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       #Post#: 54714--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Racing 92 - London into Tier 3
   DIR By: guest465
       Date: December 15, 2020, 1:29 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: Kermitpower link ---
       >
       > At the risk of being political, I'd have to disagree with
       that.  The problem isn't with people trying to live their lives,
       it's with the government telling them not to!   >:(
       >
       > In the first 6 months of the year, there were 40,645 Covid
       deaths from 127,380 hospitalizations.  In the second 6 months,
       there have been a further 23,280 from 109,053.
       >
       > Think back to the start of all this....  The streets were like
       ghost towns, people were scared, the rules were being obeyed by
       pretty much everyone... Whenever anyone posted that they'd been
       out for a fun ride on the MTB forums I visit they'd be ripped
       apart by the vast majority accusing them of being selfish
       because they might kill Covid patients if they made an ambulance
       come and pick them up from the trails instead.
       >
       > Now, though, we've been through "eat out to help out", the
       government has encouraged people back in to work, the shops have
       looked pretty much like normal, and the MTB forums are full of
       people complaining that trails in the Surrey Hills are going to
       be shut down because so many more people are riding them than
       they ever did before lockdown.
       >
       > If it was this behaviour causing the problems, then you'd
       expect hospitalisations and deaths to be increasing, but they're
       not!  The number of people being hospitalised with Covid has
       fallen, and the chance of dying if you do catch it has dropped
       from 1 in 3 for the first half of the year to 1 in 4.7
       >
       > If you then go and take a look at Twickenham itself on the
       link below, you'll see that Twickenham North, the home of the
       Stoop is being plunged into the highest tier of restrictions
       with a horrific infection rate of 56.7 per 100,000!  Widen that
       out to LB Richmond and that rises to 115.1 per 100,000 compared
       to a UK average of 173.5!
       >
       > Going back to those deaths, sadly 110 people had died within
       28 days of a positive Covid death in Richmond in the first 6
       months of the year.  In the second half of the year?
       Twenty-two!
       >
       >
  HTML https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/search?postcode=tw2+7sx
       >
       > The actions being taken now are a complete and utter joke!!!
       Right at the start of lockdown, the hospitals pushed loads of
       old people out into nursing homes to make space for Covid
       patients, not realising that many of them were infected and also
       infectious but asymptomatic, and as a result half the first
       40,000 deaths were amongst nursing home residents, of whom there
       were about 800,000 at the start of the year. meaning 1 in 20
       nursing home residents died, along with one in 3,300 of the non
       nursing home population as a whole, or one in 13,500 of the
       population under the age of 65.
       >
       > They screwed up at the start, and a cynic could be forgiven
       for thinking that everything since has been about trying to make
       us all accept that this disease poses a risk to the general
       population to try and disguise that fact.
       >
       > Remember Patrick Vallence announcing in late September that
       without further action the UK could expect to see 50,000 new
       cases a day by mid October  and 200+ deaths per day by mid
       November?  From then until mid October, the government basically
       took bugger all action, and what happened?  A rolling 7 day
       average of 17,592 new infections on October 15th, but 449 deaths
       reported on November 15th.
       >
       > At this point, of course, with a third the number of projected
       cases causing more than twice the number of projected deaths,
       maybe you'd think we should be panicking!  Then again, we're
       measuring deaths as anyone who dies within 28 days of a positive
       test, and every single person admitted to hospital is tested, so
       you could be taken in having lost both your legs in a freak
       smoothie-making accident, be tested as positive on the way in
       before bleeding out in theatre and you'd count as a Covid death
       even if you'd not had so much as a single symptom, but never let
       it be said they're just plucking the numbers out of their arses
       as they go along!
       >
       > Did I have Racing tickets, I hear you ask?  Yes, I bloody well
       did!!!  Am I gutted about missing out?  Absolutely!  I'm almost
       as gutted about that as I am about seeing how upset my 12yr old
       is about it.  Having said that, what right have I got to be
       bitter?  I've still got my job unlike millions, and haven't been
       given a terminal cancer diagnosis as a result of testing being
       suspended because of Covid, so I guess I should count my
       blessings...
