Covid-19 and Politics

[KDLarsen]

Do your citizens trust your government?

Fair point.

The Danish foreign ministry published revised travel recommendations today, reducing most of th EU27 countries to yellow (ie. you can travel there, but pay attention to local restrictions and follow the usual guidelines). The countries that remains orange (ie. travel restrictions apply) are Romania, Portugal, UK, Ireland, Malta and Sweden (with the exception of the Norrbotten region).

The expectations is that the list will be updated once per week to reflect the current infection situation, and should a country go back to orange/red, travellers are advised to end their travel immediately, return to Denmark, and be tested.

The updated travel recommendations are reciprocal, so travellers from the same countries are permitted to travel to Denmark, provided they provide proof of a booked six-day stay.

 

[Carrot Flower King]

331 Tory MPs voted against a motion to introduce weekly testing for NHS staff

But...but...but...Aren't they all about protecting the NHS?

PS I'm not surprised that my brain-dead lickspittle of an MP was on that list.

I am soooo glad I'm retired and so out of all that. Shame The Sister isn't, but she caught Covid at work (at a hospital which has been in the nationals news recently), so that's alright then.

 

[P.J. Denyer]

But...but...but...Aren't they all about protecting the NHS?

PS I'm not surprised that my brain-dead lickspittle of an MP was on that list.

I am soooo glad I'm retired and so out of all that. Shame The Sister isn't, but she caught Covid at work (at a hospital which has been in the nationals news recently), so that's alright then.

Mine too, to my complete lack of any kind of surprise what so ever. Henley would elect a turnip if the local Conservative Party chose to pin a blue rosette on it, the tragedy over the last couple of incumbents is that they didn't.

 

[Andy_Ross]

I’m English don’t you know! We don’t get ill cos 2 WWs & 1 World Cup

 

[The Don]

The nation calls a state of emergency because of tens of thousands of nitwits deciding that they absolutely need to go to the beach, take a dump in the dunes and leave their garbage there but the lead story on the BBC website is that Liverpool has won the Premier league and thousands of supporters decided that they wanted to put their lives at risk by gathering at Anfield without masks of social distancing.

 

[The Don]

Yet another example of the UK government's complete lack of leadership on Coronavirus.

The background to this is that the UK government has made a series of announcements regarding the lifting of "lockdown" restrictions in England. Although it represents an incremental lifting of restrictions and some of the announced things (such as pubs opening) will not come into effect for more than a week - the headlines in the right wing tabloids have given the impression that it's all over and we're back to normal.

It's hardly surprising therefore that tens of thousands of people decided to go to the beach yesterday, causing chaos, failing to observe social distancing and leaving tonnes of waste in their wake. The local authorities responded by calling a "major incident".

Rather than taking charge of the situation, the government has said:

Environment Secretary George Eustice has said the government is reluctant to close beaches after a major incident was declared in Bournemouth when thousands crowded the coast.

Mr Eustice said people need to work with the government and observe coronavirus guidelines.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53190209

We used to have a couple of stereotypical middle class older parents as neighbours a few years ago. We had the "pleasure" of hearing months of empty threats of punishment while their ill-behaved brood ran wild safe in the knowledge that the parents would never follow through on those threats. I get the same feeling about the government's approach to lockdown. As the number of cases and deaths start to increase again, they'll say how disappointed they are with the public's behaviour and they'll threaten to close the pubs, but the person in the street knows that unless there are literally thousands dying daily, nothing will actually happen.

Indeed, it seems that they're relying on the capriciousness of the British weather instead of, you know, actually taking charge of the situation.

"The British weather being what it is maybe that will be short-lived and people will return to the type of social distancing they've actually demonstrated quite well."

Cowardly *********

 

[The Don]

Meanwhile, Sweden is repeating the same messaging as the United States

Sweden's state epidemiologist has taken issue with the World Health Organization (WHO) for including it on a list of 11 countries with "very significant resurgence" of Covid-19. Anders Tegnell has told Swedish TV the WHO has completely misinterpreted the data. Infections are rising because of more testing, says Dr Tegnell, arguing that other countries are at the start of their epidemic.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/wor...f59bd71aef1f0655fc9982&pinned_post_type=share

Edited to add......

