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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 21, 2020 2:04:39 GMT
That’s the line the far right ‘keep Britain free’ types are screaming about. The impact of lockdown on excess deaths would have seen numbers stable and rising but they did the opposite, excess deaths tracking acknowledged COVID deaths. As for the long term treatments that were delayed, they wouldn’t be showing up for a while now, even if they did have an effect. Unsurprising the gaslighting is going on now, just when they want to get people into the shops and workplaces. Why the excess? We already know, through the care home crisis, that lack of testing leading to undercounting was routine, our wider pathetic testing effort and its unreliability is therefore likely similar. Now why would Hancock want to deflect from that? Woah, sweeping generalisation there.
You are very much mistaken if you think all "Keep Britain Free" or End Lockdown advocates are far right!!!
It’s a large proportion but, for the former, joined by the all purpose anti-vaxxer idiots and sundry anti-state cranks. Click on their profiles to see what they post and retweet and you get the drift. I was accused of being part of the 77th brigade, which was news to me. I had to google it but it’s boilerplate conspiracy theorist nonsense. As for anti lockdown there’s a whole age thing going on plus as a big difference in terms of approach to risk, meaning a lot of younger people with social motives and people who want things, so it’s less politically motivated at the grassroots level.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 19, 2020 1:01:10 GMT
There is a difference between planning to make a profit and failing and planning to do something that will cost you more money than if you didn’t do it.
The former is bad luck, bad management, overconfidence. The latter is just madness. Maybe the Mackintoshes of this world can cope (he could for a short while and he’s almost on his own) but the vast majority of producers/venues would just go under more quickly. Smaller companies with no building or major running costs may be a different matter but, if you’re trying to keep a building going, forget it.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 18, 2020 18:44:12 GMT
Does anyone know of a site that has a map of recent cases only? I managed to find one (linked from here), but if anything it's far too detailed. It shows cases down to a very local level and suppresses very low values (2 or lower new cases per week) so most of the map is blank. I'd have preferred to see grouping by larger areas, but it's still interesting and valuable for revealing the remaining hotspots. Another way of looking at it is via the Zoe app where people signed up to report symptoms. Over time it’s proved to be an accurate guide to where case rise and fall. As my local paper helpfully proclaimed this week, ‘in the top twenty!’. A couple of weeks ago the numbers on there were doubling week on week, so that was no surprise to me. covid.joinzoe.com/data
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 18, 2020 12:13:04 GMT
There are already murmurings that the COVID strategy has increased treatable deaths and may be better for the Government if the numbers remain hidden in the COVID figures. That’s the line the far right ‘keep Britain free’ types are screaming about. The impact of lockdown on excess deaths would have seen numbers stable and rising but they did the opposite, excess deaths tracking acknowledged COVID deaths. As for the long term treatments that were delayed, they wouldn’t be showing up for a while now, even if they did have an effect. Unsurprising the gaslighting is going on now, just when they want to get people into the shops and workplaces. Why the excess? We already know, through the care home crisis, that lack of testing leading to undercounting was routine, our wider pathetic testing effort and its unreliability is therefore likely similar. Now why would Hancock want to deflect from that?
