For mad and pointless conspiracies take a look at the 10 books in the Brentford Trilogy. the beauty of these books is that they're all true and it sort of makes sense! 

Going back to basics, what is the purpose of the military? It is surely to defend this country and its people. We have a situation where the people are under threat from a pandemic, and arguably apart from the virus, it could be said that in this case the enemy is within, due to people not obeying rules and guidance and spreading the virus. There have been reported cases of a surge in infections being attributable to events in an area. I don't think this is cleaning up someone else's mess, it's our mess and our country, and if we are ever to get out from under this pandemic, strict measures are needed, which need strict enforcement. Does the army have other more urgent roles at the moment? I doubt it.

As I have said earlier this is all down to a lack of forward planning. In 2004 the government passed the Civil Contingencies Act (note civil as opposed to military). This made the public sector as a whole

responsible for preparing for events which might affect the country as a whole. To support this process, they set up the Civil Contingencies Secretariat which drew up 36 scenarios of what might go wrong. One of which was a contagious global pandemic caused by a new respiratory disease emerging in the Far East. For a few years the government ran around getting stuff in place and then they seem to have stopped. I suspect that the bean counters turned up and said that all that prior planning and stockpiling of PPE etc was a “wasted asset” In the bit of the civil service where I  worked  we ran down the foot and mouth stockpiles and the rabies contingency stocks.

A couple of years ago(2016) the civil contingencies secretariat held Exercise Cygnus to see how we would cope with a pandemic- it was an epic fail (See https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/07/what-was-exercise-cygnus-and-what-did-it-find)

You don’t need the military running around beating up people: what you need is a measured response and that requires proper prior planning-bit like health and safety really.

Edited by user 24 September 2020 11:17:45(UTC)  | Reason: spellings

Originally Posted by: John Murray

Does the Army have other more important roles?

Well: https://www.army.mod.uk/deployments/  arguably, they do.

The history of armed-forces of the home country being deployed to control public order problems is not good....a look at "The Troubles" is in order!

Sending armed troops in, to quell a rave, is a classic example of excessive control.

A comparison to 'the troubles' is not helpful - this was a very different situation. One faction wanted NI to be part of the UK, the other factor wanted Irish independence, loosely corresponding with religious divisions for historical reasons. British troops were sent in to keep order, whereas arguably Britain had created the problems in the first place. The division of Ireland was an uncomforable compromise that didn't really address some fundamental issues.

What we have in the current case of the pandemic is a situation where sections of the Britsh public have demonstrated time after time that they lack the self-discipline and respect for others to follow the rules to control the spread of the virus. The police are struggling to cope with the situation, exacerbated by cutbacks in resources and not being given adequate enforcement powers. Whereas involving the army might not be an ideal solution, and not one we would normally contemplate, posters objecting to this have not suggested an alternative. The point about proper planning is well made, but unfortunately this didn't happen and we are where we are. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but won't help us at the moment.

Originally Posted by: John Murray

Involving the army will not control anything, it will exacerbate things.

People, and I'm one, still remember the army firing into a crowd of unarmed protestors. Many times.

Please remember that practically all young people will be unaffected by this virus, and that the "rules" make little sense, and in many cases and are even contradictory. Some say that they seem mainly designed to deflect blame, while assuring that many are still infected.

Shutting pubs at 10 is obviously going to do nothing to shorten the epidemic. Keeping children at school is obviously going to lenthen it.

Yep. Clear as mud.

As for the assertion that 'practically all young people will be unaffected by the virus, it depends on your definition of 'young people'. This usually is taken to mean young adults, and they certainly are affected by the virus - see the figures that point to 18-30 year olds representing a surge in infections. Given the behaviour of thousands of them, this is no surprise.

I do agree that the government's rules in many cases make little sense, but some rules are quite clear, usually the ones that some people choose to ignore.

Your suggestion for an alternative to bring this situation under control?

Originally Posted by: biker1

the figures that point to 18-30 year olds representing a surge in infections. Given the behaviour of thousands of them, this is no surprise.

You mean travel teh length and breadth of the country when instructed to do so by the government and authorities running universities?

My daughter is at university.  Her university mandated that all students come into residence - remote learning would only be available to those who could demonstrate it was impossible to come to the university. Her halls of residence have closed all the communal spaces except the dining hall and a single common room that can take six people.  There are no communal spaces on coridors (and the coridors are narrow like a ferry - you have to sidle past people at the best of times, and bare concrete walls/ceiling).  She has never liked parties. She (like me) is not good in noisy environments.  Her room is literally about the size of a prison cell and she has no scheduled activities outside her room. No clubs or societies are actually meeting. There have been no freshers events.  She hasn't done first-perosn social interaction than exchange a few words with someone metres away in a meal queue in weeks.  Frankly, at the moment, her life is [expletive deleted].

Meanwhile, the press, and people like you, are apparently blaming her for all the ills in the country.

And of course she is paying for the privilege.

PS what happens at Christmas if they can't come home?

Originally Posted by: A Kurdziel

PS what happens at Christmas if they can't come home?

Dunno, but as noted, that looks like internment to me.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-54278053

I am normally (overly, according to my wife) law abiding.  I think refusing to allow my daughter home at the end of what will have been a hellish miserable period of her life (it's hellish now, and to be honest breaks my heart to see the 'brave face' she puts on with calls to her mother, which of course her mother sees straight through) would be what pushes me over the edge to actual civil disobedience, violent if necesary.

