Current Covid map. A mixed picture locally as all London heads, in all probability, towards tier 3.
Dark blue is well above national average, green is below. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map
Strange to have such disparity so close, I wonder why that is?
To be fair to the data, Perry Vale is at 95.2. If it were 100 or more, it would be blue like Upper Sydenham which is at 104.9 or Lower Sydenham at 107.2.
So perhaps it’s a bit of a data visualisation error and they should have used a more boring monochrome scale instead?
Fairlawn Primary already closed last Friday. 15 staff tested positive.
Closer to home, our little one won’t go to nursery anymore this year after several cases with staff were confirmed this week, for the first time since the start of the outbreak.
It certainly looks and feels like the tide is coming in hard and fast in our area. Stay safe everyone!
Article says it closed for one day and is now open.
The borough of Greenwich is closing all its schools next week:
Nipped into Sainsbury’s this afternoon and was horrified by how many weren’t wearing masks. The three ladies taking their time maskless at the bread bins weren’t exempt - as they were wearing them - just unfortunately around their chins. I’d say about 20% not wearing - more than I’ve seen before and of all ages, sexes, races. I haven’t been out much but if that’s widespread then no wonder the infections are climbing.
That’s it in a nutshell.
Well it’s been confirmed that we are moving to tier 3:
Greenwich schools now, only now being Monday evening, being threatened with legal action by the schools minister if they follow the council request. 
Which sainsburys? The last time I was at the one at bell green (about 10 days ago) there was very high mask compliance. I do feel as though either people are so fed up they can’t be bothered any more or people think they’ve already had the vaccine.
London Road one. Usually when I’ve been in, it’s been ok. But this time it felt busier inside too - and no one at the door organising in/out. Very few using the sanitiser on the way in either. 
Thanks, that’s useful to know. I’ve not been up to that one recently. The bell green one was ok when I was last there, with quite high mask wearing compliance. Although there was no one there controlling the flow of customers in. And people weren’t always leaving 2 m when queuing.
Just for context - over here in Portugal almost everyone wears a mask even when just on the street. You might see the odd one in Lisbon but here it is 99.9% compliance and you even see people driving wearing them. Life is pretty much normal - just very quiet. You can’t be out after 11pm and there is a weekend curfew of 1pm, but the cafes, shops and restaurants are all open. The exception is bars which are allowed to open but most have just shut completely.
I have been speaking to my old team at work in the school. The entire team is isolating, 4 have tested positive and two are really quite ill. At least two of their spouses has it now and one mate has to isolate in his room for fear of giving it to his frail relatives. The rest are forced to work from home while the school conducts long interviews to track all the people they came into contact with. Two other similar schools in the locality have shut the doors and gone online after multiple outbreaks among pupils and staff…
I have no idea if masks or squashing thousands of people into schools is driving the uptick in numbers but I am glad I got out of work and out of the country…
Glad you left the country Nick, I find that very hard to believe. Even last week on the telly there was a politician saying that the UK with its vaccine is a much better country than all the others put together. I think in reality you are just jealous that we have an aggressive beggar and you don’t !
compliance of the wearing of masks in London has deteriorated dramatically since our first Lockdown.
I work In a busy store in the west end and I’d say at least 35% of our customers are not bothering or wearing them round their chins-we simply do not have enough security staff to approach each and every one of them and their job is really to catch shoplifters and pickpockets not tell people to wear their masks in the store-We have staff at the entrance ensuring people wear masks but the moment they get in the door they remove it.
I’d say its mainly the under 40’s paying no heed and behaving as if the pandemic doesn’t exist-and totally ignoring social distancing too.
Its unsurprising that we are in this mess-most people have been ignoring the rules and going to other peoples houses socialising with their mates etc etc.
The thing I dont actually understand is why yet again restaurants and theatres have been closed?
Every place I’ve eaten in has taken the necessary precautions to make their premises as covid safe as possible spacing tables, showing test and trace, providing sanitisers and staff wearing masks or visors.
Theatres likewise have removed seating staggered entry etc and yet at 24 hours notice are plunged into darkness again.
Galleries and museums have been shut-and yet I’ve rarely been to a museum or gallery as packed as a west end store at this time of year, and considering each room in a gallery has a member of staff to oversee it surely social distancing and mask wearing would be stringently enforced?
BUT…you can go to a sauna, or a gym,school or play a group sport outdoors-fine but in a group sport such as rugby or football players often need to come in very close contact with each other.
It all seems a bit messed up and confused.
Nightclubs and bars I understand but restaurants theatres galleries and museums I dont.
And as regards the rules…there is nobody to enforce them which in effect negates them.
Lets be honest-you may as well have a get together with 10 of your mates round your flat because nothings going to happen.
They advertise on the underground hefty fines for not wearing a mask but I use 4 trains a day 5 days a week and have never ever seen a fine being handed out or anyone being stopped entering a station for not wearing a mask.
apologies for the rant but I see lives being lost, livelihoods being lost and rules being made but rules mean nada without them being enforced.
80.000 dead so far.
I dispair
Totally understand your rant and sorry to hear that you are being put at risk by inconsiderate people. I hope you stay safe at work.
It’s so frustrating. I am lucky enough to work at home and for the most part, have barely left the house - shopping online or at open-air venues. I’m part of the ONS survey so have had a recent negative test so I’m fairly sure I’m low risk to drive to Scotland to see my Mum (otherwise alone) for Christmas. But with them talking about changing the rules to 3 days etc, that’s now looking unlikely. Meanwhile, others go out, meet multiple groups of 6 while bending the meal rules and going into central London to gawp at the lights, and despite the bigger ‘circle’ of contacts will be able to go and see nearby family groups (probably doing 3 per day).
