Day of Chaos 2: a.Covid-19 thread.

[shaolin_monkey]

Community policing at its finest. Could do with one of these where I am, lol.

https://9gag.com/hot/aDgynex?utm_campaign=link_post&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Facebook

I welcome our new alien overlords.  They might be less lethal than our current ones.

[shaolin_monkey]

Urgh – beds, beds, beds.  COVID-19 appears to be sucking them up, alongside life threatening illnesses which are now taking longer to treat.

Other services are really starting to feel the bite now.  The government have tried to source beds for dementia patients, perhaps prompted by letters from bodies such as the Alzhiemer's Society:

https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/news/2020-03-12/coronavirus-alzheimers-society-call-government-covid-19-outbreak


However, this has now rolled over into mental health, where charities have serious concerns that mental health patients in hospitals or council-funded wards, many a danger to themselves and others, are being turfed out onto the street to secure COVID-19 beds, dementia beds and more.

Robbing Peter to pay Paul etc.

The mental health charity my partner works for have been so alarmed by this (especially as some recently released patients have committed suicide, and at least one has committed criminal offences) they released an open letter to the government, details here:

https://www.hafal.org/2020/04/hafal-calls-on-health-minister-to-guarantee-the-safety-of-its-client-group-during-covid-19-outbreak/


Why am I mentioning this?  I don't know really, other than to again highlight the dangerous precipice our entire heath system has been dangling over for best part for a decade now, and how the cracks have split into wide chasms when put under pressure. 

Folk we know, like our very own Eammon, and other key workers, be they providing mental health services, frontline NHS doctors and nurses, carers for a variety of disabilities, even folk like bus drivers, shop assistants etc etc etc, must be under some quite extraordinary and horrific pressure right now. 

I know my partner is, and she's a bit on the periphery of the pressure the NHS is under – she's on call after call, trying to get her staff PPE so they can visit service users and don't get infected, putting disaster-recovery plans in place with affiliated charities as folk are turfed onto the street, trying to pull beds out of thin air for NHS managers, and trying to support the police who are themselves trying their best to protect those released early, and protect those around them.

People are being, and will continue to be, harmed.

Our health services inside and outside our hospitals are on a brutal razor's edge right now.  Once we're through this crisis we CANNOT allow this to happen again.

[shaolin_monkey]

Also word coming through Twitter that two Swansea nurses have died. Another three still in ICU.

Swansea Bay NHS have said this is categorically not the case - the nurse in another district got the wrong end of the stick.  As per post above, with the pressure NHS workers are under, these things are going to happen.

[The Legendary Shark]

"Once we're through this crisis we CANNOT allow this to happen again."

Don't worry, I'm sure our benevolent masters have a Plan. Sure, it probably involves increased debt slavery, Public Health Mandatory Checkpoints, a binding social credit system, centrally controlled digital currencies, forced vaccinations, criminalising illness, and compulsory  self - imprisonment -  isolation periods but, hey, a plan is a plan, right?

No matter what one thinks of the virus itself (overblown or under-reported, natural or man-made, originating in China or the US, lethal or innocuous),  [sarcasm] only a paltry 1/3 of humanity is on lockdown so far - fingers crossed for more next time, eh? [/sarcasm]

[shaolin_monkey]

I was thinking more along the lines of socialism.

[Funt Solo]

"Once we're through this crisis we CANNOT allow this to happen again."

Don't worry, I'm sure our benevolent masters have a Plan. Sure, it probably involves increased debt slavery, Public Health Mandatory Checkpoints, a binding social credit system, centrally controlled digital currencies, forced vaccinations, criminalising illness, and compulsory  self - imprisonment -  isolation periods but, hey, a plan is a plan, right?

No matter what one thinks of the virus itself (overblown or under-reported, natural or man-made, originating in China or the US, lethal or innocuous),  [sarcasm] only a paltry 1/3 of humanity is on lockdown so far - fingers crossed for more next time, eh? [/sarcasm]

[The Legendary Shark]

Great pic, FS!