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       What utter garbage ... Netherlands Germany belt are going into
       full lockdown. I suppose that’s Boris Johnson’s fault too!
       People are dying, I was seriously ill and continue to suffers
       from “covid long” yet you moan about not  getting into a sports
       ground .. get a grip please
       #Post#: 54717--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Racing 92 - London into Tier 3
   DIR By: Kermitpower
       Date: December 15, 2020, 4:15 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: Bampotbill link ---
       >
       > What utter garbage ... Netherlands Germany belt are going into
       full lockdown. I suppose that’s Boris Johnson’s fault too!
       People are dying, I was seriously ill and continue to suffers
       from “covid long” yet you moan about not  getting into a sports
       ground .. get a grip please
       --- End Quote ---
       It's not just our government coming out with utter garbage, I'll
       grant you that.
       Not getting to go to the match is, as I said, a fairly trivial
       concern in the wider picture, but it is nevertheless symptomatic
       of the absurdity of one size fits all policies.  LB Richmond has
       a well below average Covid rate of 137 per 100,000, so why shut
       the Stoop down based on other areas in London having high
       levels, whilst other stadia on other areas get to stay open (eg
       Kingsholm at 208)?
       The main point, though, is that for some unfathomable reason
       this mass hysteria has taken over and nothing but Covid seems to
       matter!  It doesn't matter that 8,000 women alone missed breast
       cancer diagnoses because screening was suspended to protect the
       NHS from Covid, that 3,500 people have been given terminal
       diagnoses for other forms of cancer with an average loss of
       16-19 years of life, or that London Ambulance have seen their
       call outs to suicide attempts almost double this year, mostly
       amongst young men, that over 800,000 people have lost their jobs
       in spite of the Furlough scheme, that millions of kids have had
       their education ripped apart, or that we've incurred an increase
       in national debt equal to almost three times the entire NHS
       national budget to do this.
       All that matters is that for political reasons our government
       (and many others) have implemented sledgehammer policies that
       have a huge impact on vast numbers to address an illness with an
       average age of death of 82, half of them from care homes, at
       least a quarter already with a terminal condition, over 90%
       above retirement age and only 1% of working age without known
       pre-existing conditions.
       What makes more sense to you?
       1.  Ask the vulnerable to self-isolate until they can get
       vaccinated and let the 80% of the population who aren't
       vulnerable get on with living and earning the tax money to pay
       for everything.
       2.  Limiting things for everyone, whether at risk or not, at the
       expense of more billions in lost tax revenue, billions in
       increased furlough expenditure, lost education, etc, etc....
       Covid isn't going anywhere!  we'll lock down again, bankrupt a
       few more companies, break a few more kids, then we'll open up
       again and it'll just spread again.  What's the point?  When does
       the damage done become so great that the NHS has to turn round
       and say "sorry, we're not going to be able to treat cancer for
       the next 5 years", for example?
       So yes, flippant to maybe complain about losing out on the one
       bit of light relief to look forward to after a completely,
       utterly shit year, but that just happened to be the latest straw
       on the camel's back alongside a third of my colleagues having
       lost their jobs and my daughter's A levels being completely
       screwed.  >:(
       #Post#: 54719--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Racing 92 - London into Tier 3
   DIR By: baggie
       Date: December 15, 2020, 4:34 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: Bampotbill link ---
       >
       > What utter garbage ... Netherlands Germany belt are going into
       full lockdown. I suppose that’s Boris Johnson’s fault too!
       People are dying, I was seriously ill and continue to suffers
       from “covid long” yet you moan about not  getting into a sports
       ground .. get a grip please
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       If you have had COVID and are still suffering then I sympathise
       and I wish you a speedy and full recovery
       I caught the virus in France in March ... had a horrible cough
       for 6 weeks but recovered without medical intervention ... I had
       the test to show I was clear of the virus and a positive blood
       test to show I had the antibodies ... the government’s
       nonsensical “one size fits all” quarantine policy has
       effectively put me under “house arrest” for 6 months ... you and
       I could meet for a beer and not represent a a danger to each
       other ... or anyone else for that matter
       It is a bit like parents telling their children to eat up all of
       their meals because there are children starving in Africa !
