Covid 19 worries !

Fivetones

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Please be careful where you get your information. Random youtubers are not necessarily the best place. Particularly when they don’t list their credentials for dealing with such contentious subjects on their channel(s). Clickbaiting isn’t necessarily the driver for good solid information.
 

Fivetones

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A bit better Steve. At least you can see his credentials. Information is out of date in a day or two so this video and it’s accompanying article are now out of date.

 

Zimmerframe

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They'd shut all the village post offices here. Which seemed a bit daft as that meant you had to goto a large town and mingle more with the potentially infected masses if you needed the post office (A lot of people use the post office as a bank and cheques are, amazingly, still the normal payment method much of the time in France). Most banks are closed, so unless you can do what you want on-line, you're out of luck there too ..

Tomorrow, they plan to close the rest of the post offices and are apparently halting postal deliveries..

Things are a bit unbalanced at the moment as I'm sure it is everywhere one way or another. Most self employed can't work so you have no money, you're limited on what you can do to pay money in. You can't get deliveries. You still have to pay all your bills and you have to goto shops to get food (and mingle) assuming you have any money.

You can't go out on your bike in the forest on your own. But, you can go to a station and go on a train with the masses. You can't ride you're bike alone, but you can goto work with several hundred people and no safety measures if you work for a large company. I know that sounds very selfish and just bike related, but it's more an example of things not being in place to make this work properly.

Meanwhile, I've got some neighbours who had a friend come from a city to stay there a few days, who has now gone back. He could have stayed rather than moving around unnecessarily and he has flu symptoms. Then they went to the airport to pick up someone else who's flown in from Holland after flying all over the world for the last three months (air crew) mainly in asia. So his actions could potentially infect all the friends he saw in holland before he came over, people in the airport, people in the bug can, people at the next airport and now the neighbours. Then they'll be over to infect us when he wants his chainsaw fixing in 2 days time.

Can't go out on my bike on my own though ... :p;)
 

Fivetones

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One of the points raised, quite rightly, by @b45her was the economic implications of this. Whilst I disagree that C-19 is being overhyped (we will have a tsunami of cases over the next few weeks in the UK) there’s pressure on the government to swiftly support business and specifically individuals to get through economically. One measure is UBI - something many see as a progressive measure a forward thinking measure for a progressive society, made all the more important by this crisis.

Letters: Why over 500 academics have called for universal basic income in the fight against coronavirus
 

Mikerb

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May 16, 2019
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Please be careful where you get your information. Random youtubers are not necessarily the best place. Particularly when they don’t list their credentials for dealing with such contentious subjects on their channel(s). Clickbaiting isn’t necessarily the driver for good solid information.
The same could be said for any of the media none of whom have any specific expertise and only call on so called experts that suit their political bias. In the UK the gov.uk website provides the statistics updated daily and the PM does televised daily briefings so no need to read fleet street rags to know what is happening. I am quite happy to read some of the excellent statistical analysis being supplied on YT like Steve quoted. Meanwhile I am disgusted by some of the usual bile being spewed by the Guardian and others. It helps no one but that seems to be the intention.
 

Mikerb

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One of the points raised, quite rightly, by @b45her was the economic implications of this. Whilst I disagree that C-19 is being overhyped (we will have a tsunami of cases over the next few weeks in the UK) there’s pressure on the government to swiftly support business and specifically individuals to get through economically. One measure is UBI - something many see as a progressive measure a forward thinking measure for a progressive society, made all the more important by this crisis.

Letters: Why over 500 academics have called for universal basic income in the fight against coronavirus
As usual the independent and a bunch of academics push for their socialist agenda. Why not just wait for the already planned announcement by the Chancellor on the govt plans to support individuals as a supplement to the packages already announced in the budget to support business. The Govt has the responsibity not a bunch of academics that have no experiencd of the workllace outside of Educational institutions.
 

Mikerb

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They'd shut all the village post offices here. Which seemed a bit daft as that meant you had to goto a large town and mingle more with the potentially infected masses if you needed the post office (A lot of people use the post office as a bank and cheques are, amazingly, still the normal payment method much of the time in France). Most banks are closed, so unless you can do what you want on-line, you're out of luck there too ..

