One thing I did notice about the polling someone posted above (might have been @HYUFD ?) is that now only 22% support the closure of pubs and restaurants. Given that 22% of the population probably never visit pubs and restaurants, that’s a control 0%.
Good. When pubs reopened in May, I said that pubs must never again be shuttered in this country. Pubs are an absolutely fundamental part of England. In some ways, they are England.
Pubs don't exist any more. Their essence was that they were places for very drunk people to smoke tobacco and fight each other, and if you don't recognise this description you are either very young or memory impaired. Legislation has put paid to those USPs, and what is left is inferior restaurants posing as pubs.
The usual effing trolling garbage from you.
Lots of great, lovely pubs in London, and across England far and wide.
Tell us again as you did every day last December that there would be no trouble from Trump between then and Biden's inauguration, and anyone expecting different was a "bedwetter." We always laugh at that one, and it hasn't had an outing since early January. Inexplicably.
Firstly, what has that got to do with anything we are discussing? A completely irrelevant piece of trolling from you this time.
But, I’ll bite, in fact, my posts at the time were criticising those who suggested that Trump would steal the election. That was never possible. That there was a rumpus did not affect my central -often advanced, and complete accurate - point that Biden’s victory was guaranteed as soon as he surpassed 270.
An opponent of trolling who calls people "bedwetters" for disagreeing with him, and being right. Paradoxical, innit?
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
Except that vaccination does possibly have negative consequences for the individual, and a degree of uncertainty, which makes compulsion rather a big deal. Aside from those with a limited range of medical conditions (and even here I am rather sceptical), putting a bit of cloth over your mouth and nose isn’t likely to do you any harm.
It’s quite distressing to wear a mask and see people in masks for many people, and is damaging to the way humans naturally communicate - which is face to face.
What are the risks of vaccination in mathematical terms, and how do these compare to risks we face every day?
As I say, I support compulsion for neither measure, but just thought it was a clever question posed by the OP.
I can't tell you that you're wrong to feel "distress" at wearing a mask or seeing others in one, but I do find it strange.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
Except that vaccination does possibly have negative consequences for the individual, and a degree of uncertainty, which makes compulsion rather a big deal. Aside from those with a limited range of medical conditions (and even here I am rather sceptical), putting a bit of cloth over your mouth and nose isn’t likely to do you any harm.
It’s quite distressing to wear a mask and see people in masks for many people, and is damaging to the way humans naturally communicate - which is face to face.
What are the risks of vaccination in mathematical terms, and how do these compare to risks we face every day?
As I say, I support compulsion for neither measure, but just thought it was a clever question posed by the OP.
I can't tell you that you're wrong to feel "distress" at wearing a mask or seeing others in one, but I do find it strange.
I said for a lot of people. I simply find it unpleasant, which I assume most people do? I mean, would you choose to wear masks and have your friends and everyone you meet wear them, were COVID not a thing?
I never really wear one for more than five minutes, working from home and only really popping into local shops, but today my girlfriend had our second son and I sat in a hospital waiting room for nearly 5 hours in one. Afterwards I went downstairs to get some food, and realised I felt like absolute shit. Went outside to ring my mum, took off the mask and instantly felt a million times better. Fair play to people who wear the day in day out for long spells, I couldn’t do that.
Funnily enough, in the room you go to after the birth they didn’t seem bothered about us wearing our masks, nor on the ward really. Some people waiting for scans weren’t wearing them at all
Many, many congratulations to you the good lady and both your kids! And top effort posting at 11:30. I'd be drunk or asleep by now! Or both.
Thanks 😊
Got home in time to watch the second half of Arsenal Villa, and considering a glass of something. I’ve been on the wagon a few weeks so as to be ready for the big day. But I’ve got to be back up the hosp at 9 I don’t think I can be bothered to start again yet
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
Except that vaccination does possibly have negative consequences for the individual, and a degree of uncertainty, which makes compulsion rather a big deal. Aside from those with a limited range of medical conditions (and even here I am rather sceptical), putting a bit of cloth over your mouth and nose isn’t likely to do you any harm.
It’s quite distressing to wear a mask and see people in masks for many people, and is damaging to the way humans naturally communicate - which is face to face.
What are the risks of vaccination in mathematical terms, and how do these compare to risks we face every day?
As I say, I support compulsion for neither measure, but just thought it was a clever question posed by the OP.
I can't tell you that you're wrong to feel "distress" at wearing a mask or seeing others in one, but I do find it strange.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
Except that vaccination does possibly have negative consequences for the individual, and a degree of uncertainty, which makes compulsion rather a big deal. Aside from those with a limited range of medical conditions (and even here I am rather sceptical), putting a bit of cloth over your mouth and nose isn’t likely to do you any harm.
It’s quite distressing to wear a mask and see people in masks for many people, and is damaging to the way humans naturally communicate - which is face to face.
What are the risks of vaccination in mathematical terms, and how do these compare to risks we face every day?
As I say, I support compulsion for neither measure, but just thought it was a clever question posed by the OP.
I can't tell you that you're wrong to feel "distress" at wearing a mask or seeing others in one, but I do find it strange.
I said for a lot of people. I simply find it unpleasant, which I assume most people do? I mean, would you choose to wear masks and have your friends and everyone you meet wear them, were COVID not a thing?
Personally, the discomfort is so mild that after 40 minutes in the supermarket I've usually forgotten I'm wearing it. Been a few times I'm halfway home in the car before I remember I've still got my mask on. Other opinions are available, and I acknowledge the discomfort must be worse for some people, given the complaining I hear from some.
I'm on the Autistic Spectrum and the sensation of wearing a mask is really quite distressing to me. I feel tense and panicky. I worry about whether my mask is on properly. I worry that I can see other people not wearing theirs properly - which presumably puts me in danger.
I had to go to a pharmacy today to collect a prescription, so I had to have a mask on, but my prescription wasn't ready. I decided to leave my mask on while I waited outside, because I prefer to put it on when I can adjust it properly on my nose with the mirror in the car. After walking around for a while to pass the time I became so tense that muscles in my face started to twitch spontaneously. If the message to me is that it isn't safe to go to places without a mask then the message I hear is that it isn't safe to go to places at all. The mask is only going to make a negligible difference compared to staying at home.
Last weekend we went for afternoon tea at a country house near here. I had to wear my mask as we went in, queued for the check of our vaccine certificates (we're in Ireland), etc, but then could take them off at our table. I was surprised at how relatively easily I was able to relax and enjoy myself once I was free of the mask, though it was still a bit unnerving to see the staff wander around with them on. And since I was only wearing a mask for a small proportion of the time I was inside - what was the point?
The mask theatre is making it harder for me to take full advantage of being immunised with two doses of the vaccine.
I remember in the early stages of the pandemic, in the third week of March 2020, being very wary of other people when walking down the mostly empty supermarket shelves. But it's now not people that I am scared of, but masks.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
Herd immunity, like the end of the world has long been nigh.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
Except that vaccination does possibly have negative consequences for the individual, and a degree of uncertainty, which makes compulsion rather a big deal. Aside from those with a limited range of medical conditions (and even here I am rather sceptical), putting a bit of cloth over your mouth and nose isn’t likely to do you any harm.
It’s quite distressing to wear a mask and see people in masks for many people, and is damaging to the way humans naturally communicate - which is face to face.
What are the risks of vaccination in mathematical terms, and how do these compare to risks we face every day?
As I say, I support compulsion for neither measure, but just thought it was a clever question posed by the OP.
I can't tell you that you're wrong to feel "distress" at wearing a mask or seeing others in one, but I do find it strange.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
Except that vaccination does possibly have negative consequences for the individual, and a degree of uncertainty, which makes compulsion rather a big deal. Aside from those with a limited range of medical conditions (and even here I am rather sceptical), putting a bit of cloth over your mouth and nose isn’t likely to do you any harm.
It’s quite distressing to wear a mask and see people in masks for many people, and is damaging to the way humans naturally communicate - which is face to face.
What are the risks of vaccination in mathematical terms, and how do these compare to risks we face every day?
As I say, I support compulsion for neither measure, but just thought it was a clever question posed by the OP.
I can't tell you that you're wrong to feel "distress" at wearing a mask or seeing others in one, but I do find it strange.
I said for a lot of people. I simply find it unpleasant, which I assume most people do? I mean, would you choose to wear masks and have your friends and everyone you meet wear them, were COVID not a thing?
I never really wear one for more than five minutes, working from home and only really popping into local shops, but today my girlfriend had our second son and I sat in a hospital waiting room for nearly 5 hours in one. Afterwards I went downstairs to get some food, and realised I felt like absolute shit. Went outside to ring my mum, took off the mask and instantly felt a million times better. Fair play to people who wear the day in day out for long spells, I couldn’t do that.
Funnily enough, in the room you go to after the birth they didn’t seem bothered about us wearing our masks, nor on the ward really. Some people waiting for scans weren’t wearing them at all
Many congratulations Sam and to your lady wife and little ones, both the newborn and not to forget the one who has now become a sibling.
One thing I did notice about the polling someone posted above (might have been @HYUFD ?) is that now only 22% support the closure of pubs and restaurants. Given that 22% of the population probably never visit pubs and restaurants, that’s a control 0%.
Good. When pubs reopened in May, I said that pubs must never again be shuttered in this country. Pubs are an absolutely fundamental part of England. In some ways, they are England.
Pubs don't exist any more. Their essence was that they were places for very drunk people to smoke tobacco and fight each other, and if you don't recognise this description you are either very young or memory impaired. Legislation has put paid to those USPs, and what is left is inferior restaurants posing as pubs.
The usual effing trolling garbage from you.
Lots of great, lovely pubs in London, and across England far and wide.
Tell us again as you did every day last December that there would be no trouble from Trump between then and Biden's inauguration, and anyone expecting different was a "bedwetter." We always laugh at that one, and it hasn't had an outing since early January. Inexplicably.
