Never said L1 is high priority. Your words. Not too late to take that bet...

Yes which is why the top levels sports teams will continue, as we’ve seen with the Premier League football. Hopefully L1 teams will play, but you are living in a totally different universe to me if you think the government view getting crowds back to L1 football as a high priority. Whitty has spelt out in words of one syllable that we are at the limits of easing now.

Today is peak 'Trebor isn't able to properly follow the conversation because Kentish Don keeps on using nicknames'. It must be my age. 😕

It’s not just lower league football, Gloom. There’s the Prem, the Championship, Twickenham rugby union internationals vital to rugby union finances, ‘Red Wall’ rugby league clubs, racing, cricket, tennis, netball etc etc

Anything that stays closed and goes bust will have some sort of political cost. That will be weighed up alongside the economic cost. Lower league football clubs don’t feature terribly highly, whatever you wish to think. Didn’t see the government doing anything much when our club got stolen, or for Bury, Wigan and so the list goes on. We are a tiny part of an economic and social disaster.

morning troops - I'm eating a packet of pickled onion Space Raiders with an use-by date of 01.08.2020 Ain't NOBODY tell me how to live my life, except my momma.

OI - I’d close pubs during school hours. They shouldn’t be drinking anyway.

Pete from your crow at 100yds (nice zoom btw) I got this gull sleeping in the rain down in Polruan recently [Link] You can see the water droplets settled on his waxy plumage.

Off for a lovely sunny day of walks and gardening and cycling now - have a good one all 🙌😎

OI - exactly, that’s why it’s pointless saying pop density is a major factor, because putting NZ and UK and South Korea together for comparison simply doesn’t stack up.

K - you’re the expert, so I guess you must be right - I’ll defer to your insider knowledge on that 🤣🤦🏻‍♂️ The govt are, interestingly, now saying that a future lockdown might mean those aged 50+ might even be included in those isolating/shielding (not the 20-30s who are failing to distance in the pubs etc) - what would you do, K*nty, about a school where, say, 50% of the staff are over 50.... you’d struggle to keep that open, and you wouldn’t even be able to blame the unions.... 🤷🏻‍♂️

The ‘schools v pubs’ thing makes plain the charade that these decisions are based on science. That’s why I’m convinced we’ll see crowds back next season - too much political damage if dozens of sports clubs - not just football - go to the wall.

Chris Witty was effectively suggesting that if you want schools open, pubs and restaurants might need to close KD. You'd be happy with that?

A pretty pointless argument all around (NZ has done spectacularly well despite the very different circumtances) but it is incredibly naive to believe there would be anything like a linear relationship between density and cases, it would clearly be exponential in some degree.

Come off it, Anal. If the government said schools should remain closed, the unions would demand they open. That’s their MO.

I’m not quite clear though why there is this “close the pubs to open the schools” thing - where’s the connection?

K*nt - whilst your expertise is welcome on all matters, it isn’t the unions saying that schools might need to close if there were 2 or more Covid cases in the same school - that’s the govt’s own guidance, you can read it here [Link] (warning, it’s a long long document). Imagine a school returns, and the parents all go back to work, and then a few days later, the school gets shut (or even partially shut) for 14 days - how pleased all the employers will be to receive the phone calls from those parents saying “Sorry boss, I’ve got to take another 2 weeks off because my child can’t go to school...” - not the unions’ rule, the govt’s 👍

Nick - “a lesson that will be learned” indeed.

Media reporting that Test, Track, Trace data suggesting people mixing in each other’s homes is the top cause of new cases. Doesn’t surprise me as precautions essentially nil in this setting. I’ve never understood why this was allowed so early, given there is no economic benefit. For vulnerable groups/single people etc I can understand the potential benefits, but at a time of prolonged reasonable weather through the summer, the government should have made everyone else continue to meet outside.

I see leaders of the ‘National Alliance of Selfish Cunts’ are questioning whether schools should reopen next month. Shocked.

Of course NZ is miles from anywhere and basically cut off all international travel right at the start of this- I don’t disagree that that might have helped us had we done similar, and that is likely a lesson that will be learned, but it’s a lot easier if you are on the road to nowhere, like them, vs being a major travel hub like us. One long term consequence of all of this, for better or worse, is going to be way less international travel and mobility

Good to see this officer and The Guardian using PC Harper’s death for a good cause [Link]

And just to blow the pop density argument out of the water a little more, South Korea has a pop density that’s over 500 per sq km, but only 300 Covid deaths - so trying to link them isn’t always especially helpful is it?

Hampdon/Kite - spot on both. Lurks would benefit from reading the bit where I wrote “I know, NZ isn’t “truly” comparable....”, but why bother? I’m not going to apologise for pointing out the fact that our deaths are greater than NZ’s by a factor of two thousand - perhaps you’ll claim that I’ve made that up Lurks? I love that you try to point to a “lack of understanding of population density” - so let’s do that.... the UK has a population density around 18 times that of NZ (approx 275 per square km compared to approx 15) - 18 x 22 deaths would be 396.... Let’s round that up a bit, and pretend that the UK had a pop density of ONE THOUSAND times that of NZ rather than just 18 times greater - our deaths might be a thousand times that of NZ, at 22,000. But actually they are more than double even that number.... So, whilst not “truly” comparable (exactly as I said), if you can’t acknowledge how remarkably well they’ve done, well then I can’t help you any further.

This might be AR, but I see Coventry City are looking to build a new stadium on Warwick University land, possibly within the next 5 years.