Yes, I appreciate that too, which is why I felt I had to write what I did in the hope that the thread might return to a discussion of new facts and information (and new opinion).
I think an inevitable problem with long threads like this one is that stuff will reappear over and over.
But yes indeed let’s keep it to new developments.
One of the things which amazes me is that there is no sign of a “second wave” here in the UK, despite all the demonstrations in London which are now a couple of incubation times back so might be showing up. Perhaps outdoor activities are actually fairly safe.
Mind you, the pubs were full yesterday so…
Off_Field wrote:
I know it was discussed a long time ago but it’s worth remembering that full lockdowns were never put in place. Farmers, key workers, etc have been able to move around and supermarkets have been open. So without a total lockdown (which inevitably would kill a lot of people who aren’t prepared or able to manage) I can’t see how one could expect it to reduce things to zero
It’s possible, both the Isle of Man and Guernsey are corona free and have had zero cases for over a month at this point. Neither island had a full lockdown. Jersey I believe is also at zero, but not yet opened up.
The difference with the islands is a few miles of salt water plus a closed border keeps new infected from hotspots elsewhere from coming in, making the disease a lot less mobile.
If it were practical to say close the borders of counties in the UK and follow the same procedure as the islands, maybe even most counties would be corona free.
Alderney is also zero and has been the whole time.
But, clearly, all the islands have been getting deliveries of stuff all the time, so how come no virus arrives on the packaging etc?
I think they benefit from a useful sequence of factors, starting with the time the stuff spends in transit. I doubt very much gets there in less than a few days. It’s like importing stuff from China; if it comes by sea freight (25 days’ sailing) and you carefully handle/discard the packaging, there can’t be any virus on the goods. And most cargo handlers wear thick gloves because the stuff they handle is full of nails, tacks, splinters, etc.
But if you implemented say county based closures, stuff will travel much faster. And more to the point is that unless you put in road blocks, 24/7 policed, people will “escape”. You have hundreds of roads and dirt tracks to block off.
Peter wrote:
so how come no virus arrives on the packaging etc?
It probably does, but the virus is very fragile outside the body, the probability of it being on packaging is low, the probability of catching it from packaging is absolutely minuscule, and in any cases, the people coming into contact with packages most the time (postal workers) tend to wear gloves and hand sanitiser is used. You won’t catch it by touching something (it won’t get in through the skin of bare hands), you’ll only have a probability of catching something if you fondle a package with it on then rub your eyes and lick your fingers.
alioth wrote:
It’s possible, both the Isle of Man and Guernsey are corona free and have had zero cases for over a month at this point. Neither island had a full lockdown. Jersey I believe is also at zero, but not yet opened up.
Good point, although for the small islands with low numbers. Closing the border and isolating seems to be the way they can deal with things, but I see closing the borders / controlling the borders different to lockdown / house arrest.
I do think doing things in a targeted manner at a local level must be effective. The difficulty becomes when people can easily travel around and break those restrictions if they want to.
I wonder what the next ski season will look like.
Next ski season?? It wont happen it my opinion. Or it will be severely restricted.
The virus has been shown to be PARTICULARLY infectious in apres-ski type environments, and then to travel home well all over the place.
It’s an interesting one.
It depends on how much you go for “the scene”. I know most younger people go for the apres ski, but also quite a few older ones. And a lot of people want to eat out, not do self catering. And all that is highly risky – massively obviously so, looking at last winter’s “Italian/Austrian experiment”. Also I am sure that even if the airline flights were relatively “safe”, the long bus shuttles (3hrs is quite normal) in stuffy packed buses aren’t.
But if you fly GA, get a taxi (€€€), stay in self catering, and ski only in the mornings, hitting the lift the instant it opens, you can get a few hours of great skiing in each day, and it should be safe.
Whether the slopes can make any money from that is another matter…
But I am sure that, as elsewhere, the young will lead the way and they will pile in without any worries, because as far as they are concerned they are safe from it.
alioth wrote:
It probably does, but the virus is very fragile outside the body, the probability of it being on packaging is low, the probability of catching it from packaging is absolutely minuscule, and in any cases, the people coming into contact with packages most the time (postal workers) tend to wear gloves and hand sanitiser is used. You won’t catch it by touching something (it won’t get in through the skin of bare hands), you’ll only have a probability of catching something if you fondle a package with it on then rub your eyes and lick your fingers.
So very true!
Remember that intact skin safely protects you from almost any virus or bacteria. Only if you then rub your eyes or touch your nose/month (basically anywhere you have mucosa) are you at risk of (systemic) infection.
So you can touch almost anything, anyone, anywhere and still stay safe as long as you properly disinfect your hands afterwards.
Otherwise professional health care would not really work..
One of the things which amazes me is that there is no sign of a “second wave” here in the UK,
At least in London/SE, a very real possibility is that herd immunity has happened. As I’ve mentioned before, at least 1/3 of my extended family have had something remarkably similar to CV19, though only one (a doctor) has actually been tested (and was positive). That means pretty much all of them have been exposed and either were asymptomatic or fought it off without even getting infected.
