Blah Blah

Deregulation of transport systems is another debate and one on which we would probably agree on a lot of things. Changes to concessionary travel is something government demanded in return for the ?1.6bn bailout they have just given to Tfl. Ultimately it will be tax payers who pay for that. The point here though is that it is the government who have forced this change, not the Mayor. Would a Labour government have made the same demands? Probably not. Life is going to get a bit more costly for all of us and sadly we have a government with a track record of making the poorest pay most. We shall see what happens.

seenbeen Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > There are enough passengers on TFL to fund the > service if many people did not evade fares. Also > the free travel for kids has encouraged them to > hop on for 1 or 2 stops and their parents to > choose schools miles away.....does nothing to > combat obesity or cut down air pollution. > TFL fund the 60+ pass How about you provide the data that proves that instead of making stuff up because you want it to be true. Tfl were operating with a ?968 million deficit last year and an overall debt of ?11.7 billion. That just got a whole lot worse because of this pandemic. Some details here. Declining passenger numbers combined with increased running costs have been the trend for some years. https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2019/03/21/tfl-outlines-its-budget-for-2020-focusing-on-more-cost-cutting/

DulwichFox Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Khan has always claimed credit for the 'Freedom > Pass' Even if HE did not bring it in originally. > > But now.. All of a Sudden, The Freedom Pass has > Nothing to do with Him.. Out of His control. > > Hypocrite .. > > Need to get him out. Has too much Power. So your issue is that you just don't like Khan. Now answer the question I asked. How would any Mayor resolve the cost for a huge drop in passengers? Others have pointed out to you that government ordered concessions to stop (so they do not have to bail out Tfl too). It would help if you actually read replies to you and acknowledge the facts over your determination to have a go at Khan.

Tfl was already operating with a subsidy before the pandemic. Now that passenger numbers have dropped significantly, who has the means to fund the shortfall DF? It wouldn't matter who was Mayor, they would face the same issues.

I grew up on a farm that my parents still own. Even in the countryside, there is no need for animal cruelty. Foxes are a pest to chickens, so country folk build cages that protect them at night. Shooting a fox family in an urban area because they simply annoy you is unforgivable. There is always another way, hence my link to an organisation that can trap and relocate the fox family if necessary. Edited to add; The success of urban foxes is entirely down to the available of food vs diminishing country hedgerows. As a child, I learned to shoot a shotgun to deter wildlife threat to the livestock my family reared, but we never shot anything dead. There is always a way to protect wildlife and close off their access to livestock. Country people know this better than anyone. Being humane is easy. Being an impatient urban tw@t however.....

Hsve a chat with the London Wildlife Protection organisation. If he is intent on killing them, they may be able to offer to trap and relocate them. That might be the only way to reason with him sadly. They would also know the law of what is permitted and the RSPCA are the best organisation for prosecuting animal cruelty (if not the best organisation for animal rescue). https://www.londonwildlifeprotection.org/ And let him know asap that they can do that (if they say they can) so that he gives them the chance to get them and relocate them.

Three words.... Game of Thrones! Totally addicted....

Nothing like someone trying to derail a civil conversation Sephiroth ;)

This is going to be the same dilemma for many adults and children alike. I did read a news article this morning reporting that many parents are going to refuse to send their children back to school in June. Overcoming the genuine founded fear is perhaps going to be a bigger hurdle for the economy than anything government now says perhaps. It may also be that government is predicting a significant fall in infection and deaths by then. And thank you for the kind comments above. In truth everyone has a point, from those too scared to go back to work, to those who must, and those who just don't see a problem. My reading of government thinking at this point is that people should be able to determine their own fate on the level of risk. But if that is the way the government want to play it, then people really must be free to decide and not be penalised if they err on the side of caution. And of course, this could all go very wrong if the infection rate picks up again. It could be as much as two weeks after new infections before we see if it does, and by then it is too late. Hence my confusion at doing this before a comprehensive test, track and trace programme is in place. We shall see.

Indeed they have Siousxiesue and to support Malumbu here too, what people think and believe depends on who they choose to listen to. Some people have been jailed for deliberately spitting on others abusing the fear that exists around this virus. Where was their common sense? Depending on the public to uniformly make the right choices and behave in the right way all of the time is a pipe dream. It is indeed complex. In my opinion, it is extremely important that we have the right emphasis on and enforcement of behaviour within enclosed spaces. But here is the word of warning. Come the Autumn, when all the seasonal flu and cold viruses emerge, people are going to be coughing and sneezing everywhere. If we do not get mass testing sorted out by then, we are heading for the disaster of a second peak that may be far worse through the ease of spread from those other seasonal viruses and bacteria. The more we do now to prepare, and change the behaviour we need to change to navigate this virus, the better it will be in the longer term for everyone.

