Re: Lockdown
 

Finding food and stuff easy enough?

I'm cautious with some of the things that are supposedly corona related in India. Not sure if true or not but hilarious regardless.

The guard taking temperatures from about 5ft away for people leaving the train stations was one.
The pictures of people trying to get back to their home regions were both sad and head-shake-worthy.

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/british...2f701d571.jpeg

Re: Lockdown
 

Similar in Kenya - they were all queuing for a boat standing about 2m apart. The queue was miles long. Boat leaving time passed so the police decided to tear gas and beat the queue away. Classic stuff.

And this is why, to sadly quote Trump, the cure is worse than the disease. We have handed away massive amounts of civil liberties, forced people into severe economic hardship, pushed countries into long-term austerity (again), further dived the rich and poor, and setting our selves up for a total post-covid social, economic and political **** up due to what is, in a nutshell, an overreaction by weak leadership who don't want any negative postings on Instagram. Even with the current rising in cases, more people have died in car crashes this year to date than due to covid.

Millions of people will die of starvation, malnutrition, suicide, and other easily preventable diseases as a result of covid policy that will not be accounted for. That's the real human cost. Sitting on our arses in front of Netflix, working out using a video on youtube and forwarding memes isn't doing the right thing for society: that is exactly what will be killing people.

All that said - I'm quite decent at swingball now, so it's not a total loss. Struggling to get a piano delivered though.

Re: Lockdown
 

Predictions for End of UAE Enhanced restrictions?

I'm going for just after Eid... Ramadan is 23rd April. Hard lockdown is "subject to evaluation" and they can't release just before the cultural mass gatherings of Ramadan, so for me, it will be Eid, or immediately after. Unless by some miracle everyone stops dying (or at least the do the right thing and stop testing and reporting) before then.

Re: Lockdown
 

Yeah, the videos of police in India just battering people randomly are just tragic.

I'm not sure the cure is worse, I'm very sure that nobody will really know that definitively either way. I also don't think those things you suggest are easily quantifiable or properly link-able to covid. A bit like deaths that come because hospitals are over-stretched in the reverse argument.
Don't get me wrong, the economical impact is worrying, for sure. The cost of these bailouts are going to hurt for a long time, but what would the potential costs be if there was no control in place?
Quoting death figures is basically proving that what's happening is the right thing to do, limiting deaths. I find this comparison a strange thing to go with.

Yeah, probably right. Eid in late May would be a bit chaotic though wouldn't it? If we're locked down until then, people may head out in droves. Maybe there'll be some sort of easing before there. A few things reopen a little? Or maybe that's the point it starts, which would be timed similar to the Wuhan 7-8wks of lockdown I think.

Re: Lockdown
 

Peoples behavior is off the scale as well . We've had people phoning the police because someone is taking their dog for a shite out by us . Jesus man, i thought id heard it all from these woodentops over the years .

Two days in a row I've been stopped by the police during work hours , all very pleasant as i had the work documentation and a visa copy . Interestingly International City has massive restrictions around it . Looked like road blocks in and out this morning .

Re: Lockdown
 

I don't really get the issue. Get a permit, do your shit. Job done.
There's nothing to do, malls, bars, restaurants, everything is shut anyway.

Re: Lockdown
 

IC, Satwa and Al Quoz is at the top of my list for the next wave of total shutdown and cleaning. Then, if there is a God, it will be the ***** at the marina, just because.

What I hear coming out of some of the labour camps at Al Quoz isn't so great. What you have to remember is that this is where your supermarket assistant and security guard lives.

Re: Lockdown
 

The only ones in and out are the Union Co-op delivery teams so it looks like its heading that way at the moment . Hoping they road block that JBR and they can bus the fish & rice in to all the Insta nonces for a few weeks , real solidarity for the lockdown !

Re: Lockdown
 

I know that all media is Dubai-biased, but I do get the impression that the situation in Dubai seems to be worse than in other Emirates. Or is it just, like I say, media bias?

Re: Lockdown
 

AD island is very crowded - think Hamdam and all those hookers... Dubai certainly cranking it up a level though.

Re: Lockdown
 

JBR in lockdown would be great insta viewing.

Re: Lockdown
 

But it seems to me that the point that you are missing is that this "cure" is to avoid something far far worse than we are currently experiencing. It's only because of the social curbs that we have contained the epidemic in most places to current levels. The epidemiological models all indicated potential outcomes so awful that they simply had to be excluded by taking these actions and even the most bone-headed governments have fallen in line, eventually. The death and illness rates without these actions would not only have damaged the economy in a far more fundamental way than is happening now, but also would very conceivably have led to a far greater social fracture than we may currently anticipate.

Not every "younger" "healthy" person who gets the virus experiences mild symptoms; a significant proportion get very ill indeed and some die. And even the ones who are mildly ill are economically inactive for that period. The multipliers are horrific. There is an enormous difference between a 20% and 30% daily increase in cases. Fortunately, that argument seems to have been won.

Oh, and by the way, do keep that car-crash-death yardstick to measure this by and keep checking the comparison.

This article gives a fairly dispassionate, straightforward and level headed description of epidemic modelling, what it's for and how it's used. And why it may have saved us here just in time. And in future why it should make authorities take these things much more seriously much earlier in order to avoid this kind of disruption.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...-right/609271/

Re: Lockdown
 

It's not lost or missing on me. I get it.

Total annual car crash deaths : 14m
Total annual flu deaths : around 400k
Total annual malaria deaths: around 400k - mostly kids
Total Syrian war dead: around 500k - with many more driven into poverty, displacement, and unreported indirect death
Total void deaths to cause total economic (social and political just not seen yet) armageddon: 70k

Yes, covid will probably hit a million dead. This is 8% of the car crashes, and around the same as the flu and malaria combined. We don't stop the economy due to cars, flu or malaria.

Re: Lockdown
 

What would the economic cost be of banning cars?
They're deeply unpleasant stats but realistically speaking, Syrian war casualties and malaria deaths are not in London or New York or Rome. Which is probably why those cities are not panicking about comparing covid to them or worried about shutting down and ruining their economies in the short term to stop them from happening as much in the short term.

I think it's comparing apples with polar bears.

Re: Lockdown
 

The media loves to play up every young person who dies from the virus, but they are so rare that it's why they play it up. And almost all of them had existing health problems. Despite this, the virus predominately kills the elderly with existing health problems. Most elderly people do survive, which you'd think some people don't know when they shriek about how everyone's going to die. It's the elderly and sick who die. And they are going to die anyway, in matter of time. I saw a doctor comment a few weeks back that the majority of UK deaths would be people who'd have died this year one way or another.

It is a nasty virus. But life is also nasty. Every year hundreds of thousands of people die from heart disease and lung cancer, and the regular flu too. Throw in diabetes and kidney failure. There's a big overlap between the deaths from the virus and those other deaths. But we don't shut down the economy over heart disease deaths, do we? Or ban cars despite that every time you get into a car you are at risk of death.

It's rather intriguing that everyone's favourite quasi-socialist country, Sweden, is taking a let and live attitude towards the virus and if they come out no worse than most of the surrounding countries that shut down, well, we have the answer right there.