Coronavirus

[L19MUD]

38 minutes ago, Mo Murphy said:

By example I'll highlight Ross @landroversforever, going to his workshop, probably a quite harmless but unnecessary journey and not following the spirit of lock down.

I have been doing exactly the same, it is 1 mile away and I don't have contact with anyone else. Whilst it might not have been strictly within the rules I really don't see the harm in doing it? I get the argument about iof you have an accident at the workshop but if his/my workshop was at home the risk would be the same other than the very short drive there

From the new guidelines where you can drive to the park/beach/etc then I think this is now within the rules

[Anderzander]

I think the biggest barriers I’ve seen to people adhering to the lock down has been either; that it doesn’t seem real to them or their intelligence ....

I think the vast majority of people have gone with it, either the spirit and letter or the restrictions, or at least to isolation. The ones who haven’t have either been on the news or an absolute minority observed in my local area. 

[L19MUD]

5 minutes ago, Anderzander said:

II think the vast majority of people have gone with it, either the spirit and letter or the restrictions, or at least to isolation. The ones who haven’t have either been on the news or an absolute minority observed in my local area. 

I agree that the vast majority have complied, at least where I live which is out in the Suffolk countryside. Huge reduction in traffic

More people out on the footpaths than normal but all abiding by the social distancing rules

[Mo Murphy]

42 minutes ago, L19MUD said:

I have been doing exactly the same, it is 1 mile away and I don't have contact with anyone else. Whilst it might not have been strictly within the rules I really don't see the harm in doing it? I get the argument about iof you have an accident at the workshop but if his/my workshop was at home the risk would be the same other than the very short drive there

From the new guidelines where you can drive to the park/beach/etc then I think this is now within the rules

I get that but the trouble is everyone thinks that for their journey and then all of a sudden the benefits of lock down are lost and we're into a second wave 😟😷

Indeed under the new guidelines issued yesterday that would appear to be the case.

Mo

 

[Bowie69]

1 hour ago, Mo Murphy said:

I honestly believe that there is a case, in times of national crisis, for there to be more control of the national media so that it can provide a more supportive role to the nations efforts to resolve the crisis rather than attempting to cut the legs from under it. To me they seem to be attempting to profit from the crisis rather than being part of the solution.

Whilst it is the thin end of the wedge to state controlled media like China, Russia and North Korea, I, on some level, totally agree with you. The mainstream media seem to think the only thing that is going on at the moment it COVID, in reality they are just ignoring everything else and using their apparent moral superiority 'holding the government to account' over every piffling little detail, as if they were world class economists, epidemiologists and mental health exports all rolled into one that knows more than PHE, SAGE, NHS and the government put together. It is getting rather wearisome, and they are NOT helping the country's response to the epidemic. 

As for the devolved governments -well, they keep banging on about 'clarity' and all they have done is meant the UK as a whole has four sets of guidelines to follow. Sturgeon, for example, may be 'fuming' over Westminster interfering in 'Her' lockdown plans, but I'd warrant the advice from Westminster is far better resourced than her own panel. 

[landroversforever]

17 minutes ago, Mo Murphy said:

I get that but the trouble is everyone thinks that for their journey and then all of a sudden the benefits of lock down are lost and we're into a second wave 😟😷

Indeed under the new guidelines issued yesterday that would appear to be the case.

Mo

 

I know you didn’t single me out deliberately Mo, but I’ve not been driving there. I’ve only gone when the weather has been nice and I’ve cycled, which is about 1/4 mile through the village and then a well beaten bridleway track the rest of the distance. It’s 1.8miles to the door so about 10-15mins on the bike depending how hard I push (usually 15 ). I can’t see that being worse than some of my MAMIL friends off pedalling for 40/50/60miles in a day. Whilst there I’ve then been extremely careful with what I’ve been doing, discarding cutting discs etc when I would have carried on but also doubling up with safety specs and a shield. 

[Mo Murphy]

My point was Ross that it wasn't a strictly necessary journey, rather an answer to the boredom of lock down and a time opportunity since by your own admission you hadn't previously had the time to get up there 😊

I think the answer to your road cycling friends is a sniper 😊 even when the pandemic is over  😉

Mo

 

[Mo Murphy]

33 minutes ago, Bowie69 said:

Whilst it is the thin end of the wedge to state controlled media like China, Russia and North Korea, I, on some level, totally agree with you. The mainstream media seem to think the only thing that is going on at the moment it COVID, in reality they are just ignoring everything else and using their apparent moral superiority 'holding the government to account' over every piffling little detail, as if they were world class economists, epidemiologists and mental health exports all rolled into one that knows more than PHE, SAGE, NHS and the government put together. It is getting rather wearisome, and they are NOT helping the country's response to the epidemic. 

My thoughts precisely.

