6 ms·

England’s reopening: ‘The world is looking at us with disbelief’

14 points by de_keyboard 5y ago

de_keyboard 5y ago
> Peter Bone, a veteran Conservative MP, says: “I wholly welcome this. It goes down the route of personal responsibility. It’s spot on.” Personal responsibility does mean you get to decide when to put others at risk, for example by going near them without a mask. Now, we might argue that there is a trade-off between respecting individual sovereignty on the one hand and lowering the friction of society on the other, but to frame this as a "personal responsibility" move is absurd. The Conservatives should read their intellectual heroes more carefully. Last I checked, Libertarians believe in the non-aggression principle.
- beardyw 5y ago
  BBC News - Covid-19: Dutch PM Rutte 'sorry for easing restrictions too soon' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57811538 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57811538
- jlokier 5y ago
  I agree with your comment. But I'd like to point out that the Conservatives in the UK are nothing like Libertarians. There are a few perhaps, like the MP in the article, who would like to think of themselves that way. But the Conservatives as a whole are Authoritarian bordering on Totalitarian, and they are the most Authoritarian of all the big parties (more than the left). You just have to look at their "hostile environment" policies to see the difference: It is the law that all landlords (even for someone staying in a spare bedroom of someone's home), banks and health services must verify a person's documented right to rent, open a bank account or have healthcare. Every major party is against those policies except the Conservatives. As many people in the UK lack or can't obtain documentation even when they do in fact have legal rights (the Home Office in charge of such things routinely breaks the law and is ruled against by the courts), and many don't find out about their restricted status until they turn 18 years old then find out they aren't allowed to go to university after all, and some lose status without knowing because we have a rather opaque system which does that to people for capricious and secretive reasons, we have rather a lot of people affected by those laws, who were either born in the UK or entered legally at the time they entered. This is why the Windrush abuse by government was so damaging, as many elderly people who had been in the country for some 50 years were suddenly affected by the hostile environment policy and had their lives ruined. No true libertarian would condone those policies, as they are directly opposed to personal freedom between individuals to make small, private transactions. Renting is a private transaction between one individual and another, yet it is illegal under these policies. And preventing the doctor from providing services so that people die when the doctor is perfectly willing to help is also rather unlibertarian.
  - de_keyboard 5y ago
    > But I'd like to point out that the Conservatives in the UK are nothing like Libertarians. There are a few perhaps, like the MP in the article, who would like to think of themselves that way. But the Conservatives as a whole are Authoritarian bordering on Totalitarian, and they are the most Authoritarian of all the big parties (more than the left). I agree, however the media insists on talking about Johnson's "Libertarian instincts" and the "Libertarian wing of the party". I don't see them as very Libertarian at all! See also drug policy, protest bill, internet surveillance, housing market interventions...
  - alastor2020 5y ago
    Describing them as borderline totalitarian isn't helpful in the debate. It's OTT, hyperbolic and undermines the point you are making. Requiring someone to prove their legal status in the country isn't "totalitarianism" or even "authoritarian". Agree windrush was a total shambles and shameful, but that was largely down to incompetence and not malice. Anyone who genuinely is in a life threatening condition can receive treatment at NHS A&E hospital - like any tourist visiting from overseas.
    - jlokier 5y ago
      I disagree. Describing them as not borderline totalitarian is making them out to be milder than they are towards the set of people I've highlighted. They demand severe subservience by those people who face severe consequences otherwise, and that is the definition of totalitarian. Requiring someone to prove their status for a private, low value transaction between individuals is a strongly authoritarian state. Requiring ordinary people to act as police for the state is also strongly authoritarian. I don't believe that is a hyperbolic view. And "requiring someone to prove status" means a lot of different things. If the issuing of status is itself done abusively, and without regard for the law (the Home Office routinely breaks the law and is routinely found to have behaved abusively), that phrase sounds much more reasonable than it is. You would not think this unless you have witnessed the distressing multi-year effects on people of ambiguous status who are still trying to get a straight and justifiable answer out of the system designed with rejection quotas in mind, irrational decisions at times, and horrible consequences for some individuals. (Note I said "ambiguous", not "without". There are so many cases which ultimately end up resolved as "ok you're fine" after a few years fighting unlawful judgements). The result is obvious: There are people sleeping rough because it is, essentially, the law that they must be kept homeless until their status is resolved. There are many more currently sleeping in dangerous accomodation, and in abusive relationships they cannot leave. And there are people living with life-threatening, curable diseases, where there is nothing they can do but slowly die. I also think requiring people to earn significantly above the median wage before they can live with their own spouse is also, in my view, authoritarian. To be honest I was shocked when I discovered that. I always assumed any decent state would at least allow genuinely married couples to be together. And in fact, EU law does allow that - it's considered a fundamental human right (the right to a family life). But it's not a human right in the UK.
jlokier 5y ago