And this is the dilemma for government NewWave, for all governments in fact. How long to stall the economy vs public health? Personally, I feel it is too early to start relaxing the lock down. We are not low enough on any graph yet, or high enough on testing, to prevent a new rise in cases (and deaths) leading to another lock down. But at the same time, we have an economy that only holds together if people can earn money, buy and sell. I don't have the answer to that any more than the government does. If this virus were causing death equally across age and demographics, we would have no option but to shut everything down. But even with the factors as they are, there is going to be no return to things as they were, until we either develop a vaccine that works or the virus itself disappears. And who knows what the politic impacts and ramifications of that will be long term.

Saying that wet markets are a source of livelihood (a point I also made) is not the same as saying they should not be banned. The link you cite Seenbeen is the opinion of one WHO expert, and an opinion in which he states that these markets are at a high risk of causing viral outbreaks. It is not an official WHO statement on policy however. That is an assumption being made by the news channel reporting on it, which is probably why it is being reported nowhere else.

It is government trying to have the best of both worlds but it will backfire when that peak starts rising again.

The virus does not need a lab to mutate, no virus does. But the general rule is that the bigger the spread of infection, the bigger the risk of mutation. In a global pandemic, that becomes a real concern. We already see mutations in influenza regularly, hence the need for new vaccines every flu season. There is no reason to think SARS would be any different in a global pandemic. 'had a glimpse through and couldn't see any relation to Mexico' The D614G mutation was discovered by researchers at a Los Alamos laboratory, which is in New Mexico. That is a very good link JohnL, because it outlines the complexity of what we are up against. And there is still much to be understood and learned. As for labs, all research like this takes place in level 4 facilities, which is the highest biohazard level. To even suggest that any laboratory would create a mutation for financial gain is fanciful. A laboratory would lose its license immediately if it did so.

Can you give a link for that 83 percent stat TheCat? I think you are taking the figure for ALL journeys made as opposed to journeys made to travel to work. The report from the DFT states that when considering both workers and non-workers, more than 80% of people entering Central London during the morning peak used rail-based modes of transport. In London, before the lockdown, that equates to millions of people using public transport to get to work. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/870647/tsgb-2019.pdf You ask for common sense, well here it is. We have an invisible virus that is still infecting 20,000 people a day. Until the government have a well resourced track and trace network in place, accompanied by testing units all over the country that ANY concerned member of the public can access, there is no strategy to stop that infection rate rising again, and a lock down returning. Whilst I agree that no worker is going to return to work until they have been instructed by their employers to do so, the government has to come up with something better than 'avoid public transport if you can'. Labour also have to be careful to not play politics with this pandemic. Pressing the government for exit plans when we are still waiting to see what works for other countries may backfire. Note that China has reported new cases of infection in a province in the North, not linked to people coming into the country from elsewhere. Also, immediately after that statement, Boris was called by Macron protesting the 14 day quarantine announced for people arriving from abroad, and guess what? He caved. Those traveling from France will be exempt from the quarantine. Make of that what you will.

The difference is resources and culture. We have a small police force which is unarmed. There is no paramilitary element to it like in France etc. We have approx 212 police officers per 100,000 people. France has 326, Spain 361, Italy 453.

Boris may be finding the workload challenging I think. But if those rumours are true, then I think it is not a good sign of what is to come. Being a PM is a full time job with little freedom. Boris already new that, so he has no excuses now. He wanted the job. He needs to get on with it.

