The correct term is person on a bike. Using either cyclist or murderer is offensive
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Sigh
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So long as they stick to SEGREGATED cycling lanes, they are only murdering themselves.
Persons on bikes outside of SEGREGATED cycling lanes should be mown down, of course.
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Might sort out the virus if we could mow them down
Chinese scientists were free to publish studies about the coronavirus with normal peer-review standards back in February. However, in April, any Chinese researcher looking to publish a study or paper tracing the origins of the coronavirus must first get government approval.
Two universities that were conducting research on the origins of the coronavirus received a censorship order from the government. The universities posted the censorship order on their websites, but then their research and the censorship order vanished. You’d wonder why that oddball the lads banned has such a hard-on for the Chinese regime.
Anyway, as we all know, the Internet never forgets, and the censorship order was archived by web crawlers.
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This is very interesting and belongs in the “edgy” thread.
UK policy is being pushed by the media and looking at what everyone else is doing. A lockdown became the politically expedient thing to do. A mixture of fear (which is not a bad thing initially) and the idea of a “great national effort” (which I think is a lot more dangerous) has driven this. Once framed like the latter, it made things more difficult to reopen as people think we can actually wipe this out. The death total is being watched daily and people will go ape if you reopen and deaths continue.
There is a strong element of that here - particularly when you see how certain businesses voluntarily closed down around the place (including those deemed essential, like coffee shops) and have decided to just reopen in the last week or so as it has become clear that the Government have no roadmap for reopening the country. The Government did not officially close down the pubs until late March as that was not what the public health guidance suggested at the time - but Simon Harris got worried looking at people going ape on Twitter over tourists in Temple Bar so guilt tripped the Vinters into closing early.
The Swedes and the Danes have been decisive with their decisions, one way or the other. Both are looking to work within the best information they have and there are great signs of innovation coming out;
Simon Harris keeps quoting that Sligo roaster from the WHO’s viral clip (it could be nothing but that for Harris, social media guides all) of “speed beats perfection”, but Harris is now dragging his feet over any kind of roadmap as he is petrified of not just a resurge in cases, but being blamed for when deaths continue after any element of a reopening. Instead of actively engaging industries like tourism, the pubs and sporting bodies, he is having a photoshoot and telling people that their livelihoods are quite possibly gone through the media. This will have huge ramifications for the economy, not just the industries mentioned, but all industries. Instead of trying to be proactive, he is being gloomy. He goes on about a vaccine, but what if one never emerges? Can Harris tell us what level of ongoing Covid infection we can live with? Why can’t the government put together a roadmap like other countries have announced?
I think Ireland did a lot of good things early on this, bowing to social media pressure a couple of times excepted. Most people generally started practicing social distancing early. We didn’t lockdown all at once and nor did we move to totally draconian things like shutting down parks. We reacted to weaknesses in our healthcare system by tooling up. We strove to test a lot and put in contact tracing. It wasn’t perfect but it was a good strong effort and you’d have a lot more confidence in our figures than other countries, but we are being slow to react now.
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The first set of restrictions in Ireland came in on March 12th when we had had 70 total cases.
The second and current set of restrictions came in on March 27th, I think. That day we posted a daily figure of 302 cases.
You can talk about R0 all you like, but the crucial thing is the number of daily cases you have. That’s coming down, but it’s still miles above where we were when we implemented restrictions in the first place.
Because as soon as you relax restrictions, as sure as night follows day, the virus will pop back up.
At an absolute minimum, you can’t relax restrictions until you have an adequate testing regime and the necessary contact tracing regime in place.
And we are MILES off.
When you get that regime in place, if we ever do, and its doubtful, you might start thinking of a release, trap, release cycle which could go on for years.
Forget the pubs, forget matches, there really is no feasible or safe way we can open them until there’s a vaccine.
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I have 3 weddings to attend around Christmas and I am encouraged by this. I’d be broke and highly depressed after
Ireland have tested significantly more than Denmark.
Denmark had tested just over 17k per one million as of yesterday. Ireland had tested over 19k per million as of last Monday. At just 1.5k tests a day (we have done more than that in the last week, clearing an 11k backlog alone, but lets be very cconservative) that brings us up to 19.5k tests per million.
In terms of contact tracing, nobody is particularly comfortable with this. The EU want an app launched but we shall see.
Denmark started reopening last week, that was on the back of seeing clear evidence of hospitalisations and ICU figures falling. We have seen the same evidence here for a prolonged period.
Our government are only talking about it in papers now, when other countries have given phased reopening plans. Where is ours?
We can’t and won’t be waiting for a vaccine mate. There’d be nothing of the country left
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Pipe down.
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Waiting in what manner?
Businesses will reopen and life will resume well before a vaccine.
There might never be a vaccine, to have waiting for one as part of your plan is mental
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Lads badly agitating for loss of life so they can drink a pint in a pub.
It’s sad to see.
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Denmark have half the deaths per million of population than we do. Denmark’s fatalities have been flat for some time now.
ICU is the most important factor when deciding how to reopen, 100% agreed.
You have to see how having deaths continuing will form the governements strategy on this, though
They have to figure out contact tracing, they have to figure out how to protect care homes while simultaneously reopening sectors.
I think the Danes have had a jump on us regards protecting care homes and also on speed of testing and tracing. Our volume is high but the turnaround was poor.
I think we’ll see phased reopening after the current restrictions, it won’t be much, some more businesses added to the essential services, possibly a loosening of the 2km restriction.
A lot of the health experts are saying reopening without having a 2 day turnaround on test/trace/isolate would almost certainly lead to a second wave.
We need to get this right. Relaxing incorrectly and having to go back into more draconian measures would be crushing for morale and for confidence in the policy makers
Society just needs to get with the pogrom.
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Who ever suggested that businesses wouldn’t re-open before a vaccine?
The point is what type of businesses will re-open.
Re-opening pubs when they’ll just spread the virus again would be lunacy.
And re-opening pubs when you know that they’ll be a tinderbox for the virus isn’t mental?
If you reopen other businesses then we will all have been infected by the end of the summer anyway.
The real fatalities line for Ireland looked to have peaked.
As mentioned to your previously, comparing deaths right now requires a huge health warning. It is not clear if all nationals are recording accurately. Denmark have less care homes - that is certainly another complexity for us to deal with but given that many elderly deaths there could be happening at home, we need to wait and see if their final numbers come out higher.
The key figures are hospitalisation and ICU, they have been stable and falling for nearly 2 weeks.
The point on Denmark is not just that they took a decisive decision, but we don’t even have a roadmap communicated. Why?
Not if you have a South Korea style regime in place.
We have nothing like that though.
There’s such a cognitive dissonance here. All the talk is “we’re doing great, we’re flattening the curve, blah blah blah”, while at the same time the loonies are imploring to “open it up ta fuck”.
What on earth was the point in shutting down in the first place then?
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