COVID-19

Even I would agree that this government have been much more than profligate and wasteful with their spending, beggars belief really.
We voted Tory yet ended up with a socialist/green government that no one wanted....

 

I agree with some of the points if not the tone.

1) There is no point undertaking mass testing if only 20% of people isolated anyway. Especially when it's so expensive.

2) If this is going to be undertaken the percentage of false positives and negatives needs to be minimal. Although the article unsurprisingly ignore that the person gets 2 tests, the one they're talking about to give the quick result which is relatively new but also the lab based PCR test which takes longer and is more accurate.

Interesting point in there that people in Germany get full pay to isolate? Is that right? I haven't seen that before.

 

Define normal?

A quiet family Christmas mixing at reduced risk to others compared to people who think they can go out on the piss and act like the virus doesn't exist. This is not something that a young family would do but we have seen many times it is something those of drinking age are happy to do.

 

Define normal? Come on, you know what I mean.

Go around to parents or grandparents houses to open presents, have Christmas dinner with wider members of the family in someone else's home, settle down for an evening infront of the tele with a few glasses of wine. You know, normal.

So are you saying that my sister should be able to visit my Mum and do all those things because her kids are 11 and 8 but I shouldn't because mine are 19 and 21? What are the practicalities here?

 

Normal is Christmas Parties, outside of family visits and parties etc. Builders Friday etc. That's what needs clamping down out as that is the high risk.

A family get together where people have been very careful is lower risk, and far safer than a visit to a supermarket for example.

 

I see no evidence for your second point at all and makes little logical sense. You're more likely to spend prolonged periods at close quarters with people opening presents and sat around a dinner table than you are at a supermarket.

But you're saying that Chirstmas dinner and inter-family visits should be fine for everyone as long as people don't go out to the pub regardless of whether they actually have children? I that an accurate representation?

 

I was using the fact that children are expected to share a classroom with 30 other children every day, yet is it "dangerous" for them to meet with their cousins.

I was using the example that in a supermarket that you pass multiple people you don't know and come into somekind of contact or indirect contact with them in one hour of shopping. You are mixing with hundreds of households going round a supermarket where as having your parents or your sister round you maybe having a longer contact with them but you are coming into contact with far less people.

It's not too difficult to understand unless you just want to argue for the sake of arguing until Boris says it's ok and then you are in full agreement with it as you argued till you were blue in the face that schools were safe.

What you have is people here looking at Christmas and "normal" being a whole range of things. Some see a five day break as five days of going on the piss and being wreckless to the extreme, some look at it and think I'll bottle myself and family away for a week then we will get together on Chirstmas day having been in contact with no one else.

I'm not saying there are many tiers or rules, I am saying that some rules that exist contradict other rules such as it being ok for my daughter to sit with 30 other households daily, but not to see her 2 year old cousin at Christmas.

 

Well yes, children are expected to share a classroom but my older children are expected to share a workplace so where is the difference? I'm guessing adults will be accompanying the cousins too? It's not just the cousins is it unless she's a particularly advanced 2 year old.

I go to the supermarket 3 times a week and I can't remember the last time I came into close contact with someone for a prolonged period of time. Yes, i'm sharing a building with hundreds of people but I'm actually close enough to spread the virus with basically none of them and certainly don't hug them or sit around a dinner table for 90 minutes. If you're far enough away and only pass fleetingly the number of people is basically irrelevant.

It's not too difficult to understand, it just doesn't make any sense.

I think the 5 days break with pubs and bars open is a complete non-starter. I don't even think that is what is being discussed.

I think a normal Christmas Day with families and friends being cautious is possible but almost impossible for the government to give advise on and the sacrifices are probably underestimated. For example I don't think that isolating for 7 days prior would be enough, it should in theory be 14 days before and 14 days after if we want to be truly safe but nobody is going to do that.

 

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-supermarkets-most-common-place-23037109

 

I'm not trying to be rude here because it isn't your fault that the media report it in that way but that doesn't mean what you think it does.

Nobody knows where the virus passes from one person to another so it's impossible to rank "the most common places to catch the virus", it's unknowable.

That report doesn't tack transmission - it tracks people involved in outbreaks and where those people have been. Since probably 80% of people visit the supermarket in any given week then of course the percentage of people who will have been there will be high, but it 100% does not mean that they caught it there.

 

That's actually the graph you they should be looking at.

 

I suggest you take a look around next time you visit the supermarket.

Watch how many people pick up a trolley or enter the store not using the sanitation station. How many of those people then go round picking up various items, moving other items, wear masks below their noses if they wear masks at all.

You might keep your wits about you round the store but you are naive if you think everyone else does the same. Which explains why neither you nor I have caught it.

 

Households are not allowed to mix since early Novemeber, to catch it you have to either be bringing it back to the household to then pass it which means the initial transmission is outside of the household.

It doesn't just turn up at your door and let itself in, without being brought it. 1 persons gets it at the supermarket, pub, public transport, etc then takes it home and infects the whole house.

 

I do look around, but it seems likely that secondary transmission (touching the same item as a person who is infected has previously touched) is a much less effective method than face to face. It's why the messages across the globe run along the same lines as "hands, face, space" and focus on time spent together and proximity rather than cleaning things as you touch them.

I don't think I particularly behave any differently to 95% of the people I see there and to be honest have no idea whether either you or I have caught it yet.

 

You do. But once again that's not what the graph is showing.

It's showing the amount of contacts people have as a whole, rather than just based on outbreaks that specifically exclude at home scenarios.

I the context of what we were discussing you're quite right. So one person gets it at an external place, brings it home and contacts everyone within that (what the graph shows), then if you add into the mix households mixing then that one person doesn't just infect their own home, they go the Christmas dinner and infect their parents home, their grandparents home, their brothers and sisters homes, etc etc.

 

Well I think I will do my own "risk assessment" for Christmas rather than wait for Boris to tell us what we can and can't do, seeing as his independent advisor on the ministerial code has just had to resign because Boris backed his Home Secretary over the report into bullying. Boris looks out for one man, Boris.

 

That's fair enough and I have no interest in what Boris or any MP says.

But if people are doing their own risk assessments then at least do them properly, not through some misunderstood media stats or because "the kids are fine at school, so it's okay for adults to mix in the home". If you understand what you're doing and thoroughly understand the risks then that's how it should be rather than being completely led by the government, unfortunately not enough people do understand it sufficiently though and the media certainly don't help.

 

I feel I have done a good job of keeping myself and my family safe so far and will continue on that basis, and although our bubble is not technically legal due to having 2 grandparents alive rather than just the 1 we see it as one household so one risk with them being retired and us working from home meaning external contact on all fronts is low, except for the Children which we see as low risk and you appear to agree on that basis.

 

And I genuinely think that's fine and, like you say, even though the bubble isn't "textbook" all the other mitigations kind of balance out. I wish more people could work in this way rather than having the government dictate things but it seems that as soon as there is any leeway in the rules people are either confused or push the boundaries to take the piss.

But genuinely - don't get pulled into the narrative that you're safer around the dinner table than you are at the supermarket. If you're willing to expand your risks (and that of your wider family) at least fully understand what those risks are and that is in no way a criticism of what you're doing - it's your choice - just don't make them because the media have misinterpreted something. That is basically the top and bottom of it.

 

What’s the chances of us coming out of any sort of restrictions in Bradford/West Yorkshire come December 3rd?
I think slim to none. I think we will get into the newly invented tier 4 at least for another 3 weeks