Mr Newbie

You can see every post I’ve made from my feed. I think suggesting some posters might be Covid mentalists when they’ve posted a load of scaremongering rubbish to deliberately try to twist arguments seems to be grounds enough. We really do seem to prefer the general doom and gloom spreading here. Let’s just shut the borders for a few years and hope we don’t have to resort to cannibalism in the meantime. I’m coming round to that idea as it’s been force fed to me so many times now.

Thanks for clarifying.

Which language specifically given that I have only made a few posts above in the last few weeks as I was banned for suggesting that many people posting fear and spreading general panic and false information in relation to Covid are bordering on being obsessive lunatics. That doesn’t seem to be a popular view on here which seems to prefer posts being about doom and gloom so we all might finally believe we’re going to die if the borders open up again. So no not on my follow list at all. The messiah comments come from seeing how many people re-share those Tweets like they’re gospel.

Now there’s a real conspiracy theory if ever there was one. To be honest I don’t follow you I only follow re posts about you on here or things that others re-tweet. Who is trolling you either? It was just an observation from some of the re posts and re-tweets I’ve seen of your content. You see that’s the thing about social media you often create impressions of yourself that don’t come across to others in the same way as you meant. A few people have mentioned costs above and if in that response you’re saying that you’re running yourself ragged trying to do stuff on the cheap for government and that’s perhaps one of the reasons why we aren’t testing as many people as other islands seem to be doing then I’d say that’s information that might be material to others wondering why we’re still taking the low volume self service approach that we seem to be taking when Jersey seem to be blitzing it and Guernsey is testing a significant amount more too.

That’s your opinion but she seems to have a strong leaning towards self-publicity and scoffing at anything that falls outside of what is clearly the agreed government party line. When that happens I’m afraid it usually suggests that they don't want anyone digging at the substance as it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny and they know it. The Jersey approach seems to be the right one. It’s open, it’s transparent, it’s producing loads of data that can be assessed and analyzed to establish the real risks of an open island and it’s allowing the economy to function better by facilitating business and tourist travel whilst at the same time managing transmission risks. In contrast our policy seems to be to ask people to lock themselves up for 14 days, don’t monitor them anyway, don’t test them unless they themselves ask for a test (!) but then claim that somehow miraculously just closing the borders is responsible for no Covid which also accentuates people’s sense of isolation from the rest of the world and fear of ‘newcomers’. It makes little sense to me. As Thommo2010 says there’s bound to be people who have brought it back and had it. But if we actively don’t test them unless they’re actually ill and ask for a test we’ll never know. As it stands people aren’t observing self isolation we know that for a fact from the arrests and all the nosy neighbour reports on social media. But then I suppose looking at the data why should they self isolate? The official statistics show that nobody self isolating has had Covid as we haven't tested any of them unless they asked to be tested so does that mean that officially the risk of breaking quarantine is next to zero as nobody has tested positive anyway? So that then leaves the question of what is the real transmission risk in the IOM? Nobody knows. The system is only as tight as our self isolation checking process which seems to be pretty slack given only 1/3 of people got a visit or a phone call up until a few weeks ago.

Now there’s someone with a messiah complex if ever there was one.

Absolutely correct. It seems like the perfect IOM government solution. Let’s not test those at the very highest range of the risk spectrum and claim we’re Covid free.

Are they? I see arguments above being twisted by a load of covid mentalists to suit their paranoid scaremongering views but I don't see anyone actually calling for that at all.

I just think you should probably just learn to read.

How is that going to happen. We’ve got entry controls and a requirement to self isolate for two weeks. How is this forecast second wave going to happen here exactly outside of a few isolated cases which will be found and traced within the matter of a day or so?

It seems that it’s really a load of bored petrified pensioners like you who are ignoring the facts. If you’re that scared because of your age or health then you should have shielded yourself since the middle of March not demanded that the whole world stops around you. There will be something new to worry about soon. Nobody will have any money as the state support is ending and people will start to be laid off in record numbers. Still I suppose even then you can still afford to sit in your house posting scaremongering covid rubbish on your pension forever!

I agree but how is that going to end up in the IOM with border controls and a requirement to self isolate for 14 days on return from the UK? I’m sorry but it’s all just scaremongering. There are people out there who literally can’t wait for the next wave. They’ll be holding next wave parties next so that they can all collectively pray to the Gods that it’s going to happen! The fact is that we all need to learn to live with this and take risks otherwise things are just going to get worse. But the hardcore of people who seem to think they’ve been handed a get out of jail free card on all this and that they just sit at home for a few years getting paid to do sod all is untrue. There will be a very rude awakening towards the end of the third quarter of 2020.