Firstly, what has that got to do with anything we are discussing? A completely irrelevant piece of trolling from you this time.
But, I’ll bite, in fact, my posts at the time were criticising those who suggested that Trump would steal the election. That was never possible. That there was a rumpus did not affect my central -often advanced, and complete accurate - point that Biden’s victory was guaranteed as soon as he surpassed 270.
An opponent of trolling who calls people "bedwetters" for disagreeing with him, and being right. Paradoxical, innit?
You weren’t right - I was. Biden won when he reached 270. The events of January didn’t change that.
But it’s excruciatingly painful even discussing stuff with you. So again, like earlier today, have the last word, go ahead. I’ll make a note not to engage with you in future.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
If they've done such a 'better job' why have they still got to have restrictions when we dropped ours in July?
If you want to measure success via silly metrics like 'cases' or 'deaths' then fine, incarcerate everyone, never let them out of their home, don't treat cancers, have rampant suicides and destroyed businesses, then tap yourselves on the back for a job well done.
Or take a big picture look and get us out of restrictions ASAP. Something this nation has achieved and they and New Zealand and others held up as "examples" have failed to achieve.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
But whenever you look at the stats you find that the UK is middling in the excess deaths tracker. Some have done better, some have done worse. That the UK is somehow the worst in Europe is just a myth.
By the way, the maternity staff are right under the cosh. There is a baby boom, they normally do 3 C-Sections a day, and now it’s running at 6-7. People obv had nothing much else to do locked down in Jan/Feb.
In 2019 we got there at 8am, had our own little part of a ward for a couple of hours then the baby was delivered at midday. This time we went in yesterday and were sent home after two hours as they had no beds, then today had to sit in the waiting room where people go for 12 week scans, for five hours! My girlfriend, being 9 months pregnant, was pretty uncomfortable by the end of that. But all happy now 😊
Feels like another marker on the road to normality, but just booked theatre tickets for next month, for the first time since before the pandemic began.
Its mass events like this that are part of the tapestry of what makes life special and it feels absolutely remarkable that we haven't been to one in two years now.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
If they've done such a 'better job' why have they still got to have restrictions when we dropped ours in July?
If you want to measure success via silly metrics like 'cases' or 'deaths' then fine, incarcerate everyone, never let them out of their home, don't treat cancers, have rampant suicides and destroyed businesses, then tap yourselves on the back for a job well done.
Or take a big picture look and get us out of restrictions ASAP. Something this nation has achieved and they and New Zealand and others held up as "examples" have failed to achieve.
I think New Zealand have still had much less time under restrictions during the pandemic as a whole than us. Most of their 2020 and early 2021 was completely free, except for the border controls.
If they can complete their vaccinations soon, and then accept an exit wave as they lift all restrictions, they will have finished with an enviable record overall.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
If they've done such a 'better job' why have they still got to have restrictions when we dropped ours in July?
If you want to measure success via silly metrics like 'cases' or 'deaths' then fine, incarcerate everyone, never let them out of their home, don't treat cancers, have rampant suicides and destroyed businesses, then tap yourselves on the back for a job well done.
Or take a big picture look and get us out of restrictions ASAP. Something this nation has achieved and they and New Zealand and others held up as "examples" have failed to achieve.
I think New Zealand have still had much less time under restrictions during the pandemic as a whole than us. Most of their 2020 and early 2021 was completely free, except for the border controls.
If they can complete their vaccinations soon, and then accept an exit wave as they lift all restrictions, they will have finished with an enviable record overall.
Yes, that’s true. Although the current lockdown in Auckland is really dragging on (think end of three months and counting) they are still ahead of the curve overall.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
If they've done such a 'better job' why have they still got to have restrictions when we dropped ours in July?
If you want to measure success via silly metrics like 'cases' or 'deaths' then fine, incarcerate everyone, never let them out of their home, don't treat cancers, have rampant suicides and destroyed businesses, then tap yourselves on the back for a job well done.
Or take a big picture look and get us out of restrictions ASAP. Something this nation has achieved and they and New Zealand and others held up as "examples" have failed to achieve.
I think New Zealand have still had much less time under restrictions during the pandemic as a whole than us. Most of their 2020 and early 2021 was completely free, except for the border controls.
If they can complete their vaccinations soon, and then accept an exit wave as they lift all restrictions, they will have finished with an enviable record overall.
That's a fair point, but they're also thousands of miles away from even Australia and an incredibly sparsely populated pair of islands without even a single densely packed city. Auckland's population density is less than a third of Motherwell's in Scotland, let alone any city in England. The New Zealand option quite simply wasn't an option for this country - or any in Europe.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
Herd immunity, like the end of the world has long been nigh.
Its not an on/off thing.
Rather it builds.
More and more people I work with, am related to, am friends with have acquired immunity.
There's almost certainly more who have without knowing they have done so.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
Except that vaccination does possibly have negative consequences for the individual, and a degree of uncertainty, which makes compulsion rather a big deal. Aside from those with a limited range of medical conditions (and even here I am rather sceptical), putting a bit of cloth over your mouth and nose isn’t likely to do you any harm.
It’s quite distressing to wear a mask and see people in masks for many people, and is damaging to the way humans naturally communicate - which is face to face.
What are the risks of vaccination in mathematical terms, and how do these compare to risks we face every day?
As I say, I support compulsion for neither measure, but just thought it was a clever question posed by the OP.
I can't tell you that you're wrong to feel "distress" at wearing a mask or seeing others in one, but I do find it strange.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
Except that vaccination does possibly have negative consequences for the individual, and a degree of uncertainty, which makes compulsion rather a big deal. Aside from those with a limited range of medical conditions (and even here I am rather sceptical), putting a bit of cloth over your mouth and nose isn’t likely to do you any harm.
It’s quite distressing to wear a mask and see people in masks for many people, and is damaging to the way humans naturally communicate - which is face to face.
What are the risks of vaccination in mathematical terms, and how do these compare to risks we face every day?
As I say, I support compulsion for neither measure, but just thought it was a clever question posed by the OP.
I can't tell you that you're wrong to feel "distress" at wearing a mask or seeing others in one, but I do find it strange.
I said for a lot of people. I simply find it unpleasant, which I assume most people do? I mean, would you choose to wear masks and have your friends and everyone you meet wear them, were COVID not a thing?
I never really wear one for more than five minutes, working from home and only really popping into local shops, but today my girlfriend had our second son and I sat in a hospital waiting room for nearly 5 hours in one. Afterwards I went downstairs to get some food, and realised I felt like absolute shit. Went outside to ring my mum, took off the mask and instantly felt a million times better. Fair play to people who wear the day in day out for long spells, I couldn’t do that.
Funnily enough, in the room you go to after the birth they didn’t seem bothered about us wearing our masks, nor on the ward really. Some people waiting for scans weren’t wearing them at all
Congratulations to you and your girlfriend. Amazing News
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
Herd immunity, like the end of the world has long been nigh.
Its not an on/off thing.
Rather it builds.
More and more people I work with, am related to, am friends with have acquired immunity.
There's almost certainly more who have without knowing they have done so.
Well indeed. We're progressively increasing immunity. That is not in dispute.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
Herd immunity, like the end of the world has long been nigh.
Its not an on/off thing.
Rather it builds.
More and more people I work with, am related to, am friends with have acquired immunity.
There's almost certainly more who have without knowing they have done so.
Well indeed. We're progressively increasing immunity. That is not in dispute.
Indeed. We built up sufficient herd immunity by about June or July to have over 90% of adults showing antibodies. Which is why we've been able to remove all restrictions without seeing exponential growth spiral out of control, herd immunity has kept the virus suppressed.
Now the virus is mopping up the rest while vaccines get topped up or expanded too. The virus is never going to go away though, so this is basically it.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
Herd immunity, like the end of the world has long been nigh.
Its not an on/off thing.
Rather it builds.
More and more people I work with, am related to, am friends with have acquired immunity.
There's almost certainly more who have without knowing they have done so.
Well indeed. We're progressively increasing immunity. That is not in dispute.
But to continue increasing immunity levels that requires people to be infected.
Now vaccines allow that to happen with much reduced risk and suffering.
But there are some who think anyone getting infected is a bad thing even if they have no negative effects.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
Well, it depends.
These are the FT's charts on efficacy of AZ and Pfizer over time.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
I missed the original question, but the better comparison is masks and vaccine passports.
At no point has it been compulsory to wear masks at all times in all settings (which is the closest equivalent to compulsory vaccination). If you really didn't want to wear a mask, it was conceivable (some employers apart, education for kids too?) to limit activities to avoid mask wearing. Same with vaccine passports - you could have a very strict vaccine passport regime and it would still be possible to limit activities and avoid a vaccine.
I don't favour compulsory vaccinations. As others have posted, that's very dark path.
I'm fairly ambivalent on compulsory mask wearing. It's one of the least bad restrictions that could be brought in for a short period, but I'm not presently of the view that we need more restrictions. I'm also not wearing a mask myself anywhere except when asked to do so. The last time I wore a mask, other than at work,* was on the tube around six weeks ago. On the other hand, I'm not in the least bit bothered by others wearing masks.
*We're required/strongly asked to wear them in the communal areas only. I don't have to wear one in my office.
Mask wearing is pointless given that so few actually wear an effective mask.
Not to mention the people who wear a mask which doesn't cover their nose and/or mouth.
And then there's the further issue of what a fully vaccinated individual is trying to protect another fully vaccinated individual from.
Mask wearing is pointless given that so few actually wear an effective mask.
That's simply not true. There is now an enormous amount of evidence that facial coverings (particularly surgical and N95 masks) are very effective at stopping people passing Covid on.
Literally tens of papers of papers have been published, based on both empirical and experimental work, and have shown them to work.
