Corona Virus

[murphy]

15 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

Thank you.

 

It's alright people getting on their high horse and seemingly on some sort of power trip saying 'ffs just stay indoors', (which I and the vast majority ARE doing, by the way) but this is not sustainable. 

 

It's a balancing act and we'll not be far away from the impacts of lockdown outweighing the deaths of a few thousand elderly and obese who otherwise would likely have died within the next 5 years anyway.

 

Everyone is doing as they're told for now but there will come a point that the livelihoods of the whole country will trump the survival of a few thousand already vulnerable people.

 

I think this is the reason that we didn't lockdown sooner as many people wanted.  Lockdown fatigue.  And that is why it was timed at a point on the graph for maximum impact.

 

 

[bovril]

1 minute ago, murphy said:

 

I think this is the reason that we didn't lockdown sooner as many people wanted.  Lockdown fatigue.  And that is why it was timed at a point on the graph for maximum impact.

 

 

The countries that locked down earlier and harder seem to be readier to start relaxing measures. Although, on the other hand, there have been some studies suggesting those that did better at suppressing the first wave may be more vulnerable to a second wave. 

[urban.spaceman]

Bingpot.

 

 

[bovril]

6 minutes ago, urban.spaceman said:

Bingpot.

 

 

Perfectly fair point. 

[murphy]

7 minutes ago, bovril said:

The countries that locked down earlier and harder seem to be readier to start relaxing measures. Although, on the other hand, there have been some studies suggesting those that did better at suppressing the first wave may be more vulnerable to a second wave. 

It's difficult to say who locked down earlier because we are all on different timelines.  For instance Italy locked down 9th March and we  locked down 23rd March and Italy is considered 2 weeks ahead of us in their timeline.

[bovril]

Just now, murphy said:

It's difficult to say who locked down earlier because we are all on different timelines.  For instance Italy locked down 9th March and we  locked down 23rd March and Italy is considered 2 weeks ahead of us in their timeline.

This is ever so slightly absurd in my view. If Italy were two weeks ahead of us, we had two weeks to see exactly how this would play out. The idea that we waited til we were in their position when they locked down is mad, in my opinion, but it feels a bit like I'm banging my head against a wall. Italy made a huge mistake.

[Lionator]

14 minutes ago, bovril said:

Perfectly fair point. 

Indeed it is, however sometimes events like this are what can change us. 

[murphy]

14 minutes ago, bovril said:

This is ever so slightly absurd in my view. If Italy were two weeks ahead of us, we had two weeks to see exactly how this would play out. The idea that we waited til we were in their position when they locked down is mad, in my opinion, but it feels a bit like I'm banging my head against a wall. Italy made a huge mistake.

Well that goes back to my original point.  Lockdown fatigue.  There is an argument that we could see what was happening in Italy so we should have locked down earlier and the counter, that lockdown should be timed at a specific point in the graph to manage cases through the NHS and prevent fatigue.  We were told that lockdown should be timed to have the maximum impact.  A lockdown only buys us time, it is not a solution.  I think we need to have that explained again.

 

 

[bovril]

Just now, Lionator said:

Indeed it is, however sometimes events like this are what can change us. 

For sure, that's also a perfectly fair point. And I don't believe that Johnson is being disingenuous at all.

 

1 minute ago, murphy said:

Well that goes back to my original point.  Lockdown fatigue.  There is an argument that we could see what was happening in Italy so we should have locked down earlier and the counter, that lockdown should be timed at a specific point in the graph to manage cases through the NHS and prevent fatigue.  We were told that lockdown should be timed to have the maximum impact.  I think we need to have that explained again.

Going back to my earlier point, those that locked down later and less strictly may end up having to wait longer. And honestly I think lockdown fatigue is secondary to saving lives, giving ourselves time to prepare and assuaging public fear. 

But we will see. We're 2 months into something that could last for over a year. 

[Milo]

20 minutes ago, bovril said:

Perfectly fair point. 

Is it? 
 

What was the quote Boris used in 2016? 
 

There are plenty on non-British nationals working for the NHS - did he say that they are a  burden on the NHS. Not being contentious, genuinely interested. 
 

And the second part “Soon he’ll tell them their friends and family aren’t worth enough points”
 

Means what, exactly? 🤷‍♂️ 

 

If you’re an EU national and you work for the NHS, you’re friends can come??  

[Strokes]

27 minutes ago, bovril said:

Perfectly fair point. 

I’d like to see that exact quote.

[Nod.E]

9 minutes ago, bovril said:

For sure, that's also a perfectly fair point. And I don't believe that Johnson is being disingenuous at all.

 

Going back to my earlier point, those that locked down later and less strictly may end up having to wait longer. And honestly I think lockdown fatigue is secondary to saving lives, giving ourselves time to prepare and assuaging public fear. 

But we will see. We're 2 months into something that could last for over a year. 

