Bloody hope this is not true

MPs are set to decide whether to extend the Covid lockdown in England. On Thursday they will vote on prolonging the Coronavirus Act emergency legislation for another six months - allowing at least some restrictions to remain until October.

 

Six-monthly reviews were built in to the original 2020 Act. The extension would only be a cover-all to get past the Roadmap milestones and in case the ministerial powers needed to be extended by delegated legislation. Fingers crossed!

 

Of all people, Tories want to get out of lockdown ASAP. Would you turn off your washing machine halfway through it’s cycle.?

 

furlough scheme was extended to September in the budget - that was a big hint.

Here's the deal - most of the country has been in the most severe lockdown in the western world since November, and we are still getting over 5k cases a day while doing over 1.5 million tests. That is a statement of fact, lets look at possible reasons for that and the implications:

If, despite such draconian measures we are still seeing so many people infected every day, it tells me that people who are getting infected and subsequently being tested are not being monitored/supported to remain in isolation, also the system which is supposed to then follow up with all the people they have been in contact with doesn't work - otherwise we wouldn't need to blindly test 1.5 million more people to find the next 5k people infected, we'd be following each contact and testing, them, and then testing their contact, etc,etc - with 5k cases, you can reasonably expect to need to trace maybe 100k people and test them, with other random tests needed and so on, if you take schools out of the testing we are testing 10 times the number we should need to test to find those people.

So even with such huge restrictions in place we are not successfully driving out the spread through tracing - what is going to happen when gradually everything opens and people can mingle legally, and meet indoors in tens of thousands of different setting, how's that going to go do we think?
The government have 1 strategy - vaccination- that's it. All eggs in one basket - and as we've seen its not exactly reliable supply is it? We've done very well to partially vaccinate 1/2 the population, but thats still everyone needing the second vaccine and 30 million people still not having had one vaccine. It maybe that as we've done the most vulnerable we won't see the same deaths as before, or even the same number of cases, but the point is even after a year we still don't have the systems in place to control it, its completely left to fate where it goes and who catches it. It maybe our luck holds and we get all adults vaccinated before the opening up causes a large spike in cases and deaths/long covid for the under 50s, and what about kids? No vaccine for them yet, but they do die (rarely) and also can suffer from long covid - who knows if that will ruin lives before they've hardly begun? Lungs/Liver/Brain damage is real in people who've caught Covid and recovered - a death sentence basically.
So it seems the strategy is to vaccinate the vulnerable, and let kids drive herd immunity to the rest of us (already LFT positive results have doubled since schools went back with broadly similar number of tests - which shows its already spreading in schools). This is a shameful stain on our society and I really don't understand why the tories haven't been driven from office by the mob - well I do, it comes down, to money and those most effected have the least power to influence.

 

No need to worry as all restrictions end June 21st so September for furlough and October for this means nothing....

 

Not necessarily. That was the hope, but they’ll alter that if the reviews and the data advise against it. This ultra-cautious, safety-first route out of lockdown is more or less the only thing the govt have got right.

 

Glad I've got the garden done.

 

That’s a simile worthy of supertyke

 

There will be some social distancing and mask wearing for the foreseeable future. Foreign travel also looks doubtful for the summer.

 

Mine needs doing if tha fancies it.

 

Are you talking about "Designated Legislation ", which we have been living under for almost a year? This means that laws can be passed by a PM,Secretary of state, Minister, without the need for parliament to pass them with Royal Assent. In effect the PM has Absolute powers. This includes the new Police Act, which gives the police under the direction of the Home Secretary, powers beyond the Criminal justice acts.
Effectively, the UK,especially England is under a form of Martial law until June 2nd,when they are due to end. In December, in order to ward off a rebellion from conservative MPs, he promised they would end in June. He is now saying he wants to extend it another 6 months, which means 18 months of Prerogative rule,with no scrutiny and accountability. All under the pretext and guise of the Pandemic. I imagine most of the population have no idea what is happening, one, no one has told them and two they don't understand or care.
This is a very dangerous time in the history of the UK.
We have seen this police over the last two weekends,behave in a way beyond the excesses of the 1980s.

 

Furlough being extended is not a hint for anything.

Furlough will almost certainly end after the last restrictions end, so that businesses can return at a pace that works for them.

 

The tories handling of the pandemic has been shocking bordering on the criminal and totally corrupt BUT credit where cridits due, they are totally right in doing this. If we come out of this too early it will take off again. When they do decide to relax the rules I for one will decide if I want to carry on being carefull and carry on as I am now, if I don't feel comfortable re-joining the human race I won't.

 

Dictionary definitions. Always handy.

Dictatorship: form of government in which one person or a small group possesses absolute power without effective constitutional limitations.

Dictators usually resort to force or fraud to gain despotic political power, which they maintain through the use of intimidation, terror, and the suppression of basic civil liberties They may also employ techniques of mass propaganda in order to sustain their public support.

Take back control.

 

Europe having a 3rd wave germany introduced lockdown rules again last week.

 

Clownman is behaving like a King of old because he can. And no one seems to be saying owt.

 

In other news...
Covid-19: Record-breaking day with 873,784 vaccine doses given in UK.

Meanwhile in Italy..... Nada, niente. nowt , bu**er all today. It's Sunday don't you know? Day of rest !!! Marche...Region with 1.5 million and since 31/12 they have carried out ....wait for it.... a grand total of 202,176 vaccinations. Italy has done a total of 7,763,784 vaccinations (in between blaming AZ for holdups). They blame shortages of vaccine but to date have had delivered 9,577,500 vaccines (Pfizer, Moderna and AZ) and haven't even been able to use them all. Only two weeks ago they finally said they would involve GPs in the rollout!!! Lots of meetings planning meetings but little action on the ground. The natives are getting restless!!

 

Europe are in a mess and we are lucky things in the UK are far better. Hopefully they get their act together and sort themselves out. Once we've sorted the adult population of the UK we should give spare vaccines to the other Commonwealth countries to sort them out.

 

Reviewed every two weeks here in Spain. In the Valencia region we were prohibited from crossing a town's boundaries from Friday afternoon to Monday morning for weeks, but that has been lifted now. Police road blocks every where. Fascists!!

 

We are both 67.. albeit currently fit and healthy (although I am on certain medication for previous DVT episodes) but doubt we will be offered vacciantions before June at the earliest at the speed they are working at. There are no mass vaccination centres and our nearest admin point is over 30 km away. They are currently working on over 80s home visits for people who cannot travel. They have not even started on over 70s except those with chronic LT health issues!! Still they have another meeting next Friday to 'plan' the next stage