Corona Virus - Stay Safe

Boris Johnson is out of intensive care and been walking around the ward for exercise.

Toilet paper is now entering our supermarkets. .... Also they are limiting the amount of people buying groceries in stores, so there are huge cues of people outside spread 2m apart.

I cannot call this a Good Friday even though it's the Easter Weekend...

I've found the sycophantic lickspittle coverage of Johnson's hospitalisation somewhat nauseating. Having had the virus and been quite unwell but thankfully avoided hospital I'm glad for everyone who recovers from it. But it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to see all the fawning over "Boris", leader of an administration that was far too slow to react effectively to the virus.

I also find it deeply hypocritical to hear him praising the NHS. He proudly voted against removing the 1% cap on payrises for nurses including the very ones who tended to him.

I have utter contempt for media coverage of what films and puzzles he's watching and playing, about I couldn't give a sh*t while nearly 1000 people a day are dying in hospitals alone, plus those dying at home and in care homes.

Quote from Backdrifter

I've found the sycophantic lickspittle coverage of Johnson's hospitalisation somewhat nauseating. Having had the virus and been quite unwell but thankfully avoided hospital I'm glad for everyone who recovers from it. But it leaves a bad taste in the mouth to see all the fawning over "Boris", leader of an administration that was far too slow to react effectively to the virus.

I also find it deeply hypocritical to hear him praising the NHS. He proudly voted against removing the 1% cap on payrises for nurses including the very ones who tended to him.

I have utter contempt for media coverage of what films and puzzles he's watching and playing, about I couldn't give a sh*t while nearly 1000 people a day are dying in hospitals alone, plus those dying at home and in care homes.

In respect to your comment. Boris wanted to hang on as long as possible. However, the Coronavirus took over and he went into intensive care.

Boris is UK's leader and I'm sure after what he's experienced that his mood has changed for the better of the unwell.

I believe UK are doing a tremendous job at the moment, isolating those effected. My Dad is 85 and very fit for his age. Luckily he has good younger friends and family to give him food when isolated under UK's guidelines.

I don't think Boris's illness is a fake and I don't want you to assume that I did.

Personally I believe, we will see a better Boris after this, your opinion is justified on your thoughts. I don't believe on one story but facts. My opinion is, Boris is real and will support UK..

Quote from Noni

In respect to your comment. Boris wanted to hang on as long as possible. However, the Coronavirus took over and he went into intensive care.

Boris is UK's leader and I'm sure after what he's experienced that his mood has changed for the better of the unwell.

I believe UK are doing a tremendous job at the moment, isolating those effected. My Dad is 85 and very fit for his age. Luckily he has good younger friends and family to give him food when isolated under UK's guidelines.

I don't think Boris's illness is a fake and I don't want you to assume that I did.

Personally I believe, we will see a better Boris after this, your opinion is justified on your thoughts. I don't believe on one story but facts. My opinion is, Boris is real and will support UK..

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First let me make clear I didn't think you were assuming his illness was faked, I never for a second thought it was.

I wish I could share your optimism we will see a somehow better Johnson after this but I don't. As far as I'm concerned he will remain the lying incompetent he always has been. I would love to be proved wrong.

There is a lot of positive attitude in the UK in terms of what communities are doing, not in terms of the government. We've just had the Health Secretary saying PPE is adequate but isn't being used properly by the NHS. There are NHS staff at the ends of their tethers, working flat out in utter despair, posting tearful videos, having to listen to this. Our utter joke of a Home Secretary babbled semi-coherently at the daily briefing yesterday, seemingly inventing her own numerical system. Okay, at least we don't have Trump pretty much wanting people to just die in order to help the economy. But we have a far from competent government, the tories who incidentally suppressed a 2016 epidemic test exercise report which was an utter train wreck.

By the way it makes my skin crawl to see him being called "Boris" like he's everyone's chum. He isn't.

Sorry to sound so grumpy but the last week's coverage by some media has made me very angry. I'm obviously not miffed at you personally, Noni so I hope I don't come across as such.

OK, now I'm a bit miffed at you.

Anyway, on to something far more worthy. I'm not a Crystal Palace FC fan but I really like this message from manager Roy Hodgson to supporters, which I saw retweeted. Very well put, I thought.

