So How's Life In The Uk?

[SeizedBalt]

Being a tad detached from Blightey, I'm curious as to how things are right now.

 

I go back every once in a while but not enough to taste every day life.



I get mixed messages from family and friends.  Some say not much has changed and others are all doom and gloom.

 

So what's it like where you are?

[drewpy]

great where I am.

On Furlough with full pay and making the most of it

[dablik]

Wishing i was on Furlough, just waiting for a spike now..

[Robodene]

Quiet, relaxed. Country is going bankrupt, but that is for another day....

[shaftdrive]

In sunny Scotland , wearing a mask in the shops, wearing a visor at work (keeps the pig shit off my face), giving people on the pavement a wide berth, enjoying the days off zooming about Angus and Tayside on my Boardman racer , keeps the pounds off :good:

[Snowbird]

Fairly normal day, got up late with hangover, walked dog after a dump and had bacon roll afterwards, had a nice run on the bike for an hour or so, went to pub and got a wee bit pi55ed.

Been working all through so apart from not being allowed in the pub or to stop on my boat for a while it's been fairly normal, I do feel for the poor sods in flats and furloughed but I've had a pretty easy lockdown, and my manager is furloughed so we've been living it up at work as much as we can.

[leehenty]

Fairly normal, I'm retired so the furlough doesn't affect me. Other than shops being slow it's fine. Post is a bit slow.

[Studley Ramrod]

No money, no holidays, no visitors, no shopping.  So nothings changed really.

 

What's it like in Estonia then ?

[SeizedBalt]

Having a small population you really noticed the lockdown. Shopping centres closed with only the supermarkets open inside, the constant haze of disinfectant around the entrances.



When it hit I was in the process of winding down a 12 year career in order to start a new business with a friend. It had been doing well for a nascent company but we lost 80% of our business overnight in the panic.



Luckily would sound opportunistic but a relative passed away and a sum of inheritance allowed me to living wageless. It also allowed for a relatively expensive but now sorted TDM.



Business is starting to pick up again so hopefully well be on a healthy footing by autumn and I can have an income rather than a savings allowance.



Going back to Estonia as a whole, apart from all the closed shops and empty streets, it didnt feel so different. A lot more Netflix and a lot more take away!

This post was last modified: 13-07-2020, 07:07 AM by SeizedBalt.

[fixitsan]

About the same here. 10 days ago I drove from Edinburgh to Hull to see my mum before I went away with work for a few weeks.

 

By all accounts I've broken the law by doing that. No doubt there'll be some officious busy body along shortly to bitch slap me.

 

I left Edinburgh this morning and flew down to Bristol for work, masks compulsory in all parts of the airport and plane at all times....unless you feel anxious or have asthma, in which case cronyvirus knows not to go near you.

 

The big news is the number of 'new cases'.....My mum was counted as a new case while isolating three weeks ago, because she phoned her GP with some symptoms (mild ones, she's okay). Doctor confirmed over the phone that it was coronavirus, no tests needed.........makes the official figures laughable, you can self diagnose it and affect the official figures !

 

If you want a giggle, I recommend this channel...   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sr30K_x-RsQ

 

 

 

Gordon Brown, yet again, is calling for a one world government to deal with this disease, and he's nominating the UN. Matt Hancock is saying local regions will be able to make their own decisions.....or in other words, this might be used to bring about the rebirth of 'regional assemblies' idea.....if that happens then we'll know that Brexit isn't happening, as regional assemblies are an EU idea....so, nobody really knows what's going on....fancy a cuppa ?

This post was last modified: 13-07-2020, 10:56 PM by fixitsan.

[SeizedBalt]

I agree that no one really knows what's going on.

 

And in a sense, I'm ok with that. Provided that's what they tell us. After all, they're only human.



Personally, I am thoroughly fed up with politicians forever speaking with authority when they're flying by the seat of their pants.  It's ok not to know the full story.  It's OK not to know exactly what to do, but don't try pulling the wool over my eyes by telling me you know exactly what's what when you clearly don't.



I'm far more trusting of a politician who can admit when they are simply doing the best they can, instead of try to BS me.

Even more so when they actually admit they did something wrong: I have waaaay more faith in someone who knows when they screwed up as it means they realise they can learn from mistakes.

 

And please don't try to treat me like a child by not giving me the whole picture: if they tell me what they know about the situation, I can evaluate their decisions based on that.



No compulsory masks here beyond hospitals. Hand cleaner at the entrance of most stores.



One good thing is I think the world has become more aware of personal hygiene: more washed hands, fewer careless sneezes = fewer cases of the common cold.



 

This post was last modified: 14-07-2020, 07:01 AM by SeizedBalt.

[fixitsan]

One good thing is I think the world has become more aware of personal hygiene: more washed hands, fewer careless sneezes = fewer cases of the common cold.



 

 

 

That's true. This year, for the first time ever, flu season ended in week 13, normally it ends between week 18 - 22. Either social distancing ended flu early, or a lot of flu cases were counted as covid cases ? Given that you can self diagnose covid I suspect we'll never really know, and the CDC in America have confirmed that the PCR test will come back positive for people with the ordinary common cold.....

 

Just got to be thankful for what you've got, as long as what you've got isn't an illness

 

[marko67]

I agree that no one really knows what's going on.

 

And in a sense, I'm ok with that. Provided that's what they tell us. After all, they're only human.



