COVID-19

But those lockdowns are localised and very short term. One of the main reasons that most of Australia has retained normal life during the pandemic and avoided the long, general lockdowns that we have endured, is because they have reacted quickly to small numbers of cases with localised lockdowns, thereby stopping the wider spread.

Bloody good sense. Not lunacy at all. Lunacy is being blasé about localised outbreaks and letting them spread elsewhere.

 

Except when thousands of people are trying to get into the game, if you happen to require to use any facilities in the concourses of the stadiums which are all indoors or when you are leaving the stadium.

I've said it a thousands times, if you are that worried go and buy a ffp3 mask for yourself. There have been 250k cases in the last week, do you think these cases haven't been caught or transmitted by people who are fully vaccinated?

 

It’s impossible to compare us to Australia, we are an island nation where as they are a continent with less than half our population. There are the same number of flats in London as in the entirety of Australia. Having been there myself and stayed in an inner city townhouse, the gardens were still of a decent size the same can’t be said in major cities in this country where people are crammed in like sardines. It as a huge effect on mental health, also the density of a population will naturally have a huge effect on the spread of a virus which spreads through contact.

 

Population spread is a very good point.

UK population density = 727 people per square metre
Australia = 9 people per square metre

 

Sorry if my maths isn’t great here but them figures suggest they’d need around a one and a half billion population to have a similar population density to us, apples and oranges spring to mind. I do agree with their harder stance on foreign travel however, that’s on our shambles of a government though.

 

that is why there are only 75 cases thpugh

 

Is it? Or could the fact that they're one of the least densely populated countries in the world be a factor?

 

I think you mean mile btw, I don't have 726 other people sat around me.

Population density is a factor but some people claim Texas not to be comparable having had a restrictions removed some months ago. I would however point to areas in Australia and in Texas where population densities are very high.

Houston, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, etc have a huge population density. Dallas is nearly 4,000 per square mile.

Melbourne is about 1,300 per square mile.

The huge areas of unused land pull the density levels down. No one lives in the Amazon Rain Forest however I'm pretty sure the density levels in Rio de Janerio make up for that.

 

France has a huge underlying race problem in the big cities and an even bigger homelessness issue in places like Paris where many thousands live in tents under bypasses in the suburbs. The tourists don't get to see this because the Govt keep them out of the tourist runs, but go anywhere off the beaten track in Paris and it's a very dangerous place.

Le Penn plays on this, Macron ignores it. I love France and have been there on holiday in excess of 15 times including Paris 4 times, but I wouldn't go wandering around anywhere north, north east or north west of the Periphique, or around the Gare Du North/ Gare De L'est in the same way I would/ have around the Whitechapel, Bethnal Green Hackney etc.

 

I do mean per mile, yes. Error on my part. And you're right in so much as large parts of Australia aren't inhabited, which will will skew the figures. But countries can't consider lockdowns to be a long term strategy. The impact and cost of lockdown never seems to feature in the risk debate.

 

I've often said that our inner ring road would be the perfect place for an F1 street circuit.

 

I blame the pub cos for upping prices. When I was 16 the under 18's went to pubs in massive numbers.

 

Easy to see why you are a bookie Dave !

 

Texas where there are no restrictions and it was deemed as irresponsible to remove all restrictions and mask wearing are actually doing very well based on the freedoms they have. Yes people are still getting ill with covid, people are dying with covid but they would be if restrictions were still in place, the balance is what is an acceptable difference between the two.

Texas has a population density of 107 per square mile, you have already pointed out the UK has 727 per square mile so people point at that and say that is why Texas can unlock and we can't. However as I pointed out Texas has many large populated Cities where density in close and in excess of 4,000 per square mile, so in theory the removal of lockdowns would cause these places to spike.

Many in the UK want the hardcore approach and as we have had it for so long, they are finding it hard to move away from that.

 

It's a great idea in the short term horrendous idea in the long term.

To anybody who supports this type of action just ask yourself when they're going to stop having rolling lockdowns over tiny numbers of cases. If the answer is "when everyone is vaccinated" or "when covid is eradicated" then the 3rd option of "when pigs fly" could also be chosen.

 

You are presenting caricatures as Aunt Sallys to knock down. Of course we aren't going to vaccinate 100% of the world's population. Nor are we going to completely eradicate Covid. But we will get to the point where sufficient of the world is vaccinated to get the global R number down low and see it dwindle away to a chronic but largely harmless seasonal issue, like flu. But we're probably 18 months to two years away from that. In the meantime, localised lockdowns, where cases spike from a low base rate is a sensible option to prevent wider spread and reduce the likelihood of mutations.

 

Sadiq Khan has said masks will remain on London underground until Covid is no longer with us. With that statement he is basically saying their are there forever, or at least as long as he is. As usual it's token politics and the mask is the most visible thing of complying with the "rules" so anyone not doing so is a selfish arsehole.

 

What's sufficient? You seem to be arguing that 87.5% of the adult population in the UK is not sufficient, so on a world wide basis what would it be?

 

I was talking about Australia. So if they're going to lockdown 15m people because of 100 cases then when are they going to stop doing going down that route?

At some point they will have to accept that 100 cases (as a minimum) is bog standard so what is their cut of point to move from this eradication outlook to an acceptance stage?

 

You can't take the UK in isolation. Unless you're going to shut the borders, like Oz or NZ, which we haven't. This isn't a UK issue - it's a global one.
An 85% vaccination rate in one country isn't going to get the pandemic ended all the while large parts of the world are running at 10% or less.
Once we've got our own population as fully vaxed as possible then the task for next year is for the rich, developed world to use our resources and expertise to massively accelerate the vaccination programmes of the poorer parts of the world. I doubt it will need an 85% rate to bring down the worldwide Covid incidence to a base level. But it needs to be much higher than it is.