Coronavirus

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Good read here from Fintan O'Toole about the Brit response:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/11/coronavirus-exposed-myth-british-exceptionalism

[blessed1]

Was the whole thing about the ferries being full of tourists not a load of bullshit?
Apparently there was a small amount of vehicles coming in and most were on business?
I dunno i could be wrong.
The amount of people getting their news from Facebook as well is unreal.
Sharing videos that are years old and people losing their shit over them
Facebook really is bottom of the barrel shite.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

There was a report from one day, Thursday I think, saying there were only a few cars coming off the ferries. But the on-site reports are that many more came before, a problem serious enough that the threatening response of locals, again on-site, called for police intervention in more than one location.

[DeletedUsermNqGIiIuGy]

It's insane if it's true Gir l I worked with has family there and that's where I heard it from. Apparently there's a lot of them coming in this weekend.
If this isn't something that's being handled correctly then it just needs to stop.

[hellfire]

Very glad I adhered to HSE advice now. My dad was diagnosed with it yesterday. Because I haven't visited him in a month I won't even need to be tested.

Is he alright?

Doing very well with it. He's in hospital, but improving daily.

[DeletedUsermNqGIiIuGy]

Very glad I adhered to HSE advice now. My dad was diagnosed with it yesterday. Because I haven't visited him in a month I won't even need to be tested.

Is he alright?

Doing very well with it. He's in hospital, but improving daily.

Good stuff 

[livingabortion]

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/district-court/sligo-woman-jailed-for-28-days-over-coughing-in-garda-s-face-1.4224370

And rightly so. Disgusting at any time but possibly detrimental now. A mother of three in jail now, I wonder who's going to mind the kids? The Father or Fathers probably aren't in the picture either.

There were many moron's whinging about not being able to use their holiday home for the Easter weekend too. Sadly a lot of people still just aren't getting it. Viral Infection or Idiocy. Which is the bigger threat?

[Eoin McLove]

Scum.

[DeletedUsermNqGIiIuGy]

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/district-court/sligo-woman-jailed-for-28-days-over-coughing-in-garda-s-face-1.4224370

And rightly so. Disgusting at any time but possibly detrimental now. A mother of three in jail now, I wonder who's going to mind the kids? The Father or Fathers probably aren't in the picture either.

There were many moron's whinging about not being able to use their holiday home for the Easter weekend too. Sadly a lot of people still just aren't getting it. Viral Infection or Idiocy. Which is the bigger threat?

Ms Spellman said her client was a mother-of-three who was "having a very difficult time" and intended to make an appointment with her GP to get help as "all she has been doing is drinking" over the last few weeks.

Oh im sure she had full intentions of making an 'appointment'. Scumbag

[astfgyl]

Viral Infection or Idiocy. Which is the bigger threat?

The combination of both is particularly dangerous

On an unrelated note I read this one a few minutes ago regarding UK air pollution:

"These are big changes—pollution levels are the equivalent at the moment of a holiday, say an Easter Sunday," Professor James Lee from York University and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science told The Guardian about the data.

Does it actually drop off that much on a day like that? And if it does, how come nobody did anything about it, knowing that? I find that a bit surprising but anyway, I was thinking about the whole carbon issue and wondering what makes the most difference, the planes or the cars and also thinking about how noticeable the change for the worse will be if everything suddenly gets going again. It's easy to take no notice of something gradually creeping up on you, but if it jumps up out of nowhere you certainly notice it. I have a feeling that people's environmental attitudes will change a lot after this current situation. Also thinking about how this thing could go so many ways like will everything end up more dystopian or will there be some sort of great awakening and everything gets better due to increased awareness of basically everything like a reevaluation of all things with a focus on what is actually important to everybody.

It really could swing either way

[Eoin McLove]

I think there are a few different things that could/ should be re-evaluated after this all dies down, like our impact on the environment and reliance on cheap Chinese labour and goods, but I'm too pessimistic to think anything will be done about it.  Nothing really seems to have been learned from the recession. Everything slowly just reverted to status quo and in some instances became worse- I'm thinking of the housing and rental crisis here- so I imagine things will go back to exactly how they were once this is under control.

