Coronavirus (OLD)

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

It's not a class thing though, it's a space thing

My brother in law lives in Leeds with his wife and also their housemate, they live in a 3 bedroom mid terrace house with no garden/driveway. . They're struggling with this a lot more than my wife and myself who are in our detached house with front and rear gardens. Due to them being constantly on top of each other and unable to find somewhere quiet.

Your brother-in-law's wife .. wouldn't that be your sister?

Not an idea situation though, married couple with a housemate in any house at any time, let alone a terrace at a time like this. Just remembering, the only place I've ever seen/been inside a back-to-back terrace was in Leeds. Not one of those I hope.

We are insanely well off being out here in the countryside. There's a massive forestry commission plantation right behind our house, and I can step out of my front door, nip through the woods and onto the forestry access road, and then walk uphill for almost 2 hours with next to zero chance of seeing anyone, let alone meeting up (we have half a dozen neighbours, but would only meet them if they happened to be dog walking at the same time, and even then only on the nearest stretch of track).

It's not a surprise the highest reported - by the press anyway - instances of people being in parks are in places like London with a lot of high density housing. People and families who may not have any private outdoors space.

The lockdown isn't sustainable if you force people to be inside for weeks on end. No one should congregate with people from outside their household and probably shouldn't be just sitting down having a few cans but overall the risk of people being apart in open air is minimal and might actually help sustain the lockdown for longer. Banning exercise or families walking in a park seems counterproductive to me, people will rebel if the measures are too strict or go on too long.

There seems to be a few people who are fetishising ever more draconian lockdown measures irrespective of how helpful those measures would be in slowing the spread of the virus. These are people for whom this crisis has been a boon for their own sense of self-importance and desire to police other people's behaviour, from inventing their own interpretation of the rules they demand others follow to online portals where these wannabe Stasi informants can report on their neighbours. You have people who want to ban all exercise, ban the sale of Easter eggs as they're not essential and have the army on the streets to enforce all of this.

The point of these measures are not to punish the public. It's to stop the virus and liberties should only be restricted to the extent it's effective in doing that. Even if you think we should entire total lockdown for 'as long as it takes' then remember that these measures depend on the cooperation of the public and that cooperation will break if they feel that they're are being penalised and cannot understand the reasoning why. Let people run outside, let them buy Easter eggs for their children at Easter.

Exactly. And at the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, this is a useful lesson in recent history. It has become quite fashionable over the last couple of decades to talk about WW2 in terms of what 'the Nazis' did, rather than simply 'Germany' as was more common throughout the latter half of the 20th century.

The idea that the conflagration was caused entirely by the aggression of a political party is nonsense. The Nazi Party could never have achieved what it did without the passive approval of the masses, especially in the early years of their rise, and the active participation of the ones who, as you put it, found it a boon to their own self-importance to be able to inform on their neighbours to the authorities and took joy in seeing their vision of order and discipline enforced by men in uniform.

It is mildly disturbing to see how vocal some people have become in that vein in this country, and it is not hard to see how, given a prolonged existential crisis, we could end up with enthusiastic little Hitlers in every community in the UK.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Chris

Your brother-in-law's wife .. wouldn't that be your sister?

Not an idea situation though, married couple with a housemate in any house at any time, let alone a terrace at a time like this. Just remembering, the only place I've ever seen/been inside a back-to-back terrace was in Leeds. Not one of those I hope.

We are insanely well off being out here in the countryside. There's a massive forestry commission plantation right behind our house, and I can step out of my front door, nip through the woods and onto the forestry access road, and then walk uphill for almost 2 hours with next to zero chance of seeing anyone, let alone meeting up (we have half a dozen neighbours, but would only meet them if they happened to be dog walking at the same time, and even then only on the nearest stretch of track).

Nope...

Yep, they're in a back to back terrace in the middle of studentsville they were early in the process of selling and moving further out into the 'burbs' but obviously thats been stopped.

Very lucky here too, big house only two humans and one dog so plenty of space for us when needed to be able to keep apart from each other, big rear garden. and a five minute walk from public footpaths enabling us to go on a walk with the dog.

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by Chris

Exactly. And at the risk of invoking Godwin's Law, this is a useful lesson in recent history. It has become quite fashionable over the last couple of decades to talk about WW2 in terms of what 'the Nazis' did, rather than simply 'Germany' as was more common throughout the latter half of the 20th century.

The idea that the conflagration was caused entirely by the aggression of a political party is nonsense. The Nazi Party could never have achieved what it did without the passive approval of the masses, especially in the early years of their rise, and the active participation of the ones who, as you put it, found it a boon to their own self-importance to be able to inform on their neighbours to the authorities and took joy in seeing their vision of order and discipline enforced by men in uniform.

It is mildly disturbing to see how vocal some people have become in that vein in this country, and it is not hard to see how, given a prolonged existential crisis, we could end up with enthusiastic little Hitlers in every community in the UK.

Jeepers, now we have gone off on one !

According to strict Usenet protocol, this thread is now over.

[downquark1]

While it is indeed worrying I have to point out these are extraordinarily specific circumstances. I am holding out that this will prompt a liberalisation of sorts once it is over.

Originally Posted by downquark1

While it is indeed worrying I have to point out these are extraordinarily specific circumstances. I am holding out that this will prompt a liberalisation of sorts once it is over.

Well I for one won't be washing my hands again.

[mrmistoffelees]

Originally Posted by Damien

Well I for one won't be washing my hands again.

So, you wash your hands of washing your hands?

[SnoopZ]

Finally taken delivery of a N95 facemask and hand sanitiser, they screwed up and sent 2 though.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by downquark1

While it is indeed worrying I have to point out these are extraordinarily specific circumstances. I am holding out that this will prompt a liberalisation of sorts once it is over.

[papa smurf]

Looks like the Gov has brought out the big guns to keep us in isolation

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/113372...navirus-video/

[Mr K]

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

Finally taken delivery of a N95 facemask and hand sanitiser, they screwed up and sent 2 though.

Is it something like this?


Saw somebody walking about wearing one in the background of a TV news report from London the other day !

---------- Post added at 14:26 ---------- Previous post was at 14:24 ----------

Originally Posted by papa smurf

Looks like the Gov has brought out the big guns to keep us in isolation

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/113372...navirus-video/

The Daleks were unwise to invade at Robin Hoods bay, they'll have a few technical issues getting out of the place.

[cimt]

Originally Posted by mrmistoffelees

Nope...

Yep, they're in a back to back terrace in the middle of studentsville they were early in the process of selling and moving further out into the 'burbs' but obviously thats been stopped.

Very lucky here too, big house only two humans and one dog so plenty of space for us when needed to be able to keep apart from each other, big rear garden. and a five minute walk from public footpaths enabling us to go on a walk with the dog.

God help them being in a back to back. Those are really cramped spaces. I almost moved in one and I'm glad I never now. Still don't have a garden though...

Originally Posted by nomadking

I am pretty sure he means that the public's experiences of having freedoms we've typically taken for granted being restricted causes them to be more zealous about individual freedom when we get it back. Isn't that confusing?