British Lockdown Updates

[-:Undertaker:-]

British Lockdown Updates

- All of Scotland to close its bars and pubs
- City of Liverpool worst affected in England and has closed gyms, pubs and bars
- Northern Ireland rumoured to be on the verge of closing hospitality sector
- Criticism of Coronavirus measures as being an 'overreaction' increasing from scientists and media



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Last week, the signs were growing that this dictatorship of stupidity may at last be coming to an end.

Distinguished scientists around the world are demanding sanity. Even our pathetic MPs are beginning to wonder if they have been had. The media are slowly waking up to their proper duty of questioning authority.

The fact that most people who get Covid-19 are just fine is starting to sink in.

The mad shutdown measures are visibly not working, because you might as well seek to control the wind by law as try to control a virus by shutting pubs or wearing a damp nappy on your face.

Demands for the evidence behind these measures are met with coughing and shuffling, because this evidence does not actually exist.

Those robbed of livelihoods have started to realise that this is not some summer dream but that they are on the dreary slope that leads to Universal Credit and penury.

Be patient. But be angry as well. This too will pass, if we resist it, but I truly hope, for the sake of social peace, that nobody dares to stop a son hugging his grieving mother ever again.

Opposition now to all this is spreading in the media/among scientists & journalists, with the British public becoming more sceptical.

The fact is, as Lord Sumption has been saying for many weeks now, these sorts of rules are unenforceable in a free society and won't work.

Over 80 MPs 9 of which 40 were Tories - rebelled against the 10pm curfew so opposition is even growing within Parliament.

Thoughts?

[Shannon]

Pretty pointless bringing in tiers if they are on about a mini 2/3 week lockdown during half term.

I genuinely think borris is obsessed with nandos and is sat there scratching his head for ideas. 100% if I want to get drunk and go out on the lash earlier, this 10pm cerfew is noncence and I would be more inclined to go to a house party anyway again breaking social distancing.

Give it another month and we will all be wearing wrist trackers.

The whole thing infuriates me. We should have been lockdown sooner, kept in lockdown for a longer period, school openings staggered and unis that were able to move to online learning and reduce the costs.

[-:Undertaker:-]

- Travel to Wales from Covid hotspots is to be banned.
- Northern Ireland closes all bars, restaurants and even schools.


Pretty pointless bringing in tiers if they are on about a mini 2/3 week lockdown during half term.

I genuinely think borris is obsessed with nandos and is sat there scratching his head for ideas. 100% if I want to get drunk and go out on the lash earlier, this 10pm cerfew is noncence and I would be more inclined to go to a house party anyway again breaking social distancing.

Give it another month and we will all be wearing wrist trackers.

The whole thing infuriates me. We should have been lockdown sooner, kept in lockdown for a longer period, school openings staggered and unis that were able to move to online learning and reduce the costs.

The thing is, they could lock us down for one month, two months, a year or two years and the virus will still be with us and then come back. It's like whackamole.

The economy is going to be holed below the waterline. God help us if a great depression hits and we can't even afford to turn the lights on.

[-:Undertaker:-]

- London is being moved from Tier 1 to Tier 2
- Lancashire and Greater Manchester are rumoured to be facing the same Tier 3 measures as Liverpool
- Scotland is considering travel restrictions

[Jarkie]

So liverpool are taking the tier 3 well:

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/party-scenes-liverpool-last-night-22841407

[FlyingJesus]

Can't possibly imagine why things are so much worse in the areas where people don't believe in the virus and think going on out the lash is more important than keeping people alive

[-:Undertaker:-]

Can't possibly imagine why things are so much worse in the areas where people don't believe in the virus and think going on out the lash is more important than keeping people alive

Maybe it's possible that people living in cities find it harder to socially distance given the higher population density than in the leafy shires? Perhaps people in the north *have* to go to work even if they don't particularly want to, to survive given wages are lower here, rather than sit at home and see their business/job go to the wall?

[FlyingJesus]

Yeah those people partying in the street at night definitely look like they're on the way to work

[-:Undertaker:-]

Yeah those people partying in the street at night definitely look like they're on the way to work

Let's hide behind our pillows then and never go out.

[FlyingJesus]

Not what I said, but right now it just shows a disregard for human life (especially with the "herd immunity here we come" posts) and isn't necessary. A wednesday night rave consisting of enormous groups battling the police is not needed. Nice of you to seemingly change your tack and admit that it's nothing to do with people going to work though, it was even more disingenuous of you than usual to try claiming that it was - especially after your post the other day stating that most of the people you saw in Liverpool aren't bothering with distancing or masks. I wonder what tangent you'll go off on for your next post

[-:Undertaker:-]

- Wales goes into 17-day lockdown closing all bars, restaurants and non-essential businesses.