Now, this doesn't mean there should be mandates, and there's a massive difference between the effectiveness of the various mask types. But the impact on your likelihood in passing Covid onto someone if you wear even the most porous of gaiters* is dramatic.
* cloth gaiters are the least effective facial covering
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
We've been hearing this kind of thing for over a year and it never seems to materialise. Maybe we should accept that they have done a better job managing Covid than the UK.
Herd immunity, like the end of the world has long been nigh.
Its not an on/off thing.
Rather it builds.
More and more people I work with, am related to, am friends with have acquired immunity.
There's almost certainly more who have without knowing they have done so.
Well indeed. We're progressively increasing immunity. That is not in dispute.
But to continue increasing immunity levels that requires people to be infected.
Now vaccines allow that to happen with much reduced risk and suffering.
But there are some who think anyone getting infected is a bad thing even if they have no negative effects.
You probably still get infected if you've had three shots of the vaccine - it'll just be entirely (or almost entirely) asymptomatic.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
Well, it depends.
These are the FT's charts on efficacy of AZ and Pfizer over time.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
I missed the original question, but the better comparison is masks and vaccine passports.
At no point has it been compulsory to wear masks at all times in all settings (which is the closest equivalent to compulsory vaccination). If you really didn't want to wear a mask, it was conceivable (some employers apart, education for kids too?) to limit activities to avoid mask wearing. Same with vaccine passports - you could have a very strict vaccine passport regime and it would still be possible to limit activities and avoid a vaccine.
I don't favour compulsory vaccinations. As others have posted, that's very dark path.
I'm fairly ambivalent on compulsory mask wearing. It's one of the least bad restrictions that could be brought in for a short period, but I'm not presently of the view that we need more restrictions. I'm also not wearing a mask myself anywhere except when asked to do so. The last time I wore a mask, other than at work,* was on the tube around six weeks ago. On the other hand, I'm not in the least bit bothered by others wearing masks.
*We're required/strongly asked to wear them in the communal areas only. I don't have to wear one in my office.
Mask wearing is pointless given that so few actually wear an effective mask.
Not to mention the people who wear a mask which doesn't cover their nose and/or mouth.
And then there's the further issue of what a fully vaccinated individual is trying to protect another fully vaccinated individual from.
Mask wearing is pointless given that so few actually wear an effective mask.
That's simply not true. There is now an enormous amount of evidence that facial coverings (particularly surgical and N95 masks) are very effective at stopping people passing Covid on.
Literally tens of papers of papers have been published, based on both empirical and experimental work, and have shown them to work.
Now, this doesn't mean there should be mandates, and there's a massive difference between the effectiveness of the various mask types. But the impact on your likelihood in passing Covid onto someone if you wear even the most porous of gaiters* is dramatic.
* cloth gaiters are the least effective facial covering
Do you know what proportion of people are wearing N95 masks ?
A long site less than the number wearing bits of cloth with their nose outside it or the flimsy blue things with huge gaps between it and their face.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
Well, it depends.
These are the FT's charts on efficacy of AZ and Pfizer over time.
Astra-Zeneca's efficacy seems to fade much more quickly than Pfizer's. (And from a slightly worse starting point too.)
This means that Europe is in a somewhat better place than we are, as their vaccine shield is (a) newer, and (b) fades slower.
So long as Europe manages a sensible Pfizer booster strategy through the winter, they may entirely avoid the bump that the UK had.
Given that Europe is way behind the UK that seems doubtful.
Note how infection rates are rising rapidly in Belgium for example - and Belgium is doing better on booster vaccinations than other European countries.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
I missed the original question, but the better comparison is masks and vaccine passports.
At no point has it been compulsory to wear masks at all times in all settings (which is the closest equivalent to compulsory vaccination). If you really didn't want to wear a mask, it was conceivable (some employers apart, education for kids too?) to limit activities to avoid mask wearing. Same with vaccine passports - you could have a very strict vaccine passport regime and it would still be possible to limit activities and avoid a vaccine.
I don't favour compulsory vaccinations. As others have posted, that's very dark path.
I'm fairly ambivalent on compulsory mask wearing. It's one of the least bad restrictions that could be brought in for a short period, but I'm not presently of the view that we need more restrictions. I'm also not wearing a mask myself anywhere except when asked to do so. The last time I wore a mask, other than at work,* was on the tube around six weeks ago. On the other hand, I'm not in the least bit bothered by others wearing masks.
*We're required/strongly asked to wear them in the communal areas only. I don't have to wear one in my office.
Mask wearing is pointless given that so few actually wear an effective mask.
Not to mention the people who wear a mask which doesn't cover their nose and/or mouth.
And then there's the further issue of what a fully vaccinated individual is trying to protect another fully vaccinated individual from.
Mask wearing is pointless given that so few actually wear an effective mask.
That's simply not true. There is now an enormous amount of evidence that facial coverings (particularly surgical and N95 masks) are very effective at stopping people passing Covid on.
Literally tens of papers of papers have been published, based on both empirical and experimental work, and have shown them to work.
Now, this doesn't mean there should be mandates, and there's a massive difference between the effectiveness of the various mask types. But the impact on your likelihood in passing Covid onto someone if you wear even the most porous of gaiters* is dramatic.
* cloth gaiters are the least effective facial covering
Do you know what proportion of people are wearing N95 masks ?
A long site less than the number wearing bits of cloth with their nose outside it or the flimsy blue things with huge gaps between it and their face.
He said :There is now an enormous amount of evidence that facial coverings (particularly surgical and N95 masks) are very effective at stopping people passing Covid on.
But I think some should accept that predictions that deaths would have been eliminated by now and that cases would have fallen through the floor, that vaccines were the total way out of this, have surely been proved wrong
Death rates are still far below January. The remaining rise in cases is mainly amongst under 30s and especially under 18s most of whom have not yet been fully vaccinated.
Otherwise if we do not accept vaccinations are the way out and just rely on masks and lockdowns again as soon as we get a rise in cases, especially as we head into winter, we will never get out. Masks and lockdowns will be with us for the rest of our lives
This indeed is the conundrum. If we buckle now, we are effectively saying that masks and restrictions on mixing are a valid countermeasure to respiratory pathogens, even when we have substantial levels of immunity. That ends… never.
I think the masks and the lockdowns are different things. In Japan masks have been a common countermeasure for a long time - if you have a cold, you wear a mask when you go to work to avoid giving it to people. They're also are a useful tool against facial recognition, which is a big deal IMHO, so it would be good to see them normalized. I also think it's reasonable for venues to insist on them.
Laws against going out or visiting people are an abomination, and I'm glad to live in a country with a proper constitution that prevented the government from trying them.
One of the big problems with the libertarian response to the pandemic is that libertarians have been at the forefront of the petulant refusal to do anything useful to deal with it. What you really want to be able to say - and I think Japan is a good example of the positive case for this - is that in emergencies people are sensible and cooperative enough that you don't need the government to force them to do reasonable things to deal with a crisis. British and American libertarians seem to be doing their best to prove that you need a strong state, because your country is full of spoiled brats.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
I missed the original question, but the better comparison is masks and vaccine passports.
At no point has it been compulsory to wear masks at all times in all settings (which is the closest equivalent to compulsory vaccination). If you really didn't want to wear a mask, it was conceivable (some employers apart, education for kids too?) to limit activities to avoid mask wearing. Same with vaccine passports - you could have a very strict vaccine passport regime and it would still be possible to limit activities and avoid a vaccine.
I don't favour compulsory vaccinations. As others have posted, that's very dark path.
I'm fairly ambivalent on compulsory mask wearing. It's one of the least bad restrictions that could be brought in for a short period, but I'm not presently of the view that we need more restrictions. I'm also not wearing a mask myself anywhere except when asked to do so. The last time I wore a mask, other than at work,* was on the tube around six weeks ago. On the other hand, I'm not in the least bit bothered by others wearing masks.
*We're required/strongly asked to wear them in the communal areas only. I don't have to wear one in my office.
Mask wearing is pointless given that so few actually wear an effective mask.
Not to mention the people who wear a mask which doesn't cover their nose and/or mouth.
And then there's the further issue of what a fully vaccinated individual is trying to protect another fully vaccinated individual from.
Mask wearing is pointless given that so few actually wear an effective mask.
That's simply not true. There is now an enormous amount of evidence that facial coverings (particularly surgical and N95 masks) are very effective at stopping people passing Covid on.
Literally tens of papers of papers have been published, based on both empirical and experimental work, and have shown them to work.
Now, this doesn't mean there should be mandates, and there's a massive difference between the effectiveness of the various mask types. But the impact on your likelihood in passing Covid onto someone if you wear even the most porous of gaiters* is dramatic.
* cloth gaiters are the least effective facial covering
Do you know what proportion of people are wearing N95 masks ?
A long site less than the number wearing bits of cloth with their nose outside it or the flimsy blue things with huge gaps between it and their face.
Robert said "surgical and N95 masks". N95 masks are pretty unusual but surgical masks are everywhere, I think they're probably the most common type of mask?
But I think some should accept that predictions that deaths would have been eliminated by now and that cases would have fallen through the floor, that vaccines were the total way out of this, have surely been proved wrong
Death rates are still far below January. The remaining rise in cases is mainly amongst under 30s and especially under 18s most of whom have not yet been fully vaccinated.
Otherwise if we do not accept vaccinations are the way out and just rely on masks and lockdowns again as soon as we get a rise in cases, especially as we head into winter, we will never get out. Masks and lockdowns will be with us for the rest of our lives
This indeed is the conundrum. If we buckle now, we are effectively saying that masks and restrictions on mixing are a valid countermeasure to respiratory pathogens, even when we have substantial levels of immunity. That ends… never.
