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

I suspect the problem is house parties and other in-home gatherings first and foremost. People started ignoring the rules ages ago.

The other issues around workplaces and overcrowded housing haven't changed either but it's also clear that some places were taken out of lockdown way too early in their particular curve.

yeah the point is this is just an amplification of "the rules don't apply if you're spending money but god forbid anybody socialising for free"

why are pubs open?!?!?!?

Again only human activity that involves work or spending money is allowed. Whenever I walk through Islington it's full of absolutely packed restaurants, mostly with tables with 2-4 people. That won't change. You could go to the pub by yourself as my dad always did and chat to all the other guys at the bar, and the pub can remain packed. These are only new lockdown measures in the sense that they are an announcement the gov are making to give the impression they are doing something. They will continue to insist that people who have been working just as hard or even harder from home since april go "back to work" while announcing this unfortunate curtailment of freedom-loving brits right to do anything that doesn't directly feed the economy.

Those that take measures to limit their risk of exposure will continue to do inasmuch as they are not prevented from doing so by other people (their employer say, or the person who shows up at their workplace without a mask and keeps breathing down their neck, etc). What is notable, is that these measures do nothing to protect or empower those who wish to limit their own exposure. These random announcements of "no Ludo on a tuesday" are more an illusion of lockdown, recognising that people enjoyed a certain sense of protection that came from being limited and obstructed. and this was popular! it felt decisive, there was a mood of people meeting the occasion. They do not however empower people to protect their own health, there is nothing that makes employers more accountable, there is nothing to enforce literally any kind of measures in retail spaces or commercial hospitality spaces (as far as I can tell, these fell apart immediately). The people I know who are most fatalistic about the whole thing are colleagues who work in an SEN school, where senior management can now no longer be visited in their offices but children with high temperatures still stay on for the whole school day, hygiene facilities remain below the minimum requirements for basic dignity and playgrounds are overcrowded.

Hancock on #BBCBreakfast

If you’re a family of 5 you can only see one grand parent from Monday in England

Up to 25% of people getting tests are ‘not eligible’ & causing issues for others

Announcement on Doncaster Races (and other events) from the Prime Minister at 4pm

— Dan Walker (@mrdanwalker) September 9, 2020

What does the 25% thing mean?

Also Hancock:

Fucking hell. ‘Car crash’ really doesn’t do this justice. This is a multiple vehicle pileup resulting in the closure of a four-junction stretch of the M25 in both directions. But with added weird, creepy laughter.

My toes may never uncurl.pic.twitter.com/PwQcxlzp6h

— 🏳️‍🌈 Max 🏳️‍🌈 (@SpillerOfTea) September 9, 2020

the 25% thing is about people getting tests when they don't have symptoms — eg before they go on holiday, or go to a wedding or something. Which seemed like prudent behaviour to me given how they've been banging on about how many tests we've got, such beautiful tests, world-beating tests.

Turns out they barely have enough capacity to test the symptomatic and now they've maxed out

Lol ok thanks

They wasted lockdown, and they wasted the post-lockdown pissing about with civil service shakeups (including fucking about with PHE ffs) and now seems like that time's has just about run out. Good idea to start a massive Brexit fight as well, then.

Is it truly always a good idea to listen to someone's sister?

i'mma go with "no"

https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/images/9780252074677_lg.jpg

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1104/4308/products/The_Bad_Sister_1024x1024.jpg?v=1571830824

Oh yes it's here:

It’s all YOUR fault https://t.co/Gqa1A5nRIj

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) September 9, 2020

👀👀👀

St Leger Festival gets underway today @DoncasterRaces The government has given the go ahead for thousands of people to attend the four day event. It's one of the first sport pilot events to introduce spectators back to fixtures pic.twitter.com/0KqlPSYn6H

— ITV News Calendar (@itvcalendar) September 9, 2020

Now I'm not an epidemiologist but

i’m no mathematician, but

i'm no horse, but

looking forward to hearing the ronas and riders

The cowardice of not just doing this at Cheltenham.

