love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

https://www.buzzfeed.com/amphtml/alexwickham/10-days-that-changed-britains-coronavirus-approach

even if a tenth of this happened it's still appalling:

Like this caricature of a trade union bureaucrat praising this as a great victory for class collaboration in the national interest while 5 million people face destitution.https://t.co/AYvVnGChxi

— libcom dot org (@libcomorg) March 21, 2020

it seems there were actually limits after all, anyone praising that pencil-necked tory cunt who isn't a tory should be branded. Apparently there might be something aimed at the working poor next week.. but why the drip drip drip of new measures every few days when every hour is precious?

Tories are so good at dividing the British public

If we are on the road to having death rates that match Italy's then the British public could reach agreement though.

You reckon?

We'll soon find out

jeremy cunt indeed, what an absolutely shameless display this smug fuck has been putting on about combatting shortages in the nhs he helped inflict

Jeremy Hunt calls for NHS staff to have the protective equipment they need. The former health secretary shared his concerns that not all NHS staff were receiving the correct personal protective equipment (PPE) on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

Predictable stuff (isn't it always?) from Brendan O'Peasant.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/boris-s-pub-ban-makes-this-a-dark-day-for-britain

Has anyone called it the 'EU virus' yet?

Over the past week, as rumours grew of a government crackdown on public houses, I popped into the pubs near my flat a few times. I wanted to know who was still frequenting these places that have apparently become hotbeds of disease and destruction.

It was mostly old blokes, especially during the day. Men in their seventies, usually on their own, sat at a table with a pint and the newspaper. Widowers, perhaps, grateful for a couple of hours out of the house, amongst other people, in the world. It breaks my heart to wonder what will become of these people now.

People should be free to die horrible deaths in an over-capacity hospital after being exposed to coronavirus in a public space, do you see?

The fact that the Spiked cult must be tying themselves in ever more complex and tangled knots at the moment brings some tiny joy.

Today there are lots of Irish people on Twitter saying B.O.Neil definitely isn't from Ireland and hoping he contracts and dies from Covid19

The fact that he had to go and research what the pub was like speaks volumes.

yeah, he was really telling on himself there

Brendan o'Cunt aside tho, I think some people *are* being a little glib or smartarse about the horrible effect that social isolation itself is gonna have on a lot of people. This is probably the right thing to do but imo berating the people, especially the old, who are gonna be climbing the walls is almost as shitty a look as yr average Spiked piece.

By all accounts it was millennial men who were packing pubs out the most, a doctor friend of mine was in genuine despair at driving past people in the pub last night.

Which isn't to diminish the mental toll that all this isolation is going to take, but from what I can see a lot of people either just don't seem to get it or don't give a shit.

I am supremely horny for the barmaid at my local pub and I would happily shred all your lungs just to handle the same bag of peanuts as her. Shame on you, Boris: this is sinister and shit, says Brendan O’Neill pic.twitter.com/wMDbZZgOZk

— TheIainDuncanSmiths (@TheIDSmiths) March 21, 2020

Also we need to distinguish between people who are going to be going through some very bad mental health or loneliness issues over the next few months and a load of total ledges who want one last night out on the lash with the lads, not to mention the pricks who want to go out and contract or spread a lethal virus to own the snowflakes.

like any middleton perhaps?

Ant Middleton is spreading the rona pic.twitter.com/ftbxNDNxBX

— Niall Moran (@niallmoran_) March 21, 2020

Ant Middleton update:
He's in NZ, where his top secret show has been cancelled due to #coronavirus. He's now trying to fly back to Britain. Unfortunately all flights to Britain from NZ have been cancelled...due to #coronavirus

Don't F with Karma. pic.twitter.com/WrksOyLNbi

— Cromwell (@Cromwell606) March 21, 2020

Easy to be a tough guy when your shitty TV job relies on you being somewhere remote, away from any major population centres. Dick.

"but what I am an expert in is life" is prime #accidentalpartridge

You'd think he'd be good at taking orders

I haven’t done this myself yet but most of the young people I know were drinking with friends in mass video chats and the like. Strange, but that’s where we are now. There are ways around it, the more people stay in, the easier it will be to get past this stage, and at least the pubs are closed now. Weirdly because some of my best friends live overseas, and because I play PS4 with people too, a lot of the stuff people are doing now is easy for me to introduce them to.

professional jealousy innit, ant spent his life learning to slot enemy combatants and now some pissant virus has overtaken his lifetime killcount in a matter of days

Enemy combatants? Aye, right.