A true anarchist helping people escape from tyranny and oppression! (Or a criminal helping fugitives flee the justice of their rightful ruler, I guess, depending on your viewpoint.)

[Modern Panther]

A police officer helps people flee a capitalist monopoly and forge a representative democracy where the means of production belong to the workers.

[The Legendary Shark]

Indeed - but in the end he walks away.

Or is sometimes left behind.

But he chooses his own masters. Chooses his own path, for better or worse. Gotta love ol' Max!

[Funt Solo]

Can't resist the urge to expose the misinformation you presented...

natural or man-made

This is an example of false balance. Covid-19 is natural, not man-made.

originating in China or the US

Another example of false balance. It was China.

lethal or innocuous

This is a false dichotomy: there's a rainbow of possible outcomes for victims. The actual fatality rate is a moving target as we're still in the grip of the crisis. Everyone agrees it's much more serious than flu (except for conspiracy nuts and idiots) - because of all the dead bodies.

overblown or under-reported

Another false dichotomy. It would be impossible to mount a strong argument for "overblown" given that the global shut-down is (drum roll) unprecedented. On the other hand, Turkmenistan is pretending it isn't happening. And in-between there are all the colours of the rainbow (again - isn't it pretty).

---

You also managed to strongly imply that the measures put in place to slow the spread of the virus are somehow a government plot to control everyone - but I'm too tired to even. It's just so fucking disrespectful of you to come on here and talk shit about your conspiracy theory bollocks when people are dying.

Because:

New York reports highest single-day virus death toll
Coronavirus French death toll passes 10,000
Doctor in his 70s at Kingston Hospital dies
'Stay at home' plea from pregnant nurse with Covid-19
etc.

[shaolin_monkey]

This is a long read, but a stunning and brutal expose on the failure of our government.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-path-speci-idUSKBN21P1VF


Projections show U.K. will be the worst hit in all of Europe.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/07/uk-will-be-europes-worst-hit-by-coronavirus-study-predicts

[Tjm86]

It's well worth the read but not exactly surprising.  Not to mention the flaws in the old "we're following the science" line.  Just ignoring the calibre of scientist that normally ends up in governmental positions.

... and in related news, Trump is now castigating the WHO for providing poor advice and attempting to re-write the History of Covid-19 in the USA as a result of his own failings.

[TordelBack]

The usual attempts to shift blame from that odious fat shite.

The WHO are hardly blameless in their earliest responses, but even so the facts had been shouted from the rooftops for over a month before Trump did anything other than mock concern about Covid-19.

And if there was justifiable concern about the WHO's impartiality, it was the Trump Admin who'd made the US completely reliant on the WHO: it obliterated the US Epidemiological presence in China, including 2/3rds of the Beijing CDC office, and closed the Beijing offices of the National Science Foundation and the Agency for International Development, both of which dealt with the potential for and response to pandemics. 

"We had a large operation of experts in China who were brought back during this administration, some of them months before the outbreak," said one of the people who witnessed the withdrawal of U.S. personnel. "You have to consider the possibility that our drawdown made this catastrophe more likely or more difficult to respond to."  Reuters

[von Boom]

A message from Motley Crue's Tommy Lee:

[The Legendary Shark]

Speaking of Trump:

"When an AP reporter
attempted to ask Trump
about the issue on Sunday,
the president cut off the
question.

"FEMA, the military, what
they've done is a miracle,"
Trump said with a flash of
anger. "What they've done is
a miracle in getting all of this
stuff. What they have done
for states is incredible."

Trump then ended the
briefing and walked off the
podium."

From:

US 'wasted' months before preparing for coronavirus pandemic
By MICHAEL BIESECKER April 6, 2020 GMT
WASHINGTON (AP)

Quite a list of failures.