Coronavirus

[100th_Idiot]

29 minutes ago, Barrykearley said:

I’m really not a fan on this intrusion into individuals Dna. Yes it may help police in a small way - but let’s not forget the widespread sexual exploitation of young girls that has been ignored for decades all over the uk. 

I for one do not trust the integrity of the Government, police or council appointed individuals. This country is now an utter disgrace frankly.

Possibly but the retention is only for 6 months and only under prevention of terrorism laws which suggests it's only for named individuals already under surveillance.

[Barrykearley]

then in that case they can crack on with dealing with the known individuals they already know about and leave the rest of the population alone.

yet again - sadly - this will almost certainly slide one stage too far.

[100th_Idiot]

5 minutes ago, Barrykearley said:

then in that case they can crack on with dealing with the known individuals they already know about and leave the rest of the population alone.

yet again - sadly - this will almost certainly slide one stage too far.

That's a possibility which I would fight against. RIPA was widely misused by councils but it was badly written and not constrained. This at least has constraints on retention time and only under anti terror laws. It would take parliamentary amendment to broaden it.

[C8RKH]

I have no problem with the Government taking and holding a copy of my DNA. Quite what use they would find for it, i do not know, unless they wanted to use it to clone a whole new generation of ranting muppets...

However, on the less serious side, by all means take peoples DNA in two situations and make sure there are NO EXCEPTIONS - (1) at birth and (2) when someone first enters the UK

Take their fingerprints too in the same two scenarios

I've got nothing to hide and couldn't give a toss which government database it was held on as long as it was secure, an d not used commercially (e.g. to sell info on me, to allow insurance companies to rape me on renewals etc.)

Knowing that your fingerprints and DNA is on record will be a huge deterrent to most people and who knows, maybe we can reverse some of the incidents of serious and violent crime and catch some of the complete and utter bastards who rape and molest both children and adults alike (and maybe the odd sheep or turnip in Norfolk!)

I'm all for personal freedom, but when you commit some of these crimes then you should expect your personal freedom to be withdrawn. For some of the crimes it should go further than that.

[Bibs]

Lucky the authorities never makes mistakes then! 

Oh, and while we're beginning more restrictions on our personal lives, last week was the lowest recorded 'rona deaths since the pandemic began.

[C8RKH]

Mistakes will be made @Bibs and no doubt people will be impacted as a result. However, we live in a country where generally our Government is not corrupt (no doubt we'll get the usual silly responses to that), our laws are fair and balanced, and our Police generally have a good reputation and have strong ethics (yes, there are always exceptions).

So, if having everyone's DNA on file means that the MAJORITY are safer from the minority and that the minority who do commit the heinous crimes are more likely to be caught then maybe the discussion point is "Is the risk worthwhile"?  I for one think it is, yes.

 

[Barrykearley]

You see @C8RKH they will not be allowed to use DNA in a court of law - it’s racist you see 🤭

[C8RKH]

@Barrykearley if you listen to some people all aspects of law, and order, are racist!!!  DNA/Genes is not racist, it just merely points a big finger at the perpetrator. 

Indeed, the general view is that DNA/Genes is not a good indicator of race!  So quite how it can be racist is beyond my comprehension.

 

A landmark 2002 study by Stanford scientists examined the question of human diversity by looking at the distribution across seven major geographical regions of 4,000 alleles. Alleles are the different “flavors” of a gene. For instance, all humans have the same genes that code for hair: the different alleles are why hair comes in all types of colors and textures.

In the Stanford study, over 92% of alleles were found in two or more regions, and almost half of the alleles studied were present in all seven major geographical regions. The observation that the vast majority of the alleles were shared over multiple regions, or even throughout the entire world, points to the fundamental similarity of all people around the world—an idea that has been supported by many other studies (Figure 1B).

If separate racial or ethnic groups actually existed, we would expect to find “trademark” alleles and other genetic features that are characteristic of a single group but not present in any others. However, the 2002 Stanford study found that only 7.4% of over 4000 alleles were specific to one geographical region. Furthermore, even when region-specific alleles did appear, they only occurred in about 1% of the people from that region—hardly enough to be any kind of trademark. Thus, there is no evidence that the groups we commonly call “races” have distinct, unifying genetic identities. In fact, there is ample variation within races (Figure 1B).

[SFO]

3 hours ago, Bibs said:

Oh, and while we're beginning more restrictions on our personal lives, last week was the lowest recorded 'rona deaths since the pandemic began.

politicians and journalists don’t mention this happy fact because the only game in town in number of cases 

[Barrykearley]

@C8RKH if coronavirus can be racist - then Dna sure can. Get with the blm movements mantra 🤪

[Mysterae]

I didn't comment on my own post as I was still making my mind up on how I felt about it. Seems pretty convenient to use Covid as a vehicle to mass gather personal data for national security as surely the public would go batshit crazy if brought in any other way. At first innocently naive glance it seems a good idea, protect those that cause no harm, if you've done nothing wrong then you've nothing to hide. However there have been many travesties of injustice in this country where fingerprints were wrongly identified or DNA botched by poorly run forensic labs. As for deleting the data after the defined period? That remains to be seen.

[MPx]

I wouldn't be bothered about them holding my DNA if I believed that it was as infallible as all the authorities seem to.  But in actual use, I understand that they only look at a sub set of indicators (16?) just as they do with fingerprints, which gives a very high probability of it being accurate.  Very high probability?  Several million to one no doubt is very good, but with billions of people that means there's a fair few out there who would give the same result as me.  And that's before they mix up samples, databases get corrupted or hacked, etc, etc. 

