Topic: COVID-19:VERIFIED news sources, 0 politishit, 0 CONSPIRACY SHITE

[Jiminy Cricket]

Sometime Actor and poshboy Lawrence Fox is in need of some mental health intervention.
Boasting about breaking social distancing rules, and when challenged by frontline doctors over such antics, tells them the NHS is not important to him, but he will fund it “for now”.
The guy is clearly struggling with being a human being.

Perhaps we need a new phrase to describe Fox and people like him: Human Ain't^TM

[Libertine]

Bloody experts....




https://twitter.com/Scientists4EU/status/1333363786011426819

[Lusty]

Bloody experts....

https://twitter.com/Scientists4EU/status/1333363786011426819

Just looked that up, would you be surprised to find out that she didn't back down after that and continued arguing?

[TepidT2O]

Just looked that up, would you be surprised to find out that she didn't back down after that and continued arguing?

One of those absurd people who thinks the whole think is a fraud...

Weird, so weird

[The G in Gerrard]

Moderna applying for emergency use in US that good news for all (eventually?)

[[new username under construction]]

Moderna applying for emergency use in US that good news for all (eventually?)

Yeah confirmed 95% effective. Zero in vaccine group got serious illness

[lobsterboy]

Bloody experts....




https://twitter.com/Scientists4EU/status/1333363786011426819

 

Looking at her twatter she has well and truly partaken of the coolaid.
No amount of "experts" with their qualifications will convince her that the stuff she has watched on Facebook and you tube is in reality shite.

[Skeeve]

Perhaps we need a new phrase to describe Fox and people like him: Human Ain't^TM

Why try and reinvent the wheel when the word c*nt still exists? 

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Shops can open 24 hours a day but pubs are fucked


Fuck off.

[west_london_red]

Moderna applying for emergency use in US that good news for all (eventually?)

They have applied in the US and Europe from what I read, but the US has priority over orders and we won’t be getting anything until March.

[Commie Bobbie]

Every death is a failure of leadership.

There’s a clear path out of it, full lock down, 6 weeks. Pause rent and mortgages, install a UBI for 3 months.

Every other response is saying money over people, ironically costing more money.

All of this. But although I could see it happen in more enlightened parts of the world, could never see it happen here.

The Taxavoiders Alliance would be up in arms.

[thaddeus]

Shops can open 24 hours a day but pubs are fucked


Fuck off.

And kids can go and visit Santa.  There's no pub on earth that can match the crowding and through-flow of thousands of kids queuing up to see Santa!

I know this government always "follow the science" - Johnson said so - but I'm struggling to get my head around the scientists recommending the ruination of many businesses and the invitation of a third wave just so we can crack on with Christmas and pretend everything is normal.

My two are at the age where they're well into the Santa thing but I'm going to be Scrooge on this one and keep them home.

[Qston]

Bloody experts....




https://twitter.com/Scientists4EU/status/1333363786011426819

 

[Yorkykopite]

Bloody experts....

That made me laugh on a grim day.

As for Fox and his posh chums, presuming someone will have to die because of their rule-breaking hug-fest of a Sunday lunch, let's just hope it's one of them.

[oldfordie]

Bloody experts....




https://twitter.com/Scientists4EU/status/1333363786011426819

Incredible. I think back to all those Pandemic movies of the past, people dying like flies, everyone panicking trying to isolate themselves from infection until a vaccine is found.
I can't remember watching one movie were a bunch of crackpots argue the virus is fake or other stupid conspiracy theories like this. I can just see Piers Corbyn in Zombie eaters 2.
It's all fake news, the virus doesn't exist. stop interrupting me, will you stop biting my neck.

[Skeeve]

Shops can open 24 hours a day but pubs are fucked

There is some logic to the shop part of that though, allowing longer opening hours in shops would tend to reduce crowding during a busy period, allowing social distancing to continue.

[Skeeve]

Incredible. I think back to all those Pandemic movies of the past, people dying like flies, everyone panicking trying to isolate themselves from infection until a vaccine is found.
I can't remember watching one movie were a bunch of crackpots argue the virus is fake or other stupid conspiracy theories like this. I can just see Piers Corbyn in Zombie eaters 2.
It's all fake news, the virus doesn't exist. stop interrupting me, will you stop biting my neck.

It'd be funny if it was so depressing, people used to mokingly claim that Idiocracy was actually a documentary rather than fiction due to the dumbing down of society, but at this point it is actually aspirational fiction as the people in it realise that listening to somebody smarter than them can be helpful. 