The craziest thing is we keep seeing the phrase "the link between infections and deaths has been broken". So far as I can tell, it has only been broken for the fully vaccinated, but for those not yet vaccinated, or not fully vaccinated, the delta variant is more dangerous than all the variants which came before and the link has not been broken for those people. Even with the UK's good vaccination program, most people are not fully vaccinated yet, and won't be for months because of the time delays between vaccination for best effect, as well as the waiting time after the second one before it reaches maximal protection. There are also people who would like to get their first vaccination, but are currently ill with something else and so rationally have to avoid the first vaccine for a while. So although the overall statistics look better than previous waves, that should not be any comfort to those who are now going to be exposed to greater risk than in previous waves. I would like to see more emphasis on statistics showing the risks to people who are still at risk, not the current presentations which imply a substantial minority of people's lives don't really matter because the overall numbers are down. I worry mostly for the people who are still at risk (though hidden by the aggregate statistics), who will be forced to go back to work in unsafe environments, now that the law will no longer support them working from home, no longer requires others at work to wear masks or keep a distance, and no longer requires adequate ventilation. As for public transport. Let me put it this way. 19th July is the day when I would recommend to stop using public transportation (tube, buses, taxis, trains), because it's the day the air will immediately become more dangerous in enclosed spaces.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  Problem is that the vaccine probably only creates a resistance, not a complete immunity against some variants at least. So in any case you probably don't want to catch covid even when vaccinated. I think Israel with a high vaccination quota released numbers that showed an effectiveness of 70% without differentiating the variant, but don't quote me on this.
- doublejay1999 5y ago
  > The craziest thing is we keep seeing the phrase "the link between infections and deaths has been broken". Death rates have fallen from a peak of around 1000 deaths per day in feb - with comparable infection rates, to 6 deaths per day. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ i think most people would consider that to be having broken the link, between infection and death.
LatteLazy 5y ago
I live in Greater London, Dagenham to be precise. There is no Defacto mask mandate here. About 50% of people wear one in supermarkets. And that's excluding anyone excempt and any kids etc. I took the train to town last Friday. Central line, Bank to Stratford at 5pm, one in 4 weren't wearing a mask. Same on the overground. The same applies to getting people to sign in at restaurants etc. And to social distancing and testing and vaccination programs. I've had younger friends tell me they don't want the vaccine ("I don't know what's in it" says the guy famous for snorting other people's Coke). I had to convince my dad to get the jab. Britian is culturally and politically incapable of anything but the worst possible outcome here. Parts of the US seem to be in the same position.
neonate 5y ago
https://archive.is/fjAE6 https://archive.is/fjAE6
jjgreen 5y ago
The DANMASK19 experiment, the only RCT on mask effectiveness so far I believe, found no statistical significance on masks protecting the wearer. I wonder if the English demasking would be a good time for a follow-up: we have climbing infections and the change in the law will mean we can have a cohort in each camp; ENGMASK21 if you like. To not do it would seem to be a missed opportunity. Any takers?
- hijodelsol 5y ago
  The DANMASK study did NOT find that masks are not effective. It’s conclusion was that a recommendation for surgical masks in certain settings does not prevent more than 50% of infections in the wearer in a country with low case load and before any variants but that there even was a tendency towards a protective effect. So not at all meaningful in any way. What does this say about the ability of N95/FFP2 masks when all parties are wearing them to reduce the R of delta sufficiently to contain spread in communities that are seeing surges? Exactly nothing. Furthermore, designing an RCT for mask use might not really be doable in a fashion we’re used to from drug interventions. And should the vast amount of other non-RCT evidence that does exist and that shows a protective effect of masks as well as the precautionary principle not lead us all to mask up in the face of a new disease that is proven to cause serious harm, short and long term? For anybody interested in the topic, this thread by an Oxford professor and co-author of the recent Lancet letter advising against the plans of the British government might be worthwhile reading: https://twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh/status/1414294003479089154 https://twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh/status/14142940034790891... Edit: Typo.
- null4bl3 5y ago
  The mask is to prevent unknowing infected from transferring the disease. It was never to protect FROM covid19
  - jjgreen 5y ago
    That's the narrative now, but a year ago there were plenty of people in the government, press and academia with a different view, https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-07-08-oxford-covid-19-study-face-masks-and-coverings-work-act-now https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-07-08-oxford-covid-19-study-f... for example
Rizz 5y ago
The Netherlands just tried reopening, in two weeks they managed to undo seven months of lockdown as far as caseload goes. The infections are overwhelmingly amongst teens and people in their twenties (over 90% of new cases), who have not yet had their second shot or opted for Jansen vaccine, which doesn't protect as well as the others. It would be very unwise for England or any other nation to follow in the Dutch footsteps.
ArkanExplorer 5y ago
If Britain can't open up after a mass vaccination campaign, what was the point of the vaccines? 600,000 Brits died in 2019 from any cause, 1,643 per day: https://www.statista.com/statistics/281488/number-of-deaths-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/281488/number-of-deaths-... When you're looking at 20-40 dying per day with COVID, its a completely negligible value, really a function of how widely the testing is being performed, and lower than the average annual deaths from influenza, which is about 70 per day: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1676118/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1676118/ This whole thing is just fear porn from the COVID lockdown industry intent on keeping the charade (and their revenues) running as long as possible.
cyanydeez 5y ago
no, no, brexit told us everything we need to know

