Oh dear.
Best wishes to all affected.

Get well soon all of you

The trouble is Kiwi, in the UK people just don't comply. The government set the rules and too many people ignore them, in this latest wave the large numbers of younger people (18-29) have continued to go out and to socialise hence we are in this position now. It seems from the outside people in NZ largely did the right thing and as a country I hugely admire how you have handled it. If only people in the UK would actually stick to the rules we would be much better off !!!

Does footy really matter anymore?

Just as we get vacinnes ,another spike and strain ckme along.

Get well soon and just follow rules folks !!!!

Hope all are well. This is bigger than a game of football.

Absolutely right Prebbs, and still the advice is ignored. The scenes at St.Pancras and Heathrow last night are simply beyond comprehension. The blatant disregard for human life is a disgrace.

Daniel72 ,there areone or two tw#ts on here, and i DONT mean people who see things at ITFC diferently to myself , i mean real tw#ts, but you take the biscuit, i expect you totally disregard all rules , or advice given for trying to control the virus .As Cooper4England said Prick, and i dont think he meant the vaccine .

this is going to be repeated at other clubs over winter, i have always thought this season will be chaotic and i can see it winding up same as the last season did.

Daniel72 I have read some ridiculous statements on this site but you take the grand prize for ignorance. In your delusional thinking governments around the world have put restrictions on people for their own as yet undisclosed reasons, causing economies to be devastated, peoples lives to negatively changed. Spouting the thoughts of one source as fact shows how uneducated you are.

they said on news last week that 1 in 10 people who have been in contact with an infected person self isolate and 0nly 2 in 10 with the virus self isolate, that being the case its no surprise we are in this situation and we will be for sometime yet . Some people just cant be told .

I am sorry for those concerned and wish them a full and early recovery.

If you go onto coronavirus.data.gov.uk and click view map then you have an interactive map which you can use to view virus rates in either large or small areas. The figures it uses are cases per 100,000 over a rolling seven day period (caveat, a bit of a nonsense in areas of low population density). There is an area of Essex around Braintree and Halstead which is red being the top category 400+. There are a couple of areas of Suffolk, e.g. Ipswich, which are in the next category dark blue which is 200-399. The area surrounding Ipswich is mainly light blue 100-199 and the very rural parts tend to be light green 10-49.

There was a graph in The Sunday Telegraph last weekend which used figures from the Office for National Statistics. Those aged 0-49 account for 62.3% of the population, but only 1.9% of the deaths from Covid. Those aged 80+ account for 5% of the population, but 60.9% of the deaths. The good news is that vaccinating the elderly would cut the death rate dramatically.

Get well soon every single one of you

Im sure our fitness teams would still say send the players out they are fit to play 😭🤣🤣🤣 joking aside i wish them all the very best hope nothing serious x

KiwiBlue2
I don't get why people think that it is money vs health. money = health, or would you rather chance it in a third world country? Don't forget all of the people who are dying from other causes and suffering health issues due to the response of the government. It is not as simple as people who disagree with the extent of the restrictions, or the way that they have been imposed without regard to any consent by the people. For all of history we have worked off the model of guarding vulnerable people, but now we are all supposed to stay at home. There hasn't been enough public debate, we are just told that they are "following the science", but I don't know the specific parameters for when the government decides to enforce measures, and I expect that is because they have not been transparent about that. Either our approach was self and immoral for years, and we have killed thousands by spreading the flu, or we have gone too far this time. We have to balance freedom and safety, but we have totally shifted to focusing on safety. That would be ok if it was a decision made with the consent of the people and if we weren't continually having the goalposts moved.
New Zealand is a totally different case. It is about as isolated as possible in terms of proximity to major populations. It's a lot easier to contain a virus in those circumstances. The people of New Zealand seem fairly happy with the response, but English people tend to value individual rights higher. It kind of depends on what you are comfortable with, because once the president has been set that we care about the sum number of deaths there will be justification to ban all sorts of things that lead to deaths. All stuff to consider really. People on both sides of the argument have valid concerns.
You don't have to agree with the rules to abide by them, it's a case of respecting others to wear a mask in public or to not go round to someone's house if they don't want you to, but certain rules would go beyond what I would accept. You still have to decide for yourself what is acceptable to you, not blindly follow advice from a government who told us that 5 days over Christmas was fine, then changed their minds a few days later, under political pressure.