[Andy @ Allerton!]

It'd be funny if it was so depressing, people used to mokingly claim that Idiocracy was actually a documentary rather than fiction due to the dumbing down of society, but at this point it is actually aspirational fiction as the people in it realise that listening to somebody smarter than them can be helpful. 

Not sure what someone wearing a suit and a tie has got to do with anything?

[Skeeve]

Not sure what someone wearing a suit and a tie has got to do with anything?

Are you familiar with the movie in question? It has actually become an idealised version of reality nowadays compared with our current idiocy of 'people have had enough of experts' being a far more destructive version of dumbing down.

[Elmo!]

There is an argument to be made that shops should be higher priority in terms of saving them as they can be replaced permanently by Amazon etc whereas pubs can't. A lot of pubs might close down but the market for them will come back eventually, which might not be the case for shops.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

There is an argument to be made that shops should be higher priority in terms of saving them as they can be replaced permanently by Amazon etc whereas pubs can't. A lot of pubs might close down but the market for them will come back eventually, which might not be the case for shops.

What do you base that on?

If the locals round here closed down, the land would be hoovered up immediately for houses.

Each of the locals that have shut down over the years don't even remain - they all were bulldozed and flats/apartments were put up

[Elmo!]

What do you base that on?

If the locals round here closed down, the land would be hoovered up immediately for houses.

Each of the locals that have shut down over the years don't even remain - they are were bulldozed and flats/apartments were put up

Of course but that wasn't due to Covid - that was a general reduction in demand for pubs etc.

Covid is a temporary thing and demand for pubs should come back after it (even if the general long term decline in demand continues).

The fact that Amazon can replace shops but not pubs is based on common sense.

[Andy @ Allerton!]

Of course but that wasn't due to Covid - that was a general reduction in demand for pubs etc.

Covid is a temporary thing and demand for pubs should come back after it (even if the general long term decline in demand continues).

The fact that Amazon can replace shops but not pubs is based on common sense.

How can pubs come back?

What pub chain could afford to buy land, bulldoze perfectly good property, build a new premises from scratch and fully outfit it and get a licence for a fairly limited number of people to maybe come in?

That might be able to happen on highstreets or in the town centres, but once local boozers have gone, they have gone for good.

I haven't seen one occasion where a local has been demolished and then the flats that replaced it demolished. Not sure where you think that ever happens?

[Skeeve]

How can pubs come back?

What pub chain could afford to buy land, bulldoze perfectly good property, build a new premises from scratch and fully outfit it and get a licence for a fairly limited number of people to maybe come in?

That might be able to happen on highstreets or in the town centres, but once local boozers have gone, they have gone for good.

I haven't seen one occasion where a local has been demolished and then the flats that replaced it demolished. Not sure where you think that ever happens?

I think his suggestion is that these would not be normal closures and you wouldn't see quite the same rush to demolish them to make room for houses.

[CraigDS]

There is an argument to be made that shops should be higher priority in terms of saving them as they can be replaced permanently by Amazon etc whereas pubs can't. A lot of pubs might close down but the market for them will come back eventually, which might not be the case for shops.

The evidence of pubs closing a rarely reopening over the past few decades would not back this up.

[Welshred]

The evidence of pubs closing a rarely reopening over the past few decades would not back this up.

Those pubs haven't closed due to a temporary drop in custom but rather a permanent drop in custom. I think Elmo's argument is that if they close due to Covid there's a chance they can return when people are able to go to pubs unrestricted again.

[CraigDS]

Those pubs haven't closed due to a temporary drop in custom but rather a permanent drop in custom. I think Elmo's argument is that if they close due to Covid there's a chance they can return when people are able to go to pubs unrestricted again.

That assumes demand returns though.

How many see a change in life style where the cheap supermarket booze is now a better option?

How many offices return to full capacity which make many pubs viable?

How many pub owners who were struggling but just about surviving (many) decide it’s simply not worth the hassle?

[filopastry]

Today's UK numbers

Cases 12,330 (prior week 15,450)
Deaths 205 (prior week 206)

Cases by sample date



Deaths by date

[Elmo!]

That assumes demand returns though.

How many see a change in life style where the cheap supermarket booze is now a better option?

How many offices return to full capacity which make many pubs viable?

How many pub owners who were struggling but just about surviving (many) decide it’s simply not worth the hassle?

I think it is a reasonable expectation, even if not to quite the same levels as before. Of course some people will choose to not go to the pub as much, but a lot will go back to their old routines so the current levels of severely constrained demand will certainly rise back to a certain extent.