Beyond absurd. So many generally healthy and young people are going to die of cancer, heart problems and suicide because of this. We're already reading cases of cancer going terminal. We know how bad recessions can be, but imagine an economic depression. We're talking starvation, social unrest and even revolutions.


Not what I said, but right now it just shows a disregard for human life (especially with the "herd immunity here we come" posts) and isn't necessary. A wednesday night rave consisting of enormous groups battling the police is not needed. Nice of you to seemingly change your tack and admit that it's nothing to do with people going to work though, it was even more disingenuous of you than usual to try claiming that it was - especially after your post the other day stating that most of the people you saw in Liverpool aren't bothering with distancing or masks. I wonder what tangent you'll go off on for your next post

Those who support lockdowns and restrictions seem to think they can accuse anyone who dares disagree as not caring about other people. It's a nice trick which deflects from the logic of the argument, which is that the virus is making its way through the population and will continue to do so unless a vaccine/army on the streets lockdown.

[dbgtz]

am i living in satire

[-:Undertaker:-]

am i living in satire

No, you're living in a free country where numerous scientists and legal experts and a significant portion of the population disagree with you.

I would like lockdowners such as yourself to tell us just how many cancelled operations, bankrupt businesses and months locked indoors we are expected to endure to achieve.... what exactly?

https://gbdeclaration.org/

[dbgtz]

i was actually referring to you talking about giving a crap about people and trying to bring logic into something, 2 things you have famously avoided

btw polling has a majority people supporting lockdown, you lost get over it

[-:Undertaker:-]

i was actually referring to you talking about giving a crap about people and trying to bring logic into something, 2 things you have famously avoided

btw polling has a majority people supporting lockdown, you lost get over it

Of course I care about people, which is why I am arguing we don't have millions of people lose their jobs in a pointless effort to stop a virus we cannot stop.

I assume you still have a job? Easy to sit at home still employed and call for more lockdowns... not so easy if your business is facing ruin.

[-:Undertaker:-]

- Manchester has now been placed under a tier 3 lockdown
- Rumours a national lockdown is next to come

And now here's some sanity from Lord Sumption in the Daily Mail as to why the public ought to flout and not follow this disasterous and pointless policy.



https://unherd.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/sump.jpg


Everything in science is provisional but one thing is certain about Covid-19. Lockdowns do not stop the disease.

They merely postpone infections until after they are lifted. They can work only if they are kept in place indefinitely. We do not need epidemiologists or mathematical modellers to tell us this.

All we need to do is look out of the window and see what is happening in the world. Infections are roaring up in every country where a lockdown has been imposed.

We are now about to go through a repeat performance of a policy that has demonstrably failed.

Our Government is planning to destroy businesses and jobs, to increase poverty, to aggravate mental illness, and to inflict untold distress on many millions of active and healthy people who are unlikely to suffer serious symptoms even if they are infected.

There will be layers of humbug to divert attention from what they are doing. Ministers will heave and moan about the pain that this causes them, as they assure us that it will all be worth it in the end.

The Leader of the Opposition will throw in his hap’orth of support for some of the most poorly reasoned decisions of modern times. But failed policies are never worth it.

If politicians want to be taken seriously, they have serious questions to answer which they have evaded so far.

First, what are they trying to achieve? Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the House of Commons last week that the object was to ‘suppress’ the virus. But what does that mean?

The Government has accepted since May that Covid-19 is going to be with us long-term. Its scientific advisers have consistently said that lockdowns only buy time.

If the Government is trying to buy time, which seems to be the most that its measures could ever achieve, what is the use of that? The virus will still be there waiting for us when time is up.

Buying time until what? Until the NHS has caught up? It caught up in April, the one thing for which Mr Hancock deserves unstinting praise.

Until the Government has acquired enough basic competence to run a proper test-and-trace programme? Will it ever?

Until there is a vaccine? We do not know when that will be, or how effective it will be.

Some vaccines give lifelong protection against smallpox or measles. The consensus seems to be that an anti-Covid vaccine is unlikely to do that.

Like the flu vaccine, it seems more likely to confer only a partial and temporary immunity, and then not on everyone.