It’s happening again on Facebook this morning now following Ashfords announcement about the possible return of covid (how?) https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/island-prepared-for-possible-covid-return/ CLOSE THE BORDERS LETS HAVE ANOTHER THREE MONTHS OFF !!!!

That’s highly unlikely on past performance. The problem with the IOM is it’s specific demographic. Too many pensioners on fixed incomes, too many people working for government who will get paid whatever and only a small proportion of people who want or need to work. That’s really the problem (which is different to Jersey and Guernsey where residents are largely private sector) and sadly it seems that a whole pile of people have seen that if they can pad this out they’ll be getting paid to do bugger all for years as the economy dies around everyone else. It feels like a race to the bottom at the moment. We had a chance to come out of it exceptionally well but the general mood here seems to want the economy to tank as so many people seem to think that they can live on magic government money forever and they won’t be affected.

The Guernsey trips are sold out and more flights now added so it’s unfair to say we’re doing nothing for tourism. But it is certainly the case that uninformed public opinion is holding us back. Government seems to literally be petrified of upsetting a load of covid-obsessed lunatics who want us to go back to spuds and herring just so they can spend the next 10 years doing sod all instead of working.

I was asking Pongo

What are those?

I actually feel more positive about the IOMs ability to get through this than at any time in the last 20 years. If we all just stay here and jobs don’t bottom out significantly local trade will significantly increase as more people are normally off island spending their cash than on and now that’s been reversed. There may well be a few fortress-states which benefit from Covid in many ways moving forward but they will have to have effective entry testing to allow people to move between. Although that relies on a big dose of reality being accepted by government and the wider population in the IOM. But the UK is not going to be able to keep the lid on what easily could be upwards of 5,000,000 unemployed. That would be worse than the gloom and depression of Thatchers Britain. At least Brexit isn’t it’s biggest risk anymore. Brexit is now a minor destabiliser in this major crapfest! But fourth quarter is going to be absolutely hideous and I firmly believe now more than ever that more people will die and suffer long term as a result of the impact of lockdown than would ever have been impacted by COVID alone.

It’s depressing to see this all rolling out to be honest and it does validate a lot of the IOM approach to border control but by the third and fourth quarter of 2020 it’s going to be very clear how many fit healthy people have been thrown under a bus by all of this and it’s going to cause a huge political backlash at some stage as so many will have to adapt to widespread unemployment and loss of income and property. At the moment the anger of those people is being tempered as they are being bought off by furlough schemes and other state support buying them false hope that it’s not going to be so bad. But at some stage millions of people in the UK are going to work out that they’ve been fucked, and that they have been pretty much fucked right from the start of this, and they aren’t going to be too happy about it. It would have made much more sense to force the vulnerable groups to shield rather than to shut down everything to protect an underinvested NHS which it’s clear hasn’t struggled anyway. The US is the template for what will probably happen in Europe towards the end of the year. They had no furlough schemes, no compensation, no state support of any kind, not even any mortgage relief schemes, so it all kicked off immediately as millions of people were turfed out with bugger all to live on. Whereas in the UK they’ve tried to buy 9 months of time to stave off the inevitable backlash from people with no jobs, no hope, and no ability to provide for their families. Then you’ll get a whole pile of riots and crazy stuff happening as people will believe at that stage that they have nothing to lose as their government has crapped on them by taking their job off them when it could have been done differently. It’s only just starting. Furlough payments now being cut back but a big % of those people will find their job is not there to return to and that no other jobs exist either. Then it’s going to kick off. The IOM could benefit considerably from all of this too if we tried.

That is the biggest inhibitor on everything we’re doing here. It seems to suit an awful lot of people to just sit there spreading fear and trying to stop every move to try to move us forward. Lots of them typical Manx moaners and many of them government workers who can’t be arsed going back to work and think that they can hold things up indefinitely by spreading fear to suit their own agenda.

Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.

The UK has. Around 9,000,000 on some sort of state assistance due to COVID at the last count.

I find your views funny. I did read the posts claiming that you did a runner from the IOM as you were so scared at the start of all of this so I hope self enforced lockdown is treating you well? But the “fact” is that article is absolutely littered with “may’s” and “some’s” and seeks to perpetrate the general fear culture the COVID obsessed seem to wish to perpetuate. We’ve now clearly moved on to claims of permanent damage as widespread death itself has not manifested itself as initially predicted in order to try to justify locking people up in their own homes and lazy people not wishing to do the jobs they’re employed to do.

Very liberal use of “some” and “may” in that highly authoritative article.

In what way exactly? What specific illnesses or symptoms will they now be carrying for the rest of their lives?