Corona Virus

[Margaret Pilkington]

cashy, if it has my name on it then so be it...but I cannot live my life in the shadow of a fear of something that might never happen.
I would not wish younger people to have their lives blighted to protect me...It is an unreasonable ask.

[Jimmy Clitheroe]

I have kind of changed my view on the lockdown stance. Although I think it's too late now and it's not going away anytime soon so the current lockdowns are pretty pointless, a swift initial lockdown would have made a hell of a difference to the death rate. The 'evidence' I would use to back this up is everyone's favourite example of Sweden. People here compare their death rate to ours when they should really compare it to their neighbours. When you do you will see a pretty shocking disparity. SWEDEN population 10million - No Lockdown 125'000 cases, nearly 6000 deaths next door neighbours NORWAY population 5 millions 20'000 cases 282 deaths. Taking the respective populations into consideration you are still three times more likely to contract the virus in Sweden than Norway and TEN times more likely to die from it.

[Margaret Pilkington]

I have not seen those figures before.
Did Norway have a lockdown?
Sweden did not...so businesses and trade was allowed to continue...people were allowed to mix sensibly.
I would also ask if either of these countries closed their borders to incoming flights.

We continued to import whatever anyone was bringing in with them and no checks of any description were carried out on incomers.
When the major lockdown was eased they started talking about testing the people coming in to the country...but I don’t think it ever got up and running.

So the whole debacle was mishandled(and mishandled in a multitude of ways) right from the outset.

You are right though Jimmy, this lockdown won’t work.....except it was instituted on bogus figures and it is being mooted that the R rate is already down to 1....so maybe they will portray that it HAS worked...release us a little bit....then come New year when the Blanket tests are being done on everybody(or everybody who wants to have the test) in Liverpool show the infection rate is up, then we will have a rerun of this rotten business.

It is all calculated as a control measure.
They can do what they want.....and the people have become so scared that they want MORE of these draconian measures.

[monkey hanger]

Originally Posted by cashman

From what i saw have to completely disagree Margaret

is it because you had a mate who died because of the virus that has formed your attitude to the general public whereas others like me who do not know of anyone who had definatly caught it are a bit more relaxed about their behaviour.

[monkey hanger]

[QUOTE=Margaret Pilkington;1246385]

We continued to import whatever anyone was bringing in with them and no checks of any description were carried out on incomers.
When the major lockdown was eased they started talking about testing the people coming in to the country...but I don’t think it ever got up and running.

there was plenty of talk but not much action with people coming into the country that might have brought it in from abroad. we all had to suffer restricted lives but as i saw it airports were not shut. i,d have thought that any travel in and out of the country would have been something banned from day 1. now the new talk is the experimental testing of a whole city, liverpool. if all the population fell in with this, which they will not, how will the figures be used and how will any figure control the virus anyway. more graphs i suppose.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Of course there will be more graphs, more manipulated figures which is a euphemism for lies.

Does it not strike anyone as strange that the areas where most testing was done are those that are considered to have the highest infections?
On Nelson they were stopping people in the street to give them a test.
People who were out and about doing their shopping were being ‘encouraged’ to have a test.
The next news was Pendle had a spike in infections.
They did not tell us how many were ill or how many needed medical intervention.

My daughters boy has required four of these tests.....being sent home from school because two of his study group had tested positive, though neither of them developed any symptoms.....he tested negative each time...but had he tested positive it would have been recorded as four cases of infection.
The test is not fit for purpose.
But apparently the test being used in Liverpool is an antibody test....so we will have to wait and see how that goes...but I treat it with scepticism that is born of experience of the shambolic way this has played out.

And please do not trot out the phrase that is over used and of little value ‘unprecedented
times’.

The government missed chances to do things that would have altered the course of the virus......I don’t propose to list them here as I have done it too many times already.
When you make a mistake more than once it ceases to be a mistake, it becomes a choice.

[DaveinGermany]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

(or everybody who wants to have the test) in Liverpool show the infection rate is up,

Believe me it'll be 100% positives, as Scousers, if sometning is for free they'll be there with their hands out, plus our tendency to "Professional Martyrdom" the result is a given!

[Jimmy Clitheroe]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

I have not seen those figures before.
Did Norway have a lockdown?
Sweden did not...so businesses and trade was allowed to continue...people were allowed to mix sensibly.
I would also ask if either of these countries closed their borders to incoming flights.

s.

will put the some of the sources for those figures -

https://www.statista.com/statistics/...pe-by-country/

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

I think we should stop quoting Sweden as an example of how to do it properly and start looking at the countries that have managed the situation FAR better than them.
Of course most of those countries don't have complete and utterly useless parliaments which is probably the first thing needs changing. Also people who made some pretty critical negligent decisions (like sending people with Covid from hospital to care homes) should face criminal charges. I know hindsight is always a wonderful thing but it hasn't stopped people from being charged with criminal negligence.