Tomorrow, they plan to close the rest of the post offices and are apparently halting postal deliveries..

Things are a bit unbalanced at the moment as I'm sure it is everywhere one way or another. Most self employed can't work so you have no money, you're limited on what you can do to pay money in. You can't get deliveries. You still have to pay all your bills and you have to goto shops to get food (and mingle) assuming you have any money.

You can't go out on your bike in the forest on your own. But, you can go to a station and go on a train with the masses. You can't ride you're bike alone, but you can goto work with several hundred people and no safety measures if you work for a large company. I know that sounds very selfish and just bike related, but it's more an example of things not being in place to make this work properly.

Meanwhile, I've got some neighbours who had a friend come from a city to stay there a few days, who has now gone back. He could have stayed rather than moving around unnecessarily and he has flu symptoms. Then they went to the airport to pick up someone else who's flown in from Holland after flying all over the world for the last three months (air crew) mainly in asia. So his actions could potentially infect all the friends he saw in holland before he came over, people in the airport, people in the bug can, people at the next airport and now the neighbours. Then they'll be over to infect us when he wants his chainsaw fixing in 2 days time.

Can't go out on my bike on my own though ... :p;)
I have not seen many details of the restrictions in France.....are you saying you are not allowed out except to shop or go to the bank?
 

Fivetones

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Feb 11, 2019
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If you think UBI is just limited to caring and progressive politics you should do some research. The concept is embraced across the political spectrum.

Many of the academics involved are experts in their field or do you not care for their views either? Who do you think our government will, and is thankfully relying on to guide their decision making? Or you do prefer a random YouTuber you nothing about or in the case of the Khan link, a guy with an MBA and a couple of MScs?

@Mikerb you might not like the centre-left view in the Guardian broadsheet but it certainly can’t be described as having any quality that resembles ‘bile’.
 

Zimmerframe

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I have not seen many details of the restrictions in France.....are you saying you are not allowed out except to shop or go to the bank?
You can go and and shop for essentials. Walk the dog. Buy medicines. Go out to help someone who needs help and travel to work if it's necessary and unavoidable. Other than that. Stay home. There are road blocks and checks.
 

Mikerb

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If you think UBI is just limited to caring and progressive politics you should do some research. The concept is embraced across the political spectrum.

Many of the academics involved are experts in their field or do you not care for their views either? Who do you think our government will, and is thankfully relying on to guide their decision making? Or you do prefer a random YouTuber you nothing about or in the case of the Khan link, a guy with an MBA and a couple of MScs?

@Mikerb you might not like the centre-left view in the Guardian broadsheet but it certainly can’t be described as having any quality that resembles ‘bile’.
No I do not need to research thanks. Re the Guardian if you think articles like the one in yesterdays edition headlined Boris the Clown doing little other that aiming personal attacks on the PM is anything other than pathetic political grandstanding then explain shy any newspaper would think it appropriate given current circumstances.
This country already has a comprehensive benefits system and it is neither practical nor desirable to implement anything other than interim measures to support the self employed or workers that lose their jobs. Fortunately we have a Conservative govt that understands that.
 

Mikerb

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You can go and and shop for essentials. Walk the dog. Buy medicines. Go out to help someone who needs help and travel to work if it's necessary and unavoidable. Other than that. Stay home. There are road blocks and checks.
Wow....I would that is incredibly difficult to enforce or sustain. Do you have much land? If you have maybe you could build yourself a ramp or a hopometer and spend time practising your jumps and bunny hops.
 

Fivetones

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Look up socialism...or more accurately marxism.

I’m afraid the two aren’t synonymous.

I take your point about political agendas and I’m not trying to push hard on that and when I do post anything it isn’t extreme ideology and it’s clear the publication, where it has an agenda, is not radical but mainstream.

I’m open minded to ideas, I’m a technologist by profession and consideration of new ideas is what I enjoy professionally and personally. Also I’m not a member of any political party. I’m very happy to see any ideas you might post and discuss those too. I can’t promise to agree but I’m not suggesting you should agree with me either. You are free to ignore.

Re the Guardian if you think articles like the one in yesterdays edition headlined Boris the Clown doing little other that aiming personal attacks on the PM is anything other than pathetic political grandstanding then explain shy any newspaper would think it appropriate given current circumstances.

