Generic Virus Thread

[El Zen]

1 hour ago, TrentVilla said:

In which case I’m sure they will be pointing the blame at us.

Oh, I already did, two months ago, in this very thread

[TrentVilla]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

He’s already a massive clot

Don’t know why but find it impossible to read this without going all Rob Newman “See that congealed lump of blood, that’s you that is”

[Mandy Lifeboats]

I got my jab yesterday.  Woke up this morning with aches in all my joints.  I took 2 paracetamol and feel fine. 

[Jareth]

France now resuming with the AstraZen vaccine - but only for over 55s - having previously said it was no good for over 65's, and inbetween casting doubt on it for anyone of any age by suspending its use. Sooooo incompetent. Have had chats with people otherwise quite pro-EU or at least anti UK gov, and nearly everyone has become a Britain cheerleader. Boris has lucked out. 

[Davkaus]

4 hours ago, blandy said:

He’s already a massive clot

Jacob Rees-Mogg thinks that this is a sick burn.  

[TrentVilla]

18 minutes ago, Jareth said:

France now resuming with the AstraZen vaccine - but only for over 55s - having previously said it was no good for over 65's, and inbetween casting doubt on it for anyone of any age by suspending its use. Sooooo incompetent. Have had chats with people otherwise quite pro-EU or at least anti UK gov, and nearly everyone has become a Britain cheerleader. Boris has lucked out. 

I’m no Boris fan and certainly didn’t vote for him but I don’t agree with the last line.

The UK Gov deserve huge amounts of criticism for many aspects of the handling of the pandemic but they didn’t get lucky on the vaccination element. They took a huge gamble and would have been crucified no doubt had they got it wrong as they deserve to be over track and trace.

They shouldn’t though be labelled as lucky for the things they got right.

[bickster]

11 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

They shouldn’t though be labelled as lucky for the things they got right.

Very true because the opposite to that is that they were unlucky with the thousands of things they've got wrong

[TrentVilla]

8 minutes ago, bickster said:

Very true because the opposite to that is that they were unlucky with the thousands of things they've got wrong

Exactly!

[darrenm]

I'm starting to think that Brexit was a really good idea. I know we could have gone our own way but we wouldn't.

[sidcow]

6 minutes ago, darrenm said:

I'm starting to think that Brexit was a really good idea. I know we could have gone our own way but we wouldn't.

Brexit is an unmitigated disaster for this country.  It really really wasn't a good idea.

I'm not sure why we wouldn't still have done our own thing if we had stayed in the EU.  We've got a pretty strong record of doing our own thing even within the EU, see our currency.  I think there was strong appetite do to our own vaccine deals (as can be seen by the huge criticism it attracted at the time, they wouldn't have gone through that lightly) so I think they would have done it anyway.

So yes, our vaccine deals will have saved lots of lives, but we will still be a poorer country with lost industries and jobs due to Brexit when all is said and done.

[darrenm]

1 minute ago, sidcow said:

Brexit is an unmitigated disaster for this country.  It really really wasn't a good idea.

I'm not sure why we wouldn't still have done our own thing if we had stayed in the EU.  We've got a pretty strong record of doing our own thing even within the EU, see our currency.  I think there was strong appetite do to our own vaccine deals (as can be seen by the huge criticism it attracted at the time, they wouldn't have gone through that lightly) so I think they would have done it anyway.

So yes, our vaccine deals will have saved lots of lives, but we will still be a poorer country with lost industries and jobs due to Brexit when all is said and done.

I should have prefixed that with "It's crazy that"

[chrisp65]

It sums up our understanding of the EU that we will all be grateful that we weren’t in it and bound by its decisions. When the reality is, lots of the actions within the EU have been unilateral, they’ve broken ranks as and when any one administration has blinked. So there is nothing, in theory, that we have done since brexit that we couldn’t have done when in the EU.

Now, we probably would have just gone along with the consensus, not bothered sending the right people to the right meetings to influence the right decisions. But that would have been our mindset being the issue. Not the actual EU.

You’ll never manage to explain that concept to the majority of voters. They’re still basking in the fact that we had Winston Churchill and Spitfires.

 

[sidcow]

49 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

It sums up our understanding of the EU that we will all be grateful that we weren’t in it and bound by its decisions. When the reality is, lots of the actions within the EU have been unilateral, they’ve broken ranks as and when any one administration has blinked. So there is nothing, in theory, that we have done since brexit that we couldn’t have done when in the EU.

Now, we probably would have just gone along with the consensus, not bothered sending the right people to the right meetings to influence the right decisions. But that would have been our mindset being the issue. Not the actual EU.

You’ll never manage to explain that concept to the majority of voters. They’re still basking in the fact that we had Winston Churchill and Spitfires.

 

Spitfires are great though. 

[TrentVilla]

45 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

It sums up our understanding of the EU that we will all be grateful that we weren’t in it and bound by its decisions. When the reality is, lots of the actions within the EU have been unilateral, they’ve broken ranks as and when any one administration has blinked. So there is nothing, in theory, that we have done since brexit that we couldn’t have done when in the EU.

Now, we probably would have just gone along with the consensus, not bothered sending the right people to the right meetings to influence the right decisions. But that would have been our mindset being the issue. Not the actual EU.

You’ll never manage to explain that concept to the majority of voters. They’re still basking in the fact that we had Winston Churchill and Spitfires.

 

Yes and no.

We don’t know and can never know if we would have broken rank on the vaccine or not had the wider political landscape been different. Personally I think it is highly unlikely any Government would have done because to do so was a huge gamble and one done in my view because of political circumstance rather than a fundamental difference of opinion. 

