Non - Pandemic

red_house said:
You said Cargo and repatriation flights are all thats flying about....look at tomorrows scheduled arrivals board. I can still book a Turkish airlines flight from Dubai to Heathrow next monday. These airlines will operate for as long as possible if its commercially viable.
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24. mar. 2020 - During this time, vital cargo and emergency evacuation flights will operate, however all other flights will come to a temporary halt and our two airports – Dubai International (DXB) and Dubai World Central (DWC) – will be closed to the travelling public until further notice.
 
red_house said:
Well there are 'emergency flights' on sale right now on skyscanner... ..hardly an evacuation when opened to the highest bidder...

https://www.skyscanner.net/transpor...abled=false&inboundaltsenabled=false&ref=home

Singapore airlines still flying into Heathrow from Singapore from £886 a pot

I guess this is Heathrow operating at 10%...still a hell of a lot of arrivals

https://www.heathrow.com/arrivals
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The arrivals board is slightly misleading as code share flights are shown as separate flights. ie there’s only 1 arrival from Sydney at 5:05 rather than 2.

But yeah it’s still a lot of flights and these will be large long haul jets with potentially hundreds of passengers each
 
Tinpot Club said:
The arrivals board is slightly misleading as code share flights are shown as separate flights. ie there’s only 1 arrival from Sydney at 5:05 rather than 2.

But yeah it’s still a lot of flights and these will be large long haul jets with potentially hundreds of passengers each
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Since 19:10. tonight, 7 flights have landed. Last one was the 21:50 from Glasgow
 
Toronto John said:
@SlowDownDerek posted this comment in the Brexit thread, and it really got me to thinking ..........

"The push back against restrictions on liberty and damage to the economy have come from across the political spectrum from what I can see".

To the extent that most people are trying to comply with the restrictions, I am starting to get a sense that the politicos everywhere are falling into a herd mentality. Each one from Mr. Trump to our local mayor seems to want to be seen as the "man who saves thousands of lives". Now, saving lives is certainly a high priority, notwithstanding that today's children and their children will be paying in huge tax increases as the same governments stretch to reduce the deficits that they are creating. Meanwhile, individuals face short-term economic pain, mental distress, and all the inconveniences that we are seeing. I saw one projection that suicides and increases in drug use may result. OK, fair enough, this is something like we have never seen. But ...............

If saving lives were their #1 priority, would they ban all smoking? Would save thousands of lives. How about a ban on all sugar? Would reduce obesity and heart attacks and diabetes. Homelessness. Drug abuse ........ the list goes on and on. So if these liberties were taken away, would citizens let it happen?

I'm not sure what point I am exactly trying to make ...... but for whatever reason I get the sense that I am somehow getting played??

Second, a small anecdote ....... The wife decided that we should move up to the cottage for a bit. Social distancing in a way, we go from overcrowded Toronto to a smallish town of about 40,000 people, open spaces, etc. So we took the cats up there a few days ago, and settled in. When we went up, it was about F40 degrees and raining. The highway was as uncrowded as I have ever seen .... really remarkable. I came back to Toronto today to do some work around the house that is best done without the cats underfoot. F50 degrees and sunny. There were at least triple the number of cars on the road. This suggests to me that as the weather gets nicer, the government has to relax at least some of the restrictions, because people are going to give them the :finger:

Finally, per the "pay cut" thread, I am already of a mind that restrictions on small shops have to go. For example, I buy my Keurig coffee from a guy who has a shop that is less than 1000 sf. Father owns it, son and daughter run it - Russian folks. I go there every week, and have never seen more than 2 customers in there at a time. Why the f*** should he be closed down. He is exactly the type of person who needs to keep it going to make ends meet. There are many such examples on the "pay cut" thread. Governments have taken a sledge hammer to this, which may have been necessary at the outset. But they have to now get surgical on closures.

Anyway, I think I'm ranting ............. :sorry:
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The costs of all this is certainly much wider than the impacts on the economy and will have health impacts of it's own.

I caught a bit of Trump's press conference last night and interestingly he said something along the lines of "if we did nothing over 2m people would die and they'd be dieing all over the place, on your airplane, bus wherever and I done think we could cope with that."

I think that is quite telling. It's not about saving the people who might die it's about the people that live and vote after this is done. There's plenty of studies that suggest a good percentage of those that are dieing would have a high chance of dieing anyway this year. The politicians are worried about the scale of death in such a short period and the impact it would have on people. No politician would stand a chance of election if all yearly deaths were suddenly concentrated in little over a month and death was everywhere.

I personally don't think these world leaders would do anything like these measures to save these lives if they were spread out over a more palatable period for voters. As you say they could do that with smoking etc. as it is.

I also don't think they would change their policies if there was proof that these economic shutdowns would indirectly lead to a greater loss of life over an extended period. Austerity already did that here yet it wasn't so in-yer-face so they could get away with it.

In fairness to the politicians though, there's no easy answers.
 
