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Coronavirus Thread

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5 hours ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

In reality, there probably wasn't that many people in pubs. The media pick the worst story when vast majority were complying. It's been the same with the release of lockdown - I consider myself quite cautious but I've ended going into my work office more than anyone else. The majority have stayed at home working. 


The pubs round here weren’t anywhere near as busy on Saturday as many expected. 
 

I went for a pint Sunday and my local closed early due to it being so quiet. Sunday is usually a busy day there with the dinners and football on.

 

Not sure whether it’s people being cautious, just being used to staying at home or maybe not having as much disposable income as previously. Likely a mixture of all three I guess. 

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46 minutes ago, Md9 said:

What sort of numbers are looking at getting down to before they decide the lockdown is not needed any more? Hancock says the infection rate is going down in Leicester which is good 

Can see them dragging it out on us. I’d be over the moon if it’s lifted by the 19th but wouldn’t amaze me if we are royally shafted for an extra week. 

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1 hour ago, Leeds Fox said:


The pubs round here weren’t anywhere near as busy on Saturday as many expected. 
 

 

Same in town. Us and about 6 other people in the one we were in on Saturday. Didn’t hear of any other trouble in town tbh, I think there were more coppers about though from what I could tell. 
 

Only issues I’ve heard about have been 5 lane ends and the pub in Batley but they’re both pubs I’d expect trouble in anyway lol 

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24 minutes ago, Manini said:

Same in town. Us and about 6 other people in the one we were in on Saturday. Didn’t hear of any other trouble in town tbh, I think there were more coppers about though from what I could tell. 
 

Only issues I’ve heard about have been 5 lane ends and the pub in Batley but they’re both pubs I’d expect trouble in anyway lol 


Which one in Batley? 

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3 minutes ago, Manini said:

Fox and Hounds. Just read the article again, not trouble as such but it’s closed for the foreseeable. 


Ah yeah. Don’t think it’s a particularly rough pub (especially for Batley/Dewsbury area).
 

Heard town was fairly quiet but I can imagine it seemed quieter as people wouldn’t have been going from bar to bar as usual, smaller groups etc. 
 

Was expecting a NYE, Mad Friday atmosphere. 

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1 hour ago, leicsmac said:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-53319517

 

Whoops.

 

Wonder if it's going to be such a "little flu" now?


Cocky cvnt just totally ignored everything and laughed as his country suffered ...   now he’s got it ...  but what about the poor b@stards that have to look after you now ...    you tw@t !!

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Overheard some mansplainer telling a sales assistant why wearing face masks is stupid. “When they first talked about the virus they said that you should stop touching your mouth, ear and eyes. Well does a facemask cover your eyes?!?!”
 

Seems a sound argument? X 

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3 hours ago, Md9 said:

What sort of numbers are looking at getting down to before they decide the lockdown is not needed any more? Hancock says the infection rate is going down in Leicester which is good 

 

2 hours ago, MonmoreStef said:

Can see them dragging it out on us. I’d be over the moon if it’s lifted by the 19th but wouldn’t amaze me if we are royally shafted for an extra week. 

No chance it's lifted on the 19th IMO They'll probably announce on the 18th that we'll have another week of lockdown and open up on either 25th or 27th July.

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Serbia a great example of lifting a lockdown early - had full football crowds, tennis tournaments, encouraged people to gather to boost economy. 
 

Belgrade locked down now and rest of country by the end of the week. As it’s spiked beyond previous levels. 

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The Swedish experiment doesn’t seem to have helped their economy but has cost lives compared with their neighbours. This article taken from the New York Times.

 

Sweden Has Become the World’s Cautionary Tale

Its decision to carry on in the face of the pandemic has yielded a surge of deaths without sparing its economy from damage — a red flag as the United States and Britain move to lift lockdowns.

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Sweden largely avoided imposing prohibitions. The government allowed restaurants, gyms, shops, playgrounds and most schools to remain open.Credit...Johan Nilsson/EPA, via Shutterstock

  • July 7, 2020Updated 12:06 p.m. ET
  •  
 

LONDON — Ever since the coronavirus emerged in Europe, Sweden has captured international attention by conducting an unorthodox, open-air experiment. It has allowed the world to examine what happens in a pandemic when a government allows life to carry on largely unhindered.

This is what has happened: Not only have thousands more people died than in neighboring countries that imposed lockdowns, but Sweden’s economy has fared little better.

