New lockdown: Manchester University students pull down campus fences
bbc.com
bbc.com
Why are elementary schools closed across most of the US, while bars and restaurants are mostly open for reduced in-person service?
Because the teacher unions and dining industries both have enough political power to get their way. There's no rhyme or reason besides "might makes right", and the rules for businesses seem to change every week, so the growing public frustration is very understandable.
I'm proud of these students. It's unconscionable that their institution did not inform them of these installations ahead of time. I've been a student who had to walk a couple miles for groceries, and I held my walking routes to be sacred during that time. If someone put a wall between me and fresh fruits during an exam week with no warning, I would have rioted too. And I bet my grandmother who lived through the Blitz would be rooting for them despite her zeal for giving things up for the public good. The British Bulldog spirit recognizes a difference between austerity and autocracy.
People aren't scared enough of students because apparently naked fear is the only motivator to get these awful politicians to behave with even the smallest shred of decency. Lock them in, claim they were told it would happen then acknowledge that this claim was a total lie. No consequences. All the expense, all hassle and frustration on the students. Milk them harder, that's what they're for say the powers that be.
this may be true, but your implication is unnecessarily sinister. these organizations have balances sheets and budgets too. like everyone else in the whole world, their business model probably isnt equipped to handle an epidemic. something has to give. maybe it shouldn't have been this, but the premise that colleges dont need money to survive is foolish.
2. You're making it sound like "but my business model depends on it" is somehow a valid excuse to put people into physical danger and through pretty much guaranteed psychological stress.
Universities should never have been fully privatized in the first place.
The university is irresponsibly forcing the students to come on campus to study (a health risk) so they have to pay rent and is desperately trying to restrict their movement/freedoms to decrease the likelihood/speed at which the government shuts the whole thing down and sends everyone home.
The students certainly aren't getting what they paid for. Far from it. There's been a material change in the "product" they are getting and they should be released from the contract from it on those grounds.
If the university can't survive without the rental income and the government wants to save it, then they can do that, but it's not the students responsibility to willingly be defrauded to ensure the financial stability of an institution they have no stake in.
> It's okay for a business to knowingly fuck people over because they need money.
The fence would probably also be pretty ineffective as "riot fencing" since it is really high and has a small foot. Meaning it is unstable and easy to push over. Even when the fences are chained that will still be a problem.
Also, countries which did serious lockdowns are doing relatively well in the end (NZ / Oz)
Of course scientists are finding some cases of people with symptoms lasting many weeks, but this does not appear to be common enough that special strict public health measures should be instituted for it, just like we do little to prevent flu or colds that affect a small segment of the population with long-term complications. It is the elderly demographic that remains the real cause of concern for public-health officials.
(Someone spent fifteen years reporting chronic pain to their doctor before finally getting an endometriosis diagnosis...)
> It is the elderly demographic that remains the real cause of concern for public-health officials.
Yes, and this is also very bad. It tends to sweep through nursing homes, and is often brought in by the young staff who may live in shared accomodation with other young people, or have children in school, etc.
Sweden had a fatality rate of 583 per million. Denmark had 126, Finland 65, Norway 52. So in terms of regional performance Sweden was very poor.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104709/coronavirus-deat...
Sweden messed up, but not in the way people are making it to have. They messed up because their care homes and their entire care system for the elderly was poorly managed, but not because they somehow let the disease rip through the general population.
Neither does anywhere else.
Other places simply stabilized at a higher # of infections/day, because they have worse compliance with social distancing, lockdowns, and basic hygeine. But even bad compliance is better than nothing, and brings R0 down.
Stop compliance with all of those things, and you get a second wave that dwarfs the first.
but the economy is going to be trashed anyway if people are sick, disabled, dead or simply feel unsafe.
And the lockdown wasn't so bad, and the economy not so badly damaged if you did it properly the first time. - Life's pretty good in New Zealand right now.
Closing the borders is not the problem, at least initially.
Getting cross-contamination level between households down to effectively zero, and keeping it there long enough for 2 infection cycles is the hard part.
NZ did it.
Australia managed it eventually.
A number of Asian countries have done well too. Possibly off the back of experience dealing with the prior SARS/MERS scares.
Some of the African countries have done pretty well, possibly because of experience dealing with Ebola.
New Zealand gets plenty of goods via air-freight, along with a continuous stream of returning ex-pats and foreign workers. and ships aren't so slow that the crews (and goods) are automatically safe to interact with when they get here.
But it can be managed - we're managing it.
Then you can't compare Europe or US with Africa. Just look at the structure of the population and the age groups, most of the African nations have extremely younger population than Europe - exactly the ones that are at the most risk are the ones that are a majority in a lot of countries.
True, but it also has an open land border. There are a bunch of subtleties to the definition of island nation¹, some of which make UK borders erm… interesting².
¹ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_nation
² https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borders_of_the_United_Kingdo...
For some perspective I feel it is worthwhile to point out that COVID so far has resulted in the deaths of only 19% less Americans than the second world war.
https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2020/11/05/covid-19-c...
So basically 67 millions French are under lockdown to avoid... 3000 additional people being hospitalized. Pure madness.
Usually if you look at death by "date of death" you see Gompertz-Functions all around. If you look at death by "reporting date" you often see a very uneven lag forming some exponentials...
Not merely hospitalized, but in intensive care units. Do you know how many intensive care units we have? 9000 people in ICU is the saturation point, that's why it's quoted.
To the surprise of nobody, those frat houses are now the center of the worst coronavirus outbreak the city has seen this year.
It's a shame that the university failed to consider teaching the most important lesson of all - social responsibility for your fellow neighbours.
The government rhetoric was that universities should not only remain open but must do face to face teaching.
Without this, the landlords of student accommodation would have been deprived of a years income.