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 18, 2020 2:04:01 GMT
I had to return to post that the telegraph is now telling everyone its PHE deliberately over-counting to create fear. The goverment is going to get the blame for ecnomic damage put on PHE as well at this rat. Snip ETA: I wonder how they explain the excess deaths figures for the season, which are considerably higher than the number of deaths attributed to Covid-19. If PHE are faking the figures to make the pandemic look worse than it really is they're doing a pretty poor job of it because they've missed out nearly 20,000 they could have added. But who wants to think about facts when you have a conspiracy theory to promote? I got one of the twitter loons replying to me with an ‘explanation’. Apparently they died because the NHS ‘only accepted covid patients’, secretive ‘do not resuscitate orders’ and aggressive intubation. I made the mistake of commenting on a PHE post, it appears to be where the dregs of society go to congregate. Back to the comfort of actual scientists for me after that jaw dropping foray.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 17, 2020 12:12:34 GMT
Yes let's not try and rewrite history, it was only a few months ago after all. A lot of venues were left in limbo financially with the government advising them to close but not ordering them. Many companies, particularly in London where it was known the situation was more serious at that point, ignored the governments dithering and closed down ahead of advice. Yes, theatres ended up closing voluntarily because it was clear that it would be irresponsible to stay open, and then discovered they couldn't claim on their insurance because they closed before they were officially ordered to. They should have stayed open but told the audience they were going to add a safety surcharge of £1000 if they turned up, either they paid that or get a refund.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 17, 2020 12:08:01 GMT
I can't see any adjustment to the figures would be hugely significant. If you look at the graphs of daily new cases and daily deaths they follow very similar curves, with a rapid rise to a peak and then a slow fall back towards zero, which is exactly the pattern you see in other countries such as Italy, Spain, Germany and France and suggests that death rates are being calculated fairly accurately everywhere. The excess death rate is the one that is most trustworthy. The late admittance of asymptomatic transmission and death has led to numbers being undercounted.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 17, 2020 11:53:05 GMT
Shifting responsibility to the theatre: if they go bankrupt, not the govt fault! This is the whole plan, to avoid responsibility. Now we know that they ignored SAGE advice to lock down earlier, resulting in their being responsible for thousands more deaths and people seriously ill, they will never escape the fact that they caused immense pain and distress, though. If anything happens again, they must be held to account, none of this ‘personal responsibility’ crap.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 15, 2020 12:58:58 GMT
Believe the rationale is about the controls in place. If 2m can be maintained, one way systems, back to back desks, no meetings.... then face masks need not be worn In the work place as the risk is being mitigated by other means. If you work in a place where no mitigations have been introduced and are in close proximity then masks could prove useful. The reasoning for shops is that 2m is difficult to maintain and you are mixing with potentially a lot of strangers increasing the risk of infection. They either don’t understand about aerosols (shocking, after it was first highlighted months ago) or they do and they don’t care. Either dangerously ignorant or just plain dangerous. They expect people at risk and even very high risk to work in such environments? There are no nice words for that. Labour appear to be just as ill informed/reckless as well.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 15, 2020 11:36:30 GMT
Is there anyone on here who works in an office? I ask because I’m dreading being forced to return as the thought of being tightly packed in an indoor environment with colleagues who I know won’t adhere to any guidelines is really causing me sleepless nights. I’ve continued to do my job for the past 16 weeks with no problems at all and can only see economic reasons for the Government to insist on returning now. There will be no health benefits. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Looking at the news today, it’s clear that the government have no clue about aerosols or that they don’t care. Many were onto this months ago but, even with the sclerotic WHO now moving on it, they still deny it. If it is down to individual workplaces to protect you then, at the least, you meed to lobby your employers to have full compliance with mask wearing. I can only think the government is taunting people to take industrial action.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 14, 2020 22:47:51 GMT
Best line I heard about starting to wear masks now compared to March is it's like wearing a Condom at a Baby Shower. No. It’s like wearing a condom when you’ve got one kid and you can’t afford to have any more. Masks need to be compulsory, for reasons of both health and wealth.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 14, 2020 10:32:29 GMT
Another interesting article about changing the design of theatres for now and for the future. “...architects have been working alongside the Harvard School of Public Health, looking at how theatres might mitigate the coronavirus risk before a vaccine comes along. “It has allowed us to use the project as a live research test bed,” says Tompkins, “asking what theatres might have to do in a time of pandemics – which might not just be this one.” He says that displacement ventilation is one of the key principles, so that fresh air comes in from below and is exhausted through the roof (as at the practice’s Everyman theatre), rather than allowing it to drift across the audience and spread the virus, along with better filtration, and slightly higher humidity and temperature. He points to the technical interventions planned by the London Palladium, which proposes to introduce infrared cameras at the stage door along with antiviral fogging machines and an app-based “medical passport” for ticket-holders.” www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/jul/14/covid-future-theatre-scottish-seaside-town-answers-dunoon
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 14, 2020 10:25:24 GMT
