New Covid Rules

Hi Weary

Of course we must keep 2 meters apart.

What I meant was that it only takes a lovely new loco to appear, or a technical problem with an engine, for willing hands to gather round and forget the 2 meter requirement!

This aspect can be hard to police.

John

Perhaps the main advantage of doing a Risk Assessment is someone thinks about what could go wrong, how serious the outcome might be, and what can be done to reduce the risk and damage.

Risk Assessments aren't expected to be perfect, but done with reasonable care they easily out-perform a bunch of pensioners burbling about common-sense and the snowflake generation! Their approach relying on personal experience to keep out of trouble, and assuming risks are obvious to others is foolish. Particularly true of Covid-19. As the virus is new and strange, it can safely be assumed granddad knows s*d-all about it unless he's researched the subject.

Risk Assessments are often reluctantly churned out by chaps with a bad attitude. Rather than seeing the opportunities they treat the job as irksome bureaucracy. Any old rubbish will do: 20000 thoughtless words stuck in a filing cabinet and forgotten. Perhaps we resent being made to write essays on the Corn Laws at school!

Much better Risk Assessments can be compressed into a pithy few pages covering likely issues intelligently without getting entangled in details written in legalese.

Many Risk Assessments cover common situations and can be written once, applied repeatedly and reviewed once in a blue moon. Covid isn't like that! The risk posed to a club and it's members by Covid is continually changing. Therefore club Risk Assessments may have to be tweaked frequently too.

I suggest clubs should regularly review and update their Risk Assessments in so far as Covid is involved. It shows the club to be responsible rather than of bunch of lazy incompetents! Not full re-writes, keep it simple. A few broad principles state in the Assessment may help keep the word count down, for example:

• Club rules require members to meet all applicable law.
• The club will change access and other rules in line with government and local requirements.
• The Club Safety Officer will notify members when restrictions change and post them on a public notice board.

Apart from reducing accidents, Risk Assessments are also useful in the event of a legal challenge. A club that doesn't have a Risk Assessment at all is instantly in the wrong whereas an out-of-date Risk Assessment shows the law hasn't been held in contempt.

Say a foolish member comes in and ignores the Risk Assessment's guidance on Covid. If he infects a group of members, the club as an organisation isn't responsible. Provided the Risk Assessment makes it clear club rules have been broken, it's the member who gets sued, not the club. And of course breaching rules set by the risk assessment could be a reason for terminating or suspending the membership. Doing that keeps others safe because the club acts to remove the menace. Surely a good thing.

Dave

Edited By SillyOldDuffer on 14/09/2020 12:11:06

Our RA's are done on a pro forma matrix style form listing identified hazard, control measures and a simple scoring system. All kept in a folder accessbile to all and with appropriate review dates stipulated. For common tasks review is usually 12m but for things like portable track events where external circumstances can differ widely it is reviewed per use and any additional measures implemented. Very simple to do and hence most often done! We also maintain a COSHH file and are working on a safety management system / manual that will incorporate our running rules and various policies such as disabled access, equipment maintenance records, etc. which at the moment are stand alone documents.

What I find in commercial life is its all too easy to say something cannot be done because it's dangerous, rather than seek out ways to do it safely!

Paul.

Heads up, new lockdown coming next week.

Yep just watched the News tonight. Dam & blast. Back to the workshop.

Steve.

Am I the only one who believes that no one has a clue what they are doing, so the best thing to do is to pass a few new laws in the hope that it might all go away ?

It was a mistake trusting the younger generation to follow the guidelines - particularly some that should be in the upper half of the intelligence stakes (uni students). It has been clear that an awful lot of ‘raves’ have been taking place. There will always be an element who have a different agenda - like the mask-wearing dissenters and conspiracy theory followers...

‘You reap as you sow’ is one very appliccable olde saying. And it is the younger generation who are complaining of reduced future work prospects.

The whole population needs to get a grip on the situation, not just most.

This should have been done weeks ago. Forget the daily numbers of cases and focus on the R number. If cases are low and R is above 1 behaviour needs to change. With the best will in the world the R is not going to fall much below 0.7 so with a large number of cases it takes a long time to get the daily numbers down. If R is 1 the number of daily infections stays the same. If you bring R back to 1 when the numbers are low we can live with that, do exactly the same when the numbers are high and we have to live with a high death rate which doesn't change week on week.

