Dr. Gonzo

I meant southeast but typed northeast, whoops. Must've be my northern bias

Isn't Wales mostly populated in the northeast and valleys? That would sort of back up that claim about population density being a big factor in how this thing spreads (although... I think that's pretty self-explanatory - highly infectious disease + people coming into contact with one another more frequently = more cases). Isn't that exactly what happened with Italy? I think Italy's healthcare system is ranked #2 in the world, I think they're considered a first world country (although that whole first world thing is sort of a carryover from the cold war and I don't think is super meaningful nowadays tbh), and they didn't have enough ventilators for the huge number of cases they had.

Sweden‘a got way less population density than the UK, it’s going to spread slower in a less densely populated country. The UK has significantly higher population density.

I fucking miss Nando’s so much

The one that looks like this?

Lol not a great year for Iran’s military

In California weed delivery was declared essential immediately after our lockdown was announced - I’ve always wondered why it’s not treated similarly to alcohol tbh. It’s less harmful than alcohol. And California’s made over a billion in tax revenue in the last 2 years since its been legal. And fortunately that’s state tax money the US federal government can’t blow on stupid bullshit like funding states that don’t actually take care of their citizens, so it gets invested into California schools and shit like that.

That guy was totally fucking mental

Matt Hancock is the type of politician you get after one party’s had power for a decade yet used scapegoats so they’ve never faced accountability

I think Teso had his good moments and his bad moments. The two of you together just refused to play nicely and took an online forum feud waaaaaaay too fucking seriously. He obviously wound up taking it to far extremes. Nobody said you guys had to love each other, let alone like each other. It is quite frankly a shame he had to do something that stupid, because you guys could and should have been able to just leave each other alone. Instead it’s some weird internet drama we’re still discussing. And that’s stupid tbh, I wish he hadn’t done that. We’re all on here to have a good time and talk online with our internet football friends. Why take it so seriously you’d have a full on feud with someone in a different country? I think it’s a shit part in this excellent forums history but I suppose should be a lesson in how by doing something remarkably stupid can have consequences you may not expect.

Count yourself lucky the worst human you’ve ever met is some guy on the Internet then. I have known some pretty shite people in real life, I think that’s much worse tbh.

Yeah but if you're traveling long distances for work right now in the UK, that's essential work. Whereas going to a famous chippy 200 miles away is definitely not essential. And again, we don't really know what contact they had with anyone and the restriction is the way it is right now with the purpose of slowing the spread.

that's not what I said though. There's 2 top 10 economies the UK national response is miles ahead of, so it's little minnows that our response looks better than. Like I said, the disease hitting Britain would always be bad - we're very densely populated, it's a highly infectious disease. And tbh, the 2 countries in the top 10 I can say the UK response has been categorically miles ahead are probably the most similarly styled sorts of politicians. Look it's pretty clear we are in a low moment in British history politically & where faith in the UK government, from all parties, is pretty fucking low (and quite rightly so). And we've had several years of probably the most bitter and divided partisan politics I've ever seen in the UK. And we've seen a rise in people disregarding what experts have to say based off jingoistic nationalist bullshit that's not grounded in reality. I think it's encouraging we see our government not follow in the footsteps of similarly styled idiot jingoistic leaders running other large countries that are economic powerhouses. It is, at very least, seeing the government do the bare minimum. Which in the US, we aren't seeing at a national level - and we also aren't seeing that with Brazil. Like I said, there's plenty of legitimate things that Tories can be criticised for in the preparation and response. And when they go out and just tell lies or try to scapegoat and blame others for their response, that can be criticised too. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be criticised. At the same time, if I'm seeing Tories remove heads from arses over important issues... I'm not going to discourage them from engaging in that sort of behavior. It's something that's much needed in UK politics and politics in the western world, more people collectively taking their heads out of their arses. Too many view politics like supporting a football club, but at the end of the day Tory voters, Labour voters, Lib Dems... we're all really on the same side. Make no mistake, this is a global crisis. It's a global health crisis that's caused an economic crisis that we don't really know when/how it'll bottom out. Peoples' livelihoods are on the line, but more importantly so are peoples' lives. I think the government can rightly be criticised for it's lack of preparation, but in the face of the original plan failing disastrously the government they at least had the sense to not get people killed for no good reason. I do think there's value in unity in times of crisis. Most of the nation needs to be onboard with a national plan to return life back to normal with the least amount. However, I don't think that means that the government just gets a free pass and can't be criticised. tl;dr - the government's done shite they can legitimately be criticised for, but they've also done some stuff that I think is fairly commendable. I don't trust tories, but I'm also not going to go overly critical on a government that saw passed it's mistakes. There's still a number of people in the UK that think we should have taken Sweden's approach - without realizing Sweden is far less dense of a population & think the government lockdown is something that doesn't need to be taken seriously.

I forget what my name was before Dr. Gonzo, but it definitely wasn't AntonS.

I don't know if that's fair on the staff, tbh. Obviously, I'm a bit biased as I'm a mod now - but I don't think that's really a fair interpretation of how that ban for Teso unfolded. And for the record, Marc wasn't banned - just suspended. His suspension is up, he's free to post here whenever (so long as he's not breaking the rules). I can't speak for the Cannabis stuff - I wasn't a mod, I don't know the full backstory or however that long. As for the Teso ban, I wouldn't say anyone made an easy or quick decision. Despite him being a habitual rule breaker that refused to play nicely with certain members despite several warnings over the years, he was the one who sort of forced our hand by making an insane private message with the person he was threatening... and literally every single mod and admin on here. It wasn't something anyone I wanted to do, in fact I'm pretty sure every member of staff was pretty annoyed he'd done something that couldn't really just be wiped away with another warning that would likely be ignored. Because no matter how you slice it, what he did was something that wasn't something that could really be warned away and he'd literally just shown that a suspension wouldn't change his behavior (because he just returned from a suspension), even if he "wasn't serious" with his threat.

