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52 deaths in South Lakeland - in the whole of Cumbria it is likely to be 1/3 higher than average apparently. The higher average age of the local population is felt to be an important factor.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witton Park
https://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co...ional-average/
I completely understand locals enjoying it when the tourists are not there... to relate back to Neilly, i was in Skye in February of last year and it was fantastic to be up there when it was so quiet (excepting the times i was within the vicinity of Sligachan car park, i never saw a soul on the mountains in 100 miles and a week of running).Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike T
I was assured by many people in cafe's/shops that it was vastly different in the height of summer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzKQJXhTUC0
Anyone remember this from the 70s? I was only a kid but the title sequence sticks in my memory and it was a gripping series.
Chinese lab, accidentally leaks the lurgy which spreads around the world via air travel :eek:
No apology needed.
For me it is worrying just how polarised such as Brexit and corbynism have been.
Friends are no longer friends. For me it is sad how erstwhile friends have blocked over a dispute on how best to run economies. For those old enough to remember the vitriol is Reminiscent of the miners strike. Some of those communities, even family members still won’t talk to each other now.
Some of the language of hate has worrying precedents.
“ Tory cockroaches “
“all Brexiteers are racist”
“ austerity murderers”
The rhetoric against jewish labour MPs.
It hasn’t stopped at words, Vigilante actions matching words on coronavirus, burnings of houses and paint stripper on cars.
History records that similar words were used in Rwanda of one faction by the other
“ cockroaches” was the mantra before one of the worst genocides in history, a word used before many civil wars. Even now those committing atrocities have no idea how they slipped into them. A slippery slope of the language of hate. Before too long hate got even worse “ a baby snake is still a snake” was used to take machetes to children.
It has its precedents here. The language of hate against “ scabs” in the miners strike descended from parcels of sh!t through letter boxes to full blown murder, pushing concrete blocks off motorway bridges onto cars containing “scabs”.
When mr McDonnell once called for the “ lynching” of Ester Mcvey, in my view he should have been on charges for incitement, and banned from ever sitting as MP. What would have happened if that spark turned into an unstoppable fire?
Tone it all down is my thought.
Comment on policy not people.
Stay friends.
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Originally Posted by neilly
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike T
AS an off-comer of some 30 years into Cumbria and having run, walked, back packed several thousand miles on foot and Mountain biked a whole load more all on Public Rights of way (not only in Cumbria) I can honestly say that on the odd occaision that my right to cross a piece of land has been challenged it has never been by a native land owner. (Always resolved on production of a map and pointing out my right to be there, mind you the land owners not always understand a map, neither are they always happy when I carry on but hey ho buy a property with a public right of way over the land then expect people to use it.
It is the same when proposed reasonable changes and developements are proposed to improve an area the native locals tend to see it as a long term investment that will help maintain tourism and therefore their liveliehhood and it is usually off-comers and second Home owners that do the objecting mostly along the n.i.m.b.y lines
Like Mike T says the native folk on the whole are great, wellcoming and helpfull and that has been the case from the very first day my wife and I came up here to work,live, and adapt to a different way of thinking and living as a long term members of the community, whilst we realise that even after 30 years we will never be regarded as locals, we do feel that having worked with and involving ourselves in the community we have now been accepted and become part of the that community, and best of all our Daughter and Grandchildren are most definitely Native locals.
Being a Covid 19 hotspot has really borne out the strength of character of the local people in the way that they have pulled together and are looking out for one another.
This post is merely to say what I find on the the ground as a off-comer long term resident and to hopefully balance out the assumptions made by people from afar , as such I have no intention of discussing my life or reasoning.
I will second everything JohnK says, from a small rural community in the heart of Wales.
I think one of the big misunderstandings about second homes holiday homes is that they prop up local business and bring money to the area. They may bring some summer money to a community, pubs, local shops, cafe but there is a downside.
They don't live in the community, so the majority do not contribute to the local community - help with local shows, celidhs, parties, orginsing quize nights - they may attend but there is more to a community than attending, you need to be a part of it.
A house that is occupied 100% by a family also contributes to the local businesses, the pub, the cafe, the shops and it does so 365 days a year, not just weekends or summer months. So which is better for the community? And a family may have kids to go to local schools (they all close down now), maybe the church, the clubs, jobs, care for elderly neighbours, there's many ways a resident home is better for a community than a holiday home.
