Coronavirus

[Bryn]

I've noticed no such problems here. Mask wearing is very good indeed in my town and you wouldn't get through the door in Waitrose without one. Social distancing also being observed very closely and this applies to all age groups, including children. Even teenagers are generously acknowledging their thanks when you give distance.

Not been up to Hexham for very many years. Had reason to visit a place called Prudhoe which isn't far away.

Ooo, Prudhoe. There's a place with mixed memories for me (and others in the Scratch Orchestra). An administrator for Northern Arts had suggested we camp on derelict land in front of his house in Prudhoe. Unbeknownst to both him and us, the land had been bought by a local farmer who took umbrage at our having pitched our tents there without his permission. I was dispatched to try and assuage his ire and explain how we had come to camp there and seek his permission to stay. He would have none of it, despite making no use of it himself at the time. Fortunately, we were able to arrange a far more pleasant camping site by a babbling brook, further out from Newcastle. It made travel to the various venues on our tour somewhat more awkward but the site itself was idyllic, as can be seen in the late Hanne Boenisch's 1971 film of the tour, "Journey to the North Pole".

[LMcD]

I've noticed no such problems here. Mask wearing is very good indeed in my town and you wouldn't get through the door in Waitrose without one. Social distancing also being observed very closely and this applies to all age groups, including children. Even teenagers are generously acknowledging their thanks when you give distance.

Not been up to Hexham for very many years. Had reason to visit a place called Prudhoe which isn't far away.

The degree of compliance here is the same as you describe for your neck of the woods. The last time I checked, our infection rate was 8 per100,000.

[cloughie]

Ooo, Prudhoe. There's a place with mixed memories for me (and others in the Scratch Orchestra). An administrator for Northern Arts had suggested we camp on derelict land in front of his house in Prudhoe. Unbeknownst to both him and us, the land had been bought by a local farmer who took umbrage at our having pitched our tents there without his permission. I was dispatched to try and assuage his ire and explain how we had come to camp there and seek his permission to stay. He would have none of it, despite making no use of it himself at the time. Fortunately, we were able to arrange a far more pleasant camping site by a babbling brook, further out from Newcastle. It made travel to the various venues on our tour somewhat more awkward but the site itself was idyllic, as can be seen in the late Hanne Boenisch's 1971 film of the tour, "Journey to the North Pole".

Pronounced Prudder? I’m sure anton can confirm but famous in the Archers for Ruth’s roots! No doubt where you camped would have provided the historical venue for the ‘Water of Tyne’

[cloughie]

Welcome proof that 'they' don't know everything about us yet, in the form of an email from Greater Anglia inviting me to renew my Young Person's Railcard .... it's been many years since I qualified for one of those, and my last annual season ticket before I moved and started to work from home expired in 1986.

Golden teenager, LMcD?

[Old Grumpy]

Pronounced Prudder? I’m sure anton can confirm but famous in the Archers for Ruth’s roots! No doubt where you camped would have provided the historical venue for the ‘Water of Tyne’

More like Prooda (where the "oo" is short as in book - outside of Lancashire of course!)

OG

[Serial_Apologist]

More like Prooda (where the "oo" is short as in book - outside of Lancashire of course!)

OG

Bewk, or even Buke, would be how my mother would pronounce Book; she was from Saltburn, near Middlesbrough. Dad would always tease her: "Have you managed to find the cewckery bewk?"

[teamsaint]

According to the Guardian today , cases have more than doubled in all but one local lockdown area.

Now, you might think that a policy failing so badly might need to be changed or scrapped , but no, apparently we need just more local lockdowns according to the experts they quote..........

[french frank]

According to the Guardian today , cases have more than doubled in all but one local lockdown area.

Now, you might think that a policy failing so badly might need to be changed or scrapped

But we don't know what would have happened without the lockdowns. Nobody seems sure what the right policies are, and no one can predict what will happen if the policy is just to reopen and let people carry on much as usual (while wearing masks, of course, Stanley, in the knowledge that there is, in fact, no firm evidence that this does result in deaths).

[teamsaint]

But we don't know what would have happened without the lockdowns. Nobody seems sure what the right policies are, and no one can predict what will happen if the policy is just to reopen and let people carry on much as usual (while wearing masks, of course, Stanley, in the knowledge that there is, in fact, no firm evidence that this does result in deaths).

Just asking the question FF, just asking the question......( not that I did in fact......)

[french frank]

Just asking the question FF, just asking the question......( not that I did in fact......)

Hehe. I wasn't objecting to what you said, team. Just musing, mulling over the situation

[Padraig]

We in Derry/Strabane have just achieved the honour of having the highest number of cases in Northern Ireland. We have therefore been hit with quite stringent measures effective immediately. We share a border with a high incidence ROI county who have similar restrictions imposed earlier. I agree it is necessary and I will go along. I think I'm 'doing the right thing', but I keep getting a whiff of something like epicaricacy in my own musings and mullings over our situation.

[Pulcinella]

Travellers arriving in the UK from Poland, Turkey and three Caribbean islands will have to self-isolate for 14 days from 04:00 on Saturday.

Yet again, the logic (if any) utterly defeats me.
If it matters, it matters NOW, not suddenly at 04:01 on Saturday.

[Simon B]

Travellers arriving in the UK from Poland, Turkey and three Caribbean islands will have to self-isolate for 14 days from 04:00 on Saturday.

Yet again, the logic (if any) utterly defeats me.
If it matters, it matters NOW, not suddenly at 04:01 on Saturday.

If it matters now it likely also mattered yesterday. But nothing was done about that either, despite the likelihood that awareness of it mattering didn't arise instantaneously.

Define "matters". How much does it matter? What is the threshold of mattering?

What is the rate of increase of the risk arising from these locations? And what is the rate of increase on that rate of increase? And so on...

At what moment in time will the prevalence in these locations equal or exceed the prevalence here? Prior to that it literally doesn't matter at all. Indeed, for as long as prevalence in those locations is lower than it is here, numerically it makes sense to import as many people as you can from there as it will dilute the epidemic here. Even once the tipping point is reached, does it have much/any lasting effect if you don't pull up the drawbridge instantly?

There is a danger that focussing on inconsequential arbitrariness in the detail of measures falls into the same category as the people who were getting aerated about a few thousand people a day arriving into the UK by plane/boat/whatever at the height of the first wave when 100,000+ people a day were getting infected locally anyway. It's a numerical red herring.

Every one of these decisions entails a tradeoff of risks and costs - the balancing of which nobody seems to agree about at all. Someone has to call it, the only thing they can be sure of is that whatever inherently arbitrary point they decide to draw the line at will be deemed "wrong" by a large body of people, almost none of whom are in possession of the data or any detailed understanding of the epidemiological objective. Then, once the purveyors of science and reason have done the best they can, politicians get to stick their oar in, at which point you might as well take up stacking water anyway...

[Pulcinella]

My point, perhaps not clearly enough made, is that I think that once a decision has been made (such as to impose quarantine on certain returning travellers) it should be imposed immediately, rather than announced as coming into effect at some future date, causing chaos and a scramble to return early to avoid the restrictions.
I go back to my example of shop opening hours and restrictions on purchases in Italy: imposed overnight. There was no panic buying.

[LMcD]

Mr & Mrs Trump have tested positive. I shall do the decent thing and refrain from comment.