The polls at the equivalent stage of Ed Miliband’s time as LotO. Can someone run them through Electoral Calculus please, and share with us what the result of the 2015 Election is going to be?
If there was no extrapolation from polls on this site there would not be much point to it
Another few hundred went on a Labour poll lead today by me
I hope you are only betting what you can afford. (This is not an opinion on your bet btw, which I think you will win).
Agreed about being careful - we don't know your circs, but nothing's certain except death (hello De Clare) and taxes (hello Rishi). I think Sunak has done enough groundwork on his budget to make it go down quite well. The trend for the Tories is downwards, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a bounce in the polls next weekend which then gradually subsides again.
I dunno.
Public opinion of the moment is that the government has fucked up Covid AGAIN. See the polls on “handling it badly”. Nonetheless the Tories maintain a small but solid lead even in midterm
At the same time the mood music has been: we are heading into lockdown 4 and Plan F because of Boris being a berk etc
But what if that narrative changes? There are some glimmerings. Cases come down. Deaths recede. Christmas is saved. The UK government will then look audacious and clever once again - in comparison to many other countries
If that happens - a mighty IF, of course - you could see another big, prolonged boost to Tory support. Boris saves Britain!
In fact if that happens, I could see the support lasting until the next election
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
Yes he or she would be allowed to work... they just need to have the vaccine. It's not difficult.
About 42,000 Brits were killed in the Blitz, and around 140,000 have been killed by Covid.
Time to update the header.
140000 may have passed away within 28 days of testing positive for Covid 19, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they would all still be alive had Covid 19 never existed.
Excess deaths since March 2020 = circa 130k according to the Economist's figures.
Thing is there is no way we will ever know how many died because of Covid. Excess deaths is reasonable but is also susceptible to the base number variation. Death certification is not exact, and the within 28 days of a positive test is an approximation that gives quick numbers. Besides, I suspect there are a lot of deaths from other things that are exacerbated by Covid, but won’t be ascribed to it, such as depression leading to suicide, undiagnosed cancers and so on.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
If that cardiothorasic surgeon is unwilling to get vaccinated, despite having had a year to do so, then why not?
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
In that hypothetical case he would not be allowed to practice - yes
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
Yes he or she would be allowed to work... they just need to have the vaccine. It's not difficult.
What if they argued it didn’t offer any benefit because they already had antibodies?
The problem with compulsory vaccination is that it is an empty, impotent policy without recourse to sanction. IIRC there are over 100,000 NHS staff who have refused the jab. If even half of those dig their heels in when threatened with loss of livelihood, and either hand in their notices or have to be sacked, then who is going to do their work? The system has a severe recruitment and retention problem as it is.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I've zero sympathy for the buggers, but will Javid dare to face them down given the likelihood of a resultant disaster? I have my doubts.
Do you have the right to stop the government injecting something into your body?
I am sure you do have the right, as does the government to take public health measures to protect the rest of us from the deniers
You have to be careful with this sort of thing. You may think this is ok, but you might inadvertently set a precedent for future governments.
The idea that you will be denied liberties unless you take government approved medicine for the greater good sounds like a bad scifi plot.
The broader problem that the Government has is this: they would, I'm sure, ideally prefer to leave the refusers to take their chances. However, we also know that hospitals specifically are a major source of new Covid infections, and that the disease in general is now largely a Plague of the unvaccinated. Firstly, do we want unprotected staff treating sick patients? Secondly, if enough unvaccinated people present at hospital with Covid at the same time to threaten the collapse of the system, would it be best to respond with restrictions on everyone, or crushing restrictions on the refusers so that the rest of the population can go about its business relatively undisturbed?
Twisting the arms of the stubborn, or imposing collective punishment on the whole population: there's no nice and convenient answer to this.
I would also point out two things: firstly, that some healthcare workers have already been subject to compulsory vaccination to remain in employment for many years. This isn't specifically mandated by legislation, but proof of vaccination against Hepatitis B and being free of some other communicable diseases is a condition of employment in many roles nonetheless. Secondly, inoculation is not, presumably, to be physically forced upon anybody. If the workers concerned are absolutely insistent that they won't bear it then, logically, the end point should be that they resign or are fired. Though, as I said above, I have serious reservations as to whether the Health Secretary will risk confronting such a large number of NHS workers with dismissal, and without sanctions they would clearly be free to ignore any toothless threats.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
Yes he or she would be allowed to work... they just need to have the vaccine. It's not difficult.
What if they argued it didn’t offer any benefit because they already had antibodies?
Agreed. Essentially everyone is at risk from the most reckless stranger they come close to. With double vaccinations and a booster, the risk is relatively small, but it shouldn't be a risk that people in hospitals are exposed to.
It's not just people in hospitals. I was told a few years ago by my consultant that because of my underlying lung condition it was imperative for me to avoid further lung infections - hence the flu injection every year and the anti-pneumonia one. It is why I have been careful even since restrictions have been lifted and why, despite being exempt, this last week in London on the 2 occasions I was on public transport I wore a mask despite hating the bloody things.
I am fortunate that living where I am and largely working from home I see more sheep than people most days. But while I try to live as normal a life as I can and want normality restored as much as possible - for my children above all - I really really do not want to catch this disease, even in a mild form. I am not at all sure I can risk it. And having come bloody close to dying by being drowned in my own bodily fluids at the age of 23, it is not an experience I wish to repeat - or for anyone else to undergo.
Those who refuse to have the vaccine for no good reason are being utterly selfish. They can put themselves at risk if they want. But putting others at risk is the pits, frankly.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
Yes he or she would be allowed to work... they just need to have the vaccine. It's not difficult.
What if they argued it didn’t offer any benefit because they already had antibodies?
If its a term of employment, that's not their choice to make. They can meet their terms of employment, or get another job.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
In that hypothetical case he would not be allowed to practice - yes
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
In that hypothetical case he would not be allowed to practice - yes
But we would be worse off, right?
So never have standards because some people might not want to live up to them? 🤔
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
In that hypothetical case he would not be allowed to practice - yes
But we would be worse off, right?
Why if he is a danger in a medical environment to his colleagues and patients
It’s a good analogy. I know that coz I drew it myself several months ago, as I am sure did others
I wonder how long refuseniks will hold out anyway?
The US has just announced it will allow not foreign travellers - if they have proof of the jab. All countries and airlines will do this.
If you refuse the vax you are kissing goodbye to any international travel ever again. Just for starters. That’s an enormous sacrifice
I suspect the hardcore 10% refusers will eventually be whittled down to 1 or 2% of absolute nutters
Ms Yoga Mummy will suddenly find she can, after some reflection, pollute her own ecosystem with the vax once the fortnight meditating on the beach at sunset in Goa is not allowed.
