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[Vector]

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Essentially, it's an erasure of "duty of care." Like the "no obligation to make a cake for a gay wedding" or "no requirement to offer an abortion if you feel it is against your religious beliefs" thing. No obligation to screen your trans patient for heart disease.

Generally the norm is "if you have money & a problem they are supposed to treat you." Now we have another axis on which it is legal to deny care.

[Starver]

Some of the London local councils, including Greenwich (yes, as in Mean Time), wanted/planned to send its schools into 'online' learning mode in the lead-up to Christmas. The government overruled them (I think threatened legal action) and the decision was reversed. Another such local council said it was thinking of it, even as the former withdrew, but I think nowhere

And then raised (all of?) London to Tier 3 (highest English restrictions) insofar as general retail/etc. And now there are, I think, government plans to get get English schools to split-shift online/attendence schooling in the new year - but I'm not sure where that stands as obviously they're all over the place and what I heard yesterday, or even this morning, may now be out of date.

(Could I plan it better? Maybe not. But I would be hard pressed not to look so wobbly while trying to. Even though I often claim that I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.)

[MonkeyHead]

Some of the London local councils, including Greenwich (yes, as in Mean Time), wanted/planned to send its schools into 'online' learning mode in the lead-up to Christmas. The government overruled them (I think threatened legal action) and the decision was reversed. Another such local council said it was thinking of it, even as the former withdrew, but I think nowhere

And then raised (all of?) London to Tier 3 (highest English restrictions) insofar as general retail/etc. And now there are, I think, government plans to get get English schools to split-shift online/attendence schooling in the new year - but I'm not sure where that stands as obviously they're all over the place and what I heard yesterday, or even this morning, may now be out of date.

(Could I plan it better? Maybe not. But I would be hard pressed not to look so wobbly while trying to. Even though I often claim that I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.)

Don't forget the last minute announcement that teaching staff in UK schools are going to be expected to administer mass lateral flow testing to identify asymptomatic spreaders (alongside actually, you know, teaching), starting in the new year.

[Starver]

Which is a good thing to get done[1], if only for the data, but is going to stress the system. And then when every pupil who tests positive is told to stay at home for 14 10 days (and by association, their entire cohabittees) I can see entire schools phasing in and out of operation.


[1] So long as Dido isn't involved...

[Iduno]

https://twitter.com/jaboukie/status/1340116664977928198

They had to know how that doctor looks, right? Even amateur photographers know not to take pictures with things behind people, and white flags aren't exactly common.

Isn't it legal to deny medical care to anyone in the US unless it's an emergency?

The opposite. Hospitals aren't required to do anything unless it's an emergency. Poor people often get thrown out as soon as they're no longer categorized as dying.

[Caz]

The opposite. Hospitals aren't required to do anything unless it's an emergency. Poor people often get thrown out as soon as they're no longer categorized as dying.

America terrifies me. I heard recent story of some guy who died because he couldn't afford insulin.

[Frumple]

The opposite. Hospitals aren't required to do anything unless it's an emergency. Poor people often get thrown out as soon as they're no longer categorized as dying.

America terrifies me. I heard recent story of some guy who died because he couldn't afford insulin.

It happens a fairly noticeable amount, aye. Insulin is wildly marked up in the US, by and large, so if whatever reason you don't have insurance and can't afford however much monthly the insulin costs (which can easily be three digits), and well... rip.

[Caz]

The opposite. Hospitals aren't required to do anything unless it's an emergency. Poor people often get thrown out as soon as they're no longer categorized as dying.

America terrifies me. I heard recent story of some guy who died because he couldn't afford insulin.

It happens a fairly noticeable amount, aye. Insulin is wildly marked up in the US, by and large, so if whatever reason you don't have insurance and can't afford however much monthly the insulin costs (which can easily be three digits), and well... rip.

Here insulin is the wild price of 'free'... and our government still spends less $ per capita on public healthcare than the USA... :X

[Starver]

Spoiler: US Healthcare 'experience' (click to show/hide)

Hard to confirm or deny it, but I was once in a good old texty-chatroomy-type thing (could have been IRC, an in-game chat on a MUD, anything I would have been using at the time - can't now actually recall what context it was) where one of the participants was saying as how his nose wouldn't stop bleeding, and everyone was trying to pursuade him to go to A&E/whatever, but he wasn't keen because of the costs of doing so. There wasn't much we could do, even to try to attempt to localise him in any way and he (maybe 'he'?) quit 'normally' rather than go idle, so I always rather hope the problem was sorted (or sorted itself) in a good way.

