The big Coronavirus thread

Pross

Listening to Jeremy Vine just now (I know but it was a short trip in the car and I couldn't be bothered to turn over). There seem to be quite a number of people calling in along the lines of the report being hindsight and the important thing is learning from it and not judging on what we know now.

I was quite generous to the Government in the early stages on the basis that it was something we had experience of in the past 100 years but surely seeking advice from those (mainly SE Asia) that have had similar problems in the recent past seems like a big error even if not everything could translate directly. Failure to close down borders and allow big events to go ahead when others had already locked down were massive failings. Being an island nation should have had big advantages and sending people back to care homes without proper testing was scandalous.

kingstongraham

The report doesn't take much notice of how many fewer deaths there could have been in the first wave from precautionary action being taken even a few days earlier than it was.

It also seems from some of the reaction that the buck stops with Whitty and Vallance.

rick_chasey

It would be great if Britain returned to being a country that learned from everyone to be great at everything, rather than assuming British is necessarily best.

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

It would be great if Britain returned to being a country that learned from everyone to be great at everything, rather than assuming British is necessarily best.

When was this?

kingstongraham

rick_chasey said:

It would be great if Britain returned to being a country that learned from everyone to be great at everything, rather than assuming British is necessarily best.

That is one of the key findings of the report.

Depressingly, the line coming from the government seems to be "we are determined to learn any lessons from the pandemic, but we didn't make any mistakes."

rick_chasey

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

It would be great if Britain returned to being a country that learned from everyone to be great at everything, rather than assuming British is necessarily best.

When was this?

I feel in the 00s Britain generally was open to other styles of doing things?

Maybe I am falling into the boomer trap of thinking the world or era in which I came of age was optimum.

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

pblakeney said:

rick_chasey said:

It would be great if Britain returned to being a country that learned from everyone to be great at everything, rather than assuming British is necessarily best.

When was this?

I feel in the 00s Britain generally was open to other styles of doing things?

Maybe I am falling into the boomer trap of thinking the world or era in which I came of age was optimum.

Yup. Some of the public may have been open to influences, but not as a country.
That was the Blair era of trying to promote Britain as a brand.

rick_chasey

Fair.

TheBigBean

Despite fuel and sparkling water shortages, the IMF still forecasts that the UK will grow the most out of the G7. This does reflect the larger recession in 2020 though.

rick_chasey

Without the context of the rona drop this entire table is meaningless.

elbowloh

TheBigBean said:

Despite fuel and sparkling water shortages, the IMF still forecasts that the UK will grow the most out of the G7. This does reflect the larger recession in 2020 though.

We had the biggest drop in 2020 though. So we'll only have net 2% ish increase right over 2019?

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

Without the context of the rona drop this entire table is meaningless.

Some people are unaware that 2020 was affected by Covid? This is the covid thread.

Jezyboy

elbowloh said:

TheBigBean said:

Despite fuel and sparkling water shortages, the IMF still forecasts that the UK will grow the most out of the G7. This does reflect the larger recession in 2020 though.

We had the biggest drop in 2020 though. So we'll only have net 2% ish increase right over 2019?

Compared to 2019 I make it 2% for the Euro Zone and 0.4% for the UK... Probably doing my sums wrong.

rick_chasey

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

Without the context of the rona drop this entire table is meaningless.

Some people are unaware that 2020 was affected by Covid? This is the covid thread.

I don’t have the “gap to pre rona trend” calculation to hand. Do you?

bm5

elbowloh said:

mully79 said:

Covid is mostly just click bait rather than a threat now.
Ignore the bs stats and push on.

Not so much clickbait for the 30 or so people a day who are dying from it in the UK.

800 registered deaths in the past week. Over 100 every day and rising again unfortunately.

Pross

What's the point of a growing economy if you can't buy sparkling water though? We may as well have a subsistence economy.