I actually feel a bit sorry for some refuseniks who sincerely believe the jabs are dangerous and evil. I have a close friend of that mindset. She’s done her research and just come up with the wrong answer, or at least one which is going to cause her enormous hassle if she persists
I can sense her resistance crumbling but I also sense her pain as it happens. Sad, in a way
But she hasn't done any "research", has she*? She merely read summat which chimed with her prejudices. Not like you to be the bleeding heart. Nor me to pick you up on it.
* I retract this if she organised double blind trials which were peer reviewed.
In this case there is a personal element. She’s in her 20s. She has a dad who, in the noughties, was saying “there is a global pedophile conspiracy involving all the top people like Bill Gates and Bill Clinton and the royals”
He was adamant and he drummed it into her and she was then in her mid teens. It took her years to purge herself of these conspiratorial obsessions and claw herself back to sanity. Or what we all regard as sanity
And then, Epstein. A global pedophile conspiracy probably and allegedly involving Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and a senior British royal - and suddenly this is all sane and likely - and her Dad was right. She was wrong to doubt him and wrong to reject his opinion
Her dad is a massive anti vaxxer and so she now suspects he is right on that as well
People don’t realise how much the Epstein case has fuelled the conspiratorial worldview. And with some justification
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They are not being forced. They are being given a choice. It is already the case that anyone working with patients in the NHS has to accept being immunised against TB, Chicken Pox, Mumps, Measles and German Measles if they do not show antibodies when tested.
Good thread Mike. I share your palpable anger at these selfish and idiotic morons.
Notwithstanding lower casualties in the Blitz, outside of a wartime situation, I still don't think we could physically force these idiots to get vaccinated, outside of very vulnerable scenarios such as the NHS and care homes. But we could make it very difficult for them to lead anything like normal lives, while the rest of society gets back to normal free from the risks they present and watches Covid rates come down now that the risks of them spreading it are diminished.
Vaccine passports are one necessary measure aka France and Italy.
But I would go further. Given that the main outbreak is in schools I would focus there. In the event of a Covid outbreak in classes, there should be a two tier system. Vaccinated children can stay in class, unless their parents are unvaccinated in which case they go home. Those whose parents have refused vaccine consent also have to go home. Thus minimising the risk that unvaccinated children or their unvaccinated parents catch Covid and spread it further. And I wouldn't place any extra requirement on teachers to do more than the bare minimum to provide extra teaching materials for the child. Those parents would have to make arrangements to take time off work and look after their childrens' education to boot until they returned to school. Meanwhile children and parents doing the right thing would be incentivised through the benefit of reduced class sizes.
In practice, it would not come to that for long. Vaccination rates amongst children and their unvaccinated parents would soar and cases in school would become rare, so after a while few children would go home. And after a short while with a sufficiently vaccinated population, restrictions even on the remaining holdouts could be eased and society get back to normal.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
In that hypothetical case he would not be allowed to practice - yes
But we would be worse off, right?
Why if he is a danger in a medical environment to his colleagues and patients
Should his colleagues be banned from going to pubs, nightclubs and football matches? Is it about whether we hate transmission or stupid behaviour?
On Sky's paper review Pippa Crerar saying that "nobody is talking about lockdown" but we should have "sensible measures" like "no large events".
That's a form of lockdown. So does that mean not going to the theatre anymore again? Or the football?
Hell no.
Most probably because Pippa Crerar has no interest in football, she is perfectly happy to see matches played in half full or empty stadia. You see similar on here: for example those that advocate mask mandates and social distancing, as if it was a minor intervention (would ruin school life, half close stadia, destroy wedding receptions, make pubs and bars unprofitable etc etc). It’s really because those things largely don’t affect them, so they don’t think about them.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
In that hypothetical case he would not be allowed to practice - yes
But we would be worse off, right?
Why if he is a danger in a medical environment to his colleagues and patients
Should his colleagues be banned from going to pubs, nightclubs and football matches? Is it about whether we hate transmission or stupid behaviour?
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
In that hypothetical case he would not be allowed to practice - yes
But we would be worse off, right?
Why if he is a danger in a medical environment to his colleagues and patients
He isn’t, he has proven immunity from an infection. Personally if I needed heart surgery, I would prefer to be treated.
Perhaps the best solution in this scenario is for the surgeon to disclose their status and the patient to make the choice.
Difficult topic, something the government should take more seriously.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
In that hypothetical case he would not be allowed to practice - yes
But we would be worse off, right?
Why if he is a danger in a medical environment to his colleagues and patients
Should his colleagues be banned from going to pubs, nightclubs and football matches? Is it about whether we hate transmission or stupid behaviour?
None of those are a medical environment
Doesn't matter. They are environments conducive to the transmission and onward propagation of COVID-19, including among the vaccinated - to a lesser extent blah blah sure, but as we see in the UK, enough to cause endemically high transmission rates relative to neighbours.
This is hyperbole. I made the decision to get vaccinated. But I'm not going to poor scorn on anyone who doesn't. Certainly not for 'not understanding science' - almost no-one, on either side of the argument, has read the relevant studies. At best, we have read second or third hand accounts. I don't fully understand what the motivations of antivaxxers are, but I doubt they are callousness. Let's not try to demonise people who have reached different conclusions. Not least because it doesn't tend to work.
I haven't read the science on the benefits of seat belts. But I still accept that I should wear one and face severe consequences if I choose not to.
About 42,000 Brits were killed in the Blitz, and around 140,000 have been killed by Covid.
Time to update the header.
140000 may have passed away within 28 days of testing positive for Covid 19, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they would all still be alive had Covid 19 never existed.
Excess deaths since March 2020 = circa 130k according to the Economist's figures.
Thing is there is no way we will ever know how many died because of Covid. Excess deaths is reasonable but is also susceptible to the base number variation. Death certification is not exact, and the within 28 days of a positive test is an approximation that gives quick numbers. Besides, I suspect there are a lot of deaths from other things that are exacerbated by Covid, but won’t be ascribed to it, such as depression leading to suicide, undiagnosed cancers and so on.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
In that hypothetical case he would not be allowed to practice - yes
But we would be worse off, right?
Why if he is a danger in a medical environment to his colleagues and patients
Should his colleagues be banned from going to pubs, nightclubs and football matches? Is it about whether we hate transmission or stupid behaviour?
Are vaccinated and unvaccinated people the same when it comes to transmission? I don't think they are.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They have a choice to be vaccinated, move to other duties or find another job
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
So a skilled heart surgeon with negative covid tests and proven immunity from a prior infection would not be allowed to work and save lives in order to protect us?
In that hypothetical case he would not be allowed to practice - yes
But we would be worse off, right?
So never have standards because some people might not want to live up to them? 🤔
I assume all medics have a duty of care as do their employers
Refusing vaccination must have a legal implications in such a setting
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They are not being forced. They are being given a choice. It is already the case that anyone working with patients in the NHS has to accept being immunised against TB, Chicken Pox, Mumps, Measles and German Measles if they do not show antibodies when tested.