Totally agree, Europa. It's concerning there are so many who point the finger at other fellow humans when the message has been so unclear, poorly communicated and changed so much it breeds distrust. Those of us fortunate to have had a good education are looking at this and seeing the basic messages through all the waffle. Many more are closing their minds and/or acting in what they consider the best interests of themselves and their families. Please be kind. Judge less.

Europablue that is plainly incorrect. You don't get to decide what is acceptable to you. The laws a made to be followed not broken just because you don't think they're acceptable. And the government didn't change their mind under political pressure from the idiot Starmer, sorry I mean Mr Hindsight, they changed it due to NEW scientific information. This decision is harsh but necessary and it's to stop people breaking the rules which from your statement I assume you've been doing. Anyway this is not a political site, I just wish everyone a safe and happy Christmas and keys hope tge vaccine gives us all a way back to normal soon.

Let's hope..

prebbs007 My point is that you have to have your own morals and decide where you draw the line regardless of the law. Otherwise, if we just comply blindly we are no different from Nazi Germany. You are still subject to the law of course even if it is totally immoral.
5 days over Christmas was a huge surprise. One or two days would have made sense considering the trends and public opinion. Immediately after the announcement, the pressure began to reduce the relaxation and even if new scientific information was presented, it was entirely predictable.
As far as I know, I have complied with the letter of the law so far, but I would draw the line if I weren't allowed to be with my wife at the birth of our child (I would probably just protest that very strongly because I would literally be forced to comply). I won't report my neighbour, I won't tell other people to wear a mask, I wouldn't be denied access to my daughter if the state told me (unless it was a short time frame after a positive test), I won't tell people that they are not capable of making their own risk assessments within reasonable bounds. I do respect people's personal space, I do honour people's wishes voluntarily within reasonable bounds. People don't have to wear masks in my home, I won't wear a mask in another person's home unless they are vulnerable. I don't live in the UK anymore, so I'm not 100% on the details.
The relationship is backwards when the government is telling people what to do.

Some interesting posts on the subject of the apparent differences between NZ and the U.K. In my opinion, NZ has a PM who is taken seriously and inspires confidence whereas we have a PM who hasn't got the personality or skill set for extremely challenging times. Any Government would struggle with what we are all facing. However, the Scottish and Welsh First Ministers are on the front foot and speak with authority and maturity but sadly the PM struggles with strategic decisions and is losing the confidence and trust of many people, hence the respect for rules and laws is diminishing. Central dictates rarely work if trust is lost.

Is this a political forum or a football forum?

Bert I guess you don't know any Welsh or Scottish people or haven't been paying attention, because their leaders are not doing a great job and are roundly hated, especially Mark Drakeford in Wales. The NZ government has at least been less authoritarian than the Australian government.

Prebbs. How can you post "that idiot Starmer" and then say "Anyway this is not a political site" in the same post. A very silly post.

Leave the politics out of it guys(thought i was in the house of commons for a minute there!!) and wish our club's players and staff a speedy recovery as any of us would send the same sentiments to all posters on here!! just get real.

Best wishes to the six who've tested positive and to everyone who follows this site, a very happy and safe festive period.

The new strain of the virus has been around since at least September - it was identified in lab testing in the UK then. This was expected. Viruses mutate. One reason they do is to be more transmissible. There is no evidence that it is more deadly than previous strains or that it stops the various vaccines developed from working. But it is putting a strain on the health service, so it makes sense to take preventative action (too late in my opinion, but I'm trying to steer clear of politics, as requested by others on here).

What does it mean football wise? It's already causing significant disruption - lots of games in this league already postponed this season and now a new batch with us and Sunderland. As we saw last season, there's not likely to be the will to finish the season amongst the 24 clubs if the disruption is significant enough to get us to that point. I can't see that happening at the moment, but if it did, our points per game (and pretty much every other metric you could think of) would see us marooned in L1 for another season.