The UK response - Part II - read OP

Aegir wrote: »

Have you considered that it isn’t the British that have a problem, but you?

How do *I* have the problem?

I'm following the guidelines, wearing a mask in all enclosed spaces and generally being considerate and thinking of others, just like the Spanish, Italians etc. are managing to do with minimal fuss and hassle.

There is a significant minority of people here who are belligerent spoiled children who refuse to 'be told what to do' and are putting others in danger.

But do explain why you think I have the issue, when all I'm doing is trying to keep myself and others safe and wishing that everyone would just respect the goddamn rules, which are there for a reason.

Enzokk wrote: »

What does arranged marriages have to do with what we were discussing? You can point the finger at me for bashing the Tories (wait until you see my reply below, it is a doozy) but bringing in things like arranged marriages is at best as relevant to the lockdown discussion as Cummings starting this all off and at worst gaslighting of the community from posters.

It has already been put forward in this thread that the high instances in C19 is partly due to racism and lack of integration i.e. that the rest of society (clear inference being the 'white' majority) is racist against BAME and this keeps BAME groups from integrating.

The picture I am painting for you is that is not the case at all and BAME groups will proactively 'stick together' for various reasons to the exclusion of other ethnic groups. Arranged marriages are just one obvious example of how this cycle is perpetuated by BAME.

When you have a closed community with its own language, culture, religion and lack of ‘outside’ integration it becomes difficult to get messages across.

For example, the local Bengali community with poor spoken English and poor literacy levels are not going to be sitting around in Costa reading The Guardian and getting indignant about Dominic Cummings. Getting food on the table is only priority. You simple will not understand this in sitting over in Ireland.

The issue of racism and historical racism is an entirely separate debate.

robinph wrote: »

But you are using a sample size of one (you) and using that to claim that the whole of the UK is not complying.

Just within my city the compliance to various measures is totally different in different areas that I frequent and that has been the same for the whole duration. Even on my local high street the compliance is different from one end to the other, even the time of day that you are out and about can make a difference. Maybe your friends elsewhere are just lucky that they live in a nice area that has high compliance with whatever the local rules are but the place you are hanging out don't follow the rules. It is most definitely not the case that the UK is not mostly doing as they are told though.

The only consistent thing we can take from your posts is that you don't like the area that you live in because they happen to not do what you think they should. Don't apply that view on the rest of the country though.

But you're making my own point here.

There should NOT be this much inconsistency. That's the entire problem. You have no idea whether you're going to walk into a shop and find people all in masks, respecting social distancing and being considerate, or walk in and find nobody wearing one and all cramming together. The not knowing is actually the worst part. How can people feel safe to venture out and spend money and help the economy get going when you never know what the situation is going to be? How can you possibly make an informed decision?

There's no ifs or buts here. There should simply not be this much inconsistency. People should be wearing masks in shops and on transport, full stop. That is the law. And this attitude that 'well most people are doing it' or 'people aren't behaving the way you want them to' is part of the problem. Everyone should be complying. People in Spain wouldn't dare take the p1ss because the police would be straight onto them and everyone around them would be disgusted by their selfishness, and tell them so. Here, people are literally just doing whatever the fck they want with no consequences. Yes, most people are complying because they're decent and don't need to be babysat, but what about the significant number of morons? Other countries have police to deal with the non-compliers, we don't.

It's not even that hard to follow the rules. I've just enjoyed a few days off work, wandering around, sitting in parks, getting nice takeout lunches and coffees and spending time with friends outdoors and actually really enjoying myself in the lovely weather. Having to wear a mask to pop into a shop is such a minor inconvenience when you compare the freedom we have now to a few months ago in peak lockdown and yet people are determined to spoil things for everyone just so they don't have to wear a mask or do what they're asked to do.

When there's a pandemic, there should not be any flimsy notion of 'doing what you think is right'. Want to go into a shop or use a train? You wear a mask, or you're fined, and asked to leave. It is actually that simple.

theological wrote: »

Correct, it's important to balance out some hysteria with some facts. The situation with the virus is actually better than what it was last week according to the KCL data. The latest suggests that the UK R is down to 0.9 and that there are now 1626 daily cases.

There is an element of whack-a-mole going on with targetting responses, but this is going to be the norm for many months.

It is a bit frustrating that the rate of infection has remained so flat, eventually I think changing to an elimination strategy may be required.

The real test for the response to this will be in the autumn when people cannot spend so much time outdoors.

The time to change to elimination strategy is now, or better, it should not have been discarded ~5 months ago.

There is a real risk in entering Autumn/Winter and looking back at this period with regret for not following global consensus. Just like there is the hint of regret in some places of decisions made earlier in the year.

The lockdown rules in the UK had so many exemptions that I was able to carry on with my daily life as normal. I went to my office workplace every day and as I do a lot of running well then that also qualified as my daily exercise.

Unlike the feedback from Ireland there really was no enforcement of the rules over here at all and certainly not in my area. The local parks became a joke with so many people out walking- I mean parks were thronged with families, groups of teenagers out drinking.

I never saw the police over here and yet friends of mine and family back in Ireland were regularly stopped by the Guards. Now most people here are wearing a masks in shops- no idea about public transport as I don't use it.

The English have acted more like the Irish in the disregarding of the rules. In fact the owner of my gym told me not to wear a mask (well I had no intention of it anyway).

The fact is the Tory government really have no appetite for a lockdown or such rules and that filtered through the entire population. They simply do not want it and it was half arsed.

Deleted User wrote: »

Maybe not in large supermarkets. But in your local Eurospar? Or the Yard, in Dublin 8 has zero mask wearing. I have a very different experience to you. And in IKEA it’s much less than 50%

In contrast my local store in London has been almost fully mask wearing for a good while. This isn’t about masks.....my only point is that in my experience between London and Dublin, the British are not behaving any worse than the Irish, and the Brit bashing here gets pretty old IMO

Creepy post is creepy.

Yes, in the Yard yesterday there was a high adherence level outside of the staff. Now, it's about 3 weeks since I was last there but I was there twice yesterday, but I figured, as I have noticed in other shops that mask use has ramped up so I would not be concerned about how things were a month ago.

The Spar in Kilmainham also has had a large adherence as well. The non-wearers are definitely the minor exception.

Aegir wrote: »

what economic model is there for a global pandemic?

Any one of the "war games" run by various governments and think-tanks working on the basis of this very scenario. All of them highlighted the need to have appropriate stocks of critical materials and equipment; none of them suggested that it would be prudent to pour millions, or billions, into material of which 50% was unusable.

Aegir wrote: »

it would be interesting to see the numbers behind the headlines. On the face of it, this sounds like a seriously dodgy piece of business, but if it was part of a scattergun approach where they spent money with a huge amount of suppliers, purchasing ten times more than they needed, on the basis that fifty percent may be junk then it kind of makes sense.

The media are focused on about £500m of a £5.5bn spend on PPE, but I guess the headlines about £5bn of public money being spent with well known reputable companies, purchasing high quality goods that arrived on time isn't very interesting in today's age of shock and outrage.

https://twitter.com/JimMFelton/status/1291300183796584449