Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
The UK booster programme started relatively late compared to some other nations, but is going at a decent pace now. It's a shame it didn't get an earlier approval.
Yeah agree, and I think the artificial limitation on 50+ age is stupid too. It's clear that we're demand limited to about 70-80% of the eligible cohort, reducing the gap to 5 months and making all 18+ eligible would basically end this in 3-4 weeks, even faster than what's currently happening.
I hope we do open the boosters up to all. I'd get one without hesitation.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
Jesus Christ, Jonathan Van-Tam, the "qualified" man you revere on this issue, famously said "masks are useless, my friend in Hong Kong told me" (this despite everyone in Hong Kong wearing a mask. Odd that)
He's a fricking idiot. You are pathetically grovelling to establishment half-wits. Grow a spine
You misunderstand RP, he wants the government to u-turn on plan b or c or masks regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. If England (and the rest of the UK) has hit herd immunity and we continue to see the current big drops in cases it will prove the UK government position was right (run hot in the summer and autumn, no restrictions) and that Europe was wrong (prevent spread, retain NPIs). In his small world the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. This would upend that as European countries head into lockdown 4 and the UK exits the pandemic entirely.
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
Max you are accusing RP of hating the UK and loving Europe just like you were with me. I think we can argue about stuff without resorting to people's lack of patriotism.
Re the 3rd jab it did start as a bit of a shambles but then got turned around pretty impressively. I saw the change in action as I was on the verge of my booster when it was all wrong and with in a couple of weeks they turned it around to become a very effective experience. The 1st two were very successful throughout I thought.
It seems to me that one of the things about the booster jab is that it's being portrayed constantly in a negative light ("only x done out of y eligible"). When one could just as easily present it in a positive light ("x done and growing by y per day"). To portray it as something of a failure when (assuming it does something) every booster improves the UK position is disingenuous. And it is understandable for many reasons that boosters will never be at a pace of the original rollout. Whether it be because of deaths, feeling that double vax gives reasonable protection, significant numbers having contracted Covid and feel that Double Vax + infection generated immunity is enough etc etc
Because, with a sense that the immediate crisis of the pandemic is over, certain sections of the media are determined to portray everything in the most negative light for the government. They’re hoping that if they continue to portray success as failure, then a narrative of failure will emerge.
They occasionally even spark off an incipient panic attack - that "I can't breathe." I've been twitchy about anything restricting my ability to breathe for as long as I can remember; there's a very real possibility that this is due to a very severe bout of pertussis when I was a baby. (An antivax scare at the time collapsed herd immunity. Before it was all over, over a hundred died. I was very nearly amongst them).
However, I don't conflate "I don't like them" with "They don't work." As Spiegelhalter says: try spitting on someone when wearing a mask.
The balance of the decent studies points to them helping by a small amount. Maybe 10-20% reduction in R. Sometimes that makes a difference. Frequently, it won't make a serious difference.
I seem to remember @rcs1000 linked to a study that shows mask wearing in schools cut transmission by 47% or some such figure.
That would actually fit with what we saw in this country. From March 8th to the end of April when mask wearing was enforced in schools, we had low rates of transmission. Once the mask mandate ended, cases rapidly soared.
This despite the fact I would guess a good 20% of children weren't wearing them properly.
However - a big however - the question is not just whether they help, it's whether the costs outweigh the benefits. In a school situation, I would argue strongly that except as a very short-term measure in cases of truly, truly dire emergency they don't. As a barrier to communication, the discomfort, the increased restlessness due to said discomfort and the increased distraction of having a new thing to fiddle about with clearly did have a significant negative impact on their education and wellbeing. To the extent I would actually question whether it is worth opening schools if everyone has to wear masks.
Equally, if people aren't wearing masks in schools is it going to make a lot of difference to wear them in Tesco? I would argue not.
So I'm not convinced by the logic of the mask wearing mandate.
Where an exception can and should be made is public transport, especially rail transport where you have pressurised containers using recirculated air.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
No. Wrong again. I didn’t even suggest you would ban pubs. You said you would impose a mask mandate, which of course would include pubs.
My question to you is would you also mandate vaccinations?
You know my position on this. I'm against vaccine passports so why would I be in favour of pinning people down to vaccinate them?
So whats your point? Here and everywhere else you need to wear a mask indoors in public buildings. You take them off when sat eating or drinking. They remain open and thriving and with less infections which means more people available to work and go out spending money. A "significant imposition" that pretty much everywhere else manages without a fuss.
Ultimately its down to who is the expert here. I am not. You apparently are. Perhaps the NHS should listen to you.
I don’t claim to be an expert, and never have. My view is that we should retain the status quo. I’ve been clear about that. I would mandate neither vaccinations nor masks, although I would advocate a stronger public campaign on vaccinations to whittle down the refuseniks.
I find your position absolutely irrational. You would mandate masks - which are a daily imposition, affect 100% of the population and have only a moderate impact. But you would not mandate vaccinations, which are a minor inconvenience, affect just 5% of the population (the unvaxxed cohort) and have a huge impact. That is a bizarre position in my view. Deeply irrational.
I'm happy to be "irrational" in your eyes. As my position is shared by much of the developed world I'll take your comments under advisement.
The rational view would of course be mandatory vaccinations AND masks until completed. Then again as vaccinations have proven to be ineffective at wholly stopping the virus (unlike some other vaccines for other viruses) we would need to retain masks even with a full mandatory vaccination programme until we had all had sufficient rounds of boosters to stop this thing.
I do love the "moderate impact" lie from you ant-maskers. It doesn't matter how much the scientists prove the significant reduction in transmission gained from the proper wearing of masks, you and your still say "not proven".
Ah, I see the problem. You talk about the "proper wearing of masks". In reality the vast majority of people don't - and perhaps can't - wear masks properly.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
No. Wrong again. I didn’t even suggest you would ban pubs. You said you would impose a mask mandate, which of course would include pubs.
My question to you is would you also mandate vaccinations?
You know my position on this. I'm against vaccine passports so why would I be in favour of pinning people down to vaccinate them?
So whats your point? Here and everywhere else you need to wear a mask indoors in public buildings. You take them off when sat eating or drinking. They remain open and thriving and with less infections which means more people available to work and go out spending money. A "significant imposition" that pretty much everywhere else manages without a fuss.
Ultimately its down to who is the expert here. I am not. You apparently are. Perhaps the NHS should listen to you.
I don’t claim to be an expert, and never have. My view is that we should retain the status quo. I’ve been clear about that. I would mandate neither vaccinations nor masks, although I would advocate a stronger public campaign on vaccinations to whittle down the refuseniks.
I find your position absolutely irrational. You would mandate masks - which are a daily imposition, affect 100% of the population and have only a moderate impact. But you would not mandate vaccinations, which are a minor inconvenience, affect just 5% of the population (the unvaxxed cohort) and have a huge impact. That is a bizarre position in my view. Deeply irrational.
I'm happy to be "irrational" in your eyes. As my position is shared by much of the developed world I'll take your comments under advisement.
The rational view would of course be mandatory vaccinations AND masks until completed. Then again as vaccinations have proven to be ineffective at wholly stopping the virus (unlike some other vaccines for other viruses) we would need to retain masks even with a full mandatory vaccination programme until we had all had sufficient rounds of boosters to stop this thing.
I do love the "moderate impact" lie from you ant-maskers. It doesn't matter how much the scientists prove the significant reduction in transmission gained from the proper wearing of masks, you and your still say "not proven".
So actually what you are saying is that in practice we will maintain masks forever. No thanks.
Forever? We will get to the point where there is sufficient protection in the vaccinations most of us have had to discard them. I'd quite like to burn mine I hate them that much.
Er, a quick recap of your posts:
Post 1: Either [masks] are a massive hindrance to the pub / theatre / cinema as you suggest or they are not. You think they are. I know they are not.
Post 2: I'd quite like to burn [my mask] I hate them that much.
Are there two Rochdale Pioneers on this forum? I guess the plural avatar name should have given me a clue!
Oh dear God. I despise wearing a mask. But its become routine. I will rejoice when we don't need them, but me wearing one protects others.
I still have to wear a mask to shop. To go out. Our shops are full. Pubs overflowing as described by uniondivvie. Gigs are happening. Masks are not stopping people going out even if many people like me hate having to wear them.
It really isn't hard to follow. I would like not not wear a mask. But as I am not a selfish git I wear one.
Are you wearing an N95 surgical mask? If not then you are being basically as selfish as the rest of us who don't bother post vaccination.
FFP2, so yes.
If you are wearing FFP2s then you are being selfish. FFP2s have an exhalation valve which means you still expel aerosols onto others. Surgical masks are actually BETTER at protecting others. You are only protecting yourself
"In contrast to community masks, FFP2 masks are designed to not only protect others, but also yourself. However, masks with exhalation valves provide a considerably lower level of protection to others than masks without exhalation valves."
Wow! Get on the phone to the German government quick, tell them how selfish they were in making me buy a box of them!
Why do I have a stack of FFP2 masks? Because they were a legal requirement. And your article states clearly they are better for both wearer and others vs "community masks" - cloth.
You've travelled a lot Sean. You know why FFP2 are mandated in so many places. You've been there.
Could it be that the German government made a mistake? Surely not.
That can't be right.
It can’t be. From reading the papers we are doing far worse than the rest of Europe.
You should always go on a massive bender concurrently when having things like vaccinations. Protects you against any anti-vax sentiments. Feeling rough can always be blamed on the alcohol
Paterson is dust. They would be better advised to push the angle that this was a pre-emptive strike to save Johnson. And the Opposition front bench were doing so well earlier in the week. Ah well, normal service is resumed.
They need to move quickly on to the covid contracts for mates, which seems closely related judging by Observer front page.
Let slip the dogs of war.
I'd say 2 pronged. On the government/party, 'one rule for them one for everyone else' and 'corrupt favours for mates' etc. And personal on the PM, the lack of probity and relentless lying. Plus I'd have people other than Starmer doing the heavy lifting. Starmer to retain that air of professionalism and reserve that I think might actually end up a plus.
Problem is, our political system seems to decree that a party leader or Prime Minister should rule by Fuehrerprinzip. Ifyour suggestion happened, people would be quick to say Starmer was being ineffective comparing it to all those others sticking it to the Tories.
If Boris is there because he wins elections, the electorate like him, etc, we would actually be better off if he was a placeman being used as a figurehead by a cabal of cabinet ministers, who would actually be running the show.
I meant Starmer shouldn't get too colourful although others should. Be himself, which is not to be loose-lipped. I think this aspect of him might be in transit from liability to asset. Just a hunch. As for Johnson, I've flirted with that idea he's a vote-pulling frontman for more serious people who are actually running things, which would be comforting in a sense, but no, I dropped it a while ago. It's clear he's calling the shots.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
Jesus Christ, Jonathan Van-Tam, the "qualified" man you revere on this issue, famously said "masks are useless, my friend in Hong Kong told me" (this despite everyone in Hong Kong wearing a mask. Odd that)
He's a fricking idiot. You are pathetically grovelling to establishment half-wits. Grow a spine
You misunderstand RP, he wants the government to u-turn on plan b or c or masks regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. If England (and the rest of the UK) has hit herd immunity and we continue to see the current big drops in cases it will prove the UK government position was right (run hot in the summer and autumn, no restrictions) and that Europe was wrong (prevent spread, retain NPIs). In his small world the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. This would upend that as European countries head into lockdown 4 and the UK exits the pandemic entirely.
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
Max you are accusing RP of hating the UK and loving Europe just like you were with me. I think we can argue about stuff without resorting to people's lack of patriotism.
Re the 3rd jab it did start as a bit of a shambles but then got turned around pretty impressively. I saw the change in action as I was on the verge of my booster when it was all wrong and with in a couple of weeks they turned it around to become a very effective experience. The 1st two were very successful throughout I thought.
EU lovers do stick together!
The shambles was because the NHS management decided it would take complete control of the third jab rollout rather than leave it to the same people that did the initial roll out. About two weeks ago the Saj handed it all back to the private company and as if by magic people can book appointments easily and get provisioned a month in advance of their expected eligibility. If he hadn't done that we'd be relying on letters and phone calls to get appointments. Well I wouldn't because I'm not allowed one. 😭
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
The UK booster programme started relatively late compared to some other nations, but is going at a decent pace now. It's a shame it didn't get an earlier approval.
The booster jabs and schoolkids’ jabs both started late in the UK, because the scientists advising the government decided to become political, kept suggesting that giving away vaccines to the rest of the world was more important than using them at home.
I really wish we had tried to vaccinate children over the summer. It would have saved a lot of disruption and stopped cases rising so fast.
Actually, the time to vaccinate children was in June. Not over July and August when they're harder to get in one place.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
You don't need to be an expert to look at the actual results in practice of the various interventions that have been tried - if you do you can easily see that the pharmaceutical interventions have had a much greater impact than the non-pharmaceutical interventions.
Masks in particular have in practice had no discernable impact. I suspect this is because (1)a small but significant proportion of us are medically exempt; (2) the most popular masks have been the cloth ones which don't filter out that much aerosols even under ideal conditions (I've found studies ranging from claims of 10% to 37%) - and virtually nobody uses them properly anyway.
There's a reason why the pandemic preparedness plan recommended against them. When the inevitable public enquiry comes it really needs to look at why the government was panicked into binning its plan.
Wrong. Masks do work, in practice.
Then why does the imposition and removal or mask mandates not show up in the positive test data?
Sometimes hard to track with confounding factors. You'd want to separate the population into mask-wearing and non-mask-wearing sections with otherwise similar NPIs.
As it happens, they did this in Oklahoma, where some cities mandated masks and others didn't.
Looked like this:
It's notable that the blue line still trended upwards after a while - it wasn't a silver bullet. But it did help to some extent (and, of course, there could still be other confounding factors, but this approach does reduce a swathe of them).
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
The UK booster programme started relatively late compared to some other nations, but is going at a decent pace now. It's a shame it didn't get an earlier approval.
The booster jabs and schoolkids’ jabs both started late in the UK, because the scientists advising the government decided to become political, kept suggesting that giving away vaccines to the rest of the world was more important than using them at home.
I really wish we had tried to vaccinate children over the summer. It would have saved a lot of disruption and stopped cases rising so fast.
You are assuming that "cases" rising so fast won't be a long term winner. Especially given that we're currently only vaccinating kids once. It would have meant cases rising as rapidly or faster at the height of winter.
The LDs have a pretty good chance of winning North Shropshire IMO. I can't see it being a Labour win, even though they were in second place last time.
Er - really?