Some people with these homes put themselves out and really help over the years and are accepted, but I fear most don't and contribute little to the core of a (half empty) village, they take and think a few ££s is giving.
I moved to Skye in 2006. Its a great place to live mainly but, like everywhere, had its problems. The summer is very busy normally but everybody benefits from it. Four months its mobbed but the vast majority of visitors are decent people. We now take all our holidays in cities and wander around getting in the way of locals, holding them up and driving badly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Travs
I can't wait to see visitors again. It makes the place far more interesting and cosmopolitan.
JohnK I bow down to your vast wealth of personal experience... And in 22 years of visiting the Lakes I have only ever encountered one act of hostility...Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnK
But unfortunately it is the (thankfully very rare) acts of vandalism, "f**k off home" signs, etc, which stick in the memory for many people.
Personally I'm in contact with several accommodation owners (both natives and "outsiders") across the UK re my various summer bookings, and without exception they cannot wait to get back to welcoming visitors.
Signs like that would stick in my mind as well if ever I had seen one in the fleshQuote:
Originally Posted by Travs
Having bought my first house in my village in 1988, I moved to another part of my village 1996 but still rented my 1st property.
I live 35 miles away now but still own my 1st home for rental purposes.
Lots of things going through my mind.
How am I supposed to feel??
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Originally Posted by JohnK
Blocked paths and rude signs are all too common at present.
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Originally Posted by Travs
Everyone is different.
Stereotypes are not helpful.
Some live for the weekends spent in country, whilst they exist in cities just to pay bills. I am not one of those, but I have known a few. They may spend less time there, but it is still their spiritual home. Not all are fortunate enough to have income in the country, but second home owners pay rates just like every one else.
Perhaps I’m unusual but I’ve made substantial donations (and helped with fund raising ) for some of the village halls/local projects In communities I visit occasionally. Indeed many such projects beg for tourists to help fund them.
It’s a two way street.
But it isn’t just about rude signs, there have been many of them. Or shops deciding they are arbiters of who they will choose to serve. Nothing excuses drawing pins on roads to frighten cyclists away ( seriously!). I’ve heard so much inflammatory rhetoric from some areas I will never set foot there again, and I hope nobody else does.
Like the Barcelona’s whose out of control youngsters , with apparent complicity of authorities tell tourists to “go home” I hope they turn into the derelict ghost towns, they deserve.
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Originally Posted by molehill
This is a worry:
"First day out of "lock down" in Texas. It's been even worse than I imagined. Almost no one wears a mask in stores. People stand close to each other and block the aisles and at the register they breathe down your neck. It's like never anything happened, the ignorance is astounding."
There is a lovely old property nearby that would make a superb setting for a wedding, and indeed that is their business. A short wide gravelled path with a gate at each end that runs through their property is an excellent short cut but is apparently not a right of way. Well before Covid I was going along this path with a group of fell runners when the owner came out and told us to get off. She lost so much potential business that day. Memories are long.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
a bit like fell racing. Trying to find marshalls, registration, number recorders, timekeepers....everyone wants to run :oQuote:
Originally Posted by molehill
What I have feared is turning true.
It does not matter if supermarkets are stocked for those with no money to pay.
Fights are breaking out in southern Italy because of mass poverty. Those told they cannot work have nothing to eat.
Surely the most ardent remainer can no longer support EU, after the refusal to help southern states except on punitive terms. I’m allright jack say Holland and Germany. Germany allowing Holland to say it, but supported by Germany just the same.
Inevitably anti EU sentiment is growing, There is close to majority for leaving EU in Italy.
Another fault in construction of EU is exposed by this: the myopic liberal elite talk of the need for free movement , and cite our health service workers moving to U.K. to support their sophistry. Always it is about their health service , never the damage they do to those countries. These liberal elite are utterly wrong.
Do they know half of the medical staff qualifying in such as Romania or Estonia immediately move for a multiple of the salary to elsewhere in the block? Even Finland pays Estonians four times the salary. All that expensive training is funding richer countries. Still Romanians have few doctors.
It is killing these poor states literally, now some have 100k journeys to the nearest doctor. Those people didn’t vote for the well-being they thought the EU would bring, they voted to escape to elsewhere. Now with COVID the theft of east European medical staff by us is hurting those countries badly.