14 points by de_keyboard 5y ago

> Peter Bone, a veteran Conservative MP, says: “I wholly welcome this. It goes down the route of personal responsibility. It’s spot on.” Personal responsibility does mean you get to decide when to put others at risk, for example by going near them without a mask. Now, we might argue that there is a trade-off between respecting individual sovereignty on the one hand and lowering the friction of society on the other, but to frame this as a "personal responsibility" move is absurd. The Conservatives should read their intellectual heroes more carefully. Last I checked, Libertarians believe in the non-aggression principle.

beardyw 5y ago
BBC News - Covid-19: Dutch PM Rutte 'sorry for easing restrictions too soon' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57811538 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-57811538
jlokier 5y ago
I agree with your comment. But I'd like to point out that the Conservatives in the UK are nothing like Libertarians. There are a few perhaps, like the MP in the article, who would like to think of themselves that way. But the Conservatives as a whole are Authoritarian bordering on Totalitarian, and they are the most Authoritarian of all the big parties (more than the left). You just have to look at their "hostile environment" policies to see the difference: It is the law that all landlords (even for someone staying in a spare bedroom of someone's home), banks and health services must verify a person's documented right to rent, open a bank account or have healthcare. Every major party is against those policies except the Conservatives. As many people in the UK lack or can't obtain documentation even when they do in fact have legal rights (the Home Office in charge of such things routinely breaks the law and is ruled against by the courts), and many don't find out about their restricted status until they turn 18 years old then find out they aren't allowed to go to university after all, and some lose status without knowing because we have a rather opaque system which does that to people for capricious and secretive reasons, we have rather a lot of people affected by those laws, who were either born in the UK or entered legally at the time they entered. This is why the Windrush abuse by government was so damaging, as many elderly people who had been in the country for some 50 years were suddenly affected by the hostile environment policy and had their lives ruined. No true libertarian would condone those policies, as they are directly opposed to personal freedom between individuals to make small, private transactions. Renting is a private transaction between one individual and another, yet it is illegal under these policies. And preventing the doctor from providing services so that people die when the doctor is perfectly willing to help is also rather unlibertarian.
- de_keyboard 5y ago
  > But I'd like to point out that the Conservatives in the UK are nothing like Libertarians. There are a few perhaps, like the MP in the article, who would like to think of themselves that way. But the Conservatives as a whole are Authoritarian bordering on Totalitarian, and they are the most Authoritarian of all the big parties (more than the left). I agree, however the media insists on talking about Johnson's "Libertarian instincts" and the "Libertarian wing of the party". I don't see them as very Libertarian at all! See also drug policy, protest bill, internet surveillance, housing market interventions...
- alastor2020 5y ago
  Describing them as borderline totalitarian isn't helpful in the debate. It's OTT, hyperbolic and undermines the point you are making. Requiring someone to prove their legal status in the country isn't "totalitarianism" or even "authoritarian". Agree windrush was a total shambles and shameful, but that was largely down to incompetence and not malice. Anyone who genuinely is in a life threatening condition can receive treatment at NHS A&E hospital - like any tourist visiting from overseas.
  - jlokier 5y ago