That would be a 26% swing in a seat where they've never got over 25% of the vote.
In a Leave seat. In a place where all the actual left-wingness is a Welsh-speaking area.
The Richter scale will actually snap if they win this one.
There is a Welsh-speaking part of North Shropshire. That I did not know. PB really is a source of fascinating nuggets.
The area around Oswestry stretching to the Welsh border. My father's home country (not that he's Welsh speaking). Oswestry itself used to be Welsh-speaking although I think (not that I know it particularly well) it's become steadily more anglicised. It was helped by the fact that until about 1966 all of its major transport links other than the A5 were with Wales rather than England.
The Liberal party used to be strong in that area, but in common with the fortunes in neighbouring Powys they have increasingly withered away with one last hurrah in 2010 where they came second overall.
Fascinating, thanks. Are the signs bilingual or are the Gallophone population ostracised/ignored?
Wolves chant to Shrewsbury Town fans in cup match 3 years ago: "You're Welsh and you know you are".
That's been going for decades. Last time I was there, after they responded with derision we were ready with our follow-up: "You're Welsh and the sheep agree"...
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
You don't need to be an expert to look at the actual results in practice of the various interventions that have been tried - if you do you can easily see that the pharmaceutical interventions have had a much greater impact than the non-pharmaceutical interventions.
Masks in particular have in practice had no discernable impact. I suspect this is because (1)a small but significant proportion of us are medically exempt; (2) the most popular masks have been the cloth ones which don't filter out that much aerosols even under ideal conditions (I've found studies ranging from claims of 10% to 37%) - and virtually nobody uses them properly anyway.
There's a reason why the pandemic preparedness plan recommended against them. When the inevitable public enquiry comes it really needs to look at why the government was panicked into binning its plan.
Wrong. Masks do work, in practice.
Then why does the imposition and removal or mask mandates not show up in the positive test data?
Sometimes hard to track with confounding factors. You'd want to separate the population into mask-wearing and non-mask-wearing sections with otherwise similar NPIs.
As it happens, they did this in Oklahoma, where some cities mandated masks and others didn't.
Looked like this:
It's notable that the blue line still trended upwards after a while - it wasn't a silver bullet. But it did help to some extent (and, of course, there could still be other confounding factors, but this approach does reduce a swathe of them).
Does that control for differences in other factors between those counties? Quite a striking difference.
If you are wearing FFP2s then you are being selfish. FFP2s have an exhalation valve which means you still expel aerosols onto others. Surgical masks are actually BETTER at protecting others. You are only protecting yourself
"In contrast to community masks, FFP2 masks are designed to not only protect others, but also yourself. However, masks with exhalation valves provide a considerably lower level of protection to others than masks without exhalation valves."
FFP2 masks come with or without valves, but generally with, as they are more comfortable to breathe through. However if you are wearing a mask with a valve you are NOT protecting your fellow humans, just yourself
Do you want to re-read that? Lets assume I am symptomatic. If I go out wearing no mask I am breathing the virus into the air and into your lungs. If I am wearing a mask I am breathing the virus into the mask - my masks have a filter.
So. Mask = no virus getting into your lungs. How is that "not protecting your fellow humans"? Unless the aim is get everyone infected now as you and others post repeatedly.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
You don't need to be an expert to look at the actual results in practice of the various interventions that have been tried - if you do you can easily see that the pharmaceutical interventions have had a much greater impact than the non-pharmaceutical interventions.
Masks in particular have in practice had no discernable impact. I suspect this is because (1)a small but significant proportion of us are medically exempt; (2) the most popular masks have been the cloth ones which don't filter out that much aerosols even under ideal conditions (I've found studies ranging from claims of 10% to 37%) - and virtually nobody uses them properly anyway.
There's a reason why the pandemic preparedness plan recommended against them. When the inevitable public enquiry comes it really needs to look at why the government was panicked into binning its plan.
Wrong. Masks do work, in practice.
Then why does the imposition and removal or mask mandates not show up in the positive test data?
It does. The studies done on, for example US states show a marked negative correlation with mask wearing and transmission rates.
Please remember that there are many driving variables behind bulk Covid case numbers, and masks are just one of them. Masks are not a silver bullet (sadly there are no silver bullets at all yet), and they are not as effective as some other measures. But they do work at reducing infection rates.
The question is, is the proven benefit worth the cost? That's where it's perfectly sensible to disagree. But there's no room left for saying they don't work. That idea is dead dead dead.
Paterson is dust. They would be better advised to push the angle that this was a pre-emptive strike to save Johnson. And the Opposition front bench were doing so well earlier in the week. Ah well, normal service is resumed.
They need to move quickly on to the covid contracts for mates, which seems closely related judging by Observer front page.
Let slip the dogs of war.
I'd say 2 pronged. On the government/party, 'one rule for them one for everyone else' and 'corrupt favours for mates' etc. And personal on the PM, the lack of probity and relentless lying. Plus I'd have people other than Starmer doing the heavy lifting. Starmer to retain that air of professionalism and reserve that I think might actually end up a plus.
Problem is, our political system seems to decree that a party leader or Prime Minister should rule by Fuehrerprinzip. Ifyour suggestion happened, people would be quick to say Starmer was being ineffective comparing it to all those others sticking it to the Tories.
If Boris is there because he wins elections, the electorate like him, etc, we would actually be better off if he was a placeman being used as a figurehead by a cabal of cabinet ministers, who would actually be running the show.
I meant Starmer shouldn't get too colourful although others should. Be himself, which is not to be loose-lipped. I think this aspect of him might be in transit from liability to asset. Just a hunch. As for Johnson, I've flirted with that idea he's a vote-pulling frontman for more serious people who are actually running things, which would be comforting in a sense, but no, I dropped it a while ago. It's clear he's calling the shots.
Did you catch the Stephen Kinnock interview on The Political Party podcast? I find him very impressive. He'd be my choice for next leader I think.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
No. Wrong again. I didn’t even suggest you would ban pubs. You said you would impose a mask mandate, which of course would include pubs.
My question to you is would you also mandate vaccinations?
You know my position on this. I'm against vaccine passports so why would I be in favour of pinning people down to vaccinate them?
So whats your point? Here and everywhere else you need to wear a mask indoors in public buildings. You take them off when sat eating or drinking. They remain open and thriving and with less infections which means more people available to work and go out spending money. A "significant imposition" that pretty much everywhere else manages without a fuss.
Ultimately its down to who is the expert here. I am not. You apparently are. Perhaps the NHS should listen to you.
I don’t claim to be an expert, and never have. My view is that we should retain the status quo. I’ve been clear about that. I would mandate neither vaccinations nor masks, although I would advocate a stronger public campaign on vaccinations to whittle down the refuseniks.
I find your position absolutely irrational. You would mandate masks - which are a daily imposition, affect 100% of the population and have only a moderate impact. But you would not mandate vaccinations, which are a minor inconvenience, affect just 5% of the population (the unvaxxed cohort) and have a huge impact. That is a bizarre position in my view. Deeply irrational.
I'm happy to be "irrational" in your eyes. As my position is shared by much of the developed world I'll take your comments under advisement.
The rational view would of course be mandatory vaccinations AND masks until completed. Then again as vaccinations have proven to be ineffective at wholly stopping the virus (unlike some other vaccines for other viruses) we would need to retain masks even with a full mandatory vaccination programme until we had all had sufficient rounds of boosters to stop this thing.
I do love the "moderate impact" lie from you ant-maskers. It doesn't matter how much the scientists prove the significant reduction in transmission gained from the proper wearing of masks, you and your still say "not proven".
So actually what you are saying is that in practice we will maintain masks forever. No thanks.
Forever? We will get to the point where there is sufficient protection in the vaccinations most of us have had to discard them. I'd quite like to burn mine I hate them that much.
Nah we won't. This is going to be endemic and varying just like flu. The idea we will ever be rid of this thing is for the fairies. Might as well get used to it as just another of those many persistent low level threats that we live with.
If it was a low-level threat then fine. It isn't. The NHS are genuinely bricking it over how they get us all through the winter. What does seem clear is that it dissipates significantly over the summer. So we need to have a concerted drive next summer to get booster 3 / 4 into everyone's arms. A tax break or cash incentive for getting it - something. Or we really do end up stuck with this as a real problem not just another winter bug that nobody need be that worried about.
That's mostly because they fear a big flu wave and an ineffective annual vaccine.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
You don't need to be an expert to look at the actual results in practice of the various interventions that have been tried - if you do you can easily see that the pharmaceutical interventions have had a much greater impact than the non-pharmaceutical interventions.
Masks in particular have in practice had no discernable impact. I suspect this is because (1)a small but significant proportion of us are medically exempt; (2) the most popular masks have been the cloth ones which don't filter out that much aerosols even under ideal conditions (I've found studies ranging from claims of 10% to 37%) - and virtually nobody uses them properly anyway.
There's a reason why the pandemic preparedness plan recommended against them. When the inevitable public enquiry comes it really needs to look at why the government was panicked into binning its plan.
Wrong. Masks do work, in practice.
Then why does the imposition and removal or mask mandates not show up in the positive test data?
Sometimes hard to track with confounding factors. You'd want to separate the population into mask-wearing and non-mask-wearing sections with otherwise similar NPIs.
As it happens, they did this in Oklahoma, where some cities mandated masks and others didn't.
Looked like this:
It's notable that the blue line still trended upwards after a while - it wasn't a silver bullet. But it did help to some extent (and, of course, there could still be other confounding factors, but this approach does reduce a swathe of them).
Re: masks. I am intrigued that nowhere in the wider discussion is the question of whether they are continuing to be an explanation for London being quite a large out-lier for positive tests in the UK. All you ever hear re: the requirement on public transport is how the rules are widely flauted. But certainly not by everyone in my experience. Especially on buses (perhaps less so on tubes).
The other obvious explanations for London of course are previous high levels of infection and high levels of continued home working. But masks could still be in the mix.
If you are wearing FFP2s then you are being selfish. FFP2s have an exhalation valve which means you still expel aerosols onto others. Surgical masks are actually BETTER at protecting others. You are only protecting yourself
"In contrast to community masks, FFP2 masks are designed to not only protect others, but also yourself. However, masks with exhalation valves provide a considerably lower level of protection to others than masks without exhalation valves."
FFP2 masks come with or without valves, but generally with, as they are more comfortable to breathe through. However if you are wearing a mask with a valve you are NOT protecting your fellow humans, just yourself
Do you want to re-read that? Lets assume I am symptomatic. If I go out wearing no mask I am breathing the virus into the air and into your lungs. If I am wearing a mask I am breathing the virus into the mask - my masks have a filter.
So. Mask = no virus getting into your lungs. How is that "not protecting your fellow humans"? Unless the aim is get everyone infected now as you and others post repeatedly.
They occasionally even spark off an incipient panic attack - that "I can't breathe." I've been twitchy about anything restricting my ability to breathe for as long as I can remember; there's a very real possibility that this is due to a very severe bout of pertussis when I was a baby. (An antivax scare at the time collapsed herd immunity. Before it was all over, over a hundred died. I was very nearly amongst them).
However, I don't conflate "I don't like them" with "They don't work." As Spiegelhalter says: try spitting on someone when wearing a mask.
The balance of the decent studies points to them helping by a small amount. Maybe 10-20% reduction in R. Sometimes that makes a difference. Frequently, it won't make a serious difference.
It is possible to agree that masks make a 10-20% reduction in R, or whatever, and still disagree with people wearing them on principle - especially post Freedom Day. Aside from the fearmongering and totalitarian tones, they make the difference between partially deaf people being able to function and not for one thing.
True. It's a balance of risks thing.
For me, the need for anything like this runs:
1 - Is the loading on the hospitals excessive (noting that this is a moving feast - with post-outbreak hangover/scarring/whatever-we-want-to-call-it, the level they can sustain long term is ever lower)* 2 - Which interventions are most effective? If needed, roll them out in this order: A - Increase working from home (I suspect this would be all that is needed) B - Mask Mandates C - Vaccine passports 3 - When the level subsides, carefully remove whichever ones are above.
(*I also favour increasing capacity significantly in the health service in order to minimise the risk of ever having to make this choice and to help the recovery)
Given the way cases and hospitalisations are falling, I don't see an immediate need to roll out any of those three interventions, anyway. The default should be "none," with them added only as and when necessary. I do see a need, still, to increase hospital capacity for the recovery.
I seem to remember @rcs1000 linked to a study that shows mask wearing in schools cut transmission by 47% or some such figure.
The trouble with all these facts about X does Y, is that we need to check when the study occurred and consider what variants were spreading at the time. There is a big difference between in transmissibility and a small difference in the disease between the intial Wuhan variant and the Alpha variant, and then Delta came along and didn't just move the goalposts but completely changed the sport being played. As a result many of the facts about the virus and disease from 2020 are barely worth considering now, we need to have data from recent studies from places where Delta predominates.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
Jesus Christ, Jonathan Van-Tam, the "qualified" man you revere on this issue, famously said "masks are useless, my friend in Hong Kong told me" (this despite everyone in Hong Kong wearing a mask. Odd that)
He's a fricking idiot. You are pathetically grovelling to establishment half-wits. Grow a spine
You misunderstand RP, he wants the government to u-turn on plan b or c or masks regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. If England (and the rest of the UK) has hit herd immunity and we continue to see the current big drops in cases it will prove the UK government position was right (run hot in the summer and autumn, no restrictions) and that Europe was wrong (prevent spread, retain NPIs). In his small world the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. This would upend that as European countries head into lockdown 4 and the UK exits the pandemic entirely.
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
Max you are accusing RP of hating the UK and loving Europe just like you were with me. I think we can argue about stuff without resorting to people's lack of patriotism.
Re the 3rd jab it did start as a bit of a shambles but then got turned around pretty impressively. I saw the change in action as I was on the verge of my booster when it was all wrong and with in a couple of weeks they turned it around to become a very effective experience. The 1st two were very successful throughout I thought.
EU lovers do stick together!
The shambles was because the NHS management decided it would take complete control of the third jab rollout rather than leave it to the same people that did the initial roll out. About two weeks ago the Saj handed it all back to the private company and as if by magic people can book appointments easily and get provisioned a month in advance of their expected eligibility. If he hadn't done that we'd be relying on letters and phone calls to get appointments. Well I wouldn't because I'm not allowed one. 😭
I hasn't read your post that was being replied to. You said "The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right."
When it comes to masks - the subject of the discussion - there is no "UK". Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland do their own thing. And then "Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses." - what failing booster programme? My comments are that it hasn't been activated early enough or ramped up quickly enough. Where have I said that it is failing - it hasn't been given the chance to succeed yet never mind fail.