Just as our medical staff steal the training we pay for to take it to New Zealand or Aus. Worse still they sell it back to NHS on contractor not employee rates. It is wrong.
Staff moving or coming back as contractors within a period of say 10 years should pay the full cost of their training as it is in industry.
Free movement denudes countries of their professional classes , and with it any hope of recovery.
The EU should have been constructed in a way that makes everywhere in the block just as attractive to work, so that populations mix not migrate.
Meanwhile today’s absurdity.
The telegraph lambasted the government today for way overestimating the numbers of beds needed hence the nightingales are empty. Exactly the Same press that lambasted the government for not nearly enough ventilators or intensive care beds only a couple of weeks ago.
Meanwhile it isn’t the government anyway, it is a consensus of medical advisors headed by Chris Witty who are faced with a ten to one opinion difference from medical models at imperial or oxford and others. Even US universities are chiming in with figures that differ from those about us.
And whatever the government chooses from the mayhem of medics who can’t agree, the rest of the medics all feel empowered to say that whatever their peers chose to do was wrong, and the “ government” is making a pigs ear of it. All use the word “ could” not “ will” to avoid being told their criticism was wrong in hindsight.
Reality is nobody knows. It’s not an exact science. I have no argument with the variety of obinions BUT nobody has the right to play holier than thou.
It used to be said of economists, that get ten economists together you would have eleven opinions.
Epidemiologists have well trumped that. It is fun looking at journalists who look back through what they said and point out that these medics in all too many cases contradict what they said only one month before, I’ve seen a few.
Streuth.
If I were Boris I would lock them all in a room and tell them they don’t get fed until they come up with a consensus they all stand by, including BMC, and the insufferable lefty loony John Ashton, with no right to dissent later. If they all choose to starve “ on principle” , for the right to dissent, good riddance, there are plenty more where they came from!
By then there'd be no taxpayers left to pay them :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
What others think of the UK's response:
https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/...28-p54o2d.html
I couldn't give a toss what others think.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike T
+1 for thatQuote:
Originally Posted by Llani Boy
Simple case of Damned if you do Damned if you dont!
+1 for thatQuote:
Originally Posted by Llani Boy
A simple case of Damned if you do Damned if you dont
.... er - OK - what do you think?Quote:
Originally Posted by Llani Boy
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1....24.20078717v1
A little light reading.
I can't see that lockdown measures have achieved anything. I don't hammer those who took the decisions. As Oracle says, what do you do when you have experts with so many different views?
The best of intentions, but little effect.
Journalists have one main objective. To increase newspaper circulation/readership. So contentious codswallop dressed up as beard stroking opinion is a common method to achieve this. JohnK, as ever, puts it in a nutshell.
Curious it does not mention Austria or Germany, much less Oz, NZ ...Quote:
Originally Posted by Witton Park
The only country where you can make a reasonable comparison would be Germany.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mike T
Large population.
Pockets of dense population.
Large intercontinental hub airport.
I have my opinion son why Germany has been less effected which I have touched on elsewhere.
Austria and NZ would not be comparable for many reasons.
I agree with parts of the article that Mike T linked, in particular the failure to perform large scale testing until recently. As many people with the virus are asymptomatic, medical staff will have unwittingly passed it on to patients. Likewise not testing elderly patients before being released back to their care homes was a dreadful mistake.
This is where Germany has been so much better than the UK. Yet it needn't have been like that. We did have the capacity to do more testing in this country using university and private labs as Germany did. The scandal is that Public Health England chose to ignore them. It is a similar story with the procurement of PPE, where British firms have ended up exporting equipment as their offers to supply in the UK went unheeded.
As mentioned in a previous post, the decision by Australia and New Zealand to close their borders at an early stage, was clearly the right one. Why we didn't do it beggars belief. But as also mentioned before, you can't really compare the UK's figures to those two countries as they are both more remote and have much less population density.
There appears to be evidence emerging that a deficiency in Vitamin D makes you both more likely to contract Covid-19 and suffer adverse complications if you have it. Vitamin D is supposed to increase the production of antiviral proteins and decreases cytokines. A "cytokine storm" is frequently mentioned in the worst cases where the body's immune system goes mad and starts to attack its own cells.
It has been puzzling why the pandemic has been much so worse in wealthy European countries than third world ones and perhaps a deficiency of Vitamin D in people from the former is part of the reason.