“They literally gained nothing,” said Jacob F. Kirkegaard, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “It’s a self-inflicted wound, and they have no economic gains.”

The results of Sweden’s experience are relevant well beyond Scandinavian shores. In the United States, where the virus is spreading with alarming speed, many states have — at President Trump’s urging — avoided lockdowns or lifted them prematurely on the assumption that this would foster economic revival, allowing people to return to workplaces, shops and restaurants.

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson — previously hospitalized with Covid-19 — reopened pubs and restaurants last weekend in a bid to restore normal economic life.

Implicit in these approaches is the assumption that governments must balance saving lives against the imperative to spare jobs, with the extra health risks of rolling back social distancing potentially justified by a resulting boost to prosperity. But Sweden’s grim result — more death, and nearly equal economic damage — suggests that the supposed choice between lives and paychecks is a false one: A failure to impose social distancing can cost lives and jobs at the same time.

Sweden put stock in the sensibility of its people as it largely avoided imposing government prohibitions. The government allowed restaurants, gyms, shops, playgrounds and most schools to remain open. By contrast, Denmark and Norway opted for strict quarantines, banning large groups and locking down shops and restaurants.

More than three months later, the coronavirus is blamed for 5,420 deaths in Sweden, according to the World Health Organization. That might not sound especially horrendous compared with the more than 129,000 Americans who have died. But Sweden is a country of only 10 million people. Per million people, Sweden has suffered 40 percent more deaths than the United States, 12 times more than Norway, seven times more than Finland and six times more than Denmark.

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Per million people, Sweden has suffered 40 percent more coronavirus-related deaths than the United States.Credit...Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The elevated death toll resulting from Sweden’s approach has been clear for many weeks. What is only now emerging is how Sweden, despite letting its economy run unimpeded, has still suffered business-destroying, prosperity-diminishing damage, and at nearly the same magnitude of its neighbors.

Sweden’s central bank expects its economy to contract by 4.5 percent this year, a revision from a previously expected gain of 1.3 percent. The unemployment rate jumped to 9 percent in May from 7.1 percent in March. “The overall damage to the economy means the recovery will be protracted, with unemployment remaining elevated,” Oxford Economics concluded in a recent research note.

 

This is more or less how damage caused by the pandemic has played out in Denmark, where the central bank expects that the economy will shrink 4.1 percent this year, and where joblessness has edged up to 5.6 percent in May from 4.1 percent in March.

In short, Sweden suffered a vastly higher death rate while failing to collect on the expected economic gains.

The coronavirus does not stop at national borders. Despite the government’s decision to allow the domestic economy to roll on, Swedish businesses are stuck with the same conditions that produced recession everywhere else. And Swedish people responded to the fear of the virus by limiting their shopping — not enough to prevent elevated deaths, but enough to produce a decline in business activity.

Here is one takeaway with potentially universal import: It is simplistic to portray government actions such as quarantines as the cause of economic damage. The real culprit is the virus itself. From Asia to Europe to the Americas, the risks of the pandemic have disrupted businesses while prompting people to avoid shopping malls and restaurants, regardless of official policy.

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Sweden’s central bank expects its economy to contract by 4.5 percent this year, a revision from a previously expected gain of 1.3 percent. Credit...Jonathan Nackstrand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Sweden is exposed to the vagaries of global trade. Once the pandemic was unleashed, it was certain to suffer the economic consequences, said Mr. Kirkegaard, the economist.

“The Swedish manufacturing sector shut down when everyone else shut down because of the supply chain situation,” he said. “This was entirely predictable.”

What remained in the government’s sphere of influence was how many people would die.

“There is just no questioning and no willingness from the Swedish government to really change tack, until it’s too late,” Mr. Kirkegaard said. “Which is astonishing, given that it’s been clear for quite some time that the economic gains that they claim to have gotten from this are just nonexistent.”

Norway, on the other hand, was not only quick to impose an aggressive lockdown, but early to relax it as the virus slowed, and as the government ramped up testing. It is now expected to see a more rapid economic turnaround. Norway’s central bank predicts that its mainland economy — excluding the turbulent oil and gas sector — will contract by 3.9 percent this year. That amounts to a marked improvement over the 5.5 percent decline expected in the midst of the lockdown.

Sweden’s laissez faire approach does appear to have minimized the economic damage compared with its neighbors in the first three months of the year, according to an assessment by the International Monetary Fund. But that effect has worn off as the force of the pandemic has swept through the global economy, and as Swedish consumers have voluntarily curbed their shopping anyway.

