Media Coverage of COVID -19

[35B]

It’s pretty clear that Javid wants an end to further lockdowns and restrictions, unlike his useless, hypocritical, crocodile tears predecessor we have to learn to live with Covid at some point and that time has now come, there is no “there’s a way to go yet” because that could be years from now, and We’ve already sacrificed nearly 2 years already, the time to open up fully is now and to stop living in fear, there’s zero justification in doing another round of restrictions and lockdowns.

Cases will go up, but life shouldn’t be put on hold any longer than what it has, of course the doom mongers at SAGE would have us locked down until Easter 2026.

Then we had both better hope that the recent trends are maintained, and that the impact of relaxing restrictions is as estimated, not as some fear. Supporting this relaxation does not mean pretending that it's risk free.

I also note that this has the support of SAGE.

 

[DustyBin]

Then we had both better hope that the recent trends are maintained, and that the impact of relaxing restrictions is as estimated, not as some fear. Supporting this relaxation does not mean pretending that it's risk free.

I also note that this has the support of SAGE.

I think we can be pretty confident at this stage, accepting that we can’t be 100% so. The vaccines are clearly protecting those who need protecting and the virus has shown no signs of mutating into anything more dangerous.

I know you disagree with me on this, but I really believe the majority of those calling for continued restrictions are politically/ideologically motivated, as opposed to acting in the interests of public health.

 

[NorthKent1989]

Then we had both better hope that the recent trends are maintained, and that the impact of relaxing restrictions is as estimated, not as some fear. Supporting this relaxation does not mean pretending that it's risk free.

I also note that this has the support of SAGE.

SAGE has been banging on about a winter lockdown, I don’t trust anything they have to say regarding our freedoms.

It won’t ever be 100% zero Covid is impossible you may as well ask for zero flu, or zero cold, or zero hay-fever, cases will rise and sadly people will die like they do of flu every year or other ailments but life has to carry on, this isn’t going to bring about the apocalypse.

I think we can be pretty confident at this stage, accepting that we can’t be 100% so. The vaccines are clearly protecting those who need protecting and the virus has shown no signs of mutating into anything more dangerous.

I know you disagree with me on this, but I really believe the majority of those calling for continued restrictions are politically/ideologically motivated, as opposed to acting in the interests of public health.

Your last paragraph is spot on, Labour are just wanting to be seen as being opposed to something the Tories are doing, even though they backed them with the harmful lockdowns, they must be seen as doing something.

 

[WelshBluebird]

Your last paragraph is spot on, Labour are just wanting to be seen as being opposed to something the Tories are doing, even though they backed them with the harmful lockdowns, they must be seen as doing something.

This is why Labour can't win. In either this or one of the other threads people were complaining that Labour were not opposing the Tories and the opinion being put there was that an opposition party should oppose the government just because. Now Labour are doing that, peoples till complain.

 

[Darandio]

This is why Labour can't win. In either this or one of the other threads people were complaining that Labour were not opposing the Tories and the opinion being put there was that an opposition party should oppose the government just because. Now Labour are doing that, peoples till complain.

It's taken 16 months to grow a backbone, that is piss poor opposition. Lifelong Labour voter here, not any more.

 

[VauxhallandI]

It's taken 16 months to grow a backbone, that is piss poor opposition. Lifelong Labour voter here, not any more.

Snap and I don't believe we are the only two

 

[WelshBluebird]

It's taken 16 months to grow a backbone, that is piss poor opposition. Lifelong Labour voter here, not any more.

My point was that what can Labour do? They oppose for the sake of opposing and they get hammered by people, they don't oppose and they get hammered by people. They just can't win it seems. Though I suspect this conversation would better fit in https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/where-did-it-all-go-wrong-for-labour.218244/

 

[MikeWM]

I see my local hospital has joined the ranks of the overwhelmed NHS, though not by Covid.

https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/surge-non-covid-patients-threatens-20993189

Surge in non-Covid patients threatens to overwhelm Addenbrooke's

Addenbrooke’s Hospital is at risk of becoming overwhelmed as more patients seek treatment for non-Covid conditions they had delayed addressing during the pandemic.

An ‘internal critical incident’ was declared yesterday (July 6) by Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital due to the significant number of patients, coupled with the fact that over 100 staff are being told to self-isolate daily.

The Cambridge hospital, which is currently caring for four patients with Covid-19 with one in critical care...

Plus the article has a perfect example of the continued infantilisation of the general public by our new health overlords. They clearly think we have the brains of 5-year-olds.

In a topical bid to tackle the issue, the trust has teamed up with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) on a football-related campaign to encourage people to access the right services.