Today there are lots of Irish people on Twitter saying B.O.Neil definitely isn't from Ireland and hoping he contracts and dies from Covid19

We are all @andrewismaxwell pic.twitter.com/cdppxhsR18

— Naomi O'Leary (@NaomiOhReally) November 4, 2018

morelike direspora, amirite

We've been using Houseparty for group video chats which is pretty fun if you're all drinking together because the mobile version has quizzes and other games built in, so you can make it feel more pubby.

Zoom is good too but I definitely think of that as more of a work thing. Tbh it was pretty considerate of humanity to finally achieve half decent videoconferencing at this precise moment in history.

Was thinking the same thing today!

NEW: Boris Johnson initiated a partial shutdown only after Macron threatened to close the border, warning that the rest of Europe would follow suit. “We clearly had to threaten him so that he would finally move.” https://t.co/BM8HBEplbX

— Benjamin Ramm (@BenjaminRamm) March 21, 2020

And via one of those briefing things he has tonight told people not to visit their mothers. These fucking incompetent cretins, fuck me.

We can also see it was ~10 days after China’s lockdown that its mortality curve slowed.

Countries are looking at daily deaths in the dozens and thinking "It’s not that bad".

Next week it’ll be 100s, and by the time lockdowns flatten the curves, daily death tolls could be 1,000+ pic.twitter.com/1fXUnmFZuR

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) March 21, 2020

Sorry wrong link, should be this

And it’s probably worse than that.

Italy locked down in stages. It closed schools 17 days ago. It locked down its worst-affected region 13 days ago.

So: UK is already on a steeper mortality curve than Italy, and has apparently learned no lessons so is locking down more slowly. pic.twitter.com/ovp6nUpXRU

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) March 21, 2020

" On current trends, UK could hit Italy’s death count in ~9 days. Italy locked down 10 days ago. UK is already behind that schedule. https://t.co/Ywf1dsdzVS "

Breaking:

NHS strikes unprecedented deal with private hospitals to boost fight against #COVID19

20,000 clinical staff to join the NHS from Monday

Private sector will reallocate practically its entire national hospital capacity to the NHS, includes 8,000 beds, 1,200 ventilators

— Andrew Gregory (@andrewgregory) March 21, 2020

1200 ventilators will barely scratch the surface but still

‘strikes deal’ means they’re paying our money to private enterprises to bolster a health service that they spent the last decade stripping of its essentials

trebles all round, eh what

Thousands of nurses have responded to the NHS and are going to join the register temporarily. 4000 was the number I saw.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ETs0cG5U4AAn6xU?format=jpg&name=large

"protect the economy, if some pensioners die that's too bad"

"Herd Immunity" will be the end of this government.

What paper is that?

Sunday Times

Paul Johnson.. I might be wrong

sorry.. Its the Graun I'm on the phone

It is the ST I think.

Cummings will get the blame (or as much blame as can’t be shifted onto the public) but Johnson is responsible.

Also being reported that they’ve only taken the half-baked lockdown measures they have because Macron and others threatened to close off EU borders if they did not.

this is the (free to read) article

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-ten-days-that-shook-britain-and-changed-the-nation-for-ever-spz6sc9vb

This is why it bugs me that anyone at all is going along with the narrative that the reversal of their strategy was due to “new data” - they could have “seen what was happening in Italy” before they came up with the strategy because it was already fucking happening in Italy at that point, and it didn’t take a bombshell study from imperial college to see that the same would happen here. Half the world and the WHO was screaming “what the hell are you doing you reckless idiots” at us, it didn’t only become a thing when some our own boffins said so

A lot of it is face-saving from journalists and commentators who swallowed and then took to social media to start mocking members of the public who expressed perfectly rational fears and doubts about the approach. This is different from the group who took the approach "I don't really know enough about but this but I'm relieved they're listening to the experts", who in general aren't parroting absurd lines about the science changing.

Johnson bears responsibility for elevating Cummings to a position of power unprecedented among recent aides (even Alistair Campbell didn't feel as dominant) and then not putting enough of a check on him, because all Johnson ever really wanted was the status of being PM with other people to do the difficult bits. But Cummings will get the blame, a lot of the media, virtually the entire civil service and probably a large chunk of Tory MPs are absolutely desperate to get rid of him.