Mo

[monkie]

36 minutes ago, Bowie69 said:

Whilst it is the thin end of the wedge to state controlled media like China, Russia and North Korea, I, on some level, totally agree with you. The mainstream media seem to think the only thing that is going on at the moment it COVID, in reality they are just ignoring everything else and using their apparent moral superiority 'holding the government to account' over every piffling little detail, as if they were world class economists, epidemiologists and mental health exports all rolled into one that knows more than PHE, SAGE, NHS and the government put together. It is getting rather wearisome, and they are NOT helping the country's response to the epidemic. 

As for the devolved governments -well, they keep banging on about 'clarity' and all they have done is meant the UK as a whole has four sets of guidelines to follow. Sturgeon, for example, may be 'fuming' over Westminster interfering in 'Her' lockdown plans, but I'd warrant the advice from Westminster is far better resourced than her own panel. 

Agreed. I never thought I'd say this but I think we need some Brexit in the news. It looks to me as if no-deal has crept up on us all and that's we'll be getting like it or not!

[geoffbeaumont]

22 minutes ago, landroversforever said:

I can’t see that being worse than some of my MAMIL friends off pedalling for 40/50/60miles in a day.

Which has also up to now been very much breaking the rules - unless they're superhuman they aren't doing that in an hour of exercise. One of the long distance cycle roots runs past our house, there's been lots of well kitted out cyclists ever since lockdown started. Some of them may have just been doing their hour of exercise...

[Anderzander]

I’d chip in if we are having a collection for a sniper ? 

[RedLineMike]

1 hour ago, geoffbeaumont said:

Which has also up to now been very much breaking the rules - unless they're superhuman they aren't doing that in an hour of exercise. One of the long distance cycle roots runs past our house, there's been lots of well kitted out cyclists ever since lockdown started. Some of them may have just been doing their hour of exercise...

you do understand that the "hour" of excercise was a throwaway comment made in an interview by someone who had never walked the length of himself

there has never been a restriction on how long your excercise could be

 

[Bowie69]

15 minutes ago, RedLineMike said:

you do understand that the "hour" of excercise was a throwaway comment made in an interview by someone who had never walked the length of himself

there has never been a restriction on how long your excercise could be

 

Correct, the hour was never in there.

[JeffR]

1 hour ago, geoffbeaumont said:

Which has also up to now been very much breaking the rules - unless they're superhuman they aren't doing that in an hour of exercise. One of the long distance cycle roots runs past our house, there's been lots of well kitted out cyclists ever since lockdown started. Some of them may have just been doing their hour of exercise...

Well I live in rural Northumberland, the road outside my house is a cracking ride if you are into motorbikes, judging by the 30-40 who went past over the weekend....  This virus terrifies me, (and not just because I'm in a very high risk group) RNA viruses mutate at a significantly greater rate than DNA viruses (damn, It looks like I remembered some of the Virology lectures from my degree after all), each time it moves between hosts the opportunity to mutate arises....

Whilst lockdown will bankrupt me financially, at the end of the day I'll still be alive.  

[Happyoldgit]

Well, I'm staying in my bunker holdout. We are fortunate in that we own the property and a bit of land and don't have a mortgage to pay. Just the occasional 5 minute trip down to the village to resupply essentials and that's it for us, the animal feeds are being delivered so no issue there. My son has been doing a mix of working from home [still not sure what a production facility maintenance engineer can do at home other than updating records] and now having to go in as they are planning to restart production soon but he is the only one "going out", the rest here are either working from home or off while the colleges are shut. That said he is staying totally separate and independent from the rest of the family. As long as we can continue on this path then so be it, I'm in my 60's and would rather put my health before capital gain.

But we do have a minor issue. My working strain Springer Spaniel had a litter of pups back in mid March. I had her covered in January when C19 was not the issue in the UK. Now the pups are ready to leave but I'm amazed at the number of people who seem to believe it is ok to travel from one end of the country to another to come and view. Well sorry chums but that is not going to happen, no matter how unreasonable you think I am I am just not taking the risk. Nor am I sending puppies to all points of the compass via animal courier either. I'm not a commercial breeder,  just someone who wanted one small litter so I could keep a pup or two and carry on the line as I like my bitch. I think we may be keeping an extra pup or two....

 

[Mo Murphy]

Very wise MOG 

[missingsid]

Mostly well behaved around here except some of the neighbours cars have gone missing for a week then returned, could be key workers but didn't think so.

Last few days a very powerful and tuned V8 has heen hammering up and down the bypass, can tell from the sound that it is the same car and going very fast!

[geoffbeaumont]

1 hour ago, RedLineMike said:

you do understand that the "hour" of excercise was a throwaway comment made in an interview by someone who had never walked the length of himself

there has never been a restriction on how long your excercise could be

No, I didn't - had to go looking for where that came from. Michael Gove on the Andrew Marr show, apparently. Trouble is, there have been a lot of ad-hoc clarifications of how the rules should be interpreted, and it's pretty much impossible to tell which ones we're actually supposed to be obeying. For example, to start with we could go out for exercise once per day, and there was nothing forbidding driving to the exercise. Then someone in government (can't remember who) said we shouldn't travel to exercise - walk or cycle from home. Then the police issued guidance saying it was okay to drive somewhere for exercise providing you spent less time driving than exercising, and have been fining people for driving to beauty spots to exercise (which suggests that does have a basis in the legislation - but does it?).