“If Gareth Southgate knew someone with a minor injury, he would personally drive them to an MIU [Minor Injuries Unit] in Ely, Doddington, Wisbech or Peterborough, rather than going to A&E,” tweeted the CPFT account yesterday with the hashtag #BeMoreGareth

 

[WelshBluebird]

Plus the article has a perfect example of the continued infantilisation of the general public by our new health overlords. They clearly think we have the brains of 5-year-olds.

Whilst not a popular opinion - to be blunt a lot of people do.
I've seen people go to A&E for a mild headache that can be dealt with by taking a couple of paracetamol for christ sake.

The people who I do have sympathy with are those who are have more serious issues they cannot deal with themselves (or if it isn't something obvious) because getting GP appointments at the moment is a nightmare and a lot of MIU's and walk in centres have been closed. But that doesn't take away from the fact that some members of the public are seriously lacking in the brain cell department.

 

[NorthKent1989]

This is why Labour can't win. In either this or one of the other threads people were complaining that Labour were not opposing the Tories and the opinion being put there was that an opposition party should oppose the government just because. Now Labour are doing that, peoples till complain.

Labour can’t win because they’re utterly useless as an opposition, and no where near ready to lead this country again, rather than admit that we need to get back to normal they’re still stubbornly hanging on to more restrictions without a single thought to the economic and mental health damage to society, now the Tories are for opening this act of calling for more restrictions just comes across as being seen to be doing something useful which they’re anything but that at this point, it’s as if being in lockdown and supporting endless restrictions to our daily lives gave them some meaning as to why they still exist.

 

[MikeWM]

Whilst not a popular opinion - to be blunt a lot of people do.
I've seen people go to A&E for a mild headache that can be dealt with by taking a couple of paracetamol for christ sake.

I've no doubt - but does telling such people that Gareth Southgate wouldn't do it (and who knows whether he would or not?) make them more likely to not do it themselves?

In any event, are such people really such a massive problem? How long does it realistically take to triage someone who plainly doesn't need to be there in the first place?

 

[VauxhallandI]

I've no doubt - but does telling such people that Gareth Southgate wouldn't do it (and who knows whether he would or not?) make them more likely to not do it themselves?

In any event, are such people really such a massive problem? How long does it realistically take to triage someone who plainly doesn't need to be there in the first place?

Exactly, isn't this why the triage nurse was invented some time ago? They will soon learn the hard way when they sit for ages to be sent off. Of course the media will jump on the odd case where it turns out it was a serious matter but that the level we are at these days.

 

[big_rig]

‘Living with the virus’ makes no sense. Only half of the UK is fully vaccinated | Anthony Costello

We’re heading towards 100,000 Covid cases a day, yet ministers laud ‘freedom day’. It seems no one is accountable, says academic Anthony Costello

www.theguardian.com

After receiving my second vaccination in April, I contracted Covid a week ago. I’m now “living with the virus”, a phrase emblematic of the failure of UK public health.

Vaccine must be doing its job quite well if this bloke has the energy to write a massive article in the Guardian while under the grasp of the virus.

 

[yorksrob]

This is why Labour can't win. In either this or one of the other threads people were complaining that Labour were not opposing the Tories and the opinion being put there was that an opposition party should oppose the government just because. Now Labour are doing that, peoples till complain.

I was complaining that labour weren't opposing the Tories when they were introducing highly questionable restrictions.

Unfortunately whilst they are indeed acting like an opposition, I'm more sympathetic with the Tory policy now.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Jul 2021 ==

I see my local hospital has joined the ranks of the overwhelmed NHS, though not by Covid.

https://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/surge-non-covid-patients-threatens-20993189



Plus the article has a perfect example of the continued infantilisation of the general public by our new health overlords. They clearly think we have the brains of 5-year-olds.

The reality is that they need a doctors surgery outside the door of the A&E that they can direct people into.

 

[35B]

SAGE has been banging on about a winter lockdown, I don’t trust anything they have to say regarding our freedoms.

It won’t ever be 100% zero Covid is impossible you may as well ask for zero flu, or zero cold, or zero hay-fever, cases will rise and sadly people will die like they do of flu every year or other ailments but life has to carry on, this isn’t going to bring about the apocalypse.

I think you confuse SAGE and Independent Sage. The former is an advisory body to government, the latter a self appointed body which is pursuing a zero Covid agenda. They are different, despite some overlap (e.g. Michie).

 

[MikeWM]

‘Living with the virus’ makes no sense. Only half of the UK is fully vaccinated | Anthony Costello

We’re heading towards 100,000 Covid cases a day, yet ministers laud ‘freedom day’. It seems no one is accountable, says academic Anthony Costello

www.theguardian.com

Vaccine must be doing its job quite well if this bloke has the energy to write a massive article in the Guardian while under the grasp of the virus.