Perhaps I should go back to doffing my cap to my betters. Then you would be happy.
If you are wearing FFP2s then you are being selfish. FFP2s have an exhalation valve which means you still expel aerosols onto others. Surgical masks are actually BETTER at protecting others. You are only protecting yourself
"In contrast to community masks, FFP2 masks are designed to not only protect others, but also yourself. However, masks with exhalation valves provide a considerably lower level of protection to others than masks without exhalation valves."
FFP2 masks come with or without valves, but generally with, as they are more comfortable to breathe through. However if you are wearing a mask with a valve you are NOT protecting your fellow humans, just yourself
Do you want to re-read that? Lets assume I am symptomatic. If I go out wearing no mask I am breathing the virus into the air and into your lungs. If I am wearing a mask I am breathing the virus into the mask - my masks have a filter.
So. Mask = no virus getting into your lungs. How is that "not protecting your fellow humans"? Unless the aim is get everyone infected now as you and others post repeatedly.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
Jesus Christ, Jonathan Van-Tam, the "qualified" man you revere on this issue, famously said "masks are useless, my friend in Hong Kong told me" (this despite everyone in Hong Kong wearing a mask. Odd that)
He's a fricking idiot. You are pathetically grovelling to establishment half-wits. Grow a spine
You misunderstand RP, he wants the government to u-turn on plan b or c or masks regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. If England (and the rest of the UK) has hit herd immunity and we continue to see the current big drops in cases it will prove the UK government position was right (run hot in the summer and autumn, no restrictions) and that Europe was wrong (prevent spread, retain NPIs). In his small world the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. This would upend that as European countries head into lockdown 4 and the UK exits the pandemic entirely.
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
Max you are accusing RP of hating the UK and loving Europe just like you were with me. I think we can argue about stuff without resorting to people's lack of patriotism.
Re the 3rd jab it did start as a bit of a shambles but then got turned around pretty impressively. I saw the change in action as I was on the verge of my booster when it was all wrong and with in a couple of weeks they turned it around to become a very effective experience. The 1st two were very successful throughout I thought.
EU lovers do stick together!
The shambles was because the NHS management decided it would take complete control of the third jab rollout rather than leave it to the same people that did the initial roll out. About two weeks ago the Saj handed it all back to the private company and as if by magic people can book appointments easily and get provisioned a month in advance of their expected eligibility. If he hadn't done that we'd be relying on letters and phone calls to get appointments. Well I wouldn't because I'm not allowed one. 😭
I hasn't read your post that was being replied to. You said "The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right."
When it comes to masks - the subject of the discussion - there is no "UK". Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland do their own thing. And then "Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses." - what failing booster programme? My comments are that it hasn't been activated early enough or ramped up quickly enough. Where have I said that it is failing - it hasn't been given the chance to succeed yet never mind fail.
Perhaps I should go back to doffing my cap to my betters. Then you would be happy.
To link to our earlier discussion, one village in the Oswestry area - Llanymynech - straddles both England and Wales.
This causes a few issues when working out what regulations apply where...
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
No. Wrong again. I didn’t even suggest you would ban pubs. You said you would impose a mask mandate, which of course would include pubs.
My question to you is would you also mandate vaccinations?
You know my position on this. I'm against vaccine passports so why would I be in favour of pinning people down to vaccinate them?
So whats your point? Here and everywhere else you need to wear a mask indoors in public buildings. You take them off when sat eating or drinking. They remain open and thriving and with less infections which means more people available to work and go out spending money. A "significant imposition" that pretty much everywhere else manages without a fuss.
Ultimately its down to who is the expert here. I am not. You apparently are. Perhaps the NHS should listen to you.
I don’t claim to be an expert, and never have. My view is that we should retain the status quo. I’ve been clear about that. I would mandate neither vaccinations nor masks, although I would advocate a stronger public campaign on vaccinations to whittle down the refuseniks.
I find your position absolutely irrational. You would mandate masks - which are a daily imposition, affect 100% of the population and have only a moderate impact. But you would not mandate vaccinations, which are a minor inconvenience, affect just 5% of the population (the unvaxxed cohort) and have a huge impact. That is a bizarre position in my view. Deeply irrational.
I'm happy to be "irrational" in your eyes. As my position is shared by much of the developed world I'll take your comments under advisement.
The rational view would of course be mandatory vaccinations AND masks until completed. Then again as vaccinations have proven to be ineffective at wholly stopping the virus (unlike some other vaccines for other viruses) we would need to retain masks even with a full mandatory vaccination programme until we had all had sufficient rounds of boosters to stop this thing.
I do love the "moderate impact" lie from you ant-maskers. It doesn't matter how much the scientists prove the significant reduction in transmission gained from the proper wearing of masks, you and your still say "not proven".
So actually what you are saying is that in practice we will maintain masks forever. No thanks.
Forever? We will get to the point where there is sufficient protection in the vaccinations most of us have had to discard them. I'd quite like to burn mine I hate them that much.
Nah we won't. This is going to be endemic and varying just like flu. The idea we will ever be rid of this thing is for the fairies. Might as well get used to it as just another of those many persistent low level threats that we live with.
If it was a low-level threat then fine. It isn't. The NHS are genuinely bricking it over how they get us all through the winter. What does seem clear is that it dissipates significantly over the summer. So we need to have a concerted drive next summer to get booster 3 / 4 into everyone's arms. A tax break or cash incentive for getting it - something. Or we really do end up stuck with this as a real problem not just another winter bug that nobody need be that worried about.
That's mostly because they fear a big flu wave and an ineffective annual vaccine.
Personally (not having any claims to expertise) i'm a bit mystified by the certainty that many seem to have in assuming a big flu wave. Just because a supposed reduction in immunity. It seems to me that it is just as likely that the last year has severely cut infection pathways and that could be sustained. We usually get in from Australia. Well that's not happening this year (they're even wondering if one of the four strains has become extinct!). Continued mask wearing by some and WfH will reduce it. And surely for many (adults) levels of immunity to flu have been built up over decades and one year shouldn't be enough to seriously undermine that?
They occasionally even spark off an incipient panic attack - that "I can't breathe." I've been twitchy about anything restricting my ability to breathe for as long as I can remember; there's a very real possibility that this is due to a very severe bout of pertussis when I was a baby. (An antivax scare at the time collapsed herd immunity. Before it was all over, over a hundred died. I was very nearly amongst them).
However, I don't conflate "I don't like them" with "They don't work." As Spiegelhalter says: try spitting on someone when wearing a mask.
The balance of the decent studies points to them helping by a small amount. Maybe 10-20% reduction in R. Sometimes that makes a difference. Frequently, it won't make a serious difference.
I seem to remember @rcs1000 linked to a study that shows mask wearing in schools cut transmission by 47% or some such figure.
That would actually fit with what we saw in this country. From March 8th to the end of April when mask wearing was enforced in schools, we had low rates of transmission. Once the mask mandate ended, cases rapidly soared.
This despite the fact I would guess a good 20% of children weren't wearing them properly.
However - a big however - the question is not just whether they help, it's whether the costs outweigh the benefits. In a school situation, I would argue strongly that except as a very short-term measure in cases of truly, truly dire emergency they don't. As a barrier to communication, the discomfort, the increased restlessness due to said discomfort and the increased distraction of having a new thing to fiddle about with clearly did have a significant negative impact on their education and wellbeing. To the extent I would actually question whether it is worth opening schools if everyone has to wear masks.
Equally, if people aren't wearing masks in schools is it going to make a lot of difference to wear them in Tesco? I would argue not.
So I'm not convinced by the logic of the mask wearing mandate.
Where an exception can and should be made is public transport, especially rail transport where you have pressurised containers using recirculated air.
All logical. On the public transport thing - the only time I've ever been pinged is after a night out which involved public transport. The ping could have been from: - Eating out in a packed Wendys in Oxford - Being in a full theatre for a couple of hours - Being on a bus each way.
I actually suspect the bus, because one man (quite drunk) a few seats over was loudly telling a friend that he'd tested positive but felt okay. I and my wife were both in pretty close proximity to him for over half an hour without much ventilation available.
We both got pinged, and, thankfully, both of us tested negative on multiple LFTs and a PCR each three days later. Thank you, Sarah Gilbert. I'm guessing our double-AZ doses hadn't waned that much.
Aged aunt in hospital for fall. Acquired chest infection since being admitted. Okay that's totally expected in the NHS. Spoke to a nurse last night, she said I could come and visit. Turn up this morning and the ward's closed as they have a Covid outbreak and it has been closed for several days.
Fucking useless.
I'm sorry to hear about your aunt and the frustrating trip, but it doesn't really have lessons for the health care system. If they've suddenly got a Covid outbreak, what do you expect them to do, whether they're NHS, private or anything else?
They occasionally even spark off an incipient panic attack - that "I can't breathe." I've been twitchy about anything restricting my ability to breathe for as long as I can remember; there's a very real possibility that this is due to a very severe bout of pertussis when I was a baby. (An antivax scare at the time collapsed herd immunity. Before it was all over, over a hundred died. I was very nearly amongst them).
However, I don't conflate "I don't like them" with "They don't work." As Spiegelhalter says: try spitting on someone when wearing a mask.
The balance of the decent studies points to them helping by a small amount. Maybe 10-20% reduction in R. Sometimes that makes a difference. Frequently, it won't make a serious difference.
I seem to remember @rcs1000 linked to a study that shows mask wearing in schools cut transmission by 47% or some such figure.
That would actually fit with what we saw in this country. From March 8th to the end of April when mask wearing was enforced in schools, we had low rates of transmission. Once the mask mandate ended, cases rapidly soared.
This despite the fact I would guess a good 20% of children weren't wearing them properly.
However - a big however - the question is not just whether they help, it's whether the costs outweigh the benefits. In a school situation, I would argue strongly that except as a very short-term measure in cases of truly, truly dire emergency they don't. As a barrier to communication, the discomfort, the increased restlessness due to said discomfort and the increased distraction of having a new thing to fiddle about with clearly did have a significant negative impact on their education and wellbeing. To the extent I would actually question whether it is worth opening schools if everyone has to wear masks.
Equally, if people aren't wearing masks in schools is it going to make a lot of difference to wear them in Tesco? I would argue not.
So I'm not convinced by the logic of the mask wearing mandate.
Where an exception can and should be made is public transport, especially rail transport where you have pressurised containers using recirculated air.
All logical. On the public transport thing - the only time I've ever been pinged is after a night out which involved public transport. The ping could have been from: - Eating out in a packed Wendys in Oxford - Being in a full theatre for a couple of hours - Being on a bus each way.
I actually suspect the bus, because one man (quite drunk) a few seats over was loudly telling a friend that he'd tested positive but felt okay. I and my wife were both in pretty close proximity to him for over half an hour without much ventilation available.
We both got pinged, and, thankfully, both of us tested negative on multiple LFTs and a PCR each three days later. Thank you, Sarah Gilbert. I'm guessing our double-AZ doses hadn't waned that much.
What a twat. Going out after testing positive is bad enough, going on public transport is pretty well unforgivable. He reminds me of that SNP MP who rode a train to Glasgow after testing positive.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
You don't need to be an expert to look at the actual results in practice of the various interventions that have been tried - if you do you can easily see that the pharmaceutical interventions have had a much greater impact than the non-pharmaceutical interventions.
Masks in particular have in practice had no discernable impact. I suspect this is because (1)a small but significant proportion of us are medically exempt; (2) the most popular masks have been the cloth ones which don't filter out that much aerosols even under ideal conditions (I've found studies ranging from claims of 10% to 37%) - and virtually nobody uses them properly anyway.
There's a reason why the pandemic preparedness plan recommended against them. When the inevitable public enquiry comes it really needs to look at why the government was panicked into binning its plan.
I'm sorry, but when anyone refers to the Pandemic Influenza Response Plan and glosses over that it was specifically about influenza, I tend to filter out what they're saying. Even if it may well be otherwise accurate. Probably a fault in myself.
No reason has ever been provided for why it wouldn't also be appropriate for other respiratory infections, as far as I'm aware.
"it's a bit different so we should panic and junk everything" doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
Feeling rougher with Covid, and wishing the booster had been available a few weeks back.
Hope you're feeling a bit better.
My symptoms appear to be subsiding, but then I wasn't convinced it was covid to start.
Oh, by the way, if it helps, it could be slightly worse - according to their tracking Royal Mail may have lost my PCR test, which I'm not very pleased about. That's going to cause endless confusion.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
No. Wrong again. I didn’t even suggest you would ban pubs. You said you would impose a mask mandate, which of course would include pubs.
My question to you is would you also mandate vaccinations?
You know my position on this. I'm against vaccine passports so why would I be in favour of pinning people down to vaccinate them?
So whats your point? Here and everywhere else you need to wear a mask indoors in public buildings. You take them off when sat eating or drinking. They remain open and thriving and with less infections which means more people available to work and go out spending money. A "significant imposition" that pretty much everywhere else manages without a fuss.
Ultimately its down to who is the expert here. I am not. You apparently are. Perhaps the NHS should listen to you.
I don’t claim to be an expert, and never have. My view is that we should retain the status quo. I’ve been clear about that. I would mandate neither vaccinations nor masks, although I would advocate a stronger public campaign on vaccinations to whittle down the refuseniks.
I find your position absolutely irrational. You would mandate masks - which are a daily imposition, affect 100% of the population and have only a moderate impact. But you would not mandate vaccinations, which are a minor inconvenience, affect just 5% of the population (the unvaxxed cohort) and have a huge impact. That is a bizarre position in my view. Deeply irrational.
I'm happy to be "irrational" in your eyes. As my position is shared by much of the developed world I'll take your comments under advisement.
The rational view would of course be mandatory vaccinations AND masks until completed. Then again as vaccinations have proven to be ineffective at wholly stopping the virus (unlike some other vaccines for other viruses) we would need to retain masks even with a full mandatory vaccination programme until we had all had sufficient rounds of boosters to stop this thing.
I do love the "moderate impact" lie from you ant-maskers. It doesn't matter how much the scientists prove the significant reduction in transmission gained from the proper wearing of masks, you and your still say "not proven".
So actually what you are saying is that in practice we will maintain masks forever. No thanks.
Forever? We will get to the point where there is sufficient protection in the vaccinations most of us have had to discard them. I'd quite like to burn mine I hate them that much.
Nah we won't. This is going to be endemic and varying just like flu. The idea we will ever be rid of this thing is for the fairies. Might as well get used to it as just another of those many persistent low level threats that we live with.