And there was I hoping doctors were objective.
You have demonstrated you will quote anything that attacks the government in your crusade against them: including quoting BBC’s party political broadcast on behalf of loony left called panorama.
Meanwhile there is no evidence that nhs workers were - or are - at much greater risk, indeed the evidence says the opposite. They appear to be safer.
So the confected row over ppc was political, not scientific.
There is no consensus or clear answer to handling the pandemic and staying solvent.
The incessant attacks don’t help.
There really was a world shortage of pipe with orders placed in February cancelled and the procurement guys did a Stirling job.
One day the medical profession will realise the world cannot devote the entire country resources to them.
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Originally Posted by Mike T
On various points.Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Retriever
1/ Testing is not as easy as journalists have led you to believe, nor is it a panacea.
Tests are only as good as the test set used to validate them, and with a proportion of the population assymptomatic, and a proportion of those with symptoms not necessarily having Corona, there are both false negatives and positives in the tests sets. If tests are only 80 percent, they are of little use for control. Validation takes a long time and a lot of people. There have many false starts in testing. Did Germany do well because of testing or in spite of it? Who knows?
2/ Belgium and Germany were both testing heavily. The results for belgium, not so good. Populations are clearly different. It might interest you to know that amongst other conditions with immune system overreaction aspects : asthma is a lot lower in Germany than in neighbouring countries. Indeed the countries fairing badly with this have a correlation with those fairing badly on asthma too.
3/ OH (who as ex scientific director of a big biotech lab, has a qualified opinion) thinks that the problem with corona is a possible cytokine storm, that is the body inflammation response overreacting, further that the reason it is not spreading like wildfire in poor countries, is they live in altogether dirtier environments, their immune systems dont go overboard because of continuous immune response. Just a theory in circulation, needs validation.
4/ University labs are by and large not the places to validate anything. They do not understand regulatory stuff. They have sent OH biotech company on many wild goose chases in the past.
5/ You are right - Public Health England - let us down badly by failing to harness the private sector. Entire biotech labs left idle. It is a systemic problem in the UK. Too many lefties high up in the civil service and health service utterly opposed to use of private resource. We need a stronger private alternative in medicine and more regional autonomy. PHE have proved useless.
6/ Closing borders is a dramatic step, and if you consider france has now validated it had a case in october, what was the point?
In portugal many had corona in january long before cases were recorded. Not surprising, they have many chinese who run the secondary retail sector alternative to the supermarkets. The virus was already here. As it was in all the other countries.
We are living in desparate times. Even this length of closure of our economy will have permanent damage and a massived downturn.
My own opinion for what its worth is when we first heard of the age distribution all the O70s and compromised should have been locked away. Then let it burn out in general population with no damage to the economy. But heres the thing. Nobody will ever know for sure. You cannot run experiments two ways. Sweden is fairing no worse for going an opposite direction.
So all this endless snipting at the "government" is pointless, and incidentally when saying "government" what is meant is a consensus of a team of appointed medical and scientific staff. So substitute "the medical profession" if you want to attack them for poor response.
So the obese starting with the Prime Minster, all ex-smokers, all those with the various frequently-listed diseases,...?Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
Well, that would only leave me, but ooops I'm over 70!
Better turn to Plan B. :)
Perhaps that's a factor, who knows. However, first world countries like Australia and New Zealand have also fared well. I know there are other factors causing this, which I have mentioned myself. But could it partly be that the people there have been getting enough Vitamin D as the outbreak started in their summer and Australia in particular is nearer the Equator? It may be only a minor factor but sounds plausible to me.Quote:
Originally Posted by Oracle
Also, black and people of Asian origin have fared worse in the UK than white people. There could be a number of reasons for that, but it is well known that people with darker skins do not get enough Vitamin D from the sun in climates like ours.
There isn't enough evidence to be sure of anything but I reckon it's no bad thing to be running and cycling at the moment and getting plenty of that sunshine pill.
Germany were the first with a test in the EU. 4 million available by end of Feb (and note they didn't make sure their EU colleagues had plenty).
There's been criticism of the testing in Germany - that they wasted many tests on the fit and well.
I would discount Aus and NZ. Totally different on so many counts.
The way I see this is that all countries were going to get it that have, probably not much we could do about the levels we would get it at because we probably had it here and across the EU in December before we even knew anything about it.