Number of deaths of people who had had a positive test result for COVID-19 and died within 28 days of the first positive test. The actual cause of death may not be COVID-19 in all cases. People who died from COVID-19 but had not tested positive are not included and people who died from COVID-19 more than 28 days after their first positive test are not included. Data from the four nations are not directly comparable as methodologies and inclusion criteria vary.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/deaths

A death in someone who has tested positive becomes progressively less likely to be directly due to COVID-19 as time passes and more likely to be due to another cause.

https://publichealthmatters.blog.gov.uk/2020/08/12/behind-the-headlines-counting-covid-19-deaths/

The numbers do not add up to me

Number of deaths of people who had had a positive test result for COVID-19 and died within 28 days of the first positive test.  The actual cause of death may not be COVID-19 in all cases.  People who died from COVID-19 but had not tested positive are not included and people who died from COVID-19 more than 28 days after their first positive test are not included.  Data from the four nations are not directly comparable as methodologies and inclusion criteria vary.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/deaths

Were doomed! DOOMED!

This morning it was a radio interview where a cabinet minister could not explain the new rules closely followed by Bojo "miss-spoking" at a training centre.

If the great & the good do not understand their directions to society what chance the rest of us?

captcah SaSS

Originally Posted by: Roundtuit

This morning it was a radio interview where a cabinet minister could not explain the new rules closely followed by Bojo "miss-spoking" at a training centre.

No, no.  We've been told the rules are perfectly straightforward and simple.  People here have been saying the rules are straightforward.  You must have imagined one government minister after another getting it wrong.

Anyway, the rules don't apply to people in government, obv. (Or indeed parliament - I've been playing 'spot the social distancing breaches' on the live feed from Westminster, and actually at times they happen faster than I can hit print screen and give the picture a filename...)

I think I have missed something as I’m sure at the end of July the death total for the UK was over 44,000, however the news seems to be reporting the current total as just over 42,000. Did we suddenly find a few people we had lost?

From Google

13 Jul 2020 - UK coronavirus death toll increases by 11 to 44,830 - the lowest daily rise since mid-March 

But a search for current total gives 42,000 deaths.

Or have the Government come up with a new way of defining death?

Chris

Always watch for the small print - in this case deaths recorded within 28 days of a positive Coronavirus test.

A fine way of massaging the figures to try and make the situation seem a bit better. What about those who have died because of other causes, but did so because they couldn't get treatment for them due to the focus on COVID? Surely that is arguably COVID related, but then that would make the figures look really bad, wouldn't it?

And if you have to die within 28 days, what about those who are in hospital for weeks before they recover or die? A pathetic PR stunt on the part of the government, who are renowned for such things.

Originally Posted by: Roundtuit

Always watch for the small print - in this case deaths recorded within 28 days of a positive Coronavirus test.

I thought that adjustment happened before we got to the 44k level, perhaps not then. Thought Gov had put the counting contract out to ATOS ( the people who decided if your disability allowed you to work or not -even terminaly ill and in one instance someone dead). As long as we don't have a few thousand zombies wandering around then.

Chris

Sorry to imply they are actually counting; I was joking about ATOS for the very reason you mention. Allegedly as you say, even though I know someone whose first question of the assessment was -How did you get here? ( for your compulsory assessment, because we are nowhere near a bus route, and there is no parking outside and we are on floor 2) Allegedly!

Chris

Originally Posted by: John Murray

Originally Posted by: Holliday42333

Originally Posted by: biker1

And if you have to die within 28 days, what about those who are in hospital for weeks before they recover or die? A pathetic PR stunt on the part of the government, who are renowned for such things.

Now I certainly strugle to defend the Government on any aspect of their handling of the pandemic, but this isn't really accurate in my view. 

From the Coronavirus (Covid-19) in the UK Gov page:

I don't think there's any dispute about what the derivation of the statistics is.  I think the dispute is whether this constitutes "a pathetic PR stunt".

You need a basis for defining the statistic, and this one doesn't look any worse than any other to me.  What do those that consider it a dumb definition propose to use instead?  Anyone who dies shall be assumed to have died from coronavirus unless proven otherwise? If you want to include people who have died without testing then that's pretty much what it boils down to.  (I note it seems that about ten times as many people think they have had coronavirus than that any testing can find - every other person I speak to seems to assure me they had some sniffles back in somewhen and they reckon that was it). Assuming that everyone that dies after having had coronavirus died from it doesn't make much sense either - that makes it a 100% fatality rate disease that no-one has ever recovered from (they just haven't died yet).

To me it seems that any such statistics will only be a rough estimate. Consider the following hypothetical situation. I test positive to COVID-19 but suffer only a slight illness from which I recover quickly. Two weeks later I develop influenza leading to pneumonia from which I die within the 28 day period. Which was the cause of death - COVID-19, influenza or pneumonia. or a combination of two or more of them?  As Disraeli is supposed to have stated: "There are lies, d****d lies, and statistics". I once had a book called 'How to lie with statistics' which resulted in my viewing any statistics with considerable caution.

Comparing the number of fatalities from disease this year with last year's doesn't necessarily give us a realistic statistic unless we can eliminate the possibility of an increase number of deaths this year from other causes compared with last year distorting our results.