Even by Trump's standards his media briefing yesterday was jaw-dropping. Full marks to the journalists persistent enough to call him out on his lies and evasions, and to the broadcasters boldly captioning their coverage "Trump rewrites history" etc. Some UK media could learn from them.

The scary thing is there are Trumpoids hailing it as a triumph and praising him as "exposing media lies". With those fetid levels of deep stupidity, even meltdowns like yesterday aren't certain to harm him.

I believe he somehow couldn't find it in himself to express any compassion for the bereaved amid his lies and attempts at self promotion but will stand corrected if necessary.

Trump was even ready to fire his infectious disease specialist for going on CNN and stating the fact that more lives could have been saved if we had acted sooner to implement safeguards against the coronavirus. In other words, when Trump was warned of the virus and the potential number of fatalities in mid-January, he waited until mid-March to enact social distancing. We lost 2 months and an untold amount of human lives. I'm ashamed to say that I have family members who live and breathe for Trump. It's impossible for me to be able to understand the level of ignorance a person must have in order to get sucked so far up this guy's ass that decency and compassion are no longer something you can recognize. Trump has never shown compassion for the victims of this virus. His only thoughts are on promoting himself and fabricating lies that he knows his base will believe. They accept his word as truth because it came out of his mouth and he can do no wrong. I'm baffled beyond any understanding at how he has gotten away with crimes against humanity and continues to hold the highest office in our country.

As of today, I've been furloughed indefinitely due to the coronavirus and lack of work. I'm hoping to get unemployment benefits. My employer is keeping me on, but no pay until I'm brought back to work. I will still accrue vacation hours and sick pay, and they will continue to pay the employer portion of my healthcare premium, so that's a positive. Didn't think I'd be joining the ranks of the jobless, but I have my health and some savings. Stay safe everyone!

Quote from CountingOutTime

As of today, I've been furloughed indefinitely due to the coronavirus and lack of work. I'm hoping to get unemployment benefits. My employer is keeping me on, but no pay until I'm brought back to work. I will still accrue vacation hours and sick pay, and they will continue to pay the employer portion of my healthcare premium, so that's a positive. Didn't think I'd be joining the ranks of the jobless, but I have my health and some savings. Stay safe everyone!

Good luck Dave. Wishing you well

Quote from CountingOutTime

As of today, I've been furloughed indefinitely due to the coronavirus and lack of work. I'm hoping to get unemployment benefits. My employer is keeping me on, but no pay until I'm brought back to work. I will still accrue vacation hours and sick pay, and they will continue to pay the employer portion of my healthcare premium, so that's a positive. Didn't think I'd be joining the ranks of the jobless, but I have my health and some savings. Stay safe everyone!

Oh, mate. Sorry to hear this, and I admire your positive attitude. Take care.

Quote from CountingOutTime

As of today, I've been furloughed indefinitely due to the coronavirus and lack of work. I'm hoping to get unemployment benefits. My employer is keeping me on, but no pay until I'm brought back to work. I will still accrue vacation hours and sick pay, and they will continue to pay the employer portion of my healthcare premium, so that's a positive. Didn't think I'd be joining the ranks of the jobless, but I have my health and some savings. Stay safe everyone!

Sorry to hear that. Glad that they are keeping you on.

There are signs throughout the world that we could be through the worst of it so hopefully it won't be for too long

Trump has goaded thousands of people into protesting state lockdowns.

I can't believe what I'm seeing. He keeps finding new lows to scrape his way down to. He actually wants US citizens to die for the sake of the economy.

The UK government is in its own way a disgrace and Johnson is a clueless incompetent but Trump is literally unhinged. What he is doing is beyond horrifying.

I couldn't finish watching the task force meeting today. Trump is the worst thing to ever happen to the world, let alone the USA. Politicians have no place at the podium during these meetings. We should only be hearing from scientists, infectious disease specialists and physicians. Trump continues to make this about him and his Republican base. His decisions (or lack thereof) have resulted in thousands of people dying from COVID-19. Why he's not carried off in handcuffs leaves me in utter disbelief. We may not be able to vote in person in November due to social distancing, and Trump doesn't believe in mail-in voting (too easy to cheat, he says). My worry is that he won't leave the White House, even if Biden wins in a mail-in vote, because Trump will claim it was rigged. We need a miracle...