       No need to shut down sports grounds for me and, I suspect, for
       millions of people like me ... even during the Great Plague in
       the mid-17th Century they issued Certificates of Good Health so
       that people who had no symptoms could move about freely ...
       granted the system was subject to fraud and forgery but surely
       350 years later we have the technology to put something better
       in place whilst still protecting the people who remain
       vulnerable
       The photos used in the media reports yesterday to justify London
       moving into Tier 3 were ludicrous showing crowded shopping
       streets ... I was on Regents Street last Wednesday and it was
       empty ... Hamleys was all but deserted ... people who were there
       on Saturday say it was just the same ... those photos were
       clearly old photos from Christmas “past” ... not this year ...
       what is wrong with our journalists that they have lost the power
       of “critical thinking” and the ability to challenge what is in
       front of them ... too much time spent in front of a computer
       screen putting “stories” together based on the utterances on
       social media rather than being “out on the ground” to discover
       the truth
       #Post#: 54720--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Racing 92 - London into Tier 3
   DIR By: TeddingtonQuin
       Date: December 15, 2020, 4:36 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       I don't want to take this thread further off topic but I'll just
       throw in that really, it should never have got to this point. We
       have an advantage over our near neighbours that should have
       prevented all this. We're a flipping island (or a collection of
       small islands) and thus we have a big natural barrier to
       incoming diseases. If our govt had taken appropriate steps,
       quickly enough, we wouldn't be in this mess!!
       #Post#: 54721--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Racing 92 - London into Tier 3
   DIR By: JammyGit
       Date: December 15, 2020, 4:40 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: Kermitpower link ---
       >
       > At the risk of being political, I'd have to disagree with
       that.  The problem isn't with people trying to live their lives,
       it's with the government telling them not to!   >:(
       >
       > In the first 6 months of the year, there were 40,645 Covid
       deaths from 127,380 hospitalizations.  In the second 6 months,
       there have been a further 23,280 from 109,053.
       >
       > Think back to the start of all this....  The streets were like
       ghost towns, people were scared, the rules were being obeyed by
       pretty much everyone... Whenever anyone posted that they'd been
       out for a fun ride on the MTB forums I visit they'd be ripped
       apart by the vast majority accusing them of being selfish
       because they might kill Covid patients if they made an ambulance
       come and pick them up from the trails instead.
       >
       > Now, though, we've been through "eat out to help out", the
       government has encouraged people back in to work, the shops have
       looked pretty much like normal, and the MTB forums are full of
       people complaining that trails in the Surrey Hills are going to
       be shut down because so many more people are riding them than
       they ever did before lockdown.
       >
       > If it was this behaviour causing the problems, then you'd
       expect hospitalisations and deaths to be increasing, but they're
       not!  The number of people being hospitalised with Covid has
       fallen, and the chance of dying if you do catch it has dropped
       from 1 in 3 for the first half of the year to 1 in 4.7
       --- End Quote ---
       The death rate is not going to be like the first wave because we
       have a much stronger idea of how to treat patients. I'm not sure
       if you're claiming that hospitalisations and deaths
       aren't/didn't increase overall - because that's not true, both
       happened - or whether you're talking just locally (which also
       happened but to a lesser degree).
       Certainly people out on bikes doesn't appear to be a big issue;
       we know from studies that outdoor activity like that isn't a
       likely cause of transmission. Dunno how many people would be
       wearing masks when doing it, though (which would help a lot).
       Eat Out To Help Out was a disastrous idea.
       --- Quote ---
       > If you then go and take a look at Twickenham itself on the
       link below, you'll see that Twickenham North, the home of the
       Stoop is being plunged into the highest tier of restrictions
       with a horrific infection rate of 56.7 per 100,000!  Widen that
       out to LB Richmond and that rises to 115.1 per 100,000 compared
       to a UK average of 173.5!
       >
       > Going back to those deaths, sadly 110 people had died within
       28 days of a positive Covid death in Richmond in the first 6
       months of the year.  In the second half of the year?
       Twenty-two!
