Coronavirus

[Hootnow]

From someone knowledgeable but very keen on spending other people's money

You're right, I'd definitely be a net winner from any increase in tax rates .

Probably preferable we just let some more people die. That's the truly noble and capitalist thing to do.

 

[Hootnow]

Option 3 is my preferred one.

We stop treating conditions caused by, related to or exacerbated by an inability to balance calories in Vs calories out.

NHS fixed overnight.

Option 4 is good too. That sees us sell off all of the NHS, use the proceeds to remove the disgusting top rate of income tax, set up a system of mandatory health insurance (similar to Germany), and all reap the rewards.

How would you feel about not treating people who've induced their injuries through taking recreational drugs? Cocaine for instance?

Germany has a higher top tax rate does it not? Albeit set at a higher income than the UK.

 

[Hootnow]

I hope you get through this mate and i have always appreciated what you guys do.

Thanks mate. It is slightly concerning to see the rate of healthcare worker infections (and deaths) in China, Italy and Spain, especially when the government is not providing proper PPE for us but there is not much we can do currently. I at least tell myself I am still (relatively!) young and thankfully have no other medical issues.

We probably do become slightly numb at times to this stuff (have to) but I do think the emotional impact will be unlike anything we've ever faced. I've already seen some harrowing things. Even though my trust is probably one of the most well prepared in the country, we are already having to make difficult decisions about who should go the intensive care and this will get worse as time goes on.

We are literally on a war footing, with some doctors and nurses sending kids away to grandparents, sleeping in hotels near the hospital/ hospital itself, moving to crisis teams etc etc.

Quite a few HCWs have already died from the infection in the UK and a few have also committed suicide. We're still only really at the beginning of the curve too.

Difficult times ahead.

 

[scaramanga]

Impossible when we live in such an interconnected world where tornados freely roam the planet.

Those people can criticise all they want. I'm not doing it for a pat on the back, I'm doing it because as the head of my family (with my wife...) I've made the decision to try to protect my family. Almost like the leader of the country has a responsibility to protect their citizens.

Doing some preparation (as opposed to none) is better. Signing up to the EU ventilator scheme (as opposed to being an idealogical zealot who gets caught with his pants down and has to make up a Redknapp-esque excuse) is better. Seeing that its affecting other countries and starting to maybe think about doing something (rather than waiting for it to start spreading in your own country) is better. I could go on and on.

Looking after your family's fine. But then one of those disgusting tracksuit families that use doughnuts as a proxy for parenting turns up and wants some of your food. Do you feed them and let your family go hungry?

 

[scaramanga]

How would you feel about not treating people who've induced their injuries through taking recreational drugs? Cocaine for instance?

Germany has a higher top tax rate does it not? Albeit set at a higher income than the UK.

I'm fine with that. Self inflicted (with reasonable warning of the consequences) shouldn't be covered.

 

[Hootnow]

Looking after your family's fine. But then one of those disgusting tracksuit families that use doughnuts as a proxy for parenting turns up and wants some of your food. Do you feed them and let your family go hungry?

In this analogy though, the 'disgusting tracksuit family' is your son who's gone off the rails and sits around at home all day playing playstation despite being 35. The Tories weren't doing a global preparedness for pandemic simulation but a UK preparedness.

Is it because I dropped the ball parent wise and didn't give him enough love? Or his own fault for not taking advantage of the opportunities I have to him? That will depend on your political views I guess.

So actually, yes I would let them in.They are my son (my countrymen) after all. And if we have to ration food a little bit, then that's ok. We don't need to eat 3 meals a day every day.

 

[Mosquito_Coasting]

Great posting Hootnow. Thanks for your work on the frontline.

 

[Baleforce]

Looking after your family's fine. But then one of those disgusting tracksuit families that use doughnuts as a proxy for parenting turns up and wants some of your food. Do you feed them and let your family go hungry?

brick, I’ve only been WFH for a week, but I have worn a tracksuit, how long until I start on the doughnuts doctor, is there a cure?

 

[scaramanga]

Yet South Korea, Singapore (to an extent), Taiwan are all democracies. HK has some element of citizen feedback. And have controlled this and responded infinitely better than the UK and other Western countries have.

This will kill more than 'a few people' without proper measures.

They may be but I'm talking about Japan and its government here, which has conducted a risible number of tests (about 16,000 when I last checked 3 days ago), giving it an artificially low number of cases.

Not in the same way the UK is, and certainly not with the same independent culture.

I've seen a massive difference between the UK and CZ in terms of culture - both good and bad.

In CZ they were told to stay home and everyone behaved like obedient little doggies. On the upside, they were told that nobody was allowed out without a mask and instead of bitching that there were no masks available, they shared instructions online on how to make them.

Personally I'd prefer not to be a part of a culture that just obeys like in SK or China and, to a lesser extent, some EU countries that prefer bureaucracy.

