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I agree with Clark. N_ doesn’t seem to have anything constructive to say and even his criticism is just maligning and all inclusive. There is no recognition that whilst we may have had a certain degree of lockdown, GPs had none. And unless even hospitals, they remained open for everyone, dealing with all the issues that keeps patients going. They would consider mass vaccination as a massive increase on their workload, no doubt with no extra facilities provided, and that would be on top of their workload which would have increased because of covid-19. But N_ paints all GPs with one brush and is really non-discriminating in his criticism. He also never answers, this is supposed to be a discussion forum, not a ‘broadcast your own negative thoughts’ forum.
Hull:
hulldailymail.co.uk/news/hull-east-yorkshire-news/bodies-fatigue-frustration-stark-reality-4698927
– “I work next to the mortuary and I see the impact of coronavirus every day with more and more bodies being brought there and just piling up, I’ve never seen anything like it at the hospital before. It really takes it toll on you seeing all these deaths when they really could be prevented. Mentally it has really got to me and I get up on morning and think do I have to go to work? I just don’t think that people are taking coronavirus seriously enough and it’s not a proper lockdown. I only shop when it’s essential and come to work. But I see that a lot of people don’t wear masks in shops or on buses and if they have the mask on, they don’t cover their noses. It makes me angry it’s not right at all.“
East Yorkshire has had ten times as many deaths as the whole of New Zealand.
Are the trivialisers, denialists and conspiracy theorists satisfied yet, or do they need half a million deaths before they revise their precious opinions ? I’m so sick of “views” and “opinions”; the deaths are facts; cold, hard facts.
‘I work next to the mortuary and I see the impact of coronavirus every day with more and more bodies being brought there and just piling up’
This gentleman seems to have rather a flamboyant turn of phrase given that there have only been 5 covid-19 deaths at that hospital over the last month!
The newspaper read by some of the most stupid newspaper readers in Britain, the Daily Express, has declared a “New coronavirus symptoms alert“, as “people with diarrhoea and headaches test positive”. The strap line then says that “as part of the trial, people with non-typical symptoms tested positive for the virus”. That’s hardly surprising given that an ingrowing toenail, say, or a case of the runs, has little effect on whether or not you’re going to be infected with the 2019 SARS strain, except perhaps if it stops you leaving the house. But never mind that. Independence of variables is far too “intellectual” a point for Daily Express readers. What most of them will get from the article is the idea that any of a range of symptoms that they hadn’t previousl associated with “Covid” might mean you’ve got the virus, including headaches and diarrhoea. They’d better be careful if nursy at the surgery pricks them too hard with a needle because she might skewer their sole remaining brain cell.
What about irritability? Is that a symptom too? I mean anything can be nowadays, right? We just don’t know! Hey, maybe I’ve got the virus!
Half the Daily Express readership probably think you can get the virus if a black man looks at you.
It’s so easy to be “intellectual” about propaganda and miss how it works.
But if the bodies are nitrogen-cooled and then stacked vertically one on top of the other then the pile will look big to the guy as he peers through the mortuary’s windows while he processes linen next door. He’s probably looking through a vertical crack and assuming that he’s only seeing one column in a huge pile that has a footprint as larger as the entire floor. Or the roof might be broken by the top one’s head. Put that together with him inhaling whatever chemicals are used in the linen room, and you’ve got a recipe for him foaming at the mouth when he speaks to the local rag’s finest superhack. Or…maybe he’s just pressing for playing Yahtzee at work all day again as he and most of the hospital’s nurses probably did from March to June. I wonder if he could mention even one food that’s good for the immune system or tell us why having a strong immune system might be relevant when there’s a pandemic. One thing is for sure: the controllers of how this virus is covered in the media are deliberately scaring the cr*p out of people. Some people I meet have real fear in their voices when they parrot a phrase such as “panic buying”. Then when they get to the supermarket everyone does exactly what the staff order them to do. It’s very interesting how the idea of “panic” functions in the culture. Of course he is right when he says you have to be an idiot to wear a mask and leave your nostrils uncovered. But I suspect if it wasn’t that, he’d find some other reason to be scared. Cloth masks are rubbish anyway. Many manual workers, car mechanics, etc., are pulling scarves up around their faces, which probably assists rather than hinders the spread of disease. I don’t think it’s passive aggression, but sometimes it’s hard to tell. Maybe they think they’d look gay in a surgical mask. Meanwhile the number of people I’ve seen wipe the trolley handles in a supermarket is one – me.