(Yes, there's even a possibility it was trolling, or whatever the term would be at the time, but it wasn't as much a 'cry for help' so it wasn't really a very thorough trolling, just something that worryingly bemused us, probably lacking any other 'Merkins on at a more Europe-friendly time to while away some chat time while the US was mostly at work and we in the time of the evening leisure-/pleasure-seekers of the moment. I've thought a lot about it, and probably introduced a lot of internal details in the repetition of that pondering that now merge indivisibly into the original memory. But even if it wasn't genuine, or quite as it appeared, it holds up that it at least is based upon the fact that the US system overly discourages 'casual' use, intruding firmly into real medical emergency territory. And the system will probably have improved, by now, but nowhere near as much as it should/could have, from all accounts.)

Oh, yeah, anyway, no-one has mentioned that Boris Johnson invented a Tier 4 Lockdown (not sure how it compares to the Scottish one, but I bet it's different[1], 'cos Boris) for all of London and a large part of the surrounding South-East/almost-South-East (and Peterborough, apparently, up into the English midlands), which effectively "cancels their Christmas".  No meeting of more than one person outside. No household mixing. No Christmas 'relaxation'. (Which has been unrelaxed even for the other English version of Tiers from five days across Christmas down to a single one of up to ?three? households co-bubbling in one or other of their houses.)

Charitably, perhaps the reason that as recently as the middle of the week he was saying "We're relaxing the rules around Christmas, but expect you to be sensible about it" is that he knew he'd have to react like this to the Covid-19-FFS (now apparently 70ish% more transmissable!) but if he announced restrictions to be applied to the traditional "a week on Thursday" he'd have everyone trying to beat the barricades and jam the stations. This way he has slammed it down


But I think he's just making it up as he goes along, and realised that today's decision couldn't be done a Week On Thursday, because that'd now be New Year's Eve and the Christmas mixing would go ahead even more intensely.


Scotland's not even using any of its previously-defined Tier 4 restrictions anywhere right now, I think, and the Scottish Borders are happily in Tier 1 (Scottish version), but abutting Cumbria in Tier 2 (English version) and Northumberland in Tier 3 (English version).  The closest English Tier 1 is Herefordshire (the penultimate southerly area that borders on Wales - which is yet a different story!), then it's just Cornwall, the Isle of Wight (where everyone eventually tends to go after the Day Of The Triffids, with their flamethrower patrols to keep it a safe haven for the remains of humanity[2], if that helps) and the Isles of Scilly (basically small crumbs off the tip Cornwall that somehow drifted into the Atlantic).


[1] If anyone wants to actually compare subnational rules info on gov.uk (England and NI), gov.scot, gov.wales (or llyw.cymru if you prefer!) then you're welcome to fill yer boots!  There's also gov.je, gov.gg (not sure about the others in the group) and gov.im. Though by the time you're reaching for gov.gi you've probably got to check .eu betwixt (or probably .fr and .es versions, with .ie off to one side and most of the others I could mention in a wide arc round the other, excepting .is and .pt).

[2] The English bit of humanity, that is. As defined in the 1950s. Which, given that you have to change your watch back to the 1950s if you visit the IoW, makes it effectively contemporarily, relatively speaking!

[Rolan7]

I don't know much about the situation, but I did see this shared:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1340383304143540227

(Footage of a dense crowd waiting to board the last train to Leeds)
i'm sure that's fine

[Vector]

No meeting of more than one person outside. No household mixing. No Christmas 'relaxation'.

Yes, this is us in the Bay Area ("stay healthy and connect with others outside! but make sure you are masked and meeting no one outside your household"), except as we are American dumbasses who live and die for freedom, we know that a lot of people will just go ahead and build a surge on a surge on a surge anyway, because Christmas 9_9

individualism

let them eat Covid

[wierd]

It's like people have forgotten that there are these things called telephones, that you can communicate with loved ones in real-time over.

A simple phone call, while you sit back on the couch and drink some hot chocolate while doing something relaxing, can help you keep in contact and in touch over the holidays.

[Rolan7]

Spoiler: Or just open Discord and: (click to show/hide)

[MonkeyHead]

Spoiler: Big ol' post quoted (click to show/hide)

Hard to confirm or deny it, but I was once in a good old texty-chatroomy-type thing (could have been IRC, an in-game chat on a MUD, anything I would have been using at the time - can't now actually recall what context it was) where one of the participants was saying as how his nose wouldn't stop bleeding, and everyone was trying to pursuade him to go to A&E/whatever, but he wasn't keen because of the costs of doing so. There wasn't much we could do, even to try to attempt to localise him in any way and he (maybe 'he'?) quit 'normally' rather than go idle, so I always rather hope the problem was sorted (or sorted itself) in a good way.