I did not post that. In any case it doesn’t matter what flavour of government we have, blind unquestioning belief in any leader is not how a democratic and representative political system works. I’m not saying personal attacks are fine however but I am not representing the Guardian.

This country already has a comprehensive benefits system and it is neither practical nor desirable to implement anything other than interim measures to support the self employed or workers that lose their jobs. Fortunately we have a Conservative govt that understands that.

I’m afraid we’re on a war footing. ‘Conventional’ economic wisdom has already been thrown away in a desperate attempt to stop economic and societal collapse. Post war thinking is how the welfare state and the NHS was founded. We can discuss ideas of other ways in which we might recover from this if you like?
 

Zimmerframe

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Wow....I would that is incredibly difficult to enforce or sustain. Do you have much land? If you have maybe you could build yourself a ramp or a hopometer and spend time practising your jumps and bunny hops.

It could be, but if they want to limit spread, we can try. It's effectiveness will depend a lot on the people though. My neighbour whom I mentioned earlier, has messaged to say he thought he'd better message first as he was going to come round to say hi as he thinks everything is fine. He's a prime candidate to spread, so I hoped would be more responsible. He's not following any rules on travel or on social distancing and doesn't see the virus as a problem, so he's here on holiday for 10 days. Such is life. It makes the sacrifices of everyone else pointless, sadly.

For here .. Only 2 hectares of front garden, so space to do something, but I'll have to argue with the horse boss - I do plan to do some practice in the sand arena though. Advanced stupidity can be applied with a reduced chance of injury. My normal playground is 4000 hectares and whilst it's on the door step and most of it is privately owned, it's still publicly used, so it's a fine line on riding there or not, so for now until any rules change, not.

There is a little plot of about 6 hectares behind the house which has just been felled which is prime for some trails. This is private and I'm the only person who's gone on there in the last 50 years. I surveyed it a couple of weeks ago for trails but didn't bother starting to build anything as I couldn't find any easy way for normal bikes to get back up. If it's only going to be emtb, then that's different :)

My "start spot" of the one run I did survey.
start.jpg

First turns can drop through here :
first turns.jpg

And plod off through here into the next section of rocks:
and down.jpg


So it's not all doom and gloom ! :)
 

Zimmerframe

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Back from shopping.. and some updates on what you might expect if they start anything similar in the UK.

They're getting on top of keeping the shops stocked up, so didn't see any panic buying. I think it's been said before that in Italy they had this problem until people saw the shops were still stocked.

Some people with masks, nearly everyone with gloves and quite a few people using antiseptic wipes to clean themselves and their faces when they got back to cars.

Fuel stations all stocked and no problem getting gas bottles from the automatic exchange (most gas in rural France is gas bottles).

The Pharmacy had strict measures to respect 1m distance and no more than 3 people in the shop at one time. The pharmacists were masked and would not touch anything had, like credit cards etc. So were being careful to avoid any risk of spreading anything.

Anyone not complying to the rules were being executed by the Gendarmes on the roadside. They were organised and had a truck for bodies and a car transporter to remove peoples vehicles.

For today's quiz ... one of the above paragraphs is not true ...
 

B1rdie

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Feb 14, 2019
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Over here, people are being prohibited to get to the beaches, they must then take a superb overcrowded subway and go back home.
If anyone is crazy enough to try to ride a bike to a beach, well .... cars are supposed to throw them over the roadside.
 

Mikerb

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May 16, 2019
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It could be, but if they want to limit spread, we can try. It's effectiveness will depend a lot on the people though. My neighbour whom I mentioned earlier, has messaged to say he thought he'd better message first as he was going to come round to say hi as he thinks everything is fine. He's a prime candidate to spread, so I hoped would be more responsible. He's not following any rules on travel or on social distancing and doesn't see the virus as a problem, so he's here on holiday for 10 days. Such is life. It makes the sacrifices of everyone else pointless, sadly.

For here .. Only 2 hectares of front garden, so space to do something, but I'll have to argue with the horse boss - I do plan to do some practice in the sand arena though. Advanced stupidity can be applied with a reduced chance of injury. My normal playground is 4000 hectares and whilst it's on the door step and most of it is privately owned, it's still publicly used, so it's a fine line on riding there or not, so for now until any rules change, not.

