Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/09/08/england-bans-gatherings-of-6-o.html
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Here we go…
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Nobody.
Nobody at all.
This is a complete surprise.
To everyone.
It’s retroactive to March, so it’ll all be fine now.
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Better than the USA. Where we advise the public to do one thing, they get angry for being told what to do by the guberment and instead do the opposite. Not that Brits are all that culturally different from Americans in our self-destructive stubbornness.
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Let’s pass another law! Those don’t cost money. Or, generally, do anything.
Yeah, it’s the kids that are the problem.
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Also in today’s news: The St Leger Festival (socialite drinking disguised as horseracing) looks to still be going ahead becasue of pressure from the Johnson Regime overruling local goverment. We have learned nothing since the Chetenham Festival went ahead in March and was found to be a super-spreader event.
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Well, not really doing anything about viral spread at all, then, are you?
@Ratel: Recent spiking in cases up here were traced to high school graduation parties. So, mostly the “kids”, ie. young adults. Same as for the prior spike when bars were temporarily re-opened in some parts of the state.
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Meanwhile in Queensland…
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Why don’t they just say they are closing the bars, pubs and nightclubs? The outside gatherings thing is… I don’t know what to say. What wrong with you England? Aside from COVID I mean.
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Cambridge will host a second pilot on Saturday, with 2,500 fans allowed at their League Two opener with Carlisle.
As a Carlisle United fan, may I say “FUCK YOU!” to the government for still insisting that this test goes ahead.
The Abbey stadium only holds 8000 people normally, so I don’t see how distancing will work if they get a large crowd. League two normally averages at about 4-5000 fans per game, so it is worryingly possible.
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- The UK death rate is the third worst in Europe, after Belgium and Spain.
- “the actual toll probably much higher, because the government tally omits persons who died without being tested” This is wrong. The UK death rate includes everyone who has Covid as a cause of death on their death certificate, which will include anyone who was vaguely symptomatic at the time of death. There is an argument that the UK criteria overstates deaths, because it includes anyone who dies within 30 days of a positive Covid test, irrespective of cause, which is particularly relevant when many deaths were in nursing homes.
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This might be of interest
Not any more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53722711. For info, it made a difference of about 5000 people, or 12%
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Nope - before that change deaths were being counted against Covid however long they took place after a positive test. That change reduced that to within 30 days of a positive test.
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That only confirms my beliefs that this is a bad idea. Using those guidelines at their most lenient, there are only a few league two teams that can safely hold a crowd of 2500. Bolton, Bradford, Port Vale, Carlisle and maybe Tranmere.
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As of yesterday, the rule of law in the UK has been suspended
I expect the general public to break these rules in a very “specific and limited way”
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Pubs are still fine though, obviously.
/facepalm
When it comes to shitty cultural responses to Covid, Turmp supporters have been getting all the headlines, but from what I can see, that’s only because in the US it’s actually controversial to refuse to wear a mask. On Garbage Island, there’s no controversy because no one is wearing a mask in the places they’re nominally required by law. I mean, maybe half the people on the tube will have masks on, and maybe half of those will be covering their noses. In shops it’s way less than half, and anywhere it’s not mandatory, mask wearing is unusual (and therefore subject to disapproving looks, because that’s how Garbage Island is).
That’s the Covid response in a nutshell. No one cares about responding in a practical or effective way to the pandemic; that is a question for our masters. On an individual level, it is always and only: “am I following the flock?" and “who is to be punished?”
It makes me feel bad
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Schools reopened last week with some social distancing and local agreements on mask wearing but a general top-down message to not wear them.
there has been a drive to ‘get people back to the office’ from working at home so that sandwich shops near office buildings (or…the fuel industry?) don’t go under.
Public transport is overwhelmed to the point of no longer practically offering social distancing.
I’m not sure that meetings of 7 people are the issue or the pubs and restaurants who have largely invested to work at a fraction of their capacity safely.
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