love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

What percentage of people are wearing masks?

Portugal seems to be 100% in shops/buses, 60% on street but declining as its getting warmer, and 0% in parks

yeah, it was notably busier out yesterday (much more traffic on the roads too) and not even that nice a day so it wasn't that

I'd put it at 5% max ime

this is probably the worst possible moment to go out to the supermarket, isn't it?

like if the rate isn't going down and people are behaving like this we are in for some awful shit in a week or two

What percentage of people are wearing masks?

At the 'peak' of the lockdown, no more than 15%, now 5% seems more like it.

You've got remember that, at least, where I am, not even supermarket staff were wearing masks or gloves, for the most part.

this is probably the worst possible moment to go out to the supermarket, isn't it?

It's more and more obvious that the UK government likely doesn't know what they need to do, and certainly true that they don't give a shit. If a lot of dumbo morons have got the message that "Boris says it's OK to go out now", then that'll drive a second wave of infections. Basically, we're on our own. All any of us can do is stay inside and make our own lockdown protocols - which might not be easy if the financial support net, pitiful though it is, gets pulled out from under us.

tl:dr: lol we're all gonna die. Again.

yeah i wouldn't have gone today if i hadn't needed to

haven't got a mask at the moment tho so more fool me

well yeah which begs the question why the fuck would Scotland + miscellaneous others want to get their c-19 guidance from a govt that has fucked it up worse than anywhere else in the world and whose messaging has been chaotic, inconsistent and dangerous? Kier might have used up all his forensicness on that utterly brilliant question he asked last week.

He knows full well the other nations aren't going to take advice from Johnson, its about making it look like Boris has lost control of the situation, which has the advantage of being true.

he's barely got control of England at this point

I have a suspicion that Johnson is more worried about Sturgeon than Starmer right now because if the number of cases and daily deaths starts rising in England while continuing to go down in Scotland he's going to find it next to impossible to defend the government's approach.

I think people near me have behaved pretty badly wrt social distancing. Practically having to run away from people to maintain 2m buffer, stepping into the street to avoid people marching down the centre of the footpath, joggers appearing behind me breathing down my neck. I suspect the part of town I live in has a higher than average number of complacent, entitled young people but I've also witnessed plenty of noxious middle-aged men getting in people's faces to make a point. OF COURSE, there will always be pricks and so the ambiguity of messaging has meant that it is next to useless. Its obviously not just a case of people having "common sense" and this self determinist language that the right wing press is vox popping out of white van guys is, as it always is, extremely limited. If there are clear rules I can refer to them to get other people to stop breathing on me, but without I have to rely on not being surrounded by entitled sociopaths (I live in London :-/). It doesn't help that we are in a constant state of being focus grouped. It's amazing that it's possible for the conservative party to convince the public at large that Corbyn did 9/11 but not to conduct conversations from either side of the exit door of the mini supermarket.

Ancedotally London overall didn't seem too awful at lockdown, at least initially. Perhaps because it was worst hit and it had more sense of being an immediate threat.

NEW: great story from @alekswis & @BillyEhrenberg shows Britons sharply reduced activity during early phase of lockdown (and indeed pre-empted govt reccs), but in recent weeks activity levels have been rising

Data: @huqindustries / @CASAUCL

Story: https://t.co/VACfoGTzGh pic.twitter.com/e4pqeqwjxM

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) May 13, 2020

classic edinburgh

well there it is in black and white red and blue

90 percent Johnson's fault, no doubt in my mind

Portugal seems to be 100% in shops/buses, 60% on street but declining as its getting warmer, and 0% in parks

This surely down to it being illegal to go into a shop without a mask? Which I'm iffy about - good idea in places where the councils provide masks, less cool where ppl are left to make/buy their own.

Here in Stokey I'd say it's one in ten.

fOuR nAtIoN 🤪

classic edinburgh

What was that about entitled wankers?

four nation barmy

seems familiar
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/may/17/labour-to-plan-green-economic-rescue-from-coronavirus-crisis

sounds great tbh

This surely down to it being illegal to go into a shop without a mask? Which I'm iffy about - good idea in places where the councils provide masks, less cool where ppl are left to make/buy their own.

Yeah thats definitely the reason, though the percentage was creeping up quite a bit before they made that the case. Felt like 60%+ before they made it mandatory

It is way too busy out there and I’m not seeing much alertness, everyone’s just given up afaics. That’s the good old blitz spirit!

the ol’ blitz spirit, where people turned on all their house lights and stood in the street waiting to take a v2 rocket on the chin so the economy wouldn’t collapse

There's more than one London - mine's looked a lot like what plax is describing, all along.