I think the masks and the lockdowns are different things. In Japan masks have been a common countermeasure for a long time - if you have a cold, you wear a mask when you go to work to avoid giving it to people. They're also are a useful tool against facial recognition, which is a big deal IMHO, so it would be good to see them normalized. I also think it's reasonable for venues to insist on them.
Laws against going out or visiting people are an abomination, and I'm glad to live in a country with a proper constitution that prevented the government from trying them.
One of the big problems with the libertarian response to the pandemic is that libertarians have been at the forefront of the petulant refusal to do anything useful to deal with it. What you really want to be able to say - and I think Japan is a good example of the positive case for this - is that in emergencies people are sensible and cooperative enough that you don't need the government to force them to do reasonable things to deal with a crisis. British and American libertarians seem to be doing their best to prove that you need a strong state, because your country is full of spoiled brats.
No sorry I wore a cloth mask before it was mandatory until it wasn't anymore by which point I was double vaccinated.
But now? It's a different story.
It's one thing wearing a cloth mask when there's no good masks available and no vaccines available. It's the best option available at that time. But that time has long since been and gone.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
Well, it depends.
These are the FT's charts on efficacy of AZ and Pfizer over time.
Astra-Zeneca's efficacy seems to fade much more quickly than Pfizer's. (And from a slightly worse starting point too.)
This means that Europe is in a somewhat better place than we are, as their vaccine shield is (a) newer, and (b) fades slower.
So long as Europe manages a sensible Pfizer booster strategy through the winter, they may entirely avoid the bump that the UK had.
John's charts are what is guiding policy in the UK I expect. But the effect of giving boosters further down the age scale on cases may still be significant. And through lower cases in less vulnerable groups, lower hospitalisations in more vulnerable groups. A strength of the USA approach to boosters is that this indirect effect will not be excluded. The UK is one of the most vaccine accepting nations in the world but has severely overthought thus particularly now they're globally abundant.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
I missed the original question, but the better comparison is masks and vaccine passports.
At no point has it been compulsory to wear masks at all times in all settings (which is the closest equivalent to compulsory vaccination). If you really didn't want to wear a mask, it was conceivable (some employers apart, education for kids too?) to limit activities to avoid mask wearing. Same with vaccine passports - you could have a very strict vaccine passport regime and it would still be possible to limit activities and avoid a vaccine.
I don't favour compulsory vaccinations. As others have posted, that's very dark path.
I'm fairly ambivalent on compulsory mask wearing. It's one of the least bad restrictions that could be brought in for a short period, but I'm not presently of the view that we need more restrictions. I'm also not wearing a mask myself anywhere except when asked to do so. The last time I wore a mask, other than at work,* was on the tube around six weeks ago. On the other hand, I'm not in the least bit bothered by others wearing masks.
*We're required/strongly asked to wear them in the communal areas only. I don't have to wear one in my office.
Mask wearing is pointless given that so few actually wear an effective mask.
Not to mention the people who wear a mask which doesn't cover their nose and/or mouth.
And then there's the further issue of what a fully vaccinated individual is trying to protect another fully vaccinated individual from.
Mask wearing is pointless given that so few actually wear an effective mask.
That's simply not true. There is now an enormous amount of evidence that facial coverings (particularly surgical and N95 masks) are very effective at stopping people passing Covid on.
Literally tens of papers of papers have been published, based on both empirical and experimental work, and have shown them to work.
Now, this doesn't mean there should be mandates, and there's a massive difference between the effectiveness of the various mask types. But the impact on your likelihood in passing Covid onto someone if you wear even the most porous of gaiters* is dramatic.
* cloth gaiters are the least effective facial covering
Do you know what proportion of people are wearing N95 masks ?
A long site less than the number wearing bits of cloth with their nose outside it or the flimsy blue things with huge gaps between it and their face.
Robert said "surgical and N95 masks". N95 masks are pretty unusual but surgical masks are everywhere, I think they're probably the most common type of mask?
Masks do reduce transmission and viral load, plenty of studies out there now that show that. Of course the effectiveness varies between what type, but if worn correctly they do have an impact.
The primary reason why you wear a mask is to protect others particularly vulnerable people as much as possible by reducing viral load whether you are showing signs of symptoms or asymptomatic.
You might have a loved one or a friend who you know is vulnerable and it makes sense to wear a mask in certain situations.
There are people out there who are vulnerable that you might come into contact with that could have an underlying health condition but it's obviously hidden, you have no knowledge of say for example on public transport or in a shop.
It's why I mask up and why wearing a mask doesn't bother me in the slightest.
- I am doing my bit to protect others by reducing any viral load that I have. Particularly if I end up with asymptomatic Covid.
- They are proven to work in reducing transmission.
- Wearing a mask doesn't impact my health mentally or Physically. I wear them 7.5 hours per day at work in a medical setting.
- I don't feel like my Civil liberties are being impacted on.
Vaccines are amazing, they do a fantastic job reduce hospitalisations and deaths but not for everyone. If wearing a mask reduces the viral load that I pass on giving other people a better chance to survive this thing then I am happy to keep wearing them long term.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
Well, it depends.
These are the FT's charts on efficacy of AZ and Pfizer over time.
Astra-Zeneca's efficacy seems to fade much more quickly than Pfizer's. (And from a slightly worse starting point too.)
This means that Europe is in a somewhat better place than we are, as their vaccine shield is (a) newer, and (b) fades slower.
So long as Europe manages a sensible Pfizer booster strategy through the winter, they may entirely avoid the bump that the UK had.
Given that Europe is way behind the UK that seems doubtful.
Note how infection rates are rising rapidly in Belgium for example - and Belgium is doing better on booster vaccinations than other European countries.
Belgium was one of the worst performing European states earlier in the pandemic. I wonder what makes them worse than France or Germany? Or are they just more conscientious in compiling their stats?
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
Well, it depends.
These are the FT's charts on efficacy of AZ and Pfizer over time.
Astra-Zeneca's efficacy seems to fade much more quickly than Pfizer's. (And from a slightly worse starting point too.)
This means that Europe is in a somewhat better place than we are, as their vaccine shield is (a) newer, and (b) fades slower.
So long as Europe manages a sensible Pfizer booster strategy through the winter, they may entirely avoid the bump that the UK had.
Given that Europe is way behind the UK that seems doubtful.
Note how infection rates are rising rapidly in Belgium for example - and Belgium is doing better on booster vaccinations than other European countries.
When you say "Europe is way behind", what do you mean?
The reality is that you don't need to do boosters so early with Pfizer or Moderna. We got rapid protection, and saved tens of thousands of lives with Astra Zeneca. But now we need to give boosters.
Europe (and by which I'm not just talking about the EU, but also Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, etc.), vaccinated later and was far more reliant on Pfizer/Moderna.
So, if the question is "will Europe need to do booster shots?", then the answer is obviously yes. But it's by no means clear that protection will have waned that much this winter.
And Europe was also pretty efficient - once they had the supplies - at getting jabs into arms. Why would we expect them to now fail with boosters?
Edit to add: worth noting that Belgium is probably the number two user of AZ on a per capita basis in Europe behind the UK. Indeed, worldwide, it has probably had the best percentage uptake of AZ - around 99% of doses received have been administered.
But I think some should accept that predictions that deaths would have been eliminated by now and that cases would have fallen through the floor, that vaccines were the total way out of this, have surely been proved wrong
Death rates are still far below January. The remaining rise in cases is mainly amongst under 30s and especially under 18s most of whom have not yet been fully vaccinated.
Otherwise if we do not accept vaccinations are the way out and just rely on masks and lockdowns again as soon as we get a rise in cases, especially as we head into winter, we will never get out. Masks and lockdowns will be with us for the rest of our lives
This indeed is the conundrum. If we buckle now, we are effectively saying that masks and restrictions on mixing are a valid countermeasure to respiratory pathogens, even when we have substantial levels of immunity. That ends… never.
I think the masks and the lockdowns are different things. In Japan masks have been a common countermeasure for a long time - if you have a cold, you wear a mask when you go to work to avoid giving it to people. They're also are a useful tool against facial recognition, which is a big deal IMHO, so it would be good to see them normalized. I also think it's reasonable for venues to insist on them.
Laws against going out or visiting people are an abomination, and I'm glad to live in a country with a proper constitution that prevented the government from trying them.
One of the big problems with the libertarian response to the pandemic is that libertarians have been at the forefront of the petulant refusal to do anything useful to deal with it. What you really want to be able to say - and I think Japan is a good example of the positive case for this - is that in emergencies people are sensible and cooperative enough that you don't need the government to force them to do reasonable things to deal with a crisis. British and American libertarians seem to be doing their best to prove that you need a strong state, because your country is full of spoiled brats.
Good post. The logical conclusion of the libertarian response to the pandemic is just to let people die and the bodies pile up, in the way that they have done in Brazil; yet libertarians are inevitably reluctant to acknowledge this, preferring various forms of conspiracy and denial. But it is a philosophically defensible position if you take the view that the limits on freedom are intolerable; a small percentage of the population die off to protect liberty and economic health; not all that different to fighting a war.
Morning all. Congratulations to @isam on the new arrival!
One more sign of the sense of normality returning today - off to watch England v WIndies cricket later, in what will be a pretty packed and sold out stadium. Also my wife’s first live cricket match, so I will probably have some explaining to do!
But I think some should accept that predictions that deaths would have been eliminated by now and that cases would have fallen through the floor, that vaccines were the total way out of this, have surely been proved wrong
Death rates are still far below January. The remaining rise in cases is mainly amongst under 30s and especially under 18s most of whom have not yet been fully vaccinated.
Otherwise if we do not accept vaccinations are the way out and just rely on masks and lockdowns again as soon as we get a rise in cases, especially as we head into winter, we will never get out. Masks and lockdowns will be with us for the rest of our lives
This indeed is the conundrum. If we buckle now, we are effectively saying that masks and restrictions on mixing are a valid countermeasure to respiratory pathogens, even when we have substantial levels of immunity. That ends… never.