Still can’t square the amount of people who are pro compulsory mask wearing but against compulsory vaccination. The former is a daily imposition, the later a couple of hours admin, yet is far more effective and relates only to a lingering 10% of the population.
In my view, neither should be mandatory. But when @ydoethur nailed this paradox, he really got me thinking.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They are not being forced. They are being given a choice. It is already the case that anyone working with patients in the NHS has to accept being immunised against TB, Chicken Pox, Mumps, Measles and German Measles if they do not show antibodies when tested.
This is hyperbole. I made the decision to get vaccinated. But I'm not going to poor scorn on anyone who doesn't. Certainly not for 'not understanding science' - almost no-one, on either side of the argument, has read the relevant studies. At best, we have read second or third hand accounts. I don't fully understand what the motivations of antivaxxers are, but I doubt they are callousness. Let's not try to demonise people who have reached different conclusions. Not least because it doesn't tend to work.
I haven't read the science on the benefits of seat belts. But I still accept that I should wear one and face severe consequences if I choose not to.
Whilst I agree with your sentiment I think this is a poor comparison.
Indeed Penn Jillette who is a prominent libertarian in the US put it very well. He said that it is a mistake to compare measures such as mask wearing and vaccination with seat belt wearing. If one refuses to wear a seatbelt then overwhelmingly it is only the refusnik who suffers injury. He believes that refusing to wear a mask or get vaccinated is better compared with drunk driving where you are putting the lives of others at risk as well as just your own.
On Sky's paper review Pippa Crerar saying that "nobody is talking about lockdown" but we should have "sensible measures" like "no large events".
That's a form of lockdown. So does that mean not going to the theatre anymore again? Or the football?
Hell no.
Most probably because Pippa Crerar has no interest in football, she is perfectly happy to see matches played in half full or empty stadia. You see similar on here: for example those that advocate mask mandates and social distancing, as if it was a minor intervention (would ruin school life, half close stadia, destroy wedding receptions, make pubs and bars unprofitable etc etc). It’s really because those things largely don’t affect them, so they don’t think about them.
More than that, I suspect that there are a lot of people out there who found lockdowns quite easy to cope with or even enjoyed them, notably those who live in large comfortable houses and are disinterested in socialising and/or can work from home all the time and greatly prefer it to commuting. It would not be any sort of surprise if those types were looking forward to yet more of the same, and both arguing and wishing for it to come to pass.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They are not being forced. They are being given a choice. It is already the case that anyone working with patients in the NHS has to accept being immunised against TB, Chicken Pox, Mumps, Measles and German Measles if they do not show antibodies when tested.
I agree. But I thought you were objecting to it. Basically anyone working on the frontline in the NHS should either accept getting vaccinated (or at least show they have antibodies to the virus) or should be removed from that job or potentially sacked.
On Sky's paper review Pippa Crerar saying that "nobody is talking about lockdown" but we should have "sensible measures" like "no large events".
That's a form of lockdown. So does that mean not going to the theatre anymore again? Or the football?
Hell no.
Most probably because Pippa Crerar has no interest in football, she is perfectly happy to see matches played in half full or empty stadia. You see similar on here: for example those that advocate mask mandates and social distancing, as if it was a minor intervention (would ruin school life, half close stadia, destroy wedding receptions, make pubs and bars unprofitable etc etc). It’s really because those things largely don’t affect them, so they don’t think about them.
More than that, I suspect that there are a lot of people out there who found lockdowns quite easy to cope with or even enjoyed them, notably those who live in large comfortable houses and are disinterested in socialising and/or can work from home all the time and greatly prefer it to commuting. It would not be any sort of surprise if those types were looking forward to yet more of the same, and both arguing and wishing for it to come to pass.
Indeed. I’m sure there is an element of that. Most of the time though it’s just ignorance of the real world effects (not out of malice or selfishness, but because people aren’t directly affected by restrictions).
This is hyperbole. I made the decision to get vaccinated. But I'm not going to poor scorn on anyone who doesn't. Certainly not for 'not understanding science' - almost no-one, on either side of the argument, has read the relevant studies. At best, we have read second or third hand accounts. I don't fully understand what the motivations of antivaxxers are, but I doubt they are callousness. Let's not try to demonise people who have reached different conclusions. Not least because it doesn't tend to work.
I haven't read the science on the benefits of seat belts. But I still accept that I should wear one and face severe consequences if I choose not to.
Whilst I agree with your sentiment I think this is a poor comparison.
Indeed Penn Jillette who is a prominent libertarian in the US put it very well. He said that it is a mistake to compare measures such as mask wearing and vaccination with seat belt wearing. If one refuses to wear a seatbelt then overwhelmingly it is only the refusnik who suffers injury. He believes that refusing to wear a mask or get vaccinated is better compared with drunk driving where you are putting the lives of others at risk as well as just your own.
Yes, I would accept that the seat belt comparison understates the argument.
So the correct parallel, in the context above, is whether it's wrong to expect people not to drive after several drinks because they may not have read the science on how or even whether being drunk impairs the ability to drive.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They are not being forced. They are being given a choice. It is already the case that anyone working with patients in the NHS has to accept being immunised against TB, Chicken Pox, Mumps, Measles and German Measles if they do not show antibodies when tested.
I agree. But I thought you were objecting to it. Basically anyone working on the frontline in the NHS should either accept getting vaccinated (or at least show they have antibodies to the virus) or should be removed from that job or potentially sacked.
Not sure why you single out the NHS. The virus doesn’t discriminate. Unless you’re a hermit you can pass it on. The waitress, the petrol station attendant (when there is petrol), the priest can all pass it on.
This is hyperbole. I made the decision to get vaccinated. But I'm not going to poor scorn on anyone who doesn't. Certainly not for 'not understanding science' - almost no-one, on either side of the argument, has read the relevant studies. At best, we have read second or third hand accounts. I don't fully understand what the motivations of antivaxxers are, but I doubt they are callousness. Let's not try to demonise people who have reached different conclusions. Not least because it doesn't tend to work.
I agree with your last sentence, but for me I think anyone who isn’t taking up the vaccine is foolish in the extreme. It’s also not about understanding the science at the level of technical publications. Few are able to do that. I’m lucky that my science career means I can read the source papers, as indeed I did throughout my leukaemia treatment. I think for some there is a nexus of distrust of the powers that be, whether that is the police, the government, the council etc, and so they just don’t trust what they are told. But why they trust random shit on the internet is beyond me.
Well, yes, foolish (though not in the extreme - as Rottenborough, I think, pointed out, there are many superficially valid reasons why one might be antivaxxy, albeit that you could convincingly argue against any of them). But the point is - these people are usually not evil or callous. They've just come to the wrong conclusion from the masses of noise thrown at them. All sorts of reasons why people trust random shit on the internet, including, off the top of my head: previously negative experiences with the NHS Previously negative experiences with government Not-100%-trustworthy information from either government or more official media sources over the last 18 months Influence from friends and/or family
None of this necessarily equals idiocy.