Researchers at the University of Copenhagen gained access to credit data from Danske Bank, one of the largest in Scandinavia. They studied spending patterns from mid-March, when Denmark put the clamps on the economy, to early April. The pandemic prompted Danes to reduce their spending 29 percent in that period, the study concluded. During the same weeks, consumers in Sweden — where freedom reigned — reduced their spending 25 percent.

Strikingly, older people — those over 70 — reduced their spending more in Sweden than in Denmark, perhaps concerned that the business-as-usual circumstances made going out especially risky.

Collectively, Scandinavian consumers are expected to continue spending far more robustly than in the United States, said Thomas Harr, global head of research at Danske Bank, emphasizing those nations’ generous social safety nets, including national health care systems. Americans, by contrast, tend to rely on their jobs for health care, making them more cautious about their health and their spending during the pandemic, knowing that hospitalization can be a gateway to financial calamity.

“It’s very much about the welfare state,” Mr. Harr said of Scandinavian countries. “You’re not as concerned about catching the virus, because you know that, if you do, the state is paying for health care.”

Peter S. Goodman is a London-based European economics correspondent. He was previously a national economic correspondent in New York. He has also worked at The Washington Post as a China correspondent, and was global editor in chief of the International Business Times. @petersgoodman

 

 

Edited by WigstonWanderer
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4 hours ago, Md9 said:

What sort of numbers are looking at getting down to before they decide the lockdown is not needed any more? Hancock says the infection rate is going down in Leicester which is good 

Germany have been unlocking at 50 positives per 100,000. Last week Leicester was 141 and now 117. Hancock hinted that as long as it's consistently falling then that means he'll consider unlocking and that one that's rising to 40 per 100,000 is a bigger issue that one thats falling to 80 per 100,000.

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1 hour ago, RumbleFox said:

Overheard some mansplainer telling a sales assistant why wearing face masks is stupid. “When they first talked about the virus they said that you should stop touching your mouth, ear and eyes. Well does a facemask cover your eyes?!?!”
 

Seems a sound argument? X 

I wear swimming goggles to accompany mine 😎

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11 hours ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Serbia a great example of lifting a lockdown early - had full football crowds, tennis tournaments, encouraged people to gather to boost economy. 
 

Belgrade locked down now and rest of country by the end of the week. As it’s spiked beyond previous levels. 

Rioting yesterday at the doors of government insisting on a lockdown. Welcome to 2020 and popularist governments 

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USA had 55k new cases yesterday.  It has breached the 50k mark five times in the last week.

 

Almost 1k deaths yesterday.  The last time there was a number in excess of 1k was June 9. 
 

I wonder what Presidential reaction there will be when, because it now seems unfortunately inevitable, there is a breach of further headline figures.  I see his lieutenants have began upping the anti China rhetoric 

 

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3 minutes ago, zorro en españa said:

USA had 55k new cases yesterday.  It has breached the 50k mark five times in the last week.

 

Almost 1k deaths yesterday.  The last time there was a number in excess of 1k was June 9. 
 

I wonder what Presidential reaction there will be when, because it now seems unfortunately inevitable, there is a breach of further headline figures.  I see his lieutenants have began upping the anti China rhetoric 

 

We’ve been waiting for fatalities to rise in response to the case increase with a lag ....yesterday’s number could well be a weekend catch up so not sure we’ve arrived at that grim point yet. 

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53 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Rioting yesterday at the doors of government insisting on a lockdown. Welcome to 2020 and popularist governments 

Yes, it is grim, but at least when www.yourule.org comes online, it will certainly be an interesting experiment in human behaviour   :rolleyes:

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1 hour ago, zorro en españa said:

USA had 55k new cases yesterday.  It has breached the 50k mark five times in the last week.

 

Almost 1k deaths yesterday.  The last time there was a number in excess of 1k was June 9. 
 

I wonder what Presidential reaction there will be when, because it now seems unfortunately inevitable, there is a breach of further headline figures.  I see his lieutenants have began upping the anti China rhetoric 

 

They're having their 1918 style 'second wave' even though it's a continuation of wave one. It's due to opening up too soon and incompetent leadership from Trump and his state governers. I think Europe (us, France, Spain, Germany, Italy) should avoid this as we do seem to have gotten our act together.

 

Trump needs to go in November. He'll blame everyone, China, the WHO, the Democrats, anything but looking in the mirror. A truly pathetic individual. 

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