At this stage you have to just assume that the government is entirely in the pocket of the gambling industry.

Johnson says he regrets that Starmer did not take back his claim about the system being on the verge of collapse. He repeats the point about it doing a “heroic” job. The medium journey is under 10 miles, he says.

Having to travel 10+ miles for your test - pure heroism.

Tories: BREAKING THE LAW!

Guardian libs: be polite before killing me.

Losing it at these Guardian comments describing what "Starmerism" means to them. "Politeness", the end of "mad-ism", "a reminder that the age of enlightenment did actually happen"? We are so screwed. pic.twitter.com/z9NTHqVJGo

— Stephen Buranyi (@stephenburanyi) September 9, 2020

looking forward to hearing the ronas and riders

― this is my clean tone (NickB),

Clapping.gif

big lack of the famed forensics on brexit here

Note the Trumpism

44m ago
12:32
Kim Johnson (Lab) asks about housing in Liverpool. She says the government’s plans for planning reform will allow slums to return. Will he abandon them?

Boris Johnson says his government will deliver beautiful new homes.

the "mad-ism" letter is signed "rawlsian"

Great stuff.

so you can see one grandparent at a time in england now?

if you've got the rona and give it to granddad when you see him, what's preventing him from going home and giving it to granny?

the pub. it's on the way.

St Leger meeting decision reversed. This government listens

Just lucky that all of today's attendees are immune

Is it just my imagination or has Michael Gove completely disappeared over the past few months? Hancock, Sunak, Raab, Patel, Williamson and Sharma have all been fairly prominent over the summer and even Johnson has pulled his finger out a little bit. Suggests that Gove knows this is a disaster that is going to end multiple political careers and wants to keep as low a profile as possible.

Mark Francois also disappeared for some reason

Give reportedly came up with this “break the law” wheeze and pushed for it

the master strategist at work

televised update at 4 on bbc1.

i was looking forward to The Repair Shop, but i guess that won't happen now

If we have built capacity for 200k tests and Hancock is complaining that people without symptoms are getting tests... does that mean he thinks he's built capacity for 200k active daily symptomatic tests?

Also if only 25% are ineligible why aren't we reporting 150k new daily cases? What the fuck do these 148k symptomatic people per day have that isn't covid?

he doesn't know what he's doing.

https://i.imgur.com/lVoLCWe.png

not great really is it

are we going climbing again?

Not great but also a bit misleading because there were so few tests done in March/April — you only got tested if you were already in hospital, so that actual number of cases then would have been massively higher xp

Lovely that the messaging to young people is literally now ‘you will kill your grandparents if you don’t follow this arbitrary rule’

But like do go to work yeah and maybe nandos on your way home

BoJo now using over testing of non symptomatic as a positive.

I can't work out how 500k negative tests a day enables normal life. It would take 2 months to test the country in which time all the normal life people have covid.

Yet another variety of herd immunity but not really

This Salford moonshot doesn't make sense to me either. At all.

You can't live your life as normal if you get a negative test, because you could still catch it the minute you walk out the testing centre.

An antibody test is perhaps one thing that could let you do that, but it looks like antibodies aren't staying around for long enough for that

(as I understand it, and that's not much)

antibodies not lasting isn't really seen as a problem as your body is programmed by your first infection to reproduce them

2 or 3 reinfection stories recently maybe suggests otherwise

That's true stet but deaths look to be creeping up slightly as well - most since July.

.@Peston asks if Christmas is cancelled?

Boris Johnson says he is 'hopeful' that 'in many ways' we could be able to get some aspects of our lives back to normal by Christmas

He refers to 'moonshot' of daily testing, but says govt 'cannot be 100% sure' if can deliver that

— Steven Swinford (@Steven_Swinford) September 9, 2020