Brexit, for once some facts.

Jesus H Christ

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Dec 31, 2020
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Labour are pressing for the borders to be closed. I agree with them, but who is going to close them?

If we go for the mandatory hotel quarantine, who’s going to make that happen? It will be a very labour intensive exercise, so where is that pool of labour going to come from? You can’t use volunteers to enforce it.

The bottom line is, we can’t close our borders because we can’t close our borders. We don’t have the people.
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
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I think they still have flogging as one of the punishments available. I think that would be a useful tool on the mainland during this pandemic. It’s cheap and effective.
The Isle of Man were eventually shamed into stopping it after their high court had a youth flogged in 1976, resulting in a widespread outcry around the western world. Their last magistrate ordered flogging was in 1975.

The flogging law was finally repealed in 1993, so it no longer exists there.
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Danidl

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Who said that there isn't an Irish Sea border?

Brexit food checks suspended at Northern Ireland ports amid safety concerns

Police monitoring growing unionist discontent over so-called Irish sea border
Police are to hold talks later today with partner agencies after physical Brexit checks at Belfast and Larne ports were suspended amid safety concerns.

Northern Ireland's Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (Daera) said on Monday it had decided "in the interests of the wellbeing of staff to temporarily suspend physical inspections of products of animal origin at Larne and Belfast" pending further discussions with the PSNI.

A Daera spokesman said: "The situation will be kept under review and in the meantime full documentary checks will continue to be carried out as usual."
Agriculture Minister Edwin Poots said he had taken the decision to withdraw personnel at the ports in consultation with his staff.

PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Mark McEwan said force officials would meet partner agencies to discuss the situation.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/brexit-checks-northern-ireland-ports-suspended-b1796119.html
This is a very sinister development. It has been on going for a few weeks and is directed at the loyalist workers by the loyalist paramilitaries for political ends. It is exactly the same tactic that brought down the original power sharing executive in 1984. There are only two things the UK government can effectively do.
1. Move the checks to mainland UK ..this will force the intimidation onto Swansea or Liverpool or Cairnryan, and Increase unemployment in East Belfast.
2. Stop East West Agricultural shipments. .. thus effectively uniting Ireland. ,As food products to NI will start coming via Dublin . To a limited extent this is already happening, as the British Distribution networks serving Ireland were finding the NI market not worth the effort compared with the more lucrative RoI
 

Zlatan

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I, ve never done sourdough but started making own ordinary bread beginning of lockdown. Bought 25kg of good quality bread flour and bread seemed lots better with it. Thought using real yeast would improve it but nope, just as good with dried..

I, ve had a busy lockdown, built 2 Sim racers, a rocking horse, 2 full carbon windsurf boards from scratch and rebuilt my 1967 Cotton Trials bike. (including full rebuild of Villiers engine)
The boards were a bit of a disappointment, difficult to compete with companies.. (vacuum bagging, epoxy infusion etc is difficult in your shed)
 

Wicky

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24 Nov 2020 — Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised that every care home resident will be able to receive two visitors a week by the end of the year.



Care home deaths involving Covid highest since May

A bit more detail now from the statistics about coronavirus-related deaths, released this morning by the Office for National Statistics.

Some 2,364 care home resident deaths involving Covid-19 in England and Wales were registered in the week to 22 January - the highest weekly total since the week to 1 May 2020.

A total of 33,215 care home residents in England and Wales have now had Covid-19 recorded on their death certificate, the ONS said.

The figures cover deaths of care home residents in all settings, not just in care homes.
 

Danidl

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Sep 29, 2016
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Labour are pressing for the borders to be closed. I agree with them, but who is going to close them?

If we go for the mandatory hotel quarantine, who’s going to make that happen? It will be a very labour intensive exercise, so where is that pool of labour going to come from? You can’t use volunteers to enforce it.

The bottom line is, we can’t close our borders because we can’t close our borders. We don’t have the people.
Rubbish. Mandatory Hotel Quarantine should have been introduced in both UK and Ireland 11 months ago. We are getting constant vox pop stories in the Irish media of how it works in Vietnam, in NZ,in Dubai ,in China . The person is confined to a hotel room for 14 days on arrival and meals are delivered by tray to their door. On day 12 they get a CV test, and released on day 14. They have use of TV ,showers, internet , toilet in a hotel not otherwise used . All it needs is one guard per floor,at most.,and with CCTV not even that.
 

Zlatan

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Nov 26, 2016
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24 Nov 2020 — Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised that every care home resident will be able to receive two visitors a week by the end of the year.



Care home deaths involving Covid highest since May

A bit more detail now from the statistics about coronavirus-related deaths, released this morning by the Office for National Statistics.

Some 2,364 care home resident deaths involving Covid-19 in England and Wales were registered in the week to 22 January - the highest weekly total since the week to 1 May 2020.