The most bizarre feature of the current situation is the refusal of Ministers to learn from experience. If a total lockdown of several months did not work, either here or anywhere else, why does the Government imagine that lesser measures such as the Rule of Six, travel bans, pub curfews or two-week ‘circuit-breakers’ will do any better?

The reality is we have no idea what our Government thinks it is doing. In the absence of answers to these fairly obvious questions, we have to assume that Ministers have no idea either. We are not told what their exit plan is, presumably because they do not have one, apart from ‘Something will turn up’.

There is a variety of different views in the world of epidemiologists and immunologists – 35,000 or so public health scientists and medical practitioners have signed up to the Great Barrington Declaration, drawn up by three eminent specialists a fortnight ago.

They point out that indiscriminate attempts to stop infections prevent healthy people from acquiring natural immunity and that buying time only prolongs the crisis. Both of these things are likely to increase deaths.

The signatories argue that we should protect the vulnerable who are at risk of serious illness or death and allow the others who are not at risk to be exposed to the disease and acquire some immunity.

Nobody, least of all the declaration’s authors, pretends that this is a perfect solution. It will not eliminate all deaths. Natural immunity may not last (although it will last at least as long as a vaccine).

There will be some whose vulnerabilities are not identified. There will be vulnerable people who would rather take the risk and enjoy life. But it is a better bet than the current ill-thought-out measures. The Great Barrington Declaration approach may or may not be right but it is at least a coherent case. It stacks up.

The Government’s case does not stack up. It is full of holes, left by the silence of Ministers. So far, the only response of the lockdown enthusiasts has been an attempt to smear the Great Barrington authors with allegations they are the tools of Right-wing doctrinaires or antisemites. If there was a better answer than abuse, we would no doubt have heard it.

The programme of the Great Barrington scientists is at least consistent with experience. The success of the Swedish model has been passed over in embarrassment by UK Ministers who have no answer to it.

Stockholm, where the epidemic struck hardest in the spring, has a density of population, an age balance and a public health system comparable to those of major British cities. But we have preferred to follow the example of countries that have failed to contain the virus rather than the one country that appears to have succeeded.

There is a nasty divide opening up between those who want to take reasonable steps to protect themselves and live as normally as possible without going over the top and zealots who think that, as a matter of principle, the state should take over our lives, occupy our sitting rooms and keep us infantilised at home. What has happened to rational thought in Britain?

Rational thought has been banished by fear. Fear encourages unthinking responses. It leads to intolerant conformism and ill-tempered abuse of anyone who steps out of line.

It provokes panicked demands for government action, without reflecting on the limits of what government action can achieve. This is an atmosphere in which the advocates of coercion and authoritarian styles of government have always thrived.

But the main culprits are not the public but Ministers, who have got caught in a trap of their own making. They stoked up people’s fears to justify their decisions and induce compliance. They promised the impossible and, when the inevitable failure came, they blamed it on the public for not complying with their commands. The real reason Ministers have not dared to answer the questions posed by their policies is that their purpose is not to suppress the virus, which they must know is impossible. It is to shield themselves from responsibility.

They believe they will be criticised for the Covid-19 deaths but that they will get away with the indirect consequences of their brutal countermeasures: the cancer deaths, the loneliness and mental breakdowns, the poverty and job destruction, the public and private bankruptcy. Truth is the first victim of this process but it is not very high on this Government’s agenda.

Having got itself into a pattern of coercion, the Government does not dare to change course, for fear of discrediting its own past decisions.

Yet even fear has its limits. As public trust drains away, it is forced to keep up the atmosphere of panic by ever more hyped-up alarms, misleading statistics, draconian fines, bullying threats, appeals to sneaks and informers and cavalier disregard for the basic values by which people live.

I have yet to meet anyone in London who intends to comply with the ban on receiving friends and family in their house. So here is a final question for the Government to answer: Why on earth should they?

[-:Undertaker:-]

As the government plunges South Yorkshire into economic abyss, a plain-talking Granny speaks for common sense.

Exactly what my 85 year old Grandad says.

1318937308297596928

[-:Undertaker:-]

The lunatic Welsh First Minister (whatever his name is, Labour though) has ordered shops only sell what HE deems "essential items".

I feel like we're living in some creepy North Korean state where Little Hitler politicians who crave power now have their chance to ban shopping, issue draconian fines, tell you what you're allowed to wear and if you're allowed to see your family and friends. As a Conservative voter I am appalled in this government allowing this including the balkanisation of national policy. Sturgeon, this Welsh fella and crackpot mayors are going one step further than even Matt Hancock. Shame on them ALL.


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