    I disagree. Describing them as not borderline totalitarian is making them out to be milder than they are towards the set of people I've highlighted. They demand severe subservience by those people who face severe consequences otherwise, and that is the definition of totalitarian. Requiring someone to prove their status for a private, low value transaction between individuals is a strongly authoritarian state. Requiring ordinary people to act as police for the state is also strongly authoritarian. I don't believe that is a hyperbolic view. And "requiring someone to prove status" means a lot of different things. If the issuing of status is itself done abusively, and without regard for the law (the Home Office routinely breaks the law and is routinely found to have behaved abusively), that phrase sounds much more reasonable than it is. You would not think this unless you have witnessed the distressing multi-year effects on people of ambiguous status who are still trying to get a straight and justifiable answer out of the system designed with rejection quotas in mind, irrational decisions at times, and horrible consequences for some individuals. (Note I said "ambiguous", not "without". There are so many cases which ultimately end up resolved as "ok you're fine" after a few years fighting unlawful judgements). The result is obvious: There are people sleeping rough because it is, essentially, the law that they must be kept homeless until their status is resolved. There are many more currently sleeping in dangerous accomodation, and in abusive relationships they cannot leave. And there are people living with life-threatening, curable diseases, where there is nothing they can do but slowly die. I also think requiring people to earn significantly above the median wage before they can live with their own spouse is also, in my view, authoritarian. To be honest I was shocked when I discovered that. I always assumed any decent state would at least allow genuinely married couples to be together. And in fact, EU law does allow that - it's considered a fundamental human right (the right to a family life). But it's not a human right in the UK.

jlokier 5y ago

The craziest thing is we keep seeing the phrase "the link between infections and deaths has been broken". So far as I can tell, it has only been broken for the fully vaccinated, but for those not yet vaccinated, or not fully vaccinated, the delta variant is more dangerous than all the variants which came before and the link has not been broken for those people. Even with the UK's good vaccination program, most people are not fully vaccinated yet, and won't be for months because of the time delays between vaccination for best effect, as well as the waiting time after the second one before it reaches maximal protection. There are also people who would like to get their first vaccination, but are currently ill with something else and so rationally have to avoid the first vaccine for a while. So although the overall statistics look better than previous waves, that should not be any comfort to those who are now going to be exposed to greater risk than in previous waves. I would like to see more emphasis on statistics showing the risks to people who are still at risk, not the current presentations which imply a substantial minority of people's lives don't really matter because the overall numbers are down. I worry mostly for the people who are still at risk (though hidden by the aggregate statistics), who will be forced to go back to work in unsafe environments, now that the law will no longer support them working from home, no longer requires others at work to wear masks or keep a distance, and no longer requires adequate ventilation. As for public transport. Let me put it this way. 19th July is the day when I would recommend to stop using public transportation (tube, buses, taxis, trains), because it's the day the air will immediately become more dangerous in enclosed spaces.

raxxorrax 5y ago
Problem is that the vaccine probably only creates a resistance, not a complete immunity against some variants at least. So in any case you probably don't want to catch covid even when vaccinated. I think Israel with a high vaccination quota released numbers that showed an effectiveness of 70% without differentiating the variant, but don't quote me on this.
doublejay1999 5y ago
> The craziest thing is we keep seeing the phrase "the link between infections and deaths has been broken". Death rates have fallen from a peak of around 1000 deaths per day in feb - with comparable infection rates, to 6 deaths per day. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ i think most people would consider that to be having broken the link, between infection and death.