In a culture in which most people pick their phones all day, have we got much to lose anyway? 🙂 LOL
C’mon, fellow blog commenters. Gotta have a laugh sometimes, even if it’s only at Beelzebub coming out of Number 10 with his cardboard box.
How much passive aggressiomn is there is in the wearing of masks so as to leave nostrils uncovered?
The behaviour is certainly widespread. Do many realise they are not wearing masks “properly”?It’s often hard to get a grasp on why others behave in certain ways, but it can be enlightening when you finally figure something out.
Thoughts on this?Steph
“This gentleman seems to have rather a flamboyant turn of phrase given that there have only been 5 covid-19 deaths at that hospital over the last month!”
It seems your numbers might be wildly out. From a Hull Daily Mail report 2 days ago:
“On Friday, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust announced it had recorded four new Covid-related deaths at either Hull Royal Infirmary or Castle Hill Hospital.
Three patients died on Wednesday and one passed away on Thursday – bringing the total number of deaths to 274.
It also means in the last seven days there have been 28 deaths within Hull’s hospitals.”And another Hull Daily Mail report yesterday:
“Hull’s hospitals have now suffered its deadliest week for coronavirus-related deaths with 31 recorded during the last seven days.
Sadly, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust confirmed five more people have died in Hull’s hospitals after contracting coronavirus.
Three patients died on Thursday and two more on Friday. Hull and East Yorkshire’s death toll now stands at 279. All of the deaths occurred at either Hull Royal Infirmary or Castle Hill Hospital.”That’s 31 Covid-related deaths in the last week alone, across 2 hospitals. So it looks like the gentleman’s testimony might be quite reliable after all.
Dredd – I do apologise, I did indeed get that utterly wrong! I was looking at this
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/health/coronavirus/66-more-coronavirus-deaths-recorded-across-yorkshire-hospitals-3034154 in which it listed Hull as having 5 deaths between October 10th and November 11th. Goodness knows how they arrived at that figure as the NHS says 60.
Although the gentleman obviously hasn’t worked there for very long if he has ‘never seen anything like it before’ as there were 95 covid-19 related deaths over a similar period at the height of the pandemic.Her Majesty’s “Labour” party, currently led (for the first time in its history) by a knight of the realm and former senior state prosecutor, is calling for “emergency censorship” laws to prevent people circulating material in opposition to the rulers’ planned mass vaccination programme. They say they want the state to “stamp out” this kind of opposition.
As I have said before, if anyone wants to vaccinate me against my will, they had better bring along some damned big policemen.
Those who are involved in circulating anti-vaccination material must NOT trust Fqcebook (or Whatsapp or Instagram, both of which it owns), Twitter, etc. The internet may soon go out of action for most people, but if you want to use online channels of communication then learn how to use Usenet, email mailing lists, and email addresses that are NOT supplied by G卐ogle.
Thanks for that acknowledgement, Steph. I think it’s very important to be as accurate as possible in reporting the numbers and statistics, because there are people who would seize on any alleged inconsistency in the “official” narrative to sneer at the silly sheeple who actually believe it. Just like N_ did above. The implication is that the “establishment” – including the government, NHS and the media – are conspiring to promote lies for some sinister occult motive.
So what do these cynics say when the contrary “evidence” evaporates? Nothing. I suspect that a retraction and apology might be a long time coming in this case. But you set a shining example, Steph.