[Margaret Pilkington]

Jimmy, I guess it depend on how you define success.
Any country that went into lockdown automatically trashed their economy.
Put their population into hock if you like.
Sweden did not do that.
They carried on almost normally.
People were allowed to take responsibility for their actions and I know that their population is a lot smaller but in my mind they dealt with the virus by allowing people to be exposed to other things.

Right now there is a rise in figures...and this is all over.
Here the flu and pneumonia deaths have ceased to be recorded.....and I was asking an ex colleague why she thought this was the case.....she told me that any respiratory deaths were now being added to the Covid stats.
Now I cannot prove that this is happening....I certainly cannot say it is happening all over the country, but I am sceptical of the stats anyway....stats (as I am sure you know) can be manipulated to show what the person commissioning wants them to show.

I think maybe the exception to this is ONS stats

Looking at what we have been expected to swallow in regard to statistics, there has been a bit of back pedalling going on.

I know a number of people who have tested positive....none have gone on to develop any illness....the counting of tests in the absence of symptoms and counting them as cases is the biggest hoax.
It is designed to keep the population compliant while our economy goes to the dogs and we rack up a debt that will take as long to pay off as the debt for World War Two.
Austerity.....we think we experienced austerity.....we will know what austerity is when the reckoning comes....though maybe I will be circling in the ether by then.

[monkey hanger]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

It is designed to keep the population compliant while our economy goes to the dogs and we rack up a debt that will take as long to pay off as the debt for World War Two.
Austerity.....we think we experienced austerity.....we will know what austerity is when the reckoning comes....though maybe I will be circling in the ether by then.

think they use austerity now as a technicality and not something some of us lived through as kids. even that must have been better for many as the 30,s must have been and that better than the victorian era where working people were really slaves without em being called that. even those better off by working for someone like josiah salt had good housing but had to tow the line at work, go to church and have restricted lives worse than any restrictions we are having at the moment.

[Margaret Pilkington]

And as for the hospitals being ‘pulled out’...my daughter went for some blood tests last month and the corridors were empty of people(I posted a picture of it)...well she had to return for a repeat of that this Wednesday.
The consultant had just three patients in his clinic.
A nurse was heard to say to a Sister ‘please find me something to do’.....so do you believe what the politicians are telling us or do you believe what you see and hear.

They re-opened the Nightingale units that were mothballed early on in the pandemic...this was when we were being given ridiculous projected death figures.
These stand empty and are now being re-purposed as Track and Trace centres.

[monkey hanger]

the thing with hospitals and the lack of use in any of their facilities is that they will close these facilities if they are deemed quiet and poorly used and you have to travel further for your treatment. a good example was the maternity ward of the hospital in rugby that had not been long built. rugby, with nearly double accringtons population, mums had to trail 10 miles due to a falling birthrate. no illness equals no hospitals anyway so the government cannot complain when we use em if they are infact still open that is.

[Margaret Pilkington]

It seems not that there is no requirement for these hospitals....there is...it is just that every focus is on a virus that kills 0.1% of the population.(or maybe even less if the stats were relayed with clarity and honesty)
Everything has been put on hold.
My daughter should be having three monthly scans, but in 12 months she has had only one of these.
Why?
Well because of the pandemic.
She has seen her consultant only once since her surgery.....has had two phone appointments.
Let me ask....how do you palpate an abdomen by phone, how do you inspect a surgical incision by phone.
How can you determine whether cancer has come back using just a phone call.
The support for people who have been given a diagnosis of life limiting illness has been very badly neglected.
Almost as if these patients are disposable because they are not on the Covid agenda.

[monkey hanger]

well boris says the health service is open. well it is for covid. eye specialsts phone call. i give up. looking at the cost of going private. gone past the usual date i get for my yearly MOT at the doctors with a nurse. imagine its the same for all of us. its got like trying to get your car repaired. every garage says that we only do brakes nowadays and you have to wait for other repairs as we might get swamped.

[taddy]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

It seems not that there is no requirement for these hospitals....there is...it is just that every focus is on a virus that kills 0.1% of the population.(or maybe even less if the stats were relayed with clarity and honesty)
Everything has been put on hold.
My daughter should be having three monthly scans, but in 12 months she has had only one of these.
Why?
Well because of the pandemic.
She has seen her consultant only once since her surgery.....has had two phone appointments.
Let me ask....how do you palpate an abdomen by phone, how do you inspect a surgical incision by phone.
How can you determine whether cancer has come back using just a phone call.
The support for people who have been given a diagnosis of life limiting illness has been very badly neglected.
Almost as if these patients are disposable because they are not on the Covid agenda.

Marge, there has got to be something wrong on the admin side of the N.H.S. when people like your daughter who have life a life threatening illness, are having the appointments cancelled whilst I have just received an appointment at the audiology department of Royal Blackburn Hospital for a hearing test review. I have not had one of these since 2005; Why now? we are being told that the N.H.S. is being overwhelmed.