Coronavirus.

[Meerkat]

I don't trust people to abide by it. I've already seen an increase in people travelling these last couple of days. For example as I write this someone I know is driving from Humberside to London and back to buy a dog.

They would have to allow more enforcement power. Ask the people - you can move do more locally but only if you accept carrying proof of address and roadblocks

 

[Peter Sarf]

Because international travel is disproportionately important to the establishment people who influence the decisions.....

And they would be the very same people who don't need to heed the limits required on carbon emissions.

 

[hwl]

Generally the numbers of key workers available isn't actually that badly impaired considering how easy it is to phone in and say "my housemate has a cough", although some places have suffered worse than others. Most people are genuinely making an effort to come to work and do their bit, despite in some cases some reservations about the risk of becoming ill and seeing on TV cases of younger healthy people succumbing.

The Met were reckoning on being 13% down a few days ago, which is probably a sensible low estimate.

Given the negative test result rate there are probably 3-4 other chest bugs out there circulating.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Poor. The answer to the power and authority questions was: me

I was very, very surprised he fluffed a question with such an obvious answer! Unless he doesn't want to admit it to himself...

 

[bramling]

They would have to allow more enforcement power. Ask the people - you can move do more locally but only if you accept carrying proof of address and roadblocks

Agreed. Problem is I'm not sure there's the police resources to do such nuanced enforcement.

As I said elsewhere, there's no easy solution to all this. I suspect status quo will continue for as long as it's viable. I wouldn't rule out a toughening either if people continue to spend too much time out and about, which seems to be creeping up. The best medicine could perhaps be some poor weather - it really is very unfortunately that the lockdown coincided with some of the best sustained weather we've seen for some time.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Because international travel is disproportionately important to the establishment people who influence the decisions.....

It's important to everyone, even if you don't yourself do it. If you're going to screw the economy over, you need to be incredibly sure that you need to do so.

 

[bramling]

The Met were reckoning on being 13% down a few days ago, which is probably a sensible low estimate.

Given the negative test result rate there are probably 3-4 other chest bugs out there circulating.

Agreed. There could quite easily be people off with no more than a hayfever cough somewhere in the household.

I think a lot of the trouble we have with this condition is there really are so many unknowns. Decision-makers are having to work quite blind in so many aspects of this, and this is something none of us have ever really been on the receiving end of, especially with no prior time to prepare and come to terms with it.

 

[bramling]

It's important to everyone, even if you don't yourself do it. If you're going to screw the economy over, you need to be incredibly sure that you need to do so.

I bet with the great benefit of hindsight they now wish they'd done it! Having said that, all what would have happened is we'd have seen more You Tube films like the couple stuck on the cruise ship moaning about how awful it is that they're stranded abroad.

 

[Bletchleyite]

I bet with the great benefit of hindsight they now wish they'd done it! Having said that, all what would have happened is we'd have seen more You Tube films like the couple stuck on the cruise ship moaning about how awful it is that they're stranded abroad.

I think it could easily have actually been worse had they done it that early, with people criticising it as unnecessary and even wider flouting of any lockdown than we have now.

You simply can't take the same approach in a democracy that has a very low level of State control and policing that you can in an authoritarian dictatorship, even if the latter will in theory be more effective. It just won't work.

 

[Meerkat]

Agreed. Problem is I'm not sure there's the police resources to do such nuanced enforcement.

Well you could put the onus on the venues. Let people in who aren’t local and you get shut down.
Could ANPR be configured to ping any car registered outside the locality? First day you visit the obvious car parks and everyone out of area gets a chunky FPN. Then get that news all over social media.
Visiting relatives might be the problem issue - sitting indoors in close proximity after travelling out of area could spread outbreaks.

 

[bramling]

I think it could easily have actually been worse had they done it that early, with people criticising it as unnecessary and even wider flouting of any lockdown than we have now.

Yes unfortunately I agree. Again comes down to collective public behaviour unfortunately.

Even the "big national public holiday*" (*except for key workers) weekend was probably essential as it gave the politicians the visual evidence needed to bring in the lockdown.