If it was a low-level threat then fine. It isn't. The NHS are genuinely bricking it over how they get us all through the winter. What does seem clear is that it dissipates significantly over the summer. So we need to have a concerted drive next summer to get booster 3 / 4 into everyone's arms. A tax break or cash incentive for getting it - something. Or we really do end up stuck with this as a real problem not just another winter bug that nobody need be that worried about.
That's mostly because they fear a big flu wave and an ineffective annual vaccine.
Personally (not having any claims to expertise) i'm a bit mystified by the certainty that many seem to have in assuming a big flu wave. Just because a supposed reduction in immunity. It seems to me that it is just as likely that the last year has severely cut infection pathways and that could be sustained. We usually get in from Australia. Well that's not happening this year (they're even wondering if one of the four strains has become extinct!). Continued mask wearing by some and WfH will reduce it. And surely for many (adults) levels of immunity to flu have been built up over decades and one year shouldn't be enough to seriously undermine that?
We don't need a big flu wave - we're already at or over capacity in some hospitals. A little one would tip them over, hence the concern.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
Jesus Christ, Jonathan Van-Tam, the "qualified" man you revere on this issue, famously said "masks are useless, my friend in Hong Kong told me" (this despite everyone in Hong Kong wearing a mask. Odd that)
He's a fricking idiot. You are pathetically grovelling to establishment half-wits. Grow a spine
You misunderstand RP, he wants the government to u-turn on plan b or c or masks regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. If England (and the rest of the UK) has hit herd immunity and we continue to see the current big drops in cases it will prove the UK government position was right (run hot in the summer and autumn, no restrictions) and that Europe was wrong (prevent spread, retain NPIs). In his small world the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. This would upend that as European countries head into lockdown 4 and the UK exits the pandemic entirely.
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
Max you are accusing RP of hating the UK and loving Europe just like you were with me. I think we can argue about stuff without resorting to people's lack of patriotism.
Re the 3rd jab it did start as a bit of a shambles but then got turned around pretty impressively. I saw the change in action as I was on the verge of my booster when it was all wrong and with in a couple of weeks they turned it around to become a very effective experience. The 1st two were very successful throughout I thought.
EU lovers do stick together!
The shambles was because the NHS management decided it would take complete control of the third jab rollout rather than leave it to the same people that did the initial roll out. About two weeks ago the Saj handed it all back to the private company and as if by magic people can book appointments easily and get provisioned a month in advance of their expected eligibility. If he hadn't done that we'd be relying on letters and phone calls to get appointments. Well I wouldn't because I'm not allowed one. 😭
I hasn't read your post that was being replied to. You said "The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right."
When it comes to masks - the subject of the discussion - there is no "UK". Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland do their own thing. And then "Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses." - what failing booster programme? My comments are that it hasn't been activated early enough or ramped up quickly enough. Where have I said that it is failing - it hasn't been given the chance to succeed yet never mind fail.
Perhaps I should go back to doffing my cap to my betters. Then you would be happy.
To link to our earlier discussion, one village in the Oswestry area - Llanymynech - straddles both England and Wales.
This causes a few issues when working out what regulations apply where...
Interesting place.
I lived there for some time whilst working in Oswestry speccing and tendering a new telecomms system for the Council.
"In 2008, there were only four small Virginia counties where Republicans won 70 percent or more of the vote in that year’s presidential race. Nowhere was the party above 75 percent. This year, Mr. Youngkin was above 70 percent in 45 counties — and he surpassed 80 percent in 15 of them."
Aged aunt in hospital for fall. Acquired chest infection since being admitted. Okay that's totally expected in the NHS. Spoke to a nurse last night, she said I could come and visit. Turn up this morning and the ward's closed as they have a Covid outbreak and it has been closed for several days.
Fucking useless.
I'm sorry to hear about your aunt and the frustrating trip, but it doesn't really have lessons for the health care system. If they've suddenly got a Covid outbreak, what do you expect them to do, whether they're NHS, private or anything else?
If a ward has been closed for several days so no visiting is allowed, why was @TOPPING told last night that he could come this morning.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
You don't need to be an expert to look at the actual results in practice of the various interventions that have been tried - if you do you can easily see that the pharmaceutical interventions have had a much greater impact than the non-pharmaceutical interventions.
Masks in particular have in practice had no discernable impact. I suspect this is because (1)a small but significant proportion of us are medically exempt; (2) the most popular masks have been the cloth ones which don't filter out that much aerosols even under ideal conditions (I've found studies ranging from claims of 10% to 37%) - and virtually nobody uses them properly anyway.
There's a reason why the pandemic preparedness plan recommended against them. When the inevitable public enquiry comes it really needs to look at why the government was panicked into binning its plan.
I'm sorry, but when anyone refers to the Pandemic Influenza Response Plan and glosses over that it was specifically about influenza, I tend to filter out what they're saying. Even if it may well be otherwise accurate. Probably a fault in myself.
No reason has ever been provided for why it wouldn't also be appropriate for other respiratory infections, as far as I'm aware.
"it's a bit different so we should panic and junk everything" doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
The assumption was that influenza spreads far more by fomites than by aerosol. Which is why there was such a massive focus on handwashing, not touching your face, cleaning anything you receive/etc early on - it was straight out of the influenza pandemic response.
It took a while before it was fully concluded that SARS-CoV-2 spread widely (and most) by exhaled aerosols. Fomite transmission appears to be trivial at best.
So the reason is: it was assumed that aerosol transmission wasn't a factor, so masks to reduce aerosol transmission would be irrelevant. We found out that aerosol transmission was by far the primary (or even only) mode of transmission, and thus masking would be useful.
EDIT: That was just for the mode of transmission/masks. There was also the parts on whether NPIs/restrictions should be attempted. The lack of appreciable presymptomatic phase and the short incubation period of influenza were explicitly cited for why they would not be of use. When the significantly longer incubation period and notable presymptomatic phase for covid (which contribute a lot to the spread) came to be well known, this assumption was junked.
As it turns out, the assumption now looks questionable, given the way that NPIs utterly flattened seasonal influenza last winter.
If you are wearing FFP2s then you are being selfish. FFP2s have an exhalation valve which means you still expel aerosols onto others. Surgical masks are actually BETTER at protecting others. You are only protecting yourself
"In contrast to community masks, FFP2 masks are designed to not only protect others, but also yourself. However, masks with exhalation valves provide a considerably lower level of protection to others than masks without exhalation valves."
FFP2 masks come with or without valves, but generally with, as they are more comfortable to breathe through. However if you are wearing a mask with a valve you are NOT protecting your fellow humans, just yourself
Do you want to re-read that? Lets assume I am symptomatic. If I go out wearing no mask I am breathing the virus into the air and into your lungs. If I am wearing a mask I am breathing the virus into the mask - my masks have a filter.
So. Mask = no virus getting into your lungs. How is that "not protecting your fellow humans"? Unless the aim is get everyone infected now as you and others post repeatedly.
Paterson is dust. They would be better advised to push the angle that this was a pre-emptive strike to save Johnson. And the Opposition front bench were doing so well earlier in the week. Ah well, normal service is resumed.
They need to move quickly on to the covid contracts for mates, which seems closely related judging by Observer front page.
Let slip the dogs of war.
I'd say 2 pronged. On the government/party, 'one rule for them one for everyone else' and 'corrupt favours for mates' etc. And personal on the PM, the lack of probity and relentless lying. Plus I'd have people other than Starmer doing the heavy lifting. Starmer to retain that air of professionalism and reserve that I think might actually end up a plus.
Problem is, our political system seems to decree that a party leader or Prime Minister should rule by Fuehrerprinzip. Ifyour suggestion happened, people would be quick to say Starmer was being ineffective comparing it to all those others sticking it to the Tories.
If Boris is there because he wins elections, the electorate like him, etc, we would actually be better off if he was a placeman being used as a figurehead by a cabal of cabinet ministers, who would actually be running the show.
I meant Starmer shouldn't get too colourful although others should. Be himself, which is not to be loose-lipped. I think this aspect of him might be in transit from liability to asset. Just a hunch. As for Johnson, I've flirted with that idea he's a vote-pulling frontman for more serious people who are actually running things, which would be comforting in a sense, but no, I dropped it a while ago. It's clear he's calling the shots.
Did you catch the Stephen Kinnock interview on The Political Party podcast? I find him very impressive. He'd be my choice for next leader I think.
No, didn't hear that. I don't mind him, bright guy, good speaker, constructive on Brexit, but for next leader I'll be voting for the best woman for the job.
If you are wearing FFP2s then you are being selfish. FFP2s have an exhalation valve which means you still expel aerosols onto others. Surgical masks are actually BETTER at protecting others. You are only protecting yourself
"In contrast to community masks, FFP2 masks are designed to not only protect others, but also yourself. However, masks with exhalation valves provide a considerably lower level of protection to others than masks without exhalation valves."
FFP2 masks come with or without valves, but generally with, as they are more comfortable to breathe through. However if you are wearing a mask with a valve you are NOT protecting your fellow humans, just yourself
Do you want to re-read that? Lets assume I am symptomatic. If I go out wearing no mask I am breathing the virus into the air and into your lungs. If I am wearing a mask I am breathing the virus into the mask - my masks have a filter.
So. Mask = no virus getting into your lungs. How is that "not protecting your fellow humans"? Unless the aim is get everyone infected now as you and others post repeatedly.
If you're symptomatic you shouldnt be going out.
Yeah, I meant infected but don't know yet - asymptomatic. The point stands - the mask and the filter layer absolutely protect people around you.
Feeling rougher with Covid, and wishing the booster had been available a few weeks back.
Hope you're feeling a bit better.
My symptoms appear to be subsiding, but then I wasn't convinced it was covid to start.
Oh, by the way, if it helps, it could be slightly worse - according to their tracking Royal Mail may have lost my PCR test, which I'm not very pleased about. That's going to cause endless confusion.
Cheers for that. Actually not improving at the moment, but it’s only been three days.
Just got to the Appomattox surrender in the Grant biography. Think I’ll need a breather before going through the Lincoln assassination.
Starmer good on Marr. He has the look of a man who senses things moving his way. There's a certain edge and confidence there. So different to the low post Hartlepool.
Feeling rougher with Covid, and wishing the booster had been available a few weeks back.
Hope you're feeling a bit better.
My symptoms appear to be subsiding, but then I wasn't convinced it was covid to start.
Oh, by the way, if it helps, it could be slightly worse - according to their tracking Royal Mail may have lost my PCR test, which I'm not very pleased about. That's going to cause endless confusion.
Cheers for that. Actually not improving at the moment, but it’s only been three days.
Just got to the Appomattox surrender in the Grant biography. Think I’ll need a breather before going through the Lincoln assassination.
Well yes. I mean, it's quite a journey from Appomattox to Washington, especially if you have Covid symptoms
I'm reading Michael Hicks' biography of George, Duke of Clarence at the moment. Fascinating character. More like his father than either of his brothers (well, in this sense - he and his father both tried and spectacularly failed to usurp the crown with somewhat unfortunate personal consequences, while both his brothers succeeded in usurping the crown).
Starmer good on Marr. He has the look of a man who senses things moving his way. There's a certain edge and confidence there. So different to the low post Hartlepool.
Starmer good on Marr. He has the look of a man who senses things moving his way. There's a certain edge and confidence there. So different to the low post Hartlepool.
Yes, it might well be his time. The 2010 expenses prosecutor himself.
If Downing Street really told Eustace to go out and say it was "a storm in a teacup" today, they really don't have a clue what they're up to, or what the changing context is.
The beauty of the English language is it's a mongrel and there are several ways to say the same things. It problem is it gives us different registers and people get judged unconsciously on the basis of which words they use. For example "to buy" / "to purchase".
That's an interesting point that I'd not consciously thought about but use all the time in my spare-time translation/revision work. I was revising someone's translation yesterday of an Austrian Government statement. The translation was fine, but it routinely used everyday language - abbreviations like "we're" and "it'd", "got" instead of "received", ""thought about" instead of "considered", etc. Without even thinking about it I changed it to the more formal usage everywhere, on the basis that this is what a government would want. Just being old-fashioned, perhaps actulaly making public statements less accessible, or bein gappropriate to the subject?
Interesting piece by @ProfJMitchell on the constitutional Q and the parallels between the situation facing the SNP today and that which faced Scottish Labour in the 1980s
If you are wearing FFP2s then you are being selfish. FFP2s have an exhalation valve which means you still expel aerosols onto others. Surgical masks are actually BETTER at protecting others. You are only protecting yourself
"In contrast to community masks, FFP2 masks are designed to not only protect others, but also yourself. However, masks with exhalation valves provide a considerably lower level of protection to others than masks without exhalation valves."
FFP2 masks come with or without valves, but generally with, as they are more comfortable to breathe through. However if you are wearing a mask with a valve you are NOT protecting your fellow humans, just yourself
Do you want to re-read that? Lets assume I am symptomatic. If I go out wearing no mask I am breathing the virus into the air and into your lungs. If I am wearing a mask I am breathing the virus into the mask - my masks have a filter.
So. Mask = no virus getting into your lungs. How is that "not protecting your fellow humans"? Unless the aim is get everyone infected now as you and others post repeatedly.
If you're symptomatic you shouldnt be going out.
Yeah, I meant infected but don't know yet - asymptomatic. The point stands - the mask and the filter layer absolutely protect people around you.
It depends on the mask. Many FFP2s have an exhalation valve. That's often the point
FFP2s are designed for people in dangerous scenarios, who will be exposed to Covid (or nasty dust, or other viruses etc). FFP2s, fitted correctly, are good at filtering aerosols. They protect the wearer, and if they have a valve they are more comfortable to wear as it is easier to breathe (so they are more likely to be used in the first place)
However the valve allows aerosols OUT so they are not good at protecting others. AIUI a surgical mask or even a cloth bandana worn over the mouth is better at CONTAINING aerosols
But you insist your FFP2s do not have a valve, and some don't, so it is irrelevant in this case
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 16m I don't know why people think this is so hard. Just ban second jobs. If it means MPs can't do shifts in A&E that's a shame. But there's a bigger issue at stake here.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 16m I don't know why people think this is so hard. Just ban second jobs. If it means MPs can't do shifts in A&E that's a shame. But there's a bigger issue at stake here.
Starmer good on Marr. He has the look of a man who senses things moving his way. There's a certain edge and confidence there. So different to the low post Hartlepool.
To be honest he is bland
I do not doubt he means well but hardly inspiring
No, he wasn't bland. Not on Marr anyway. It was a zippy conversation.
