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Only over 75s, care home residents and immunosuppressed to be given Covid vax this Autumn.

Good morning

My wife and I have had a total of 10 covid vax, had covid itself twice and was really ill, and it looks like more to follow !!!!!!!!!!

The thing is still about. Had COVID last week.

It is indeed. And yet society operates as normal without lockdowns, without masks and with education. Hindsight is easy but I think the argument that we massively overreacted to a relatively moderate virus is now overwhelming. Of course, next time, we will have something far more severe and go the opposite way.

We don't need extra measures because we have the vaccine, and because many of us have already had the virus.

If you really think that we 'massively overreacted' in early-mid 2020, or that the virus was 'relatively moderate', then you are being really, really silly, and also acting with a massive dollop of hindsight.

I recently watched the BBC 'Ambulance' series that was recorded in 2020/2021, and it was a shocking reminder of how much of a strain the NHS was under during even the second wave.

I think if you read my post you will see the words "hindsight is easy". I fully accept that at the time (2020 pre vaccines) given the known unknowns and the unknown unknowns the government had to act.

But ultimately Covid proved a minor disease for most, no worse than the flu (which of course kills many people every year). The mortality rate was very low but it was also very focused on the elderly, the frail and the those with immunodeficiency. Clearly steps were necessary to protect them as much as possible. The rest of us should, with hindsight, have got on with it.

This is true in the post-vaccine world.

Pre vaccine? No.

The case fatality rate for Covid-19 in a naive population (i.e., no previous vaccination or infection) was about 1% across all ages, worldwide. The case fatality rate across all ages for Influenza is about 0.1%.

Covid-19 was much, much worse than a Flu epidemic: Catching Covid-19 unvaccinated roughly doubled your actuarial chance of dying in a given year by age.

The UK health service nearly fell over completely multiple times during successive infection waves even with lockdowns pre-vaccination & that was with dragging every person with any medical training whatsoever into work & abandoning all non-essential surgery or treatment. Without the locakdowns, it seems inevitable that the service would have failed completely & many, many more people would have died. Yes, those would have been predominantly older, but would have included large numbers of younger, working age people too. The Nightingale Hospitals were built to warehouse these dying people. Fortunately they were never used.

Morning all

As an aside, Goodwood reported a healthy increase in crowd numbers for its Festival meeting last week, The Public Enclosure (the cheap seats) had crowd numbers up 10% from 2024 while even the posh areas saw a 5% rise and that was despite last Thursdy's biblical deluge.

Attendances at race meetings are doing well and some evidence there's still plenty of discretionary income out there to be spent despite the notion we are on our knees, society is broken and we are one step away from anarchy and barbarism under Labour.

It's all much more nuanced than that - it always has been.

Inequality is increasing, despite what politicians say. If you are retired, self employed, have a skilled trade or don’t have young children or a large mortgage, the chances are you will be comfortably off. If you are renting, have a young family, have no useful skills, or on minimum wage, you will be ever poorer.

Yes, and I'd like to see more focus on it. A Labour government should have 'reduce inequality' at the top of its priorities. It's what the party is for.

I'll do it in Keir X speak:

Britain is a wealthy country but too much of it is held by the few. This leaves many people struggling.
We need a better and fairer way.
My government will leave no stone unturned to find it. Oh yes.

I think if he does that he also needs to make the connection between reducing inequality and a healthy economy. £1,000 in the hands of a poor person gets spent and recycled many times. £1,000 in the hands of the elite goes into speculative assets including housing, pushing assets further away from the reach of those reliant on a wage.

So you think what our economy needs is more consumption and less investment?

Interesting.

More consumption, more productive investment, less asset speculation and asset stripping.

But if that £1000 is in the hands of a poor person it is not going to be productively invested, it is going to get spent. Productive investment comes from those who have savings and if you redistribute their income they will invest less. Short term gain (because the consumption will boost demand, and imports of course) long term pain. I think we have had too much of that already.

One false assumption that people make is that money that is saved is always "productively invested". Since 2008 we've had a general story that consumption has been low and investment has been low. There simply haven't been any decent investments to be made - at least in the UK - despite very low interest rates making such investments more attractive. Then we had austerity on government spending (even though borrowing for government was extremely cheap), which means that every element of what drives economic output has been suppressed.

There were absolutely insane savings rates by rich households during the pandemic as consumption collapsed. Did that drive brilliant economic growth? Nope. Interest rates then went up to take account of supply side inflation, but poor people still need to spend on essentials and rich people have shedloads of savings to deploy, so it took ages to work, all while making investment less attractive throughout.

Investment by everyone - government, firms, individuals - has been shit. A mess.

we are miles away from the sad state of affairs that was Biden, so he can ride it out as still able to say look at the other guy.

Also, his whole shtick is clearly and obviously lying and changing like the wind, so its not like the bar is set where if he falls from some high pedestal of perceived honesty because his mental decline doesn't allow him to keep the plates spinning of half truths.

We really aren't

And while Trump lies almost as easily as BoZo, the problem with his mental decline is that he is starting to believe his own confabulations.

He told a story a few weeks ago that his uncle taught the Unabomber.

Yes, his uncle was a university professor.

Yes, the unabomber went to university.

Not the same university. Not at the same time. They never met.

Biden was (mostly) harmless. Trump is a clear and present danger.