Plus I like this gem:

If you prefer to cough and sneeze in a crowded commuter train, so be it: there’ll be no legal restriction on that.

He wants it to be illegal to cough or sneeze on a train!

No other answers though, other than the old canard about 'fixing' track-and-trace, which is entirely useless at anything remotely like the case levels we're currently seeing.

 

[NorthKent1989]

I think you confuse SAGE and Independent Sage. The former is an advisory body to government, the latter a self appointed body which is pursuing a zero Covid agenda. They are different, despite some overlap (e.g. Michie).

Thanks for the correction

 

[Freightmaster]

‘Living with the virus’ makes no sense. Only half of the UK is fully vaccinated | Anthony Costello

We’re heading towards 100,000 Covid cases a day, yet ministers laud ‘freedom day’. It seems no one is accountable, says academic Anthony Costello

www.theguardian.com

Vaccine must be doing its job quite well if this bloke has the energy to write a massive article in the Guardian while under the grasp of the virus.

It seems that one of the 'worrying new symptoms' of the Delta variant is chronic diarrhoea...







...verbal diarrhoea, that is!




MARK

 

[philosopher]

‘Living with the virus’ makes no sense. Only half of the UK is fully vaccinated | Anthony Costello

We’re heading towards 100,000 Covid cases a day, yet ministers laud ‘freedom day’. It seems no one is accountable, says academic Anthony Costello

www.theguardian.com

Vaccine must be doing its job quite well if this bloke has the energy to write a massive article in the Guardian while under the grasp of the virus.

The Guardian have another remarkably similar article today by Deept Gurdasani heavily criticising the ending of most restrictions and using Long Covid as justification for continuing restrictions:

Ditching England’s Covid restrictions is a dangerous experiment | Deepti Gurdasani

By rushing to lift lockdown rules, the government is gambling with too many lives, says clinical epidemiologist Deepti Gurdasani

www.theguardian.com

So what is likely to happen under the current strategy? Vaccinations have weakened the link between cases and hospitalisations but this is far from broken. Hospitalisations are rising, and putting pressure on an NHS devastated by delayed action in the last two waves of the pandemic, with millions now waiting for routine care. The government focus on hospitalisations rather than transmission allows it to ignore cases completely until they reach levels seen in January. Given hospitalisation rates are severalfold lower now than prior to the start of the vaccination programme, this would mean a much higher level of daily cases would be tolerated before any action was taken. Implicit in this strategy is that cases don’t matter. Indeed, MPs have suggested cases should not even be publicly reported any more.

This strategy is dangerous and reckless. Contrary to suggestions by the health secretary, Sajid Javid, Covid-19 is not at all like the flu. Over the course of the UK pandemic, an estimated 2 million people have developed long Covid. Currently, almost 1 million people are living with long Covid – the consequences of the government strategy to ignore transmission. Of these, two-thirds report an impact on their day-to-day activities and lives and almost 400,000 have been ill for more than a year. Most of these are young people. We also know now that Covid-19 is not only a respiratory disease. It has long-term impacts on many body systems, including the brain, even in those with mild symptoms on infection. Ignoring transmission has created a generation with debilitating chronic disease.

I think we can take it that the Guardian are not too happy with the imminent end of most Covid restrictions.

 

[brad465]

For the first time in who knows how long, thanks to England's semi-final win, not one national front page has anything to do with covid on the front of it

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Jul 2021 ==

It's taken 16 months to grow a backbone, that is piss poor opposition. Lifelong Labour voter here, not any more.

Snap and I don't believe we are the only two

Out of interest who is there to support instead on the matter of covid restrictions? The Lib Dems have some opposition to them (such as opposing the renewal of the emergency legislation), but are not outright opposed, while the SDLP oppose them, but as a NI party we don't get to voice opinion on them at the ballot box except by living in NI. Reform UK don't seem to be getting any traction on the issue.

 

[Mugby]

I feel sure that when people see the daily infection figures on the news (latest 32,000+} they immediately get the impression that all of those are seriously ill people who will doubtless be admitted to hospital, that is not the case at all, a great many, if not the majority, will be asymptomatic and have no feelings of illness.

On Monday, the BBC news bulletins showed a woman who was clearly grossly obese leaving hospital, imploring people to get vaccinated and telling what absolute hell it had been to have the virus - well I suppose it would be if you're 20 stone plus!

