Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

And as I saw B post on social media, if a person in UK decides to visit another part of their country:

I never really get this issue. We're a multinational state and health is a devolved matter.

I imagine there are different rules in different provinces of Canada, states in the US or Germany. You know, it's a feature not a bug and we just have this ideological thing in our culture that is really hostile to the idea that things are different in Scotland or Wales.

[Valmy]

Hell the rules vary greatly between local jurisdictions in Texas.

[garbon]

I was actually drawing the opposite point, none of this is simple and rightfully so. Trying to pretend like it is with catchy phrases like 'the rule of six' is infantalising and ultimately does lead to people still doing whatever they feel like.

That said the rules in that grid mostly look like bureaucratic nonsense with arbitrary number cutoffs.

[garbon]

Anglo-Saxon is an ethnicity. If you want to refer to all English speakers, the word is Anglophone.

I wanted to refer to people living in countries where the english culture is predominant.  You could be an english speaker living in France, my line wouldn't apply to you because their school system is not the same as Canada, US, UK and other similar countries.

Guess what the school systems you are trying to link as all the same aren't either.

[Sheilbh]

I was actually drawing the opposite point, none of this is simple and rightfully so. Trying to pretend like it is with catchy phrases like 'the rule of six' is infantalising and ultimately does lead to people still doing whatever they feel like.

I agree that none of it is simple especially because I think there are changes that will just happen as we know more about this disease and scientists understand it more.

But I sort of think in a situation like this part of the job of politicians is to take a complex situation, make the best decisions they can and communicate them so we can understand. Part of that is always going to be distilling it to a core message people can remember and understand.

I've said before that actually I think the comms have been horrendous from the start but I think part of it is inherent in Johnson. He became popular because of his ability to communicate but his style is dreadful for this sort of issue. What got him attention as a writer and politician was the way he communicated but it was sort of comic-whimsical - it's hyperbole and silly words and allusions, a sort of Poundshop PG Wodehouse. What is needed now is clear, simple, directions - so even the "rule of six" is not helpful because to me it sounds like something from an Enid Blyton story or something.

That said the rules in that grid mostly look like bureaucratic nonsense with arbitrary number cutoffs.

Yeah - I remember someone posting an article on all the different distances you were meant to keep between people across Europe and there was a crazy amount of variation for something that seems like it should be simple.

[Sheilbh]

Hell the rules vary greatly between local jurisdictions in Texas.

In the UK media it is very much being portrayed as extraordinary and incomprehensible that you might have to follow different rules if you travel from London to Scotland

It reminds me of the Westminster political journalists moaning that it was incredibly disrespectful of the devolved administrations to hold their daily press conferences before Number 10 did - because they were somehow gazumping announcements that rightfully belong to the UK government which is, apparently senior to the others. Obviously it isn't and anyway what they were announcing only mattered for England

[Threviel]

I've booked a covid-test today. I'm having a cold, pain in the throat, muscle pains, headaches, mild cough and my stomach was absolutely ruined last week. No fever though. The kids also seem to have the same cold. It feels like a very much lighter version of the cold I had in February.

I don't expect it to be Covid, but it's just as well to take the test.

[Tamas]

On this whole UK moonshot nonsense BS:

What [the PM] seems to be describing is a rapid test that's available for mass screening and that gives results within a few minutes. That does not exist at the moment. And no country is using a test like that; it simply is not there.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't be ambitious and aim for such a test. But it doesn't exist at the moment, so it's a a little bit difficult to see how it is going to fit in with what we're doing at the moment.

The numbers are a bit dramatic. For example, with rapid tests that are available at the moment, you probably can do no more than about 100 a day. So if he's aiming for 10m a day, that's quite a target to aim for.

What [the PM] seems to be describing is a rapid test that's available for mass screening and that gives results within a few minutes. That does not exist at the moment. And no country is using a test like that; it simply is not there.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't be ambitious and aim for such a test. But it doesn't exist at the moment, so it's a a little bit difficult to see how it is going to fit in with what we're doing at the moment.