I don't think that is evidence of decline. Trump through out his life loves to tell absolutely BS stories and also just openly lie about either being friends with people or never heard of them (despite loads of photos of them together). He was doing it 10 years ago on the campaign trail, easily fact checkable stories he would spew.

Biden couldn't do 5 minute appearances. Trump in comparison is still out there muck spreading his BS like some kid with ADHD.

Trump said he reduced drug prices by 1500%

That's not just a lie. That's a mathematical impossibility that he no longer understands.

He has mentally declined "by 1500% (sic) " since he was last in office

The problem is there is no way of knowing whether he really thinks that drug price can be reduced by 1000% or whether he knows most of his base haven't the foggiest about even basic maths (and % are always something a lot of people struggle to truly grasp) and so it sounds plausible and a very good thing to say and "yeh - let's stick it to them elite fat cat drug companies" is a hit.

It’s an American version of “£350m a week” written on the side of a bus.

It’s got everyone talking about a massive reduction in drug prices, which to be fair to the administration has been a problem for decades in the US.

Is there no action by Trump you won't support? He flat out lies and you say it's just a clever strategy to get people talking about something.

I think that a significant lowering of drug prices in the US is a good thing, irrespective of who is doing it!

The Big Phama lobby is one of the worst, sending hundreds of millions of dollars to politicans to vote to keep prices high.

Do you think it is OK for Trump to say things that are not remotely true?

Of course its not, but show me any politician who isn't economic with the truth

There are many types of ' truth' in politics.

There is the 'truth' that is actually true and 100% supported by evidence, and which everyone agrees on.
There is the 'truth' that is actually true and 100% supported by evidence, but which opponents call a lie because they don't like it.
There is the 'truth' that is mostly true, or a future projection, and a strong argument can be made for it based on evidence.
There is the 'truth' that is probably false, but an argument can be made for it based on evidence.
There is the 'truth' that is just hope and prayers.
There is the 'truth' that is utterly untrue, and which has no actual evidence, and which is designed to just appeal to a certain part of the population.

Far to many of Trump's 'economy with the truth' lie in that last category. They are not a 'truth'; they are lies.

Only over 75s, care home residents and immunosuppressed to be given Covid vax this Autumn.

Good morning

My wife and I have had a total of 10 covid vax, had covid itself twice and was really ill, and it looks like more to follow !!!!!!!!!!

The thing is still about. Had COVID last week.

It is indeed. And yet society operates as normal without lockdowns, without masks and with education. Hindsight is easy but I think the argument that we massively overreacted to a relatively moderate virus is now overwhelming. Of course, next time, we will have something far more severe and go the opposite way.

We don't need extra measures because we have the vaccine, and because many of us have already had the virus.

If you really think that we 'massively overreacted' in early-mid 2020, or that the virus was 'relatively moderate', then you are being really, really silly, and also acting with a massive dollop of hindsight.

I recently watched the BBC 'Ambulance' series that was recorded in 2020/2021, and it was a shocking reminder of how much of a strain the NHS was under during even the second wave.

Morning all

As an aside, Goodwood reported a healthy increase in crowd numbers for its Festival meeting last week, The Public Enclosure (the cheap seats) had crowd numbers up 10% from 2024 while even the posh areas saw a 5% rise and that was despite last Thursdy's biblical deluge.

Attendances at race meetings are doing well and some evidence there's still plenty of discretionary income out there to be spent despite the notion we are on our knees, society is broken and we are one step away from anarchy and barbarism under Labour.

It's all much more nuanced than that - it always has been.

Inequality is increasing, despite what politicians say. If you are retired, self employed, have a skilled trade or don’t have young children or a large mortgage, the chances are you will be comfortably off. If you are renting, have a young family, have no useful skills, or on minimum wage, you will be ever poorer.

Taxes are higher than ever, so where's the money going?

Pensions and debt interest, mostly.

In the 80s, we had a very favourable dependency ratio, and any idiot could have made the fiscal sums work. Now we don't, and not even a genius could.

(Plus, most of the wealth generated in recent years seems to have gone into inflating house prices. Pay rises faster than prices for a bit, rents go up a lot. That's not going to be easy to fix.)

If you want healthy public finances, I wouldn't be starting from here, sir.

…

Ladies (?) and gentlemen of PB, this is my last hour of being in my forties, I’m moving into Joe Root batting territory so I could be out next ball or reach a ripe century. It’s weird how a random year can make you think about life but it does. Away from my personal weighing and measuring, I want to thank PB and you fuckers for making the odd moment since 2007 enjoyable/frustrating/amusing/bearable.

Whatever our conflicts, our petty enmities, spats, bemusements, thank you for the hours of absolute boredom you have made just slightly less boring.

Might be the last vaguely sober chance to thank you all over the next few days so had to get it out of the way.

Onwards.

Happy Birthday boulay. To be honest I found hitting 40 tougher than hitting 50, but I basically tried to ignore both milestones and fitaloon and our boys knew better than to make any fuss. But I know what you mean about how weird a random year can make you think about life as I will be hitting the next big milestone birthday very soon. I always remember my parents phoning me to wish me a Happy Birthday when I was 40 and admitting to my Mum that I was feeling a bit down about it and being robustly told that was nothing compared to how old it made them feel that morning to realise that their oldest child had just turned 40. 😆