On a train heading into Leeds at the moment. I’m the only person wearing a mask. No guard on board (well, there is, but he’s hiding at the back).

Can’t see it working in shops, most people are incapable of following the one way system or social distancing guidelines to begin with.

It’s about 70% compliance on my train into London

Not enforced at all

Can’t see it working in shops, most people are incapable of following the one way system or social distancing guidelines to begin with.

Nationally, compliance is about 80% overall but with certain spikes of non-compliance.

Wearing it in shops may actually help because the message at the moment is incredibly confusing around stations, on public transport, in shops on stations and so on. Some consistency would help greatly with compliance.

Having worked (driven) trains through the lockdown across the north there are definitely certain areas and times when face covering compliance is better than others. Commuters seem pretty good at taking precautions. However a lot of people who wear them seem to think that once they’re on the train they can pull their face covering down away from their mouth and nose. In my opinion making them mandatory in shops will have a positive effect on overall carrying of them by the more casual travellers.

Bigger stations like Manchester Piccadilly & Leeds have a lot of staff enforcing walking routes to avoid crowding, giving out face coverings and trying to enforce the unenforceable.

Train use nationally is still between 10 and 20% of normal levels. And I suspect that in the south that figure is a bit higher than in the north. I have to travel on the train as a passenger sometimes to get from A to B while in work, and I have no problem with that at the moment. I’d refuse to get on a packed train but I’ve not had to be put in that situation yet.

Public transport is still meant to be for essential travel only. Once a train leaves a main station though, out in the wilds there is little that can be done. During the day, random groups of bored kids/adolescents off on a jolly appear every now and then knowing there’s not much revenue protection being carried out at smaller intermediate stations. A train I worked out of Blackpool at the weekend was full of the sort of people who I assume haven’t seen any news for six months. Mostly families who travelled all the way back towards Manchester. The other evening I saw the guard on my train have to tell four folks who turned up on MTBs at Hebden Bridge that, sorry, they couldn’t board. We already had two or three bikes on, the maximum allowed is two even in normal times, and every additional bike can make social distancing more difficult with people having to squeeze past others etc.

There’s been the odd incidence of people being assaulted at work, one or two spitting incidents etc., but most of the crime has actually been trespass the on the railway, usually the scourge of the Easter/summer school holidays.

At work we all feared the worst once the pubs opened but the late trains around the north seem to be generally quiet for now.

Our company is still running what can basically be compared to a Sunday service.

It’s strange because we know the whole rail industry is on life support and nobody knows how long redundancies will take if passenger numbers don’t return in the next year or so. There’s certainly nowhere near enough business to fill three Pendolinos per hour between Manchester and Euston. At the moment there is still recruitment and training going on at my firm. All the TOCs are all but nationalised (my own employer was officially taken into public hands a month before the lockdown anyway due to dire performance) but there’s no way the passenger train operating companies can revert back to their previous commercial setups, half of them were on the verge of going bust/handing the keys back anyway.

'I'm never voting Tory again' Conservative activists destroy membership cards over mandatory mask wearing https://t.co/764rFkxuqE

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) July 14, 2020

It’s strange because we know the whole rail industry is on life support and nobody knows how long redundancies will take if passenger numbers don’t return in the next year or so. There’s certainly nowhere near enough business to fill three Pendolinos per hour between Manchester and Euston. At the moment there is still recruitment and training going on at my firm. All the TOCs are all but nationalised (my own employer was officially taken into public hands a month before the lockdown anyway due to dire performance) but there’s no way the passenger train operating companies can revert back to their previous commercial setups, half of them were on the verge of going bust/handing the keys back anyway.

My train from london to MK has gone from 1000 passengers at rush hour (completely rammed, social distancing of about 5cm max) to 100 people max according to social distancing rules & they dont seem to have reached that capacity yet

cant imagine the size of the losses they are making!

Genuine LOL at the tory activists. You would think they would be tearing up membership cards in shame at the performance of this shoddy government.
Like Cummings will give shit about those useful idiots – after all who else are the going to vote for 🙂

And yet we plough on with HS2, which isn’t really about high speed rail (it won’t even be that quick) but is instead about freeing up paths (capacity) to allow more trains to run on the ‘normal’ railway which had run out of room.

So masks are not popular with some of Johnson’s base…

I did read somewhere that there’s a strong correlation between folks who don’t want wearing a mask to be compulsory, but do want to make wearing a poppy compulsory…I think it was meant as satire, but these days it’s hard to tell TBH.

We’re about to see a whole other level of stupid about wearing masks.

is instead about freeing up paths (capacity) to allow more trains to run on the ‘normal’ railway which had run out of room

It is indeed. Capacity and demand/use over the next year or so isn’t relevant though, HS2 is about future, not current, capacity. It’s way off still.

That Tory up there is fabulous. If anyone who knew him had any doubt at all in their minds that actually, underneath, he might be alright, that doubt has surely been removed now. Lol. ****

I was quite amused by Hancocks reponse to the tory mouth breather going on about a monstrous impostition over using masks for shopping

Bloomberg Article

Link above to today’s article following the Oxford vaccine. An interesting read, and definitely looking promising.

Sounds good. Fingers crossed.

I was quite amused by Hancocks reponse to the tory mouth breather going on about a monstrous impostition over using masks for shopping

Just witnessed 3 generations of a family going into the supermarket and showing some yellow lanyard when challenged about wearing a mask by security, which seemed to allow them the freedom of asda, unmansked.

Irony is the that the mother, her daughter and kids granny were morbidly obese, pretty much the target audience for that wee bugger covid.

Still, 7 days with no deaths now, we must be doing something right.