I think the masks and the lockdowns are different things. In Japan masks have been a common countermeasure for a long time - if you have a cold, you wear a mask when you go to work to avoid giving it to people. They're also are a useful tool against facial recognition, which is a big deal IMHO, so it would be good to see them normalized. I also think it's reasonable for venues to insist on them.
Laws against going out or visiting people are an abomination, and I'm glad to live in a country with a proper constitution that prevented the government from trying them.
One of the big problems with the libertarian response to the pandemic is that libertarians have been at the forefront of the petulant refusal to do anything useful to deal with it. What you really want to be able to say - and I think Japan is a good example of the positive case for this - is that in emergencies people are sensible and cooperative enough that you don't need the government to force them to do reasonable things to deal with a crisis. British and American libertarians seem to be doing their best to prove that you need a strong state, because your country is full of spoiled brats.
Good post. The logical conclusion of the libertarian response to the pandemic is just to let people die and the bodies pile up, in the way that they have done in Brazil; yet libertarians are inevitably reluctant to acknowledge this, preferring various forms of conspiracy and denial. But it is a philosophically defensible position if you take the view that the limits on freedom are intolerable; a small percentage of the population die off to protect liberty and economic health; not all that different to fighting a war.
Well said. Some of the high-profile libertarians among the commentariat have been idiots throughout the pandemic, often giving the impression of being contrarian simply for the hell of it. In fact, the UK is one of the first countries to get everyone vaccinated and have almost all restrictions lifted. Wars and pandemics require a change of mindset, where we all need to modify our behaviour for the collective good. It’s actually good to have a government that are minded to be against restrictions though, otherwise they can persist for much longer than the immediate emergency - do we think that countries that introduced Covid tracking apps are going to abandon them, or do we think the civil services in those places will be eagerly finding new things to do with all that new information?
Mr. Sandpit, ah, cheers. Misread the start/finish time.
No worries, you made me go and double-check the timings. I still have an hour from when the cricket finishes, to get out of the stadium, find my car and drive 3 miles home in the event traffic, before P3 starts!
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
Well, it depends.
These are the FT's charts on efficacy of AZ and Pfizer over time.
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
Well, it depends.
These are the FT's charts on efficacy of AZ and Pfizer over time.
Astra-Zeneca's efficacy seems to fade much more quickly than Pfizer's. (And from a slightly worse starting point too.)
This means that Europe is in a somewhat better place than we are, as their vaccine shield is (a) newer, and (b) fades slower.
So long as Europe manages a sensible Pfizer booster strategy through the winter, they may entirely avoid the bump that the UK had.
Werent there numbers published earlier in the year suggesting AZ wore off more slowly then Pfizer? Or is my memory letting me down?
No, there were such studies.
But there were also studies by professors at Edinburgh and UCL claiming that there was no transmission in schools, and those have proven to be an even more improbable pack of lies and/or wishful thinking than they even looked at the time.
I envy Mr Sandpit being actually at one of the games. Mrs C and I have been enjoying them on the box. We went on a tour with Essex when they played at one or two of the UAE grounds a few years ago. Very enjoyable
By the way, the maternity staff are right under the cosh. There is a baby boom, they normally do 3 C-Sections a day, and now it’s running at 6-7. People obv had nothing much else to do locked down in Jan/Feb.
In 2019 we got there at 8am, had our own little part of a ward for a couple of hours then the baby was delivered at midday. This time we went in yesterday and were sent home after two hours as they had no beds, then today had to sit in the waiting room where people go for 12 week scans, for five hours! My girlfriend, being 9 months pregnant, was pretty uncomfortable by the end of that. But all happy now 😊
On masks. I don’t know how it goes in California but certainly in southern England, masks have generally been used very poorly, often pulled down loosely over the mouth with the nose free, or occasionally pulled to one side with both mouth and nose free. They are almost always ill fitting and rarely if ever replaced etc…
I imagine in the face of delta and in the context of the vaccine rollout, public mask usage would now be doing almost nothing in reducing R, perhaps to a statistically insignificant level. The prior studies’ relevance on this is waning basically. It would be far more effective to educate and subsidise the use of FPT2/3 in the groups for whom vaccine efficacy is poorest. A fresh mandate at this point would be some combination of “look we are doing something” and a Susan Michie style psychological manipulation campaign to inject a bit of fresh fear to try and reduce average daily contacts.
And to anyone that says they are a zero cost intervention, you’ve not been much paying attention to the behavioural changes in children.
I envy Mr Sandpit being actually at one of the games. Mrs C and I have been enjoying them on the box. We went on a tour with Essex when they played at one or two of the UAE grounds a few years ago. Very enjoyable
I’m very lucky, have managed to bag a handful of tickets to World Cup matches.
The venue was changed to UAE and Oman earlier in the year, the tournament was originally to have been held in India, and the pandemic means that many fewer people are travelling than usual so there’s a lot of tickets available.
Because of the uncertainty, tickets only went on sale on 30th September, as the organisers wanted to maximise sales - the only match that immediately sold out was India v Pakistan tomorrow - I made the mistake of grabbing England tickets first, before looking around at other games, I v P would have been great to see. Only £25 a ticket for today’s match too.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
Except that vaccination does possibly have negative consequences for the individual, and a degree of uncertainty, which makes compulsion rather a big deal. Aside from those with a limited range of medical conditions (and even here I am rather sceptical), putting a bit of cloth over your mouth and nose isn’t likely to do you any harm.
It’s quite distressing to wear a mask and see people in masks for many people, and is damaging to the way humans naturally communicate - which is face to face.
What are the risks of vaccination in mathematical terms, and how do these compare to risks we face every day?
As I say, I support compulsion for neither measure, but just thought it was a clever question posed by the OP.
I can't tell you that you're wrong to feel "distress" at wearing a mask or seeing others in one, but I do find it strange.
It was a very clever question posed by @ydoethur earlier to those who want mask wearing to be compulsory, asking whether they favoured making vaccination compulsory. It was very clever because of course vaccination is a much more effective countermeasure, and compulsion would affect a far smaller proportion of the population.
(For the record, in the least surprising news of the day, I favour compulsion for neither measure)
Except that vaccination does possibly have negative consequences for the individual, and a degree of uncertainty, which makes compulsion rather a big deal. Aside from those with a limited range of medical conditions (and even here I am rather sceptical), putting a bit of cloth over your mouth and nose isn’t likely to do you any harm.
It’s quite distressing to wear a mask and see people in masks for many people, and is damaging to the way humans naturally communicate - which is face to face.
What are the risks of vaccination in mathematical terms, and how do these compare to risks we face every day?
As I say, I support compulsion for neither measure, but just thought it was a clever question posed by the OP.
I can't tell you that you're wrong to feel "distress" at wearing a mask or seeing others in one, but I do find it strange.
I said for a lot of people. I simply find it unpleasant, which I assume most people do? I mean, would you choose to wear masks and have your friends and everyone you meet wear them, were COVID not a thing?
I never really wear one for more than five minutes, working from home and only really popping into local shops, but today my girlfriend had our second son and I sat in a hospital waiting room for nearly 5 hours in one. Afterwards I went downstairs to get some food, and realised I felt like absolute shit. Went outside to ring my mum, took off the mask and instantly felt a million times better. Fair play to people who wear the day in day out for long spells, I couldn’t do that.
Funnily enough, in the room you go to after the birth they didn’t seem bothered about us wearing our masks, nor on the ward really. Some people waiting for scans weren’t wearing them at all
Many congratulations Sam and to your lady wife and little ones, both the newborn and not to forget the one who has now become a sibling.
I really struggle to understand how otherwise clever people manage to get so caught up in a lie that they do stupid. "Its a fraud" so lets commit fraud to prove it...
Sadly, it looks like the film set accident the other day was exactly what was speculated at the time - the actor was handed a gun containing a live round rather than a blank.
How the hell is that allowed to happen, given all the firearms accidents over the years?
Surely they have at least two armourers to double check the weapon, and demonstrate the state of the gun to the actor before handing it to him? Feel terribly sorry for Mr Baldwin, what a horrible accident he now has to live with.
There’s also rumours that all was not well with this production before the accident, with a walk-out by crew over safety concerns.
Your daily reminder that the government's claim to care about workers' rights is all bollocks.
It rather depends on how the bill was worded. If its a Labour bill its bound to need serious amending...
Why? That is incredible bias and the reason nothing often gets done.
Its the way of the world.
No it isn't. Treat things on their merits not based upon your bias. I have no idea whether it is any good but I don't jump to conclusions. Labour MPs are not always wrong. They sometimes produce good stuff. And I say that having never voted for them.
Sadly, it looks like the film set accident the other day was exactly what was speculated at the time - the actor was handed a gun containing a live round rather than a blank.
How the hell is that allowed to happen, given all the firearms accidents over the years?
Surely they have at least two armourers to double check the weapon, and demonstrate the state of the gun to the actor before handing it to him? Feel terribly sorry for Mr Baldwin, what a horrible accident he now has to live with.
There’s also rumours that all was not well with this production before the accident, with a walk-out by crew over safety concerns.
I envy Mr Sandpit being actually at one of the games. Mrs C and I have been enjoying them on the box. We went on a tour with Essex when they played at one or two of the UAE grounds a few years ago. Very enjoyable
I’m very lucky, have managed to bag a handful of tickets to World Cup matches.
The venue was changed to UAE and Oman earlier in the year, the tournament was originally to have been held in India, and the pandemic means that many fewer people are travelling than usual so there’s a lot of tickets available.
Because of the uncertainty, tickets only went on sale on 30th September, as the organisers wanted to maximise sales - the only match that immediately sold out was India v Pakistan tomorrow - I made the mistake of grabbing England tickets first, before looking around at other games, I v P would have been great to see. Only £25 a ticket for today’s match too.
