Hancock's Half Hour

[selectortone]

As a matter of curiosity - what's wrong with White Lives Matter? Or Yellow Lives? Or Brown Lives? If one is OK, why aren't the others? Why is it legal to have an Association of Black Police Officers, Lawyers, Engineers, Probation Officers etc. and not Asssociations of White ones? Why are there no Heterosexual Pride marches?

My daughter's partner is a black man from Martinique. I have, vicariously, had a very small glimpse into what that means living in this supposedly enlightened country in the 21st century.

If you think that white people suffer the same injustices on a daily basis that he does, from casual racism to outright hostility, then I suggest you walk a mile in his shoes.

From my daughter's perspective, try walking down the road with your boyfriend and having "F*CKING N*GGER LOVER!!" shouted at you from a passing car.

 

[John Brown]

To me, when people say "all lives matter!" It's like people complaining about the five a day fruit and veg advice. Hey! What about the carbs and protein?
The carbs and protein are doing just fine, thanks.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

If you think that white people suffer the same injustices on a daily basis that he does, from casual racism to outright hostility, then I suggest you walk a mile in his shoes.

I don't for a moment. I just query the logic of saying something is fine for one group in the name of equality, but somehow wrong for another group to do exactly the same thing. Some appear to be more equal than others in this respect.

 

[selectortone]

If you think that white people suffer the same injustices on a daily basis that he does, from casual racism to outright hostility, then I suggest you walk a mile in his shoes.

I don't for a moment. I just query the logic of saying something is fine for one group in the name of equality, but somehow wrong for another group to do exactly the same thing. Some appear to be more equal than others in this respect.

Then why the guff about "While Lives Matter"? White lives have always mattered in this country. Phrases like that only serve to divide us further.

 

[lurker]

Where I live has always had a high proportion of immigrants, to the extent we are fairly well integrated. Obviously as a white bloke I have not experienced racism but accept non white friends and colleagues do get cheesed of with daily low level stuff.
The few really nasty racist things I have experienced (observed) did not involve white people.

 

[AJB Temple]

I had a racist outbreak once at a business I was CEO of at the time. It was airline industry related and involved a fairly sizeable group of people of mainly Pakistani origin falling out in a big way with a group of black people from Nigeria. Every imaginable form of name calling and racial epithet. It was exceptionally difficult to sort out and made me conclude that practically all minorities anywhere, sometimes get picked on by majorities. I doubt it can ever be wiped out.

 

[Nigel Burden]

I had a racist outbreak once at a business I was CEO of at the time. It was airline industry related and involved a fairly sizeable group of people of mainly Pakistani origin falling out in a big way with a group of black people from Nigeria. Every imaginable form of name calling and racial epithet. It was exceptionally difficult to sort out and made me conclude that practically all minorities anywhere, sometimes get picked on by majorities. I doubt it can ever be wiped out.

I think you're correct there. My wife works in a care/nursing home. There are as you can imagine multi nationals working there. One of her colleagues is Nepalese and said that they get called chinki eyes or slitty eyes by the Indians. I know a chap who worked in South Africa back in the 1960s in the days of apartheid, he then moved to Botswana, where he said that the boot was definitely on the other foot.

Nigel.

 

[Chris152]

Can anyone help me understand whether or not this sentence makes sense? It's in a letter sent to parents about return to school in September, appears in the context of statements about maintaining distance and is presumably meant to reassure parents that kids can't bring the virus home.

'The latest published evidence in relation to the transmissibility in children states that children under the age of 18 make up 22 to 25 per cent of the population, but consistently make up <2% of the total COVID-19 caseload in every country.'
I guess it hinges on the word 'caseload', but I would understand that to mean cases where kids end up needing medical support, which is clearly low. Which has little or nothing to do with transmissibility in (by) children.

I've searched lots for summaries on transmissibility by children and there seems to be little agreement - some say they can, and well; others say they can't or do so badly. Is there any real consensus on this? Clearly, the idea that kids can't transmit well helps the plan to get everyone back into work asap. I'd be delighted if it's true but can't find the evidence - and sentences like that add to my feeling the issue's being fudged.

 

[Rorschach]

We don't know how well children transmit. It's clear that age has a massive impact on how the virus presents but as to how it spreads that is very difficult to study, it could take years before we have a good understanding of transmission in children, so we are taking a calculated risk. We know the children themselves are safe, we have also had 4+ months of key workers children going to school and so far we have not seen their parents dying in droves. Yes I know there were social distancing factors in place but there were thousands of children still going to school, thousands of teachers and the parents of those children were also those most likely to be exposed through their work. Seems reasonable to me.

You could do a study that would be definitive, but it would involve intentionally infecting children with the virus at various ages and then exposing adults to them. As you imagine that ain't gonna happen!

 

[Phil Pascoe]

Then why the guff about "White Lives Matter"? ... Phrases like that only serve to divide us further.

So Black Lives Matter doesn't? Stunning bit of logic, there. :lol:

 

[Chris152]

You could do a study that would be definitive, but it would involve intentionally infecting children with the virus at various ages and then exposing adults to them. As you imagine that ain't gonna happen!

