Unfortunately the article lacks balance. Just in case you have forgotten the Conservative party won the election and labour have no right at the table with their socialist and PC rubbish. The unions are not helping the children needing to return to school and are a block on progress.
We should not be in lockdown still and as in Denmark the primary school children should be back at school and reducing the damage to education.
Andrew Baldwin
4 years ago
“Trump will inevitably claim that he got there first [in being anti-China] and that Democrats were slow to recognise the threat.” It’s more than just a claim, isn’t it? It’s a simple statement of fact. I was really happy that Trump won in 2016, but was leery of his anti-PRC rhetoric, afraid, like a lot of people, that he might launch a trade war that would take us into a global recession. Now we have a global recession, due not to Trump, but to President Xi Jinping. Even here in Canada, where the obsequiousness of our Liberal government to the PRC knows almost no bounds, the polling data shows a tremendous hardening of public attitudes towards Communist China, and I am sure it is worse in the US. All credit to Trump and his advisers for seeing the magnitude of the threat first. They were more farseeing than most of us. I am not a politico and don’t know if Trump will win, but he certainly deserves to.
Joey Lemur
4 years ago
Matthew, this is wonderfully stated, though of course maddening to read. “Safetyism” is a term that encapsulates this bureaucratic nannying quite well, and far too many people are happy to just go along with it. I am reminded of Mike Rowe’s exhortations that instead of “safety first”, we should be valuing “safety third”. He says it a bit tongue in cheek, but only just. All of these governors (like Cuomo) stating that “even if we save one life, it’s worth it” cannot actually believe it; otherwise they would advocate a 20 mph speed limit everywhere, etc.
It just the simplest of things to understand that everything has risks and tradeoffs, but somehow these morons can’t bring themselves to make that case in public; they seem to only know how to pander these days, as if there is NO middle ground between two extremes. Your suspicion around their political motivations is being confirmed every day. Hell will truly freeze over if any of them actually get around to admitting that they were wrong about anything in this situation.
I hope you article gets a very wide reading.
Michael Whittock
4 years ago
I agree with the main argument of this article. However I would like to take issue with the Office of National Statistics declaration, quoted here,that bus drivers are low skilled. With respect most people would be able to be security guards or shop workers, but not every one will have the skill and character to be a bus driver. To drive an Enviro 400 around busy city streets or an Optare along country roads takes intense concentration and advanced driving skill. In addition a driver must relate to passengers and deal with fares and any problems which may arise. They deserve more respect than they get and should be classed as key workers and paid a better wage. They do have people’s lives in their hands. They are also particularly vulnerable during the present crisis and not all companies have given adequate protective equipment. They are also very much on the frontline. Give them a clap on Thursday evening too.
Bryan Dale
4 years ago
The first paragraph is a list of left wing news outlets that have been predicting the collapse of the Trump presidency since he was elected. There may be a few Rino Republicans worried about their predictions but the majority understand that those publications are fake news.
johntshea2
4 years ago
Excellent! And “Why We Drive” sounds like a timely tome.
Andrew Roman
4 years ago
The ideology you mention is usually sold as the precautionary principle: better safe than sorry. The problem with that principle is that it is applied to an extreme, as if precaution is unlimited, has no upper boundaries. This seeks to justify increasing authoritarianism in Western countries by insisting that the precautions taken, even if clearly ineffective or irrelevant, are merely in support of the precautionary principle.
T J Putnam
4 years ago
More worried about those taking liberties than ‘restrictions on our liberty,’ myself. No need to dress up impatience as cod political philosophy. Cut a bit of space for those who are trying to recover a situation they let slip badly, they now know how easily it could all happen again and they’re not really sure what counts most. Close analysis of cluster development over time does show that >80% of transmission so far has come from <20% of contacts, so general constraints are less cost effective than focusing on superspreader patterns of behaviour and contexts, if they can be clearly identified. Open ended chains of contact and places of multiple contact are a start. Clubbing has both, so do funerals and other community social gatherings, so off the menu pre-vaccine. Many shopping and work scenarios are manageable with care, but transport is a nightmare as are classroom education and residential institutions. Cross-generational contact is problematic, and the key group is middle aged rather than elderly. 45-70 has the highest excess deaths and occupies pivotal social and economic positions. Unpicking not easy, and there’s no shared ‘common sense’ to help.