That's right, rub it in. Not content with telling us you're going to matches, you now tell us how cheap it is. Smug seems an appropriate adjective. Enjoy.
I'm thinking of backing Pakistan as outright winners (7/1). India are rightly clear favourites. But if they flop, I reckon Pakistan would be the team to take advantage.
Sadly, it looks like the film set accident the other day was exactly what was speculated at the time - the actor was handed a gun containing a live round rather than a blank.
How the hell is that allowed to happen, given all the firearms accidents over the years?
Surely they have at least two armourers to double check the weapon, and demonstrate the state of the gun to the actor before handing it to him? Feel terribly sorry for Mr Baldwin, what a horrible accident he now has to live with.
There’s also rumours that all was not well with this production before the accident, with a walk-out by crew over safety concerns.
More that their accomodatoon was 50.miles away
Three instances of accidental discharge of a firearm.
Why do they have live rounds anywhere near the set at all?
I know nothing about guns except for having being to a firing range, and they spend quite a while going through rules, regulations and procedures before any firearms come out of their cabinet. Mostly because they don’t want people getting killed or injured in accidents.
It’s bloody easy to tell the difference between a bullet, a ‘blank’ charge, and an empty chamber - especially when one of them is fatally dangerous, and another is still bloody dangerous.
Sadly, it looks like the film set accident the other day was exactly what was speculated at the time - the actor was handed a gun containing a live round rather than a blank.
How the hell is that allowed to happen, given all the firearms accidents over the years?
Surely they have at least two armourers to double check the weapon, and demonstrate the state of the gun to the actor before handing it to him? Feel terribly sorry for Mr Baldwin, what a horrible accident he now has to live with.
There’s also rumours that all was not well with this production before the accident, with a walk-out by crew over safety concerns.
More that their accomodatoon was 50.miles away
Three instances of accidental discharge of a firearm.
Why do they have live rounds anywhere near the set at all?
I know nothing about guns except for having being to a firing range, and they spend quite a while going through rules, regulations and procedures before any firearms come out of their cabinet. Mostly because they don’t want people getting killed or injured in accidents.
It’s bloody easy to tell the difference between a bullet, a ‘blank’ charge, and an empty chamber - especially when one of them is fatally dangerous, and another is still bloody dangerous.
I am not saying Baldwin is thick but just thinknof the average iq of someone on on of our sink estates....
I envy Mr Sandpit being actually at one of the games. Mrs C and I have been enjoying them on the box. We went on a tour with Essex when they played at one or two of the UAE grounds a few years ago. Very enjoyable
I’m very lucky, have managed to bag a handful of tickets to World Cup matches.
The venue was changed to UAE and Oman earlier in the year, the tournament was originally to have been held in India, and the pandemic means that many fewer people are travelling than usual so there’s a lot of tickets available.
Because of the uncertainty, tickets only went on sale on 30th September, as the organisers wanted to maximise sales - the only match that immediately sold out was India v Pakistan tomorrow - I made the mistake of grabbing England tickets first, before looking around at other games, I v P would have been great to see. Only £25 a ticket for today’s match too.
That's right, rub it in. Not content with telling us you're going to matches, you now tell us how cheap it is. Smug seems an appropriate adjective. Enjoy.
I'm thinking of backing Pakistan as outright winners (7/1). India are rightly clear favourites. But if they flop, I reckon Pakistan would be the team to take advantage.
Pakistan does seem a good bet, and if they beat India tomorrow that 7/1 could be expected to come in quite a bit.
I still have something of an aversion to betting on any cricket matches involving Pakistan, but maybe backing them to win the tournament isn’t something over which the players could be influenced by outsiders.
But I think some should accept that predictions that deaths would have been eliminated by now and that cases would have fallen through the floor, that vaccines were the total way out of this, have surely been proved wrong
If most of the new cases are young people, and most of the deaths are people who refused the vaccine, things aren't as bad as they might seem. Covid-19 isn't serious in most young people, and if you refused the vaccine that's your decision to risk your life.
One concern is that in every age group from 50 up, most deaths are in the fully vaccinated. As you go up the scale, by quite a high proportion.
This isn't because the vaccines aren't good (they're considerably better than we dared hope), but because "protected" does not equate to "invulnerable." It's too easy to fall into a binary mode of thought.
And because such a large proportion of the older age groups are vaccinated, the fact that more vaccinated die than unvaccinated is simple arithmetic: the vaccinated outnumber the unvaccinated to such an extent.
But only a small fraction of the deaths right now are unvaccinated. That's why people are so cross with the unvaccinated: they're providing the vector by which the deaths are occurring. Hopefully this will be seen off by the boosters; protection from those does look to be almost indistinguishable from pretty much invulnerable to covid. Ironically, after dissing binary thinking, a 3-shot regimen looks very very close to making binary thinking accurate for this.
Pity we're so far behind on the booster rollout. Of 9.4 million eligible in England (6 months+ since their second jab), we've done 4.5 million, and despite the acceleration, the number eligible is rising faster than the number being jabbed.
The fact that we've got around 23 million doses sitting in fridges in this situation is indefensible.
Morning all. Congratulations to @isam on the new arrival!
One more sign of the sense of normality returning today - off to watch England v WIndies cricket later, in what will be a pretty packed and sold out stadium. Also my wife’s first live cricket match, so I will probably have some explaining to do!
By the way, the maternity staff are right under the cosh. There is a baby boom, they normally do 3 C-Sections a day, and now it’s running at 6-7. People obv had nothing much else to do locked down in Jan/Feb.
In 2019 we got there at 8am, had our own little part of a ward for a couple of hours then the baby was delivered at midday. This time we went in yesterday and were sent home after two hours as they had no beds, then today had to sit in the waiting room where people go for 12 week scans, for five hours! My girlfriend, being 9 months pregnant, was pretty uncomfortable by the end of that. But all happy now 😊
But I think some should accept that predictions that deaths would have been eliminated by now and that cases would have fallen through the floor, that vaccines were the total way out of this, have surely been proved wrong
If most of the new cases are young people, and most of the deaths are people who refused the vaccine, things aren't as bad as they might seem. Covid-19 isn't serious in most young people, and if you refused the vaccine that's your decision to risk your life.
One concern is that in every age group from 50 up, most deaths are in the fully vaccinated. As you go up the scale, by quite a high proportion.
This isn't because the vaccines aren't good (they're considerably better than we dared hope), but because "protected" does not equate to "invulnerable." It's too easy to fall into a binary mode of thought.
And because such a large proportion of the older age groups are vaccinated, the fact that more vaccinated die than unvaccinated is simple arithmetic: the vaccinated outnumber the unvaccinated to such an extent.
But only a small fraction of the deaths right now are unvaccinated. That's why people are so cross with the unvaccinated: they're providing the vector by which the deaths are occurring. Hopefully this will be seen off by the boosters; protection from those does look to be almost indistinguishable from pretty much invulnerable to covid. Ironically, after dissing binary thinking, a 3-shot regimen looks very very close to making binary thinking accurate for this.
Pity we're so far behind on the booster rollout. Of 9.4 million eligible in England (6 months+ since their second jab), we've done 4.5 million, and despite the acceleration, the number eligible is rising faster than the number being jabbed.
The fact that we've got around 23 million doses sitting in fridges in this situation is indefensible.
Most people killed in car crashes are wearing seatbelts. That’s just what happens with the statistics, when there’s a 95% take up of vaccinations among the most vulnerable groups. The few unvaccinated among those groups, are very much over-represented among the hospitalisations and fatalities.
The vaccines work, and with booster shots should increase the immunity still further.
The largest groups in cases at the moment, are in school-age kids, who are mostly asymptomatic and only being picked up because of regular testing. There’s already signs that infections in this group are starting to burn out, and the school holidays should help things along nicely.
Your daily reminder that the government's claim to care about workers' rights is all bollocks.
It rather depends on how the bill was worded. If its a Labour bill its bound to need serious amending...
"If this is by you then I know it's wrong without looking at it" - absolutely the definition of divisive politics. However, let's take it on your basis. It would be perfectly acceptable in principle if the Government had said "Yes, firing someone and then replacing them at lower cost is an abuse of the principle of redundancy, and we will come back to the House in a few months with our own proposals".
Morning all. Congratulations to @isam on the new arrival!
One more sign of the sense of normality returning today - off to watch England v WIndies cricket later, in what will be a pretty packed and sold out stadium. Also my wife’s first live cricket match, so I will probably have some explaining to do!
Let's hope she takes along a good book
That’s why I’m introducing her to cricket with a 20-20 game, and not a Test match. Otherwise she might get the impression that going to see the cricket means sitting down with a newspaper and an ipad, drinking beer all day…
Re Mike’s charts, one interpretation might be that Greens will switch to Labour when they see a Labour leader is radical eg Corbyn but won’t when they see an insipid Labour Labour eg Milliband.
It also seems like that is a stronger driving factor than whether an election is close. For example, in 2015, which was thought to be close, Greens stuck with the Greens. In 2017, when people thought May would win a big majority, they went to Labour regardless.
If point 1 is right, then I don’t think Mike’s assumption at the end of right. Starmer is unlikely to enthuse the Greens to switch to Labour.
Everything depends on how things look in a particular seat. I voted for Corbyn's party last time in my super marginal because to me impeding Boris was the overwhelming priority.
So you voted for someone who tolerated - at best - anti-semitism.
You should be ashamed of yourself
Presumably over 10 million voters who went for Labour should be ashamed of themselves too, in your thoroughly objective view? How patronising.
You know what.
I’m going with “yes”.
We had a segment of our society that was genuinely in fear of the impact of the a Labour Party being elected. Not “my taxes are going up” but whether their way of life could be sustained in the UK
Everyone who participated in that deserves a degree of blame - Corbyn the most, the MPs who would have supported him as Pm of Labour had the most seats (despite what they pretended).