       >
       >
  HTML https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/search?postcode=tw2+7sx
       >
       > The actions being taken now are a complete and utter joke!!!
       Right at the start of lockdown, the hospitals pushed loads of
       old people out into nursing homes to make space for Covid
       patients, not realising that many of them were infected and also
       infectious but asymptomatic, and as a result half the first
       40,000 deaths were amongst nursing home residents, of whom there
       were about 800,000 at the start of the year. meaning 1 in 20
       nursing home residents died, along with one in 3,300 of the non
       nursing home population as a whole, or one in 13,500 of the
       population under the age of 65.
       >
       > They screwed up at the start, and a cynic could be forgiven
       for thinking that everything since has been about trying to make
       us all accept that this disease poses a risk to the general
       population to try and disguise that fact.
       >
       > Remember Patrick Vallence announcing in late September that
       without further action the UK could expect to see 50,000 new
       cases a day by mid October  and 200+ deaths per day by mid
       November?  From then until mid October, the government basically
       took bugger all action, and what happened?  A rolling 7 day
       average of 17,592 new infections on October 15th, but 449 deaths
       reported on November 15th.
       --- End Quote ---
       The government did actually introduce a bunch of stuff in late
       September to make a difference. The Test & Trace app launched 3
       days after Whitty's comments, and on the same day a wide range
       of new restrictions came in (face coverings, table service,
       closing times, support group sides, rule of 6 for indoor
       organised sport, 'work from home if you can'). then a few days
       later, more restrictions on gatherings, a legal duty to
       self-isolate, fines for businesses re: COVID-19 Secure
       requirements.
       That's quite a lot. Without that, it's entirely possible we'd
       have hit 50k a day - especially when you see the big rise in
       infections around this time.
       I'd also make the point that you don't bring in restrictions
       when the deaths are high - you do it when the cases are rising
       to prevent the deaths getting high. Richmond might be doing "OK"
       but you can't really do restrictions on small areas - people
       travel, particularly within cities - and just because they're at
       137.4 cases per 100k  (latest stats, it's going up across the
       board in the capital) doesn't mean that London taken as a whole
       isn't pretty bad. It's over 180 where I am, and there's parts of
       London in the 300/400/500 region.
       --- Quote ---
       > At this point, of course, with a third the number of projected
       cases causing more than twice the number of projected deaths,
       maybe you'd think we should be panicking!  Then again, we're
       measuring deaths as anyone who dies within 28 days of a positive
       test, and every single person admitted to hospital is tested, so
       you could be taken in having lost both your legs in a freak
       smoothie-making accident, be tested as positive on the way in
       before bleeding out in theatre and you'd count as a Covid death
       even if you'd not had so much as a single symptom, but never let
       it be said they're just plucking the numbers out of their arses
       as they go along!
       --- End Quote ---
       They don't mention Covid on the death certificate [the method
       used by the ONS to calculate Covid deaths) unless it's an
       underlying cause or a contributory cause. So no, that's not what
       happens. They do also measure people who had a positive test and
       later died, but policy works on the former, and those figures
       track with what the government's been saying.
       The most recent "confirmed cases" numbers for London make for
       some worrying reading. It's a big old jump.
       Sadly the Government's faffed about so much and contradicted
       itself so much that it's heavily damaged the only tools at its
       disposal.
       #Post#: 54726--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Racing 92 - London into Tier 3
   DIR By: JammyGit
       Date: December 15, 2020, 4:51 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: Kermitpower link ---
       >
       > 1.  Ask the vulnerable to self-isolate until they can get
       vaccinated and let the 80% of the population who aren't
       vulnerable get on with living and earning the tax money to pay
       for everything.
       --- End Quote ---
       There is no workable solution for this. It is an impossible
       task. You're also asking people who aren't "vulnerable" to risk
       a serious disease with potentially life-changing consequences
       and letting the virus run rampant. Yeah great, it only kills
       some tiny percentage of people who aren't considered vulnerable.
       Scale that up, and it's a lot of deaths, a massively overwhelmed
       health service, and a completely out of control situation. How
       are all those people with undiagnosed cancer going to be better
       off by living in a society where the virus is allowed to run
       free?
