Punters bet on the 2021 reintroduction of Enlgand COVID restrictions – politicalbetting.com
Punters bet on the 2021 reintroduction of Enlgand COVID restrictions – politicalbetting.com
“I don’t see any cause for changing the course at this minute”On #BBCBreakfast Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng says Covid is virus we are ‘learning to live with’. https://t.co/IAta5i4GyN pic.twitter.com/Z6potAzVSy
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Like Doggie Doos with an H.
Subject to the unpredictability of the virus, natch.
I think people have their own red lines (masks on public transport, wfh, say) and will tolerate restrictions up until that red line is crossed.
If we are demonstrably shown to be worse than the EU in outcomes for example and by this I mean a stick which can be used to beat the government, then I would expect the most vociferous opposition to come from intra-Tory party rather than the Opposition who, AFAICS, would like immediate and severe restrictions.
Once more we look to Steve Baker, of all people, to protect our freedoms (and sanity).
Wed: Rishi puts up taxes
Thur: Boris announces Plan B applies from 1 Nov
Mandating mask wearing and covid passports will be resisted as the vaccine is the huge difference when comparing last year to this
I think it's hard to see how the number of Covid patients will quadruple from here, to rival the peak of last winter, so I think they will resist new restrictions.
But it will mean that the NHS falls several more months behind.
The latest curve is already flattening. It has been made to look worse by the testing cock ups.
No looks serious value, depending on the exact criteria. Do (minimal) Covid restrictions brought in to counteract Flu count?
"Covid-19: New mutation of Delta variant under close watch in UK"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58965650
This doesn't mean this new AY.4.2 is a big threat. But Covid has smacked us in the face before, after we thought we were through the worst. The little bu&&er may do so again, through this or another variant.
Politicians' toolkits are rather sparse in tackling this. There's vaccinations, masks, and various degrees of lockdown. They often have to react to the circumstances, not lead them.
Interesting on the radio this morning to hear that most people in hospital and ICU with covid are unvaccinated. I would be announcing this every hour on the hour, every news bulletin. I would have images of people who were unvaccinated and died of covid. The vaccine is there, get it, don't die of covid.
At one point it was comical how predictable this process was. Why is KK so different?
There may be an argument for mandatory vaccine passports for clubs and large events and compulsory facemasks in crowded areas if cases continue to rise. There is no case at all for another lockdown
Because anti-vaxxers are going to get infected.
8% is 23/2. it would be great if this could routinely be stated if we are going to implied odds for threader headlines, as seems to be happening.
As I understand it, European countries have managed to keep cases much lower through moderate restrictions + vaccination. So I'm hopeful lockdown won't be needed, but obviously not great to go into Winter close to our previous peak of cases. 43k cases reported yesterday vs. 19k this time last year.
So how to avoid lockdown of any sort? Government messaging has become really poor, and it would help if they got their act together. Maybe reinstate a weekly press conference until numbers/hospitalisations/decline, combined with mass information/advertising campaigns.
What should government messaging consist of? I'd suggest:
If you want to avoid further restrictive measures, get vaccinated, however old you are (young children excepted).
If you haven't had your booster jab, why not? It may save your life.
The virus is spreading particularly virulently in poorly-ventilated, confine spaces. Maybe avoid staying in such places for more than a short time.
It's up to you whether you wear masks, but if service providers ask you to (public transport, shops etc.) it would be courteous to do so.
Government has done this sort of messaging campaign rather well at time over the last couple of months. I'm not sure why they've abandoned it.
Absolutely thick lying Tory drone.
Influenza and pneumonia killed 30,000/year in 2018/2019 with nary a headline. It probably ran at the same rate previously. Let's say that's over the six months around Christmas so it's 170 deaths a day. We have been in a pandemic that has been shocking and "unprecedented" and we have had the most extraordinary restrictions of our freedoms.
Perhaps people are working out what an acceptable price to pay for freedom is and it turns out it's 10-20% (as it stands) more deaths than the status quo ante.
Likewise how many are obese slobs who have done nothing to improve their health and fitness ?
Now I would say that the government should have done much more to encourage a general public health campaign but people have to take individual responsibility for themselves.