You could get a pretty good idea by sending all the kids back to school, no social distancing, small chance of maintaining hygiene etc in, say, September, and wait and see what happens over the course of the next month. A fairly extreme experiment, but you'd get some idea.

The kind of attendance of kids in schools during lockdown and since bears no comparison to what will happen in September when all kids go back full time to a full curriculum.

 

[selectortone]

Then why the guff about "White Lives Matter"? ... Phrases like that only serve to divide us further.

So Black Lives Matter doesn't? Stunning bit of logic, there. :lol:

Whoosh.

 

[billw]

I don't for a moment. I just query the logic of saying something is fine for one group in the name of equality, but somehow wrong for another group to do exactly the same thing. Some appear to be more equal than others in this respect.

The whole point is that it isn't equal to start with. If it was, we'd not be having any of these discussions.

 

[Chris152]

Maybe the race issue could find its way into its own thread, see how it fares? Just saying...

 

[Lons]

Maybe the race issue could find its way into its own thread, see how it fares? Just saying...

:lol: :lol: :lol:

 

[Droogs]

'The latest published evidence in relation to the transmissibility in children states that children under the age of 18 make up 22 to 25 per cent of the population, but consistently make up <2% of the total COVID-19 caseload in every country.'

The Subject of the sentence "transmissibility" is in NO WAY connected to the second part of that sentence. How transmissible a contagion is has ( so far in this pandemic) not been correlated to
the number of people who once having caught it are then in need of interventionist medical aid. this sentence is a classic trick used by advertisers and governments since the dawn of propaganda to take 2 separate unrelated pieces of information and conflate them in your mind to be the same thing and/or to be so closely intertwined as to be mutually supportive in spite of them usually being diametrically opposite.

so long story short, it is absolute Aberdeen Angus excreta to sway the uneducated on non thinking masses into taking part in the herd immunity experiment

 

[Rorschach]

You could get a pretty good idea by sending all the kids back to school, no social distancing, small chance of maintaining hygiene etc in, say, September, and wait and see what happens over the course of the next month. A fairly extreme experiment, but you'd get some idea.

The kind of attendance of kids in schools during lockdown and since bears no comparison to what will happen in September when all kids go back full time to a full curriculum.

Well that's what is going to happen anyway. The only problem is we won't know how much of any potential increase is down to the children being back at school, or the teachers, or their parents back at work full time. All these factors will have an effect and we could falsely attribute any rises to the children when it could be something else.

You are right that lockdown schooling is not the same as the full time but I know anecdotally from teacher friends that there there are schools in poorer areas that were very well attended during lockdown as a lot of the parents were key workers. Just by watching the children go to the schools near me (and knowing how it usually looks) I would say they were running at almost 50% capacity, the special needs school could have been running at close to full capacity as the queue of taxis in the mornings was just as big as usual.

 

[Chris152]

'The latest published evidence in relation to the transmissibility in children states that children under the age of 18 make up 22 to 25 per cent of the population, but consistently make up <2% of the total COVID-19 caseload in every country.'

The Subject of the sentence "transmissibility" is in NO WAY connected to the second part of that sentence. How transmissible a contagion is has ( so far in this pandemic) not been correlated to
the number of people who once having caught it are then in need of interventionist medical aid. this sentence is a classic trick used by advertisers and governments since the dawn of propaganda to take 2 separate unrelated pieces of information and conflate them in your mind to be the same thing and/or to be so closely intertwined as to be mutually supportive in spite of them usually being diametrically opposite.

so long story short, it is absolute Aberdeen Angus excreta to sway the uneducated on non thinking masses into taking part in the herd immunity experiment

My thoughts exactly, Droogs.
I did some hunting and found the original in the Welsh govt advice, which reads:
"The latest published evidence in relation to the transmissibility in learners under the age of 12 seems to be particularly low. Children under the age of 18 make up 22 to 25 per cent of the population, but consistently make up less than 2% of the total Covid-19 caseload in every country."
The letter from school reads:
'The latest published evidence in relation to the transmissibility in children states that children under the age of 18 make up 22 to 25 per cent of the population, but consistently make up <2% of the total COVID-19 caseload in every country.'
So they've omitted the bit about kids under 12 years, which is crucial for parents of kids in secondary school, as it means it's not relevant to their kids - and in doing so come up with a sentence that doesn't make sense.
The school's been great throughout, I can only assume they're under immense pressure to make things work as per govt advice - which is (in my opinion) well dodgy.

 

[woodhutt]

On the subject of children. One Texas county has just (today) announced that they have 85 infants (under age 1) with the virus.
I don't know what this equates to as a percentage of infants in the county and of course whether they would transmit the virus to others but it perhaps cautions us not to place too much faith in current data.
Viruses all too often mutate and what may have been true a month ago, regarding the ability for children to transmit the virus, may not be true today or tomorrow.

 

[Rorschach]

This is most definitely worth a watch whichever side you are on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3plSbCbkSA