And setting out to make such people's lives a misery isn't necessarily a good way of persuading them.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They are not being forced. They are being given a choice. It is already the case that anyone working with patients in the NHS has to accept being immunised against TB, Chicken Pox, Mumps, Measles and German Measles if they do not show antibodies when tested.
I agree. But I thought you were objecting to it. Basically anyone working on the frontline in the NHS should either accept getting vaccinated (or at least show they have antibodies to the virus) or should be removed from that job or potentially sacked.
Not sure why you single out the NHS. The virus doesn’t discriminate. Unless you’re a hermit you can pass it on. The waitress, the petrol station attendant (when there is petrol), the priest can all pass it on.
I single out the NHS because that is what is being discussed. And because the NHS already has these policies in place for other infectious diseases. And finally of course because the NHS front line workers are likely to be dealing with immuno-compromised individuals who have no choice but to be there receiving treatment. They may have made the choice not to go to the cafe, the petrol station or the church. They probably can't make that choice about medical attention.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They are not being forced. They are being given a choice. It is already the case that anyone working with patients in the NHS has to accept being immunised against TB, Chicken Pox, Mumps, Measles and German Measles if they do not show antibodies when tested.
I agree. But I thought you were objecting to it. Basically anyone working on the frontline in the NHS should either accept getting vaccinated (or at least show they have antibodies to the virus) or should be removed from that job or potentially sacked.
Not sure why you single out the NHS. The virus doesn’t discriminate. Unless you’re a hermit you can pass it on. The waitress, the petrol station attendant (when there is petrol), the priest can all pass it on.
I single out the NHS because that is what is being discussed. And because the NHS already has these policies in place for other infectious diseases. And finally of course because the NHS front line workers are likely to be dealing with immuno-compromised individuals who have no choice but to be there receiving treatment. They may have made the choice not to go to the cafe, the petrol station or the church. They probably can't make that choice about medical attention.
I don’t know, I wouldn’t be comfortable forcing someone to inject something.
They are not being forced. They are being given a choice. It is already the case that anyone working with patients in the NHS has to accept being immunised against TB, Chicken Pox, Mumps, Measles and German Measles if they do not show antibodies when tested.
I agree. But I thought you were objecting to it. Basically anyone working on the frontline in the NHS should either accept getting vaccinated (or at least show they have antibodies to the virus) or should be removed from that job or potentially sacked.
Not sure why you single out the NHS. The virus doesn’t discriminate. Unless you’re a hermit you can pass it on. The waitress, the petrol station attendant (when there is petrol), the priest can all pass it on.
I single out the NHS because that is what is being discussed. And because the NHS already has these policies in place for other infectious diseases. And finally of course because the NHS front line workers are likely to be dealing with immuno-compromised individuals who have no choice but to be there receiving treatment. They may have made the choice not to go to the cafe, the petrol station or the church. They probably can't make that choice about medical attention.
Alas I know far too much about immunity compromised people. It’s not easy nursing a neutropenic relative.
It’s very, very hard to live in a bubble. Oh well.
Still think a more cared approach from the government is called for.
This is hyperbole. I made the decision to get vaccinated. But I'm not going to poor scorn on anyone who doesn't. Certainly not for 'not understanding science' - almost no-one, on either side of the argument, has read the relevant studies. At best, we have read second or third hand accounts. I don't fully understand what the motivations of antivaxxers are, but I doubt they are callousness. Let's not try to demonise people who have reached different conclusions. Not least because it doesn't tend to work.
I haven't read the science on the benefits of seat belts. But I still accept that I should wear one and face severe consequences if I choose not to.
Whilst I agree with your sentiment I think this is a poor comparison.
Indeed Penn Jillette who is a prominent libertarian in the US put it very well. He said that it is a mistake to compare measures such as mask wearing and vaccination with seat belt wearing. If one refuses to wear a seatbelt then overwhelmingly it is only the refusnik who suffers injury. He believes that refusing to wear a mask or get vaccinated is better compared with drunk driving where you are putting the lives of others at risk as well as just your own.
I think you may have mis phrased that. Or I am reading it wrong.
“In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan A spokesman for Dr. Fauci says he has been “entirely truthful,” but a new letter belatedly acknowledging the National Institutes of Health’s support for virus-enhancing research adds more heat to the ongoing debate over whether a lab leak could have sparked the pandemic.”
“On Wednesday, the NIH sent a letter to members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that acknowledged two facts. One was that EcoHealth Alliance, a New York City–based nonprofit that partners with far-flung laboratories to research and prevent the outbreak of emerging diseases, did indeed enhance a bat coronavirus to become potentially more infectious to humans, which the NIH letter described as an “unexpected result” of the research it funded that was carried out in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The second was that EcoHealth Alliance violated the terms of its grant conditions stipulating that it had to report if its research increased the viral growth of a pathogen by tenfold.”
Amazon strikes deal with UK spy agencies to host top-secret material Cloud contract for GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 with US tech group aims to speed analysis but likely to ignite sovereignty fears https://www.ft.com/content/74782def-1046-4ea5-b796-0802cfb90260 (£££)
LOL. I have just received a Facebook friend's request from a "Michelle Pfeifer". Looks like it's a blank account. Anyone know what type of scam that is?
LOL. I have just received a Facebook friend's request from a "Michelle Pfeifer". Looks like it's a blank account. Anyone know what type of scam that is?
Could be anything depending on what follows your acceptance. At least, that is a vague memory from one of those courses they made us do. Maybe you could google it; or accept it and see what happens if you want to live dangerously. Personally, I'd delete it and move on but then I do not use Facebook.
Riffing on that, I see Facebook has made another shedload of money in what is supposed to be a bad time with whistleblowers and investigations. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59046002
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
See my earlier post. We are putting all our national secrets on Amazon, under the control of a foreign power. Espionage is dead. Otoh, there's still Priti's signed photo.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Sysadmin is one of those roles where I'd rather pay £120k for the right person, than pay 3 x £35k for people with the right qualifications.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Sysadmin is one of those roles where I'd rather pay £120k for the right person, than pay 3 x £35k for people with the right qualifications.
Oh, very much so - but try explaining that one to the civil service, with their rigid pay scales and fetishisation of worthless pieces of paper.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
See my earlier post. We are putting all our national secrets on Amazon, under the control of a foreign power. Espionage is dead. Otoh, there's still Priti's signed photo.
Non paywall - GCGQ has been using it for several years - data storage will be in UK:
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
See my earlier post. We are putting all our national secrets on Amazon, under the control of a foreign power. Espionage is dead. Otoh, there's still Priti's signed photo.
Non paywall - GCGQ has been using it for several years - data storage will be in UK:
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
See my earlier post. We are putting all our national secrets on Amazon, under the control of a foreign power. Espionage is dead. Otoh, there's still Priti's signed photo.
