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rweir's comments

rweir | 5 years ago | on: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

> covid has kept him fairly serious.

no it hasn't, it's kept him doing what he always does, wandering from tactical decision to tactical decision. the March lockdown only happened when public pressure became unbearable, he allowed the treasury to subsidise people eating in restaurants, he continues, in month nine, to hand large contracts to unqualified mates, both wasting money and reducing the ability to deal with the pandemic, and despite it being a once-in-a-century pandemic, did not ask for an extension on the disorganised negotiations with the EU, meaning that in the middle of December, it's still unclear how trade with EU, including...food and medicine, is meant to work in 12 days.

his entire career is just making the easy choice in the moment with no forethought.

rweir | 5 years ago | on: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

No other western country has actually been willing to do what NZ or Australia did - strict contact tracing, strict lockdowns, and a near-complete ban on entering the country, with those that do being picked up the police or military at their plane and driven to quarantine hotels where the doors lock from the outside.

I don't know why everyone keeps going on about other countries not getting the same results - no other rich country has even talked about trying, as far as I know.

rweir | 5 years ago | on: London put in emergency lockdown as U.K. fights new strain

> Compliance with mask wearing on TFL is less than 50%

where? my counter-anecdote is I've taken to counting everyone on the carriage I'm on (between zone 2 and 1), and it's never more than 2-3 people without a mask, something like 90-95% compliance (seems down from a few months ago, though). in supermarkets it seems higher than that, to the extent I was quite weirded out to see a single person not wearing a mask last week.

rweir | 5 years ago | on: Oslo got pedestrian and cyclist deaths down to zero. Here’s how

people getting their groceries locally instead of driving in to the centre of a city is a good outcome, though perhaps not for all of the inner city supermarkets. I am deeply unconvinced this is a broader problem - e.g. Regent St or Oxford St are still global-level retail hubs even though driving there is a nightmare.

rweir | 5 years ago | on: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

> This is true but complex. It depends on the type of service you receive.

I feel this is never adequately priced into these discussions. everything about healthcare in the US is expensive and complicated, even if you "have insurance", even if you have expensive, seen-as-good-insurance.

rweir | 5 years ago | on: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

I disagree, a combination of cost of health care even for insured people, enormous worst case out of pocket costs and terrible wages means that people are conditioned to not go to the doctor (and conversely that some people are conditioned to go to the doctor to get "use" of their insurance) even when they are "insured".

rweir | 5 years ago | on: Why is life expectancy in the US lower than in other rich countries?

this is a common pattern I see in discussions, the idea of "going to the hospital and not worrying about bankruptcy" is just unintelligible and so you end up with discussions like this, about how "pregnancy-related-costs are often covered by Medicaid" which completely ignores the conditioning and fear and logistics that means that loads of people in the US simply don't go and get routine preventative care, even if they have what they consider to be "good" insurance.

rweir | 5 years ago | on: The polls messed up

facebook and twitter have also been uncritically spreading false rumours from trump and only in the past couple of months have done anything to arrest the swirling hive of insanity/bad faith/malicious interference that is qanon.

rweir | 5 years ago | on: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

if it was me, I'd skip straight to Qi-only just to avoid the amount of whinging they would have to endure (here would be among the worst) about "omg another cable change!!11" for their...second cable change in two decades.

rweir | 5 years ago | on: iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro

it's already a weird USA-specific question, even in Australia, world leader in rich-country-shitty-internet, it's not an expensive addon.
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