Blah Blah

This is something I flagged early on Seenbeen. SARS viruses are more difficult to develop vaccines for (according to the research so far) for lots of reasons. And one of my gripes has been the failure of governments to convey the complexity of developing vaccines. Nonsense headlines like 'a vaccine by September' were always ridiculous to anyone in the know. Even the Oxford vaccine, lauded last week as 'ahead of the rest', still has a long way in clinical trials to go. The fact is that most vaccine trials fail to make the grade for wider clinical use. And while it can be argued that investment in vaccine development is reactive, there is no getting away from the fact that irregardless of how much money the world throws at developing a vaccine, it still has to go through all the required trials, which includes the longer term assessment of immunity. That just can not be done six months (or even a year) into the emergence of a new virus. The fastest any vaccine has gone through those trials is five years, and that was pushed with the same urgency. So it is time we all got used to the idea of a virus that we have no treatment for as yet, but that we can all catch. If any individual wants to play Russian Roulette with that, then go for it. But expecting everyone else to go back to as before, with undue abandon, is unrealistic. Most people I think will comply with the advice on distancing, masks etc. And lives will be saved as a result.

And now TE44 does exactly what those called out for their irrefutable ignorance do - attack the experts, those who know what they are talking about, as some kind of complicit elite, before going off on some unrelated tangent to the point being discussed (wearing of masks). TE44 - you are talking with someone who understands the science, down to the last protein and DNA marker, and that is why I can concur on the risks around molecular science. You have the chance to learn something, but you chose instead to spin conspiracy fantasies, driven by the latest sensationalist headline you picked up off the internet, because that fits your world view better. In reality, it is evidence of nothing. None of these labs are working in secret btw. They all publish their findings to the relevant medical research communities. That is how things are peer reviewed or, as in the case of your Express (hardly a fountain of unbiased news) headline, find their way into the public domain. Apply some logic here. It is quite clear to anyone with an ounce of common sense that a) those papers are not secret and b) the Express has a clear agenda of serving conspiracy theories around a lab created mutation. Zoonotic viruses exist. They sometimes hop onto humans. They sometimes lead to global pandemics. That has always been known and it is time the West ceased with its arrogance on this.

Thanks J.A. - It just insults my intelligence to let that kind of nonsense go, when at the peak, almost 1000 people a day were dying in our hospitals. I guess you have to be some kind of special fool to not see the evidence in that. And more than that, people espousing the views that TE44 does, are dangerous for public health. So I feel they have to be debunked and rebutted at every turn.

TE44, just stop it please. You only have to look at Brazil to see what would have happened without a lockdown, and the the USA to see what happens if lockdown is eased too quickly. And if you think hundreds of thousands of people flooding hospitals doesn't also damage economies and cost other lives then you don't understand a thing about pandemics. At the end of the day, once the initial peak is suppressed, it becomes a balance of management between economy vs public health. The other thing to point out is that nothing was known about this virus six months ago. Have a think about that. Suddenly people are getting ill, many of them dying, and you don't know a thing about the new virus killing them. This is what governments had to face. Suppressing the peak, as fast as possible, is standard practise for combating pandemics because it works.

The concerns being raised are around people not seeking treatment when they should be. That is a different scenario to people dying because treatment has been denied. The solution to that is in messaging. Is in encouraging people to still seek medical advice if they are concerned or unwell. I have to strongly disagree with your opinion around lockdown though. Epidemics that take hold have to be controlled and fast. You only have to look at what is happening in Brazil to see the alternative. And that alternative by the way, is every available bed being filled by ICU covid patients. How many beds are left for patients with other conditions in that scenario? Have a think about that. There will always be lessons to learn, things that could have been done better. Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course. But be under no illusion about what would have happened without that lockdown. 900 hospital deaths a day were bad enough at the peak. Had we locked down two weeks earlier, we would have avoided thousands of deaths. The same can be said of testing elderly patients before sending them back to care homes. Letting everyone get the virus is just not an option without a vaccine or effective drug treatment in reserve.

I would argue that excess deaths are excess deaths, and are hard to get away from as a statistic. All other meandering and methods of data sorting are driven by vested interests imo. Those excess death figures are clear enough for anyone to understand to be fair. There can be no other explanation than the pandemic. Some people also seem to think hospitals completely shut down to admit Covid patients only. This just isn't the case. Only non-emergency treatment was postponed. You only have to look at what is happening in places like Brazil (and the USA to some extent) to see the impact of those countries that have ignored standard epidemic practise. Now imagine the outcome if no-one isolated, or applied social distancing. The benefits of those things in a pandemic were understood even in 1918.

