The Artful Dodger

The scenes from supermarkets in Wales are farcical, seriously this whole thing is giving a real boost to the jobsworths, the curtain twitchers and the nosey. One of the better things about this country is that people, generally, let you be and mind their own. I fear this prying sanctimony is here to stay now, they'll always be able to go 'but the virus' to justify their increasingly invasive actions.

Hard to know what’s going on with all the political brinkmanship. I can’t see how the government can offer any different proportionately to what Liverpool is getting.

Good little work around if anyone is craving a few pints with their mates. Working lunches are allowed, so if you set yourself up a Limited Company (easy and free), make your mates directors and you can have 10 pints in a boozer along with a meal.

It seems the ‘traffic light’ system is already in complete chaos, after what, 1 day? Burnham refusing to back a local lockdown for Manc, London moves up a tier after 1 day and Lancashire still arguing the toss. I agree with much of what Burnham said in his statement but he needs to be careful, he’s essentially saying a lockdown is needed but he won’t do it without everyone doing, which will look terrible if Manchester hospitals start overflowing soon.

Greater Manchester seems to avoided tier 3, just because Burnham moans in the press loads. Either the science is there or it isn't.

This another one of the issues with regional lockdowns, you will end up with certain areas getting blamed or ostracised and real division growing because of it. We are a small country, it should be done nationally. If we were to be fussy then I think most of the country could say London should have been locked down right at the start of all this, but that would never happen. Manchester and Lancashire to be added to the tier 3 level tomorrow apparently. This will just go on and on until they finally do a national one again.

The financial relief is measly and inadequate, no area would actively want to be in tier 3 I don’t think. It sounds like a second national lockdown is almost guaranteed now. Probably over half term for an initial 2 weeks. Starmer has backed it now.

Been full of cold all day today, lots of sneezing and a headache. Apparently sneezing isn't sign of it though? Kind of hope it is it or I've had it, want to get it out the way really.

Incredibly depressed right now. I'm not against measures per se but just think local restrictions are futile in such a small country, it will come back again. I hope this does help our hospitals and saves live of course. That's the priority, but I'm dreading the knock on effects if this goes on past Christmas for the city, which relies on people coming in and going out so much.

That's the World Health Organisation, not Roger Daltry and Pete Townshenad.

Interestingly the WHO has now advised against lockdowns, saying they do more damage than good and don't do much, if anything, to control or stop the virus. https://www.news.com.au/world/coronavirus/global/coronavirus-who-backflips-on-virus-stance-by-condemning-lockdowns/news-story/f2188f2aebff1b7b291b297731c3da74

Not legally and they won't. I'm talking more about the people of the city, we will see later on. Tier 3 for months on end would be catastrophic, if it's a month then it might be ok.

If Liverpool is singled out alone then I'd hope for some sort of mass disobedience, pubs should just stay open anyway, how would the police shut them all? There is no evidence local lockdowns work at all and Liverpool is being used as a guinea pig.

The tests are extremely sensitive and often pick up residue of old infections. It’s one of the reason it’s so hard to work out where we are.

London is a mixed bag, the core 'real London' is mainly Labour, aside from the areas dominated by the supremely wealthy but then a lot of the 'greater London' areas have Tory tendencies. I'm just making the point that there are areas in the South seeing similar rises, Johnsnon's own constituency for example but they won't be effected. They're happy to meddle with the lives of the Northern cities because they are unlikely to ever win a seat there. I also won't ever really forgive London for voting for Johnson as Mayor. If they believe lockdown is necessary then it should be a national one, not one which decimates certain areas completely. Local lockdowns do not work and in fact transmission has gone up in a lot of areas.

No I mean political, the Tories are happy to plunge the Labour cities in economically devastating lockdowns (despite nearly no evidence that local lockdowns work) because they know they have no chance of winning elections there. London is seeing a massive rise also but is not going to have these measures implemented. They won't touch their areas for fear of losing votes because these lockdowns are becoming increasingly unpopular. The tide is beginning to turn, resentment is growing, this cannot go on indefinitely.

So Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle are to be plunged into another full lockdown, against the wishes of their leaders and people. Whilst Tory areas with similar infection rates are left alone. This is a political decision and not based on science at all.

It's a totally different virus to the flu though, far more similar to the cold.

I'm not going to get carried away with polls, until he's kicked out I won't believe it.

1 player out of how many who've had it, there have been countless? Dybala is absolutely fine by the way, and has been out with a thigh injury but will be soon back playing. Likewise with 'Long Covid', there are some people who do struggle afterwards but given the fact there are millions of people who've had this thing without being official recorded it's likely to be a tiny minority of people. I'm all for caution but we need to get some perspective on this disease, it is not the plague, its not AIDs, its is not even malaria in terms of its effects. Yes, you could be seriously unlucky at a young age and develop something nastier but it's extremely unlikely and we shouldn't be thinking that it is a likely outcome. In terms of how this effects Liverpool, given that nearly all of us are going to get this at some point, surely an international break is the optimum time.

The UK has pretty much blindly allowed our government to rule by decree with arbitrary and ad hoc rules being implemented on a whim. Labour have barely stood up to them over it. Harsh and crippling lockdowns have been implemented on Labour areas with barely any extra economic support. I've been amazed out how the left has barely stood up to this Tory government over this tbh, it's supported nearly every measure without complaint.

Whilst we shouldn't play down the risks of catching it neither should we sensationalise the risk. It's not a death sentence for anyone, even old fat men like Trump are far more likely to fully recover quickly than die or suffer badly. Having said that, it's hard to be sure with Trump and he is irresponsible already parading around without a mask. Surely he can't be posting negative tests already, he's had it less than a week hasn't he? The only thing I'd say against it being made up is that what benefit does it bring him? Apart from avoiding another debate? I hardly think people are going to feel sorry for him being ill and vote for him.

I agree, I think football fans should be being slowly allowed back into stadiums. We're still in a panic stage it seems, the bungling with the statistics do not help as we seem to have no real way of knowing the true scale of things. I support local restrictions where we have high transmission but large swathes of the country should surely be able to gather more freely.

They're tested every day, it's the safest profession in the country. Manchester City had several players test positive didn't they?

Why not, if it's managed properly with social distancing in place? Bars and restaurants in and around soho will have as many people in a similar amount of space. We need to see people/businesses creating ways to reclaim our lives and not just cowering away hoping for some silver bullet vaccine.