       It's simply a pipedream.
       --- Quote ---
       > 2.  Limiting things for everyone, whether at risk or not, at
       the expense of more billions in lost tax revenue, billions in
       increased furlough expenditure, lost education, etc, etc....
       >
       > Covid isn't going anywhere!  we'll lock down again, bankrupt a
       few more companies, break a few more kids, then we'll open up
       again and it'll just spread again.  What's the point?  When does
       the damage done become so great that the NHS has to turn round
       and say "sorry, we're not going to be able to treat cancer for
       the next 5 years", for example?
       >
       > So yes, flippant to maybe complain about losing out on the one
       bit of light relief to look forward to after a completely,
       utterly **** year, but that just happened to be the latest straw
       on the camel's back alongside a third of my colleagues having
       lost their jobs and my daughter's A levels being completely
       screwed.  >:(
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       The good news is we now have vaccines! So this will hopefully be
       a temporary state of affairs.
       Look, I understand the frustration, the angst, the anger at all
       of this. The Government's approach has essentially ended up
       being the worst of both worlds. It's an absolute mess. But any
       proposed solution that leads to exponential growth of the virus
       will see an unconscionable amount of deaths and long term
       illnesses - and would destroy our economy regardless.
       #Post#: 54727--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Racing 92 - London into Tier 3
   DIR By: MadMax
       Date: December 15, 2020, 4:57 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Oh good another discussion on how well Covid is being handled.
       #Post#: 54728--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Racing 92 - London into Tier 3
   DIR By: Fearless Fred
       Date: December 15, 2020, 5:04 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       Back on to the topic, I can't see our game against Bristol six
       days after the Racing game having any crowd in either. We may be
       lucky with the LI game but I wouldn't bet on it if they go ahead
       with the relaxation of the rules over Christmas.
       #Post#: 54729--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Racing 92 - London into Tier 3
   DIR By: TomBuckQuin
       Date: December 15, 2020, 5:38 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: Kermitpower link ---
       >
       > It's not just our government coming out with utter garbage,
       I'll grant you that.
       >
       > Not getting to go to the match is, as I said, a fairly trivial
       concern in the wider picture, but it is nevertheless symptomatic
       of the absurdity of one size fits all policies.  LB Richmond has
       a well below average Covid rate of 137 per 100,000, so why shut
       the Stoop down based on other areas in London having high
       levels, whilst other stadia on other areas get to stay open (eg
       Kingsholm at 208)?
       >
       > The main point, though, is that for some unfathomable reason
       this mass hysteria has taken over and nothing but Covid seems to
       matter!  It doesn't matter that 8,000 women alone missed breast
       cancer diagnoses because screening was suspended to protect the
       NHS from Covid, that 3,500 people have been given terminal
       diagnoses for other forms of cancer with an average loss of
       16-19 years of life, or that London Ambulance have seen their
       call outs to suicide attempts almost double this year, mostly
       amongst young men, that over 800,000 people have lost their jobs
       in spite of the Furlough scheme, that millions of kids have had
       their education ripped apart, or that we've incurred an increase
       in national debt equal to almost three times the entire NHS
       national budget to do this.
       >
       > All that matters is that for political reasons our government
       (and many others) have implemented sledgehammer policies that
       have a huge impact on vast numbers to address an illness with an
       average age of death of 82, half of them from care homes, at
       least a quarter already with a terminal condition, over 90%
       above retirement age and only 1% of working age without known
       pre-existing conditions.
       >
       > What makes more sense to you?
       >
       > 1.  Ask the vulnerable to self-isolate until they can get
       vaccinated and let the 80% of the population who aren't
       vulnerable get on with living and earning the tax money to pay
       for everything.
       >
       > 2.  Limiting things for everyone, whether at risk or not, at
       the expense of more billions in lost tax revenue, billions in
       increased furlough expenditure, lost education, etc, etc....
       >
       > Covid isn't going anywhere!  we'll lock down again, bankrupt a
       few more companies, break a few more kids, then we'll open up
       again and it'll just spread again.  What's the point?  When does
       the damage done become so great that the NHS has to turn round
       and say "sorry, we're not going to be able to treat cancer for
       the next 5 years", for example?