Non paywall - GCGQ has been using it for several years - data storage will be in UK:
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
See my earlier post. We are putting all our national secrets on Amazon, under the control of a foreign power. Espionage is dead. Otoh, there's still Priti's signed photo.
Non paywall - GCGQ has been using it for several years - data storage will be in UK:
Let me know when the CIA uses a British hosting service.
How very Little Englander of you!
On a commercial level, it is stupid. Economically, it is self-defeating. As for secrecy, the first rule of spies is you don't hand over the keys to the kingdom to a foreign power. For all those reasons, the CIA will stick with Americans. Nothing to do with Little Englandism or Making America Great Again.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
See my earlier post. We are putting all our national secrets on Amazon, under the control of a foreign power. Espionage is dead. Otoh, there's still Priti's signed photo.
Non paywall - GCGQ has been using it for several years - data storage will be in UK:
Let me know when the CIA uses a British hosting service.
How very Little Englander of you!
On a commercial level, it is stupid. Economically, it is self-defeating. As for secrecy, the first rule of spies is you don't hand over the keys to the kingdom to a foreign power. For all those reasons, the CIA will stick with Americans. Nothing to do with Little Englandism or Making America Great Again.
It is a grim irony that a word which described ethnic minorities persecuted by the state is now used as a derogatory term for individuals in a free society who assert themselves against the mainstream. The balance of power implied by the word has been turned on its head: the original refuseniks were not the refusers, but the refused.
Vaccine politics aside, to use this term as a brush with which to tar large groups of people is not only to misunderstand its original meaning, but to forget a chapter of history which continues to carry profound emotional resonance for the hundreds of thousands who were persecuted at the hands of the Soviet regime.
It's the circle of life And it moves us all Through despair and hope Through faith and love 'Til we find our place On the path unwinding In the circle The circle of life
Good morning everyone. If there is a public sector pay rise, does that mean public sector pensions will rise too?
More to do with CPI surely?
I think most are no longer final salary, but rather career average earnings, so there will be some rise for new pension takers. I am counting the days...
Good morning everyone. If there is a public sector pay rise, does that mean public sector pensions will rise too?
More to do with CPI surely?
I think most are no longer final salary, but rather career average earnings, so there will be some rise for new pension takers. I am counting the days...
I'm one of the later ones on final salary. And I was lucky enough to get an upgrade six months before I retired. I did have a few more responsibilities though, but heigh ho.....
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
See my earlier post. We are putting all our national secrets on Amazon, under the control of a foreign power. Espionage is dead. Otoh, there's still Priti's signed photo.
Non paywall - GCGQ has been using it for several years - data storage will be in UK:
Let me know when the CIA uses a British hosting service.
How very Little Englander of you!
On a commercial level, it is stupid. Economically, it is self-defeating. As for secrecy, the first rule of spies is you don't hand over the keys to the kingdom to a foreign power. For all those reasons, the CIA will stick with Americans. Nothing to do with Little Englandism or Making America Great Again.
You know better than GCHQ? Right oh….
To start with, it is fairly simple to encrypt everything you store. Hell, one place I worked, I implemented encryption on the in house production servers.
Buy American in government contracts is a long term, general thing. The furore when they try and buy non-American.....
OT FPT re non-recyclable plastic wrapping. Our local Co-op has recently introduced a recycling bin for what it calls soft plastic, which would seem to cover at least some of this.
A recycling bin for non-recyclable plastic??
I'm suggesting non-recyclable plastic may now be recyclable, though experts may differ.
Tbh it would be far better to mandate the system used in parts of America where recycling is sorted at a central site, rather than relying on the public to put things in the right bin on the right day.
That's already what we mainly have, surely?
My recycling bin takes lots of things, which get separated by the Council contractor.
What I do note is that if I am in a properly composting phase, which I've sightly muffed up currently by building a far too heavy side for my composting bin which is too hard to move, then the amount in the recycling falls by about 70%.
Good morning everyone. If there is a public sector pay rise, does that mean public sector pensions will rise too?
More to do with CPI surely?
I think most are no longer final salary, but rather career average earnings, so there will be some rise for new pension takers. I am counting the days...
I'm one of the later ones on final salary. And I was lucky enough to get an upgrade six months before I retired. I did have a few more responsibilities though, but heigh ho.....
Which was a huge ‘thing’ across the public sector for decades, and which has led to the massive liabilities we see in government-backed pensions today.
Give the guy a £10k pay rise for his last six months, and pay an extra £5k a year out in pension for the next 30 years.
It’s the same as the non-exec directors setting boardroom pay, when they all sit on each others’ boards and all behave the same way to each other.
Good morning everyone. If there is a public sector pay rise, does that mean public sector pensions will rise too?
More to do with CPI surely?
I think most are no longer final salary, but rather career average earnings, so there will be some rise for new pension takers. I am counting the days...
I'm one of the later ones on final salary. And I was lucky enough to get an upgrade six months before I retired. I did have a few more responsibilities though, but heigh ho.....
Which was a huge ‘thing’ across the public sector for decades, and which has led to the massive liabilities we see in government-backed pensions today.
Give the guy a £10k pay rise for his last six months, and pay an extra £5k a year out in pension for the next 30 years.
It’s the same as the non-exec directors setting boardroom pay, when they all sit on each others’ boards and all behave the same way to each other.
I'm almost certain that my dad - in the private sector - was a victim of age discrimination for the opposite reason (i.e. pressure from the pension fund not to give him a promotion).
On a commercial level, it is stupid. Economically, it is self-defeating. As for secrecy, the first rule of spies is you don't hand over the keys to the kingdom to a foreign power. For all those reasons, the CIA will stick with Americans. Nothing to do with Little Englandism or Making America Great Again.
We put up with NOFORN (ie US citizens only) areas and a separate US only network on HMS QE so it's a bit late to be worrying about sovereignty.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
See my earlier post. We are putting all our national secrets on Amazon, under the control of a foreign power. Espionage is dead. Otoh, there's still Priti's signed photo.
Non paywall - GCGQ has been using it for several years - data storage will be in UK:
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Sysadmin is one of those roles where I'd rather pay £120k for the right person, than pay 3 x £35k for people with the right qualifications.
Amen Brother! Amen......
The other job that is ludicrously underpaid is database work. Yes, some DBAs are script monkeys. But a real database *developer* can work miracles. And good ones are rare - because the pay is terrible.
About 42,000 Brits were killed in the Blitz, and around 140,000 have been killed by Covid.
Time to update the header.
140000 may have passed away within 28 days of testing positive for Covid 19, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they would all still be alive had Covid 19 never existed.
Excess deaths since March 2020 = circa 130k according to the Economist's figures.
Thing is there is no way we will ever know how many died because of Covid. Excess deaths is reasonable but is also susceptible to the base number variation. Death certification is not exact, and the within 28 days of a positive test is an approximation that gives quick numbers. Besides, I suspect there are a lot of deaths from other things that are exacerbated by Covid, but won’t be ascribed to it, such as depression leading to suicide, undiagnosed cancers and so on.