LatteLazy 5y ago

I live in Greater London, Dagenham to be precise. There is no Defacto mask mandate here. About 50% of people wear one in supermarkets. And that's excluding anyone excempt and any kids etc. I took the train to town last Friday. Central line, Bank to Stratford at 5pm, one in 4 weren't wearing a mask. Same on the overground. The same applies to getting people to sign in at restaurants etc. And to social distancing and testing and vaccination programs. I've had younger friends tell me they don't want the vaccine ("I don't know what's in it" says the guy famous for snorting other people's Coke). I had to convince my dad to get the jab. Britian is culturally and politically incapable of anything but the worst possible outcome here. Parts of the US seem to be in the same position.

neonate 5y ago

https://archive.is/fjAE6 https://archive.is/fjAE6

jjgreen 5y ago

The DANMASK19 experiment, the only RCT on mask effectiveness so far I believe, found no statistical significance on masks protecting the wearer. I wonder if the English demasking would be a good time for a follow-up: we have climbing infections and the change in the law will mean we can have a cohort in each camp; ENGMASK21 if you like. To not do it would seem to be a missed opportunity. Any takers?

hijodelsol 5y ago
The DANMASK study did NOT find that masks are not effective. It’s conclusion was that a recommendation for surgical masks in certain settings does not prevent more than 50% of infections in the wearer in a country with low case load and before any variants but that there even was a tendency towards a protective effect. So not at all meaningful in any way. What does this say about the ability of N95/FFP2 masks when all parties are wearing them to reduce the R of delta sufficiently to contain spread in communities that are seeing surges? Exactly nothing. Furthermore, designing an RCT for mask use might not really be doable in a fashion we’re used to from drug interventions. And should the vast amount of other non-RCT evidence that does exist and that shows a protective effect of masks as well as the precautionary principle not lead us all to mask up in the face of a new disease that is proven to cause serious harm, short and long term? For anybody interested in the topic, this thread by an Oxford professor and co-author of the recent Lancet letter advising against the plans of the British government might be worthwhile reading: https://twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh/status/1414294003479089154 https://twitter.com/trishgreenhalgh/status/14142940034790891... Edit: Typo.
null4bl3 5y ago
The mask is to prevent unknowing infected from transferring the disease. It was never to protect FROM covid19
- jjgreen 5y ago
  That's the narrative now, but a year ago there were plenty of people in the government, press and academia with a different view, https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-07-08-oxford-covid-19-study-face-masks-and-coverings-work-act-now https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-07-08-oxford-covid-19-study-f... for example

Rizz 5y ago

The Netherlands just tried reopening, in two weeks they managed to undo seven months of lockdown as far as caseload goes. The infections are overwhelmingly amongst teens and people in their twenties (over 90% of new cases), who have not yet had their second shot or opted for Jansen vaccine, which doesn't protect as well as the others. It would be very unwise for England or any other nation to follow in the Dutch footsteps.

ArkanExplorer 5y ago

If Britain can't open up after a mass vaccination campaign, what was the point of the vaccines? 600,000 Brits died in 2019 from any cause, 1,643 per day: https://www.statista.com/statistics/281488/number-of-deaths-in-the-united-kingdom-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/281488/number-of-deaths-... When you're looking at 20-40 dying per day with COVID, its a completely negligible value, really a function of how widely the testing is being performed, and lower than the average annual deaths from influenza, which is about 70 per day: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1676118/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1676118/ This whole thing is just fear porn from the COVID lockdown industry intent on keeping the charade (and their revenues) running as long as possible.

cyanydeez 5y ago

no, no, brexit told us everything we need to know