[C8RKH]

This is incorrect @MPx as no one, as far as I am aware, is proposing a "global" database with everyone's (billions) DNA loaded and stored. Instead it is "local" country databases and so the margins for error are significantly reduced. Also, you can check the 16 indicators and if you get a match you can then focus on the other indicators to then further isolate and reduce the chances of error. It's not hard to think of a process that will minimise, but not eradicate as to think we could do that would also be incorrect, the risk.

 

Will it be infallible no. However would it increase citizen safety, increase the chances of identifying and prosecuting the purps, etc.  So, like everything, it is a balance between risk and outcome.

However, as ever, everyone focuses on the negatives first which is why progress takes sooooooo long.

[Kimbers]

My friends business is failing, its a Large old house thats only rented to groups of 15 and above. He can't afford for it to be empty anymore as it has been since lock down, then it opened again and now is shut again due to the rule of 6. Just spoken to another company in my trade and they say anymore lock downs and all their Airport rental sites will go bust (They are Franchised), My friend runs a Pub Poker business and had about 250 games a week going on and has had to shut, taking away a second income stream from all 250 Tournament Directors who run the venues.

If this is happening all over the country across many businesses I have to ask how long we can go before you just have to open up everything and take the hit of Covid spreading. Maybe ask over 70's to self isolate until theres a cure? I know that sounds awful but don't forget they are saying that having had it will not protect you from having it again in 9 months to a years time! That means it could all happen again January next year! The Country would just cease to be as we know it.

[mg4lotus]

@C8RKH *perps* , unless they are wearing purple clothing, in which case purps is ok

[PaulCP]

Interesting graph

[Jason is Chasing]

Its good to see such a Dynamic drop, 

[ChrisJ]

You do have to wonder at what figures the politicians, and scientists advising them, are looking at when deciding which bat shit crazy idea they are going to introduce next.

 

[C8RKH]

1 minute ago, ChrisJ said:

when deciding which bat shit crazy idea they are going to introduce next.

Bat shit! Isn't that where all this started?

[Bibs]

#2020

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-disease-outbreak-contagious-animals-factory-brucellosis-b482266.html

[C8RKH]

They've seen the light and are going for a greener, healthier way to farm animals but please @Bibs in no way apportion any blame at all to the Chinese around any of this. They are just innocent victims type cast as the villains.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/18/a-12-storey-pig-farm-has-china-found-a-way-to-stop-future-pandemics-

Seriously though, the question that world leaders need to start to ask themselves, and engage with society on a global scale, is, "Have we reached peak human?" - in other words, have we reached, or even passed the point, where there are more humans living than the planet can sustain.  This needs to be asked from a food, housing, water perspective and balanced against consumption of non essentials that is stripping the land bare and causing massive erosion, climate change, and loss of the little soil we have's ability to sustain crop yields.

And if anyone pipes up that the answer is EV's, well, please, do us all a favour and go and stick a Tesla Supercharger cable up your arse and switch the thing on full!

I'm a huge part of the problem. I eat meat for a start. We have 5 cars at home between 3 people living there.  We have 3 desktop computers, 6 tablets, 4 laptops, and several mobile phones between us. There are 8 screens (TV / monitors) in the house. Etc.  And yet, all is OK and the household is in peace and harmony with the planet as my wife is an avid sorter of our waste and ensures that paper/cardboard, plastics and glass go in the right bins and buckets which obviously offsets our environmental impacts elsewhere.

So, in a very un scientific manner, I present my idea for a thesis which would be to explore the ways in which we need to restrict human population growth to preserve the planet, avoid an environmental catastrophe, protect the climate and avoid the death of several billions through plague, disease and lack of drinking water...

On a simpler note, the sun is shining out there. The sky is clear blue. And the roads around me are empty due to the Second Wave Covid lockdown. Petrol tank is full. Pre-drive checks completed and the Evora is sat on the drive waiting to be launched for a 300 mile drive to nowhere on empty, flowing roads between lochs, munro's, mountains and through valleys.  Enjoy the day everyone. Winters coming...  And C8RKH knows nothing.

 

 

[Neal H]

I’m inclined to agree with Kimbers. The ‘cure’ has become worse than the disease. We can’t have a second nationwide lockdown, we are ruining the economy and destroying jobs which potentially has far more serious long term health implications than Covid. Just give people the facts and some advise on how to behave and let common sense dictate people’s actions - some will be sensible, some will be reckless, the sensible will be fine. Schools, shops, workplaces, bars, hotels must remain open now.

[SFO]

7 hours ago, Neal H said:

I’m inclined to agree with Kimbers. The ‘cure’ has become worse than the disease. We can’t have a second nationwide lockdown, we are ruining the economy and destroying jobs which potentially has far more serious long term health implications than Covid. Just give people the facts and some advise on how to behave and let common sense dictate people’s actions - some will be sensible, some will be reckless, the sensible will be fine. Schools, shops, workplaces, bars, hotels must remain open now.

Spot on. We need to balance the massive costs of lockdown/continuing severe restrictions against the real - rather than the overblown and overhyped - risks of CV19

 

A

[Dan E]

@Neal H absolutely spot on, I know this is not going to sound good and I know someone who lost both their mum and dad to COVID but you have to look at the facts 41k people in the uk have died out of 66 million (I think that’s right) it has to stop now and you make your own choices. I don’t drive down Chislehurst high street at 120mph but someone did and they’re now dead along with their passenger. So you can’t control everyone but let’s hope the sensible survive 

[Bibs]

I'm not sure where the cabinet drink but what happens in pubs and restaurants after 10pm that's so bad at spreading coronavirus?