Are you worried about coronavirus?

General Chat
1938

I’m hit or miss about some of the points made there (although there’s quite a lot of info to take in). I don’t think as a government, especially when case numbers are the highest they’ve been (eg Ireland and the Uk currently), can encourage socialising outdoors, even if it’s safer than being indoors.

I think once you don’t actively discourage people from meeting up, people bend rules in all sorts of ways. If it’s so much safer to meet outdoors, why can’t we all meet up outside to have pints or have food provided we space two metres apart. Non-strict advice falls apart and falls deaf fairly quickly I think.

I need to read more on this, but even what I would expect to be somewhat clear advice sounds like it’s being pressed as much as it can for loopholes or just for comedic sake.

Mr Johnson’s official spokesman was pressed on the restrictions during a Westminster briefing this afternoon.
He was also asked whether people can consume takeaway teas or coffees in public - and said that “people are allowed to leave their homes if it’s for exercise, not socialising”.

Asked if walking outside with a takeaway tea is against the rules, the spokesman said: “Going for a walk, obviously, does count as exercise.”

The story of two people going 5 miles from their home with takeaway tea/coffee and being fined (eventually revoked) is also topical, and probably being referenced above. The fines seemed a bit excessive sure, but 5 miles ~ 8km which also seems a bit excessive to go somewhere for a walk. I can go from the centre of Dublin city nearly to the edge of the county, or from the suburbs to another county for instance (I know we’re a different country with different rules etc but still - it helps me put a scale on it).

Also the idea of “we’ll travel somewhere that might be quieter for a walk rather than somewhere close by” is probably in part why so many people ended up flooding beaches (obviously some just go because they don’t care about restrictions either).

And then Boris Johnson went for a 7 mile cycle from his home…

His health secretary later suggested this was within the rules when asked about it at a Number 10 news briefing.

And then I’m just noticing

It makes you wonder whether just iterating old facts and ideas is still reliable, if the virus is supposed to be changing, even if the person was/is a government advisor.

I’m not even sure though I could gauge the difference in distance between 2m and 3m though, say I had to guess whether two people were closer or further away than 2 or 3 metres.

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1939
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1940

It sounds much, but it really is a normal distance. I had noticed that an average person walking normally, usually takes 1 hour to do 5 kilometers. So, a distance of 8 kilometers is akin to walking for around 1 hour and 40 minutes. That is something that when you have a busy day in an urban environment you end up doing just from walking to and from bus/subway stations.

Most “leaders” have yet to understand that a leader should first and foremost provide a good example for the citizens to look up to. In their cases they should have adopted even more restrictions for themselves to provide a positive paradigm. Instead, they actually do less than the things the demand from their citizens. I am sometimes in awe by the extremely low level of leadership exhibited by people that should have known much much better.

I do not think that anyone can :stuck_out_tongue:
A practical idea is “2 meters is a radius around me, roughly about my height” and “3 meters is a distance roughly around my heigh and the heigh of the person I am talking to” … helps visualising it, on the way.

@yebellz

That was impressive. In an era where even hardcore ultras world-wide are staying home, that kind of thing really enhances my questions on “if there is really anything they can do there”.

Speaking of ultras, this was raised in a football field in Giannena (which has notoriously dedicated fans), Greece, to make fun of churches being open, while they cannot watch football, even if it is an outside environement and they could social distance:

The sign more-or-less reads:
“If we had a tithe box at the door, we would have been allowed to be here too” :upside_down_face:

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1941

No, of course people should not socialis/ze outside, they should just not be afraid to go outside, e.g. to go for a walk or running, because they won’t be infected by others as long as they don’t engage with them
And only if there’s someone you would meet anyway, it would definitely be better to meet that person outside than inside.

Our current measures (since Monday) state that you’re only allowed to meet with one other person. Allegedly, there are police controls in some public places, but I haven’t seen anything like that myself, and I have no idea how many people might breach this rule.

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1942

I had volunteered to random covid testing, and I was called in today.

A. It was supposed to be the “good” test, but it’s actually the rapid test. (Which, OK, it’s useful for metrics, but for me personally it was useless, really, since I know I haven’t been in contact with anyone. I would have liked to know if I had it at some point.). It wasn’t the most pleasant experience, but it didn’t bother me significantly either.
B. A lady steps outside and yells “Ms. X? Who’s Ms. X? Oh you, you’re negative, you can go home”. GDPR who?

But it was a nice, windy, sunny day, I got to take a walk, do my civic duty; it was a good day.

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1943

So when is the next check?

1944
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1945

If you had a choice, which vaccine would you take?