 

[DustyBin]

Snap and I don't believe we are the only two

I’m not a Labour voter, however I’d have welcomed some opposition over the last 18 months to the government’s ill thought out and highly damaging policies. Instead Labour acted merely as cheerleaders, and then as soon as there is light at the end of the tunnel they decide that’s the time to voice their opposition… So they’re either highly unpleasant authoritarians or completely clueless (I suspect both!) but either way utterly contemptible in my book.

As for where sensible, moderate Labour voters go I have no idea. I’m struggling to support the Tories myself at present so I can’t really suggest coming over to the dark side! What a state politics is in…

 

[big_rig]

For the first time in who knows how long, thanks to England's semi-final win, not one national front page has anything to do with covid on the front of it

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Jul 2021 ==








Out of interest who is there to support instead on the matter of covid restrictions? The Lib Dems have some opposition to them (such as opposing the renewal of the emergency legislation), but are not outright opposed, while the SDLP oppose them, but as a NI party we don't get to voice opinion on them at the ballot box except by living in NI. Reform UK don't seem to be getting any traction on the issue.

As another disillusioned Labour voter (I will not be voting for them until they stop thinking welding me inside my house would be worth it if it means they went up in the polls for a few days), honestly nobody. Hopefully this is all a distant memory by the time of the next election.

 

[TPO]

As another disillusioned Labour voter (I will not be voting for them until they stop thinking welding me inside my house would be worth it if it means they went up in the polls for a few days), honestly nobody. Hopefully this is all a distant memory by the time of the next election.

Same here.

As expected the locktivists are in full swing in the media trying to keep lockdowns. It's interesting how things are spun. For example, one Graun article was about the shortage of HGV drivers and was trying to put much down to Brexit, however that is only part of the problem. A big part of the problem is that there's a massive backlog in HGV driver tests due to DVLA staff being off during various lockdowns, and the sooner the lockdowns end and DVLA get back to working properly, the sooner this will resolve. However, this doesn't fit the Graun worldview of wanting constant lockdown (especially for the Proles, obviously the Party people like Prof Pantsdown and Comrade Mitchie are fine to do what they want) so they don't mention the impact of Lockdown and DVLA strikes in creating the HGV tests backlog.

Once you realise the political affiliations of the key i-SAGE protagonists you can see the wider picture. Just hoping that Sajid Javid keeps that backbone stiff.

The response to COVID is showing that Labour has no vision and poor leadership, it's increasingly in hock to the locktivists and combining support for communist measures with toxic identity politics. Student politics basically.

TPO

 

[Dent]

This is why Labour can't win. In either this or one of the other threads people were complaining that Labour were not opposing the Tories and the opinion being put there was that an opposition party should oppose the government just because. Now Labour are doing that, peoples till complain.

First of all, I don't recall anyone saying "an opposition party should oppose the government just because". That sounds like yet another strawman.

Secondly, what Labour have been doing is cheer-leading the government when they impose restrictions, and opposing them when the remove restrictions. That is them always doing the same thing - pushing for ever more restrictions. The criticism they have been receiving for pushing for ever more restrictions and failing to defend civil liberties has been consistent throughout.

You are trying to construct a false narrative where Labour have been criticized for not opposing the government " just because", and they are now doing that but are still getting criticized, which is simply not true. The criticism Labour received was actually for them wanting more restrictions, which they are still doing by opposing the end of restrictions, so they are still being criticized for it.

 

[nlogax]

However, this doesn't fit the Graun worldview of wanting constant lockdown

I don't think it's really that specific. The Graun appears to just want to challenge any / every decision that Conservative politicians ever make and then have five hundred opinion pieces or luke-warm takes backing that up; whether it's Covid, climate, universal credit, housing, you name it the Guardian will rail against it.

 

[NorthKent1989]

My biggest concern is that Javid will listen to the media’s doom and fear mongering and buckle on lifting certain restrictions, if this happens then we may as well put the media in Parliament!

 

[kez19]

My biggest concern is that Javid will listen to the media’s doom and fear mongering and buckle on lifting certain restrictions, if this happens then we may as well put the media in Parliament!

Yet it would be something I have said all along, it’s being media driven with those such as SAGE.

 

[NorthKent1989]

Yet it would be something I have said all along, it’s being media driven with those such as SAGE.

And you’d be correct in thinking that, the media have been driving up the fear and the government has buckled every single time.

 

[Bikeman78]

And you’d be correct in thinking that, the media have been driving up the fear and the government has buckled every single time.

I can't help wondering how this would have turned out 30 years ago. No Facebook, no constant news and of course no way for most people to work at home. Apparently the late 1990s were very bad flu years in the UK. I knew nothing about it until someone mentioned it on this forum a few months ago. Shows how little interest I took in the news at the time.