It worries me when countries reject comparisons on the ground that they're not applicable or that their country is special in some way - the UK government's refusal to acknowledge that the UK seems to have one of the highest per-capita death tolls because apparently numbers cannot be compared internationally is an example of this.

 

[The Don]

Meanwhile, Wales is hardly covering itself in glory:

Lockdown restrictions will not be eased if large parties and fights at beaches continue in Wales, the first minister has warned.

Videos on social media showed large crowds at Ogmore-by-Sea, Vale of Glamorgan, followed by violent clashes on Thursday evening.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-53186920

IMO if there is a repeat this kind of thing, the Welsh government won't hesitate to delay plans to lift lockdown restrictions.

 

[Darat]

Yet another example of the UK government's complete lack of leadership on Coronavirus.

The background to this is that the UK government has made a series of announcements regarding the lifting of "lockdown" restrictions in England. Although it represents an incremental lifting of restrictions and some of the announced things (such as pubs opening) will not come into effect for more than a week - the headlines in the right wing tabloids have given the impression that it's all over and we're back to normal.

It's hardly surprising therefore that tens of thousands of people decided to go to the beach yesterday, causing chaos, failing to observe social distancing and leaving tonnes of waste in their wake. The local authorities responded by calling a "major incident".

Rather than taking charge of the situation, the government has said:



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53190209

We used to have a couple of stereotypical middle class older parents as neighbours a few years ago. We had the "pleasure" of hearing months of empty threats of punishment while their ill-behaved brood ran wild safe in the knowledge that the parents would never follow through on those threats. I get the same feeling about the government's approach to lockdown. As the number of cases and deaths start to increase again, they'll say how disappointed they are with the public's behaviour and they'll threaten to close the pubs, but the person in the street knows that unless there are literally thousands dying daily, nothing will actually happen.

Indeed, it seems that they're relying on the capriciousness of the British weather instead of, you know, actually taking charge of the situation.



Cowardly *********

Which is exactly what Johnson's government wanted - polling numbers are down you know!

 

[zooterkin]

Meanwhile, Sweden is repeating the same messaging as the United States



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/wor...f59bd71aef1f0655fc9982&pinned_post_type=share

Edited to add......

It worries me when countries reject comparisons on the ground that they're not applicable or that their country is special in some way - the UK government's refusal to acknowledge that the UK seems to have one of the highest per-capita death tolls because apparently numbers cannot be compared internationally is an example of this.

Sweden seems to have a particularly bad case of exceptionalism, based on their consensus approach.

The ostracising of critics has affected the Swedish Covid-19 coverage, which helps explain public opinion and behaviour. By extension, a large proportion of blame for the death toll falls upon a media environment that is too quick to close ranks and defend the status quo. It’s upheld by individuals, some more than others. Some soul-searching is in order for them, and for Sweden as a nation; both into how the country came to embrace this disastrous strategy, but also into how our opinion corridor helped lay its path.

Covid-19 has toppled Swedish exceptionalism. How are we so open-minded with such limited room for divergence? How are we so rational when our Covid-19 strategy is an outlier compared to that of countries with more successful responses based on the same data? There’s no environmentalist teenager to admire here. Just a toxic pride contributing to more than 5,200 dead Swedes, who might otherwise have been saved. Hindsight suggests it’s Sweden’s leadership, its strategy and gatekeepers in the media who are shipwrecked – not the dissenters.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...exceptionalism-coronavirus-covid19-death-toll

 

[Rolfe]

There is an increasing gap opening up between Scotland and England. It's hard to get England-only figures but it's getting to the point that you could just take the "UK" figures for new infections and deaths and call it England and you wouldn't be far out. Admittedly Wales has had a slaughterhouse cluster which has inflated its figures, but apart from that it's doing pretty well. Northern Ireland, although worse than the republic, has always been the best-performing of the four UK nations and why they don't go to an all-Ireland disease control strategy as has been the case for animal diseases for decades I don't know. (OK I do actually.)