What is though undeniable is that the EU has made an absolute shambles of their vaccination purchasing and roll out. They acted to cautiously resulting in their course of action being incredibly damaging to both their populations and economies collectively and individually.

The EU has screwed up and no amount of whataboutary and finger pointing from them or for that matter groundless legal arguments or threats changes that. 

The reasons for our different course of action may be multifarious but they are very fortunate. Could we have taken this course if action without Brexit? Yes. Would have have done? No, not a bloody chance in my view.

Just as we have to accept that the Gov got it right re vaccinations we have to accept that in all probability Brexit has benefited us in the context of this issue. However unpalatable that may be, how affronting it is to personal views and irrespective of whatever issues arise from our exit.

 

[chrisp65]

3 minutes ago, sidcow said:

Spitfires are great though. 

Spitfires are great yes.

I just don’t understand why Johnson hasn’t yet suggested we have a nuclear one.

I’m sure they’re working on it, it’s just getting the Union Jack painted on the fuselage that appears to be the tricky bit for the Chinese contractor to understand.

 

[chrisp65]

1 minute ago, TrentVilla said:

Yes and no.

We don’t know and can never know if we would have broken rank on the vaccine or not had the wider political landscape been different. Personally I think it is highly unlikely any Government would have done because to do so was a huge gamble and one done in my view because of political circumstance rather than a fundamental difference of opinion. 

What is though undeniable is that the EU has made an absolute shambles of their vaccination purchasing and roll out. They acted to cautiously resulting in their course of action being incredibly damaging to both their populations and economies collectively and individually.

The EU has screwed up and no amount of whataboutary and finger pointing from them or for that matter groundless legal arguments or threats changes that. 

The reasons for our different course of action may be multifarious but they are very fortunate. Could we have taken this course if action without Brexit? Yes. Would have have done? No, not a bloody chance in my view.

Just as we have to accept that the Gov got it right re vaccinations we have to accept that in all probability Brexit has benefited us in the context of this issue. However unpalatable that may be, how affronting it is to personal views and irrespective of whatever issues arise from our exit.

 

So, exactly what I said then?

[Silent_Bob]

16 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Kind of so what, to be honest.

Ever heard of Darwin?

[TrentVilla]

11 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

So, exactly what I said then?

No not really or not at least how I read your post which suggests their is no issue with the EU only the UK mindset. I don’t agree.

I think the ponderous collective approach is damaging as has been proven in this case. That is a failing that would have cost us well as potentially failing to act independently.

I get you think Brexit is a terrible idea and that anyone who voted for it is a flag waving simpleton. It probably is a terrible move I agree.

I’m just tired of entrenched views of certainty from both sides of the divide (a general point not directly relating to your posts). It is possible for some things resulting from Brexit to be positive even if unintended just as some elements of the EU were positive.

 

[HanoiVillan]

5 minutes ago, Silent_Bob said:

Ever heard of Darwin?

The virus is going to become 'endemic', ie it is not going to disappear from Earth, but instead become one of the many viruses that exist in our world, just as you can still catch 'Spanish flu' (more accurately, variants upon variants upon variants thereof). There is *always* a risk of viral mutations; you might recall that the big fear, prior to 2019, was of a 'pandemic strain of influenza', and indeed the UK's shit response was in large part a result of planning for that eventuality more than the one we got.

However, you may also recall that prior to 2019 - and despite this threat - we continued to live normally. We cannot keep society shut based on fears of theoretical viral strains. The vaccines we have work brilliantly, better than we could have dared to dream a few short months ago; it will be possible to update them in the case of many/most strains in the future.

There is no other end to this situation except vaccination, so I don't see the point in whining about whatever extent less than perfect they are. I don't intend the Public Health Legends keep me locked in my house much longer, sorry.

[chrisp65]

5 minutes ago, TrentVilla said:

No not really or not at least how I read your post which suggests their is no issue with the EU only the UK mindset. I don’t agree.

I think the ponderous collective approach is damaging as has been proven in this case. That is a failing that would have cost us well as potentially failing to act independently.

I get you think Brexit is a terrible idea and that anyone who voted for it is a flag waving simpleton. It probably is a terrible move I agree.

I’m just tired of entrenched views of certainty from both sides of the divide (a general point not directly relating to your posts). It is possible for some things resulting from Brexit to be positive even if unintended just as some elements of the EU were positive.

 

Without wishing to flog this to death (I’ll drop it after this post), I absolutely haven’t suggested there is no issue with the EU mindset. I think the vaccine has been a disaster for them as they’ve flicked from consensus and group think, to breaking ranks and acting unilaterally. There has definitely been an issue for the EU.

Had we still been in the EU, we’d very likely have suffered the same errors due to the same mindset. You just know Johnson would have missed calls, not read briefings and agreed to stuff, which, when it later turned out to be a bad call, he’d have said that alas our hands were tied by those rotters over the water. When in truth, there’s nothing to stop us being in the EU and acting independently to save UK lives in a pandemic.

And for the record, if you were bored enough to go back to the early Brexit posts, I recall I was fairly neutral. I like the idea of Europe, but things like German financial dominance and the rise of the concept of a European Army were definitely bad ideas. Over time, I’ve seen the Brexit we got was very possibly the worst of all worlds, created by flag shaggers and taken advantage of by flag shaggers, of every type of flag, whether it has stripes and crosses on it, little stars on it, or even a dragon on it. A flag shagger is a flag shagger, regardless of the pretty pattern.

I definitely think there will be good that will come from Brexit, there must be. As it happens, right now, I’m hoping that the main good is that it hastens the break up of the UK. Maybe not in the next 3 years, but at some point in our lifetimes. That’d be nice.