It's not just fatigue we're talking about though.

 

It's jobs.

It's mental health.

It's having a world worth coming back out of lockdown for at the end of all this!

 

In other words, is it worth saving a few thousand lives when those lives (and everybody else's) will be miserable for the foreseeable?

[bovril]

2 minutes ago, Milo said:

Is it? 
 

What was the quote Boris used in 2016? 
 

There are plenty on non-British nationals working for the NHS - did he say that they are a  burden on the NHS. Not being contentious, genuinely interested. 
 

And the second part “Soon he’ll tell them their friends and family aren’t worth enough points”
 

Means what, exactly? 🤷‍♂️ 

 

If you’re an EU national and you work for the NHS, you’re friends can come??  

 

Just now, Strokes said:

I’d like to see that exact quote.

 

"We get uncontrolled immigration, which puts unsustainable pressure on our public services". So, fair enough, he didn't specifically mention the NHS. But I think a lot of people would have thought of the health service when he said that.
 

For what it's worth I do think it's an oversimplification and a slight distortion to suggest (as Femi seems to be doing) that he's a hypocrite for saying that in 2016 and this speech in 2020. But there is a point there to be discussed, in my opinion, especially as the NHS has suffered from foreign doctors and nurses leaving in recent years, which could be attributed partially to the political situation in the UK. 
 

[Strokes]

2 minutes ago, bovril said:

 

 

"We get uncontrolled immigration, which puts unsustainable pressure on our public services". So, fair enough, he didn't specifically mention the NHS. But I think a lot of people would have thought of the health service when he said that.
 

For what it's worth I do think it's an oversimplification and a slight distortion to suggest (as Femi seems to be doing) that he's a hypocrite for saying that in 2016 and this speech in 2020. But there is a point there to be discussed, in my opinion, especially as the NHS has suffered from foreign doctors and nurses leaving in recent years, which could be attributed partially to the political situation in the UK. 
 

He isn’t even blaming the migrants though, he is blaming the uncontrollable nature.

It makes it hard to budget for services and is a completely fair point.

That tweet is ridiculous.

[SystonFox]

4 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

It's not just fatigue we're talking about though.

 

It's jobs.

It's mental health.

It's having a world worth coming back out of lockdown for at the end of all this!

 

In other words, is it worth saving a few thousand lives when those lives (and everybody else's) will be miserable for the foreseeable?

Are you suggesting that we just carry on regardless, let 50,000 or so humans die so we can have a decent future? Am I really reading that or have I completely misread?

[murphy]

11 minutes ago, bovril said:

For sure, that's also a perfectly fair point. And I don't believe that Johnson is being disingenuous at all.

 

Going back to my earlier point, those that locked down later and less strictly may end up having to wait longer. And honestly I think lockdown fatigue is secondary to saving lives, giving ourselves time to prepare and assuaging public fear. 

But we will see. We're 2 months into something that could last for over a year. 

The point about lockdown fatigue is that it means that lock down is unlikely to hold meaning more loss of life.

 

I don't know which was the right approach but I think that it is acknowledged that it is not possible to stop the virus.  Lockdown can't continue indefinitely because the losses we suffer from that could outstrip the damage done by the virus itself.  I think that the purpose of the lockdown was to reduce transmission to keep the numbers down so that they could be managed by the NHS and give us our best chance of saving lives.  I think this pattern of lockdown and release will continue until a solution, ie a vaccine is found.

[Alf Bentley]

8 minutes ago, Strokes said:

He isn’t even blaming the migrants though, he is blaming the uncontrollable nature.

It makes it hard to budget for services and is a completely fair point.

That tweet is ridiculous.

 

This is from the web site of Vote Leave, fronted by Johnson & run by Cummings: http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_immigration.html

 

Specifically mentions migrants being a burden on the NHS. Also quotes the precise number of live births to EU migrants & budget cost of catering to them....

 

THE EU'S IMMIGRATION SYSTEM PUTS PRESSURE ON THE NHS

‘Rising demand’ for NHS services is one of the principal reasons identified by regulators for the NHS’s forecast £2.4 billion deficit in 2015-2016.

There were 475,000 live births to mothers from other EU countries between 2005 and 2014, the equivalent of adding a city the size of Manchester to the population. The cost of providing NHS services to those families could be over £1.33bn. If we remain in the EU, the NHS will be put under more and more pressure and the A&E crisis will get even worse.

If we Vote Leave on 23 June, we can not just reduce the pressure on the NHS, but can stop sending £350m to the EU every week and instead spend it on our priorities. £350m is enough to build a brand new, fully staffed hospital every week.

[Strokes]

4 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

This is from the web site of Vote Leave, fronted by Johnson & run by Cummings: http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_immigration.html

 

Specifically mentions migrants being a burden on the NHS. Also quotes the precise number of live births to EU migrants & budget cost of catering to them....