But today in Scotland?

Scotland not far away from eliminating coronavirus

Our 7-day average of new cases is only about 16,* which is firmly in the "beating coronavirus" category according to the endcoronavirus.org web site. We had no new deaths reported today and the 7-day average of new deaths is down to only 1.7 per day. They're not telling us where the clusters are still appearing beyond local authority area, but vast swathes of the country haven't seen a new case for a week, some for several weeks. Really, outside of Glasgow, the lower Clyde conurbation, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen, there's not a lot happening.

We're getting horrendous political flak for this. Because we've come out of lockdown a bit more slowly than England, and haven't participated in either the ill-fated app or the SERCO-centralised contact tracing, we've been accused of petty nationalism, or hating the English, of "lagging behind", of "playing catch-up", of not caring about businesses or jobs or the economy, and yesterday a banner portraying our First Minister as Hitler was removed from railings in Edinburgh.

But it's working. People are visibly more relaxed even though they're still distancing and more and more masks are appearing in and around shops. The determination to eliminate local community transmission of the virus appears to have strengthened in our politicians. In particular if we can do this our children may be able to return to school normally in six weeks or so.

The politics of the vilification of Scotland for doing this is something else. It's not pretty. But the fact is that nobody can reasonably talk about "the UK" as if it was one coronavirus entity any longer.

*ETA: Having unpicked some dodgy statistical reporting I can confirm that the correct figure for Scotland's 7-day average for new cases is in fact 16.4 per day. And as we're about to drop a couple of high-ish days from the rolling average it's set to come down some more over the weekend.

 

[catsmate]

I went for a two hour walk today, passed through three parks on my way. Despite the heat people were maintaining appropriate distance, clustering in tiny groups.

 

[GlennB]

There is an increasing gap opening up between Scotland and England. It's hard to get England-only figures but it's getting to the point that you could just take the "UK" figures for new infections and deaths and call it England and you wouldn't be far out.
...
The politics of the vilification of Scotland for doing this is something else. It's not pretty. But the fact is that nobody can reasonably talk about "the UK" as if it was one coronavirus entity any longer.

From The Guardian:

"Ben Waugh, who runs a bicycle hire shop on the seafront at Bournemouth, has lived in the seaside resort all his life but has never seen so many people packed on to the beach – and so much terrible behaviour.

“I understand why people wanted to come,” he said, as the cleanup continued around him. “It’s the best beach around and when the weather’s good it’s like being in Benidorm. But what happened here this week was horrific.”

Waugh watched aghast as groups of revellers took drugs and drank their way through countless crates of beer. “There was a Lord of the Flies vibe to it. The atmosphere was ugly.”

And there were stabbings during a brawl and open abuse of council workers who were jut trying clean up or deter people from lighting bbqs. Boxes of faeces left behind ...

There's a note of something close to insanity in a fair slice of the English population at the moment. Our intended move back to the UK is stalled for a number of reasons, but we're glad we're heading to Wales. If we weren't committed to the move we might well have changed our minds about it, or at least delayed by a year. Or choose Scotland instead

 

[Rolfe]

Wales is further from independence than Scotland, but it's a better choice than England.

We had to get the police in to two parks yesterday, but it was more a case of drinking in public (against local by-laws) and general yobbishness than serious crowding. I gather the beach near Edinburgh was a problem too. So we do have some problems with idiots too, but the amount of space available per person seems to be working in our favour. There were also a lot of photos of deserted Scottish beaches circulating yesterday. And I don't mean remote ones, places like Aberdeen and Prestwick.

 

[Arcade22]

Meanwhile, Sweden is repeating the same messaging as the United States



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/wor...f59bd71aef1f0655fc9982&pinned_post_type=share

Edited to add......

It worries me when countries reject comparisons on the ground that they're not applicable or that their country is special in some way - the UK government's refusal to acknowledge that the UK seems to have one of the highest per-capita death tolls because apparently numbers cannot be compared internationally is an example of this.

He's absolutely right and it's very strange how the WHO could misinterpret the increase in people testing positive with there being increased rate of infection.