[Bogmetaller]

I think there are a few different things that could/ should be re-evaluated after this all dies down, like our impact on the environment and reliance on cheap Chinese labour and goods, but I'm too pessimistic to think anything will be done about it.  Nothing really seems to have been learned from the recession. Everything slowly just reverted to status quo and in some instances became worse- I'm thinking of the housing and rental crisis here- so I imagine things will go back to exactly how they were once this is under control.

I genuinely wouldn't call what you're saying there pessimism - it's pragmatism more than anything because what you've said is bang on the money.

[astfgyl]

Yeah it's a fair point. The recession only seemed to increase the gap between the haves and have-nots in a lot of ways with things like vulture funds being a prime example of that. It's a pity how greed always seems to win the day.

The optimistic view would be that people would get a sudden look at what we've all been doing and decide to do other things like buy quality goods and not need a constant upgrade on their possessions to try live some sort of false dream sold to them by advertising media. The reality of a dream like that is that yeah anyone can access it in a way, but they will be forever enslaved to debt because of it so it's more of a nightmare for a lot of people working all hours in shit jobs just to feel like they are one of the haves when they actually have fuck all. Of course the demand for those things would have to disappear before large corporations woke up to the fact that they can't be getting away with peddling disposable shite all the time and then the good stuff would have to be some way affordable as well so the more I think about it the more unlikely it becomes.

This is all probably better suited to the Are We All Fucked thread but it's all sort of related these days. Like we are all able to pull together when we want to. The sudden repurposing of the HSE is a great example. All the years of understaffing and issues with nurses' pay and patients on trolleys suddenly can be fixed when needed. I don't have the exact figures of all that but just giving as a general example of how things can be fixed when there is an appetite or a need for it. Okay we have been reminded many times how much it will cost us but if tax went to something like 25% or even 30% all the time and stayed there and the result was universal healthcare or similar, or a living wage for us all, I don't think most people would feel bad about that. A situation like this also highlights the absurdity of higher executives pay vs the actual worker carrying out their bidding for them. Which has better value in real terms? TD's salaries and banking executives salaries and bonuses should come under severe scrutiny once more after this when we are being handed the bill for all of this. I know they will all do their best to deflect this but surely a lot of folks will have suddenly woken up, or they will.

And still, you're probably right. This will all be forgotten as quickly as possible and we can get right back to paying an imaginary bill like we have done for years after the recession.

[Kurt Cocaine]

I'm back to work tomorrow, on full-time for the next few weeks at least
Warehousing is deemed essential work now because the docks, etc. are filling up with cargo containers and had nowhere to.
Thankfully the weather he's been decent for the last month and made being stuck at home actually quite enjoyable. Music, reading and walking/exercising in the garden.

[kiehozero]

Viral Infection or Idiocy. Which is the bigger threat?

The combination of both is particularly dangerous

On an unrelated note I read this one a few minutes ago regarding UK air pollution:

"These are big changes—pollution levels are the equivalent at the moment of a holiday, say an Easter Sunday," Professor James Lee from York University and the National Centre for Atmospheric Science told The Guardian about the data.

Does it actually drop off that much on a day like that? And if it does, how come nobody did anything about it, knowing that? I find that a bit surprising but anyway, I was thinking about the whole carbon issue and wondering what makes the most difference, the planes or the cars and also thinking about how noticeable the change for the worse will be if everything suddenly gets going again. It's easy to take no notice of something gradually creeping up on you, but if it jumps up out of nowhere you certainly notice it. I have a feeling that people's environmental attitudes will change a lot after this current situation. Also thinking about how this thing could go so many ways like will everything end up more dystopian or will there be some sort of great awakening and everything gets better due to increased awareness of basically everything like a reevaluation of all things with a focus on what is actually important to everybody.

It really could swing either way

I'd be willing to believe that about pollution. Part of my job has been analysing traffic patterns near our shops to see the effect of the lockdown. Some places are seeing 70% less traffic, particularly around motorways as there is pretty much no reason for most people to be on them anymore. Traffic nearly everywhere halved straight away when the lockdown was announced, and declined further. I obviously can't share the data I have as it shows confidential sales information, but the initial traffic data we used was based on open-source information available on the NRA/TII website.