Lindsay Gatward
4 years ago
Here’s an informed interview about Lockdown error. and shows we should not be so frightened? https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Unfortunately the article lacks balance. Just in case you have forgotten the Conservative party won the election and labour have no right at the table with their socialist and PC rubbish. The unions are not helping the children needing to return to school and are a block on progress.
We should not be in lockdown still and as in Denmark the primary school children should be back at school and reducing the damage to education.
“Trump will inevitably claim that he got there first [in being anti-China] and that Democrats were slow to recognise the threat.” It’s more than just a claim, isn’t it? It’s a simple statement of fact. I was really happy that Trump won in 2016, but was leery of his anti-PRC rhetoric, afraid, like a lot of people, that he might launch a trade war that would take us into a global recession. Now we have a global recession, due not to Trump, but to President Xi Jinping. Even here in Canada, where the obsequiousness of our Liberal government to the PRC knows almost no bounds, the polling data shows a tremendous hardening of public attitudes towards Communist China, and I am sure it is worse in the US. All credit to Trump and his advisers for seeing the magnitude of the threat first. They were more farseeing than most of us. I am not a politico and don’t know if Trump will win, but he certainly deserves to.
Matthew, this is wonderfully stated, though of course maddening to read. “Safetyism” is a term that encapsulates this bureaucratic nannying quite well, and far too many people are happy to just go along with it. I am reminded of Mike Rowe’s exhortations that instead of “safety first”, we should be valuing “safety third”. He says it a bit tongue in cheek, but only just. All of these governors (like Cuomo) stating that “even if we save one life, it’s worth it” cannot actually believe it; otherwise they would advocate a 20 mph speed limit everywhere, etc.
It just the simplest of things to understand that everything has risks and tradeoffs, but somehow these morons can’t bring themselves to make that case in public; they seem to only know how to pander these days, as if there is NO middle ground between two extremes. Your suspicion around their political motivations is being confirmed every day. Hell will truly freeze over if any of them actually get around to admitting that they were wrong about anything in this situation.
I hope you article gets a very wide reading.
I agree with the main argument of this article.
However I would like to take issue with the Office of National Statistics declaration, quoted here,that bus drivers are low skilled. With respect most people would be able to be security guards or shop workers, but not every one will have the skill and character to be a bus driver. To drive an Enviro 400 around busy city streets or an Optare along country roads takes intense concentration and advanced driving skill. In addition a driver must relate to passengers and deal with fares and any problems which may arise. They deserve more respect than they get and should be classed as key workers and paid a better wage. They do have people’s lives in their hands.
They are also particularly vulnerable during the present crisis and not all companies have given adequate protective equipment. They are also very much on the frontline. Give them a clap on Thursday evening too.
The first paragraph is a list of left wing news outlets that have been predicting the collapse of the Trump presidency since he was elected. There may be a few Rino Republicans worried about their predictions but the majority understand that those publications are fake news.
Excellent! And “Why We Drive” sounds like a timely tome.
The ideology you mention is usually sold as the precautionary principle: better safe than sorry. The problem with that principle is that it is applied to an extreme, as if precaution is unlimited, has no upper boundaries. This seeks to justify increasing authoritarianism in Western countries by insisting that the precautions taken, even if clearly ineffective or irrelevant, are merely in support of the precautionary principle.
More worried about those taking liberties than ‘restrictions on our liberty,’ myself. No need to dress up impatience as cod political philosophy. Cut a bit of space for those who are trying to recover a situation they let slip badly, they now know how easily it could all happen again and they’re not really sure what counts most. Close analysis of cluster development over time does show that >80% of transmission so far has come from <20% of contacts, so general constraints are less cost effective than focusing on superspreader patterns of behaviour and contexts, if they can be clearly identified. Open ended chains of contact and places of multiple contact are a start. Clubbing has both, so do funerals and other community social gatherings, so off the menu pre-vaccine. Many shopping and work scenarios are manageable with care, but transport is a nightmare as are classroom education and residential institutions. Cross-generational contact is problematic, and the key group is middle aged rather than elderly. 45-70 has the highest excess deaths and occupies pivotal social and economic positions. Unpicking not easy, and there’s no shared ‘common sense’ to help.
Here’s an informed interview about Lockdown error. and shows we should not be so frightened? https://www.youtube.com/wat…
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
Good morning moderators,
I posted a comment yesterday which is there in my account but not in the section below??
Great article.