A good article here, which lays out clearly the divisiveness of the package announced last week. Our weak support for arts compared to our neighbours, the promotion of institutions over individuals, the old versus the young artist, the need for profound change throughout the whole artistic life of this country. “The delicate three-way relationship between institutions, artists and audiences is going to have to be renegotiated. How effectively organisations accommodate, nurture and reward the ambitions of artists, how skilfully they hand over authorial control to a decreasingly patient younger generation, will become more and more important. ” www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jul/14/cultural-rescue-package-artists-institutions-covid-19
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 12, 2020 19:10:24 GMT
I probably mentioned this earlier, but Kiss of the Spiderwoman. Nearly thirty years now.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 12, 2020 12:49:26 GMT
They’ve fixated on thIs idea that ‘people don’t like being told what do’. It’s a pandemic, one of the reasons that government is there for is to mandate measures for the good of all. I stopped taking them as any sort of guide a while ago, better to listen to nations who have done a good job (and I include Scotland in that) and people who were right in the first place. Those fateful weeks in March, where they planned to let the virus rip through us, will go down in history as a turning point, I hope. I really don't think people are as confused as many here are claiming. There's no question that the government screwed up catastrophically in March. One of the points I've tried to reinforce is that if one country has a lockdown when they have 100 cases and another has a lockdown when they have 1000 it doesn't mean the second country has 900 more cases but 10 times more, along with 10 times more need for medical equipment, 10 times more deaths, 10 times more everything. Prompt action is paramount, but we had a week of faffing about while the situation grew an order of magnitude worse and we've been paying the price for that delay ever since. But despite that I think people do understand what they need to do to protect themselves. On this forum there's a strong attitude of " I'm smart enough to know what to do but everyone else is an idiot" and I don't think that's justifiable. Where I am it's clear that people are still actively protecting themselves. I had to go to the shops this morning and everyone is carefully skirting round everyone else or standing in queues two metres apart. There are signs on bus stops telling people how to travel safely. Shops have screens up and warning signs, and people are following them. Pubs have one-way systems and people are following those too. There doesn't appear to be any confusion at all. There are a few idiots around who ignore all the rules but that has always been the case: it's because they don't care, not because they're confused. Are you ‘up north’? I am, and there is virtually zero mask wearing in my local area and, unsurprisingly, all around me are the areas now showing the greatest community transmission. The message that people here are taking note of is ‘back to normal’. Scotland, on the other hand, has much greater compliance but then they have a government that isn’t wetting themselves over telling people to do things for the greater good.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 12, 2020 12:06:16 GMT
The government messaging is very mixed at the moment. Wear masks, but go out to restaurants and pubs to eat and drink -activities that are impossible while wearing a mask. Keep (sort of) distancing, but get onto public transport and into your offices, even if you could easily continue to work from home. Generally, go places and do things where you will be in closer proximity to more people, but if you catch coronavirus it's your own fault for getting too close to too many people. They’ve fixated on thIs idea that ‘people don’t like being told what do’. It’s a pandemic, one of the reasons that government is there for is to mandate measures for the good of all. I stopped taking them as any sort of guide a while ago, better to listen to nations who have done a good job (and I include Scotland in that) and people who were right in the first place. Those fateful weeks in March, where they planned to let the virus rip through us, will go down in history as a turning point, I hope.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 11, 2020 8:48:36 GMT
Is coronavirus present in wee wee? I thought it was a respiratory disease! Can be found in ‘number twos’ apparently, although may not be active.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 10, 2020 12:24:44 GMT
I actually laughed out loud when I saw that bit, I suppose everyone’s supposed to make notes on their hand or something then transcribe it when they get home. That’s not even getting into productions that don’t start with a script. Maybe they’re going to suggest that those those in the pit need to play from memory next. Do they, DSM, lighting and sound get scripts/parts because they have magical warding properties or something? It just pretty much sidesteps theatre as a whole. If they think that it’s a major problem then they should have the guts to say that, not just setting ‘guidelines’ that are implausible so that they can say, ‘we said you could restart and you didn’t’.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 9, 2020 19:58:07 GMT
They seem to have thought a lot more about music, orchestras and choirs, than actors. They are correct about aerosolisation from singing but completely ignore the research that shows loud talking (e.g, acting) as being the same. Not only that but, as it tends to be face to face, it can be more dangerous than singers singing in one direction. There is a later comment that performances face to face ‘should be avoided’, almost as though it is left in there as a reference to something removed elsewhere. Is this a rewrite of something more comprehensive? If you shouldn't be performing face to face then that is a major problem for actors. 90% of theatre needs face to face interaction, surely? They still deny the need for masks, as well, in a business where aerosols are produced as a matter of course, I suppose the WHO has only now reluctantly admitted that particular danger but it pays to be ahead of the game rather than grudgingly slow acceptance. Maybe someone lobbied to take these things out but it’s weird that acting is almost invisible when compared to other modes of performance.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 9, 2020 10:37:37 GMT
When they have gone through so much to prevent deaths it's only right they going to make sure they never get British death rates.