I think here there is a lot of self policing and social pressure to mask up and keep a distance. Some have suggested that the history of the country and the fact that it was until fairly recently very authoritarian has a bearing on this - I would tend to agree… Still I went out for a beer and a curry last night!!
Meanwhile one of my ex work colleagues remains very ill but the rest are recovering. I am actually helping out a bit here and there as it is re-sit results day today!
I think one of the reasons why some of the Asian and middle eastern countries have very few cases of COViD is that they have a very different attitude to authority. I have a client in UAE and we were chatting on the zoom a few weeks back. He said to me “over here if the Emir says you stay indoors then people do as they are told, in England if the government tells people to stay in, then they all go down the pub”
Not trying to be ‘edgy’ or Devil’s advocate here but you can’t really blame people for their non-compliance on account of reading about so many leading figures in the media and government seemingly holding their own advice in contempt by openly ognoring the lockdown rules to suit their own needs. I’ve been inducted onto three building sites during the lockdown where the developers went as far out of their way as possible to emphasise the importance of social distancing, etc., but as soon as we got out on site to work it all went out the window. Even if you raised concerns we were told to like it or lump it.
I don’t think the difference between the UAE and UK compliance is down to
Do you think the Emir and royal family are following the advice? or that anyone would find out if they were not? I would put the difference between these two countries mainly down to the type of state.
Comparing other liberal democracies with higher compliance and (possibly) a very different attitude to the problem, such as Japan and South Korea, would be more relevant to self-analysis.
I must have hit the reply option by mistake. It wasn’t meant to be a question for TheWrongTrowsers.
You may have hit the wrong button, Swagsy but you make a good point.
Here we are in London going into tier 3 along with most of the south of the country soon according to the news. So I am sitting here watching the Australia/India test match on the telly. I notice the crowds all sitting together enjoying the sport in the sunshine. It looks like fun. Hang on there, no one has a mask on. Why is that I ask myself. I look this up during one of the (numerous) ad breaks. I read that the Aussies achieved this by having a vicious lockdown early on and significantly - it seems - by securing its borders. No doubt they are all going to be having a merry Christmas next week and will be seeing their families as usual. Same in NZ. Another island nation.
Given that we are also an island nation, it seems fairly clear that the UK could have done this and achieved a similar result. Does it not follow therefore that we have completely and utterly buggered this up ? Is there also not a large dollop of irony here given how keen we are to distance ourselves from Europe and go our own way ?
Yes. Some of us have been campaigning for better, more consistent border control for many, many years - only for others to try to block this whilst verbally abusing us.
The value of border control is really coming to the fore right now.
Ok, but is there any reason why we could not have done this earlier in the year ? - sealed our border, I mean ?
None whatsoever. There simply wasn’t political will
@anon5422159 Let’s not conflate immigration policy with border control. We had the ability to close our borders. This has not / will not change upon EU exit.
Major outbreak being taken very seriously. 28 cases 
Can I please ask that you read our forum guidelines before flagging posters. You may not like or disagree with some posts but please don’t flag them if they don’t break forum guidelines.
“Island nation” is not quite true (there is that land border in Northern Ireland), and I think it is a bit of a distraction that fails to recognise significant differences between the amount of international travel to/from the UK compared with Australia and New Zealand. It’s not really a fair comparison.
In any case, closed borders are only helpful if you have a low number of cases already in the country. The virus was already circulating in the UK before the magnitude of the crisis was clear. The failure in the UK was in not bringing the numbers low enough and then not having a robust tracing system and compliance with isolation requirements to keep them low.
Closing borders also clearly isn’t sufficient… the US closed its borders early on. An extensive travel ban for non-US nationals is still in place 9 months later and yet the virus remains out of control.
We will never know because it was weeks before the government took it even slightly seriously. I think this tweet about prevention in public health puts it better than I could:
‘Sucess will always look like overreacting and acting early’
That’s not strictly true. I had thought the US banned entry for arrivals from a handful of countries, mostly European but it’s borders remained open to most of the World and continue to do so. While the land border was effectively shut between the US and Canada to all but non-essential travel, movements were still allowed by air.
Easy to judge with the benefit of hindsight, and when you’re not having to consider the very damaging implications of shutting down the economy.
The problem with just listening to one side in isolation (ie the doctor you quoted) is that the doctor isn’t having to consider the same horrendous trade-offs that the government is. So she’ll always err on the side of medical caution regardless of the consequences for society.
For the same reason, we shouldn’t listen in isolation to the owner of a hotel chain, for example.
I don’t deny that at all- it was a horrific decision to have to make with pitfalls on every side. But it certainly was possible to quash the spread if you were willing to accept the economic consequences- NZ and Australia have managed it.
Who made the right choices economically will not be known for a long time, but in terms of reducing the number of deaths clearly they made the right call.
Yes and no. Aus is currently panicking as they thought their draconian measures had eliminated the virus, but it turns out they haven’t:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/18/australia-imposes-border-curbs-as-covid-cluster-in-sydney-grows.html
And now the virus is spreading amongst a population that’s had no chance to build herd immunity like we did.
The cluster is 28 cases. They can almost certainly quash it- really illustrates the importance of an effective track and trace strategy too.
Plus they don’t need to hold out much longer- once they have secured vaccine supplies they can end this very quickly.
Trying to acquire herd immunity ‘in the wild’ is looking a terrible idea- as Sweden have unfortunately discovered…
I don’t think acquiring herd immunity was ever the policy of HMG in any event was it ? Not that they admitted to anyway.
I think we are going into Tier 4!
So it would seem. Well thats xmas out the window then. Jeez.
Can we please close this outdated thread
