Do we need to take individual responsibility for Covid prevention measures?

[[XAP]Bob]

Just done a little brief analysis of the ONS figures for deaths per week this year compared with the 5 year average. They also broke out flu/pneumonia figures for both time periods.

In the first ten weeks of the year we were running with ~500 fewer flu/pneumonia deaths per week than the 5 year average, and ~470 fewer deaths overall.

As covid started we had an interesting blip in the flu/pneumonia stats, which I am assuming is caused in the most part by a) misdiagnosis of covid as flu and b) by pneumonia being caused by covid.
That blip then returns to pre-covid figures (actually eventually hitting closer to 550 over the last ten weeks, i.e. missing the 4 weeks at the start of the covid period).

If we assume that the year would have continued the trend of being ~470/week below the 5 year average then we get ~65k additional deaths this year so far, with the rate still at ~1k/week (still dropping). I haven't looked at the individual data sets for the previous 5 years to know whether this is a reasonable assumption.

I haven't seen up to date road stats, so can't factor any delta there into the calculations.

[al_yrpal]

As far as I am aware there seemed to be a lot of skiing parties in Northern Italy before it became apparent that the virus was rife on the loose there? The returning infected people spread it like wildfire. We seem to have been taken unawares.

I have mentioned Britain Haters and Trots in the past. Trots in the context that lots of hard left folk with links to the previously expelled Militant Tendency etc joined Labour to support Corbyn. They now seem to have lost influence. It sickens me that the influence of these people condemned Labour the the status of a basket case.
Britain haters are the folk that always seem too ready to do our country down regardless of the facts. It sickens me to hear this sort of negative claptrap because I do believe in this country. The people have spoken and we have left the EU.

Nothing whatsoever to do with taking individual responsibility to prevent Covid transmission. I have noted by personal observation that not everyone is taking the virus seriously and complying with the rules to keep us all safe.

Al

[roubaixtuesday]

Nothing whatsoever to do with taking individual responsibility to prevent Covid transmission

Al

Indeed not.

Yet your opening post majored on these "usual suspects", and you are still writing about them 5 pages later.

All very mysterious.

[al_yrpal]

Not really, read the unecessary negative comments. Everyone needs to do their bit regardless of politics.

Al

[reohn2]

As far as I am aware there seemed to be a lot of skiing parties in Northern Italy before it became apparent that the virus was rife on the loose there? The returning infected people spread it like wildfire. We seem to have been taken unawares.

That is factually rubbish,the government knew in mid February of the risk and of cases in Northern Italy but chose to do nothing claiming it wasn't a problem.
They also did nothing about incoming air travel passengers from all over the globe in cluding China until as late as a month ago.

I have mentioned Britain Haters and Trots in the past. Trots in the context that lots of hard left folk with links to the previously expelled Militant Tendency etc joined Labour to support Corbyn. They now seem to have lost influence. It sickens me that the influence of these people condemned Labour the the status of a basket case.
Britain haters are the folk that always seem too ready to do our country down regardless of the facts. It sickens me to hear this sort of negative claptrap because I do believe in this country

You have deliberately used those slurs against anyone with a left leaning political outlook just to cause trouble when those people haven't agreed with your political outlook or have been anti brexit however sound their argument has been.A clear case of attacking the person and not the argument,you major on it

The people have spoken and we have left the EU

The people were told lie upon lie about the EU,and that part of the country that spoke still only achieved a simple majority of 2% which is no case or mandate for such a huge decision and change of course for the country.
But we have the stupidity of Cameron for the failure of not putting in place a 60% majority,and the cunning of the likes of Johnson,Farage et al to thank for that.
We the collective UK public will now reap the whirlwind as a result!

Nothing whatsoever to do with taking individual responsibility to prevent Covid transmission. I have noted by personal observation that not everyone is taking the virus seriously and complying with the rules to keep us all safe.

Al

No it hasn't,but it was you who began throwing the slurs around back on page two of this thread:-

Objectively one has always to ask "who is asking the question and what is their angle?" Then, the answer is pretty clear. Anti Brexit, anti Tory, anti UK folk will always pick nits and try to do Britain down. Its pretty clear that several foriegn governments have lied through their teeth whereas the UKs thorough rigourous honesty has done us no favours. Another case of the usual suspects...

Al

So I'll repeat now what I posted then:-

Al knows best and anyone who doesn't agree with Al is a Britain hater.
Yeah right

And add that the UK was NOT rigorous or honest about it's counting of c19 deaths in the country when it wasn't counting deaths in care homes until the noises became too loud to ignore!

You simply cannot and will not admit any of the wrong doing of the government you voted for,even when it's as plain as the nose on your face!

[djnotts]

Not really, read the unecessary negative comments. Everyone needs to do their bit regardless of politics.

Al

Nothing is "regardless of politics". The class war underpins everything.

[roubaixtuesday]

Not really, read the unecessary negative comments. Everyone needs to do their bit regardless of politics.

Al

Please reference the comments you regard as such - most of the ones I'd regard that way are your own, and I assume you don't mean those

[[XAP]Bob]

Britain haters are the folk that always seem too ready to do our country down regardless of the facts. It sickens me to hear this sort of negative claptrap because I do believe in this country. The people have spoken and we have left the EU.

Yes the people spoke, and we are in the process of leaving.