1946

By instruction my respirator should not be stored or used below (-10°C). Its (-20°C) outside.
Continuing to stay home…

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1947

Full remarks here: WHO Director-General's opening remarks at 148th session of the Executive Board

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1948

Meanwhile the discussion in Germany is centered around the feeling that the EU should have ordered a LOT more. So far none of the people saying that have said which country should have gotten less because of that. Guess they don’t bother.

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1949

Cliff notes of thought process:

"Virus is not about me.
Virus doesn’t concern our rich backyard.
Virus is a hoax.
Virus is overrated.

… But I get vaccinated first. For the virus I believe is an overrated hoax that I refuse to do anything about, because economy.

Not my money, tho, my money I want as always."

And of course Privileged run to get vaccinated first, so their selfies and PR mugs aren’t ruined by those bothersome masks anymore.

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1950

Isn’t the unofficial gossip that Germany is hoarding EU doses? Just hoarding, not even administering.

1951

As far as I know the EU strictly distributes proportionally with respect to population. I may be wrong though.

Hoarding: Well, yes, vaccines for 2nd shots are held back (at least to some degree), so everyone who got the first is guaranteed to get the 2nd in time (within the times tested for by the manufacturers). I can see that one can argue to take more risks - like the British do - is asked for atm, but tbh I like the cautious strategy.

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1952

Anyone from OGS specifically vaccinated?

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1953

That’s right, as far as I know.
Germany isn’t hoarding anything afaik, but the German countries have to wait for each new delivery so they can continue to vaccinate.

And, as @richyfourtytwo said above, there’s a discussion in Germany about calling it a failure that the EU hasn’t ordered more doses and vaccinations can’t proceed faster, but in my opinion, coordinating the buying all over the EU and trying not to drive up prices for vaccinations was just the right thing to do and the only (at least halfway) moral way to organize this.

Just think about Israel that is pursuing the opposite strategy (which I can understand because they were hit quite hard already in the first wave, but it’s still immoral) - that country bought it’s vaccine doses early and plenty, enough to vaccinate all its citizens, but they paid twice the price per dose that the EU paid. No poorer country would be able to compete with that. So, it’s kind of selfish asshole behavior, but they will have everyone (every citizen!) vaccinated - if they can get everyone to get vaccinated, that is - by March or April, and then they are hopefully rid of the whole Covid problem.
I guess, many people in other countries (definitely including many Germans :roll_eyes:) envy Israel for this strategy and don’t give a *** about poorer countries having no access to vaccines until I-don’t-know-when.

Btw, I recently read this somewhere:

If just nobody had told the Germans that by wearing masks they mostly protect others!

(And I guess you could say that about at least some other countries’ citizens…)

This whole pandemic is at least in part not just a medical crisis, but a crisis of selfishness and bad communication. :roll_eyes:

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1954

The gossip here is Germany is claiming they just get vaccines other countries declined because of storage requirements (especially the -70 degrees), but in reality it’s been receiving vaccines by a separate agreement, outside the umbrella EU agreement. I don’t know what goes, though.

And word is Israel is vaccinating everyone except Palestinians, who have difficulty securing vaccines by anywhere, since they don’t have an official authority to agree on terms. They might get the third-world countries deal, but not any time soon.

1955

Not true at all, I think…
I guess, some Greeks expect the German government to be capable of whatever awful stuff. For good reasons… I do understand that such rumors exist, but I’m sure they are not more than rumors.

Well, that’s complicated… First of all, of course Isreal is vaccinating all Israeli Arabs / Muslims just as well as every other citizen, but that’s clear, I think.
And Israel afaik is not even allowed to organize the vaccination of the Palestinians in the autonomous region and Gaza, because they don’t have the right to do so and because these regions both do have an authority of their own, and these two authorities need to organize vaccinations. That they 1. probably suck at doing so (from what I know, many inhabitants of these regions are not happy with their authorities at all…), and 2. both regions are very poor and therefore will quite certainly only get a third-countries deal, that’s the big problem. And then, when they get their doses, it might be possible that the Israeli government could make it difficult for transports to get to these regions, but I don’t think that’s very likely - unless the political situation would be especially difficult at that time.

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1956

I don’t really like that generalization.

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1957

Sorry, you’re right, of course. :flushed:
Well… probably just some Greeks, and I don’t know if it’s really “hate”, but I would understand if the German government would be evil incarnate for some people after everything that happened during the financial crisis. (And I could tell you some more things about how part of the German media helped framing this crisis in Germany, but that really doesn’t belong here.)