Then they shouldn’t be bloody overweight, should they. Getting health advice from someone who looks like they’re in need of medical treatment themselves doesn’t inspire confidence.
All sorts of things are real to the individual. That doesn’t mean society has to bend over backwards to fix it.
Ah they shouldn’t be elderly will be next.
They shouldn’t have dodgy tickers.
They shouldn’t be…Where does it all start and stop.
They have rights as employees to health and safety standards in their workplace.
Society is not bending over backwards they are bending over backwards for society in many cases and then getting infected ! Many docs and nurses and cleaners have passed away from a disease contracted in their workplace. A very serious health and safety issue…You judge them but they die doing their job for society. You should really examine your ethics sometimes about who is doing what. If they didn’t go to work others would die instead.
This really boils down to the value of a human life. It is not Priceless, and assuming that it is does not make you more Ethical than me. Life is more complex than that.
So far, the UK has directly spent (apparently) about £200 billion on “mitigation” efforts, and has lost another few hundred billion in economic output. Let’s say, when the dust settles, that £500 billion has been tipped down the toilet. If CV19 had been allowed to run its course, with 70% of the population infected and a (finger-in-the-air) 3% mortality rate, a million-odd people would have died. Let’s pretend that those mitigation efforts actually worked, even though there is very little evidence that they did and that the real CFR is nowhere near 3%. Theoretically, then, we’re putting a value of half a million on a human life - specifically, a life which is nearing its end for other reasons, not (in most cases) a young and vital life.
Insurance companies are a lot more sanguine about this sort of thing. Check this out:
It’s in dollars, but you can compute that, for example, a 60-year-old with no savings, a pootling part-time job bringing in 25K a year, and a 250K house is worth 100K in life-insurance terms. A 55-year-old nurse earning 50K is worth 500K.
Very few countries can afford to chuck outrageous amounts of money at people and survive, as countries. The UK is circling the drain. And it’s not because they don’t care about the old and the sick.
But that doesn’t actually seem to be true, does it? As far as I can tell, they’re dying at exactly the same rate (from COVID-19) as the population at large. And that in itself is completely unsurprising, because the number of CV19 cases in critical care is very low, and the fraction of those 3 million workers in critical care is very small indeed. If you dispute my estimates, do you have some better numbers?
If they catch the disease on the job , the job that they are doing for society, yes they are dying cos of that.
This was probably at a higher rate when they didn’t have PPE…They still.showed up for work though.
That makes no sense at all. Does the same logic apply if they contract Type 2 diabetes on the job because they’re not getting proper lunchbreaks?
As of now, the death rate among health workers is the same as among the general population. The fact that they become infected seems to have nothing to do with the nature of their job, although I’ll happily admit I’m basing that observation on rough estimates.
You can hide behind statistics but when there was no PPE and the wards were full of covid would you show up if an at risk category ?
It’s quite simple. Some of these workers did and paid the price…
Who would have replaced them?
Lots of hand waving and more patients dying.
That’s good news!
Nov 16 (Reuters) - Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine will be easy to distribute, particularly to rural areas, because it can be stored for one month at standard refrigerator temperatures, Matthew Hepburn, head of vaccines for the U.S. Operation Warp Speed program, said on Monday.
Hepburn’s comments followed release of interim results from a late-stage clinical trial that showed the experimental vaccine to be 94.5% effective in preventing COVID-19.
Moderna on Monday also said its vaccine is expected to be stable at standard refrigerator temperatures of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 48°F) for 30 days, up from a previous projection of up to seven days. That contrasts with Pfizer Inc’s vaccine candidate, which must be shipped and stored at ultra cold temperatures or on dry ice and can only last at standard refrigerator temperatures for up to five days.
I’m not hiding behind anything. I’m showing you some hard facts that you don’t want to look at.
That never actually happened. I know for a fact it didn’t happen from eyewitness reporting. Even the statistics suggest that British ICUs never had more than a few dozen patients at any given time.
Of course not, and those who did (knowing they were at risk) were not heroes; they were foolhardy, and most likely violating protocol. H&S procedures in industry are largely focused on getting people to think about risks and to take appropriate action. If you don’t have the equipment to do the job safely, it is your duty step away from the job until the equipment is provided.
There’s another way of looking at that money that’s been pissed away on “saving lives”: the opportunity cost of spending it on something else. How much good can you do with 500 billion? Quite a lot, I’ll wager. How much would it have cost to bring those “at risk” people out of the “at risk” category? Less than 500 billion, I’m absolutely sure.
But no. It’s important we spend that money on futile showmanship and grandstanding, to save people who are already a massive burden on the health service because of their poor life choices. That’s not caring. It is wicked and obscene.
I’m baffled that you actually think these people have a “right” to unlimited medical care. Doctors decide every single day to withhold treatment when they judge it to be pointless, or a waste of public money, and they do this because they are good doctors, not because they’re lacking in morals. Old people in particular often don’t get “the treatment they need” because the doctor has made a professional judgement that it’s inappropriate at end-of-life. I don’t see why this has to change just because COVID-19.
i take it you haven’t been reading Cakes posts then. plenty of Covidiots out there (ooh please don’t flag me again sir) and the vaccine isn’t going to make any less of them.
I don’t flag Branch Covidians. In fact I wouldn’t flag anyone for anything said to me. I have a backbone.
Anyway, I don’t believe the numbers and haven’t since April. There is evidence that they are cooked. The government admits it.
If people want to take a vaccine, that is up to them. I don’t, neither do millions of others. I find the idea insane. But the medical-political complex will probably indirectly force it upon people. And if you are vaccinated, and I am not, what have you got to be afraid of?
ok i respect that.
So doing your job is foolhardy. And your amnesia about the lack of PPE and testing is remarkable. You really do live on another planet sometimes .
Overweight people and older people still have to turn up to do the job. If they get covid it could be a serious problem for them. Also some younger people get it and are seriously messed up too.
Absolute risks were low, but during the first three months of the pandemic patient facing healthcare workers were three times more likely to be admitted with covid-19 than non-patient facing healthcare workers. Risk was doubled among household members of front facing workers, in analyses adjusted for sex, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and comorbidity.
During the first wave of the pandemic, overstretched healthcare systems left health workers in hard hit countries struggling with long working hours, fatigue, and extreme psychological stress. Rapidly vanishing supplies, national lockdowns, and a feeding frenzy on the open market for personal protective equipment (PPE) led to shortages.7 Healthcare workers often had to care for patients with suspected or confirmed covid-19 infection without proper training or adequate PPE. This contributed to an increased risk to healthcare workers during the initial phase of the pandemic.
I guessed $50 back there. So it’s actually $39 for two shots. I should have bet on that one with Brian 
To be fair, I suppose gross income of $15B from $19.50 sales is not unreasonable considering how much they must have spent on this, and it’s a miniscule drop in the ocean if you consider that the world has spent, or lost indirectly, a matter of trillions with their cackhanded attempts to contain COVID-19.
I’m getting thirsty Finley ready to pony up the TaiPi yet?
Not so fast there. IIRC, they have to make it accessible to 50% of The West and Asia first
I think that we are well on our way. 
Maybe. But there’s a sixpack of beer at stake here!
TaiPi, maybe even JinPai if you are feeling generous !
Don’t push your luck matey. You’re getting the TaiKe version.