There is undoubtedly a lot of sensationalism and fear porn about Covid in the media, as there is with any major headline news. But it’s usually just spin rather than misinformation. And the tendency to spin facts is clearly mirrored by the cynical critics. As long as we all stick to the known facts and bracket off the exaggerated rhetoric, we should be well enough informed. Then it’s up to us to decide what attitude to take to those facts, and how to deal with them on a policy level. Clearly some of us take different attitudes, and that’s OK. These debates are useful – as long they stay factually grounded.
Steph – “…as there were 95 covid-19 related deaths over a similar period at the height of the pandemic.”
Yes. If there were 95 deaths resultant from the first wave, that leaves 179 since then, most of which will have been in this ongoing second wave; so it’s much worse. And numbers are still rising, meaning that it will get worse yet.
Steph, why did you write “at the height of the pandemic”, as if the worst was over? Serology surveys from August showed that only around 6% of the UK population had been infected, leaving 94% still with as little immunity as those 6% had before getting infected. As 94% of the population is over fifteen times as many people as 6%, there is clearly potential for this wave to be over ten times worse than the first one.
Steph, do you think this is an “opinion” or a “view”, and consequently any other “opinions” or “views” are equally valid? Do you consider the chance of seeing a unicorn when you’re out shopping to be 50/50, since you’ll either see a unicorn or you won’t?
A tale of two pandemics
Very curious patterns emerge when you look at the deaths per 1 million population in different countries. Of the top ten are 5 Latin American countries 3 European countries, and the next ten include USA, 3more European countries and 4 Latin Ameriacn countries. These top twenty go from the spectrum of 1240 per million to 600 per million (Sweden). Of the Asian countries, none of those with populations above 100 million have high death rates, the highest being India at 94 per million. Other South East and Southern Asian countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Bangladesh and Vietnam have low rates. In Africa, most countries haver lower death rates apart from South Africa at 340 per million. In Oceania the rates are also very small. This rather curious phenomenon does not seem to be commented on widely. This is not only due to limited number of cases leading to fewer deaths because some countries have many cases, for example India, but relatively few deaths per million.
This is an interesting observation and may be due to either genetic factors or environmental factors. Environmental factors could be related to social practices or to innate or acquired silent immunity to the virus. I am sure some scientists should be looking at these factors to try to find out the cause of the discrepancy. One thing is certain. There is no priority to roll out the vaccine in Africa and Asia, and it is the West and Latin America that will be the focus.N_ – “One thing is for sure: the controllers of how this virus is covered in the media are deliberately scaring the cr*p out of people.”
Capital controls the media. Media is sensationalised because it’s just bait, to attract the most readers, so that more can be charged for the adjacent advertising space, because that’s how “news” media makes money.
Corporations are like organisms; they adapt to their environment or they get out-competed. Commercial organisations’ environment is capitalism. This theory explains the sensationalism without the need for deliberate or coordinated fear-mongering among controllers; throughout its existence each “news” organisation has been routinely replacing staff with those who attract more readers, so come the pandemic, all the “diverse” “news” media were pre-optimised for sensationalism, and is capable of little else.
Everything under capitalism is like this. No matter what a commercial organisation ostensibly does – whether it makes furniture, publishes music or designs corporate slogans – that function is secondary at best. None of the stuff we’re surrounded by is optimised to be good at what it’s supposedly for; it’s optimised to maximise profit.
SA, I too have wondered about the variations in case density and mortality. I’ve given up for now – too many variables. Probably the picture will be clearer in a few years time.
I’m wary about taking the figures at face value; I expect there to be large variation in both case detection and attribution of cause of death. Case density is likely to increase with how much the population travel. How much gathering occurs indoors is probably important too.
I know but it is low in high density populations in Bangladesh Pakistan Indonesia and so on. Also population average age is much lower in Africa.
During WW2 the British government took control of steel production. All steel was supposed to be produced “in the public interest”, because, y’know, there was a war on. It took control of car production too. It didn’t tell car manufacturers “you’ve got to fulfil this contract for the army, OK?” It actually took control over the operation of car factories and steel plants – and coalmines too. Not ownership – this wasn’t nationalisation – but control. (It also banned strikes.)
