I did ask politely before my booster if I could have an AZ vaccine this time, having had the Pfizer for my first two. Nothing wrong with spreading your bets as all the gamblers on here kvow well. Unfortunately, it wasn't possible but I did try
A real shame you couldn't get Moderna, as Pfizer-Pfizer-Moderna is also pretty efficacious.
Once again, I think we should all take a moment to realise just how well Kate Bingham did with vaccine procurement. All of those early decisions have come up trumps again. Being able to do ~30m third doses before Xmas this year is a position that so many other countries don't have because their second doses were done in August and September.
A slightly modified rule we should all live by - vaccinate early and vaccinate often.
Yes I agree - massive achievement.
I foolishly assumed at the time that she was another appointment from the chumocracy (à la Dido) and would be rather useless at best.
If there is one thing I am going to tell you today it is to IGNORE the media and the clickbait headlines on this new variant. There is NO plausible scenario this will take us back to square one and there is a lot of misinformation currently circulating.
Yes, worth saying. But also worth saying that 'back to square 1' is at the catastrophic end of possibilities. For me, the bad realistic one is that Nu is highly transmissible AND has a high hospitalization/death effect AND evades the vaccines to a degree that means a new vaccine has to be made and rolled out. Kind of a 'back to square 2 or 3' scenario. But I really hope not.
Yes, that's the Reasonable Worst Case Scenario, and as Rule 1 of Covid unfortunately tells us, that is generally what happens (with one huge exception: vaccines, there we got the Reasonable Best Case Scenario - effective jabs within a year)
Chill Winston. To name two. The reasonable worst case fatality ratio was far higher than it’s turned out to be. There was a brief period in April 2020 when it looked like the free pass covid generally gives to kids was about to be revoked.
Ya sure?
Various authorities say that Covid has now killed 10-20 million people, worldwide (official figure is 5m but it is clearly nonsense). And a few million more will piss on their chips before we're done
If you'd asked folk at the outset of Covid how they felt about 20 million dying around the world, and maybe 200,000 in the UK, they would have filed that under "reasonable worst case scenario" if not "get tae fuck, madman"
I remember the incredulous expression of the Channel 4 News guy when he interviewed Neil Ferguson, as he asked Ferguson how many might die if we don't do lockdowns and stuff. Ferguson said, very carefully, "it could be 500,000, that's a reasonable worse case scenario"
The C4 dude basically laughed in disbelief. Yet Ferguson was right. 500,000 could easily have died without mitigations
How many millions of schoolchildren have had their education ruined by the lockdown?
Dude, I totally agree
Sometimes I still wonder if we shoulda let the whole thing rip
No need to "let it rip". You just tell the elderly and medically vulnerable to self-isolate.
Doesn't mention South Africa selling off its AZ in some mad delusion. Doesn't mention the fact South Africa has 17m jabs waiting in warehouses, but no arms to put them in, because of vaccine refusal. It's all the fault of the rich countries. Of course
This kind of rhetoric about "rich countries" from people like Gordon Brown often sounds like a form of denial about how the balance of power in the world is changing.
Which is interesting - because Delta went through households like a dose of salts....
It's almost like there's a bunch of panic, and no actual evidence that the new variant is meaningfully worse
I've noted something of an overlap between those panicking and those with a prior Covid record of muscular 'we just gotta get on with things and live with it' sentiment.
We may just luck out and this variant will be extremely infectious, but relatively mild, and the whole fucking kerfuffle finally fizzles out, as new SuperMild NuNu outcompetes its nastier but less viral peers
I for one shall say a prayer to Gaia
An Rt of 1.94 is tiny (actually lower than original COVID), Delta has an Rt of 6.5, for example. Is there any further information?
I'm trying to work out what he means by "effective reproduction number" - presumably it is not pure R, but some kind of R in the real world, where there is some immunity and mitigation?
I'm sure I could pass a GCSE in epidemiology now. But not an A Level
R of 1.94 in a fully vaccinated population would imply a high level of immunity escape, in a poorly vaccinated population it would be around the same Rt as Delta, maybe a bit higher at Rt 8-9 which is not a disaster, at least not for a country like the UK where there are 51m people with some level of vaccination and a further 8-10m with natural immunity.
Guy on Twitter reckons this data implies that Nu's R0 is close to measles: R16
You need 95% immunity to suppress measles, we won't get that until we've all got the Nunu, it will infect everyone vulnerable very fast
Still not a disaster if it is not severe, indeed possibly the end of the pandemic, as you have said
Doesn't mention South Africa selling off its AZ in some mad delusion. Doesn't mention the fact South Africa has 17m jabs waiting in warehouses, but no arms to put them in, because of vaccine refusal. It's all the fault of the rich countries. Of course
This kind of rhetoric about "rich countries" from people like Gordon Brown often sounds like a form of denial about how the balance of power in the world is changing.
Gordon Brown is just riding passing hobbyhorses in search of some relevance. Ignore.