There is a little plot of about 6 hectares behind the house which has just been felled which is prime for some trails. This is private and I'm the only person who's gone on there in the last 50 years. I surveyed it a couple of weeks ago for trails but didn't bother starting to build anything as I couldn't find any easy way for normal bikes to get back up. If it's only going to be emtb, then that's different :)
Just tell your mate you are self isolating so no visits. You have it made with that bit of land. Get the spade out...hours of fun.
My "start spot" of the one run I did survey.
View attachment 27606
First turns can drop through here :
View attachment 27607
And plod off through here into the next section of rocks:
View attachment 27608

So it's not all doom and gloom ! :)
 

R120

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Apr 13, 2018
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Surrey

We have just seen the shut down of our last running building site today, that's 8 closed down over the course of the week, all in Central London - it just not practical, or responsible to keep them going. Economic repercussions yet to be worked out, but amongst the contractors we work with a lot of people will have lost their livelihoods this week.

Most of our work in in Chelsea and Knighstbridge, and its like a ghost town there, so many of the residents have left the area that the only people left are the staff keeping the houses running.
 

billwarwick

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Oct 1, 2018
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warwick
Back from shopping.. and some updates on what you might expect if they start anything similar in the UK.

They're getting on top of keeping the shops stocked up, so didn't see any panic buying. I think it's been said before that in Italy they had this problem until people saw the shops were still stocked.

Some people with masks, nearly everyone with gloves and quite a few people using antiseptic wipes to clean themselves and their faces when they got back to cars.

Fuel stations all stocked and no problem getting gas bottles from the automatic exchange (most gas in rural France is gas bottles).

The Pharmacy had strict measures to respect 1m distance and no more than 3 people in the shop at one time. The pharmacists were masked and would not touch anything had, like credit cards etc. So were being careful to avoid any risk of spreading anything.

Anyone not complying to the rules were being executed by the Gendarmes on the roadside. They were organised and had a truck for bodies and a car transporter to remove peoples vehicles.

For today's quiz ... one of the above paragraphs is not true ...
Was it the paragraph about the pharmacy??
 

Mikerb

E*POWAH Elite World Champion
May 16, 2019
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Damned left-wing, commie rag! :whistle:

[Edit: "rag" is English slang for a newspaper. Thought I'd better make that clear. Especially as the DM is to the left of The Morning Star]
In fact the entire piece was wholly a chronicle of one woman's self confessed folly and her account of the price she paid. Very brave of her and probably an eye opener for many others. No one has ever said younger people cannot contract this virus and suffer badly from it: merely that a severe reaction is less likely if you are younger and healthy and there is a higher chance of recovery. She explained how her complete family took a holiday in Poland and she continued attending the gym. Both high risk activities. Good on her for being prepared to admit to her lack of care and I hope many others learn from it.
 

GrahamPaul

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Nov 6, 2019
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In fact the entire piece was wholly a chronicle of one woman's self confessed folly and her account of the price she paid. Very brave of her and probably an eye opener for many others. No one has ever said younger people cannot contract this virus and suffer badly from it: merely that a severe reaction is less likely if you are younger and healthy and there is a higher chance of recovery. She explained how her complete family took a holiday in Poland and she continued attending the gym. Both high risk activities. Good on her for being prepared to admit to her lack of care and I hope many others learn from it.

And did you read the BTL comments? All the writers claiming it was fake and that she was never in intensive care?

The largest number of downvotes is for the person wishing her a speedy recovery (3341 when I checked a moment ago).

I guess this must be from the same folk that claim that the Y2K bug was fake because nothing happened. Let's hope they'll be able to make the same claims this time around.
 

#lazy

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Oct 1, 2019
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Surrey
I see there’s good help for businesses and employees but shit all for the self employed and soul traders yet ! Edit in the UK
 
Last edited:

Zimmerframe

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I see there’s good help for businesses and employees but shit all for the self employed and soul traders yet !

Same here in France. Though in fairness people who trade in soul's shouldn't really be taken seriously anyway, not to mention that with the present situation there's going to be too many floating about so their business model's screwed anyway.
 

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