It's a virus - it's here and it's staying - no treatment/vaccine will ever be 100% effective We'll get better at treating it and a vaccine may be developed that will do something for the majority of people, but there will unfortunately never be zero deaths from covid ever again now. At some point, every nation is going to have to go down the UK/Sweden route of letting it make its way through the population. Israel is a perfect example - it shut down early and fast and so had minute cases and deaths; but the moment it opened up again, the virus continued its way through the population - it's not the fabled second wave, it's the first one that was just paused for a while. Two vaccines are already at stage three, many more are not far behind them (the Oxford vaccine is one of those furthest along). That means they are likely to be ready much sooner than feared. They may, at this stage, be vaccines that reduce the effect and the high mortality levels rather than eliminate totally but that renders the callous stupidity of Sweden’s choice even more unfathomable. Israel was idiotic in its opening, getting back ‘to normal’. Same with the US. There are countries around the world that have asked their society to change and adapt and they have, and will continue to do so, as a result, they will then be well placed to track, trace and eleminate. The universal use of masks and tight controls will also pay dividends. What is this country doing? When I look around peole appear to be behaving more like Israel than Korea and that may condemn us.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 7, 2020 18:42:57 GMT
More likely. When you see how much more seriously countries in East Asia take safety, their seeing the slapdash effort here, with far too many thinking even that is beneath them, isn’t going to to make us a safe destination for a while. Easier for government to deny responsibility for that, though. Through China themselves don't take safety that seriously - otherwise we wouldn't have the virus They will now. China (apart from being anti-democratic) has the issue of being many countries, and I don’t necessarily mean that in a regional way. The modern China is pitted against a sclerotic existing system. The old ways, as we’ve seen with food safety, massively behind when compared to other areas.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 7, 2020 18:32:45 GMT
If it isn’t regional theatres. I’d elevate any theatre that has significant community outreach, places like Lyric, Hammersmith, Battersea Arts Centre, Unicorn Theatre.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 7, 2020 18:16:23 GMT
Northern universities attract a lot of Chinese students, and Liverpool and Manchester have long-standing British-Chinese populations (the oldest in Europe). I don't think picking on young Chinese people would play well up here either. Thinking about it more it's more likely it will be China itself banning it's Nationals from studying in the UK rather than the UK banning their entry. More likely. When you see how much more seriously countries in East Asia take safety, their seeing the slapdash effort here, with far too many thinking even that is beneath them, isn’t going to to make us a safe destination for a while. Easier for government to deny responsibility for that, though.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 7, 2020 12:12:44 GMT
There will be new advice coming out soon which will be quite different. The likelihood is that, now we know more about who it affects, there will be risk scores for individuals.
So, if you are male, have the issues that are now acknowledged as important (not using the blunt 'flu jab' criteria from before), are from a non white background and have a high BMI, them that will be seen as important as age is. Looking at the one being used in Wales, age will factor in a sliding scale for fifty and over.