A total of 33,215 care home residents in England and Wales have now had Covid-19 recorded on their death certificate, the ONS said.

The figures cover deaths of care home residents in all settings, not just in care homes.
I know It sounds callous but care home residents are dying all the time.
Question must be asked are the residents dying of Covid or with Covid? How many is covid a contributory factor? How many not at all but still on death certificate?
Said a while ago we, ve had 2 deaths in family in past month, both had covid mentioned. In one we didn't even think they had covid, in other we are fairly sure it made no difference. (both in 90,s both had long term cancers, both had covid on death certificates?)
 

Jesus H Christ

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Dec 31, 2020
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The Isle of Man were eventually shamed into stopping it after their high court had a youth flogged in 1976, resulting in a widespread outcry around the western world. Their last magistrate ordered flogging was in 1975.

The flogging law was finally repealed in 1993, so it no longer exists there.
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What a shame they repealed the law. A good flogging would serve some people very well.
 

Jesus H Christ

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Dec 31, 2020
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Rubbish. Mandatory Hotel Quarantine should have been introduced in both UK and Ireland 11 months ago. We are getting constant vox pop stories in the Irish media of how it works in Vietnam, in NZ,in Dubai ,in China . The person is confined to a hotel room for 14 days on arrival and meals are delivered by tray to their door. On day 12 they get a CV test, and released on day 14. They have use of TV ,showers, internet , toilet in a hotel not otherwise used . All it needs is one guard per floor,at most.,and with CCTV not even that.
I’m not saying it doesn’t work, but where is the labour coming from? How does one guard on any particular floor cope if unrest kicks off? Where does his backup come from.

I think mandatory quarantine will happen in the U.K., but Boris Johnson is incapable of making that decision. He is dithering until the situation becomes so desperate that he has no option but to close the borders. Or to put it another way, the decision is made for him. It’s how he’s operated since day one.

Of course each day he dithers the increased possibility of a vaccine resistant strain of the virus exists. He is risking undoing the great work done on vaccination so far.
 
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Zlatan

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Nov 26, 2016
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Rubbish. Mandatory Hotel Quarantine should have been introduced in both UK and Ireland 11 months ago. We are getting constant vox pop stories in the Irish media of how it works in Vietnam, in NZ,in Dubai ,in China . The person is confined to a hotel room for 14 days on arrival and meals are delivered by tray to their door. On day 12 they get a CV test, and released on day 14. They have use of TV ,showers, internet , toilet in a hotel not otherwise used . All it needs is one guard per floor,at most.,and with CCTV not even that.
I don't think you are taking our beloved freedom and knowledge of rights into account.
Folk here would sneak off. Guaranteed.
If Chinese, Vietnamese or such sneak off they know they, d get a beating or worse. Our Western culture can't be compared. I, ve spent lots of time in Vietnam. If police say jump, you jump. Ordinary people in street even more so than westerners.
Look at the quarantine set up in ski villages. Our lot just left. It's how we are. It's part of reason we are in a mess
 

Jesus H Christ

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Dec 31, 2020
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The SA variant of Coronavirus is here. There are small known pockets dotted around in a wide area of the country. I would say that if they know this, a lot of people have it and it’s out of control. They will not get on top of it, it’s too late.
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
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Care home deaths involving Covid highest since May

A bit more detail now from the statistics about coronavirus-related deaths, released this morning by the Office for National Statistics.

Some 2,364 care home resident deaths involving Covid-19 in England and Wales were registered in the week to 22 January - the highest weekly total since the week to 1 May 2020.

A total of 33,215 care home residents in England and Wales have now had Covid-19 recorded on their death certificate, the ONS said.

The figures cover deaths of care home residents in all settings, not just in care homes.
I don't think the figures are valid though, and the comparison with last May certainly isn't.

On 12th August 2020 the ruling that deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test had to be recorded as due to Covid was introduced. This does not require a judgement to be made about cause of death.

This is a ridiculous ruling which is bound to exaggerate the numbers of Covid deaths. The vast majority of all deaths are of the elderly, especially in care homes of course, and old people die far more often than any others and from a huge range of conditions. Now that testing has been greatly expanded, gross exaggeration is certain to occur, especially when tests have been shown to be unreliable.

Take the report from JH of 23 residents in a care home all testing positive yet all asymptomatic, one of many such reports. I refuse to believe it is possible for 23 old and vulnerable people to be infected with Covid-19 and not one of them showing any sign of a single symptom. A far more likely probability is that the swab test is not reliable, something many experts have said too, and that none of the 23 had Covid-19. But if any had died in their old age they would automatically been shown as Covid deaths.