Toronto John said:
@SlowDownDerek posted this comment in the Brexit thread, and it really got me to thinking ..........

"The push back against restrictions on liberty and damage to the economy have come from across the political spectrum from what I can see".

To the extent that most people are trying to comply with the restrictions, I am starting to get a sense that the politicos everywhere are falling into a herd mentality. Each one from Mr. Trump to our local mayor seems to want to be seen as the "man who saves thousands of lives". Now, saving lives is certainly a high priority, notwithstanding that today's children and their children will be paying in huge tax increases as the same governments stretch to reduce the deficits that they are creating. Meanwhile, individuals face short-term economic pain, mental distress, and all the inconveniences that we are seeing. I saw one projection that suicides and increases in drug use may result. OK, fair enough, this is something like we have never seen. But ...............

If saving lives were their #1 priority, would they ban all smoking? Would save thousands of lives. How about a ban on all sugar? Would reduce obesity and heart attacks and diabetes. Homelessness. Drug abuse ........ the list goes on and on. So if these liberties were taken away, would citizens let it happen?

I'm not sure what point I am exactly trying to make ...... but for whatever reason I get the sense that I am somehow getting played??

Second, a small anecdote ....... The wife decided that we should move up to the cottage for a bit. Social distancing in a way, we go from overcrowded Toronto to a smallish town of about 40,000 people, open spaces, etc. So we took the cats up there a few days ago, and settled in. When we went up, it was about F40 degrees and raining. The highway was as uncrowded as I have ever seen .... really remarkable. I came back to Toronto today to do some work around the house that is best done without the cats underfoot. F50 degrees and sunny. There were at least triple the number of cars on the road. This suggests to me that as the weather gets nicer, the government has to relax at least some of the restrictions, because people are going to give them the :finger:

Finally, per the "pay cut" thread, I am already of a mind that restrictions on small shops have to go. For example, I buy my Keurig coffee from a guy who has a shop that is less than 1000 sf. Father owns it, son and daughter run it - Russian folks. I go there every week, and have never seen more than 2 customers in there at a time. Why the f*** should he be closed down. He is exactly the type of person who needs to keep it going to make ends meet. There are many such examples on the "pay cut" thread. Governments have taken a sledge hammer to this, which may have been necessary at the outset. But they have to now get surgical on closures.

Anyway, I think I'm ranting ............. :sorry:
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This just made me think:

The bank bailout in 2008 cost the government £675bn.

The money pledged to support people and businesses in the wake of covid is £478bn.
 
This Government is doing a lot of talking in a bid to convince that they are in control of the situation....but its frighteningly obvious that they lack coordination with the services/suppliers of equipment needed at the front line.
Christ knows what is going on behind the doors of Numbers 10 and 11.
Its getting scary now.....and seeing how the Pillock over the Pond is talking....about New York...me and the missus were almost dumbstruck and shaking with tearful rage listening to the cnut...its all too obvious that he is, like our lot, concerned only for the Economy - how it will affect THEM and Voting at any future Elections.

We've had good lives but hope to carry on a bit longer......but I fear now for our descendants ...with these people ' leading' the battle!..
But....we have faith in the.Scientists and Medics so hopefully they will win through with their efforts despite the lack of good leadership from those who should be giving it.
I think I'm right in saying that in WW2 that things improved with the organisation as it progressed to the latter stages.
 
I thought this article was very informative in understanding the death toll: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51979654

The key take away is that perhaps two thirds of the people who are currently dying in hospital infected with the virus would have died anyway in the next few months and years. But the lockdown was needed to stop all those deaths being concentrated into a short space of time overwhelming the NHS.

When you talk about death rates etc it is easy to forget that each death is a tragedy and loss. May every poor soul who has lost their life rest in peace.
 
Brian Hutchings said:
This Government is doing a lot of talking in a bid to convince that they are in control of the situation....but its frighteningly obvious that they lack coordination with the services/suppliers of equipment needed at the front line.
Christ knows what is going on behind the doors of Numbers 10 and 11.
Its getting scary now.....and seeing how the Pillock over the Pond is talking....about New York...me and the missus were almost dumbstruck and shaking with tearful rage listening to the cnut...its all too obvious that he is, like our lot, concerned only for the Economy - how it will affect THEM and Voting at any future Elections.

We've had good lives but hope to carry on a bit longer......but I fear now for our descendants ...with these people ' leading' the battle!..
But....we have faith in the.Scientists and Medics so hopefully they will win through with their efforts despite the lack of good leadership from those who should be giving it.
I think I'm right in saying that in WW2 that things improved with the organisation as it progressed to the latter stages.
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The only way things got better in WW2 was due to the total stupidity of Germany declaring War on both the USA and USSR and then having to fight the war on two fronts. Unfortunately, in the later stages of the war we were bombarded by V1 and V2 which was totally unpleasant and brought many fatalities in London and elsewhere.
 
The usual pathetic trying to claim credit by the media for a change in government policy/action is so tiresome.

Aren't there more important things right now than their usual games of petty one-upmanship?
 
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