Warning in that figure, that's by date registered. Inquests take about 6 months ish to do so half of any years suicide figure is approx 50% of the previous year ajd Covid massively slowed down inquests.
Well ned to wait till this time next year to make a definitive statement on suicides.
At the moment we can tentatively say there wasn't a big spike
Good morning everyone. If there is a public sector pay rise, does that mean public sector pensions will rise too?
More to do with CPI surely?
I think most are no longer final salary, but rather career average earnings, so there will be some rise for new pension takers. I am counting the days...
I'm one of the later ones on final salary. And I was lucky enough to get an upgrade six months before I retired. I did have a few more responsibilities though, but heigh ho.....
Which was a huge ‘thing’ across the public sector for decades, and which has led to the massive liabilities we see in government-backed pensions today.
Give the guy a £10k pay rise for his last six months, and pay an extra £5k a year out in pension for the next 30 years.
It’s the same as the non-exec directors setting boardroom pay, when they all sit on each others’ boards and all behave the same way to each other.
Well, it wasn't £10k, but should I be feeling guilty? Note; I didn't ask for the regrade. Quite surprised, TBH.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Sysadmin is one of those roles where I'd rather pay £120k for the right person, than pay 3 x £35k for people with the right qualifications.
Oh, very much so - but try explaining that one to the civil service, with their rigid pay scales and fetishisation of worthless pieces of paper.
If you want a laugh, try and find the job description. I expect the main competencies will be nothing to do with the actual job.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
See my earlier post. We are putting all our national secrets on Amazon, under the control of a foreign power. Espionage is dead. Otoh, there's still Priti's signed photo.
Non paywall - GCGQ has been using it for several years - data storage will be in UK:
Sometimes it’s better to develop systems yourself, and sometimes it’s better to buy them in.
I’ll take a good guess that the British system is doing better than the French system, a few years down the line.
The UK contract will be watertight with regard to data storage and encryption. Amazon are big players in the enterprise IT market.
It's also very difficult to escape AWS, GCP or Azure. Loads of "independent" cloud operators turn out to be resellers of those three.
Additionally there will be features on AWS that would be either expensive or impossible to build out. Stuff like Sagemaker for rapid ML modelling will be seen as a huge advantage of using AWS over a homegrown solution because we simply lack the firepower to hire the best AI people to build rapid ML for a single client cloud computing company.
There has been a trade off in the security vs capability equation, no doubt. I guess the SiS feel that AWS is still very secure and gives them a lot more capability than having a 100% secure in house system. The French may end up regretting going down their own path, cloud computing is extremely investment heavy and a lot of the time for very little return until it has been scaled.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
See my earlier post. We are putting all our national secrets on Amazon, under the control of a foreign power. Espionage is dead. Otoh, there's still Priti's signed photo.
Non paywall - GCGQ has been using it for several years - data storage will be in UK:
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Could be a honeypot, the only reason a competent sysadmin would take a job like that would be for the espionnage opportunities.
See my earlier post. We are putting all our national secrets on Amazon, under the control of a foreign power. Espionage is dead. Otoh, there's still Priti's signed photo.
Non paywall - GCGQ has been using it for several years - data storage will be in UK:
Let me know when the CIA uses a British hosting service.
How very Little Englander of you!
On a commercial level, it is stupid. Economically, it is self-defeating. As for secrecy, the first rule of spies is you don't hand over the keys to the kingdom to a foreign power. For all those reasons, the CIA will stick with Americans. Nothing to do with Little Englandism or Making America Great Again.
You know better than GCHQ? Right oh….
You did notice I'm the one agreeing with the CIA? And, according to you, France. And Russia and China.
Surprised GCHQ isn’t using AWS already. I’d be curious to know what their mitigation is for the unavailability of the service. If I were a hostile foreign power, I could do a lot of harm by interrupting AWS. Even a few moments might be enough.
Do you have the right to stop the government injecting something into your body?
I am sure you do have the right, as does the government to take public health measures to protect the rest of us from the deniers
You have to be careful with this sort of thing. You may think this is ok, but you might inadvertently set a precedent for future governments.
The idea that you will be denied liberties unless you take government approved medicine for the greater good sounds like a bad scifi plot.
What absolute rubbish you talk sometimes. It sounds like an excellent sci-fi plot.
EDIT: I'm currently reading Brave New World
I was catching up with Dark Waters last night - I suppose it's the contrarian in me, but while a clear case is made that Dupont covered up the effects of teflon waste in drinking water, I felt the film goes OTT by implying that (a) teflon has a huge effect on the population and (b) 99% of the world has some teflon in their bloodstream so (in a narrative PS to the film) (c) activists are trying to get it banned worldwide. If 99% of us have some of it, clearly some of it isn't killing us all off. Net effect on me was to be slightly more inclined to ignore warnings about teflon. Overstated cases undermine real concerns.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Sysadmin is one of those roles where I'd rather pay £120k for the right person, than pay 3 x £35k for people with the right qualifications.
Oh, very much so - but try explaining that one to the civil service, with their rigid pay scales and fetishisation of worthless pieces of paper.
If you want a laugh, try and find the job description. I expect the main competencies will be nothing to do with the actual job.
Hell yeah. HR departments and practices are the bane of IT guys everywhere.
It was always a running joke, that it would take a month for companies to start posting job ads asking for a decade of experience, in any newly-announced technology or programming language.
This is hyperbole. I made the decision to get vaccinated. But I'm not going to poor scorn on anyone who doesn't. Certainly not for 'not understanding science' - almost no-one, on either side of the argument, has read the relevant studies. At best, we have read second or third hand accounts. I don't fully understand what the motivations of antivaxxers are, but I doubt they are callousness. Let's not try to demonise people who have reached different conclusions. Not least because it doesn't tend to work.
My list of anti-vax reasons that seem to come across to me:
* Not sure about long term safety of something new * It doesn't work, I know a bloke who was vaxed and is now dead. * No need as I have had covid * No need as I am young/healthy/never had flu etc * Don't trust doctors * Don't trust the government * The vax is all about money for Big Pharma otherwise why boosters? * Covid doesn't exist * Piers Corbyn is right
That's off top of my head. First three or four could be worth persuading against and GPs should try, after that one is away with the loons.
So you might be left with they have to choose between 'Piers Corbyn is right' and 'no holiday abroad for you this year or next'.
Regarding known prior infection, it should be viewed as equivalent to a single vaccine shot - which it more or less is.
About 42,000 Brits were killed in the Blitz, and around 140,000 have been killed by Covid.
Time to update the header.
140000 may have passed away within 28 days of testing positive for Covid 19, but it doesn't necessarily mean that they would all still be alive had Covid 19 never existed.
Excess deaths since March 2020 = circa 130k according to the Economist's figures.