Aged aunt in hospital for fall. Acquired chest infection since being admitted. Okay that's totally expected in the NHS. Spoke to a nurse last night, she said I could come and visit. Turn up this morning and the ward's closed as they have a Covid outbreak and it has been closed for several days.
Fucking useless.
I'm sorry to hear about your aunt and the frustrating trip, but it doesn't really have lessons for the health care system. If they've suddenly got a Covid outbreak, what do you expect them to do, whether they're NHS, private or anything else?
1. Aunt picked up a chest infection in NHS hospital. 2. Aunt's NHS ward has Covid. 3. NHS nurse in aunt's NHS ward told relative that it was fine to visit. 4. Relative turns up the next day to be told the NHS ward has Covid and no visitors have been allowed for several days.
Nick if you can't unpick any or all of that to come up with a "lesson" for the NHS thank goodness you are nowhere near the levers of health policy.
There is a clear and growing split between the new Tories and the grandees. The new ones don't appreciate being forced to vote for stupid only for stupid to then be immediately dropped. Especially when they're told vote for it or your towns fund money gets pulled.
Starmer good on Marr. He has the look of a man who senses things moving his way. There's a certain edge and confidence there. So different to the low post Hartlepool.
Yes, it might well be his time - the 2010 expenses prosecutor.
If Downing Street really told Eustace to go out and say it was "a storm in a teacup" today, they really don't have a clue what they're up to, or what the changing context is.
Yes, I'm in the tunnel on a 1st principles reassessment of my long range GE betting positions, which are mainly pro Con and well in profit. I might cash out and start again.
"In 2008, there were only four small Virginia counties where Republicans won 70 percent or more of the vote in that year’s presidential race. Nowhere was the party above 75 percent. This year, Mr. Youngkin was above 70 percent in 45 counties — and he surpassed 80 percent in 15 of them."
Yes, but its generally better to be at 51% (or slightly more) in as many places as possible, and 0% (or at least very low) in the few areas your not. That way you can get big majority's in democratic chambers elected on FPTP, with roughly half the vote.
There is a clear and growing split between the new Tories and the grandees. The new ones don't appreciate being forced to vote for stupid only for stupid to then be immediately dropped. Especially when they're told vote for it or your towns fund money gets pulled.
As I said earlier the so called Spartans like JRM and of course Paterson are being challenged by the red wall mps and not before time
If you are wearing FFP2s then you are being selfish. FFP2s have an exhalation valve which means you still expel aerosols onto others. Surgical masks are actually BETTER at protecting others. You are only protecting yourself
"In contrast to community masks, FFP2 masks are designed to not only protect others, but also yourself. However, masks with exhalation valves provide a considerably lower level of protection to others than masks without exhalation valves."
FFP2 masks come with or without valves, but generally with, as they are more comfortable to breathe through. However if you are wearing a mask with a valve you are NOT protecting your fellow humans, just yourself
Do you want to re-read that? Lets assume I am symptomatic. If I go out wearing no mask I am breathing the virus into the air and into your lungs. If I am wearing a mask I am breathing the virus into the mask - my masks have a filter.
So. Mask = no virus getting into your lungs. How is that "not protecting your fellow humans"? Unless the aim is get everyone infected now as you and others post repeatedly.
If you're symptomatic you shouldnt be going out.
Yeah, I meant infected but don't know yet - asymptomatic. The point stands - the mask and the filter layer absolutely protect people around you.
It depends on the mask. Many FFP2s have an exhalation valve. That's often the point
FFP2s are designed for people in dangerous scenarios, who will be exposed to Covid (or nasty dust, or other viruses etc). FFP2s, fitted correctly, are good at filtering aerosols. They protect the wearer, and if they have a valve they are more comfortable to wear as it is easier to breathe (so they are more likely to be used in the first place)
However the valve allows aerosols OUT so they are not good at protecting others. AIUI a surgical mask or even a cloth bandana worn over the mouth is better at CONTAINING aerosols
But you insist your FFP2s do not have a valve, and some don't, so it is irrelevant in this case
You keep banging on about the evils of valves. When did I say I had one with a valve? Search Amazon for FFP2 mask and its pages of non-valve masks.
I'm bloody sure that a proper mask that fits that has a filter is more effective than a piece of cloth. Despite your increased histrionics that they aren't and I am being selfish. Indeed, more selfish than all the people not wearing masks - which was the whole point in the attack.
"Are you using an N95 mask?" If no (as expected) its "virtue signalling" If yes, its a type of mask that I don't have and its less effective than no mask or whatever.
I just wish anti-maskers would say that clearly and simply, would save a lot of time.
There is a clear and growing split between the new Tories and the grandees. The new ones don't appreciate being forced to vote for stupid only for stupid to then be immediately dropped. Especially when they're told vote for it or your towns fund money gets pulled.
The new tories believed the hype, not realising that the soul of the Tory Party had been cleansed and only the believers remained. Imagine their surprise when instead of delivering a sensible, levelling up, open and imaginative Brexit, their Party made it clear they are determined to bring the house down on everyone instead.
Aged aunt in hospital for fall. Acquired chest infection since being admitted. Okay that's totally expected in the NHS. Spoke to a nurse last night, she said I could come and visit. Turn up this morning and the ward's closed as they have a Covid outbreak and it has been closed for several days.
Fucking useless.
I'm sorry to hear about your aunt and the frustrating trip, but it doesn't really have lessons for the health care system. If they've suddenly got a Covid outbreak, what do you expect them to do, whether they're NHS, private or anything else?
Nick your good wishes re said aunt very much appreciated.
In London last week there seemed to be different units deployed to various stations, rather than the RBL civilians out here in the suburbs. I bought poppies from paras at Liverpool Street and from (if I heard correctly) the Army Air Corps at Farringdon – army fatigues with RAF-blue berets, a combination so jarring that I bought a poppy simply to justify asking who they were. Something to do with helicopters, apparently.
"In 2008, there were only four small Virginia counties where Republicans won 70 percent or more of the vote in that year’s presidential race. Nowhere was the party above 75 percent. This year, Mr. Youngkin was above 70 percent in 45 counties — and he surpassed 80 percent in 15 of them."
Yes, but its generally better to be at 51% (or slightly more) in as many places as possible, and 0% (or at least very low) in the few areas your not. That way you can get big majority's in democratic chambers elected on FPTP, with roughly half the vote.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
Jesus Christ, Jonathan Van-Tam, the "qualified" man you revere on this issue, famously said "masks are useless, my friend in Hong Kong told me" (this despite everyone in Hong Kong wearing a mask. Odd that)
He's a fricking idiot. You are pathetically grovelling to establishment half-wits. Grow a spine
You misunderstand RP, he wants the government to u-turn on plan b or c or masks regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. If England (and the rest of the UK) has hit herd immunity and we continue to see the current big drops in cases it will prove the UK government position was right (run hot in the summer and autumn, no restrictions) and that Europe was wrong (prevent spread, retain NPIs). In his small world the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. This would upend that as European countries head into lockdown 4 and the UK exits the pandemic entirely.
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
Max you are accusing RP of hating the UK and loving Europe just like you were with me. I think we can argue about stuff without resorting to people's lack of patriotism.
Re the 3rd jab it did start as a bit of a shambles but then got turned around pretty impressively. I saw the change in action as I was on the verge of my booster when it was all wrong and with in a couple of weeks they turned it around to become a very effective experience. The 1st two were very successful throughout I thought.
EU lovers do stick together!
The shambles was because the NHS management decided it would take complete control of the third jab rollout rather than leave it to the same people that did the initial roll out. About two weeks ago the Saj handed it all back to the private company and as if by magic people can book appointments easily and get provisioned a month in advance of their expected eligibility. If he hadn't done that we'd be relying on letters and phone calls to get appointments. Well I wouldn't because I'm not allowed one. 😭
I agree with your post, but just because we 'love' the EU doesn't mean we hate the UK. We don't.
There is a clear and growing split between the new Tories and the grandees. The new ones don't appreciate being forced to vote for stupid only for stupid to then be immediately dropped. Especially when they're told vote for it or your towns fund money gets pulled.
This cannot be a surprise to them. They must have already had an acute appreciation of what tories in general (scum) and Johnson in particular (Fat Lying Sack of Jizz) are like.
Their moral indignation is entirely synthesised and they are only dickhurt because they were on the receiving end of the incompetent malevolence instead of dispensing it.
In London last week there seemed to be different units deployed to various stations, rather than the RBL civilians out here in the suburbs. I bought poppies from paras at Liverpool Street and from (if I heard correctly) the Army Air Corps at Farringdon – army fatigues with RAF-blue berets, a combination so jarring that I bought a poppy simply to justify asking who they were. Something to do with helicopters, apparently.
Has been happening for a few years now. In London, that is. And they aren't "RAF blue"; they are sky blue (could not be the technical blue description).
Why should they struggle to hold those seats in 2024 when they didn't in 2019? I see no sign of a Lib Dem recovery and think it is unlikely under Davey's leadership. I do agree with @OnlyLivingBoy that the key area next time is going to be the midlands and it is interesting that the swings against Boris seem highest there.
I wonder how far Johnson can push "decent" Southern Tories before they just sit on their hands next time in large numbers. His government is beginning to stink of incompetence and sleaze.
The budget seems to have been pretty well received. The economy is growing pretty fast, at least in the short term. We have full employment and rising wages. The boosters are being delivered at a good clip. The number of cases of the virus have clearly peaked and the government's policy of letting things rip over the summer is very likely to pay significant dividends in the winter. COP26 is looking like a solid piece of work if not quite a spectacular success.
There are plenty of things on the other side of the balance sheet, many of them self-inflicted, but I think your assessment of the government is excessively partial.
You will come out of that coma some day David and reality will shock you
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
Jesus Christ, Jonathan Van-Tam, the "qualified" man you revere on this issue, famously said "masks are useless, my friend in Hong Kong told me" (this despite everyone in Hong Kong wearing a mask. Odd that)
He's a fricking idiot. You are pathetically grovelling to establishment half-wits. Grow a spine
You misunderstand RP, he wants the government to u-turn on plan b or c or masks regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. If England (and the rest of the UK) has hit herd immunity and we continue to see the current big drops in cases it will prove the UK government position was right (run hot in the summer and autumn, no restrictions) and that Europe was wrong (prevent spread, retain NPIs). In his small world the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. This would upend that as European countries head into lockdown 4 and the UK exits the pandemic entirely.
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
Max you are accusing RP of hating the UK and loving Europe just like you were with me. I think we can argue about stuff without resorting to people's lack of patriotism.
Re the 3rd jab it did start as a bit of a shambles but then got turned around pretty impressively. I saw the change in action as I was on the verge of my booster when it was all wrong and with in a couple of weeks they turned it around to become a very effective experience. The 1st two were very successful throughout I thought.
EU lovers do stick together!
The shambles was because the NHS management decided it would take complete control of the third jab rollout rather than leave it to the same people that did the initial roll out. About two weeks ago the Saj handed it all back to the private company and as if by magic people can book appointments easily and get provisioned a month in advance of their expected eligibility. If he hadn't done that we'd be relying on letters and phone calls to get appointments. Well I wouldn't because I'm not allowed one. 😭
I agree with your post, but just because we 'love' the EU doesn't mean we hate the UK. We don't.
I think it does, the EU is a hostile entity to the UK, it is no longer any kind of ally to us.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
No. Wrong again. I didn’t even suggest you would ban pubs. You said you would impose a mask mandate, which of course would include pubs.
My question to you is would you also mandate vaccinations?
You know my position on this. I'm against vaccine passports so why would I be in favour of pinning people down to vaccinate them?
So whats your point? Here and everywhere else you need to wear a mask indoors in public buildings. You take them off when sat eating or drinking. They remain open and thriving and with less infections which means more people available to work and go out spending money. A "significant imposition" that pretty much everywhere else manages without a fuss.
Ultimately its down to who is the expert here. I am not. You apparently are. Perhaps the NHS should listen to you.
I don’t claim to be an expert, and never have. My view is that we should retain the status quo. I’ve been clear about that. I would mandate neither vaccinations nor masks, although I would advocate a stronger public campaign on vaccinations to whittle down the refuseniks.
I find your position absolutely irrational. You would mandate masks - which are a daily imposition, affect 100% of the population and have only a moderate impact. But you would not mandate vaccinations, which are a minor inconvenience, affect just 5% of the population (the unvaxxed cohort) and have a huge impact. That is a bizarre position in my view. Deeply irrational.
I'm happy to be "irrational" in your eyes. As my position is shared by much of the developed world I'll take your comments under advisement.
The rational view would of course be mandatory vaccinations AND masks until completed. Then again as vaccinations have proven to be ineffective at wholly stopping the virus (unlike some other vaccines for other viruses) we would need to retain masks even with a full mandatory vaccination programme until we had all had sufficient rounds of boosters to stop this thing.
I do love the "moderate impact" lie from you ant-maskers. It doesn't matter how much the scientists prove the significant reduction in transmission gained from the proper wearing of masks, you and your still say "not proven".
So actually what you are saying is that in practice we will maintain masks forever. No thanks.
Forever? We will get to the point where there is sufficient protection in the vaccinations most of us have had to discard them. I'd quite like to burn mine I hate them that much.
Nah we won't. This is going to be endemic and varying just like flu. The idea we will ever be rid of this thing is for the fairies. Might as well get used to it as just another of those many persistent low level threats that we live with.
If it was a low-level threat then fine. It isn't. The NHS are genuinely bricking it over how they get us all through the winter. What does seem clear is that it dissipates significantly over the summer. So we need to have a concerted drive next summer to get booster 3 / 4 into everyone's arms. A tax break or cash incentive for getting it - something. Or we really do end up stuck with this as a real problem not just another winter bug that nobody need be that worried about.
The NHS is bricking it every winter over getting us through. That is a sign of a failed system (and I say that without any commentary on how or why it is failed, we have discussed that enough in other threads).
Now personally I wear a mask in various enclosed spaces as a mark of courtesy to people as I know there are those out there who are still genuinely worried about this stuff. But I would not for a second criticise anyone next to me who didn't wear a mask. That is their personal choice.
On Friday night I was at a Suede concert at Rock City (Fecking amazing by the way). 3,000 people in a tight packed space, all pogoing away, singing at the top of their voices and having a brilliant time with the band absolutely loving every second of it. Not once did I even think about any concern about masks, infections or anything else related to Covid. That is done. I am double jabbed, will get my booster and have recently had Covid caught from my son via school. If, a year or so down the line I catch it again as the effects of all of that have worn off and this time die from it then that is, I am afraid, just life (or death). I refuse now to live my life in fear over something that is now just as likely as me dying from normal flu or a car crash.
