Judging from a small sample of people I know - I think many of these people are effectively dopamine junkies.
They wander through their days in a semi-fugue state, dreaming of when they can hit the pavement next and get some miles in, get their next fix.
So - it’s not surprising that this event proceeded. Again - small sample experience.
Well, they had to choose between the satisfaction of a bunch of sweaty long distance runners and the existence of a few hundred (thousand? ten thousand?) “extra” octogenarians, and they executed on that choice, literally.
I think your point about what it will be like in three months is a very valid one. I don’t know what it will be like then, but I do hope that when it’s eventually over there will be some kind of reckoning for Boris Johnson and his cronies.
I can’t get my head around the callousness of allowing nature to take its course in a bid to infect 60% of the population and magically achieve herd immunity. That strikes me as pretty implausible because that’s never happened before. I keep wondering if I’m just being really thick and missing something…
It did occur to me that this might be some crackpot plan dreamt up by Cummings to rid the UK of a load of troublesome people and, more importantly, the associated expense. But I haven’t yet reached a level of cynicism where I believe that - And I hope I never do.
The best I can come up with is that they did nothing about this for two months, and then when they finally did sit down to give it some though they realised that it was too late and that they were fucked no matter what they did!
I dunno. I wish I had something constructive to add but I can’t think of anything. Some countries will weather this better than others but I don’t think it’s going to go well for the UK.
Well, it is harder to catch outdoors. There’s little to no indirect exposure to the virus (touching a surface that was contaminated by someone infected) - either because there are no surfaces to touch or because sunlight is helping keep surfaces sterile - but the direct exposure caused by being in a dense crowd is so extreme, that really doesn’t matter. But yeah, if you were in a situation with a low density of people, that would be better outdoors than in.
Of course it’s a race to win a prize. A Darwin Award. The problem is network effects. One idiot can kill 10 others without actively trying.
That is based on a misunderstanding (or misreported) of what was advised, it has been (poorly) clarified since but the horse has bolted.
Maybe if publishers would start calling the virus by its actual name, it will wake people up to what we’re facing. It’s named
SARS-CoV-2
for a reason, people!
What was advised?
I’m really curious about that.
Graham Medley, at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, chairs a group of scientists who model the spread of infectious diseases and advise the government on pandemic responses. He says that the actual goal is the same as that of other countries: flatten the curve by staggering the onset of infections. As a consequence , the nation may achieve herd immunity; it’s a side effect, not an aim. Indeed, yesterday, U.K. Health Secretary Matt Hancock stated, “Herd immunity is not our goal or policy.”
Thanks for clarifying that.
Boris Johnson did trot out that line about herd immunity though, didn’t he?
It feels like this thing has been going on for a long time. I find myself questioning reality all the time!
More and more, I’m starting to realize that this is yet another case of the well-off, healthy young types realizing they’re not really at risk and not feeling any social responsibility towards others who are not in that situation.
Which will be an incredibly painful lesson to learn when their older loved ones start being hospitalized. 
Another stellar display of incompetence.
They had best not assume that they’re not really at risk; if the virus travels and replicates through enough hosts, those selfsame young people could be hit with another variant that also (or only) kills those with strong immune systems by triggering cascading over responses to the virus.
I have this vision of all the gents in bowler hats and chimney sweeps going about their daily business, whistling ‘Happy Birthday to You’, and thinking everything is just fine…
With two week incubation period it’s possible that someone ran this half-marathon while already infected.
Or, they could just get a bad roll of the dice and wind up in the ICU in spite of having been young and healthy.
It seems that about 7g of ethanol per kilogram of body weight (LD50 for ethanol in humans) guarantees total immunity to all diseases in 50% cases. Other than that I don’t think it helps.
/s
As @anon33176345 says, the idea that the government planned for the infection to spread unchecked is untrue – it’s the “Lisa said a dirty word!” school of reporting.
Everything we know about the situation comes to us via the media / facebook ouroboros. In cases like this where the media itself is a major player, it doesn’t matter how bad of a job they do – and they couldn’t be doing much worse – you will never hear that subject raised.
Today the media are clamoring for governments to shut everything down, creating exciting headlines. In a few months, when the most interesting story is the colossal scale of the damage caused by governments reacting to that pressure, I guarantee they will be talking about that in exactly the same scolding, superior tone.
Flattening the curve of contagion is obviously important, and low-hanging fruit like cancelling sports events should be no-brainers. But the point that was actually being made about herd immunity was that (1) a tight lockdown is not something the government can practically enforce for any length of time, and (2) as long as everyone stays at home, the reason for them to stay at home will never go away. The logic of “temporary” quarantines rests on the idea that the disease can be eliminated, and that seems dubious.
(I imagine France, whose people will riot over an unpopular postage stamp design, will become a laboratory for this in the near future).
The UK is one of the only countries where the entire medical industry is a part of the state (the largest part) and routinely makes cost-benefit decisions about medical care at a national level. Those decisions might not be pleasant, but if it’s using the resources it has, the UK government is better equipped than almost any other to make them. Overall, I’d trust them more than the self-absorbed drunks in the media.
Given that I just learned my family will be living under a “shelter in place” order for the next several weeks at least I can’t say I have much sympathy for those who can’t even trouble themselves to exercise separately.
That is a massive insult to shit-stains on the soul of humanity.
I think he knows and wants that. He is a social darwinist.
