Allegedly, this “new” mutant strain was first reported in October, having been picked up by a test in September, in Kent, but the government knew nothing about it until last week. If true, this indicates that the information channels are not working. If it isn’t true, and the government did know about it sooner, then leaving London at Tier 2 and not moving it to Tier 3 sooner, indicates another massive own goal by the government. With cases of the new mutated virus being rampant across the south east, and now spreading to other parts of the country, it’s a fair assumption that London could be the hub.
They were utterly desperate to get people out doing their Christmas shopping, that much was patently clear. If it kills a few thousand people to do so, well for them that was a possibility worth risking. They really are the worst.
That's paranoia. No government wants people to die....firstly, because they are human too and secondly, because it doesn't reflect well on them if you want to be cynical, Countries all over Europe were hoping for a Xmas to lift spirits and have now had to go into lockdown.....not just here. People have some responsibility for themselves...shop by all means, but I would never shop in a major centre and certainly not without a mask. The truth is that governments in the 21st century are too swayed by the media and whingers on the internet...may be ok in normal circumstances, but not in a time of crisis. What we needed was Margaret Thatcher....make a decision and see it through. You may not always be right (who is) but you would be clear and not vacillate with every wind change. Boris Johnson is not evil and does not have ill intent...but sometimes you can't be kind, you have to be decisive. Will add it is always a balancing act....we may have to start living again and accept that our average life span may be reduced. Hope not, but this may be here for some time.
That is true re Johnson - there's a very good article in The Times by Emily Foges (who worked with him for years) saying that he is so desperate to be liked, he won't make the tough decisions. He wants to be the good guy. But that weakness is costing lives. That part isn't paranoia. I don't mean to suggest that they want people to die, but their indecisiveness, coupled with their bowing to economic and social pressure too easily, is resulting in that.
This is well worth a read from (the always excellent) Matthew Syed too - Well, who saw that coming, except most of us? New, tighter restrictions have been imposed on London and the southeast, because of a new strain of the virus. The kind of Christmas many had hoped for has effectively been cancelled. What is certain is that the latest about-turn will be pounced on by critics as yet more evidence of a chronically incompetent government. But it might be worth pausing for a moment and taking a fresh look at this tumultuous year. For when you plot the graphs of daily infections in the period since January, you cannot help being struck by the similarity of outcomes between the UK, Italy, France and, to a lesser extent, Germany. It is as if western countries have been looking at what “peer” nations are doing and then dancing to the same tune. This was true in March, when the UK felt it could no longer go it alone in allowing the virus to spread after Italy, France and Germany had locked down earlier in the month. It was true in early summer, when one western nation opening up put pressure on others to follow suit. It is also the pattern today, with European nations loosening up for Christmas after America had done so for Thanksgiving — with the UK only belatedly changing course. The point is that the similarity of the graphs across the G7 subset of western nations has less to do with the properties of the pathogen than the psychology of staying close to the herd. It is easier, politically speaking, to fit in with one’s peers. But this raises a question that will, I think, baffle future historians. Why did western nations largely follow one another when there were vastly better role models? Taiwan has endured few deaths from Covid, and its economy has barely been affected, growing this year by more than 2.5%. By controlling the virus with precision techniques such as tech-enabled contract tracing, it didn’t need to resort to crude lockdowns or cancel national celebrations. And it didn’t have to turn cancer and other patients away from hospitals, because there was always spare capacity to deal with them. If nothing else, doesn’t this example show that the “trade-offs” that have dominated debate in the West are largely imaginary? With competent governance, there is no trade-off between lives and livelihoods any more than there is between Covid and non-Covid deaths. By controlling transmission, it is possible to keep the economy open, hospitals open and hospitality open, too. The economy and public health are not in conflict; they are synergistic. The western debate on civil liberties also seems absurd in this context. I mean, would you rather cede a small amount of personal data to help public health authorities identify super-spreaders, as the Taiwanese have done, enabling you to send your children to school, go to work and live your life, or withhold this data and refuse to wear masks, allowing faster spread of the virus, leading to the mass incarceration known as lockdown? So why didn’t we put every effort into following the success stories in east Asia? I can’t help wondering if it was not for scientific reasons but cultural ones. When I have raised the east Asian experience since March, a common response has been: they are not like us! They are automata who do what they are told! It could never work here! We are individualists! This is, at best, misleading. Western populations were highly compliant at the start of the pandemic (albeit with a huge drop-off in the UK after the Barnard Castle incident). Moreover, it is not as if Taiwan is a collectivist paradise. The nation is a vibrant capitalist democracy of 24 million, with a proud tradition of dissent. As the tech magazine Wired put it: “The democracy activists who risked their lives during the martial law era were not renowned for their willingness to accept government orders or preach Confucian social harmony.” It is true that