Thing is there is no way we will ever know how many died because of Covid. Excess deaths is reasonable but is also susceptible to the base number variation. Death certification is not exact, and the within 28 days of a positive test is an approximation that gives quick numbers. Besides, I suspect there are a lot of deaths from other things that are exacerbated by Covid, but won’t be ascribed to it, such as depression leading to suicide, undiagnosed cancers and so on.
Surprised GCHQ isn’t using AWS already. I’d be curious to know what their mitigation is for the unavailability of the service. If I were a hostile foreign power, I could do a lot of harm by interrupting AWS. Even a few moments might be enough.
What they’ll actually be contracting, is an Amazon-based data centre or two, rather than using the services the rest of us use. The spooks will have their own massive leased lines into them, they won’t be connected to the public internet, except for the incoming stream of information they’ll be collecting.
OT linkedin just showed me a job advert for a sys admin at the Home Office, which at a guess is at least £20,000 below market rates. That pension must sure be attractive, and there's an outside chance you'll score a signed photo of Priti Patel.
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
Sysadmin is one of those roles where I'd rather pay £120k for the right person, than pay 3 x £35k for people with the right qualifications.
Oh, very much so - but try explaining that one to the civil service, with their rigid pay scales and fetishisation of worthless pieces of paper.
If you want a laugh, try and find the job description. I expect the main competencies will be nothing to do with the actual job.
Hell yeah. HR departments and practices are the bane of IT guys everywhere.
It was always a running joke, that it would take a month for companies to start posting job ads asking for a decade of experience, in any newly-announced technology or programming language.
One company I worked for diid that, literally.
Since the post required X experience, the job spec we sent up the line was reworked to include X years of Java development. At the time, the history of Java was less than X.....
This is hyperbole. I made the decision to get vaccinated. But I'm not going to poor scorn on anyone who doesn't. Certainly not for 'not understanding science' - almost no-one, on either side of the argument, has read the relevant studies. At best, we have read second or third hand accounts. I don't fully understand what the motivations of antivaxxers are, but I doubt they are callousness. Let's not try to demonise people who have reached different conclusions. Not least because it doesn't tend to work.
My list of anti-vax reasons that seem to come across to me:
* Not sure about long term safety of something new * It doesn't work, I know a bloke who was vaxed and is now dead. * No need as I have had covid * No need as I am young/healthy/never had flu etc * Don't trust doctors * Don't trust the government * The vax is all about money for Big Pharma otherwise why boosters? * Covid doesn't exist * Piers Corbyn is right
That's off top of my head. First three or four could be worth persuading against and GPs should try, after that one is away with the loons.
So you might be left with they have to choose between 'Piers Corbyn is right' and 'no holiday abroad for you this year or next'.
I know very few anti-vaxxers, but the ones I know are conspiracy theorists about other things too, and they are wrong about lots of things.
If you are looking for a non crazy reason for being ant vax, might it be that lots of people who work for the NHS (ITV says 100,000) have refused the vaccine, and they know more than I do and can't all be wrong?
Making a quip to a group of junior school kids that went down well.
He seems reasonably well-briefed for this. Cow-burping not cow-farting. Seaweed for cows. Breeding less carbon generating cows.
I quite like the "more polite cows" that burp less.
I think the problem with quote-mining plus finger-pointing is that it crowds out attempted critiques to the status of twitter trivia, and gives BJ a free pass.
Personally, I rather more concerned that WWF are being given such a platform.
Comments
Difficult but this is to protect all of us
Public opinion of the moment is that the government has fucked up Covid AGAIN. See the polls on “handling it badly”. Nonetheless the Tories maintain a small but solid lead even in midterm
At the same time the mood music has been: we are heading into lockdown 4 and Plan F because of Boris being a berk etc
But what if that narrative changes? There are some glimmerings. Cases come down. Deaths recede. Christmas is saved. The UK government will then look audacious and clever once again - in comparison to many other countries
If that happens - a mighty IF, of course - you could see another big, prolonged boost to Tory support. Boris saves Britain!
In fact if that happens, I could see the support lasting until the next election
That's a form of lockdown. So does that mean not going to the theatre anymore again? Or the football?
Hell no.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I've zero sympathy for the buggers, but will Javid dare to face them down given the likelihood of a resultant disaster? I have my doubts. The broader problem that the Government has is this: they would, I'm sure, ideally prefer to leave the refusers to take their chances. However, we also know that hospitals specifically are a major source of new Covid infections, and that the disease in general is now largely a Plague of the unvaccinated. Firstly, do we want unprotected staff treating sick patients? Secondly, if enough unvaccinated people present at hospital with Covid at the same time to threaten the collapse of the system, would it be best to respond with restrictions on everyone, or crushing restrictions on the refusers so that the rest of the population can go about its business relatively undisturbed?
Twisting the arms of the stubborn, or imposing collective punishment on the whole population: there's no nice and convenient answer to this.
I would also point out two things: firstly, that some healthcare workers have already been subject to compulsory vaccination to remain in employment for many years. This isn't specifically mandated by legislation, but proof of vaccination against Hepatitis B and being free of some other communicable diseases is a condition of employment in many roles nonetheless. Secondly, inoculation is not, presumably, to be physically forced upon anybody. If the workers concerned are absolutely insistent that they won't bear it then, logically, the end point should be that they resign or are fired. Though, as I said above, I have serious reservations as to whether the Health Secretary will risk confronting such a large number of NHS workers with dismissal, and without sanctions they would clearly be free to ignore any toothless threats.
I am fortunate that living where I am and largely working from home I see more sheep than people most days. But while I try to live as normal a life as I can and want normality restored as much as possible - for my children above all - I really really do not want to catch this disease, even in a mild form. I am not at all sure I can risk it. And having come bloody close to dying by being drowned in my own bodily fluids at the age of 23, it is not an experience I wish to repeat - or for anyone else to undergo.
Those who refuse to have the vaccine for no good reason are being utterly selfish. They can put themselves at risk if they want. But putting others at risk is the pits, frankly.
He was adamant and he drummed it into her and she was then in her mid teens. It took her years to purge herself of these conspiratorial obsessions and claw herself back to sanity. Or what we all regard as sanity
And then, Epstein. A global pedophile conspiracy probably and allegedly involving Bill Gates, Bill Clinton and a senior British royal - and suddenly this is all sane and likely - and her Dad was right. She was wrong to doubt him and wrong to reject his opinion
Her dad is a massive anti vaxxer and so she now suspects he is right on that as well
People don’t realise how much the Epstein case has fuelled the conspiratorial worldview. And with some justification
https://www.workingwellglos.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Countywide-Staff-Screening-and-Immunisation-Policy.pdf
Notwithstanding lower casualties in the Blitz, outside of a wartime situation, I still don't think we could physically force these idiots to get vaccinated, outside of very vulnerable scenarios such as the NHS and care homes. But we could make it very difficult for them to lead anything like normal lives, while the rest of society gets back to normal free from the risks they present and watches Covid rates come down now that the risks of them spreading it are diminished.