The Sunday Times, not exactly a hotbed of left-wing rebellion, has published a forensically devastating stage-by-stage piece on the UK government's shameful and literally lethal lack of action during the vital January to March period. It makes very unsettling and infuriating reading for a UK resident.

Experts were repeatedly warning of a pandemic and that a lockdown was necessary but they were ignored and not taken seriously. Meanwhile a 2016 pandemic test exercise showed the UK was unprepared for such a scenario and that the health service would likely collapse. The report was muffled and then funding for getting preparations up to speed was sucked up by preparations for a no-deal brexit.

During the key Jan-Mar 20 phase, Johnson didn't bother attending 5 top-level emergency planning meetings. He even disappeared off the radar completely for 12 days, retreating to his country home. However, still during this knife-edge period of vital planning, he did make sure he attended a Chinese New year event, and the very important Tory winter ball, at which a lucky donor paid £60,000 for the privilege of playing a game of tennis with good old lovable funny Boris. Inside sources consulted by the Sunday Times say that the perception of Johnson held by many is in their experience correct - he is lazy, uninterested in detail, and when things get difficult he hands over as much as possible to his ministers while he backs away. I have no doubt that if/when the excrement hits the fan (as it should do) he will ensure Matt Hancock is placed in the faecal firing line.

But it's revealed that during February the government did do something decisive. They sent 279,000 items of personal protective equipment for UK health-carers to, er, China. Because they asked for them. That's so nice of us, but it might possibly have contributed to the dangerous shortage of such equipment our health workers are experiencing as they scrabble around for bin liners to use instead. As they see patients and colleagues dying.

If there is any meaningful justice, if it is truly possible for right to be done, Johnson and his cabinet must be held to account for their shameful actions and for the UK deaths they have allowed to happen.

Quote from CountingOutTime

I couldn't finish watching the task force meeting today. Trump is the worst thing to ever happen to the world, let alone the USA. Politicians have no place at the podium during these meetings. We should only be hearing from scientists, infectious disease specialists and physicians. Trump continues to make this about him and his Republican base. His decisions (or lack thereof) have resulted in thousands of people dying from COVID-19. Why he's not carried off in handcuffs leaves me in utter disbelief. We may not be able to vote in person in November due to social distancing, and Trump doesn't believe in mail-in voting (too easy to cheat, he says). My worry is that he won't leave the White House, even if Biden wins in a mail-in vote, because Trump will claim it was rigged. We need a miracle...

Yeah, I don't know about lockdown - I worry the US is heading for a meltdown. Trump has always been unstable but he has now gone completely out of control. As his "liberty" rhetoric shows, he almost certainly would happily inflame extremists and whip them up into a frenzy to the point that Trumpoid militias and gun-wielding basement-dwellers who wear combat gear every day take control of communities. He'd goad that scenario into being if he thought it would help him. Because in his tiny shrieking shrivelled mind, absolutely everything is about him.

Quote from Backdrifter

Trump has goaded thousands of people into protesting state lockdowns.

I can't believe what I'm seeing. He keeps finding new lows to scrape his way down to. He actually wants US citizens to die for the sake of the economy.

The UK government is in its own way a disgrace and Johnson is a clueless incompetent but Trump is literally unhinged. What he is doing is beyond horrifying.

I'm left leaning politically. Very left leaning. However, in the state the world was in in 2016 (post 911, post bogus gulf war, post economic crash 2008) I actually understood the vote for Trump. I didn't vote for him because I'm not American but I got it.

He made good on one fear I had which was not starting a war with Iran. In every other respect he is a huge disappointment. And in this crisis his flaws are shown up for being massive massive weaknesses. He is no leader. He is the opposite of a leader. He can't make a good call. And he can't accept responsibility for making a bad call. He doesn't lead by example. He plays the blame game. He is terrible.

And if it wasn't a deadly pandemic it would all be fun and games. But it is a deadly pandemic. I believe he is indirectly responsible for the death of thousands of people.

Would anyone else have done better? Maybe. We'll never know for sure. I don't think he caused the pandemic. And hindsight is a great thing. But this BS of supporting those liberate movements? That's not leadership.