That's not quite the true picture TE44. Life saving treatment is not being denied for any condition. What has changed though is that because people are not engaging in sports or getting drunk and fighting etc, that A&E is much quieter. Also, people are not filling A&E with minor conditions because they can not get to, or do not have a GP. Where there is a problem is in those who should call an ambulance or should go to hospital, not doing so out of fear or because they are downplaying the seriousness of their medical need vs the risk of catching the virus. Hence the public statement about that, encouraging people to still seek medical help for other serious or potentially serious conditions. The operations and treatments that have been cancelled are those considered to not be life threatening if they are delayed. Spartacus is right. All lock down measures were designed to stop health resources being overwhelmed - to manage a manageable peak. Easing those measures will continue to be a balance of hospital capacity. And that is probably a sensible balance to seek given that this is a global pandemic and the ability to eradicate the virus completely may never come. But with that comes a collective responsibility, to do our part to protect the vulnerable. Something I have warned about repeatedly is mutations. There is evidence already of this virus mutating, Most of the mutations are slight and seem to render the virus less deadly. But there is one coming out of Mexico that is more deadly. And that is what has to be monitored in subsequent waves.

20,000 people are still catching the virus every day. Let's talk again about the infection rate in four weeks time. We never locked down fully. Easing before that infection rate gets right down is going to be a mistake. 'Staying alert' to something invisible, both during its incubation period and in asymtomatic people is meaningless waffle. Government wanted to change the messaging for one reason only, to look as though we are moving towards a new phase. It is a psychological trick, but one that may backfire if people stop making only essential journeys, social distancing, and isolating where necessary. To be fair, that was already beginning to happen (with the arrival of summer weather), so it is a difficult thing to manage in a country that has no means to enforce it. But that is why we also now have the second highest (declared) death rate in the world.

This is where we get into the realm of antigenic shift vs drift. And also, the immune system ability to produce antibodies decreases with age. At the same time, the abundance of certain receptors that viruses need to infect cells increases. Pseudoviruses have no ability to replicate, even if they infect a living cell, but at the same time, viral load is the consideration for immucompromised people. Why? Because the risk of a pseudovirus mutating is real also once it enters a living organism. Influenza A has mutation 'shifts' regularly. That means small changes in the antigenic makeup of the surface antigens. It needs no other virus or viral strain to do this. And migratory birds are monitored all year round to produce the vaccine. It is a well practised process. 'Drift' however is what leads to pandemics, needs an intermediate host usually, and involves a mutation between two strains of the same virus or two completely different viruses to create a novel (new) virus. This is much rarer for obvious reasons.

I used the word chemist because I hoped it would be an easier concept to grasp (given that it is a core subject at school level) ;) Completely agree with this; 'Anyway I blame Brexit and soft nationalism for tosh like yours. Degrading experts and encouraging the masses not to further their education. I keenly await your response!' With pandemics though, you can not hide from the science and dependence on experts. This is why populist leaders and their hardcore fans are floundering. The public have been reminded of the importance of experts and data. Populism however depends on wilfull ignorance and propaganda. Textbooks are still very much a part of education at all levels. Why? Because they provide the grounding from which to understand the language of research papers. Textbooks are also updated regularly.

There would be no point in vaccinating everyone from seasonal flu because it mutates frequently. That's why we only vaccinate vulnerable groups that may benefit from it in that season. But as you also point out, that vaccine has varying rates of success from season to season, mainly because it is created for a predicted mutation of the flu virus. Sometimes what arrives is not really what was expected. Overall though, I would argue that flu vaccines do a good job of keeping annual death rates at lower levels. The caveat though is that we could still see a flu pandemic if a particularly virulent strain appeared.

Try comparing Sweden to like for like nations and it tells a different story. Compared to Finland and Norway, Sweden is not doing so well.

I would use the app but for that to be of use needs enough people using it who keep their phones on. So I can see shortfalls in relying on that alone to contain a new rise in infection rates. We are going to need a range of approaches to reduce the risks imo. Testing and social distancing are still probably the best tools in the box.

All of us would die from a whole range of bacterial and viral infections if we had sufficiently compromised immune systems. The point here though is that it is a NEW virus. One of the first things to be measured when a new virus emerges, is mode of transmission and rate of infection. If spread is fast enough and people are becoming seriously ill in significant numbers, you assume the worst until you know what you are dealing with. Some things can be understood relatively quickly, like transmission, symptoms, mortality. Other things take much longer to measure, learn and understand. It really doesn't matter that many of those who have died had underlying conditions. All that means is that they were living with an existing but manageable condition, which became unmanageable once this new virus entered their body and started infecting cells. To suggest that COVID is not really the cause of death here is a denial of the facts. Even healthy people who recover at home have a rough time of it, and a significant percentage of them need ICU care to recover. There is no other virus or cause of death killing people in these numbers at the moment. On top of that, today we became the country with the worst death toll in Europe. Lock down has prevented that figure being higher than it already is.