Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
This is some world-class false-dichotomy trolley-problem bullshit, I have to say.
coronavirus detritus
- Thread starter shakahislop
- Start date
shakahislop
Well-known member
yeah i get it but why are you doing it yourself
mixed_biscuits
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How is it a false dichotomy? It's a hypothetical not whether there's some putative either-or vault at HM Treasury lol
mixed_biscuits
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Your allotment's calling you
mixed_biscuits
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@Mr. Tea Actually, correction: there is actually an either-or vault as the government did, in fact, cut foreign aid to help pay for Covid, with some of that money presumably going on lockdown costs: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/57362816
mixed_biscuits
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Do you remember me saying 'estimate', goldfish?
mixed_biscuits
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Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Then would you like to estimate the financial cost (never mind the human and emotional cost) of doing nothing at all to try and slow the spread of the virus, which was your preferred course of (in)action all along, I recall?
mixed_biscuits
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Obv I wouldn't do 'nothing at all' (false dichotomy on your part) but my approach would have been orders of magnitude cheaper
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
The death toll would likely have been at least twice what it was, with numbers of people suffering long-term health effects bigger by a similar proportion. The excess cost just in terms of hospital treatment, missed work and incapacity benefit would have made £1.4B look like pocket change.
The sums wasted by the government on unused/unusable PPE, ineffective track/trace programmes and covid relief fund fraud already make £1.4B look like pocket change, come to that.
The sums wasted by the government on unused/unusable PPE, ineffective track/trace programmes and covid relief fund fraud already make £1.4B look like pocket change, come to that.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Come on, you were pushing the 'herd immunity' stuff all along. "Let's all catch it and get it over with, and if some people die, then they were elderly ward-cloggers or genetic chaff anyway, so who cares" was the Biscuits Doctrine from Day 1.
shakahislop
Well-known member
a different conversation to the other one that we're having, but this is not the real story of aid spending in the 2010 onwards conservative gov. it's the product of an internal dialogic / discourse / struggle within the party. the post-cameron slow disempowering of pro development aid people, and then the cuts you're talking about, really don't have much to do with covid etc. the financial situation in the gov caused by covid was a factor in that decision-making but it was a small one.
the main reason for these aid cuts is that post-Cameron the Tory leadership no longer believed in development aid as a moral responsibility, which they previously had. Plus some electoral calculus.
That was probably me.
Reminder that 99% of those who died were older than the UK life expectancy, and most of them probably died from flu rather than bona fide COVID, or were directly killed by the NHS accidentally on purpose with midazolam
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Over 40% of covid deaths up to the end of last year were among people aged 79 or under (UK life expectancy at birth currently 80.7)* And that bullshit about flu or deliberate drug deaths is lame even by your lamentable standard.
* https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...1-december-2022-report#age-of-covid-19-deaths
* https://www.gov.uk/government/publi...1-december-2022-report#age-of-covid-19-deaths
mixed_biscuits
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You don't even know what I would have done! And your numbers (viz your NZ fantasy) are way out for things that have happened, let alone things that may have happened.
mixed_biscuits
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@Mr. Tea Talk about a pivot. From saying NZ's lockdown was early thus short (untrue, unless you really want the areas that are just sheep to lock down forever as well), you then say it was great because it prolonged the period of infections, with the only reason that may have helped being that they lucked out with the decreasing virulence of the virus. Imagine what would have happened if the opposite had been the case.
You may notice that most people are beginning to consider the negative effects of the lockdown monomania, whereas you're still in Six O'Clock News mode, waiting to receive orders from Master Boris.
You may notice that most people are beginning to consider the negative effects of the lockdown monomania, whereas you're still in Six O'Clock News mode, waiting to receive orders from Master Boris.