I don't think a lack of commercial property to locate a pub in is going to be an issue, post-Covid.

[Jm55]

That assumes demand returns though.

How many see a change in life style where the cheap supermarket booze is now a better option?

How many offices return to full capacity which make many pubs viable?

How many pub owners who were struggling but just about surviving (many) decide it’s simply not worth the hassle?

All possible and I do think that the legacy of this virus will be a real change in behaviour both for the better and the worst.

I’m not convinced that many will avoid the pub due to supermarket booze being better value - that’s always been the case and those that did that before the pandemic wil continue to do so after whilst those who didn’t do so prior to the pandemic chose not to despite being aware of the fact that it’s cheaper. At the end of the day there’s an obvious difference between being in your kitchen and a pub and that difference will still be there post-COViD- there’s also the food element which many won’t be able to replicate at home easily.

I do think that pubs (and food business) will really feel the hit of working from home being increased though. I know my firm aren’t planning to return to full capacity and some pubs, you’d think especially in London, are going to really feel the hit of that.

The issue with all of this is the government, for whatever reason, have disregarded the hospitality injury, save for the tokenistic eat our to help our scheme they’ve done little to assist the industry and have sabotaged much of the time where they could make some money by giving mixed and inconsistent messages, no sooner had pubs reopened (and spent money on COViD securing the premises) and the 2 metre gap becomes a 1 metre gap, then you have the 10pm curfew being hastily implemented and they now finally have seen what to me was blatantly obvious and that’s to allow 1 hours drinking up time - it’s all just been a mess and the people that suffer are the business owners.

What I do wonder if we’ll see more of as we come out of this is a hoovering up of smaller pubs by big breweries, taking advantage of business owners having to sell up - it’s quite a unique situation in that businesses tend to go bust because they’re not making money, so the person who buys it is taking a gamble, but in this instance that’s less the case - they’re closing because of a pandemic which will hopefully be eradicated by a vaccine and, save for the points you raised about future viability (there is definitely an element of the unknown there) it actually isn’t a gamble - as the vaccine is rolled out the pubs reopen with no threat of future restrictions and you would think will continue to make moneyas the previously did - will be interesting to see what happens but I do hope we don’t end up with even more weatherspoons and Marstons owned pubs.

[CraigDS]

I think it is a reasonable expectation, even if not to quite the same levels as before. Of course some people will choose to not go to the pub as much, but a lot will go back to their old routines so the current levels of severely constrained demand will certainly rise back to a certain extent.

9 months, which is what it will be for a lot of people, is more than enough to change routine. They’ll have seen their lives change a great deal - different/no job, working from home, etc. So it’s entirely possible going the pub will simply not return to any routine.

For a lot of people an after work drink is routine, but if they are now working from home this won’t be a thing.

I don't think a lack of commercial property to locate a pub in is going to be an issue, post-Covid.

No, my point was a lot of pubs rely on after work trade. If people are no longer going to their place of work due to working from home then they won’t go the pub after either.

I know the guy who has my local mothballed his other pub, without any lockdown, simply due to lack of office trade. He also didn’t bother opening for food/drink when it was available to him in his other during previous tiers for the same reason.

[CraigDS]

All possible and I do think that the legacy of this virus will be a real change in behaviour both for the better and the worst.

I’m not convinced that many will avoid the pub due to supermarket booze being better value - that’s always been the case and those that did that before the pandemic wil continue to do so after whilst those who didn’t do so prior to the pandemic chose not to despite being aware of the fact that it’s cheaper. At the end of the day there’s an obvious difference between being in your kitchen and a pub and that difference will still be there post-COViD- there’s also the food element which many won’t be able to replicate at home easily.

I think you’ll be surprised how many do.

You’ve always had your holdouts who went the pub rather than the supermarket, and I was certainly one of those, but I wouldn’t mind betting a lot of them have noticed a huge huge saving in their pockets and for some they may adjust things after experiencing that. This might not mean not going the pub at all, but it may mean scaling back from twice a week to once, or once a week to once every other, etc.

I love the pub, but as a couple we’ve noticed maybe £100 a week, probably more (certainly if we include eating out too), in our pockets from being unable to go the pub. That’s after buying drink from the supermarket too. That’s a pretty huge amount and is certainly enough to make the two of us think how often we will go once back open fully.

[Lee1-6Liv]

Today's UK numbers

Cases 12,330 (prior week 15,450)
Deaths 205 (prior week 206)

Big drop in cases in the north west, 4 weeks ago nearly 6,000 cases and today 800.