And yes, a few more - could be lots depending on one's understanding of each. Either way it's a very small price to pay for the benefits.

 

[scaramanga]

It's not about blowing money at that time. It's about the fact that many countries have been reducing, or even completly removing any emergency stock of essentials, such as protective gear, flour/grain over the last years, and also not being able to be self supplied with essentials. This has proven to be a massive mistake.

Buying and keeping all of that costs money.

 

[scaramanga]

It's peanuts.

It's not your money.

 

[scaramanga]

In this analogy though, the 'disgusting tracksuit family' is your son who's gone off the rails and sits around at home all day playing playstation despite being 35. The Tories weren't doing a global preparedness for pandemic simulation but a UK preparedness.

Is it because I dropped the ball parent wise and didn't give him enough love? Or his own fault for not taking advantage of the opportunities I have to him? That will depend on your political views I guess.

So actually, yes I would let them in.They are my son (my countrymen) after all. And if we have to ration food a little bit, then that's ok. We don't need to eat 3 meals a day every day.

That's where we differ then. I absolutely wouldn't and would rather the govt kept spending lower and made people learn to be a bit more self sufficient.

 

[Parklaner81]

There's some very selective amnesia going on amongst those who simply want to criticise the government, no matter what.

So what else is new?

A couple of weeks back I was hearing people vehemently criticising a certain foreign government for a certain action they'd taken in response to this crisis, then in the next breath criticising Johnson just as vehemently for not doing that very same thing.

If nothing else I'm getting a crash course on how to filter out those for whom such an agenda overrides all else.

 

[Hootnow]

Not in the same way the UK is, and certainly not with the same independent culture.

I've seen a massive difference between the UK and CZ in terms of culture - both good and bad.

In CZ they were told to stay home and everyone behaved like obedient little doggies. On the upside, they were told that nobody was allowed out without a mask and instead of bitching that there were no masks available, they shared instructions online on how to make them.

Personally I'd prefer not to be a part of a culture that just obeys like in SK or China and, to a lesser extent, some EU countries that prefer bureaucracy.

And yes, a few more - could be lots depending on one's understanding of each. Either way it's a very small price to pay for the benefits.

Yep, I guess this is where we differ (and same with your other post as well).

There are some aspects to having such an independent culture. For me, the inherent selfishness and disregard for others is not something I like but this is clearly where we disagree and will never converge.

A shame that in this case, selfishness and disregard for others will cause a lot of deaths and, ironically, probably more lockdown than if they'd followed proper PH approaches from the beginning (again like Singapore, HK and Taiwan, where life was going on to a more normal extent than it is in Italy, Spain and potentially the UK soon too).

 

[Grays_1890]

As soon as the chinese locked down wuhan (actually before) it was no longer just in case.

So the answer to you question is a lot less then they ended up spending.

That took them over a month and due to the nature of the communist party the data coming out was likely to be slow and inaccurate including the death toll.

Hardly helpful

 

[scaramanga]

That took them over a month and due to the nature of the communist party the data coming out was likely to be slow and inaccurate including the death toll.

Hardly helpful

There are reports today that there were more urns delivered to just one funeral home in two days than the entire official death figure covers

 

[Grays_1890]

A shame that in this case, selfishness and disregard for others will cause a lot of deaths and, ironically, probably more lockdown than if they'd followed proper PH approaches from the beginning (again like Singapore, HK and Taiwan, where life was going on to a more normal extent than it is in Italy, Spain and potentially the UK soon too).

The fact that the death toll is likely to come from bizarre habits that comes from old folk story beliefs which are more rife in a communist or sheltered society shows there is no exact science in this.

I won’t ignore that we have problems but we are reacting to something that scientists believe had a 99.9% chance of jumping from a market where highly contagious animals from all over the globe that shouldn’t be kept next to each other were sold for old wives tail medicine, ironically for a cough.

 

[Danishfurniturelover]

These are the words of the editor of the Lancet at the end of January:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1220606842449072128

He is probably the loudest and most qualified critic of the government's actions. There's some very selective amnesia going on amongst those who simply want to criticise the government, no matter what.

He came across as very pompous on question time the other day.

 

[Grays_1890]

There are reports today that there were more urns delivered to just one funeral home in two days than the entire official death figure covers

1.4 BN people in China, original source of virus which one human spreads at an alarming rate and has a 5-10% mortality rate.

Then you read about the political positioning of the Dr who died after speaking out about the disease who was silenced then hailed a hero.

They are definitely lying about a lot of this.

 

[Grays_1890]

14% of recovered patients in China were found to be still contagious. We don't know brick about this thing. Until we have a vaccine, caution is the only option. Think about something other than money, you dingdong.

And China are telling people to go back to save the economy.

yet we need to follow their example.

They are not standard bearers on how to deal with this by any shot