Get the numbers down and keep them down by early intervention is the least painful way of surviving until vaccines arrive. This is what the epidemiologists have been saying all along.

regards Martin

It's strange as this video seems to show people are keeping their distance.

Stay safe, trust the government, don't leave your bubble.

A far bigger mistake is blaming anyone without evidence. Apart from being unjust, believing in the wrong answer distracts effective action away from real causes. Whilst locking up everyone under 30 would make me happy for other reasons, it won't stop the epidemic.

The disease spreads due to people coming into contact. Any people, any contact, any time. Raves are bad, so is travelling by bus, road mending, working in a team, being a carer, going shopping, visiting vulnerable relatives, having an tooth out, or opening the front door to take in a parcel.

'For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.' It's why I distrust the Daily Mail, far too many clear simple solutions.

Covid is a b*st*rd. Stay safe.

Dave

I went to a customer with their medication on Friday, I usually go once a week but this was the first time in over a month, the lady of the house answered the door and I asked her how she was, she said we are better thanks and she told me they had had Covid, her husband ended up in hospital as he is bed bound and became very ill, the lady told me they go nowhere, dont have a car and food is delivered outside their house, turns out the Carer who comes to see her husband every day had it and she is kitted out with all the PPE etc.

Martin P

Does that reflect the difference between the SE (where infections seem to be lower) and the NE/NW where infections are rampant? Average R values, for the whole country, are misleading. Agriculture has to carry on regardless. It’s good that people can work from home. We know that some Leicester sweat shop industries ignored the rules during the last lock-down - very likely the main reason for their local lock-downs.

Again, most London jobs, other than shops restaurants, etc, tend to be office located. It is those working from home that are making the place quiet, which is good for the R value. Factory jobs are an entirely different proposition - particularly meat processing factories?

Perhaps these empty spaces need comparing with campus parties and pub-goers in other places. I know our local pub bends the rules as much as they can get away with, but we are lucky in that infections are fewer in our area.

I hope Logan’s Run isn’t going to be on the telly any time soon, it might give the wrong people some ideas.

Mike

How many infections here?

**LINK**

As many as 700 potentially spreading the virus in Bristol and the surrounding area. 700 that simply do not care.

Midnight, Wednesday 4th November. I will only get one day to take anything I need at home back from the museum. This time I will remember all the batteries for my Parkside tools.

"As many as 700 potentially spreading the virus in Bristol and the surrounding area. 700 that simply do not care."

That's unbelievable!

The strange thing is Mrs Blowlamp is back to school tomorrow, where there are over 700 pupils and more than 80 members of staff!

What gives

Edited By blowlamp on 01/11/2020 19:34:48

Edited By blowlamp on 01/11/2020 19:36:02

Or have a segregation of the generations,. Sixteen to Thirty year old's get to live in Partyland. Once turning thirty, unlike in Logan's Run, they are not euthanized, but are expelled into Oldiesland, where there is no more partying, ever!.

The govenment might have given a bit longer notice, a fortnight would have been sensible.

I’ve just received an email with reference to the spread of covid infections:

Appropriate analogy. "The curve is flattening so we can start lifting restrictions now" is like saying "The parachute has slowed our rate of descent, so we can take it off now."

 

The spread of COVID-19 is based on 2 things:

o How dense the population is

o How dense the population is

I thought these were quite appropriate, among others.

Edited By not done it yet on 03/11/2020 16:09:21

It seems to me that there are factors influencing Govt decisions which are kept secret. Was the failure to produce a decent track and trace system because the Govt could not make the necessary deals - perhaps because of brexit, perhaps because they had previously sold off or underfunded resources?

The courts are clogged up because there are not enough rooms where they can do their jury business at a 'covid' distance apart. Recently the Govt sold off lots of court facilities and this is said to be a serious factor. How much else is going on - or not going on - that is a cover up for Govt actions in the past?

Why is the NHS struggling to cope? Have they been underfunded for the last ten + years?

Why can't local authorities fund meals for poor children? Have they been ditto ditto ... ?

cheers, Tim