The rules around exercise have never been clearly and consistently communicated - hence the widely differing ideas about what is and isn't allowed. Not saying my take was right (it probably wasn't) - but I'm not even sure there is one definitive version out there, beyond the initially published restrictions which are less than is being enforced.

Interestingly I've seen no sports cyclists at all today. Either they're all back at work or they've loaded their bikes up and headed for the Dales and the Lake District...

[geoffbeaumont]

Interestingly, plenty of businesses are already acting on the loosened restrictions - we were in the middle of renovating a house (which we live in) when lockdown hit. We've already got a joiner, carpet fitters and cavity wall insulation removal turning up next week. All booked in before the lockdown and put on hold - and all, so far as I can see legitimate under the new guidelines, which explicitly allow tradesmen to work in homes again for maintenance or emergency work. But it means as a household we'll essentially not be isolated any more (though with my wife working for the NHS we weren't particularly well isolated anyway - but I'm doubting tradesmen are going to change before leaving their homes, again on arrival and take a shower as soon as they get here...).

[JeffR]

2 minutes ago, geoffbeaumont said:

Interestingly, plenty of businesses are already acting on the loosened restrictions - we were in the middle of renovating a house (which we live in) when lockdown hit. We've already got a joiner, carpet fitters and cavity wall insulation removal turning up next week. All booked in before the lockdown and put on hold - and all, so far as I can see legitimate under the new guidelines, which explicitly allow tradesmen to work in homes again for maintenance or emergency work. But it means as a household we'll essentially not be isolated any more (though with my wife working for the NHS we weren't particularly well isolated anyway - but I'm doubting tradesmen are going to change before leaving their homes, again on arrival and take a shower as soon as they get here...).

Yet BT will not allow engineers to enter my house to sort out a landline fault! 

I'm afraid the mixed messages from the Government (definition of Government - a collection of politicians usually un-governed) are at best misguided, at worst, lethal.

[geoffbeaumont]

6 minutes ago, JeffR said:

Yet BT will not allow engineers to enter my house to sort out a landline fault! 

I'm afraid the mixed messages from the Government (definition of Government - a collection of politicians usually un-governed) are at best misguided, at worst, lethal.

We had a landline fault recently that left the phone and broadband near unusable (very handy when trying to both run a business from home and home school children) - took a while to get OpenReach to look at it properly (they initially tried remote location - sent someone to look there and found nothing, so looked no further and just re-booked it), but when they did the engineer asked us to shut ourselves away while he entered the house to test the line (he did say he wasn't supposed to). After he'd located the fault and fixed it (switched us onto a different pair in the overhead cables), he did the final testing from the pole outside and then just asked us to check the fault appeared gone. So probably depends a bit on who gets sent out!

[JeffR]

1 minute ago, geoffbeaumont said:

We had a landline fault recently that left the phone and broadband near unusable (very handy when trying to both run a business from home and home school children) - took a while to get OpenReach to look at it properly (they initially tried remote location - sent someone to look there and found nothing, so looked no further and just re-booked it), but when they did the engineer asked us to shut ourselves away while he entered the house to test the line (he did say he wasn't supposed to). After he'd located the fault and fixed it (switched us onto a different pair in the overhead cables), he did the final testing from the pole outside and then just asked us to check the fault appeared gone. So probably depends a bit on who gets sent out!

The engineer was brilliant ! He did what he could through the window (whilst juggling with our 2 new kittens!) and got us to the point where we can receive incoming calls, just can't make outgoing (phone lines were installed by GPO!). Not complaining about the service just the fact that there appear to be different guidelines in different trades and that they are interpreted differently by employers.

[geoffbeaumont]

Well, most trades were barred from entering peoples homes other than for emergencies until last night. Though I'm surprised that broadband/phone issues haven't been singled out as to be considered emergency/essential work given the need for as many people as possible to work from home - and all the school kids working at home mostly via online systems too.

[JeffR]

3 minutes ago, geoffbeaumont said:

Well, most trades were barred from entering peoples homes other than for emergencies until last night. Though I'm surprised that broadband/phone issues haven't been singled out as to be considered emergency/essential work given the need for as many people as possible to work from home - and all the school kids working at home mostly via online systems too.

I am in full agreement with you on that point.  But again it illustrates the dearth of "joined up thinking" that has beset the Governments actions/inactions on this crisis

[Anderzander]

2 hours ago, missingsid said:

Mostly well behaved around here except some of the neighbours cars have gone missing for a week then returned, could be key workers but didn't think so.

Last few days a very powerful and tuned V8 has heen hammering up and down the bypass, can tell from the sound that it is the same car and going very fast!

I similarly hear a motorbike on a nearby A road ...