Funny how practically nobody right now is calling for the government to take control over vaccine production. Young people reading this might like to note that AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Glaxo SmithKline, Sanofi, Moderna – they aren’t charities, any more than Google, Apple, Facebook, or Tesco are. Their cause is the cause of making profit – large amounts of it for the all-too-real filthy rich exploiters who hide behind these names to which the law fictitiously ascribes “personality”.
Mussolini’s definition of fascism: when you can’t even slip a cigarette paper into the gap between state interests and private business interests.
The army are using Liverpool football club’s stadium to test people for “Covid-19” (sic). Soon they’ll probably be using football stadiums for other things too, as well as “holiday camps” like the Pontins one in Sefton on Merseyside that they’re currently billeted in for deeply Covid-helpy reasons.
What is Piers Corbyn’s take on religion?
In his challenge to Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, to debate with him about the “new normal”, he keeps going on about Satanism.Clark – There were 95 deaths in the worst 30 day period in spring. There have been 60 deaths in the 30 day period referred to in the article, which was I think the period starting Oct 12th. Therefore if the gentleman had ‘never seen anything like it before’ he obviously didn’t witness the earlier 30 day period when 95 people died. Thats all, no more, no less.
Marxist
“During WW2 the British government took control of steel production. All steel was supposed to be produced “in the public interest”, because, y’know, there was a war on.”
That would have been the correct approach to the current crises. It would also have been the correct approach in 2008 when the banks stole our money and were then bailed out at our expense and told to go on stealing our money but do it quietly.
I even wrote something similar to what you said above about commandeering and common good to my local MP, who shall remain nameless, and she wrote back to say what a good idea she will pass it on to the appropriate department, but of course nothing happened.
What has happened since the war was something nasty called Margaret Thatcher, who declared that there is no such thinhg as society. Each shark to himself and the minnow have to just survive somehow.
And my feeling now is that there is no neoliberal capitalist way out of this crisis, there is only a socialist one. Countries which are the most advanced in neoliberalism also have the worst death rates and poorer control, and countries with civic adherence and sense of belonging and perhaps still a bit of socialism are doing better.And this was the letter I sent on 23/03/2020
Dear
I am one of your constituents. I have written to you earlier about the Covid-19 crisis concerning the flawed government response. Since then it has been widely agreed that this response was flawed and the Government has changed its stance although in my opinion the response is late and weak. However, I would like to make a suggestion.
The government is proposing to give businesses and self employed and those on zero hour contract support during this crisis which is highly commendable. Would it not be possible to give this help a positive twist so that the recipients are actually involved and committed? This can be done by way of requisitioning both workers and premises. Of course details need to be worked out, but currently the majority of the nation seems to be asked to sit at home helplessly whilst a minority are bearing the burden in carrying out essential services. The government and local councils can use this to for example do the following:
1. Requisition resources to organise transport safely for NHS and other essential workers.
2. Requisition resources to help the food industry to arrange and expand home food deliveries.
3. Organise locally a system of volunteers to ensure that the vulnerable are cared for.
4. Organise queues at places such as supermarkets.I am sure there are other activities but this is just a blueprint.
And this was the answer I received
Thank you for your email to [ local MP ] regarding the Government’s actions to deal with COVID-19.
… read your suggestion with interest and has passed this to HM Treasury for their consideration.I hope this is helpful. Thank you again for taking the time to write to ….
Yours sincerely,
Re requisitioning workers – whatever happened to all the volunteers? I seem to rembember seeing headlines about 50,000 people offering to help. Then nothing more ever again
…and what happened to the £30m raised by Captain thingy for the NHS. That seems to have disappeared into a black hole too.
Good Question Steph. It seems that there is a Scottish government run organization in Scotland. There is no equivalent one in England, volunteering is done through a charity: The Royal Voluntary Service whose President is the Queen in waiting. There is a linked charity called NHS Volunteer responders . Like everything else in the anti-Covid efforts, the government is taking a rather aloof attitude to this except by allowing the false NHS badge to be used, in a typical market oriented neoliberal capitalist manner.
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