 

THE EU'S IMMIGRATION SYSTEM PUTS PRESSURE ON THE NHS

‘Rising demand’ for NHS services is one of the principal reasons identified by regulators for the NHS’s forecast £2.4 billion deficit in 2015-2016.

There were 475,000 live births to mothers from other EU countries between 2005 and 2014, the equivalent of adding a city the size of Manchester to the population. The cost of providing NHS services to those families could be over £1.33bn. If we remain in the EU, the NHS will be put under more and more pressure and the A&E crisis will get even worse.

If we Vote Leave on 23 June, we can not just reduce the pressure on the NHS, but can stop sending £350m to the EU every week and instead spend it on our priorities. £350m is enough to build a brand new, fully staffed hospital every week.

That’s just highlighting where and how the pressure is added, again unless the figures are wrong I don’t see where the hypocrisy lies.

[bovril]

1 minute ago, Strokes said:

That’s just highlighting where and how the pressure is added, again unless the figures are wrong I don’t see where the hypocrisy lies.

It's talking about 'rising demand' and explicitly linking it to migration from the EU, even though most studies show EU migrants are proportionally less likely to use it than Britons. 

[Strokes]

1 minute ago, bovril said:

It's talking about 'rising demand' and explicitly linking it to migration from the EU, even though most studies show EU migrants are proportionally less likely to use it than Britons. 

Yes but we weren’t voting on Britons, so how is that relevant?

Is there anything there is not true? He seems to be blaming the system (the EU or FOM) not the people. 🤷

[Milo]

21 minutes ago, Alf Bentley said:

 

This is from the web site of Vote Leave, fronted by Johnson & run by Cummings: http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_immigration.html

 

Specifically mentions migrants being a burden on the NHS. Also quotes the precise number of live births to EU migrants & budget cost of catering to them....

 

THE EU'S IMMIGRATION SYSTEM PUTS PRESSURE ON THE NHS

‘Rising demand’ for NHS services is one of the principal reasons identified by regulators for the NHS’s forecast £2.4 billion deficit in 2015-2016.

There were 475,000 live births to mothers from other EU countries between 2005 and 2014, the equivalent of adding a city the size of Manchester to the population. The cost of providing NHS services to those families could be over £1.33bn. If we remain in the EU, the NHS will be put under more and more pressure and the A&E crisis will get even worse.

If we Vote Leave on 23 June, we can not just reduce the pressure on the NHS, but can stop sending £350m to the EU every week and instead spend it on our priorities. £350m is enough to build a brand new, fully staffed hospital every week.

But it doesn't really mention EU nationals working as nurses in the NHS being a burden on the NHS, does it?

 

That was the kind of context that was being put out by the tweet that was shared earlier.

[Alf Bentley]

2 minutes ago, Strokes said:

That’s just highlighting where and how the pressure is added, again unless the figures are wrong I don’t see where the hypocrisy lies.

 

No point pursuing this at length, but the item is headed "EU's Immigration System puts Pressure on the NHS". The message is that the overall impact of EU immigration is to put pressure on the NHS.

 

I don't see any counter-balancing reference to the benefits of EU immigration for the NHS: e.g. Luis and countless thousands of other NHS employees, not to mention the fact that EU immigrants pay more tax than they cost in extra NHS demand.

If it had mentioned any of that alongside references to "rising demand", you might have a point. But the whole purpose of the piece is to present EU migrants as a burden on the NHS.

 

And the idea that it's all about it being "hard to budget" is laughable. There is always a degree of unpredictability about demand for health services over time depending on multiple factors, including the economy, migration, cold weather, demographics, birth & death rates, epidemics (not usually as extreme as this one).....and his campaign clearly quoted precise figures for "live births" to migrant mothers & the alleged cost burden to the NHS (with no reference to the benefits).

 

Then there's the reference to the Brexit savings allowing us "to build a brand new, fully-staffed hospital every week". I look forward to that.

[Lionator]

One of the things people are forgetting is that PM Johnson is a populist. He said those things in 2016 because he knew it would help him in his climb to the top. I have absolutely no doubt that there'll be a policy shift towards the NHS in the coming months, because it's the popular thing to do. His natural politics are probably on a par with Blair if we're looking at how left or right wing he is, he's essentially a centrist, and his personal opinion is most likely very pro-immigration but he's very comfortable in dropping that if it's going to be popular with the public. It's astute and clearly very effective as much as I despise the man and it's what's giving me hope that we wont see austerity mark 2 in the coming months and years. 

[Suzie the Fox]

Urrrgh I see we are back to politics again. I knew there was a reason I never used to enter that thread  

[Milo]

Just now, Suzie the Fox said:

Urrrgh I see we are back to politics again. I knew there was a reason I never used to enter that thread  

Yeah - kind of agree...this thread seems (happy to proven wrong), going down the Brexit route...