I think we've been grossly exaggerating our total death rate ever since last 12th August due to that silly ruling. It doesn't make sense that it is one of the highest in the world and higher than places taking far fewer precautions, when we've taken so many precautions like Lockdowns, self isolation and quarantining.

One of the most difficult tasks doctors often have is ascertaining the cause of death for the certificate and Covid is too easy a cop-out anyway. To make it so by law is an extreme of daftness.
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Woosh

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May 19, 2012
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The SA variant of Coronavirus is here. There are small known pockets dotted around in a wide area of the country. I would say that if they know this, a lot of people have it and it’s out of control. They will not get on top of it, it’s too late.
even if we can get on top of it today or this month, we can't stop a dominant variant for long.
We now have the opportunity to test and develop the new vaccine technology. By the time we beat Covid, our knowledge will have made a huge leap forward.
 

Zlatan

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Nov 26, 2016
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I don't think the figures are valid though, and the comparison with last May certainly isn't.

On 12th August 2020 the ruling that deaths within 28 days of a positive Covid test had to be recorded as due to Covid was introduced. This does not require a judgement to be made about cause of death.

This is a ridiculous ruling which is bound to exaggerate the numbers of Covid deaths. The vast majority of all deaths are of the elderly, especially in care homes of course, and old people die far more often than any others and from a huge range of conditions. Now that testing has been greatly expanded, gross exaggeration is certain to occur, especially when tests have been shown to be unreliable.

Take the report from JH of 23 residents in a care home all testing positive yet all asymptomatic, one of many such reports. I refuse to believe it is possible for 23 old and vulnerable people to be infected with Covid-19 and not one of them showing any sign of a single symptom. A far more likely probability is that the swab test is not reliable, something many experts have said too, and that none of the 23 had Covid-19. But if any had died in their old age they would automatically been shown as Covid deaths.

I think we've been grossly exaggerating our total death rate ever since last 12th August due to that silly ruling. It doesn't make sense that it is one of the highest in the world and higher than places taking far fewer precautions, when we've taken so many precautions like Lockdowns, self isolation and quarantining.

One of th most difficult tasks doctors often have is ascertaining the cause of death for the certificate and Covid is too easy a cop-out anyway. To make it so by law is an extreme of daftness.
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Another good post Flecc. Well said.

We spend a lot of time comparing death rates country to country with no idea of the criteria required to get a covid death conclusion. Surely an EU wide criteria would help? (yes a positive for EU) How are covid deaths reported in Germany and Mexico? Its bound to be different but we still look at figures and draw up conclusions with zero knowledge of what each means?

How many people die of Covid? Unfortunately nobody really knows??
 

oyster

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Nov 7, 2017
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24 Nov 2020 — Prime Minister Boris Johnson has promised that every care home resident will be able to receive two visitors a week by the end of the year.
That is eleven months away.

An over-simplistic interpretation of 80% of care home staff not having been vaccinated (and only using January as December was very slow), we will take at least another four months to get their staff vaccinated. And we are seeing care home vaccination delayed and delayed as they see positive test results (even if not overt disease).

Half of care home staff at UK's largest provider have not had Covid vaccine

Some homes say 80% have not had jab, amid supply problems and anti-vaccine influence
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/01/half-of-care-home-staff-at-uks-largest-provider

I'll also point out that for all too many, two visitors a week would be more than they have ever previously received.
 
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oyster

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I don't think the figures are valid though, and the comparison with last May certainly isn't.
I know at one point there was no post mortem testing. Hence, anyone who had not been tested but died would never be identified as a Covid-19 death. Do we do post mortem testing now? And is it accurate?

Equally preposterous.

I have been wondering if there are any inherently symptomless variants of Covid-19? We've heard enough of the UK, SA, Brazilian mutations and their greater transmissibility or seriousness, but would we actually detect an innocuous variant? Or some sort of fragment of the virus which is not capable of causing disease? Maybe in time we would - when full sequencing is done. But could this be one reason we see positive tests with no sign of disease?
 

flecc

Member
Oct 25, 2006
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I have been wondering if there are any inherently symptomless variants of Covid-19? We've heard enough of the UK, SA, Brazilian mutations and their greater transmissibility or seriousness, but would we actually detect an innocuous variant? Or some sort of fragment of the virus which is not capable of causing disease? Maybe in time we would - when full sequencing is done. But could this be one reason we see positive tests with no sign of disease?
I think the answer could be very simply that we carry all sorts of dangerous elements which we don't suffer from.

Take salmonella bacteria which can kill us. It is everywhere around us and can and often does routinely live in our intestines without harming us in any way. In the same way I don't accept that the detected presence of the Covid virus in the mucus at the rear of our nasal passage indicates we are infected with it. It simply indicates it was present in the air we breathed there and got deposited in the sticky mucus.

That mucus often routinely gets swallowed to harmlessness or blown out into a handkerchief.
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