding to deaths on the road, or prevent smoking by talking about cancer.
Initially, yes. Fear and safety. No doubt. But as it goes on, no government that has successfully achieved an increase in its power will willingly relinquish it (The Patriot Act in the US is a fine example here). My own federal government has so far tried to usurp the contract bidding process and passed legislation not related to the pandemic without going through the normal parliamentary procedure. That's a worry for me because they will repeat that behaviour.
There's plenty of upside to having people stay at home and not do much else.
Really? I honestly can’t think of any. Certainly none that will outweigh the damage that does to the economy.
i’d argue there difference here is that encouraging seatbelts and prevent smoking is a different then total lockdowns, with results of economic desparity of business, increased mental health problems, child abuse, divorce rates etc.
the worse case scenario for driving without seatbelts and smoking could ultimately be death, that is a fair logical implication to propose. COVID has that same property and even more (in terms of consequences) and I don’t see politicans/experts saying that it was ‘unethical’ to do so in the two examples you mentioned.
there is a reason why the second amendment was placed in the constitution of the United States and it wasn’t for fishing!
Yes. Lockdowns are not the same as seatbelts and giving up smoking. Don’t see how this makes the ethics of an educational campaigns to support them any different. You need to warn people about worst case scenarios because telling smokers they might never get sick from smoking would be a shitty way to encourage them to quit.
I don’t know what point you’re making with your second paragraph.
UK
It's already happened and happening.
The UK passed the PCSC bill limiting the ability of the population to protest and strengthening governmental powers to punish protesters; coincidentally in an environment where protesters were seen by the general population as irresponsible Covid superspreaders.
The government has also announced an immigration bill strengthening governmental powers (allowing them to use reasonable force against migrants); again in an environment where the population is terrified of new vaccine resistant variants being brought into the country by unvaccinated people (unfortunately not many migrants fleeing their countries have access to the Pfizer jab before they arrive!)
Likewise governmental policies creating a de facto vaccine apartheid; allowing government the power to de facto discriminate against vaccine hesitant ethnicities (who're often hesitant for logical historic reasons - Google CIA fake vaccination drive) when hiring for jobs; as well as depriving those groups of the freedoms we enjoy.
This is before even looking at the freedoms that haven't yet been "given back" (hint: check how many emergency 9/11 powers have been revoked in the last 20 years)
Last edited:
Is someone who doesn’t have a driving license deprived of the “freedoms we enjoy”?
How about someone whose license states they must wear glasses when they drive? Should they be ‘free’ to plough down pedestrians they’re too short-sighted to see?
Are you comparing being vaccinated with having a driving license?
If so I'd ask whether there are logical historic or biological factors whereby a group of people who would be naturally hesitant or unable to pass a driving test and whether the government has taken those factors into account to avoid discrimination. For example if my office block is on the 5th floor current building regulations require a lift so that the disabled aren't de facto discriminated against. I can't just say if you can't get up these stairs then I can't offer you the job.
So for example if tomorrow a regulation were implemented stating that people without full use of both legs weren't allowed a driving license, I would state this to be discriminatory and a breach of their freedoms. I would say that the government would need to make reasonable adjustments in their policy to allow disabled people to continue driving so as to not discriminate against them (just like an office block installing a lift). For example this reasonable adjustment mught be that they can obtain a license but that their cars need to have mechanical elements installed to allow safe driving.
If we apply this to governmental jobs (say nursing for example) the "reasonable adjustments" which would avoid the policy being discriminatory would be for example to allow weekly PCR testing to those individuals instead of forcing them to be vaccinated.
You analogy of choosing not to be vaccinated with being disabled is absolutely terrible (and, frankly, insulting to people living with disabilities). Obviously if someone has a legitimate medical reason why they are unable to be vaccinated then allowances will be made.
Taking that same terrible analogy and jumping the shark with the absolute guff about driving with a disability goes beyond terrible into the realms of laughable.
If you were worried about the Governments ability to pass new laws without challenge you probably shouldn’t have voted for Brexit.
The government also doesn't allow discrimination on the basis of choosing to have children either. Employer's have to make reasonable adjustments to allow for people who have made that choice (whether that be in flexible hours or not sacking them for having 9 months off).
Likewise employers aren't allowed to discriminate against people on the basis of religion. So if someone chooses to pray 5 times a day an employer has to make reasonable adjustments and if they sack them for not working during those periods they would be sued for unfair dismissal.
Having to make reasonable adjustments on the basis of a policy or decision having the unforeseen byproduct of discriminating against a group of people is literally current UK law.
This article will give you a more balanced take than I can but even in the forward they agree that it is conceivable that governments will be unwilling to relinquish the expanded authority they achieved during the worst days of this pandemic.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/05/16/future-government-powers-coronavirus-pandemic/
It does make it different in the sense that the consequences of lockdowns and covid are not only death. They have other severe consequences which did in fact happen such as businesses going bankrupt, increase in mental health, child/abuse etc. These are the direct results of models predicting worse case scenario's, with fear as the most important tool to create compliance. The question i have with this, besides the ethical side of it, where is the fine line? There are many examples to mention where politicians used fear for predictions that didn't happen to suit a certain interest/agenda of kind.
quote:
'Reliance on fear for public health messaging now could further erode trust in public health officials and scientists at a critical juncture.
The nation desperately needs a strategy that can help break through pandemic denialism and through the politically charged environment, with its threatening and at times hysterical rhetoric that has created opposition to sound public health measures.Even if ethically warranted, fear-based tactics may be dismissed as just one more example of political manipulation and could carry as much risk as benefit.
Instead, public health officials should boldly urge and, as they have during other crisis periods in the past, emphasize what has been sorely lacking: consistent, credible communication of the science at the national level.
full article: https://news.osu.edu/why-using-fear-to-promote-covid-19-vaccination-and-mask-wearing-could-backfire/