bojo is king, brexit is on, stuff is fvcked, tomorrow starts here -- new govt new thread new battle

My two cents to stets faith in epidemiologists upthread:
The advice the gov is taking from scientists is largely coming from the London school of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine which largely directs its research efforts at third world contexts. I think this is why the language and approach we've heard is so coldly calculated in terms of population percentages and numbers rather than really implying actual human cost. This is a colonial gaze directed at a population that it considers less than human. And as with much lshtm epidemiological work, it disregards program knowledge from other aspects of public health and instead fetishizes a model. I too think that the nudge stuff is being overblown, but the faith in epidemiological models definitely real and is arrogant lunacy as it always is. the models never work and they won't in this instance either. they will afterwards turn to other more community-based forms of knowledge to 'fill in the gaps' of what they missed, and it will largely be drawn from other public health contexts where they realise that they need to take into account issues around for eg. feelings of vulnerability by elderly people. Ultimately this is how the world looks in a country that has started to see its own population as colonial subjects and it is why the UK approach looks so different to other countries.

tl;dr, burn down bloomsbury (get out suzy!)

plax otm

Yeah my one fear is that Johnson's churchillian moment will be a resemble the bengal famine rather than dunkirk

Ugh phone

the price of bulk buying toilet rolls on e-bay has followed the late Weimar model of hyperinflation. The 108 pack of PDC brand basic 2 ply rolls I got for £16.49 on the 7th March is now going from anything from £37.99 to £100 +

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfionMmCGoU

WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus exhorting Europe to step up its actions:

“Not testing alone,” he said. “Not contact tracing alone. Not quarantine alone. Not social distancing alone. Do it all. Find, isolate, test and treat every case, to break the chains of transmission … Do not just let this fire burn.”

Yeah whatever dude

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/european-countries-take-radical-steps-to-combat-coronavirus

Not much disagreement from me there tbh ico.

lol an advert for Football Index has just been on, no refunds eh guys?

just going to duschen mein arsch if it comes to it tbrr

sometimes you just have to borrow a stihl saw and modify the sink so it is a bit lower ffs!

Mass gatherings are to be banned across the UK from next weekend, the government has announced after Boris Johnson’s cautious approach to the coronavirus outbreak was overtaken by care homes, sporting bodies and even the Queen taking matters into their own hands.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/uk-to-ban-mass-gatherings-in-coronavirus-u-turn

Mass gatherings are to be banned across the UK from next weekend, the government has announced after Boris Johnson’s cautious approach to the coronavirus outbreak was overtaken by

shit playing badly with the media

Fixed that for you.

Do we end up with the worst of both worlds now then?

already there dude

My two cents to stets faith in epidemiologists upthread:
The advice the gov is taking from scientists is largely coming from the London school of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine which largely directs its research efforts at third world contexts. I think this is why the language and approach we've heard is so coldly calculated in terms of population percentages and numbers rather than really implying actual human cost. This is a colonial gaze directed at a population that it considers less than human. And as with much lshtm epidemiological work, it disregards program knowledge from other aspects of public health and instead fetishizes a model. I too think that the nudge stuff is being overblown, but the faith in epidemiological models definitely real and is arrogant lunacy as it always is. the models never work and they won't in this instance either. they will afterwards turn to other more community-based forms of knowledge to 'fill in the gaps' of what they missed, and it will largely be drawn from other public health contexts where they realise that they need to take into account issues around for eg. feelings of vulnerability by elderly people. Ultimately this is how the world looks in a country that has started to see its own population as colonial subjects and it is why the UK approach looks so different to other countries.

― plax (ico), Friday, March 13, 2020 2:32 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

booming post

They're saying the ban is purely to ease the strain on public services. Honest question - football matches are one thing, but do you normally have lots of police and ambulances involved in medium sized concerts etc? if not why ban them? why not just withdraw police and medical support from all events and then prohibit individual events if they fail to meet the relevant safety standards for that type of event?

I guess the question is are they being honest or are they doing this as window dressing to shut people up even though they really reckon it won’t help?

RIP “I will level with you”, Mar 12-Mar 12. Next speech to be blitz spirit and “we’ll get through this.”

Telegraph reporting it on their front page as a u-turn rather than the next phase of bojo's cunning plan

Emotional scenes are playing out across Italy as people sing Italian songs, as well as the national anthem, from their balconies in a show of solidarity as they remain in lockdown country grapples to contain a coronavirus outbreak.

In Naples, neighbours sang along to a song by the Neapolitan singer, Andrea Sannino, called ‘Abbracciame’ (Hug me), while in Turin the choice was a classic by the late Domenico Mudugno, ‘Meraviglioso’ (wonderful).

https://www.instagram.com/p/B9rxJSgogIL/

Any of my neighbours start bellowing ed sheeran songs at me and i fucking swear there's gonna be blood

People of Islington, "Gertcha" or gertcha.