Yep, another vote for Chris Tremaine from me. He is excellent and I have to say is the best dentist I and my family has ever had.

It's a good point. I too think a lot of business will not survive a second full lockdown, but if government truly want to avoid that, then there is going to have to be some meeting reality head on. It is bad enough that around a quarter of people contacted by track and trace workers refuse to comply. And what will happen if government does not get control of this virus and the messaging around it, is that people will decide to lock down for themselves indefinitely. Tomorrow the PM is expected to call for people working from home to go back to their offices, so that businesses that serve them can benefit again. Not going to work sadly. People who can work from home are more than happy to continue to do so until this virus is negated. That is the new reality and one that government is going to have to deal with.

I second checking out bikeaway for available lockers near enough to you. Know several people that rent these and all have had no problems. They are only about ?40 ish a year to rent as well, so very cheap considering.

Anyone who thinks life can return to how it was before is deluded. This is the new reality until we find a medical way to contain this virus. The harsh reality is that any enclosed space where people gather IS going to be different. Some spaces may not be viable under that new reality. It is then up to government to decide who and by how much they subsidise affected sectors. Nightclubs for example, may never reopen in the next few years. This means our economy will have to change. Jobs will have to be created elsewhere. Some may argue that we had become too reliant on the service sector for jobs anyway. Wearing a face covering is no biggie and I would suggest that anyone moaning about having to do so just isn't seeing the bigger picture. There is a genuine concern that Autumn will see a second wave and although hospitals etc are better prepared now, any second wave is going to be on top of the seasonal flu intake. This would put the NHS under an enormous level of demand and stress that may surpass the peak of the first wave. My only concern is that shops with door staff/ security will be able to enforce this. Shops that do not have those kinds of personnel may have some problems. Hopefully most people will do the right thing and comply.

Lidl on Bellenden Road have packs of 10 for ?7.99. That is the cheapest I have seen them for retail anywhere.

lol Spartacus. On Covid itself, it is going to take around two years to have the required data to determine immunity and lasting damage to those who recover from it. None of this is simple where you have so many protracted tangents, around age, underlying health conditions and the ever present unknowns around mutation. We are only six months into this pandemic, although it may feel like forever already. Vaccines take years, have always taken years, and politicians were wrong to not explain that. I can understand the desire to give the public hope of a way out, but there also needs to be some honesty around this. The real indicators will probably come in the Autumn, if there is a second spike, and if those who have previously had the virus and recovered, become ill again. We really do need intensive monitoring of all of this to understand as much as possible. The USA clearly shows that the virus is just as prevalent in Summer seasons, but that social distancing does work to keep infection rates down. In Winter, when people are coughing and sneezing from seasonal colds and chest infections, we will HAVE to ramp up the use of face coverings everywhere if we are going to prevent a significant second wave.

We are trying to get it together to see this too. Apparently a NW direction two hours before sunrise is the best time to see it. That's from a google search so if anyone knows differently.....

I think you make a sensible point Rollflick around the perception of the kerb vs road. Only when there is no hierarchy between the two, does the space become genuinely shared. Pedestrians automatically check a road before stepping onto it in the main. This encourages an automatic right of way to continue to exist in the minds of some cyclists. SO that has to be addressed I think. Cyclists who don't want to engage in the shared space mantra can still use the surrounding roads in the normal way.

KK, I am going to say it. You are being hysterical and worse than that, dismissing my objective experience as someone who cycles up and down Rye Lane most days. The thing about shared spaces is that they are just that. A random meandering of different users. It often looks chaotic when actually it is not. Have there been a run of collisions on the far more densely shared stretch at the top of Rye Lane over the years? No there haven't. What there has been however, are a lot of cyclists and pedestrians alike, complaining about having their assumed right of way impeded. The reality is that for any complaint, pretty much all shared space users observe an appropriate caution they would not otherwise. If they didn't, shared spaces would never work anywhere. All the evidence however shows they quite clearly do.

Cue the usual hysteria about cyclists. I cycled both ways along the lane this afternoon. It was absolutely fine.

It is reported today that three pubs have had to close immediately again after customers tested positive for Covid. And therein lies the problem. You just never know who, if anyone, is infected. Enclosed spaces are risky spaces until there is an answer to this virus.