Smarkets changed ("clarified") the rules on 12 October so that mandatory vaccine passports for Care Staff is a Yes. Despite the fact that mandatory vaccine passports for Care Staff was already pre-announced before this market even opened (or at least before you mentioned it). Extremely dodgy and if I'd bet on No I'd be fuming that Smarkets have done this. Makes me want to steer clear of any more similar markets from them.
Clarification (12 October 2021): If vaccines become mandatory for people working in care homes at any point in 2021 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vaccination-of-people-working-or-deployed-in-care-homes-operational-guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccination-of-people-working-or-deployed-in-care-homes-operational-guidance) this market will be settled for yes, so long as the measure satisfies the other conditions in the market rules, i.e. that it is mandatory, implemented by the UK government, England-wide and legally enforceable.
I repeat, restrictions should not become normalised in a post vaccine world. That was not part of the bargain....
Scotland have had admissions equivalent to c1000 a day or over for the past 6 weeks.
Maybe we should mandate masks in public areas there…O they did that already.
https://twitter.com/ThatRyanChap/status/1450734841423613966?s=20
As you say there will be no furlough, so as you say no 'lockdown'.
Something in the javascript goes wonky and hammers the processor.
It never happens if I have just one https://vf.politicalbetting.com/ tab open.
And as you know I thought he was a lot less wrong than some others on here.
Con 40 (=)
Lab 35 (=)
LDM 8 (=)
Grn 5 (=)
SNP 4 (-1)
Other 8 (+1)
https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1450738469270077443?s=20
Electoral Calculus gives a Conservative majority of 18 on those numbers on the new boundaries
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=40&LAB=35&LIB=8&Reform=2&Green=5&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=22.3&SCOTLAB=18.3&SCOTLIB=6.3&SCOTReform=0.7&SCOTGreen=0.7&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=48.3&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
It would be absurd for vaccinated people to have their lives restricted for the sake of people who would refuse to be part of any common action.
The problem is that the vaccine refuseniks are blocking the treatment of the vaccinated. That's the issue that needs addressing.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/19/22735612/facebook-change-company-name-metaverse
...The metaverse is “going to be a big focus, and I think that this is just going to be a big part of the next chapter for the way that the internet evolves after the mobile internet,” Zuckerberg told The Verge’s Casey Newton this summer. “And I think it’s going to be the next big chapter for our company too, really doubling down in this area.”
Complicating matters is that, while Facebook has been heavily promoting the idea of the metaverse in recent weeks, it’s still not a concept that’s widely understood. The term was coined originally by sci-fi novelist Neal Stephenson to describe a virtual world people escape to from a dystopian, real world....
... into Facebook's dystopian new world ?
The regulations were laid in Parliament on 22 June 2021 and were made on 22 July 2021. They will come into force on 11 November 2021 after a 16-week grace period.
The "clarification" surely should have happened on or around the 22 June 2021 when the regulations were laid in Parliament.
Yet it looks to me like the market opened on 13 July, so it opened after the regulations were laid in Parliament. This was a pre-existing regulation already laid in Parliament before the Smarkets market even opened and yet it took them until 12 October to "clarify" the rules. At which point the betting suddenly spiked to Yes once people realised the rules had been changed.
Who would have guessed ?
New study shows patients visiting their doctor after a flu patient are more likely to get the flu
https://www.sph.umn.edu/news/new-study-shows-patients-visiting-their-doctor-after-a-flu-patient-are-more-likely-to-get-the-flu/
There is a painful track record of ministers been sent out to make absolutist statements on the media only for the position to shift under them. You'd think the Number 10 media team would learn. Perhaps the new people being hired are more to sort out a shonky media operation and less because there will a General Election next year.
Still, could be worse. Could have Seamus Milne doing their media...
Week ending: COVID deaths, non-COVID deaths in excess of the five-year average
09/07/2021: 183, 386
16/07/2021: 218, 229
23/07/2021: 327, 324
30/07/2021: 404, 679
06/08/2021: 527, 624
13/08/2021: 571, 699
20/08/2021: 570, 358
27/08/2021: 668, 443
03/09/2021: 659, -103 (bank holiday)
10/09/2021: 857, 996 (after bank holiday)
17/09/2021: 851, 852
24/09/2021: 888, 532
01/10/2021: 783, 350
08/10/2021: 666, 586
Personally I think this puts the COVID deaths in context of more deaths happening anyway. I think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit that dodged the reaper during last winter when flu was limited by the restrictions. How many of those dying from COVID may have been picked off anyway is unknown, but I don't think the COVID deaths warrant any extra action.