[CraigDS]

Anyone seen any updated figured for Liverpool hospitals? Know case numbers are down here but would be interesting to see how the hospital numbers are looking.

[Skeeve]

9 months, which is what it will be for a lot of people, is more than enough to change routine. They’ll have seen their lives change a great deal - different/no job, working from home, etc. So it’s entirely possible going the pub will simply not return to any routine.

For a lot of people an after work drink is routine, but if they are now working from home this won’t be a thing.

No, my point was a lot of pubs rely on after work trade. If people are no longer going to their place of work due to working from home then they won’t go the pub after either.

A lot of those after work pubs will not reopen, but others who were not so reliant on the more transient traffic will be as fine as they were before, even with the restrictions when they reopened, plenty of people returned to their pub habit when it became allowed again even when they had used other options during lockdown such as zoom piss-ups. 

[afc tukrish]

For a lot of people an after work drink is routine, but if they are now working from home this won’t be a thing.

No, my point was a lot of pubs rely on after work trade. If people are no longer going to their place of work due to working from home then they won’t go the pub after either.

Any chance that the pub locations might switch, rather than located close to office buildings/parks, possibly located closer to suburbs or flats?

Sort of a return of the neighborhood pub?

[Elmo!]

9 months, which is what it will be for a lot of people, is more than enough to change routine. They’ll have seen their lives change a great deal - different/no job, working from home, etc. So it’s entirely possible going the pub will simply not return to any routine.

For a lot of people an after work drink is routine, but if they are now working from home this won’t be a thing.

To be honest I don't really know, I'm just thinking out loud here on what differentiates the pub trade from retail.

No, my point was a lot of pubs rely on after work trade. If people are no longer going to their place of work due to working from home then they won’t go the pub after either.

I know the guy who has my local mothballed his other pub, without any lockdown, simply due to lack of office trade. He also didn’t bother opening for food/drink when it was available to him in his other during previous tiers for the same reason.

Sorry this was aimed more at Andy's points about properties being gobbled up when pubs close... thats' what happened pre-Covid. Not sure that is the case anymore.

[Zeb]

Jen Williams being thoroughly Jen Williams. Whole article is worth a read, just for the views from local public health officials and how they contrast with what comes out of Westminster. Also worth pointing out how Liverpool has been sharing its findings across other local authorities to inform their approaches for what comes next. https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/rhetoric-reality-operation-moonshot-19368722

Northern areas including Greater Manchester have already been working for some time on plans to use the new ‘lateral flow’ tests involved in the Liverpool trial, including talking to Liverpool about how that pilot has been going and what lessons the city has been learning. Both here and elsewhere, public health departments, scientists and local authority chief executives have spent weeks thinking through where these tests can usefully and practically be deployed.

They have detailed plans. But nobody spoken to by the M.E.N. intends to test their entire population.

“I think the general feeling of the public health community is that the model of inviting everybody for a test isn’t really an effective use of the technology,” says one northern public health director.

“What you need is targeted testing of high risk groups, which means you need to take the tests to people, not just set up a centre.”

One reason many experts are dubious about whole-town or whole-city testing comes from the results already out there from the Liverpool trial, a pilot many view as useful, even if they are not planning to replicate it. In Liverpool, the phenomenon of the ‘worried well’ turning out - the ‘inverse care law’ that says those who least need help are most likely to seek it, while those who need it don’t - meant better-off people who have been less exposed to the virus in their daily lives sought tests in much higher numbers. This is one reason, experts believe, that fewer than 1pc of those tested were found to be positive.

Meanwhile Liverpool was only able to carry out such a huge programme of testing because it had the army, note multiple officials and local politicians.

“The problem with that is the model they adopted isn’t sustainable, because not everybody can have 2,000 soldiers coming in and doing the testing,” says one public health director.

Many others make the same point.

“There’s a gulf in perception between what Boris and ministers think the military can do - and the message they’ve given to media - and what the military say they can deliver,” says another director of public health, who notes that councils were told during a government call this week that all the army could offer was logistical support.

That will be provided by a small regional team containing a handful of military personnel tasked with scoping out sites for testing centres and helping to get them in place.

These have been described by government as ‘SWAT teams’, they note, audibly rolling their eyes.

But to replicate the Liverpool model of boots on the ground, ‘we’d need an army the size of China’s’.