       >
       > So yes, flippant to maybe complain about losing out on the one
       bit of light relief to look forward to after a completely,
       utterly **** year, but that just happened to be the latest straw
       on the camel's back alongside a third of my colleagues having
       lost their jobs and my daughter's A levels being completely
       screwed.  >:(
       >
       --- End Quote ---
       For a little bit of balance (and I actually sympathise with your
       argument to a large extent and think you're probably not far
       from having it much more worked out than the Govt), I'm a 30
       year old with a condition that means I fall into the "extremely
       at risk" group. A nasty cold left me on the brink of death a few
       years back (hospitalised early Jan 2015, in an induced coma the
       next day, in ICU on a ventilator for 2 months with pneumonia and
       sepsis - the docs gave me a 15% chance of survival at one
       point)...
       Obviously, with that medical history in mind, I haven't left
       home since early March this year. Whenever lockdowns have been
       lifted and shielding officially been declared "no longer
       necessary", I have continued to shield. I haven't begrudged any
       healthy person having their taste of freedom each time a
       lockdown has been lifted - trust me, I want to taste that as
       much as the next person. Most of my friends grew bored of
       lockdowns months ago - and I get it, I really do. That's before
       we even begin to look at the devastation to the economy, the NHS
       backlog (and associated knock-ons of aborting cancer treatments
       etc).
       The one caveat I'd apply to your very well reasoned arguments is
       that this virus, unlike the flu, is so incredibly catchy. I
       actually don't know whether I agree with you that we should let
       the 80% crack on while I continue to wait patiently with the
       rest of the 20% for these imminent vaccines. There's so much
       merit to that argument. And yet, for someone like me, there are
       so many intricate complications that come if that approach were
       to be applied. I require 24/7 care - provided by local
       council-funded, privately recruited Personal Care Assistants
       (PCAs). In normal times, my team of two PCAs work on 2-week-on,
       2-week-off shifts, living with me when they are on their 2 week
       shift. Without them I have no independent life - I'd be a burden
       on my family, wouldn't be able to work, would almost certainly
       be all kinds of depressed (who wouldn't in that scenario?)
       When Covid first came to the UK I received a phone call from my
       consultant telling me that regrettably they were having to call
       their patients to advise that the most likely scenario, if I
       were to catch Covid, would be that I would be denied access to a
       ventilator in favour of someone more likely to survive. Again,
       candidly, I understood - they weren't telling me that I had any
       less right to a life than anyone else, but they had to offer
       this pragmatic, realistic assessment of the pressures the NHS
       was about to come under and some of the difficult decisions they
       would therefore have to make.
       I immediately locked down with my family (mum, dad and 2 younger
       brothers - all healthy, no pre-existing conditions) and told my
       PCAs to stay away while I worked out what I could possibly do to
       continue my care provision safely and thus not have to rely on
       my 60-year-old dad providing all my intensive personal care. We
       finally managed to find a place for my PCAs to
       self-isolate/quarantine for 2 weeks prior to their shift each
       time - but this time sitting around in self isolation would be
       deemed working time, while the other PCA was still working with
       me - meaning weeks and months of negotiations with the local
       council to line up extra funding for these 2 week isolation
       periods. They finally agreed in September - but with the proviso
       that my PCAs would have to do much longer shifts each time (6
       weeks minimum) to reduce the cost implications as much as
       reasonably possible.
       Brexit adds an additional layer of complexity for me - my PCAs
       are Hungarian, live in Hungary and commute to the UK for their
       shift each time (yes, believe it or not, the majority of people
       I know with the same/similar condition to me run their PCA care
       this way). They will no longer be able to work for me after 31
       December. I have been in ongoing discussions with the council
       around how I can possibly recruit a new team of PCAs under these
       already exhaustingly complicated mechanisms I've had to cobble
       together. We're still none the wiser - how can I ask someone I
       don't know from Adam to self isolate for 2 weeks (paid) before
       arriving for a trial shift of a few days (again, paid) to
       possibly find out they're not up to task? And rinse and repeat
       until I find two that are - and are willing to do minimum 6
       weeks at a time until they and I are vaccinated. So
       realistically the early months of next year will fall on my dad
       again.