Dulwich Park is rammed but only by CV standards, still down on usual craziness. Distancing being attempted

I mean london is so densely clustered around its striations of class, I live in a corner populated with lots of wealthy and very entitled young people and it has turned into a 24-hour outdoor aerobecize class. Every time i go to walk the dog it feels like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0SrGWTVyBw

I can walk a few blocks towards bloomsbury and the streets empty out but as soon as i head in the direction of upper st/old st i'm surrounded by the plague-spreading straplings from pepys' diary

class and types of housing has got tons to do with it no doubt

Bloomsbury is often pretty quiet tbh but likely to be especially so with no students or office workers. The very idea of negotiating Upper Street right now fills me with panic.

I ordered some folding chairs for the park the other day and I'm already wondering if that was a mistake.

There's been some speculation that London is a lot further along in the curve than the rest of the country and cases have declined significantly. Impossible to know really, especially as we have no idea what percentage of the city may have been symptomless. Going outside doesn't feel quite as much like running the death gauntlet as it did a month ago but that might be complacency setting in.

Then again it's been more than a fortnight since I went further than the bins so what do I know?

twitter's culture-war crybullying carousel are currently aiming their racism-calling ray at stewart lee, it is literally breathtaking to see how they do it. at this stage i almost think they believe their own formerly-disingenuous bullshit

can someone pls translate that for people who don’t use twitter

actually don’t bother

Bloomsbury is very quiet still, 1 in 5 in masks, but the good coffee shops and Master Wei are open for take-away. Never had to queue more than five deep to go into a shop and everyone in Sainsbury’s etc is trying really hard to maintain social distance. I think the queuing and space invasion are both worse in Zone 2 residential areas.

I live right inside the zone1 rim and definitely heading in is preferable than heading out. don't go near the fn canal though jesus

My bit of Peckham is still pretty social distancey, I’d say over half the people I see on the street have masks on. Some stuff has slipped a bit (lads playing basketball etc) but mostly it still has the weird uncomfortable paranoid atmosphere of a few weeks ago.

In Glasgow and I can definitely see more people out and about and a lot more cars on the road. And we've been specifically advised to remain indoors!

weird uncomfortable paranoid atmosphere

To be honest I'm going to miss this when it's gone

Am dangerously accustomed to nice empty London now, yeah.

twitter's culture-war crybullying carousel are currently aiming their racism-calling ray at stewart lee, it is literally breathtaking to see how they do it. at this stage i almost think they believe their own formerly-disingenuous bullshit

Main person I saw tweeting about this is Ben Judah and I don't really feel like I'm more entitled than him to decide what is or isn't anti-semitism.

Name actually read as German, not Jewish to me (my own ethnocentrism at play there obv) but either way "hurhurhur weird name" is a bad look and significantly below Lee's level. 100% not something to get capt-save-a-stew about.

I hate joggers as much as the next person but you are not going to get coronavirus from joggers

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

Canal has mostly been OK when I am on it - but I only go early on weekdays. I tend towards the Granary Square--> Primrose Hill walk rather than any part of East London.

Approximately where are you, plax? Sadlers Wells/Finsbury?

I hate joggers as much as the next person but you are not going to get coronavirus from joggers

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Sunday, 17 May 2020 17:53 (twenty-eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This describes joggers moving past you quickly, not appearing behind you suddenly and breathing down your neck until you sidestep. This has happened to my multiple times and I see it happening quite frequently. Main reason never to go near canal where this happens under the bridges where it's tight and there's nowhere to go.

I agree Suzy, canal is always way nicer on the west part, but I live just by where it opens out east after angel (to answer your question!)

summary execution for all joggers and drivers imo

In Bow the Roman Road has looked nearly as populated as it was On pre-virus market days. About 1/10 masks. Queue for Poundland can have 10-15 people in it, even more so than Tesco. Went Shoreditch the other day to get some stuff. Didn’t venture out much but on brick lane the queue for the bagel shop went off the street and on to the Bethnal Green road. I know it’s densely populated around here but it does feel like people are treating it like it’s over

I've stopped walking by the local canal because it seems too close to people's homes (though that might feel different for others).

I chose to shop at a biggish Sainsbury's yesterday when all I was really after was bread, wine and The Guardian. I actually think Sainsbury's has been fairly decent - closing off aisles when they're being restocked etc - but it felt horrible. People were too close and ... we're not actually at a different point than a few weeks ago when we all thought we were going to die.

twitter's culture-war crybullying carousel are currently aiming their racism-calling ray

probably have soyface too the virtue signalling beta cucks