It stands out like a sore thumb to me that the European concentrations are based around the major airport hubs.
Heathrow
Paris CdG
Schipol
3 of the biggest 4 intercontinental hubs
Chuck in Madrid which is the stepping stone from Asia and Europe to South America and you have the worst affected spots.
Brussels not so much an intercontinental hub, but certainly a major EU one.
So the odd one out Frankfurt. Huge volumes of passengers, but they mostly transfer through. The others have a lot more that stop off and visit the city, or stay in the country.
I think Germany's lack of international appeal for tourists when compared to some of the other destinations has played a part in their lower figures so far.
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Originally Posted by Oracle
Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Retriever
As I have often said the world is dealing with the unknown and it is far to early to speculate on the if`s and but`s, better to spend our time deliberating on something we have control over and then Maybe in a couple of years, History may show some positive answers on the current world crisis.
As to the media and press waste of space if looking for facts.
This article would appear to support your view. It's worth a read.Quote:
Originally Posted by Witton Park
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...thout-lockdown
Sweden's current R number is estimated to be 0.85 and this has been achieved without an enforced lockdown. Instead the Swedes have engaged in voluntary social distancing.
Imperial College estimated that without a lockdown, Sweden's R number would grow to between 3 and 4 and that by 1st May, its Covid-19 deaths would have reached 40,000 (nearly 100,000 by June). Actual deaths are in fact 2,680 and daily deaths peaked two weeks ago.
It is worth pointing out that it's Nordic neighbours, which have enforced lockdowns have suffered less deaths. But it is clear that Sweden has fared nowhere near as badly as most experts predicted.
Blimey, a government trusting its people to have common sense! :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Retriever
More seriously the voluntary social distancing is what we have all become used to when we meet other people on our daily exercise, or in the shops. And if the Police didn't have Covid rules to enforce, they could get on with catching criminals, keeping the roads safe from speeding motorists, etc.
Well yes...but I think the population of Sweden is about the same as London and the UK was never going to not fall in line with the "European" model. It is alleged that Macron told Johnson by phone that if the UK didn't follow France the border would be closed immediately and that is when Johnson changed tack. Realpolitik.Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Retriever
And being radical and risking 100,000 or was it 250,000 deaths is not a vote winning approach - much better to play safe. Yes the Swedish model might have made Johnson a hero, but only might and this is politics and Johnson is a politican who wants to be Churchill (saviour of the nation).
Yes, the government has made mistakes in getting to where we are now, although I suggest not as many as the gutter media suggest - my hope is they make fewer in future (or "going forward" as we now appear to say) because that is what matters now.
And as for journalistic hindsight? Well I wish I had bought into Microsoft and Apple - but I am glad I didn't buy the other 100,000 starts-ups that went bust so I can still put food on the table. :)
And continue to trot out (well only half a dozen of them, armed of course) to a "tiger" made of chicken wire seen off a path in a wood in Kent - which had been there for twenty years.Quote:
Originally Posted by anthonykay
But they didn't bother with a drone - they used a helicopter.:)
(Daily Telegraph p 12)
It's not surprising that Johnson changed tack after the 250,000 prediction. He wouldn't have wanted to go down in history as the prime minister that ignored advice and allowed that number of deaths to happen. I don't wish to be critical, I'm glad it's not me having to make these decisions - what a responsibility.Quote:
Originally Posted by Graham Breeze
But it has to be said that Neil Ferguson has a somewhat chequered history when it comes to these type of projections. They include the following:
2002 - up to 50,000 people in Britain could die from exposure to BSE - actual deaths 177.
2005 - up to 200 million could be killed worldwide from bird flu - 282 people died globally.
2009 - swine flu, reasonable worst case scenario was for 65,000 deaths in the UK - just 457 people died in Britain.
Fraser Nelson, whose article I linked has written a few articles over the last month or so about the "Swedish experiment" (his wife is Swedish so he has a personal interest). The Swedes thought that what other countries were doing in enforcing strict lockdowns was the "reckless experiment". They were baffled by the Imperial College projections. So far, it looks like they were right, certainly for their country.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...ss-experiment/
Of course Sweden is not Britain, much less dense population etc. But the worrying point is that we are basing our strategy on Imperial College projections, which in the case of Sweden have been shown to be wildly out.
A bit generous I'd say.Quote:
Originally Posted by Muddy Retriever