Masks, lockdowns and distancing were all vitally important at the time. I agreed with them all and was content to abide by them. That is now done. Life may still be a bit less safe than before November 2019 but I don't care any more. Life is, anyway, too short to worry about such things.
On Tuesday I am going with my son and wife to watch Public Service Broadcasting again at Rock City. It will be his first concert and that is more important to me than any of this stuff.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
Jesus Christ, Jonathan Van-Tam, the "qualified" man you revere on this issue, famously said "masks are useless, my friend in Hong Kong told me" (this despite everyone in Hong Kong wearing a mask. Odd that)
He's a fricking idiot. You are pathetically grovelling to establishment half-wits. Grow a spine
You misunderstand RP, he wants the government to u-turn on plan b or c or masks regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. If England (and the rest of the UK) has hit herd immunity and we continue to see the current big drops in cases it will prove the UK government position was right (run hot in the summer and autumn, no restrictions) and that Europe was wrong (prevent spread, retain NPIs). In his small world the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. This would upend that as European countries head into lockdown 4 and the UK exits the pandemic entirely.
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
Max you are accusing RP of hating the UK and loving Europe just like you were with me. I think we can argue about stuff without resorting to people's lack of patriotism.
Re the 3rd jab it did start as a bit of a shambles but then got turned around pretty impressively. I saw the change in action as I was on the verge of my booster when it was all wrong and with in a couple of weeks they turned it around to become a very effective experience. The 1st two were very successful throughout I thought.
EU lovers do stick together!
The shambles was because the NHS management decided it would take complete control of the third jab rollout rather than leave it to the same people that did the initial roll out. About two weeks ago the Saj handed it all back to the private company and as if by magic people can book appointments easily and get provisioned a month in advance of their expected eligibility. If he hadn't done that we'd be relying on letters and phone calls to get appointments. Well I wouldn't because I'm not allowed one. 😭
I agree with your post, but just because we 'love' the EU doesn't mean we hate the UK. We don't.
I think it does, the EU is a hostile entity to the UK, it is no longer any kind of ally to us.
There is a clear and growing split between the new Tories and the grandees. The new ones don't appreciate being forced to vote for stupid only for stupid to then be immediately dropped. Especially when they're told vote for it or your towns fund money gets pulled.
The new tories believed the hype, not realising that the soul of the Tory Party had been cleansed and only the believers remained. Imagine their surprise when instead of delivering a sensible, levelling up, open and imaginative Brexit, their Party made it clear they are determined to bring the house down on everyone instead.
Aren't the Grandees supposed to have left?
The attack tweets on that thread are quite interesting eg:
When the veneer slips and Tories row it really is something to behold; all that pent up spite and snidery which they so (not all of them, admittedly) like to think they are above and the bad blood they believe the sole preserve of the uncivilized poor and disadvantaged; all too often and if anything, what shows is how their privelege, and fancy educations have left them even more fucked up than the masses they quietly exert so much energy in despising.
Is that true of red wall Tories, and does that attack land?
Mine (Lee Anderson ) is certainly genuinely 'working class' - lived in a normal terraced house until a few years ago, as befits a Labour Councillor. Also true of Ben Bradley next door.
Has anyone done a decent survey of backgrounds of new Tory MPs from 2019?
I don't think the government's spin campaign is working for once, despite a fairly compliant media. As well as Eustice, I've heard several MPs and Ministers on the airwaves repeatedly asserting two mistruths (and not being challenged on them enough by a fairly compliant BBC, which is clearly now fearful of upsetting Dorries):
a) Paterson may not have had a fair hearing and we need an appeal system built in to the process. b) Last week's vote on changing the system wasn't meant to be about the Paterson case; it's a pity that it was perceived as such.
Now, both a) and b) are utterly false, but that wouldn't matter normally. The problem is that not only do the public not believe it, quite a lot of backbench Tory MPs also don't believe it, largely because it's bollocks. Once the inquisitors (the press, the NAO, Labour, Stone) get their teeth into Randox's Covid contracts, and others, it could get worse.
I'm beginning to think, for the first time, that Starmer's boring statesmanship may increasingly seem attractive in contrast to Boris's dissembling.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
No. Wrong again. I didn’t even suggest you would ban pubs. You said you would impose a mask mandate, which of course would include pubs.
My question to you is would you also mandate vaccinations?
You know my position on this. I'm against vaccine passports so why would I be in favour of pinning people down to vaccinate them?
So whats your point? Here and everywhere else you need to wear a mask indoors in public buildings. You take them off when sat eating or drinking. They remain open and thriving and with less infections which means more people available to work and go out spending money. A "significant imposition" that pretty much everywhere else manages without a fuss.
Ultimately its down to who is the expert here. I am not. You apparently are. Perhaps the NHS should listen to you.
I don’t claim to be an expert, and never have. My view is that we should retain the status quo. I’ve been clear about that. I would mandate neither vaccinations nor masks, although I would advocate a stronger public campaign on vaccinations to whittle down the refuseniks.
I find your position absolutely irrational. You would mandate masks - which are a daily imposition, affect 100% of the population and have only a moderate impact. But you would not mandate vaccinations, which are a minor inconvenience, affect just 5% of the population (the unvaxxed cohort) and have a huge impact. That is a bizarre position in my view. Deeply irrational.
I'm happy to be "irrational" in your eyes. As my position is shared by much of the developed world I'll take your comments under advisement.
The rational view would of course be mandatory vaccinations AND masks until completed. Then again as vaccinations have proven to be ineffective at wholly stopping the virus (unlike some other vaccines for other viruses) we would need to retain masks even with a full mandatory vaccination programme until we had all had sufficient rounds of boosters to stop this thing.
I do love the "moderate impact" lie from you ant-maskers. It doesn't matter how much the scientists prove the significant reduction in transmission gained from the proper wearing of masks, you and your still say "not proven".
So actually what you are saying is that in practice we will maintain masks forever. No thanks.
Forever? We will get to the point where there is sufficient protection in the vaccinations most of us have had to discard them. I'd quite like to burn mine I hate them that much.
Nah we won't. This is going to be endemic and varying just like flu. The idea we will ever be rid of this thing is for the fairies. Might as well get used to it as just another of those many persistent low level threats that we live with.
If it was a low-level threat then fine. It isn't. The NHS are genuinely bricking it over how they get us all through the winter. What does seem clear is that it dissipates significantly over the summer. So we need to have a concerted drive next summer to get booster 3 / 4 into everyone's arms. A tax break or cash incentive for getting it - something. Or we really do end up stuck with this as a real problem not just another winter bug that nobody need be that worried about.
The NHS is bricking it every winter over getting us through. That is a sign of a failed system (and I say that without any commentary on how or why it is failed, we have discussed that enough in other threads).
Now personally I wear a mask in various enclosed spaces as a mark of courtesy to people as I know there are those out there who are still genuinely worried about this stuff. But I would not for a second criticise anyone next to me who didn't wear a mask. That is their personal choice.
On Friday night I was at a Suede concert at Rock City (Fecking amazing by the way). 3,000 people in a tight packed space, all pogoing away, singing at the top of their voices and having a brilliant time with the band absolutely loving every second of it. Not once did I even think about any concern about masks, infections or anything else related to Covid. That is done. I am double jabbed, will get my booster and have recently had Covid caught from my son via school. If, a year or so down the line I catch it again as the effects of all of that have worn off and this time die from it then that is, I am afraid, just life (or death). I refuse now to live my life in fear over something that is now just as likely as me dying from normal flu or a car crash.
Masks, lockdowns and distancing were all vitally important at the time. I agreed with them all and was content to abide by them. That is now done. Life may still be a bit less safe than before November 2019 but I don't care any more. Life is, anyway, too short to worry about such things.
On Tuesday I am going with my son and wife to watch Public Service Broadcasting again at Rock City. It will be his first concert and that is more important to me than any of this stuff.
I've seen PSB live 3 times, including at the Proms a couple of years back. I'm skipping this tour (they played Aberdeen last night) as I just can't get into the latest album.
There is a clear and growing split between the new Tories and the grandees. The new ones don't appreciate being forced to vote for stupid only for stupid to then be immediately dropped. Especially when they're told vote for it or your towns fund money gets pulled.
The new tories believed the hype, not realising that the soul of the Tory Party had been cleansed and only the believers remained. Imagine their surprise when instead of delivering a sensible, levelling up, open and imaginative Brexit, their Party made it clear they are determined to bring the house down on everyone instead.
Aren't the Grandees supposed to have left?
The attack tweets on that thread are quite interesting eg:
When the veneer slips and Tories row it really is something to behold; all that pent up spite and snidery which they so (not all of them, admittedly) like to think they are above and the bad blood they believe the sole preserve of the uncivilized poor and disadvantaged; all too often and if anything, what shows is how their privelege, and fancy educations have left them even more fucked up than the masses they quietly exert so much energy in despising.
Is that true of red wall Tories, and does that attack land?
Mine (Lee Anderson ) is certainly genuinely 'working class' - lived in a normal terraced house until a few years ago, as befits a Labour Councillor. Also true of Ben Bradley next door.
Has anyone done a decent survey of backgrounds of new Tory MPs from 2019?
Our MP is a former Lawyer whose law firm was closed down by the law society within 6 months of it being bought out.
I'm not sure how you can read that but on the 2 times I've encountered him he isn't very bright.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
No. Wrong again. I didn’t even suggest you would ban pubs. You said you would impose a mask mandate, which of course would include pubs.
My question to you is would you also mandate vaccinations?
You know my position on this. I'm against vaccine passports so why would I be in favour of pinning people down to vaccinate them?
So whats your point? Here and everywhere else you need to wear a mask indoors in public buildings. You take them off when sat eating or drinking. They remain open and thriving and with less infections which means more people available to work and go out spending money. A "significant imposition" that pretty much everywhere else manages without a fuss.
Ultimately its down to who is the expert here. I am not. You apparently are. Perhaps the NHS should listen to you.
I don’t claim to be an expert, and never have. My view is that we should retain the status quo. I’ve been clear about that. I would mandate neither vaccinations nor masks, although I would advocate a stronger public campaign on vaccinations to whittle down the refuseniks.
I find your position absolutely irrational. You would mandate masks - which are a daily imposition, affect 100% of the population and have only a moderate impact. But you would not mandate vaccinations, which are a minor inconvenience, affect just 5% of the population (the unvaxxed cohort) and have a huge impact. That is a bizarre position in my view. Deeply irrational.
I'm happy to be "irrational" in your eyes. As my position is shared by much of the developed world I'll take your comments under advisement.
The rational view would of course be mandatory vaccinations AND masks until completed. Then again as vaccinations have proven to be ineffective at wholly stopping the virus (unlike some other vaccines for other viruses) we would need to retain masks even with a full mandatory vaccination programme until we had all had sufficient rounds of boosters to stop this thing.
I do love the "moderate impact" lie from you ant-maskers. It doesn't matter how much the scientists prove the significant reduction in transmission gained from the proper wearing of masks, you and your still say "not proven".
So actually what you are saying is that in practice we will maintain masks forever. No thanks.
Forever? We will get to the point where there is sufficient protection in the vaccinations most of us have had to discard them. I'd quite like to burn mine I hate them that much.
Nah we won't. This is going to be endemic and varying just like flu. The idea we will ever be rid of this thing is for the fairies. Might as well get used to it as just another of those many persistent low level threats that we live with.
If it was a low-level threat then fine. It isn't. The NHS are genuinely bricking it over how they get us all through the winter. What does seem clear is that it dissipates significantly over the summer. So we need to have a concerted drive next summer to get booster 3 / 4 into everyone's arms. A tax break or cash incentive for getting it - something. Or we really do end up stuck with this as a real problem not just another winter bug that nobody need be that worried about.
The NHS is bricking it every winter over getting us through. That is a sign of a failed system (and I say that without any commentary on how or why it is failed, we have discussed that enough in other threads).
Now personally I wear a mask in various enclosed spaces as a mark of courtesy to people as I know there are those out there who are still genuinely worried about this stuff. But I would not for a second criticise anyone next to me who didn't wear a mask. That is their personal choice.
On Friday night I was at a Suede concert at Rock City (Fecking amazing by the way). 3,000 people in a tight packed space, all pogoing away, singing at the top of their voices and having a brilliant time with the band absolutely loving every second of it. Not once did I even think about any concern about masks, infections or anything else related to Covid. That is done. I am double jabbed, will get my booster and have recently had Covid caught from my son via school. If, a year or so down the line I catch it again as the effects of all of that have worn off and this time die from it then that is, I am afraid, just life (or death). I refuse now to live my life in fear over something that is now just as likely as me dying from normal flu or a car crash.
Masks, lockdowns and distancing were all vitally important at the time. I agreed with them all and was content to abide by them. That is now done. Life may still be a bit less safe than before November 2019 but I don't care any more. Life is, anyway, too short to worry about such things.
On Tuesday I am going with my son and wife to watch Public Service Broadcasting again at Rock City. It will be his first concert and that is more important to me than any of this stuff.
Great post.
People talk about masks as though it is a costless, easy measure with no repercussions more widely in society.
Whereas especially for the young it can and often does contribute to low-level but persistent anxiety which might be long term damaging to mental health.
Well of course Covid could be long term damaging to mental health but the risks are now similar to any other including as you say the flu and wrapping your car round a lamppost having skidded on black ice.
It is up to the older generation to show that these risks can be managed and faced without turning our society into a paranoid and regressive one.
I hope you all enjoy the concert.
Edit: I am assuming Public Service Broadcasting is a band and not a live chess-a-thon!?
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
No. Wrong again. I didn’t even suggest you would ban pubs. You said you would impose a mask mandate, which of course would include pubs.
My question to you is would you also mandate vaccinations?
You know my position on this. I'm against vaccine passports so why would I be in favour of pinning people down to vaccinate them?
So whats your point? Here and everywhere else you need to wear a mask indoors in public buildings. You take them off when sat eating or drinking. They remain open and thriving and with less infections which means more people available to work and go out spending money. A "significant imposition" that pretty much everywhere else manages without a fuss.
Ultimately its down to who is the expert here. I am not. You apparently are. Perhaps the NHS should listen to you.
I don’t claim to be an expert, and never have. My view is that we should retain the status quo. I’ve been clear about that. I would mandate neither vaccinations nor masks, although I would advocate a stronger public campaign on vaccinations to whittle down the refuseniks.
