Coronavirus - A pale horse,4 men and ....beer

[StellaBot]

Meet me ouside London Hospital
I will pay you money to work there?

Up for it?

Dont know whats worst for some to catch

Aids or Corona

[SweetLyrics]

OK, let's get this straight.

I live in Glasgow.

You want me to spend a day travelling down to London at my own expense (breaking the law which forbids non-essential travel from Scotland to England) to prove a point? Nah, I'll pass, if it's all the same! :

Meet me ouside London Hospital
I will pay you money to work there?

Up for it?

[StellaBot]

Bailed out
Caught out

As Ann D said "wekest link"

BYE

[SweetLyrics]

OK, let's use an analogy.

Would I spend a day working on the flu ward if I hadn't had a flu vaccination? Nope!

Do I think we should have a lockdown each winter to prevent people dying from the flu (as happens every year)?

Nope, that would be total overkill.

There is no contradiction.

Bailed out
Caught out

As Ann D said "wekest link"

BYE

[StellaBot]

Is there a vac for aids?

[StellaBot]

[SweetLyrics]

I don't think so, but I hardly see the relevance!

Is there a vac for aids?

[StellaBot]

k

[Derek27]

I think that's a good point.

The government have said from the start that they are listening to the experts. I don't doubt that's the case. But are they inviting the right experts into the conversation, i.e. do they listen to economists as well as epidemiologists to get a balanced view of the short- and long- term effects of their policies? And are they asking the right questions? Are they asking merely 'What can do to minimise the number of people getting Covid?', or are they asking 'What can we do that will minimise the years of life lost?'.

I'm sceptical of the government's decisions (and very critical of a lot of their decision making, which can be inconsistent and sometimes comes across as being made on the basis of someone's gut feeling). However, I don't claim to know what the answer is (and I think many experts would privately admit that they don't, either).

Many people are in one camp or the other without balancing health and the effect on the economy.

I guess they got some good brains advising them. The problem is BJ goes along with them if it suits him but ignores them if he doesn't like what he hears, like the national Christmas virus spreading event.

[alexmr2]

Meet me ouside London Hospital
I will pay you money to work there?

This is one of the standard responses to anti-lockdown or rule breakers, I do think it's a pointless exercise unless you have some context to compare it to e.g. 10 years experience in ICUs through multiple flu seasons. In reality people have been dying in hospitals for hundreds of years and 1600 deaths per day is the normal UK death figure any other year.

All I have saw is the BBC broadcast the 1% of the 1% critical care wards with the patients in the worst conditions struggling to breathe, giving a warped perspective of reality. I have also saw some people walk round hospitals videoing, and I'm not saying there's no patients but there's certainly not ambulances queued up or beds piled up in corridors as you would expect from a true pandemic

[Derek27]

All I have saw is the BBC broadcast the 1% of the 1% critical care wards with the patients in the worst conditions struggling to breathe,

Unless you can explain how you've come to that 1% conclusion, you're talking bollocks as usual!

[TraderFred]

I think it’s great that Alex has found an ally in long term serial loser, and probably the worst trader to ever grace this forum, Jeff.

I know it’s only a small sample, though there does seem to be a correlation between scepticism/ verging on conspiracy and being a losing trader too.

I suppose they are used to blaming dark forces for their own shortcomings, be it market manipulation, inside information, betfair controlling their own markets, fake news, government conspiracies.

Though they continue to do it, with such authority and conviction. With the same authority and conviction they give trading related analogies too. Anyone reading from the outside would be forgiven for thinking they actually know what they are talking about !

[TraderFred]

And if you think people are being overly concerned about something that has a 99% chance of survival, next horse that goes off at 100 +, lay it for everything you are worth, and see how you feel about the risk then.

[sionascaig]

All I am saying is that there is such a thing as an acceptable risk. You can't insulate yourself from risk without taking such extreme measures that, ironically, there is a danger of even creating even greater risk.

Some people say, for example, that lives are more important than the economy. However, that argument breaks down when you consider that you need a healthy economy for the NHS to buy drugs. To put it crudely, if the economy ends up fucked because the government has shut down just about every business out there, then the NHS will be fucked too, and people will die.

Jeff

Taiwan has something like 8 deaths and no lockdown - they have a test, track, trace & supported isolation system that works (and that is with twice the population density of the uk)..

==> the "risk" appears to have been largely avoidable and has been created by the morons currently in charge of government

Hindsight is a great thing, but NZ managed to change their approach & are reaping the benefits now.

So yes there is an "acceptable risk" but its a lot lower than the rate we are experiencing by self inflicted own goals.

[Euler]

I think it would be a fun experiment to create a time machine and dump social media into the second world war. I can imagine the debates now.

People arguing that German unification of Europe is a good thing as it would bring many benefits against a fragmented and outdated system. How the government is allowing people to starve with rationing while spending a fortune on building it's military might. How excess deaths in Europe were really just the impact of a particularly bad winter, after all, attempts by Germany to reunify Russia failed because of the bad weather.

Ultimately we will only the correct path through the pandemic when it's over. Till then it's just a judgement on probabilities and there are likely to be errors. Life is best understood backwards, but you have to live it forwards.