To a much lesser degree people who voted for a party that tolerated anti-semitism. Many of them probably didn’t know the details.
But people like Mike, who are politically aware, and knew exactly what they were supporting deserve much greater condemnation
There should be acknowledgement that we do seem to have completely squandered the head start we had on the vaccines.
I recall many saying we were going to be the first out of COVID, the UK was leading the way and it would be over by now. We are now at best, in line with everyone else and in many metrics now behind.
The Government should receive great deals of credit for the initial vaccine rollout but besides that, everything else they have done has been very poor indeed. And they're being complacent yet again.
Actually, the situation is quite similar to earlier in the year with the UK being well ahead of its peers in terms of booster take-up.
In fact the UK is doing better than that.
Remember that the UK quickly switched to a 12 week gap between the first and second doses whereas most European countries and the USA kept at 3 weeks.
Which means that the European countries and the USA should have been doing more booster doses than the UK.
It was only in April that the UK's big lead in fully vaccinated opened up.
And the longer dosing regimen provides enhanced and longer-lasting protection, so those on the 3-week dosing strategy should be boosting earlier.
That's a really good point.
Could that explain why countries like Germany and others are seeing a much higher CFR than the UK is right now?
I've put it down to our much higher testing rates meaning we're probably catching more of our cases, but if the vaccine has faded their more (because they double-doses their vulnerable 3 weeks apart) and are running behind on boosters, then that could explain some of the difference.
Why then are their current covid fatality number so much lower than ours?
Germany's CFR is higher than ours. But I think that's mostly because so many cases in the UK are children.
If you looked at adult Covid deaths vs adult cases, I'm not sure you'd see a big difference.
Right now, we have a lot of cases, a reasonable amount of hospitalisations, and quite a few deaths (although nowhere near previous peaks).
If you scan the table, the UK is second by case count (behind the US), but has massively fewer deaths than the US due to much better vaccination take up. Germany has slightly more proportional deaths than us, but off a much lower case rate.
My gut is that four things are behind the differences:
1. Europe got lucky with being late with vaccines, and Pfizer is more effective (especially if only given recently) 2. There simply weren't the same number of cases of Delta seeded in Europe. 3. There are more residual restrictions in Europe than in the UK. 4. Kids were able to be vaccinated earlier in Europe, meaning schools have been less hotbeds for transmission
Which likely means that Europe may be storing up big trouble for the winter as it will be further behind both the acquired immunity and booster vaccination curves.
I maintain that ultimately everyone will be infected (many without knowing it) and the 'trick' is to manage it in a steady way with the least damage to society.
Well, it depends.
These are the FT's charts on efficacy of AZ and Pfizer over time.
Astra-Zeneca's efficacy seems to fade much more quickly than Pfizer's. (And from a slightly worse starting point too.)
This means that Europe is in a somewhat better place than we are, as their vaccine shield is (a) newer, and (b) fades slower.
So long as Europe manages a sensible Pfizer booster strategy through the winter, they may entirely avoid the bump that the UK had.
Given that Europe is way behind the UK that seems doubtful.
Note how infection rates are rising rapidly in Belgium for example - and Belgium is doing better on booster vaccinations than other European countries.
When you say "Europe is way behind", what do you mean?
The reality is that you don't need to do boosters so early with Pfizer or Moderna. We got rapid protection, and saved tens of thousands of lives with Astra Zeneca. But now we need to give boosters.
Europe (and by which I'm not just talking about the EU, but also Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, etc.), vaccinated later and was far more reliant on Pfizer/Moderna.
So, if the question is "will Europe need to do booster shots?", then the answer is obviously yes. But it's by no means clear that protection will have waned that much this winter.
And Europe was also pretty efficient - once they had the supplies - at getting jabs into arms. Why would we expect them to now fail with boosters?
Edit to add: worth noting that Belgium is probably the number two user of AZ on a per capita basis in Europe behind the UK. Indeed, worldwide, it has probably had the best percentage uptake of AZ - around 99% of doses received have been administered.
Other European countries have given far fewer booster doses than the UK.
I don't don't they will end up with similar levels of boosters given at then end and you may be right that they don't need them.
But they currently lag the UK even though we continually told that UK has 'squandered its lead' and the the UK's booster program is a failure.
But I think some should accept that predictions that deaths would have been eliminated by now and that cases would have fallen through the floor, that vaccines were the total way out of this, have surely been proved wrong
If most of the new cases are young people, and most of the deaths are people who refused the vaccine, things aren't as bad as they might seem. Covid-19 isn't serious in most young people, and if you refused the vaccine that's your decision to risk your life.
One concern is that in every age group from 50 up, most deaths are in the fully vaccinated. As you go up the scale, by quite a high proportion.
This isn't because the vaccines aren't good (they're considerably better than we dared hope), but because "protected" does not equate to "invulnerable." It's too easy to fall into a binary mode of thought.
And because such a large proportion of the older age groups are vaccinated, the fact that more vaccinated die than unvaccinated is simple arithmetic: the vaccinated outnumber the unvaccinated to such an extent.
But only a small fraction of the deaths right now are unvaccinated. That's why people are so cross with the unvaccinated: they're providing the vector by which the deaths are occurring. Hopefully this will be seen off by the boosters; protection from those does look to be almost indistinguishable from pretty much invulnerable to covid. Ironically, after dissing binary thinking, a 3-shot regimen looks very very close to making binary thinking accurate for this.
Pity we're so far behind on the booster rollout. Of 9.4 million eligible in England (6 months+ since their second jab), we've done 4.5 million, and despite the acceleration, the number eligible is rising faster than the number being jabbed.
The fact that we've got around 23 million doses sitting in fridges in this situation is indefensible.
If people don't want to get the booster how do you force them ?
For the young (and there are many health and care workers who are eligible) and/or those who have been infected with covid its likely to be of minimal benefit.
Re Mike’s charts, one interpretation might be that Greens will switch to Labour when they see a Labour leader is radical eg Corbyn but won’t when they see an insipid Labour Labour eg Milliband.
It also seems like that is a stronger driving factor than whether an election is close. For example, in 2015, which was thought to be close, Greens stuck with the Greens. In 2017, when people thought May would win a big majority, they went to Labour regardless.
If point 1 is right, then I don’t think Mike’s assumption at the end of right. Starmer is unlikely to enthuse the Greens to switch to Labour.
Everything depends on how things look in a particular seat. I voted for Corbyn's party last time in my super marginal because to me impeding Boris was the overwhelming priority.
So you voted for someone who tolerated - at best - anti-semitism.
You should be ashamed of yourself
Presumably over 10 million voters who went for Labour should be ashamed of themselves too, in your thoroughly objective view? How patronising.
You're trying to argue with a guy who thinks it's ok for Johnson to take a free holiday from someone he gave a peerage to because Johnson's wife works for said lord's half-brother... or something. All perfectly transparent and above-board.
You’re misrepresenting what I said.
I said that it is possible that Zac Goldsmith would have lent his house to the Johnsons for a holiday because they moved in the same circles. Consequently the link that was implied at the time “he got a free holiday in return for making Zac a peer” was unproven and unreasonable.
In general I have no issue with PMs having holidays donated. Security issues make it challenging for them to just book a room in a hotel or a self-catering apartment like most would do. But in all cases it should be transparently and accurately disclosed in a timely manner.
Comments
Got home in time to watch the second half of Arsenal Villa, and considering a glass of something. I’ve been on the wagon a few weeks so as to be ready for the big day. But I’ve got to be back up the hosp at 9 I don’t think I can be bothered to start again yet
I had to go to a pharmacy today to collect a prescription, so I had to have a mask on, but my prescription wasn't ready. I decided to leave my mask on while I waited outside, because I prefer to put it on when I can adjust it properly on my nose with the mirror in the car. After walking around for a while to pass the time I became so tense that muscles in my face started to twitch spontaneously. If the message to me is that it isn't safe to go to places without a mask then the message I hear is that it isn't safe to go to places at all. The mask is only going to make a negligible difference compared to staying at home.
Last weekend we went for afternoon tea at a country house near here. I had to wear my mask as we went in, queued for the check of our vaccine certificates (we're in Ireland), etc, but then could take them off at our table. I was surprised at how relatively easily I was able to relax and enjoy myself once I was free of the mask, though it was still a bit unnerving to see the staff wander around with them on. And since I was only wearing a mask for a small proportion of the time I was inside - what was the point?
The mask theatre is making it harder for me to take full advantage of being immunised with two doses of the vaccine.
I remember in the early stages of the pandemic, in the third week of March 2020, being very wary of other people when walking down the mostly empty supermarket shelves. But it's now not people that I am scared of, but masks.
But it’s excruciatingly painful even discussing stuff with you. So again, like earlier today, have the last word, go ahead. I’ll make a note not to engage with you in future.
If you want to measure success via silly metrics like 'cases' or 'deaths' then fine, incarcerate everyone, never let them out of their home, don't treat cancers, have rampant suicides and destroyed businesses, then tap yourselves on the back for a job well done.
Or take a big picture look and get us out of restrictions ASAP. Something this nation has achieved and they and New Zealand and others held up as "examples" have failed to achieve.
In 2019 we got there at 8am, had our own little part of a ward for a couple of hours then the baby was delivered at midday. This time we went in yesterday and were sent home after two hours as they had no beds, then today had to sit in the waiting room where people go for 12 week scans, for five hours! My girlfriend, being 9 months pregnant, was pretty uncomfortable by the end of that. But all happy now 😊
Thanks for the kind words
Its mass events like this that are part of the tapestry of what makes life special and it feels absolutely remarkable that we haven't been to one in two years now.
If they can complete their vaccinations soon, and then accept an exit wave as they lift all restrictions, they will have finished with an enviable record overall.