Pross

bm5 said:

elbowloh said:

mully79 said:

Covid is mostly just click bait rather than a threat now.
Ignore the bs stats and push on.

Not so much clickbait for the 30 or so people a day who are dying from it in the UK.

800 registered deaths in the past week. Over 100 every day and rising again unfortunately.

It needs the usual caveat I presume i.e. that the UK stats are people who tested positive for Covid in the preceding 28 days?

Jezyboy

bm5 said:

elbowloh said:

mully79 said:

Covid is mostly just click bait rather than a threat now.
Ignore the bs stats and push on.

Not so much clickbait for the 30 or so people a day who are dying from it in the UK.

800 registered deaths in the past week. Over 100 every day and rising again unfortunately.

I would say deaths have been reasonably steady for the past month. Monday was higher this week than last, but the preceding days lower.

And the background of this is lots of people acting in a far more normal manner than they have been for the past year and a half.

rick_chasey

Pross said:

What's the point of a growing economy if you can't buy sparkling water though? We may as well have a subsistence economy.

Last days of Rome

TheBigBean

rick_chasey said:

TheBigBean said:

rick_chasey said:

Without the context of the rona drop this entire table is meaningless.

Some people are unaware that 2020 was affected by Covid? This is the covid thread.

I don’t have the “gap to pre rona trend” calculation to hand. Do you?

I've posted the economic impact of covid and the forecast recovery in the covid thread, because it might be of interest. I've no idea what data you are looking for.

rick_chasey

So until we have a year of no corona restrictions, annual or quarterly GDP growth is meaningless unless plotted against the pre corona trend

kingstonian

Well, it tells us what has happened in terms of growth/decline since Covid, so is meaningful in terms of showing whether a country is back to where it was immediately before Covid turned things upside down.

briantrumpet

kingstonian said:

Well, it tells us what has happened in terms of growth/decline since Covid, so is meaningful in terms of showing whether a country is back to where it was immediately before Covid turned things upside down.

Shush, we don't want to know that in case it tells us that Brexit isn't all it was cracked up to be.

briantrumpet

Tales from the coalface: covid ripping through schools this week. If that was the government's aim, then call it a success. It's also making parents and teachers ill, though not hospitalised-ill, from the people I know.

kingstonian

Yep, a good mate of mine that recently had a career change and went into teaching in a secondary school has just recovered from a bout of Covid.

briantrumpet

kingstonian said:

Yep, a good mate of mine that recently had a career change and went into teaching in a secondary school has just recovered from a bout of Covid.

We've got two years having to stay masked at all times indoors. It's just as well it's not cold yet, as at least those who seem to think that viruses disappear when there's a slight chill in the air haven't had a good reason to shut all means of ventilation yet. And our half term starts at the weekend, so that might give it a chance to damp down, while the vaccines done ten days ago for the 12-15yo's should help too once we're in November. The end of this week can't come soon enough.

Pross

briantrumpet said:

kingstonian said:

Yep, a good mate of mine that recently had a career change and went into teaching in a secondary school has just recovered from a bout of Covid.

We've got two years having to stay masked at all times indoors. It's just as well it's not cold yet, as at least those who seem to think that viruses disappear when there's a slight chill in the air haven't had a good reason to shut all means of ventilation yet. And our half term starts at the weekend, so that might give it a chance to damp down, while the vaccines done ten days ago for the 12-15yo's should help too once we're in November. The end of this week can't come soon enough.

We started back at choir a few weeks ago and one of our mitigation measures is to have the main door and fire exit open. It was made clear that this was the case when people were asked if they wanted to start back and for them to dress accordingly. Sunday before last one of the women decided it was too cold so got up and shut the door.

rick_chasey

The Welsh guy is in a choir, amazing

Pross

rick_chasey said:

The Welsh guy is in a choir, amazing

I'm in two, the other is a full cliche male voice choir.

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

The Welsh guy is in a choir, amazing

Dutch guy is abrupt, amazing.