 

[bramling]

Well you could put the onus on the venues. Let people in who aren’t local and you get shut down.
Could ANPR be configured to ping any car registered outside the locality? First day you visit the obvious car parks and everyone out of area gets a chunky FPN. Then get that news all over social media.
Visiting relatives might be the problem issue - sitting indoors in close proximity after travelling out of area could spread outbreaks.

Some good ideas there. I'm not sure it would be viable to put onus on businesses though. How are you doing to do such detailed checks on people's credentials whilst at the same time not getting within 2 metres of them?

It's the 2 metre issue that is the cause of a lot of the difficulty, but I can't see they will be able to remove it for some considerable time to come. Reconciling this is going to be *extremely* tough, not least doing it in a way that keeps everyone happy. As I've said before, keeping the key workers happy will need to be high on the priority list.

 

[Meerkat]

It's important to everyone, even if you don't yourself do it. If you're going to screw the economy over, you need to be incredibly sure that you need to do so.

Is it really? If they had stopped or quarantined anyone coming in from China would that really have broken the economy?
Reading between the lines it was the skiers who really kicked things off though - which highlights that it’s hard to do limited blocks unless everyone is doing it.

 

[Meerkat]

Some good ideas there. I'm not sure it would be viable to put onus on businesses though. How are you doing to do such detailed checks on people's credentials whilst at the same time not getting within 2 metres of them?

Through a screen....

 

[bramling]

Is it really? If they had stopped or quarantined anyone coming in from China would that really have broken the economy?
Reading between the lines it was the skiers who really kicked things off though - which highlights that it’s hard to do limited blocks unless everyone is doing it.

I do think they were a little slow with certain things. Again with a hefty dose of hindsight, it's utterly unbelievable that schools were still going ahead with ski trips to Italy as recently as a few weeks ago.

 

[theblackwatch]

One thing I've noticed with the Daily Briefings - the Home Secretary has never appeared at one (unless it's one I've missed), and never seems to be mentioned. What is Priti Patel doing - has she come down with COVID-19 or perhaps in self-isolation too?

 

[yorksrob]

You could reduce restrictions whilst maintaining travel restrictions. You can do more stuff locally but you can’t travel to do it

I don't trust people to abide by it. I've already seen an increase in people travelling these last couple of days. For example as I write this someone I know is driving from Humberside to London and back to buy a dog. There's people who have cottoned on to the trains being empty and fancying it as a chance to hang out and/or get up to mischief.

I live away from friends and family, so any relaxation that doesn't allow some use of public transport will be meaningless for me.

One option might be to allocate everyone a number out of seven, and allocate people with a given number a day of the week to use public transport.

Bear in mind that there are likely to be key workers who would need to travel to visit friends and family as well.

 

[bramling]

I live away from friends and family, so any relaxation that doesn't allow some use of public transport will be meaningless for me.

One option might be to allocate everyone a number out of seven, and allocate people with a given number a day of the week to use public transport.

Bear in mind that there are likely to be key workers who would need to travel to visit friends and family as well.

Unfortunately I'd have to take the view that it's lesser of two evils territory. What's more important, someone going to visit friends & family, or key worker can't get to work? As I said elsewhere, maintaining 2 metre distancing on a train is going to *seriously* reduce capacity, especially on shorter trains. I'd say getting some people back to work would be more of a priority than essentially leisure / social journeys.

I've already seen quite a bit of direct anger directed directly towards those whose journeys aren't perceived to be essential. Fancy being on the receiving end of that?

No use seeing friends & family if there's no food on the table, that could well be the consequence.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Unfortunately I'd have to take the view that it's lesser of two evils territory. What's more important, someone going to visit friends & family, or key worker can't get to work? As I said elsewhere, maintaining 2 metre distancing on a train is going to *seriously* reduce capacity, especially on shorter trains. I'd say getting some people back to work would be more of a priority than essentially leisure / social journeys.

I've already seen quite a bit of direct anger directed directly towards those whose journeys aren't perceived to be essential. Fancy being on the receiving end of that?

No use seeing friends & family if there's no food on the table, that could well be the consequence.

FWIW someone on here suggested compulsory reservation and only occupying some seats - I guess it would be one seat in every other row. It seemed a bit far fetched but then I think one of the Scandinavian railways did it?