They of all people should know that if you start testing more people, which is what Swedish regions has been doing the last couple of weeks, you will get more positive results even if the rate of infection stays the same or even gets lower.

By contrast, the amount of people who are hospitalized or in the ICU has decreased and continues to decrease as have fatalities. In other words, it's completely inaccurate to state that Sweden is facing a resurgence of infection let alone one that will outpace the healthcare systems ability to handle it.

Sweden doesn't even have any excess mortality at this point.

 

[Rolfe]

Sweden still has a positivity rate of 12-13%. That's bad and indicates that it's still not testing nearly enough. It's accepted that once your positivity rate is under 3% you're probably not missing a significant number of cases. 12-13% is a lot more than 3%.

For comparison the positivity rate in Scotland is currently 0.5%. Yesterday we tested 5,841 people and got 17 positives. (That's actually a positivity rate of 0.3%, 0.5% is the current 7-day rolling average.)

A public health expert suggested that even in Scotland and with that positivity rate our real number of new infections per day could still be two to three times the number reported. That would be 30 to 50 cases a day which isn't that bad but it's worrying if we're only picking up (agan the current 7-day average) 16.4 of them. Where this sort of calculation leaves Sweden, with over 1,000 new cases reported every day and a positivity rate in the teens, I dread to think.

 

[Arcade22]

Sweden still has a positivity rate of 12-13%.

Which has absolutely nothing to do with what the WHO said. They have already backtracked and now admit that Sweden does not have an increased rate of infection and that it "has managed to keep the spread of infection at levels that Swedish health care can handle."

That is the exact opposite of what they originally said.

 

[Rolfe]

The positivity rate still indicates that you have a lot of infections not being picked up though, which was my point.

 

[dann]

Which has absolutely nothing to do with what the WHO said. They have already backtracked and now admit that Sweden does not have an increased rate of infection and that it "has managed to keep the spread of infection at levels that Swedish health care can handle."

That is the exact opposite of what they originally said.

WHO may have made a minor mistake because most of the others on the list of high-risk countries are there because they have levels of contamination considered dangerous because they are rising. Sweden, however, is on the list because the infection level has been extremely high the whole time, which has only become apparent because Sweden only started testing very recently - at long last and not yet nearly enough. Stability isn't always desired, and I'm an pretty sure that the senior citizens of Sweden would rather see the rate of infection go down and won't feel inclined to praise how stable it is.

Sweden hasn't been removed from WHO's list of countries with dangerously high levels of infection, and Sweden's neighbors Norway, Finland and Denmark just refused to open their borders to Swedes - in spite of the pleading from Swedish politicians.
Congratulations with your pathetic imaginary 'victory' over WHO.

 

[dann]

He's absolutely right and it's very strange how the WHO could misinterpret the increase in people testing positive with there being increased rate of infection.

They of all people should know that if you start testing more people, which is what Swedish regions has been doing the last couple of weeks, you will get more positive results even if the rate of infection stays the same or even gets lower.

By contrast, the amount of people who are hospitalized or in the ICU has decreased and continues to decrease as have fatalities. In other words, it's completely inaccurate to state that Sweden is facing a resurgence of infection let alone one that will outpace the healthcare systems ability to handle it.

Sweden doesn't even have any excess mortality at this point.

And yet they had 50 Covid-19 deaths today and 303 new cases. Today Denmark, Norway and Finland combined had 2 deaths and 98 new cases, and it was one of the worst days this week.
Sweden has 171 patients in ICUs. Denmark, Norway and Finland have 16! Combined!

When the heath-care system tells nursing homes not to send Covid-19 patients to the hospital and tells people who can no longer breathe properly to stay at home and take care of it themselves, then the "health-care system's ability to handle" the virus was outpaced a long time ago.

In the meantime, Swedish politicians seem hell-bent on denying their responsibility, the Swedish media let them get away with it, and when a well-prepared journalist starts asking them questions about it, they get offended because they are only used to the kind of questions that Trump is asked by Hannity.
Interview with the Swedish minister of foreign affairs, Karen Linde .... sorry, that was supposed to have been Ann Linde!