My own person thoughts - at this time - is that everything that has happened and will happen was set as soon as the 'big bang' (or the word ... or whatever) occurred - as everything happens by laws that we are just starting to understand. I am unaware of anything that is outside of cause and effect. So much like the marble will roll down the slope and knock over the first domino - an at the end the snooker ball goes in the pocket - we may not see it like that - we see parts of chains and those chains bump into each other causing other weird effects that are the causes that in turn ripple to cause.... Cause and effect are effectively one and the same - just looked at from different angles - all causes were effects and all effects will be causes. I honestly don't see that free will exists. I get up and eat because I'm hungry, I'm hungry because of a chemical reaction inside my body, what I eat affects my chemistry. My chemistry dictates how my brain works, my brain says I'm hungry..... The really weird thing is that free will is such a persuasive illusion. I live and have morals. Or do I? Do I just do?
Told you I had a weird brain.
So to me - chance? No chance. The thing happened because it's cause happened, it's cause happened because of the effect of another cause....back to the beginning of time. Chance is just an occurrence where you're not aware of the causes/effects.
10 day’s off work is ok if you can afford it or you’d have to take it as your holiday.
Some can claim the £500 Test & Trace Support Payment. There are also some employers who have been paying the staff full pay if they have to self isolate.
Yes I know that, the people on benefits or credits get it, the ones one the border line don’t. My son and his wife got 95.00 a week, That doesn’t even cover their rent.
That is a low award! You’re right, a lot are borderline and end up losing out quite a bit.
Fingers crossed they don’t get pinged or contacted to isolate again.
I'm certain that the case numbers are reducing for a number of reasons that are not actually to do with the number of cases.
As others have said, secondary school kids and staff have had to test twice weekly since March. Even with it being voluntary and not everyone doing it, it has been catching a fair number of asymptomatic cases. Suddenly those tests - millions of them - are no longer happening, so of course there are fewer cases being reported.
I also agree that lots of people just won't test, especially if their symptoms are mild - even if they do the decent thing and isolate plus tell those they've been in contact with. Or they might test but not report the result, to avoid dealing with Test & Trace and their isolation ceasing to be voluntary.
Anyway, I'm not really saying anything that hasn't been said before. In short, I don't believe the actual infection numbers are reducing. I just hope hospitalisations and deaths don't increase too much and that the vaccination level proves adequate - the numbers of daily vaccinations has dropped through the floor 🙁.
'If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.'
In my experience people are very keen for everyone to do “ the right thing” and isolate for 10 days when “pinged” but less enthusiastic when their medication isn’t available because no delivery has arrived or their local pharmacy is closed because there are no staff.
My sister tells me she gets plenty of complaints when the doctors surgery take forever to answer calls because receptionists are off or there are no nurses available.
If randomness does not happen, then surely you believe in intelligent design?
That was my comment about G_d. I did think that this all had to be created because of what I saw as 'law' (I'm not even sure that has to follow anyway - why does law imply intelligence rather than a natural state?), but it hadn't clicked with me what infinity meant. If the universe is infinite, then there is nothing apart from it and everything you can imagine must exist within it - so that implies that within the universe law may rule someplace - and there'll be somewhere else where the rules are different or don't exist at all. So we see law, but elsewhere that will not be the case. Law then implies nothing on its own - it does not mean a creator.
Obviously the thing that is infinite may be animate or inanimate.
I read a booklet ages back called the Kybalion that stated everything is vibration and that the creator is infinite - and that what we perceive we perceive from within the creator. We are a mental construct and exist within G_d - much the same as we dream or imagine and create mental constructs. Given that no-one knows (and are highly unlikely to ever find out) it's an interesting thought. Is it any weirder than a big bang (what provided the cause for the change in state to create the bang?)?
Fascinating stuff eh?
Irrespective we all see randomness and chance, we all think we have free will - the illusion is too strong to ignore it. We make decisions don't we? That's (consigning effects to the randomness bin) how our brain handles lack of information - '...I can't explain it...' , so it's random, luck, magic...whatever. My spume example (and weatherforecasting) - there are so many causes that create a myriad of effects that create.... so many causes in action to make actually computing direction,velocity etc difficult/impossible. But what we see as random NOW, in a few decades ... centuries ... millennia someone will investigate and documents the causes and effects and then that area becomes clearer until someone stands on the shoulders of the composite giant and investigates further.
I'll crawl back into my hole and put my underpants on my head and my pencils up my nose now...
Random simply means that we cannot predict the frequency and timing of an event. One sources of mutations is cosmic rays which seem a good fit with the idea of randomness. Whether that random cosmic ray has an impact on DNA replication causing an error or mutation is an example of chance.
Stevetu don't forget the foil helmet,!Daily Telegraph, Professor Keith Willet,NHS England Covid Incident Director,"there is a binary split between those in hospital WITH and FOR Covid. A quarter of patients counted as being in hospital with Covid were admitted for another reason. Professor Carl Henegan Center of Evidence Based Medicine,Oxford Uni, said this information should have been given a very long time ago
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When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
As others have said, secondary school kids and staff have had to test twice weekly since March. Even with it being voluntary and not everyone doing it, it has been catching a fair number of asymptomatic cases. Suddenly those tests - millions of them - are no longer happening, so of course there are fewer cases being reported.
I also agree that lots of people just won't test, especially if their symptoms are mild - even if they do the decent thing and isolate plus tell those they've been in contact with. Or they might test but not report the result, to avoid dealing with Test & Trace and their isolation ceasing to be voluntary.
Anyway, I'm not really saying anything that hasn't been said before. In short, I don't believe the actual infection numbers are reducing. I just hope hospitalisations and deaths don't increase too much and that the vaccination level proves adequate - the numbers of daily vaccinations has dropped through the floor 🙁.