Personally, I am thoroughly fed up with politicians forever speaking with authority when they're flying by the seat of their pants.  It's ok not to know the full story.  It's OK not to know exactly what to do, but don't try pulling the wool over my eyes by telling me you know exactly what's what when you clearly don't.



I'm far more trusting of a politician who can admit when they are simply doing the best they can, instead of try to BS me.

Even more so when they actually admit they did something wrong: I have waaaay more faith in someone who knows when they screwed up as it means they realise they can learn from mistakes.

 

And please don't try to treat me like a child by not giving me the whole picture: if they tell me what they know about the situation, I can evaluate their decisions based on that.



No compulsory masks here beyond hospitals. Hand cleaner at the entrance of most stores.



One good thing is I think the world has become more aware of personal hygiene: more washed hands, fewer careless sneezes = fewer cases of the common cold.



 

I'm in NZ and life is very much back to normal, barely see any masks but still plenty of signs and sanitiser around. The mood is generally optimistic, people are spending money and getting on with getting on.

 

Thing is we are closed to the world, the economic impact of having our largest industry - tourism - vanish due to the closed borders won't be felt for another couple of months. No doubt it will be very bleak when it does hit.

 

For more than 40 years I have never really trusted any politician regardless of what they stand for, decisions are always inherently compromised in government.

 

But, Jacinda Ardern has somehow managed to make most of the population feel that she really cares about our safety. The lockdown came in like a train and nobody really batted an eyelid, in the 2 days before Level 4 was implemented the whole nation went shopping for building and gardening supplies. I even saw a Nissan Leaf towing a trailer full of decking timber. Would love to know what it did for the battery range.

 

The communication in daily 1pm briefings became essential viewing, Aunt Cindy even answered public questions some evenings on Facebook while sat at home in her trackies covered in baby goo. I've never seen the like! My political cynicism has melted away.

 

Wage subsidies for non-essential workers were applied for on-line and in your bank account within 24 hours. It barely took 2 minutes to fill in the application. Unbelievable.

 

It would be a real surprise if she does not win the election in September, but regardless, whoever holds the reins has an unbelievably tough job ahead of them for the next year or two.

 

We ain't seen nothing yet.

[ChrisG]

I'm in the Netherlands, all the pubs opened a month ago, I think the only thing not open now is the brothels.  Masks needed on public transport but nowhere else.  Supposed to keep 1.5 meters separation and some places are good at ensuring it but some some don't seem to care at all.  Only 2 Covid deaths in the last week though so.

 

Interesting that our lockdown didn't seem be as tight as the UK, but I think the key thing was that we locked down about 10 days earlier, with less cases at the time.

 

We were on holiday last week in NL and  it was noticeable how few tourists there were about, places like Giethoorn where we were are usually rammed with japanese/chinese tourists but was nearly empty.  We live near the beach in a popular tourist town and the beach was looking a bit busier today but it's all domestic and German tourists.  

 

They only lifted the quarantine for people travelling from the UK last week so we can now go back, but not planning to until Septermber.  Hopefully there's a not a massive second wave and you're all locked down again by then.

[Snowbird]

I'm hoping our higher numbers in the uk mean we now have more immunity kicking around to ease a second wave, there has to be a second wave with lockdown easing but hopefully a gentle one and not a spike.

[fixitsan]

I'm hoping our higher numbers in the uk mean we now have more immunity kicking around to ease a second wave, there has to be a second wave with lockdown easing but hopefully a gentle one and not a spike.

 

 

The thing to remember about the situation after lockdown, is that as a result of isolating, all the other illnesses and bugs we used to spread have been kept in isolation too. Deaths will increase due to an increase in other illnesses which contribute to fatailites too, once they get back into general circulation. We need to share the virus burden it seems to me

This post was last modified: 20-07-2020, 10:50 AM by fixitsan.

[SeizedBalt]

I'm not trying to belittle the impact of the virus, nor its significance, but I can't help but compare the total cases in the UK (300K), with the UK population as a whole (67 million).

 

Admittedly, whichever way you look ta it COVID has had a far higher fatality rate than flu, but in the context of the population as a whole it's still not astronomical. 



I think it all comes down to making sure that NHS facilities were not overwhelmed. 

 

Seems like there was a cusp that the UK more or less avoided whereby, had that threshold been crossed, the deaths would have been several times higher.  And that comes with trade-offs

 

Coronary Heart Diseases kills about 50% more annually than COVID, yet people seem less willing to mitigate that risk with changes to their lifestyles, seeing as it is pretty constant year on year, as far as I can tell.

[Robodene]

It was all about not overwhelming the NHS. You are right, SeizedBalt, IMO. Outside that it is up to us as indivuals.

[Studley Ramrod]

Yeah, protect the NHS.  It was also all about being totally unprepared and winging their way through it.

[fixitsan]

I'm not trying to belittle the impact of the virus, nor its significance, but I can't help but compare the total cases in the UK (300K), with the UK population as a whole (67 million).

 

Admittedly, whichever way you look ta it COVID has had a far higher fatality rate than flu, but in the context of the population as a whole it's still not astronomical. 

 

 

 

The WHO reports through their flu-net monitoring system , that worldwide, annual seasonal flu deaths are between 290,000 - 650,000 . Covid has yet to reach that higher figure. And the flu cases are tested cases, covid deaths frequently aren't tested, as a result of directive that a certain diagnosis is not necessary.

 

In the UK, we have had as many as 64,000 seasonal flu deaths in recent years.

 

http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/commiss...96.article