So, if these ladies have no underlying conditions, they are probably less at risk than many people much younger than them.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 6, 2020 11:59:59 GMT
Your first paragraph, I do not disagree with at all. My thoughts about it are aligned with yours regarding bureaucracy. Also, that Berlin (which is why I highlighted it) stands out. In the UK your second para would probably be about Scotland and the Barnett formula. People can probably measure where they stand on that. As for the theatre debate, it’s clear we are on completely opposite sides. No point in discussing something where I so fundamentally disagree. I need to tell my German friends (or those who have connections in German theatre) that they know nothing about it, though. How dare they misinform me.... EDIT: i just reread my earlier posts to see if I’d got something wrong. Apart from not giving masses of extra qualifying detail, I have no idea what you think is factually incorrect. Germany’s greater funding, Berlin’s swiftness compared yo elsewhere, federal help of a different type.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 6, 2020 11:31:20 GMT
Really? We have been crying out for a financial package, which not everyone was even confident we would get at all, and we've just had one announced that is actually higher than most people even predicted or hoped for and yet the only response by some is to start comparing it to Germany? Or start complaining about the potential allocations? Or make digs about it being leaked? Can people not just be pleased and grateful that we finally actually have something in place that will help? Honestly. Two thirds of people employed by theatre are freelancers, My point was about them, or do you really not care about them, as long as the salaried are okay and that we get ‘an announcement’. It’s been left up to Sam Mendes and others like Netflix to support them, if and how they can. £1000 grants available, applications opened half an hour ago.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 6, 2020 11:23:09 GMT
Berlin, for example, gave individual freelancers (not just arts) 5000 Euros each in March and they had the money in their bank accounts in days. That was ONLY in the city-state of Berlin - everywhere else freelancers were screwed. Berlin has always been great at spending other people's money. The state governments living firmly in 20th century allocated 9000 Euro over a period of three months for freelancers who lost their income but the money was ONLY to be spend on rent for office rooms, staff and similar, NOT for personal expenses like rent and food. Despite the fact that so many freelancers these days work from home and have neither office nor staff, only a laptop or a music instrument or whatever. So millions missed out on the help and at the same time it became obvious that criminal clans had been able to sneak in there, to grab thousands of Euro of help unchecked, which has now disappeared. The "arts" that are supported here, are also as usual the pampered state-subsidized theatres that have been playing for an elitist target group with their Regietheater nonsense for decades. Privately funded theatres, including the big musical theatres, get NOTHING. So you can soon watch another deconstructed Shakespeare again or a socially distanced heady play with three nude performers musing over the state of the world, but if you want to see a musical with beautiful costumes, songs and distraction from the miseries of the real world, you can forget about that. So not all that wonderful here. I was talking about early help, which, as I said, Berlin gave. The federal government was much slower, that was my point. Also, the federal plan is to support freelancers via social security payments and housing support. As for the rest, it’s just a Daily Mail-esque diatribe against the sort of theatre that has given German theatre a great reputation globally. Theatre that I, and obviously others, get a great dal out of. Art before commerce can be a good thing as far as I’m concerned. Otherwise you are left with big flashy musicals running for years (Starlight Express for the last 32 years, seriously?) ’Spending other people’s money?’. Are you sure you aren’t English in disguise?
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 6, 2020 0:56:13 GMT
Let’s remember that the 1.5 billion money INCLUDES- hundreds of heritage sites independent cinemas music venues art galleries and museums ....so it is not all for theatres. The French pledged 6-7 times as much to their Arts industry according to Twitter.... Will reserve judgement until I see how the pie is divided up. TBF it's on par with with Germany which pledged €1bn for their cultural sectors. That’s Federal Government, Germany has greater decentralisation, so that doesn’t take into account regional governments. They also put more money into the arts as a matter of course, so the base is higher. Berlin, for example, gave individual freelancers (not just arts) 5000 Euros each in March and they had the money in their bank accounts in days.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 5, 2020 22:43:35 GMT
That doesn't make much sense. Across Europe companies are being paid so that they can run with much reduced houses without making losses. Why would they not want a theatre to open? If the pubs can open on safety grounds what's the reasoning on theatres?
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jul 5, 2020 12:30:07 GMT
I've worn a mask to my two recent haircuts How have you managed 2 haircuts in one day?!! I think Steven A is outside the UK.
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