pre-existing differences played a role in the varying outcomes. East Asia may have benefited from a slightly different genetic strain of the virus striking particular areas, and citizens may have superior natural resistance. They had also had the “benefit” of Sars, which provided the impetus to make better preparations. But doesn’t this reinforce the point? If Sars had hit America or France, we would have become infinitely more alert to these blasted pathogens. We would have provided acres of coverage. We would have gained a deeper understanding of exponentiality, rather than mocking Asian nations for “overreacting” to a handful of cases. In other words, the reason we didn’t learn from Asia back then is, I suspect, the same as why we failed to learn now. Indeed, the more I look at the international comparisons, the more I glimpse the influence of psychology. When you look at the similarity of the waves in western nations, you can’t help seeing herd mentality (perhaps “transnational groupthink” is a better phrase) at work. The rate of deaths per million population in France, Italy, Spain, the UK and America is almost identical. But superimpose east Asian nations and you will see a family of graphs utterly different from the West’s — and almost identical with one another. This explanation carries even more weight when you look at our historical inability to look beyond our cultural horizons. Isn’t the entire postwar history of the West a succession of misadventures based on a catastrophic ignorance of the places in which we were intervening? Think of Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, to name but three. The academic Amy Chua has described these as “group-blind mistakes of colossal proportions”. As of today, Taiwan’s death toll is seven, compared with almost 70,000 in the UK. If such a success had occurred in France, there would have been discussion about nothing else. Every meeting in No 10, the Treasury, the Department of Health and Sage would have been about reproducing the success of tech-enhanced tracing, isolating and sophisticated border control. Instead, we have been obsessed with, well, Sweden, the one western nation to have done it a bit differently, but with precious little to teach. When the full history of Covid is written, other factors will doubtless prove significant in explaining the gulf in outcomes, not least luck. We should also note that western nations led the way on vaccines, thank goodness. But when it comes to containing Covid, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that many of the wealthiest nations failed not because of insufficient capacity but because of narrow horizons. That, at least, is my reading of an otherwise baffling year.
"Boris Johnson is not evil and does not have ill intent." Many would beg to differ, his ex wives and mistresses, employers and colleagues and erstwhile cabinet ministers. Boris bats for Boris. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/22/boris-johnson-by-those-who-know-him "we may have to start living again and accept that our average life span may be reduced." Not me Fran I'll never accept such a premise I'll keep myself and loved ones safe to live out our lives to the full span.
Boris Johnson’s need to be loved is one of the qualities that makes him unfit to govern. “Uneasy hangs the head that wears the crown”, but Boris has no appetite for that sort of responsibility or personal sacrifice. Factor in all the evidence that he is incapable of loving anyone or anything but himself, and you have a personality disorder bordering on psychopathy.
Moral evil and natural suffering Evil Evil is a cause of human suffering. There are two types of evil: moral evil – the acts of humans which are considered to be morally wrong, eg murder and theft natural evil – natural disasters, eg earthquakes or tsunamis, which humans have no control over These two types of evil can work together - moral evil can make natural evil worse. For example if a drought (natural evil) causes crops to fail, the policies of a government can make food shortages for the poorest people worse (moral evil). I think Johnson qualifies under moral evil and he has certainly made a “natural evil” (coronavirus) worse by his poor decision making, which may or may not have been influenced by putting the economy, and the wealth of his donors, before the lives of the public.
My point is that we may not have a choice...these viruses may be here to stay...and we have to accept it. I'm not proposing taking risks at the moment or even the near future...but eventually we will have to come out of the bunker. The only real chance is a viable vaccine....combined with the ability to keep ahead of any changes and/or new viruses. There is a reasonable chance of success in that area...so let's be positive. Hopefully, I will be tomorrow....today I am in a mood.
Pretty dire here at the moment (like most places) As well as rising infection rates there are thousands of lorrys crammed in purpose built (for brexit) lorry parks and motorway lanes turned into lorry parks. This higher mutated strain reportedly at its highest in Kent is as likely the result of being brought in from the continent, either from the busiest port or eurotunnel with thousands of continental freight going through the county each day. Dover alone has 10,000 lorries travelling through Calais and Dover every day. And now more than 40 countries ban UK arrivals because of this new variant in the uk. Mmmmmm I wonder how it might have got here in the 1st place.
check out there website... news from mid-June is just Covid news. Data is just Covid numbers by country. Just a sham. I recall a reporter outside a factory in the UK where the MD had said they had tried really hard to contact the government to help supply PPE but had doors shut or no response. They ended up shipping their product abroad. only one word fits: fraud.
Hey, come on RAWMOK I heard Grant himself say at 5:30 this evening it was down to 170 lorries on the motorway. This was about 6 minutes after I heard on the radio there was 700. They wouldn’t have been telling us porkies would they?? Anyway, you stay safe and keep out of harms way!
Deluded. But this will probably be front page in the right wing media and be believed by many of the readers.