It’s all gone very quiet so I’m bumping this up the page

Rather indicative of how it’s dropped down everyone’s radar I guess.

I was quite amused by Hancocks reponse to the tory mouth breather going on about a monstrous impostition over using masks for shopping

Ah, Desmond Swayne, my MP in very safe 60-70% seat for last 20 years. He also doesn’t mind a bit of blacking up. You would wonder how the hell someone like that gets elected until you talk to people who live in the New Forest…

Rather indicative of how it’s dropped down everyone’s radar I guess.

Yup. It’ll be slipping further down the radar, until it’s up again.

Meanwhile, I expect the government will be doing an excellent job of preparing our medical resources, staff, and infrastructure for another wave.

Not.

showing some yellow lanyard when challenged about wearing a mask by security, which seemed to allow them the freedom of asda, unmansked.

Sunflowers?

If so, maybe the kids have some sort of neurodiversity, which make mask wearing difficult for them. Maybe the adults have it too.

https://hiddendisabilitiesstore.com/

its OK government are on top of the deets

Here’s Alok Sharma being outwitted by a sandwich #KayBurley pic.twitter.com/mlXIUoCET9

— Toby Earle (@TobyonTV) July 16, 2020

Utter moron, we truly live in an idiocracy

Still, 7 days with no deaths now, we must be doing something right.

That’s not right, NHS page is still showing a handful of deaths per day and that’s just in hospitals, not care homes or the wider community.

Odd source but it’s George Davey-Smith:

https://www.workersliberty.org/index.php/story/2020-07-15/socialist-epidemiologist-pandemic

That’s not right

He meant in Scotland… were it does indeed look like they’ve been doing something right.

Perhaps a different “we”.

Rather indicative of how it’s dropped down everyone’s radar I guess.

Not me. Analysis this week has thrown up a few outlier areas, but deaths are in the normal range. Probably because we have traded RTAs for COVID19, and are yet to see cancer deaths increase.

Much debate about immunity and waning antibodies. Some nice data from Pfizer and Moderna on antibody vaccine response in their trials. And the day job.

Cases and deaths look like to stabilise at about 1-200 deaths per week. And then winter is coming…

You’re not the average punter TiRed

I've had enough of Matt Hancock bringing his ukelele to interviews pic.twitter.com/wDt2zguSzN

— Darren Dutton (@Darren_Dutton) July 15, 2020

I posted a few days ago that there would be an announcement about the Oxford vacine, although i didn’t know what it would be.

How did I know…turns out my big bro is part of the team involved in its development. Didn’t realise that until my mum told me at the weekend!

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-sage-urged-govt-to-lockdown-a-week-earlier-uks-chief-scientific-adviser-says-12029956

The virus was doubling every 3.5 days prior to lockdown, so the weeks delay ignoring Sage allowed the number of infections/deaths to quadruple. Well done Boris.

Some info on why English numbers are different to the rest of U.K.

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no-one-can-ever-recover-from-covid-19-in-england-a-statistical-anomaly/

So Hancock can call an urgent inquiry when it suits him then. He wants to get the death count reviewed so that it can be lowered!

What about all the other failings?

Update in the Guardian suggests a revision in numbers might take a thousand off the total.

Although given what we now know about the longer term effects of the virus, there might be more delayed deaths due to it?

Meanwhile in the US:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/global-report-us-democrats-urged-to-skip-convention-as-covid-19-cases-surge

The US has seen about 1 million new cases in the last 20 days (no that’s not a typo).

Deaths are a lagging indicator but you can assume that around 5% of those infected will go onto to die. If there was any justice then it would only be affecting the “God’s Breathing System”, “My Body My Choice”, #NoMask nutjobs but unfortunately the virus is a bit more indiscriminate.

The US is now working as a cautionary tale for the rest of the world about easing lockdown too early and getting “back to business”.

I hope no-one is listening to Johnson’s press conference… because he’s only seeding more confusion…

You can both get back to your workplaces, and use your elderly at risk parents for childcare… because you can form a two household bubble with those grandparents… that’s what he says… but how are you forming a bubble if you’re also mixing with two lots of workmates…?

Anyway, he’s basically kicked the ball over to employers.. it’s over to them.

I’ve been shopping in the local independent shops, where signage and safety is really good.
In the butchers, there is a thick yellow line, running the length of the counter. Out of the 3 people only allowed in at one time, I’m the only one complying by standing behind it. Arrgghhh. People going the wrong way with arrows, people not social distancing and leaning over, because their shopping needs to be packed quicker.

It’s been an education in idiotship over the past few months (also selfishness and inconsideration).

Some info on why English numbers are different to the rest of U.K.

Interesting!

By this PHE definition, no one with COVID in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness. A patient who has tested positive, but successfully treated and discharged from hospital, will still be counted as a COVID death even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later.

@Bunnyhop  –  Remember the fuel crisis in 2000? The people who kept queuing to fill their tank after their daily 5 mile commute are more than likely the same arseholes causing problems in the shops, buses, etc. now

By this PHE definition, no one with COVID in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness. A patient who has tested positive, but successfully treated and discharged from hospital, will still be counted as a COVID death even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later.

If they have a heart attack/stroke a couple of months after being seriously ill with Covid, there’s a fair chance it was contributory. There are people who are struggling with the after-effects of this virus many months later.

And really, truly, does anyone really think this counting method is responsible for a sizeable chunk of the 50-150 deaths we’re getting a day?

The truth is we are down to our endemic baseline. Which is much larger than other European countries. It doesn’t look good and the government is desperate to magic it away. It’s just inconvenient that people are dying partly or wholly because of this virus even months after discharge from hospital.