Quote from: Deyan Georgiev Photography on March 18, 2020, 23:23

Quote from: fritz on March 18, 2020, 20:02

empty streets,closed borders...

If that had happened two months ago we would be much more safe today, but as always the money and the economy is on top priority for the politics and for the strongest men, they are just too late, The UK do the maximum to delay even more all measures, so stupid...

In Spain many people said to the criminal government "close our borders to italian, korean and chinese flights. Stop the propagation, we have a lot of tourists from these countries".This is not xenophobia or hate, It's common sense.

PM said "It's impossible one case of coronavirus in our country". Bizarre but true. Then, italian tourists began to spread the virus.

Meanwhile our chinese population (we have a lot) had a great behaviour, more than spaniards, they quarantine themselves to stop fear and propagation. Amazing. Proud of them, they had seen the situation in China and are smarter than we are. They closed shops and went home for several weeks.

After that the criminal government allowed massive gatherings on 8M, with the country under health alert and a lot of cases in Madrid. Thousands of people on Madrid streets, party time.

Today we have 14k infected and 741 deads. Our elderly people is dying for dozens in several places.

28 infected for every 100.000 people.

you cannot stop it...you can only close people at home till something happen...but spain economy is so week that if it close 2 months like in italy people will be on the street to look for food....italy is a country with 2.700 billions of saving in bank....spain not even comparable...it's a pretty young economy, in the 80s they look like albania as economy, so closing borders and econy in pain means go back to 80s.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/18/coronavirus-uk-expert-advice-wrong This seems to sum it up.

"Today the UK has 103 deaths vs Germany's 31 even with Germany's massive land borders making control of movement so much more difficult"

Compared to Italy's 2978, France's 264 and Spain's 767. Let's get a bit of perspective here and stop making cheap political points out of a crisis.

Yeah we are a few weeks behind Italy (also I think your numbers may be off I am seeing different numbers from JHU but they're near enough)

Now is precisely the time to be holding politicians to account. When lives are at stake if we don't, and when the lessons can be learnt that will save lives in future.

If not now, when? When we aren't the middle of a crisis and everyone's back to ignoring the experts and putting their heads in the ****ing sand?

Articles were being written every few weeks over the last few years the about coming next big pandemic and how we need to be investing back then if we want to do anything to prevent it but we, what was it?, "had enough of experts"

This is politics. This is when people should be thinking about the real life effects their votes have. Of course they wont, so don't worry yourself too much about it, just ignore us and move on.

I'm glad articles like that Guardian one are being written at least, so people wont forget that we knew at the time what the governments indecisiveness was doing and this can't just be glossed over. 

EDIT an example of the sort of blatant warnings we were getting about this that were being ignored, precisely because people do ignore this sort of thing when not in the middle of a crisis (this one from the US but there have been a few from the BBC too):

"
Stephen Schwartz @AtomicAnalyst
10 May 2018
When the next pandemic occurs (and make no mistake, it will) and the federal government is unable to respond in a coordinated and effective fashion to protect the lives of US citizens and others, this decision by John Bolton and Donald Trump will be why."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2018/05/10/top-white-house-official-in-charge-of-pandemic-response-exits-abruptly/

"

"Today the UK has 103 deaths vs Germany's 31 even with Germany's massive land borders making control of movement so much more difficult"

Compared to Italy's 2978, France's 264 and Spain's 767. Let's get a bit of perspective here and stop making cheap political points out of a crisis.

You really don't get how infection and exponential growth works.  Come back in 4 weeks and talk about perspective. Its not cheap political points scoring to point out Englands approach is an outlier compared with the rest of the world and their experts. People are rightly very concerned that we are not acting quickly enough every move so far has been forced by events. People were talking about pespective 4 weeks ago dismissing this as "just flu". We had 31 deaths yesterday. The maths show it it doubles every 4 days then in 28 days we will have 4000 in a day.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/18/coronavirus-uk-expert-advice-wrong This seems to sum it up.

Watch for articles, even from the opposition, saying they approve of what Trump is doing. No really, in times of trouble, they actually can play together nicely.

Wouldn't this be nice? Claimed and proven are a distance apart. 

"Per Japan�s state broadcaster NHK report, the Chinese medical authorities have claimed a Japanese drug that treats new strains of influenza to be effective for COVID-19 patients.

Favipiravir had produced positive outcomes during clinical trials conducted in Shenzen as well as the COVID-19�s epicenter Wuhan, according to Zhang Xinmin, director of China�s National Center for Biotechnology Development."

Numbers are climbing everywhere, this is going to get much worse, before the peak is reached and cases level off.

You can ignore the confirmed cases numbers because the UK has also pretty much not been testing compared to lot of other countries. Another thing the WHO was pleading with them to do more of.

I know personaly a lot of spanish photographers from years, I have at least 100 000 km travel in Spain, I passed so many villages and cities and I love this country like my second home. Great people, be strong!

I know personaly a lot of spanish photographers from years, I have at least 100 000 km travel in Spain, I passed so many villages and cities and I love this country like my second home. Great people, be strong!

We stay strong, we are much better than our politicians since the XVII Century, our first political corruption Law I think 

Hope you come again soon to visit us. Foreigners are always welcome here.

I feel the same with Italy. Last time I was there was on October, a ten days trip in Roma and Firenze and I am completely in love with the country and with the people. They are incredible friendly everywhere, really feel at home there all the time.

Can't believe the situation now.