Vaccine passports are one necessary measure aka France and Italy.
But I would go further. Given that the main outbreak is in schools I would focus there. In the event of a Covid outbreak in classes, there should be a two tier system. Vaccinated children can stay in class, unless their parents are unvaccinated in which case they go home. Those whose parents have refused vaccine consent also have to go home. Thus minimising the risk that unvaccinated children or their unvaccinated parents catch Covid and spread it further. And I wouldn't place any extra requirement on teachers to do more than the bare minimum to provide extra teaching materials for the child. Those parents would have to make arrangements to take time off work and look after their childrens' education to boot until they returned to school. Meanwhile children and parents doing the right thing would be incentivised through the benefit of reduced class sizes.
In practice, it would not come to that for long. Vaccination rates amongst children and their unvaccinated parents would soar and cases in school would become rare, so after a while few children would go home. And after a short while with a sufficiently vaccinated population, restrictions even on the remaining holdouts could be eased and society get back to normal.
Perhaps the best solution in this scenario is for the surgeon to disclose their status and the patient to make the choice.
Difficult topic, something the government should take more seriously.
Mentally unwell people are used to battling through tough times.
Refusing vaccination must have a legal implications in such a setting
In my view, neither should be mandatory. But when @ydoethur nailed this paradox, he really got me thinking.
Edit. Missed Farooq making that point.
Indeed Penn Jillette who is a prominent libertarian in the US put it very well. He said that it is a mistake to compare measures such as mask wearing and vaccination with seat belt wearing. If one refuses to wear a seatbelt then overwhelmingly it is only the refusnik who suffers injury. He believes that refusing to wear a mask or get vaccinated is better compared with drunk driving where you are putting the lives of others at risk as well as just your own.
So the correct parallel, in the context above, is whether it's wrong to expect people not to drive after several drinks because they may not have read the science on how or even whether being drunk impairs the ability to drive.
All sorts of reasons why people trust random shit on the internet, including, off the top of my head:
previously negative experiences with the NHS
Previously negative experiences with government
Not-100%-trustworthy information from either government or more official media sources over the last 18 months
Influence from friends and/or family
None of this necessarily equals idiocy.
And setting out to make such people's lives a misery isn't necessarily a good way of persuading them.
There just might be... consequences.
It’s very, very hard to live in a bubble. Oh well.
Still think a more cared approach from the government is called for.
“In Major Shift, NIH Admits Funding Risky Virus Research in Wuhan
A spokesman for Dr. Fauci says he has been “entirely truthful,” but a new letter belatedly acknowledging the National Institutes of Health’s support for virus-enhancing research adds more heat to the ongoing debate over whether a lab leak could have sparked the pandemic.”
“On Wednesday, the NIH sent a letter to members of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce that acknowledged two facts. One was that EcoHealth Alliance, a New York City–based nonprofit that partners with far-flung laboratories to research and prevent the outbreak of emerging diseases, did indeed enhance a bat coronavirus to become potentially more infectious to humans, which the NIH letter described as an “unexpected result” of the research it funded that was carried out in partnership with the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The second was that EcoHealth Alliance violated the terms of its grant conditions stipulating that it had to report if its research increased the viral growth of a pathogen by tenfold.”
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/10/nih-admits-funding-risky-virus-research-in-wuhan
Amazon strikes deal with UK spy agencies to host top-secret material
Cloud contract for GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 with US tech group aims to speed analysis but likely to ignite sovereignty fears
https://www.ft.com/content/74782def-1046-4ea5-b796-0802cfb90260 (£££)
Riffing on that, I see Facebook has made another shedload of money in what is supposed to be a bad time with whistleblowers and investigations.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-59046002
ETA they are advertising £30-£38k; the guesswork is in the market rate.
https://hitechglitz.com/amazon-signs-contracts-with-uk-spy-agencies-to-host-top-secret-material/
France is developing a “sovereign” system.
https://metro.co.uk/2021/10/25/boris-johnson-tells-children-we-could-feed-humans-to-animals-15483563/
If there is a public sector pay rise, does that mean public sector pensions will rise too?
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
'Til we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the circle
The circle of life
I think most are no longer final salary, but rather career average earnings, so there will be some rise for new pension takers. I am counting the days...
I did have a few more responsibilities though, but heigh ho.....
Buy American in government contracts is a long term, general thing. The furore when they try and buy non-American.....
My recycling bin takes lots of things, which get separated by the Council contractor.
What I do note is that if I am in a properly composting phase, which I've sightly muffed up currently by building a far too heavy side for my composting bin which is too hard to move, then the amount in the recycling falls by about 70%.
Give the guy a £10k pay rise for his last six months, and pay an extra £5k a year out in pension for the next 30 years.
It’s the same as the non-exec directors setting boardroom pay, when they all sit on each others’ boards and all behave the same way to each other.
Note: I just introduced my eldest to Hot Fuzz. She now uses FTGG as *the* excuse for doing anything especially ridiculous....
I’ll take a good guess that the British system is doing better than the French system, a few years down the line.
The UK contract will be watertight with regard to data storage and encryption. Amazon are big players in the enterprise IT market.
The other job that is ludicrously underpaid is database work. Yes, some DBAs are script monkeys. But a real database *developer* can work miracles. And good ones are rare - because the pay is terrible.
Well ned to wait till this time next year to make a definitive statement on suicides.
At the moment we can tentatively say there wasn't a big spike
Note; I didn't ask for the regrade. Quite surprised, TBH.
Additionally there will be features on AWS that would be either expensive or impossible to build out. Stuff like Sagemaker for rapid ML modelling will be seen as a huge advantage of using AWS over a homegrown solution because we simply lack the firepower to hire the best AI people to build rapid ML for a single client cloud computing company.
There has been a trade off in the security vs capability equation, no doubt. I guess the SiS feel that AWS is still very secure and gives them a lot more capability than having a 100% secure in house system. The French may end up regretting going down their own path, cloud computing is extremely investment heavy and a lot of the time for very little return until it has been scaled.
How's the sovereign alternative to Google from a few years ago coming along?
It was always a running joke, that it would take a month for companies to start posting job ads asking for a decade of experience, in any newly-announced technology or programming language.
For example, cooped up close to home means fewer opportunities to search out appropriate bridges, cliffs etc.
Since the post required X experience, the job spec we sent up the line was reworked to include X years of Java development. At the time, the history of Java was less than X.....
If you are looking for a non crazy reason for being ant vax, might it be that lots of people who work for the NHS (ITV says 100,000) have refused the vaccine, and they know more than I do and can't all be wrong?
He seems reasonably well-briefed for this. Cow-burping not cow-farting. Seaweed for cows. Breeding less carbon generating cows.
I quite like the "more polite cows" that burp less.
I think the problem with quote-mining plus finger-pointing is that it crowds out attempted critiques to the status of twitter trivia, and gives BJ a free pass.
Personally, I rather more concerned that WWF are being given such a platform.