Multiple tabs must somehow be feeding back into each other, like when a speaker and microphone are too close to each other.
Morning, malcolm.
https://twitter.com/TheStalwart/status/1450517323174092804
Lockdown is right-wing. It's separating everyone into their private homes, keeping the virus at bay beyond the fence. Left-wing politics is about the action of a collective - how can a collective act if it is atomized at home?
Similarly it is an individual's duty to society to have the vaccine. If an individual rejects the help of society and medical science by rejecting the vaccine, then society has the right to reject that individual and bar them from blocking other people's use of medical science.
For what the market initially seemed to be about, I'd agree there was loads of value in no (and I bet accordingly - I was lucky that I decided to trade out after the market moved towards no, initially to break even on yes and then - after the update including vaccine passports - to green both ways)
NEW Westminster Voting Intention - Con & Lab unchanged for the THIRD successive poll.
Con 40 (=)
Lab 35 (=)
LDM 8 (=)
Grn 5 (=)
SNP 4 (-1)
Other 8 (+1)
15-17 Oct, 2,092 UK adults
(Changes from 8-10 Oct)
https://twitter.com/SavantaComRes/status/1450738469270077443?s=20
Scottish subsample might be fun!
My comments weren't heartless, they were simply that we need to learn to live with the virus. As I said specifically, my daughter is currently in Year 3 and her last uninterrupted year of schooling was in Reception. When you stop to think about it, its absolutely ridiculous what we've been through.
Everyone dies eventually. What we do when we are alive is what is most important. We can't keep indefinitely sacrificing life, sacrificing education, sacrificing everything that makes life meaningful in order to try to futilely prevent death.
Yes it isn't accurate but https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/04/health/239-experts-with-one-big-claim-the-coronavirus-is-airborne.html
It is:
left = more state measures to combat Covid
right = fewer state measures to combat Covid
And if so why does it need a dynamic minister for anything to get done.
Plan B of mask wearing and ban on indoor gatherings must be enforced immediately, warns NHS leader
NHS Confederation chief said Covid restrictions including a return to working from home need to return or UK at risk of 'winter crisis'
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/10/20/plan-b-mask-wearing-work-home-ban-indoor-gatherings/
please insert "not" before "value" in my post above.
I doubt whether that will be the case in the pub this evening.
Left wing are in favour of large government telling people what to do. This is *exactly* what lockdown has been.
Right wing are in favour of smaller government, with people free to do what they want within certain bounds.
Left wing are in favour of higher government spending - lockdowns have involved much higher spending.
Right wing want lesser government spending.
All good points. However, what do we want to achieve? Punish the unvaccinated or encourage take-up? The unvaccinated are either hardcore anti-vax or believe themselves to be a low risk. I don't think threatening to withdraw care would have much effect on those who consider themselves invincible - if they're not scared of Covid then it's not going to help. It's a bit like saying to teenagers they won't receive treatment if they take an illegal drug - it's not going to change behaviour because the personal risk is perceived to be (and is) small.
I think carrot and/or stick more useful - either use vaccine passports to make life a right pain for the unvaccinated (but this also inconveniences everyone else) or bribe people to get vaccinated (also apply retrospectively to those vaccinated). Costs would be manageable compared to NHS chaos or another vaccination. Yep, good point. I think we'd be crazy to bring back restrictions to avert Covid deaths this winter, but there does come a point where restrictions could make sense to limit NHS load in the short term. However, we do need to have a long term view on that. This winter and that's it, well maybe that's doable- but how do we ensure that? More and better vaccinations? More infections providing natural protection? If what we're looking at is instead this problem every winter then instead we need to build the capacity to deal with it. Dust off the Nightingale facilities and have Covid cases outside of mainstream hospitals. Expensive and hard, but preferable to restrictions every winter.
