I have as much idea as you do.

Over here they're threatening a curfew from 20:30 till 04:30...

Mostly due to the threat of the British variant.

I have to say that I was ok with most measures, but that one will def take it's mental toll on me. Meanwhile the Bible Belt here still goes to church en masse and I see plenty of offices that are full of people working, when there's been a work from home order for months.

Imho it's time to take measures that impact the assholes who don't keep to the rules, instead of further restricting the lives of people who do.

Exactly the same situation here in Germany, and I wholeheartedly agree. Nightly curfews are ineffective and a massive, unjustified infringement of civil liberties imho. Yesterday, our government finally came around to making home office mandatory wherever it's feasible, at least on paper. There will probably be lots of exceptions again.

Curfew looking likely here. Will still have to be passed by parliament. Also visitors limited to 1 per day. Can't even visit parents with the gf.

My anger towards the fucks who don't keep to the most basic rules is increasing by a lot.

IMO you are horribly wrong, like few days ago when you were so "optmistic" with Uk that their numbers were going down; today 1.8k deaths.
Curfew seems ridiculous in some rural areas, clearly, but is pretty good in suburds or even small towns with alot of young people, especially week-end.
I guess it's harder to implement in germany with Landers. Mein freedom.

Why are you focusing on deaths? They're the indicator with the largest delay...
In case you didnt know: reported infection numbers lag 1-2 weeks behind the actual infection events taking place (incubation period, getting the test, the positive test result being reported to the public health authorities). Reported deaths lag behind the respective infections by 3-6 weeks.



The deaths that are being reported from the UK these days correspond to the infections which took place during their peak back in late December/early January. In some sense, these people were "dead man walking", their deaths were already baked in weeks ago.

The more important message is that lockdowns seem to be similarly effective at containing the new variant which is dominant in the UK as they were at containing the older strains. One or two weeks ago, European heads of government and also some virologists and public health experts were concerned that even very strict lockdowns would barely be able to hold off the spread of this new variant, but not able to get cases down effectively. The concern was that the R-factor with the new variant could only be brought to around 1 with even the harshest restrictions viable in democratic societies. This fear seems to have been overblown. Don't get me wrong, this new variant is still a big problem, and it being more infectious complicates a lot of things - just not so badly that we would now need a Wuhan-style total lockdown, mere months from summer and vaccine-induced herd immunity.

80 year olds dying 6 years early is completely irrelevant. No one gives a shit.

Cruel, disgusting, selfish... and probably true.


Like I've said before: if it were not for the threat of a collapsing healthcare system, most Western societies would have told their elderly that protecting themselves from the virus is their problem, and then went on with life. Some 10k or so deaths among the sub-60 group on the way to herd immunity would have been an acceptable sacrifice.