I find your position absolutely irrational. You would mandate masks - which are a daily imposition, affect 100% of the population and have only a moderate impact. But you would not mandate vaccinations, which are a minor inconvenience, affect just 5% of the population (the unvaxxed cohort) and have a huge impact. That is a bizarre position in my view. Deeply irrational.
I'm happy to be "irrational" in your eyes. As my position is shared by much of the developed world I'll take your comments under advisement.
The rational view would of course be mandatory vaccinations AND masks until completed. Then again as vaccinations have proven to be ineffective at wholly stopping the virus (unlike some other vaccines for other viruses) we would need to retain masks even with a full mandatory vaccination programme until we had all had sufficient rounds of boosters to stop this thing.
I do love the "moderate impact" lie from you ant-maskers. It doesn't matter how much the scientists prove the significant reduction in transmission gained from the proper wearing of masks, you and your still say "not proven".
So actually what you are saying is that in practice we will maintain masks forever. No thanks.
Forever? We will get to the point where there is sufficient protection in the vaccinations most of us have had to discard them. I'd quite like to burn mine I hate them that much.
Nah we won't. This is going to be endemic and varying just like flu. The idea we will ever be rid of this thing is for the fairies. Might as well get used to it as just another of those many persistent low level threats that we live with.
If it was a low-level threat then fine. It isn't. The NHS are genuinely bricking it over how they get us all through the winter. What does seem clear is that it dissipates significantly over the summer. So we need to have a concerted drive next summer to get booster 3 / 4 into everyone's arms. A tax break or cash incentive for getting it - something. Or we really do end up stuck with this as a real problem not just another winter bug that nobody need be that worried about.
The NHS is bricking it every winter over getting us through. That is a sign of a failed system (and I say that without any commentary on how or why it is failed, we have discussed that enough in other threads).
Now personally I wear a mask in various enclosed spaces as a mark of courtesy to people as I know there are those out there who are still genuinely worried about this stuff. But I would not for a second criticise anyone next to me who didn't wear a mask. That is their personal choice.
On Friday night I was at a Suede concert at Rock City (Fecking amazing by the way). 3,000 people in a tight packed space, all pogoing away, singing at the top of their voices and having a brilliant time with the band absolutely loving every second of it. Not once did I even think about any concern about masks, infections or anything else related to Covid. That is done. I am double jabbed, will get my booster and have recently had Covid caught from my son via school. If, a year or so down the line I catch it again as the effects of all of that have worn off and this time die from it then that is, I am afraid, just life (or death). I refuse now to live my life in fear over something that is now just as likely as me dying from normal flu or a car crash.
Masks, lockdowns and distancing were all vitally important at the time. I agreed with them all and was content to abide by them. That is now done. Life may still be a bit less safe than before November 2019 but I don't care any more. Life is, anyway, too short to worry about such things.
On Tuesday I am going with my son and wife to watch Public Service Broadcasting again at Rock City. It will be his first concert and that is more important to me than any of this stuff.
I've seen PSB live 3 times, including at the Proms a couple of years back. I'm skipping this tour (they played Aberdeen last night) as I just can't get into the latest album.
It has grown on me. But I was a big fan of Kraut Rock and electronica in the 70s so I suppose I was already half way there.
"COP26: The Royal Family's climate interventions have left no one in any doubt that they want meaningful actions from the summit
The royals have been everywhere and with their unique star appeal have helped to get pictures from this summit to a wider global audience as they've rubbed shoulders with everyone from world leaders to wealthy businessmen and high-profile campaigners.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
Jesus Christ, Jonathan Van-Tam, the "qualified" man you revere on this issue, famously said "masks are useless, my friend in Hong Kong told me" (this despite everyone in Hong Kong wearing a mask. Odd that)
He's a fricking idiot. You are pathetically grovelling to establishment half-wits. Grow a spine
You misunderstand RP, he wants the government to u-turn on plan b or c or masks regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. If England (and the rest of the UK) has hit herd immunity and we continue to see the current big drops in cases it will prove the UK government position was right (run hot in the summer and autumn, no restrictions) and that Europe was wrong (prevent spread, retain NPIs). In his small world the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. This would upend that as European countries head into lockdown 4 and the UK exits the pandemic entirely.
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
Max you are accusing RP of hating the UK and loving Europe just like you were with me. I think we can argue about stuff without resorting to people's lack of patriotism.
Re the 3rd jab it did start as a bit of a shambles but then got turned around pretty impressively. I saw the change in action as I was on the verge of my booster when it was all wrong and with in a couple of weeks they turned it around to become a very effective experience. The 1st two were very successful throughout I thought.
EU lovers do stick together!
The shambles was because the NHS management decided it would take complete control of the third jab rollout rather than leave it to the same people that did the initial roll out. About two weeks ago the Saj handed it all back to the private company and as if by magic people can book appointments easily and get provisioned a month in advance of their expected eligibility. If he hadn't done that we'd be relying on letters and phone calls to get appointments. Well I wouldn't because I'm not allowed one. 😭
I agree with your post, but just because we 'love' the EU doesn't mean we hate the UK. We don't.
I think it does, the EU is a hostile entity to the UK, it is no longer any kind of ally to us.
I don't think the government's spin campaign is working for once, despite a fairly compliant media. As well as Eustice, I've heard several MPs and Ministers on the airwaves repeatedly asserting two mistruths (and not being challenged on them enough by a fairly compliant BBC, which is clearly now fearful of upsetting Dorries):
a) Paterson may not have had a fair hearing and we need an appeal system built in to the process. b) Last week's vote on changing the system wasn't meant to be about the Paterson case; it's a pity that it was perceived as such.
Now, both a) and b) are utterly false, but that wouldn't matter normally. The problem is that not only do the public not believe it, quite a lot of backbench Tory MPs also don't believe it, largely because it's bollocks. Once the inquisitors (the press, the NAO, Labour, Stone) get their teeth into Randox's Covid contracts, and others, it could get worse.
I'm beginning to think, for the first time, that Starmer's boring statesmanship may increasingly seem attractive in contrast to Boris's dissembling.
The government deserves to lose a couple of by-elections. It's been having things far too easy recently. Doing so might even help it win the next general election, by avoiding complacency.
There is a clear and growing split between the new Tories and the grandees. The new ones don't appreciate being forced to vote for stupid only for stupid to then be immediately dropped. Especially when they're told vote for it or your towns fund money gets pulled.
The new tories believed the hype, not realising that the soul of the Tory Party had been cleansed and only the believers remained. Imagine their surprise when instead of delivering a sensible, levelling up, open and imaginative Brexit, their Party made it clear they are determined to bring the house down on everyone instead.
Aren't the Grandees supposed to have left?
The attack tweets on that thread are quite interesting eg:
When the veneer slips and Tories row it really is something to behold; all that pent up spite and snidery which they so (not all of them, admittedly) like to think they are above and the bad blood they believe the sole preserve of the uncivilized poor and disadvantaged; all too often and if anything, what shows is how their privelege, and fancy educations have left them even more fucked up than the masses they quietly exert so much energy in despising.
Is that true of red wall Tories, and does that attack land?
Mine (Lee Anderson ) is certainly genuinely 'working class' - lived in a normal terraced house until a few years ago, as befits a Labour Councillor. Also true of Ben Bradley next door.
Has anyone done a decent survey of backgrounds of new Tory MPs from 2019?
I think Ken Clarke and Bill Cash are both Tory grandees so I'm not sure grandee gets us anywhere in the analysis.
And as for the Red Wall tories perhaps in 20 years time people will have forgotten that the Tory party of the 20th and early 21st centuries was in any way associated with inherited wealth and privilege.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
No. Wrong again. I didn’t even suggest you would ban pubs. You said you would impose a mask mandate, which of course would include pubs.
My question to you is would you also mandate vaccinations?
You know my position on this. I'm against vaccine passports so why would I be in favour of pinning people down to vaccinate them?
So whats your point? Here and everywhere else you need to wear a mask indoors in public buildings. You take them off when sat eating or drinking. They remain open and thriving and with less infections which means more people available to work and go out spending money. A "significant imposition" that pretty much everywhere else manages without a fuss.
Ultimately its down to who is the expert here. I am not. You apparently are. Perhaps the NHS should listen to you.
I don’t claim to be an expert, and never have. My view is that we should retain the status quo. I’ve been clear about that. I would mandate neither vaccinations nor masks, although I would advocate a stronger public campaign on vaccinations to whittle down the refuseniks.
I find your position absolutely irrational. You would mandate masks - which are a daily imposition, affect 100% of the population and have only a moderate impact. But you would not mandate vaccinations, which are a minor inconvenience, affect just 5% of the population (the unvaxxed cohort) and have a huge impact. That is a bizarre position in my view. Deeply irrational.
I'm happy to be "irrational" in your eyes. As my position is shared by much of the developed world I'll take your comments under advisement.
The rational view would of course be mandatory vaccinations AND masks until completed. Then again as vaccinations have proven to be ineffective at wholly stopping the virus (unlike some other vaccines for other viruses) we would need to retain masks even with a full mandatory vaccination programme until we had all had sufficient rounds of boosters to stop this thing.
I do love the "moderate impact" lie from you ant-maskers. It doesn't matter how much the scientists prove the significant reduction in transmission gained from the proper wearing of masks, you and your still say "not proven".
So actually what you are saying is that in practice we will maintain masks forever. No thanks.
Forever? We will get to the point where there is sufficient protection in the vaccinations most of us have had to discard them. I'd quite like to burn mine I hate them that much.
Nah we won't. This is going to be endemic and varying just like flu. The idea we will ever be rid of this thing is for the fairies. Might as well get used to it as just another of those many persistent low level threats that we live with.
If it was a low-level threat then fine. It isn't. The NHS are genuinely bricking it over how they get us all through the winter. What does seem clear is that it dissipates significantly over the summer. So we need to have a concerted drive next summer to get booster 3 / 4 into everyone's arms. A tax break or cash incentive for getting it - something. Or we really do end up stuck with this as a real problem not just another winter bug that nobody need be that worried about.
The NHS is bricking it every winter over getting us through. That is a sign of a failed system (and I say that without any commentary on how or why it is failed, we have discussed that enough in other threads).
Now personally I wear a mask in various enclosed spaces as a mark of courtesy to people as I know there are those out there who are still genuinely worried about this stuff. But I would not for a second criticise anyone next to me who didn't wear a mask. That is their personal choice.
On Friday night I was at a Suede concert at Rock City (Fecking amazing by the way). 3,000 people in a tight packed space, all pogoing away, singing at the top of their voices and having a brilliant time with the band absolutely loving every second of it. Not once did I even think about any concern about masks, infections or anything else related to Covid. That is done. I am double jabbed, will get my booster and have recently had Covid caught from my son via school. If, a year or so down the line I catch it again as the effects of all of that have worn off and this time die from it then that is, I am afraid, just life (or death). I refuse now to live my life in fear over something that is now just as likely as me dying from normal flu or a car crash.
Masks, lockdowns and distancing were all vitally important at the time. I agreed with them all and was content to abide by them. That is now done. Life may still be a bit less safe than before November 2019 but I don't care any more. Life is, anyway, too short to worry about such things.
On Tuesday I am going with my son and wife to watch Public Service Broadcasting again at Rock City. It will be his first concert and that is more important to me than any of this stuff.
Great post.
People talk about masks as though it is a costless, easy measure with no repercussions more widely in society.
Whereas especially for the young it can and often does contribute to low-level but persistent anxiety which might be long term damaging to mental health.
Well of course Covid could be long term damaging to mental health but the risks are now similar to any other including as you say the flu and wrapping your car round a lamppost having skidded on black ice.
It is up to the older generation to show that these risks can be managed and faced without turning our society into a paranoid and regressive one.
I hope you all enjoy the concert.
Edit: I am assuming Public Service Broadcasting is a band and not a live chess-a-thon!?
Indeed. Worth looking up some of their early stuff. Quirky but extremely well done.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
Jesus Christ, Jonathan Van-Tam, the "qualified" man you revere on this issue, famously said "masks are useless, my friend in Hong Kong told me" (this despite everyone in Hong Kong wearing a mask. Odd that)
He's a fricking idiot. You are pathetically grovelling to establishment half-wits. Grow a spine
You misunderstand RP, he wants the government to u-turn on plan b or c or masks regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. If England (and the rest of the UK) has hit herd immunity and we continue to see the current big drops in cases it will prove the UK government position was right (run hot in the summer and autumn, no restrictions) and that Europe was wrong (prevent spread, retain NPIs). In his small world the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. This would upend that as European countries head into lockdown 4 and the UK exits the pandemic entirely.
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
Max you are accusing RP of hating the UK and loving Europe just like you were with me. I think we can argue about stuff without resorting to people's lack of patriotism.
Re the 3rd jab it did start as a bit of a shambles but then got turned around pretty impressively. I saw the change in action as I was on the verge of my booster when it was all wrong and with in a couple of weeks they turned it around to become a very effective experience. The 1st two were very successful throughout I thought.
EU lovers do stick together!
The shambles was because the NHS management decided it would take complete control of the third jab rollout rather than leave it to the same people that did the initial roll out. About two weeks ago the Saj handed it all back to the private company and as if by magic people can book appointments easily and get provisioned a month in advance of their expected eligibility. If he hadn't done that we'd be relying on letters and phone calls to get appointments. Well I wouldn't because I'm not allowed one. 😭
I agree with your post, but just because we 'love' the EU doesn't mean we hate the UK. We don't.
I think it does, the EU is a hostile entity to the UK, it is no longer any kind of ally to us.
Och, just as in 39-45 you'll probably be safe enough in neutral Switzerland.
Times Radio @TimesRadio · 1h "Boris Johnson doesn't believe in throwing people under a bus."
George Eustice, environment secretary, on the Prime Minister's loyalty after the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal.
===
Genuine
Suspect Eustice will find out sooner rather than later that Johnson throws people under buses for a hobby.
Crazy. A hole, and he's still digging. There's clearly no-one whatsoever in Downing Street challenging Johnson's way of dealing with this, and they could be down ten points, not four, within a month or two, if they carry on like that.
You would mandate mask wearing in England now. Okay. You would introduce a law that makes it illegal to visit pubs, bars, theatres, clubs and shops without a mask. That’s a very significant imposition.
Would you then also mandate vaccination in England from today?
?
Where did I say ban visiting pubs etc? They aren't banned up here or in Germany or in the rest of the world that hasn't been as daft as England in dropping the requirement to wear masks. England - like the rest of the developed world - should have maintained a mask mandate.