Plenty of current or former Lib Dem members/voters are saying the same thing too.
The divide seems to me to be more between those who believe in collectivism/statism who want to see more state control of our lives (who tend to be Labour voters or SDP-style Lib Dems) and those who believe in individual responsibility/liberty (who tend to be Tory voters or truly liberal Lib Dems). With some who just want to bash the Government joining the former.
Seems like the public might be ahead of the government. Not for the first time.
The stats on Covid cases must be under-reported quite substantially also. Many people only detect it through LFTs and what about the millions who never bother taking them?
I keep thinking that Covid must run out of people to infect soon but it has yet to happen. Surely the schools at the very least must be nearing that given the stories I know of half of classes going off with it (presumably the other half must have had it already and be immune).
If the idea was to control Covid cases then the mistake was not jabbing the teenagers over the Summer.
Also of interest and un-reported so far I believe is that cases are spiking in some parts of Europe. Belgium and Netherlands particularly but early signs of this in Germany too: https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explorer?time=2021-08-09..latest&facet=none&Metric=Confirmed+cases&Interval=7-day+rolling+average&Relative+to+Population=true&Align+outbreaks=false&country=USA~ITA~CAN~DEU~GBR~FRA~BEL~NLD~ESP~AUS
It seems to me that most current or former Lib Dem members/voters are saying the same thing on here.
You may have jumped from the Labour Party to the Lib Dems because of your disagreements with Labour, but you're still a collectivist at heart. Without wanting to do a No True Scotsman fallacy, I don't think you're a real liberal, which is why you don't see the illiberalism you're proposing.
Apologies if I am getting anyone wrong but as far as I know Stocky, Selebian, KJH and others are all liberal Lib Dems who are in favour of "learning to live with" Covid not mandatory restrictions. Even though he's vulnerable, even OGH was doing thread headers calling on the Government to go faster in lifting restrictions when it came to travel etc, not slower.
I'm not seeing a majority of Lib Dems on here opposing "learn to live with it" as the strategy.
At the moment we are punishing the vaccinated by delaying their medical treatment to accommodate the unvaccinated in hospital. The proposed solution to this is to punish the vaccinated by restricting their lives to delay the infection of the unvaccinated.
We need a better way. Nightingale hospitals for the unvaccinated is one approach. You could think of them as the secondary modern of the healthcare system.
I think there are two instincts on where we are in the pandemic and people fall into one or other camp as a result, regardless of politics. Either
1. We have all been vaccinated, Covid is on the way to being endemic, so we will all either be already immune or catch it at some point. NPIs now essentially just shift the timing of when we catch it. In some ways the more infections now, the quicker we'll be out the other side. It might also be better to catch it now before vaccine immunity wanes further. Or
2. Even if it's becoming endemic there remain ways we can suppress spread and these may make sense long term, like other public health measures such as sanitation have curbed other infections. Letting it rip seriously threatens the health system and is madness when we are in the process of administering boosters and can slow things down with a few minor adjustments like mask wearing.
I am instinctively in group 1, although I can see the merits of some of the group 2 arguments. That puts me in a somewhat isolated position among the left of centre who seem to have shifted tribally into favouring restrictions largely because it's the opposite of what the Tories are doing.
It's an interesting study in psychology which you see also in recessions - between 1. get it over with, short sharp shock and come out clean the other side, and 2. limit the short term damage even if it extends the pain a bit. Perhaps the political dimension on Covid reflects the same philosophies - Thatcherite create destruction vs Keynesian smoothing of the cycle.
Send the unvaccinated to Nightingales.
No vax ports. Madness. And totally disproportionate. We don't have a flu vax port even in the bad flu years.
I am not making that up.
when I was working in the embedded world, it as interesting to see new engineers coming in and having to rapidly readjust their mindset to the fact that memory matters. You can do an amazing amount in just a few KB, yet alone MB.
The City leapfrogged Amsterdam to nab top spot in a closely watched index ranking the world’s biggest finance hubs by their green credentials.
https://www.cityam.com/exclusive-london-holds-the-crown-as-the-worlds-greenest-finance-hub/
If anti-vaxxers want their 'natural immunity' then they have to accept that there's nothing natural about a modern hospital.
I feel unseen.