But the people didn't really speak to leave in any serious manner.
There was a referendum which would have been declared null and void had it's outcome been binding, and there was an election at which the majority (by more than the majority in the referendum) voted for parties who were against leaving.
The election was the worst I can remember in decades in terms of the level of outright lying from politicians and the lack of any pushback from the media against those lies. (Note that I am not saying that the lies and lack of pushback were entirely one sided.)

So the people spoke and the minority elected government went against their wishes and started the process to leave the EU.

[[XAP]Bob]

Objectively one has always to ask "who is asking the question and what is their angle?" Then, the answer is pretty clear. Anti Brexit, anti Tory, anti UK folk will always pick nits and try to do Britain down. Its pretty clear that several foriegn governments have lied through their teeth whereas the UKs thorough rigourous honesty has done us no favours. Another case of the usual suspects...

Al

Rigorous honesty?

The level of testing in the UK has been woeful, even the targets were woeful and we have consistently failed to come anywhere near meeting them.

The only time the current government is honest is due to a mistake on their part.

[Oldjohnw]

We have possibly the least truthful government ever right now. As well as the least competent.

If they were competent I'd accept a bit of dissembling. If they were truthful I'd accept a bit of incompetence. But we have the worst of all worlds. Lying cheats and complete dishonesty.

[rmurphy195]

Given the current fiascos with Track and Trace and the previous debacles with PPPE and testing, the Government record is hardly good

Now we have the inconsistency over whether we will bring the 2m rule down to 1 m or 1m Plus, with no consistency, guidance or scientific evidence to support.

We also have Priti Patel spouting the disproven "Immunity Passports" and Hancock wanting electronic registration to use a pub.

Finally we have the return to school in September, again with no real guidance, evidence or support.



Have we now reached the stage where we need to make our own minds up, decide on our own whether we lower the 2 m rule, or decide for ourselves whether pubs or schools are safe?

Will you be following Government advice and guidelines, or deciding on your own level of prevention?

I suspect that you have or had some involvement with medical matters some wonder what your own view on this is.

My view is that the Government has made some mistakes but overall done as good a job if not better than anyone else in power would have managed. I’m somewhat upset at the slow start we had to the lockdown and the refusal to close schools and borders earlier than we did. Had swifter action been taken the damage done to the country would have been less. Currently the Government is under political and economic pressure to back off from current restrictions and not take as much notice of public health concerns, to be fair they are between a rock and a hard place.

I do feel that people should take personal responsibility for being as well informed as is reasonable and in adhering to the best advice possible. However if your employer doesn’t care whether you catch the virus or not and you have to use public transport you’re in a difficult situation. Likewise when those in the streets and shops ignore infection protection measures.

Mrs CG and I are taking practical measures to stop any infection reaching us and I think that others should similarly take responsibility for their own well being, but many are (to my mind) stupid so will do as they chose regardless of anything else. Except with proper care and social distancing I will not be attending events and gatherings of any sort, I minimise social contact to that which is necessary, and I will be using higher levels of care than the Government relaxes to.

+1

There are a couple of points I would like to add

Track and Trace, whtehr electronically or not, is totally reliant on the honesty and co-operation of infected people. no-one who has been cheating on the advice, or has just been buying off theier dealer, or visiting a mistress, is going to own up to it if they catch the disease and contact the NHS, or keep their phone switched on.
The 2 metres or 1 metre plus is quite clear to me from the ministerial broadcast, the only confusion came, as usual, when the news reporters stuck theier oars in. The broadcast was hardly finished when a news reporter got the date wrong "from next weekend we'll be able to ..." (its not, its July 4th which is the weekend after) - confusion now guaranteed.
Interesting that up until last week the news questions were all about applying pressure to reduce from 2 metres to 1, now as soon as there's a relaxation its all "Too Soon, Too Soon".

[Paulatic]

Confusion
I’ve noticed here in Scotland those that cause confusion are often reporters. Those who say they are confused are invariably Tory MPs or voters or unionists. It would appear being confused can be a wilful condition.

[NickWi]

As far as I am aware there seemed to be a lot of skiing parties in Northern Italy before it became apparent that the virus was rife on the loose there? The returning infected people spread it like wildfire.

Suggest you read the following see where our cases really came from:- https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus- ... s-12004250

[rmurphy195]

Rigorous honesty?

The level of testing in the UK has been woeful, even the targets were woeful and we have consistently failed to come anywhere near meeting them.

The only time the current government is honest is due to a mistake on their part.

Unless I'm missing something, the no. of tests per day is defined by 2 things

1) Requests from individuals who think they may have contracted the disease
2) test done as a result of requests by the ONS or whoever it is that does the surveys.

No-one is forced to take a test, its voluntary, whether by personal request by an individual, or as reqest to an individual as part of a survey.

So if only 150,000 tests are done on any particular day, and 50,000 of them are for surveys, then only 100,000 are requests from individual members of the public.

If the number of test done is less than you would expect/hope for/insist upon, then you will need to round people up for compulsory testing. To have testing capacity for 1 million per day when only a fraction of that capacity is actually used is a waste of valuable resources.

[[XAP]Bob]

When the government claims to have me their target of testing 100k/ week (which is woefully inadequate in terms of being any sort of useful measure of what public health measures are needed) but in fact have managed fewer than 1/2 of that amount...

It doesn’t matter who is or isn’t being tested - they’re lying.

I couldn’t get a test for love nor money at that time, because they were only testing hospital inpatients.