A third director says they cannot justify the resource required to do whole-city testing until the full results of the Liverpool trial are known, but assesses the premise to be ‘high-resource fishing’. They note 90pc of people with Covid have symptoms and are also likely to be the most infectious, so testing those people in the traditional manner remains most useful overall, ‘by far’. If perhaps a couple of percent of a city’s population have the virus, looking randomly for the 10pc of those that are asymptomatic becomes a very expensive fishing expedition, they believe, especially when public health departments are also trying to prop up a flailing national contact tracing system and prepare for a vaccine roll-out.

So for both scientific and practical reasons, officials here and elsewhere are intending to use the tests in a targeted way, not to test an entire place. Manchester will start testing around 40,000 students from this week. A request for military support through MACA - the national Military Aid to the Civil Authorities programme - was unsuccessful, so the universities have recruited hundreds of healthcare students to carry out the tests instead.

High-risk workplaces such as meat processing plants will be targeted too, with groups of workers potentially tested every day in order to reduce the likelihood of an outbreak.

Everyone working in the NHS and social care is getting tests as part of a nationwide roll-out, not least in an attempt to drive down the number of staff having to self-isolate.


Greater Manchester is also looking at testing other high-risk occupations, such as taxi drivers, as well as starting to test whole school years and the teaching staff of entire schools. Some northern public health departments are also looking at using the tests in homeless hostels.

All these discrete scenarios are deemed locally to be a safe and sensible use of the tests, an approach borne out by a statement issued on Friday by the Association of Directors of Public Health.

“The ambition to deliver a further substantial increase in testing is important, but the key priority needs to be targeted community testing where it can be both effective and safe, such as in hospitals, universities, and schools,” it said.

That view is even echoed by the government’s own scientific advice. Back in August, SAGE - its scientific advisory group - issued its official guidance on mass testing.

“Mass testing is most likely to be beneficial and feasible in cluster outbreak scenarios and well-defined higher risk settings (e.g. health and social care settings, higher risk occupations such as food production facilities, and universities), where it can help detect and prevent large outbreaks early, and compliance can be measured and moderated,” it said.

Meanwhile the Liverpool pilot and its effect on rates has not yet been evaluated.

This week ministers repeatedly said the whole-city model had been a key factor in bringing down infection rates on Merseyside, but public health officials spoken to for this article are more skeptical.

“Their rates were actually coming down under tier three restrictions before both national lockdown and mass testing so as far as I can see, it has nothing to do with their rates coming down, as they’ve come down right across Merseyside - and the rest of the Liverpool city region isn’t part of the mass testing pilot,” says one.

“So it doesn’t explain why the Wirral, St Helens and Knowsley have come down rapidly.”

Another is even more blunt. “The conclusion that mass testing is responsible for falling numbers is....well, it's just misleading the public, to be honest,” they conclude...

...So as the government publishes its ‘prospectus’ for mass rapid testing this week, essentially an invitation to tier three areas wanting to request the tests, the view from the ground is markedly different to the view from the dispatch box or front page briefings. As has happened so often in this pandemic, public health and political imperatives are colliding.

None of which is to say that rapid tests have been written off. As one public health director puts it, ‘it should make some contribution, but whether that contribution is going to be strong enough to get down - and keep down - the rates is unclear’.

That doesn’t make a good soundbite, however. And public health professionals are also politically experienced enough to know how this may now play out.

“The way they are framing it is a political worry, as ‘you are in tier three but your way out is using this tech efficiently’,” says one.

“The subtext is ‘if you don’t do this well, and you’re still in tier three, it’s your own fault’.”

[west_london_red]

I think you’ll be surprised how many do.

You’ve always had your holdouts who went the pub rather than the supermarket, and I was certainly one of those, but I wouldn’t mind betting a lot of them have noticed a huge huge saving in their pockets and for some they may adjust things after experiencing that. This might not mean not going the pub at all, but it may mean scaling back from twice a week to once, or once a week to once every other, etc.

I love the pub, but as a couple we’ve noticed maybe £100 a week, probably more (certainly if we include eating out too), in our pockets from being unable to go the pub. That’s after buying drink from the supermarket too. That’s a pretty huge amount and is certainly enough to make the two of us think how often we will go once back open fully.

You go to the pub with your partner, most of us go to the pub to get a break from them!

[fowlermagic]

You go to the pub with your partner, most of us go to the pub to get a break from them!

People love to eat out, to meet their date at a restaurant / pub, just chill with a pint in hand and not think, bs about work or football or whatever is on their mind. We are social animals so people cant wait to get back to some normality.