Unfortunately, I can wholeheartedly guarantee that isn't the case. Some states have good governors, some have Trumpian morons that are following in the federal government's footsteps of just bumbling around and making inconsistent decisions like locking things down and then reopening them immediately (as we saw in Florida). And it's a country that's got around 25% of the population that wants to "re-open the economy" and doesn't care how many people die as long as the Dow Jones makes a speedy recovery before November. Honestly, I think it'll get a whole lot worse before America starts to truly recover from this. I think the UK's response has been pretty poor, but there's something to be said about that quick U-turn from the herd immunity plan to one of the more strict lockdowns in effect. And you can look across the Atlantic to several countries that are having a much worse go of dealing with the virus - the Americas are having several nations where the national response can best be described as an absolute shitshow. Nicaragua's not even put any restrictions in place. I do think the north of Italy should have sounded the alarms to the government. The UK is small and densely populated, an infectious disease hitting the UK would likely spread quick and cause deaths. It's very easy to say this with the hindsight, and especially as it's something I've always believed in - especially after leaving the UK and getting shittier healthcare, but the NHS is probably the best thing about our government; it deserves more financial support from the government than it's received from Tory governments over the last 10 years. I think there's loads of legitimate criticism that can/should be leveled at the government for how seriously they took the threat up until it reached the UK. Honestly, it sometimes seems like a lot of people didn't take it seriously until the virus infected BoJo. But I think it's at least commendable the government swiftly abandoned the herd immunity idea after listening to health experts that said over half a million would die. Lesser leaders in this era of "fuck the experts, my gut is right" could very easily just have ignored the experts and gone with their gut... and we've sadly seen examples of that actually happening. But yeah, looking at the population density and how we've got the most deaths in Europe... it really does seem stupid that the people elected to, at the very base level if they're not providing anything, to provide for the safety of the public... weren't really working to protect the safety of anyone from the disease. I've got 2 minds about it tbh. On the one hand, I see what you're saying. There's nothing in that article that doesn't say they weren't following social distance guidelines. On the other hand, that's a pretty long distance to drive for what is pretty easily classified as unnecessary travel in this time where we're being told "don't make any unnecessary traveling." Yeah these guys might not have hurt anyone, but if you start getting more and more people going out and about for shite that's not necessary it sends the message that it's fine to just go anywhere. You've also got to remember the UK is pretty small and very dense - who's to say these guys didn't have COVID but were just asymptomatic or not? I think part of what the government wants to achieve with the lockdown is to keep community spread isolated to those communities. Traveling long distances reduces the likelihood that communities won't start infecting other communities.

The local businesses I want to support aren't open even right now, except for some food places that are still offering takeaway/delivery. And the brewery that's about a 5 minute walk away has seen me drive up and fill boot up with as much beer as I can put in it many times over the past few weeks. But I'm looking forward to other places reopening - although it looks like stores will limit the number of people that can come in and are being urged to allow for curbside pickup whenever possible. But thanks mate, I think it'll go okay - at least around me. Other than one beach in San Diego having shitloads of activity for one day before more policing was put in effect after beaches re-opened (unlike the ridiculousness at beaches in Orange County about an hour north of me), the city's been pretty good about maintaining social distancing. Although like all big American cities, we've had some people from the rural parts of the county come to the city centre for their anti-lockdown bullshit... but that's literally happening everywhere. I think it's something like over 80% of San Diegans are taking the stay at home orders seriously. And if we see a big spike in cases, the state's meant to go back to Phase 1 of the 4 part plan. I'm not sure what the other phases are after this new phase. But I'm fortunate to be in a state where a governor acted quickly and has a plan, and our state isn't as badly affected as many other states (per capita) so we can sort of move forward a bit more safely than say... Georgia and Texas reopening this weekend as those states saw a spike in cases. Even when some retailers come back, for the most part the lockdown will still be in place for most people in California. Everyone's told to work from home if they can, so I'll still be working from home like I have been for the past... 6 or 7 weeks now. You're still not meant to be leaving the house unless it's for exercise or it's absolutely necessary - but you've got to maintain social distancing and have a mask on if you want to go outside. The big issue is as each state is just a part of the nation as a whole, the lack of a unified national response means I don't think the US will really get a good handle on this any time soon, regardless of how any individual governor may be doing/not doing.

California’s beginning “phase 2” of the lockdown (there’s 4 phases of “reopening”) on Friday. So more retail businesses will be opening up, but with social distancing rules in place. I will probably continue to stay home though until my office reopens.

Anyone remember Knee Grow? He seemed like a good guy

One of the sad truths coronavirus has exposed is that people are really really selfish and greedy, even in light of when humanity is going through something as difficult as this... people have no issue with scrapping their ethics to make some quick cash. I hope this fucker goes to prison.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/may/01/revealed-nhs-procurement-official-privately-selling-ppe https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8278203/NHS-launches-probe-senior-official-set-online-business-privately-selling-PPE.html

Anyone seen that story of the NHS procurement worker that was selling off PPE meant for the NHS? Shocking stuff if true.

Well there’s numerous reports today criticising several states, including Florida, for deflating the number of recorded cases and their deaths rate. I’m not sure that means things are any better in the UK, but I think the situation in the US is just going to keep getting worse before it gets better. The toll on the economy in the US has been absolutely brutal. 36 million unemployed in 6 weeks.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52475104

Get a load of these morons: