Juventus defender Daniele Rugani has tested positive for coronavirus. 

This could spell trouble. 

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Whatever Doc or CWF or Gandalf say, there is one area where in my view the government should have been far more proactive for at least two weeks now - stringent border controls for affected regions. Why for heaven's sake,were Atletico supporters allowed to come to Liverpool today? Why haven't we been quarantining and testing everyone returning from northern Italy for two weeks? There was someone on Newsnight tonight who was forcefully expressing these views tonight.

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Football in England going behind closed doors with pubs banned from showing games.


Sky and BT will show all games for ticket holders.


Football league games will be on iFollow for ticket holders

Is this your opinion or has it been announced?

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It is in the press.

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Not on the BBC just yet.

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Some pages back when the Atletico match was discussed I did agree with you that we shouldn't have allowed 3,000 people from Madrid to fly in.

We will have to disagree about what sensible measures should have been put in place and when.

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Denmark last three days (new cases): 55,174,252

 

EDIT: confused total with new. It's still big news though. Denmark has overtaken us from almost nowhere.

 

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Its my patriotic duty to buy British

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We start getting experts now blaming the government for complacency and incompetence. There was a professor of public health at Newsnight who was furious, saying that the government has wasted a month, that the approach used is too academic and wooden, that we are not following WHO recommendations,  the government is treating the public like children (the govt relies on behaviour scientists when it talks of possible fatigue with measures) and that we are not ready for what is coming. He emphasised how big a mistake was not to test everyone coming back from Italy over the last few weeks.

The editor of Lancet has also talked of complacency and inaction.

 

I'm glad you can put aside your tribal loyalty. Its almost as if they waited for Cheltenham to finish first

The virus is now so widespread, clusters will explode almost anywhere

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So it's not just experts sitting in armchairs!

 

All this being said, the UK is still doing something very right compared to the rest of Europe. Things are worse pretty much everywhere else.

 

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For the time being!

I see you still feel the need to praise your Tory govt as a knee jerk reaction.

Things are worse in some other countries because they are a few days ahead of us in terms of community spread. Don't worry, we will catch up shortly

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As I mentioned in the Budget thread, the tribal loyalty is something to behold and why the Tories win so many elections

 

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Yeh well, as you know, I would personally have done more.

The EU could have been really useful in doing what the UK, alone, could not to prevent it from getting this bad. I.e it could have instigated a phased partial shutdown of the Italian border.

 

I mean, seriously, what is the point of a centralized European authority if they don't act in the one eventuality when they can actually do something individual countries can't?

 

If there was one scenario where the EU could have proven it's utility this would have been it. Because it could have made a genuine difference if it had acted appropiately.

 

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The EU has no jurisdiction in closing member states borders, only the states can do it.

Anyway, I guess this was the Lancet editorial written 5 days ago.

COVID-19: too little, too late?

No I don't.

When this whole thing started I was very critical and skeptical of our ability to contain this.

 

The reason I U turned on that skeptism is that the empirical evidence suggests the UK has done better than most of the rest of Europe. I'm not going to argue with the facts.

However back when you were calling me a coke sniffing hysteric, I was suggesting the government should do more.

 

You were every bit as complacent, if not more so, than the government back in January.

 

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And my position has not changed.

I do believe the UK has done better than most of the rest of Europe.

 

Has it done enough though?

No.

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I'm sure it could have done something. Even if it didn't have the power to close borders it could have done alot as a central authority to make positions regarding border closure. Water under the bridge now.

 

And yes I agree with the content of that. As I've said since January, while panic is obviously counterproductive I have never felt that we are on that side of the line. The problem has always been too complacent, never too alarmist. Though there is now scope for people to behave irrationaly and panic now things are getting very real very fast.

For example panic buying masks when the evidence suggests they are far more useful for health workers and can end up depleting their supply.

 

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That happened actually about a month ago.

 

It's just an example, more people are likely to start panicing now than back in January. So we should expect people to start behaving more irrationally. This is also why I was keen on getting prepared psychologically in January. Less of a shock to keep doing what you have already been doing for more than a month.

 

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My #tftd (addendum):

Yep, DEFINITELY racist.#NadineDorries#r4today @LBC #newsnight pic.twitter.com/5EJ8DvK10W

— I Am Incorrigible FCA (@ImIncorrigible) August 20, 2018

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We'll see. I still think you panicked and you over-reacted back in late Jan. 

Back in Late january there was still time to plan major infrastructure accomodations (virtual HoC closure, partial border closures/travel bans, funds to support remote working e.c.t.)

The kinda stuff that takes months to actually work through the legal and logistical challenges to allow you to implement at short notice. Time we do not have because back in late january no one took this seriously enough.

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