(Yes, there's even a possibility it was trolling, or whatever the term would be at the time, but it wasn't as much a 'cry for help' so it wasn't really a very thorough trolling, just something that worryingly bemused us, probably lacking any other 'Merkins on at a more Europe-friendly time to while away some chat time while the US was mostly at work and we in the time of the evening leisure-/pleasure-seekers of the moment. I've thought a lot about it, and probably introduced a lot of internal details in the repetition of that pondering that now merge indivisibly into the original memory. But even if it wasn't genuine, or quite as it appeared, it holds up that it at least is based upon the fact that the US system overly discourages 'casual' use, intruding firmly into real medical emergency territory. And the system will probably have improved, by now, but nowhere near as much as it should/could have, from all accounts.


Oh, yeah, anyway, no-one has mentioned that Boris Johnson invented a Tier 4 Lockdown (not sure how it compares to the Scottish one, but I bet it's different[1], 'cos Boris) for all of London and a large part of the surrounding South-East/almost-South-East (and Peterborough, apparently, up into the English midlands), which effectively "cancels their Christmas".  No meeting of more than one person outside. No household mixing. No Christmas 'relaxation'. (Which has been unrelaxed even for the other English version of Tiers from five days across Christmas down to a single one of up to ?three? households co-bubbling in one or other of their houses.)

Charitably, perhaps the reason that as recently as the middle of the week he was saying "We're relaxing the rules around Christmas, but expect you to be sensible about it" is that he knew he'd have to react like this to the Covid-19-FFS (now apparently 70ish% more transmissable!) but if he announced restrictions to be applied to the traditional "a week on Thursday" he'd have everyone trying to beat the barricades and jam the stations. This way he has slammed it down


But I think he's just making it up as he goes along, and realised that today's decision couldn't be done a Week On Thursday, because that'd now be New Year's Eve and the Christmas mixing would go ahead even more intensely.


Scotland's not even using any of its previously-defined Tier 4 restrictions anywhere right now, I think, and the Scottish Borders are happily in Tier 1 (Scottish version), but abutting Cumbria in Tier 2 (English version) and Northumberland in Tier 3 (English version).  The closest English Tier 1 is Herefordshire (the penultimate southerly area that borders on Wales - which is yet a different story!), then it's just Cornwall, the Isle of Wight (where everyone eventually tends to go after the Day Of The Triffids, with their flamethrower patrols to keep it a safe haven for the remains of humanity[2], if that helps) and the Isles of Scilly (basically small crumbs off the tip Cornwall that somehow drifted into the Atlantic).


[1] If anyone wants to actually compare subnational rules info on gov.uk (England and NI), gov.scot, gov.wales (or llyw.cymru if you prefer!) then you're welcome to fill yer boots!  There's also gov.je, gov.gg (not sure about the others in the group) and gov.im. Though by the time you're reaching for gov.gi you've probably got to check .eu betwixt (or probably .fr and .es versions, with .ie off to one side and most of the others I could mention in a wide arc round the other, excepting .is and .pt).

[2] The English bit of humanity, that is. As defined in the 1950s. Which, given that you have to change your watch back to the 1950s if you visit the IoW, makes it effectively contemporarily, relatively speaking!

Other areas of the UK have reacted in kind to BJ's announcement. Scotland will go into a full lockdown from the 26th. NI was already entering a 6 week one. Here in Wales... *sigh*... Literally moments after the Westminster decision the Senedd made the snap decision to enter a national lockdown at midnight - literally 6 hours notice. Despite this being a sensible and unavoidable course of action, it allowed zero contingency planning for anybody, and many people are pissed at the impacts of this on non essential businesses as well as their own Christmases. Nor does it reflect the fact that the infections rates vary wildly between the north and south of the country. Some suggest this was done as an effort to prevent people under lockdown in England fleeing to tourist destinations in Wales, as happened during previous English lockdowns where Wales remained open, as well as due to the spread of CoVid and its new variant in the south.

[Starver]

I'm pretty sure the Elenydd hostels (back even as YHA stock, visited more times than I can reliably count) aren't open for business from both normal seasonal shutdowns and the lockdowns for both the Saes and the Pobol, but I'll admit that if I was 'vacationally minded' right now and unhappy with my current locale I'd love to get away to those bits with just one road in/out (or maybe two if you don't mind some unmetalled track at times).

But I've still got my 'local' (~15 miles or so[1]) rock gulley that I've long earmarked as where I'd run off to if the Zombie Plague forced me to stay away from all kinds of people of dubious vitality, with a fairly obscure and probably weather-proofable cleft in the rocks that with any luck I can also securely fortify against the shambling masses and the Mad-Maxian modern reavers alike.


[1] Not being more precise. If zombies ever do walk the Earth, I don't want to risk that they remember unwisely revealed grid-references or anything!