 

[Domh245]

What I hate about a lot of the graphs and stats on TV is they quote total numbers. It would be better if they reported them as a percentage of population. America might have a lot of deaths but I think it has a population bigger than any of the European countries. So America is in fact having less of a hit (currently) than any country in Europe. China has a huge population iirc.

It depends what you're looking at the numbers for. If you are trying to understand the impact on the population then percentages of population makes sense, but if you are looking at it's spread (which at this stage, is the more useful statistic) then as @hwl says, it's the raw numbers that make most sense. The spread of the virus is based on how many people come into contact with it, so up until you reach the point of most of the population being infected the virus will spread at the same rate, all things being equal. The global number of confirmed cases is 1.2 million as of yesterday, which is a country about the size of Estonia, no individual country has reached the point where the spread of the virus becomes limited by the size of the population

One thing I've noticed with the Daily Briefings - the Home Secretary has never appeared at one (unless it's one I've missed), and never seems to be mentioned. What is Priti Patel doing - has she come down with COVID-19 or perhaps in self-isolation too?

Heaven forbid she's the backup for the backup, in much the same way we didn't see Raab until BoJo became ill.

Could ANPR be configured to ping any car registered outside the locality?

A good idea in theory until you start getting cases like me where the car is registered at one address but is currently kept over 150 miles away. I'm sure the number of people who are currently away from registered addresses is large enough to cause issues with something like that.

 

[Chester1]

The problem comes if 2m distancing still needs to be maintained. For example, bear in mind it's highly likely the transport industry is still going to have a lot of staff off (the shielded groups for starters) they won't be able to run a full timetable, if people are properly spaced then realistically you're not able to get more than 10 people per carriage - even on something like a 12-car class 700 this will in practice mean only 120 people per train. Remembering the behaviour we've seen recently at parks, beaches and the likes and a probable sudden surge to go for family days out after having been locked down for several weeks, and this quite simply will cause mayhem.

Your key worker is going to be utterly furious if they board a train and find their options are to (1) stand up for the journey to work, or (2) sit within 2 metres of a family on the way to the seaside. In that situation I'd be turning round and going home, and I can say many others would likely do same.

This isn't an easy problem to square up. Of course if we could rely on the wider populace to be sensible and measured then things might work better, but so far the reaction of the general public has lurched from panic buying so key workers finished their shifts to find empty shelves, a bizarre obsession with toilet roll, a nurse spat and jeered at and told she was a "disease spreader", bedlam at beaches and public parks, and now people complaining of boredom and a sudden obsession with exercise, the latest thing being cyclists everywhere once again getting in the way of key workers. We've even seen a CMO break her own guidance and head to her second home not once but twice. None of this bodes well for people doing the right thing in the circumstances.

Generally the numbers of key workers available isn't actually that badly impaired considering how easy it is to phone in and say "my housemate has a cough", although some places have suffered worse than others. Most people are genuinely making an effort to come to work and do their bit, despite in some cases some reservations about the risk of becoming ill and seeing on TV cases of younger healthy people succumbing. In some cases there have even been some shielded people having made the decision to come to work against advice as they feel the lockdown has made it less risky and given them more control over maintaining distancing.

If a key worker is high risk they should be at home. At some point, probably during the next month, almost certainly in the next two months they will have to accept that low risk members of the general public will be returning to elements of normal life, including were unavoidable being with 2m of others, putting every low risk person at a degree of risk. I entirely sympathise with someone who doesn't drive who then decides to tell their manager they have a persistent cough etc, out of fear of using public transport. The government won't allow the lock down to continue for long enough to cause a depression, that means at some point low risk people will be put at risk. If medical advice was the only consideration then we would stay in lock down for several months, that is not sustainable economically or socially. I doubt the current full lockdown can be extended further than an additional 3 weeks. After 6 weeks many good businesses will struggle to reopen and the damage to our tax base that would follow would to enormous damage to public services in the long run (which would cause deaths).

Edit:

Unfortunately I'd have to take the view that it's lesser of two evils territory. What's more important, someone going to visit friends & family, or key worker can't get to work? As I said elsewhere, maintaining 2 metre distancing on a train is going to *seriously* reduce capacity, especially on shorter trains. I'd say getting some people back to work would be more of a priority than essentially leisure / social journeys.