The numbers are a bit dramatic. For example, with rapid tests that are available at the moment, you probably can do no more than about 100 a day. So if he's aiming for 10m a day, that's quite a target to aim for.

Judging by how the year has gone so far,  I would expect the next miracle to be announced late October-ish, although they might have started to paint themselves into a corner with these promised numbers. Will be hard to top these even in the make-believe Britain they have been busily building in people's heads since the Brexit referendum. 

[Syt]

Sounds like the "technical solutions" planned for the customs border in Northern Ireland.

[Tamas]

Sounds like the "technical solutions" planned for the customs border in Northern Ireland.

They are going to be ready at the same time, too.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - that's probably fair. For what it's worth someone I know in the NHS has said they're working on 15 minute, 90 minute and 24 hour tests (this was mentioned in passing a few weeks ago) that they want to have ready for the winter. I wonder if it's the same thing.

Although I think saying that aiming for x is ambitious, it doesn't exist at the minute and no country is doing it is kind of implied in "moonshot", no?

It goes to the point I think about climate as well of whatever we need to solve the climate crisis isn't in existence at the minute and we need a way of explaining and justifying and legitimising throwing enormous state resources at things that don't exist and may not work, in the aim that some of them will (and there'll be loads of unpredictable side benefits/industries/technologies that spill over). I always thought the "moonshot" would be a good rhetorical way of doing that, but no doubt we're now about to see it be wildly discredited

[garbon]

Yeah - that's probably fair. For what it's worth someone I know in the NHS has said they're working on 15 minute, 90 minute and 24 hour tests (this was mentioned in passing a few weeks ago) that they want to have ready for the winter. I wonder if it's the same thing.

Although I think saying that aiming for x is ambitious, it doesn't exist at the minute and no country is doing it is kind of implied in "moonshot", no?

It goes to the point I think about climate as well of whatever we need to solve the climate crisis isn't in existence at the minute and we need a way of explaining and justifying and legitimising throwing enormous state resources at things that don't exist and may not work, in the aim that some of them will (and there'll be loads of unpredictable side benefits/industries/technologies that spill over). I always thought the "moonshot" would be a good rhetorical way of doing that, but no doubt we're now about to see it be wildly discredited

Perhaps because its blatantly not attempt at legitimizing enormous state resources to tackle a problem but just an attempt to evade responsibility by dazzling the populace with shiny things.

When asked to confirm things will not be normal by Christmas, Boris says that it is too soon to tell and that the government is doing things - rule of six and wants to give people passports via moonshot.

That's not inspirational but rather "don't sweat the details now, we're going to have some incredible things we'll do for you".

Almost like it comes the exact same playbook as the Brexit lie.

[Tamas]

(this was mentioned in passing a few weeks ago)

Do you mean how it was front page on all newspapers for 2-3 days then forgotten like nobody ever promised anything? 

[Tamas]

Perhaps because its blatantly not attempt at legitimizing enormous state resources to tackle a problem but just an attempt to evade responsibility by dazzling the populace with shiny things.

Exactly, it is reaching humiliating proportions. Every month they dangle some shiny new slogan and an incredible promise in front of us. Which just shows the contempt they have for us in general, nothing else.

[Sheilbh]

I mean if it costs anything like the £100bn being quoted in the leaked briefing document that's a pretty enormouse use of state resources (over 10% of the annual budget). Now whether they're the people you'd trust with that sort of project....

And the point I mean about legitimising rhetoric isn't that it'll be inspirational - it's more that we need a way of accepting massive state spending, that will probably mainly be wasted if we're to deal with the climate (and maybe the pandemic?). But most of our politics is about cost/benefit and really hates "waste", so I don't think we have a way of framing or understanding it. It was a wider thought about a "moonshot" (because I think we need them now - certainly on climate), rather than anything about this.