The 80s were a terrible time that led to generational unemployment and a lot of laid off people that never worked again. What happens when the economy contracts with an abundance of available labour? Wages fall, certain groups of people become unemployable, and the welfare bill goes up. So yes, the government has to protect as many jobs as possible but it also is facing the deepest possible impacts of Brexit if there is no deal, and Tory governments have never been great at protecting the worst impacted before (squeezing the poorest and baiting working people against them for example), so why should we expect anything different this time? If I were them, I would do as much as possible now to protect what already exists, and moving forward, look at ways at supporting others into self employment (with grants, low interest loans and mentoring), training and education. And that needs to be a programme of investments for ALL ages, not just young people. Similarly, I would also argue for better support for small business, better support for home grown innovation and talent, along with the usual international incentives to being jobs to the UK. It is going to need ALL of those things to redirect the economy as quickly as possible. My concern is that investment is primarily aimed at infrastructure, with the same handful of government favoured business pals getting the lucrative contracts. The expectation that if you build a highway, private enterprise will follow is no longer true. We've been relying on that idea for the last 40 years and we have been simply left with disenfranchised regions. There needs to be a radical change of approach, one that invests in people (over concrete) and incentivises employers to do so also.

People already walk out onto the road to avoid other people so this makes sense I guess. It might help bars and restaurants too, if they can put tables outside in nice weather.

And this is precisely why there are problems around politicians managing public health. Politicians are constantly thinking of how to stay or get elected. This skews everything. A second wave is coming. I think every agrees on that. How bad or easy it is to manage, will be entirely down to government preparations, but the spin almost certainly will seek to pit the people against the people, just as it always does. Be that left vs right, poor vs deserving poor, class division or those who abide by the rules, and those who don't. This government are experts at it. It is how they conned people into voting for Brexit after all. Easing lockdown and reopening businesses where people can not socially distance effectively was always going to be difficult to be fair. And come the winter, when people can not eat and drink outside, what happens then? Many pubs are not even abiding by the government rules requiring contact details to be taken. Why? Because it is difficult to do that with people who are drinking on pavements only. You only have to look at the pictures of Soho last night to see why that might be. Anyone who has served in a busy bar knows how faffing about with registration forms was never going to work in the UK.

SpringTime Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > I'm also for higher taxes. Stuck with me for the > better part of 30 years when a teacher told me > "this country needs the f****** sh** taxed out of > it" - sounded extreme at the time but keeps making > more and more sense. Happy to be schooled by > anyone in the know but as I remember things the > French were taxed proper from the early 1980s and > look at the difference now between France and the > UK. It's embarrassing. There's so much scorn for > public services here, and at the same time some > people seem to want Scandinavian levels of > provision on US levels of tax. Doesn't work, > sorry. An even better comparison is with the Nordic countries. Sweden has very high tax but Finland has an income tax rate that comes in at about 32%. It has the lowest tax gap in Europe (people actually pay more tax than they need to) and its standard of living is much better for everyone. It also has much better unemployment support and has eradicated homelessness. It can be done.

Effra Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Blah Blah Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > >When are we going to have a government > > that builds the homes we actually need, over > > investment opportunities for the private > sector. > They get it from taxes. Do you want higher taxes > or do you want your children and grand children to > pay it back, with interest on top? Yes I would support higher taxes so that families don't have to live in a single room in bed and breakfast. I would pay higher taxes so that people don't have to burn to death in tower blocks clad with unsafe materials (so much for the building regs you cite btw). There have (I believe) been three meaningful waves of social and council home building that all addressed housing crisis at the time. In the 70's, most households lived in council housing, until they could afford to buy. We have become too reliant on a private rental sector that makes saving a deposit impossible for most working people. There should be a balance and government can deliver that with the right investment and regulation. We have had it that way before after all.

That makes perfect sense Siduhe.

Yes, it is smoke and mirrors, to enable Boris to sound like he is delivering on manifesto pledges, when in reality he is not. Most of the investment is staggered over 12 years too, so it waters down pretty fast. And nowhere in any of that is a pledge to maintain what formerly were EU grants to the poorest regions (worth around ?4bn a year). In addition, most of the investment is set up to directly benefit government cronies who will profit from the contracts. Housing especially is worth scrutinising. No effort to address the real issue of affordability. Once again, setting up the market for yet more homes for sale at market prices. When are we going to have a government that builds the homes we actually need, over investment opportunities for the private sector.