You didn't. you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Politically any new restrictions will be difficult because so many people down there think its all over. Hence the need for Plan B, Plan C, "Jabbed or Christmas gets it" etc etc
You keep asking what I think. I don't think. But I listen to what Whitty, Vallance, Van-Tam, Taylor etc think. I know nothing on this subject, I am not a doctor or a virologist or someone qualified to disagree with them. Unlike you and many on here apparently.
Jesus Christ, Jonathan Van-Tam, the "qualified" man you revere on this issue, famously said "masks are useless, my friend in Hong Kong told me" (this despite everyone in Hong Kong wearing a mask. Odd that)
He's a fricking idiot. You are pathetically grovelling to establishment half-wits. Grow a spine
You misunderstand RP, he wants the government to u-turn on plan b or c or masks regardless of what's actually happening on the ground. If England (and the rest of the UK) has hit herd immunity and we continue to see the current big drops in cases it will prove the UK government position was right (run hot in the summer and autumn, no restrictions) and that Europe was wrong (prevent spread, retain NPIs). In his small world the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. This would upend that as European countries head into lockdown 4 and the UK exits the pandemic entirely.
Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses. The facts don't matter to him, just that the UK is always wrong and Europe always right. Weirdly he voted leave. 🤷♂️
Max you are accusing RP of hating the UK and loving Europe just like you were with me. I think we can argue about stuff without resorting to people's lack of patriotism.
Re the 3rd jab it did start as a bit of a shambles but then got turned around pretty impressively. I saw the change in action as I was on the verge of my booster when it was all wrong and with in a couple of weeks they turned it around to become a very effective experience. The 1st two were very successful throughout I thought.
EU lovers do stick together!
The shambles was because the NHS management decided it would take complete control of the third jab rollout rather than leave it to the same people that did the initial roll out. About two weeks ago the Saj handed it all back to the private company and as if by magic people can book appointments easily and get provisioned a month in advance of their expected eligibility. If he hadn't done that we'd be relying on letters and phone calls to get appointments. Well I wouldn't because I'm not allowed one. 😭
I agree with your post, but just because we 'love' the EU doesn't mean we hate the UK. We don't.
I think it does, the EU is a hostile entity to the UK, it is no longer any kind of ally to us.
Well it doesn't because I don't hate the UK and I do like the EU. So by definition it isn't true. You really do need to stop thinking Remainers are all anti the UK. We are not. We just disagreed on leaving. Nothing more than that.
Comments
That would actually fit with what we saw in this country. From March 8th to the end of April when mask wearing was enforced in schools, we had low rates of transmission. Once the mask mandate ended, cases rapidly soared.
This despite the fact I would guess a good 20% of children weren't wearing them properly.
However - a big however - the question is not just whether they help, it's whether the costs outweigh the benefits. In a school situation, I would argue strongly that except as a very short-term measure in cases of truly, truly dire emergency they don't. As a barrier to communication, the discomfort, the increased restlessness due to said discomfort and the increased distraction of having a new thing to fiddle about with clearly did have a significant negative impact on their education and wellbeing. To the extent I would actually question whether it is worth opening schools if everyone has to wear masks.
Equally, if people aren't wearing masks in schools is it going to make a lot of difference to wear them in Tesco? I would argue not.
So I'm not convinced by the logic of the mask wearing mandate.
Where an exception can and should be made is public transport, especially rail transport where you have pressurised containers using recirculated air.
The shambles was because the NHS management decided it would take complete control of the third jab rollout rather than leave it to the same people that did the initial roll out. About two weeks ago the Saj handed it all back to the private company and as if by magic people can book appointments easily and get provisioned a month in advance of their expected eligibility. If he hadn't done that we'd be relying on letters and phone calls to get appointments. Well I wouldn't because I'm not allowed one. 😭
As it happens, they did this in Oklahoma, where some cities mandated masks and others didn't.
Looked like this:
It's notable that the blue line still trended upwards after a while - it wasn't a silver bullet. But it did help to some extent (and, of course, there could still be other confounding factors, but this approach does reduce a swathe of them).
So. Mask = no virus getting into your lungs. How is that "not protecting your fellow humans"? Unless the aim is get everyone infected now as you and others post repeatedly.
Please remember that there are many driving variables behind bulk Covid case numbers, and masks are just one of them. Masks are not a silver bullet (sadly there are no silver bullets at all yet), and they are not as effective as some other measures. But they do work at reducing infection rates.
The question is, is the proven benefit worth the cost? That's where it's perfectly sensible to disagree. But there's no room left for saying they don't work. That idea is dead dead dead.
The other obvious explanations for London of course are previous high levels of infection and high levels of continued home working. But masks could still be in the mix.
For me, the need for anything like this runs:
1 - Is the loading on the hospitals excessive (noting that this is a moving feast - with post-outbreak hangover/scarring/whatever-we-want-to-call-it, the level they can sustain long term is ever lower)*
2 - Which interventions are most effective? If needed, roll them out in this order:
A - Increase working from home (I suspect this would be all that is needed)
B - Mask Mandates
C - Vaccine passports
3 - When the level subsides, carefully remove whichever ones are above.
(*I also favour increasing capacity significantly in the health service in order to minimise the risk of ever having to make this choice and to help the recovery)
Given the way cases and hospitalisations are falling, I don't see an immediate need to roll out any of those three interventions, anyway. The default should be "none," with them added only as and when necessary. I do see a need, still, to increase hospital capacity for the recovery.
When it comes to masks - the subject of the discussion - there is no "UK". Scotland and Wales and Northern Ireland do their own thing. And then "Just look at his bluster over the supposedly failing booster programme which has now done 10m doses." - what failing booster programme? My comments are that it hasn't been activated early enough or ramped up quickly enough. Where have I said that it is failing - it hasn't been given the chance to succeed yet never mind fail.
Perhaps I should go back to doffing my cap to my betters. Then you would be happy.
This causes a few issues when working out what regulations apply where...
- Eating out in a packed Wendys in Oxford
- Being in a full theatre for a couple of hours
- Being on a bus each way.
I actually suspect the bus, because one man (quite drunk) a few seats over was loudly telling a friend that he'd tested positive but felt okay. I and my wife were both in pretty close proximity to him for over half an hour without much ventilation available.
We both got pinged, and, thankfully, both of us tested negative on multiple LFTs and a PCR each three days later. Thank you, Sarah Gilbert. I'm guessing our double-AZ doses hadn't waned that much.
"it's a bit different so we should panic and junk everything" doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
My symptoms appear to be subsiding, but then I wasn't convinced it was covid to start.
Oh, by the way, if it helps, it could be slightly worse - according to their tracking Royal Mail may have lost my PCR test, which I'm not very pleased about. That's going to cause endless confusion.
I lived there for some time whilst working in Oswestry speccing and tendering a new telecomms system for the Council.
Bleak reading for Dems:
"In 2008, there were only four small Virginia counties where Republicans won 70 percent or more of the vote in that year’s presidential race. Nowhere was the party above 75 percent. This year, Mr. Youngkin was above 70 percent in 45 counties — and he surpassed 80 percent in 15 of them."
Democrats Thought They Bottomed Out in Rural, White America. It Wasn’t the Bottom.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/06/us/rural-vote-democrats-virginia.html
It took a while before it was fully concluded that SARS-CoV-2 spread widely (and most) by exhaled aerosols. Fomite transmission appears to be trivial at best.
So the reason is: it was assumed that aerosol transmission wasn't a factor, so masks to reduce aerosol transmission would be irrelevant. We found out that aerosol transmission was by far the primary (or even only) mode of transmission, and thus masking would be useful.
EDIT: That was just for the mode of transmission/masks.
There was also the parts on whether NPIs/restrictions should be attempted. The lack of appreciable presymptomatic phase and the short incubation period of influenza were explicitly cited for why they would not be of use. When the significantly longer incubation period and notable presymptomatic phase for covid (which contribute a lot to the spread) came to be well known, this assumption was junked.
As it turns out, the assumption now looks questionable, given the way that NPIs utterly flattened seasonal influenza last winter.
The Dundee v Celtic match stopped after a volley of tennis balls were thrown onto the pitch
Actually not improving at the moment, but it’s only been three days.
Just got to the Appomattox surrender in the Grant biography.
Think I’ll need a breather before going through the Lincoln assassination.
I'm reading Michael Hicks' biography of George, Duke of Clarence at the moment. Fascinating character. More like his father than either of his brothers (well, in this sense - he and his father both tried and spectacularly failed to usurp the crown with somewhat unfortunate personal consequences, while both his brothers succeeded in usurping the crown).
I do not doubt he means well but hardly inspiring
If Downing Street really told Eustace to go out and say it was "a storm in a teacup" today, they really don't have a clue what they're up to, or what the changing context is.
https://twitter.com/A_B_Evans/status/1457308159803109380?s=20
https://www.holyrood.com/comment/view,comment-the-snp-is-electorally-dominant-but-constitutionally-impotent
More power to their elbows
https://twitter.com/tnewtondunn/status/1457318816866869249?t=8vXwL15zM_uD8Cgrbsc9Pw&s=19
FFP2s are designed for people in dangerous scenarios, who will be exposed to Covid (or nasty dust, or other viruses etc). FFP2s, fitted correctly, are good at filtering aerosols. They protect the wearer, and if they have a valve they are more comfortable to wear as it is easier to breathe (so they are more likely to be used in the first place)
However the valve allows aerosols OUT so they are not good at protecting others. AIUI a surgical mask or even a cloth bandana worn over the mouth is better at CONTAINING aerosols
But you insist your FFP2s do not have a valve, and some don't, so it is irrelevant in this case
You know, I believe I could live with this...
2. Aunt's NHS ward has Covid.
3. NHS nurse in aunt's NHS ward told relative that it was fine to visit.
4. Relative turns up the next day to be told the NHS ward has Covid and no visitors have been allowed for several days.
Nick if you can't unpick any or all of that to come up with a "lesson" for the NHS thank goodness you are nowhere near the levers of health policy.
I wish them well
For some reason mask wearing back to "normal" on overground trains = 10% if that.
This morning's journey must have been an outlier.
Also, it would be disappointing if the "what are you wearing" discussion here this morning got no racier than a picture of an N95 facemask.
I'm bloody sure that a proper mask that fits that has a filter is more effective than a piece of cloth. Despite your increased histrionics that they aren't and I am being selfish. Indeed, more selfish than all the people not wearing masks - which was the whole point in the attack.
"Are you using an N95 mask?"
If no (as expected) its "virtue signalling"
If yes, its a type of mask that I don't have and its less effective than no mask or whatever.
I just wish anti-maskers would say that clearly and simply, would save a lot of time.
Amazed
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/04/us/politics/democrats-turnout-virginia.html
@TimesRadio
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1h
"Boris Johnson doesn't believe in throwing people under a bus."
George Eustice, environment secretary, on the Prime Minister's loyalty after the Owen Paterson lobbying scandal.
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Genuine
Suspect Eustice will find out sooner rather than later that Johnson throws people under buses for a hobby.
Their moral indignation is entirely synthesised and they are only dickhurt because they were on the receiving end of the incompetent malevolence instead of dispensing it.
Now personally I wear a mask in various enclosed spaces as a mark of courtesy to people as I know there are those out there who are still genuinely worried about this stuff. But I would not for a second criticise anyone next to me who didn't wear a mask. That is their personal choice.
On Friday night I was at a Suede concert at Rock City (Fecking amazing by the way). 3,000 people in a tight packed space, all pogoing away, singing at the top of their voices and having a brilliant time with the band absolutely loving every second of it. Not once did I even think about any concern about masks, infections or anything else related to Covid. That is done. I am double jabbed, will get my booster and have recently had Covid caught from my son via school. If, a year or so down the line I catch it again as the effects of all of that have worn off and this time die from it then that is, I am afraid, just life (or death). I refuse now to live my life in fear over something that is now just as likely as me dying from normal flu or a car crash.
Masks, lockdowns and distancing were all vitally important at the time. I agreed with them all and was content to abide by them. That is now done. Life may still be a bit less safe than before November 2019 but I don't care any more. Life is, anyway, too short to worry about such things.
On Tuesday I am going with my son and wife to watch Public Service Broadcasting again at Rock City. It will be his first concert and that is more important to me than any of this stuff.
The attack tweets on that thread are quite interesting eg:
When the veneer slips and Tories row it really is something to behold; all that pent up spite and snidery which they so (not all of them, admittedly) like to think they are above and the bad blood they believe the sole preserve of the uncivilized poor and disadvantaged; all too often and if anything, what shows is how their privelege, and fancy educations have left them even more fucked up than the masses they quietly exert so much energy in despising.
Is that true of red wall Tories, and does that attack land?
Mine (Lee Anderson
Has anyone done a decent survey of backgrounds of new Tory MPs from 2019?
a) Paterson may not have had a fair hearing and we need an appeal system built in to the process.
b) Last week's vote on changing the system wasn't meant to be about the Paterson case; it's a pity that it was perceived as such.
Now, both a) and b) are utterly false, but that wouldn't matter normally. The problem is that not only do the public not believe it, quite a lot of backbench Tory MPs also don't believe it, largely because it's bollocks. Once the inquisitors (the press, the NAO, Labour, Stone) get their teeth into Randox's Covid contracts, and others, it could get worse.
I'm beginning to think, for the first time, that Starmer's boring statesmanship may increasingly seem attractive in contrast to Boris's dissembling.
I'm not sure how you can read that but on the 2 times I've encountered him he isn't very bright.
People talk about masks as though it is a costless, easy measure with no repercussions more widely in society.
Whereas especially for the young it can and often does contribute to low-level but persistent anxiety which might be long term damaging to mental health.
Well of course Covid could be long term damaging to mental health but the risks are now similar to any other including as you say the flu and wrapping your car round a lamppost having skidded on black ice.
It is up to the older generation to show that these risks can be managed and faced without turning our society into a paranoid and regressive one.
I hope you all enjoy the concert.
Edit: I am assuming Public Service Broadcasting is a band and not a live chess-a-thon!?
The royals have been everywhere and with their unique star appeal have helped to get pictures from this summit to a wider global audience as they've rubbed shoulders with everyone from world leaders to wealthy businessmen and high-profile campaigners.
Rhiannon Mills - Royal correspondent"
https://news.sky.com/story/cop26-the-royal-familys-climate-interventions-have-left-no-one-in-any-doubt-that-they-want-meaningful-actions-from-the-summit-12462652
And as for the Red Wall tories perhaps in 20 years time people will have forgotten that the Tory party of the 20th and early 21st centuries was in any way associated with inherited wealth and privilege.