       And that's all a very long and winding preamble to the dichotomy
       at play in my mind: yes, I want the 80% to crack on, the country
       to crack on, the economy to salvage whatever's left and rebuild.
       But then I look at how the one constant in all of this has been
       my family - all 4 of them healthy, all 4 of them shielding with
       me for 10 long months - because if one of my PCAs were to fall
       ill at any time I'd have no choice but to fall back on them. My
       girlfriend too - perfectly healthy - has locked down with me for
       extended periods (with the 2 weeks of self isolation prior each
       time), to provide additional support. All 5 of those healthy
       people essentially kept at home because of 1 extremely at risk
       person (in this case me). I do struggle with that guilt every
       now and then.
       Now I know my situation is unusual, and I don't for a second
       think that my life is worth any more than that person who has
       gone from having treatable cancer to terminal cancer because of
       all of this. Or the person who has ended up on the dole, queuing
       up at food banks to feed their family. But I do worry about the
       social care system if we were to just let the 80% do their thing
       and as a result let it spread completely unchecked. I worry
       about people with conditions like me, but without the support
       systems that I have, or the belligerence to harass the council
       for a simple answer to a question for days on end. And I do
       worry about the numbers - because whilst the mortality rates
       compare with the likes of flu, the amount of people catching
       this thing is astronomical. Without the lockdowns it would have
       been worse - I'm sure you'd agree with that. I take your point -
       how much worse, we will probably never know. And whilst my
       family and I will continue to do our thing and I will do
       everything I can not to be one of those NHS statistics, anything
       more than what they've experienced already is going to be
       catastrophic. Those cancer treatments are already being paused
       again - they can't start them up again until the numbers come
       under control (don't forget that bringing someone who's
       receiving chemo into a hospital full of Covid is a potential
       death sentence in itself).
       I guess this is all a very long winded way of saying that there
       are no easy answers here - my only prevailing thought is that
       having come this far and being so close to the vaccine, is it
       really the time to let the dog off the leash now? If the
       vaccines were nowhere near then I think I'd be inclined to agree
       with large parts of your sweeping policy change proposal and I'd
       happily (for want of a better word, none of this is really happy
       stuff) hunker down for the long haul with the rest of the 20%
       and their +5s. I'm constantly trying to keep myself on an even
       keel and put myself in the shoes of your average healthy
       business owner whose life has been affected in a completely
       different way to mine. And with all that nuance thrown in, I've
       come to the conclusion that there is no right or wrong answer.
       There is no policy that can possibly strike the right balance.
       And on that bleak note, I think that's all I came here to say
       and Admin can now move this thread to the non-rugby section
       (sorry).
       #Post#: 54730--------------------------------------------------
       Re: Racing 92 - London into Tier 3
   DIR By: Kermitpower
       Date: December 15, 2020, 6:34 am
       ---------------------------------------------------------
       --- Quote from: TomBuckQuin link ---
       > Lots of really thoughtful stuff about live in carers...
       --- End Quote ---
       Thanks for taking the time to add so much detail on your
       personal situation.  I think it lets me summarise a couple of my
       thoughts really well.
       1.  Unfortunately, you and others with similar conditions
       would've had to lock yourselves away for the duration whatever
       from the sounds of it.  That is what it is - a pretty shitty
       situation - but clearly made so much worse for you feeling
       guilty about locking in your closest as well?
       2.  So far, the government has spent an estimated £40Bn+ just on
       furloughing people alone who, for the vast majority, were at no
       particular risk.
       Given the option, I would've been inclined to furlough just
       those people with a clearly increased risk (thus saving £30Bn+,
       at a rough guess) and then paying your carers a £10k hardship
       bonus after each care period.  That should hopefully be a
       massive incentive for people on typically low wages to want to
       make the sacrifice involved, give you and others in your
       position the care you need without the guilt of imposing on your
       family, let the rest of the population crack on with earning the
       tax to pay for it, and hopefully still save a fortune compared
       to furloughing everyone?
       *****************************************************
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