Rather it builds.
More and more people I work with, am related to, am friends with have acquired immunity.
There's almost certainly more who have without knowing they have done so.
Now the virus is mopping up the rest while vaccines get topped up or expanded too. The virus is never going to go away though, so this is basically it.
Now vaccines allow that to happen with much reduced risk and suffering.
But there are some who think anyone getting infected is a bad thing even if they have no negative effects.
These are the FT's charts on efficacy of AZ and Pfizer over time.
Astra-Zeneca's efficacy seems to fade much more quickly than Pfizer's. (And from a slightly worse starting point too.)
This means that Europe is in a somewhat better place than we are, as their vaccine shield is (a) newer, and (b) fades slower.
So long as Europe manages a sensible Pfizer booster strategy through the winter, they may entirely avoid the bump that the UK had.
That's simply not true. There is now an enormous amount of evidence that facial coverings (particularly surgical and N95 masks) are very effective at stopping people passing Covid on.
Literally tens of papers of papers have been published, based on both empirical and experimental work, and have shown them to work.
Now, this doesn't mean there should be mandates, and there's a massive difference between the effectiveness of the various mask types. But the impact on your likelihood in passing Covid onto someone if you wear even the most porous of gaiters* is dramatic.
* cloth gaiters are the least effective facial covering
A long site less than the number wearing bits of cloth with their nose outside it or the flimsy blue things with huge gaps between it and their face.
Note how infection rates are rising rapidly in Belgium for example - and Belgium is doing better on booster vaccinations than other European countries.
Laws against going out or visiting people are an abomination, and I'm glad to live in a country with a proper constitution that prevented the government from trying them.
One of the big problems with the libertarian response to the pandemic is that libertarians have been at the forefront of the petulant refusal to do anything useful to deal with it. What you really want to be able to say - and I think Japan is a good example of the positive case for this - is that in emergencies people are sensible and cooperative enough that you don't need the government to force them to do reasonable things to deal with a crisis. British and American libertarians seem to be doing their best to prove that you need a strong state, because your country is full of spoiled brats.
But now? It's a different story.
It's one thing wearing a cloth mask when there's no good masks available and no vaccines available. It's the best option available at that time. But that time has long since been and gone.
And through lower cases in less vulnerable groups, lower hospitalisations in more vulnerable groups.
A strength of the USA approach to boosters is that this indirect effect will not be excluded. The UK is one of the most vaccine accepting nations in the world but has severely overthought thus particularly now they're globally abundant.
The primary reason why you wear a mask is to protect others particularly vulnerable people as much as possible by reducing viral load whether you are showing signs of symptoms or asymptomatic.
You might have a loved one or a friend who you know is vulnerable and it makes sense to wear a mask in certain situations.
There are people out there who are vulnerable that you might come into contact with that could have an underlying health condition but it's obviously hidden, you have no knowledge of say for example on public transport or in a shop.
It's why I mask up and why wearing a mask doesn't bother me in the slightest.
- I am doing my bit to protect others by reducing any viral load that I have. Particularly if I end up with asymptomatic Covid.
- They are proven to work in reducing transmission.
- Wearing a mask doesn't impact my health mentally or Physically. I wear them 7.5 hours per day at work in a medical setting.
- I don't feel like my Civil liberties are being impacted on.
Vaccines are amazing, they do a fantastic job reduce hospitalisations and deaths but not for everyone. If wearing a mask reduces the viral load that I pass on giving other people a better chance to survive this thing then I am happy to keep wearing them long term.
Looks like a potential Corbyn effect.
F1: feels later than last year, but qualifying's at 10pm and the race at 8pm. So that's going to make the weekend a bit peculiar.
The reality is that you don't need to do boosters so early with Pfizer or Moderna. We got rapid protection, and saved tens of thousands of lives with Astra Zeneca. But now we need to give boosters.
Europe (and by which I'm not just talking about the EU, but also Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, etc.), vaccinated later and was far more reliant on Pfizer/Moderna.
So, if the question is "will Europe need to do booster shots?", then the answer is obviously yes. But it's by no means clear that protection will have waned that much this winter.
And Europe was also pretty efficient - once they had the supplies - at getting jabs into arms. Why would we expect them to now fail with boosters?
Edit to add: worth noting that Belgium is probably the number two user of AZ on a per capita basis in Europe behind the UK. Indeed, worldwide, it has probably had the best percentage uptake of AZ - around 99% of doses received have been administered.
One more sign of the sense of normality returning today - off to watch England v WIndies cricket later, in what will be a pretty packed and sold out stadium. Also my wife’s first live cricket match, so I will probably have some explaining to do!
(And very jealous of Mr @Sandpit)
There'll be a little in there about the 2022 calendar and the fan survey.
https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1451600940235173889
A bit like the Trumpster himself on whose behalf it was all carried out.
Quite the turnaround from P1 to P2.
But there were also studies by professors at Edinburgh and UCL claiming that there was no transmission in schools, and those have proven to be an even more improbable pack of lies and/or wishful thinking than they even looked at the time.
Initial reports can be very wrong.
I imagine in the face of delta and in the context of the vaccine rollout, public mask usage would now be doing almost nothing in reducing R, perhaps to a statistically insignificant level. The prior studies’ relevance on this is waning basically. It would be far more effective to educate and subsidise the use of FPT2/3 in the groups for whom vaccine efficacy is poorest. A fresh mandate at this point would be some combination of “look we are doing something” and a Susan Michie style psychological manipulation campaign to inject a bit of fresh fear to try and reduce average daily contacts.
And to anyone that says they are a zero cost intervention, you’ve not been much paying attention to the behavioural changes in children.
The venue was changed to UAE and Oman earlier in the year, the tournament was originally to have been held in India, and the pandemic means that many fewer people are travelling than usual so there’s a lot of tickets available.
Because of the uncertainty, tickets only went on sale on 30th September, as the organisers wanted to maximise sales - the only match that immediately sold out was India v Pakistan tomorrow - I made the mistake of grabbing England tickets first, before looking around at other games, I v P would have been great to see. Only £25 a ticket for today’s match too.
Your daily reminder that the government's claim to care about workers' rights is all bollocks.
How the hell is that allowed to happen, given all the firearms accidents over the years?
Surely they have at least two armourers to double check the weapon, and demonstrate the state of the gun to the actor before handing it to him? Feel terribly sorry for Mr Baldwin, what a horrible accident he now has to live with.
There’s also rumours that all was not well with this production before the accident, with a walk-out by crew over safety concerns.
Funny old world.
I'm thinking of backing Pakistan as outright winners (7/1). India are rightly clear favourites. But if they flop, I reckon Pakistan would be the team to take advantage.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2021-10-22/alec-baldwin-rust-camera-crew-walked-off-set
Why do they have live rounds anywhere near the set at all?
I know nothing about guns except for having being to a firing range, and they spend quite a while going through rules, regulations and procedures before any firearms come out of their cabinet. Mostly because they don’t want people getting killed or injured in accidents.
It’s bloody easy to tell the difference between a bullet, a ‘blank’ charge, and an empty chamber - especially when one of them is fatally dangerous, and another is still bloody dangerous.
I still have something of an aversion to betting on any cricket matches involving Pakistan, but maybe backing them to win the tournament isn’t something over which the players could be influenced by outsiders.
This isn't because the vaccines aren't good (they're considerably better than we dared hope), but because "protected" does not equate to "invulnerable." It's too easy to fall into a binary mode of thought.
And because such a large proportion of the older age groups are vaccinated, the fact that more vaccinated die than unvaccinated is simple arithmetic: the vaccinated outnumber the unvaccinated to such an extent.
But only a small fraction of the deaths right now are unvaccinated. That's why people are so cross with the unvaccinated: they're providing the vector by which the deaths are occurring. Hopefully this will be seen off by the boosters; protection from those does look to be almost indistinguishable from pretty much invulnerable to covid. Ironically, after dissing binary thinking, a 3-shot regimen looks very very close to making binary thinking accurate for this.
Pity we're so far behind on the booster rollout. Of 9.4 million eligible in England (6 months+ since their second jab), we've done 4.5 million, and despite the acceleration, the number eligible is rising faster than the number being jabbed.
The fact that we've got around 23 million doses sitting in fridges in this situation is indefensible.
The vaccines work, and with booster shots should increase the immunity still further.
The largest groups in cases at the moment, are in school-age kids, who are mostly asymptomatic and only being picked up because of regular testing. There’s already signs that infections in this group are starting to burn out, and the school holidays should help things along nicely.
Did they do that? Nah.
I’m going with “yes”.
We had a segment of our society that was genuinely in fear of the impact of the a Labour Party being elected. Not “my taxes are going up” but whether their way of life could be sustained in the UK
Everyone who participated in that deserves a degree of blame - Corbyn the most, the MPs who would have supported him as Pm of Labour had the most seats (despite what they pretended).
To a much lesser degree people who voted for a party that tolerated anti-semitism. Many of them probably didn’t know the details.
But people like Mike, who are politically aware, and knew exactly what they were supporting deserve much greater condemnation
I don't don't they will end up with similar levels of boosters given at then end and you may be right that they don't need them.
But they currently lag the UK even though we continually told that UK has 'squandered its lead' and the the UK's booster program is a failure.
For the young (and there are many health and care workers who are eligible) and/or those who have been infected with covid its likely to be of minimal benefit.
I said that it is possible that Zac Goldsmith would have lent his house to the Johnsons for a holiday because they moved in the same circles. Consequently the link that was implied at the time “he got a free holiday in return for making Zac a peer” was unproven and unreasonable.
In general I have no issue with PMs having holidays donated. Security issues make it challenging for them to just book a room in a hotel or a self-catering apartment like most would do. But in all cases it should be transparently and accurately disclosed in a timely manner.