Gertcha sounds a bit too much like someone noisily hoiking up a grolly, better stick with 'In Sickness And In Health' imo

It's because they know people are going to start protesting soon.

interesting thought!

After my on call this evening, I watched this debate back and forth and I have to say both sides raise some valid points. /1 https://t.co/eTeT28UimV

— Dr Dominic Pimenta (@juniordrblog) March 13, 2020

(xps)
What was it? Something like this:

Now my old darlin', they've laid her down to rest
And now I'm missing her with all me heart
But they don't give a monkey's down the DHSS
And they've gawn and halved me pention for a start
So it won't be very long before I'm by her side
Coz I'll probably starve to death that's what I'll do...

Seems semi-apt.

as ever i feel like this government are trying to protect 'normality' rather than protect the lives of the most vulnerable

Conservatives have "fuck the disabled and the most vulnerable of society" going through their DNA like a fucking stick of fucking Blackpool rock.

and not forgetting the cunts in the Labour Party that support the very same policies of course

Thing about slowing it down temporarily right now, is at least we can buy some time to learn lessons from how things play out elsewhere and also come up with a proper plan on how to look after the elderly and people with underlying health problems. The current strategy could then be implemented a few weeks later surely if that was still the preferred option?

sounds like a good plan, but so not happening!

The doubling rate of FBPE madness is in the hours now

Can you ‘cheat’ Coronavirus? Is that the strategy? Can it be rigged? Like, say, an election? Should we be reassured that Vote Leave data bros are back in town? Or would we be better served knowing - & trusting - govt will heed & follow best advice of our best public servants?

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) March 12, 2020

Watched a couple more clips from those C4 interviews linked in stet's video. The o_0 moment was when the LSHTM bod dismissed the other guy's argument with 'well it's easy to say the numbers will double every two days if you just look at the raw numbers. the reality, when you look at all the underlying numbers as well, is that the doubling will happen every five days'.

😷😷😷

"How well or badly do you think the UK Government are handling the issue of the Coronavirus (COVID-19)?"

[18-24]
31% ~ Well
52% ~ Badly

[65+]
76% ~ Well
14% ~ Badly

Via YouGov, 12-13 March

— Stats for Lefties 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍⚧️ (#RLB2020) (@LeftieStats) March 13, 2020

Be interesting to see if this changes if the bodies of the olds start piling up.

My 90 year old granny who was in the hospital at the beginning of the year with a heart problem has declared “it’s all a load of shite” and refused to change anything she does so she might agree

when spirit-world yougov do a poll of old bastard ghosts that died lonely, desolate COVID 19 deaths they'll still be saying: eeh, Boris did a fantastic job, Winston Churchill... Bomber Harris ..blah blah blah

If there is no acquired immunity, Boris Johnson's leadership is going to be more like Jim jones's than churchill's

Anyone know if blobby outfits can function as hazmat suits?

If there is no acquired immunity then there’s no vaccine either. That’s about the point of thinking about this that I need to start going lalalala for my sanity.

I’ve managed to convince my parents to lock down for a while. My mother, who has a medical background, was being immensely stubborn. She understands the logic behind the government position, herd immunity, etc but the reality of that position meaning pretty much every healthy-ish person in the country is going to need to get it for it to be effective - and almost everyone she meets if she insists on going to Sainsbury’s either will have it, will get it or will already have had it, hadn’t sunk in. It’s a difficult balancing act for the government. If you say ‘people will die’ you’re hailed as brave for telling the truth, but if you tell the whole truth - that we all need to get it and be horribly ill for the plan to work, people are going to go bonkers.

just been chatting to my 70 odd year old mum, she can't really lock down. She's the only one of her clan with a car and is constantly doing errands for her twin sister who has multiple cancers. What a grim conversation it was. I found out my younger brother who is in zero-hour contract hell hasn't had a fridge-freezer for 6 months now and can't even afford a 2nd hand one at the moment. I feel bad because I slung out a perfectly working fridge last year after getting a free one from the family trust fund!

I'm due to talk to my mom tonight. I can't see any way she'll self-isolate tbh, tho in theory she probably could. We'll see. She's very much of the "no fuss" school.

i was going to give my mum a ring but apparently she's very bored by it all already, no doubt she wants to move on to the next global crisis like choosing a new hoover or whatever

Keep calm
And
Drop dead

ha, only just noticed your dn

If you're not ill how long might you have to shut yourself in for tho? It's untenable. Frankly I've been going mad for company just for lack of money, as soon as there's anything in my bank I'm off to the pub assuming they haven't been shut down.

Yeah I think that’s it with my granny, she can feel isolated at the best of times as her mobility isn’t what it was even a few years ago, and now with some of the fam steering clear it’s not a nice prospect to be told she shouldn’t even get out the house for her regular trip to Sainsbury’s

it's hard to know when to stop. we can do the vast majority of our work online, to the extent where leaving the house is not actually a necessity any longer. is this a good strategy though? is a walk in the park now and then okay? argh