I've already seen quite a bit of direct anger directed directly towards those whose journeys aren't perceived to be essential. Fancy being on the receiving end of that?

No use seeing friends & family if there's no food on the table, that could well be the consequence.

Banning non work related use of public transport would be a reasonable loosening of the lockdown i.e. Essential workers being joined on trains and buses by non essential workers but not leisure travelers.

 

[bramling]

If a key worker is high risk they should be at home. At some point, probably during the next month, almost certainly in the next two months they will have to accept that low risk members of the general public will be returning to elements of normal life, including were unavoidable being with 2m of others, putting every low risk person at a degree of risk. I entirely sympathise with someone who doesn't drive who then decides to tell their manager they have a persistent cough etc, out of fear of using public transport. The government won't allow the lock down to continue for long enough to cause a depression, that means at some point low risk people will be put at risk. If medical advice was the only consideration then we would stay in lock down for several months, that is not sustainable economically or socially. I doubt the current full lockdown can be extended further than an additional 3 weeks. After 6 weeks many good businesses will struggle to reopen and the damage to our tax base that would follow would to enormous damage to public services in the long run (which would cause deaths).

Edit:



Banning non work related use of public transport would be a reasonable loosening of the lockdown i.e. Essential workers being joined on trains and buses by non essential workers but not leisure travelers.

I don’t think there would be a massive pushback against work-related journeys. Indeed these are already not prohibited. In any cases, many key workers will be working shift times so wouldn’t coincide with the 9-5ers. Many will in any case no doubt stay working at home where they can.

The problem will be leisure journeys. There’s already anger seeing scenes like Brighton beach, and I can guarantee there’ll be immensely more of trains start filling with families on day out jollies any time soon.

Hopefully over time a greater understanding of the virus will help, as there can be a much more scientific view of who is actually at risk. At the moment there’s massive gaps in the knowledge.

 

[yorksrob]

Unfortunately I'd have to take the view that it's lesser of two evils territory. What's more important, someone going to visit friends & family, or key worker can't get to work? As I said elsewhere, maintaining 2 metre distancing on a train is going to *seriously* reduce capacity, especially on shorter trains. I'd say getting some people back to work would be more of a priority than essentially leisure / social journeys.

I've already seen quite a bit of direct anger directed directly towards those whose journeys aren't perceived to be essential. Fancy being on the receiving end of that?

No use seeing friends & family if there's no food on the table, that could well be the consequence.

I still think they could consider some form of public transport rationing. Even the key workers aren't likely to be using it throughout the day. And they have as much need to visit people as anyone else.

 

[Chester1]

I don’t think there would be a massive pushback against work-related journeys. Indeed these are already not prohibited. In any cases, many key workers will be working shift times so wouldn’t coincide with the 9-5ers. Many will in any case no doubt stay working at home where they can.

The problem will be leisure journeys. There’s already anger seeing scenes like Brighton beach, and I can guarantee there’ll be immensely more of trains start filling with families on day out jollies any time soon.

Hopefully over time a greater understanding of the virus will help, as there can be a much more scientific view of who is actually at risk. At the moment there’s massive gaps in the knowledge.

It can't be avoided entirely but transport police fining familes would put off most people. While it's not prohibited now, many employers are voluntarily enforcing a strict lockdown. That won't continue for long and there will be more people travelling for work. In my own area of work, there is currently a tiny skelton staff, supported by people working from home. The number of people having to come into work will slowly grow over the next few weeks to avoid a knock on affect on key public services. A lot of people do semi essential work that can be stopped for a month or so but not much longer. As a young healthy person with no caring responsibilities I accept that I will be fairly high up the list for returning to the office.

 

[bramling]

I still think they could consider some form of public transport rationing. Even the key workers aren't likely to be using it throughout the day. And they have as much need to visit people as anyone else.

Boris already tried to ration people with things like one exercise per day, go shopping as infrequently as possible, or the four reasons for leaving home. A significant number of people have and continue to go too far, so why should we trust them next time round?