Nothing in the world like Rome.

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on March 19, 2020, 10:30

You can ignore the confirmed cases numbers because the UK has also pretty much not been testing compared to lot of other countries. Another thing the WHO was pleading with them to do more of.

Testing regimes vary widely so I think its probably an unreliable statistic for comparison. Its probably something that can't keep pace while the cases are accelerating. Its accepted in the UK that only those that have potentialy serious effects are being tested. If we have mild indications we are just told to self isolate.

Good points both. China just said "no new cases reported" Which the last word is most important. Plus what both of you pointed out, if someone isn't tested, they aren't confirmed. Self Quarantine in home if you suspect you have the virus, is a good plan, but none of those are counted.

Please folks, stop blaming, accusing, and debating politics, and stick to the virus COVID-19 problem?

Or maybe blame the cause, which seems to be ignored and some are defending, poor sanitary conditions, open markets with animal slaughtering. We can't call this the Wuhan virus, because we're all being politically correct? Yet, there's a never ending attack on just about any leaders or people in power, now "capitalism". LOL

COVID-19 came from China (a Communist country by the way), wet market, where they slaughter live animals in public. And now people are calling for Trump, Putin, Boris and others to fall because of that? Some are blaming humans for being on the planet, global warming, and the vegetarians even more the uppity self-righteous Vegans who blame anyone who eats meat. I read how God is punishing us, how this is a plot, blaming the East, The West or someone else, depending on where the person lives or their political leanings.

What I'm asking it this. Can we stop the endless, useless, politics and blame? COVID-19 is here. Attacking others, other countries, or leaders isn't doing anything but create division and anger, when we need to be more together. Blame or hate is not a cure for anything.

Quote from: Pauws99 on March 19, 2020, 11:39

Quote from: Justanotherphotographer on March 19, 2020, 10:30

You can ignore the confirmed cases numbers because the UK has also pretty much not been testing compared to lot of other countries. Another thing the WHO was pleading with them to do more of.

Testing regimes vary widely so I think its probably an unreliable statistic for comparison. Its probably something that can't keep pace while the cases are accelerating. Its accepted in the UK that only those that have potentialy serious effects are being tested. If we have mild indications we are just told to self isolate.

Good points both. China just said "no new cases reported" Which the last word is most important. Plus what both of you pointed out, if someone isn't tested, they aren't confirmed. Self Quarantine in home if you suspect you have the virus, is a good plan, but none of those are counted.

Please folks, stop blaming, accusing, and debating politics, and stick to the virus COVID-19 problem?

Or maybe blame the cause, which seems to be ignored and some are defending, poor sanitary conditions, open markets with animal slaughtering. We can't call this the Wuhan virus, because we're all being politically correct? Yet, there's a never ending attack on just about any leaders or people in power, now "capitalism". LOL

COVID-19 came from China (a Communist country by the way), wet market, where they slaughter live animals in public. And now people are calling for Trump, Putin, Boris and others to fall because of that? Some are blaming humans for being on the planet, global warming, and the vegetarians even more the uppity self-righteous Vegans who blame anyone who eats meat. I read how God is punishing us, how this is a plot, blaming the East, The West or someone else, depending on where the person lives or their political leanings.

What I'm asking it this. Can we stop the endless, useless, politics and blame? COVID-19 is here. Attacking others, other countries, or leaders isn't doing anything but create division and anger, when we need to be more together. Blame or hate is not a cure for anything.

I am not a fan of China and often have a pop at them, but they did what you want us to do, they got the people together to fight this as one. Sure they have the propaganda machine for it, but few other countries leaders have come close and some have only self preservation as a motive to do anything.  If you want to close down debate and opinion we cannot move towards your goal of healing divisions and moving forward as one, things will just fester.

Stay the feck away from people and this will be over in no time.

Politics are in the middle of all this. It's impossible not to discuss it especially because of the impact it had in the national health services of several countries which are now requested to act against this catastrophe, underfunded, understaffed and underequiped.

I won't even elongate but it's impossible not to consider the implementation of the Euro currency that wrecked the weakest economies of the EU because it has been managed in benefit of the largest powers.

Or the opening of the EU borders and lift of import taxes of products made in China, India, Pakistan and other countries that competed with some EU industry, especially in the poorer countries used for their cheap labor. European countries and industries that were unable to compete with the low costs of the Asian slave labor and no safety or environment regulations and costs. That decimated a chunk of some European countries industry. A situation that threw thousands in unemployment, stopping them to produce wealth, paying taxes and becoming a burden on national welfare with the unemployment subsidies and other help.

If you consider tax evasion where the rich hide countless billions in off-shores so they won't pay taxes, leaving the financing of the countries dependent on the taxes over work,  making that a lot of services get the funding cut and work less efficiently. All with the complacency of the EU and national politicians who benefit from favors a corruption.

Or the banks and bankers that behaved like criminals, but in the end it was the State bailing them out with the taxes of the workers, again demolishing the national budget, and even more cuts in public services.

Also, the public national health services being sabotaged so the private systems can destroy them and impose private medicine as the only alternative just to profit on human suffering like in the US, crippling the quality of the public services to the population. Public services that now are the exact ones called to help and not the privates.

Or the decisions politicians are making taking in consideration primarily their popularity and consequences in the next elections, instead of public interest.

Etc., etc., etc.

As I said, it's impossible to look at his just as an health issue and not diving right into politics because many of the deaths will be a direct consequence of past political decisions.