I agree in principle that ideally we should be enforcing what’s there and not penalising those who are doing what’s been reasonably asked of them, however with police resources stretched niceties are quite rightly the first thing to go out the window.

It doesn’t help that whatever measures are put in place, so smart arse will try to find a loophole or argue that they’re a special case for whatever reason. We’ve seen enough of that on here for starters.

To append one point made elsewhere, it doesn’t have to be key workers going sick. Many are currently doing overtime or agreeing to work different shifts from what they’re rostered to do. In other words goodwill. Apart from introducing emergency legislation, lose this goodwill and things will unravel very quickly.

 

[yorksrob]

Boris already tried to ration people with things like one exercise per day, go shopping as infrequently as possible, or the four reasons for leaving home. A significant number of people have and continue to take the piss, so why should we trust them next time round?

I agree in principle that ideally we should be enforcing what’s there and not penalising those who are doing what’s been reasonably asked of them, however with police resources stretched niceties are quite rightly the first thing to go out the window.

It doesn’t help that whatever measures are put in place, so smart arse will try to find a loophole or argue that they’re a special case for whatever reason. We’ve seen enough of that on here for starters.

No, they haven't rationed exercise or shopping. They have provided instructions for people to follow for those things.

Rationing would involve organised provision of a service to people. I might apply to undertake a certain number of journeys at particular times for something. These could be provided through the existing ticketing system.

The lockdown is in place because that is what current scientific evidence suggests is required to control the spread of the virus. It is reasonable to expect people to abide by it for that reason. When it comes to the time when the scientific evidence suggests that a lockdown is not required, it is not reasonable to expect some people to continue in a prolonged de facto state of lockdown, simply because no one has made any provision for them to be able to use public transport.

 

[yorkie]

Can we try to avoid using this thread as a "master thread" and use other threads where appropriate, for example to discuss the government advice use https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/government-advice-discussion.202231/ or to discuss enforcement of social distancing please use https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...l-distancing-unnecessary-journeys-etc.202681/

 

[trainophile]

One thing I've noticed with the Daily Briefings - the Home Secretary has never appeared at one (unless it's one I've missed), and never seems to be mentioned. What is Priti Patel doing - has she come down with COVID-19 or perhaps in self-isolation too?

Or the Chancellor. He was the best thing since sliced bread a few weeks ago, but apart from his furloughing plans has hardly been heard from since.

 

[matt]

Or the Chancellor. He was the best thing since sliced bread a few weeks ago, but apart from his furloughing plans has hardly been heard from since.

Yes the Chancellor is next in line

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/wor...8c78dce2d2c7067796d4ed&pinned_post_type=share

UK Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is deputising for the prime minister "where necessary" while Boris Johnson is in intensive care with coronavirus.

However, should Mr Raab be taken ill, Chancellor Rishi Sunak would be next in line to take over, a spokesman for the prime minster has said.

 

[bramling]

No, they haven't rationed exercise or shopping. They have provided instructions for people to follow for those things.

Rationing would involve organised provision of a service to people. I might apply to undertake a certain number of journeys at particular times for something. These could be provided through the existing ticketing system.

The lockdown is in place because that is what current scientific evidence suggests is required to control the spread of the virus. It is reasonable to expect people to abide by it for that reason. When it comes to the time when the scientific evidence suggests that a lockdown is not required, it is not reasonable to expect some people to continue in a prolonged de facto state of lockdown, simply because no one has made any provision for them to be able to use public transport.

It is de facto rationing, as the notion of one exercise per day is to stop everyone doing it all at once and overwhelming public spaces. Otherwise there’s no reason for it to be there.

I get that you’re unhappy having to rely on public transport, I sympathise to at least some extent. However people need to realise that there are people working quite simply to keep the most basic cogs of our society turning, and that *has* to take priority. There’s social media for conversing with friends and family, nowadays this can be done visually as well as audibly. For virtually all of the population this is the first time ever we’ve seen curtailments of our liberty, and there’s quite clearly good reasons for doing it. Many other countries are in the same boat, some more tightly locked down than us. It really isn’t *that* bad a deal being asked to stay at home as far as possible, compared to those who are playing Russian roulette with a relatively unknown virus simply to keep the processes going which ultimately do things like keep food on *your* table.