We may just luck out and this variant will be extremely infectious, but relatively mild, and the whole fucking kerfuffle finally fizzles out, as new SuperMild NuNu outcompetes its nastier but less viral peers
I for one shall say a prayer to Gaia
An Rt of 1.94 is tiny (actually lower than original COVID), Delta has an Rt of 6.5, for example. Is there any further information?
I'm trying to work out what he means by "effective reproduction number" - presumably it is not pure R, but some kind of R in the real world, where there is some immunity and mitigation?
I'm sure I could pass a GCSE in epidemiology now. But not an A Level
R of 1.94 in a fully vaccinated population would imply a high level of immunity escape, in a poorly vaccinated population it would be around the same Rt as Delta, maybe a bit higher at Rt 8-9 which is not a disaster, at least not for a country like the UK where there are 51m people with some level of vaccination and a further 8-10m with natural immunity.
Guy on Twitter reckons this data implies that Nu's R0 is close to measles: R16
You need 95% immunity to suppress measles, we won't get that until we've all got the Nunu, it will infect everyone vulnerable very fast
Still not a disaster if it is not severe, indeed possibly the end of the pandemic, as you have said
I think there's a point here that at present the available data are small and dirty (likely misclassification of cases as Nu or others - not all samples are sequenced). So we're in German government report on AZN in old people territory, but worse (at least they knew who was old, they just had a tiny sample). Headline estimates of R for Nu might be 1.9 or 16, but the confidence intervals would range from 0 to 1000* or so.
*Yes, ridiculous, but pick a number, any number, really.
Not sure that's entirely true, this is a bit better than bloody Handelsblatt
The effective reproduction number of Nunu in Gauteng is, it is asserted, ~1.94. That's what it is doing in a region with low vax but quite high (presumed) natural immunity. It's notably infectious
The pure R0 in a wholly naive population, some are saying, is like measles, R16. Really bloody high, but still not necessarily a reason to throw swords in the Thames to propitiate an angry Woden - it might provoke relatively mild cases in the vaxxed (or even the unvaxxed)
- Some indications that cases have stopped rising - Cases heading down, steadily in the older groups. - Deaths down - Some indication of interesting segmentation in the hospitalisation ages (England only data) - 18-64 levelling off and 85+ as well, but 65-84 falling strongly. Hard to say why that is, the broad segments are annoying.....
Javid really should be issuing some sort of public health advisory. Wear a mask where you can, don't do so much daft stuff, work from home if there's an option, and if you're croaky, stay home.
Someone this morning said he looked like a rabbit in the headlights - I think that's right. He rather brushed aside Hancock's work (the actual work). I think Hancock was a far better Health minister though.
Are you mad? Hancock was completely incapable. Javid overnight forced through a red list decision. With Hancock they gave days of notice each time. He also forced through vaccines for 12-15 year olds and a very, very wide booster programme. Aiui he laid down the law to the JCVI about their remit wrt giving vaccines away and told them to get on with it.
Mad? Don't think so, but you can be the judge.
Hancock was completely on the case in my view. Apart of course from where he was otherwise engaged.
Javid just made a noise. I'd prefer Hancock in charge of health, and I'd much prefer to see Hunt at the helm.
I honestly can't think of a single scenario where Hancock was on the case. The vaccine procurement was handed to the VTF and a specialist in biotech VC because Hancock wasn't trusted to actually do it properly. He completely bungled PPE procurement and even the roll out of testing was simply turned into a numbers game, on isolation he completely failed to get treasury buy in to make isolation viable for ordinary people and on reopening he was simply unable to see beyond lockdowns. He was and is a complete disaster and whoever leaked that video did the nation a huge favour.
One aspect which Hancock emphasised heavily was creating all the infrastructure for the rollout early, before it was actually required - which meant we could be quick off the mark when the vaccines arrived very quickly.
We may just luck out and this variant will be extremely infectious, but relatively mild, and the whole fucking kerfuffle finally fizzles out, as new SuperMild NuNu outcompetes its nastier but less viral peers
I for one shall say a prayer to Gaia
An Rt of 1.94 is tiny (actually lower than original COVID), Delta has an Rt of 6.5, for example. Is there any further information?
I'm trying to work out what he means by "effective reproduction number" - presumably it is not pure R, but some kind of R in the real world, where there is some immunity and mitigation?
I'm sure I could pass a GCSE in epidemiology now. But not an A Level
R of 1.94 in a fully vaccinated population would imply a high level of immunity escape, in a poorly vaccinated population it would be around the same Rt as Delta, maybe a bit higher at Rt 8-9 which is not a disaster, at least not for a country like the UK where there are 51m people with some level of vaccination and a further 8-10m with natural immunity.
Guy on Twitter reckons this data implies that Nu's R0 is close to measles: R16
You need 95% immunity to suppress measles, we won't get that until we've all got the Nunu, it will infect everyone vulnerable very fast
Still not a disaster if it is not severe, indeed possibly the end of the pandemic, as you have said
"Guy on Twitter reckons..."
Hmmm...
Actually some of the smartest and quickest information often comes from quite random people in the Twittersphere: geeks at home crunching numbers, random scientists in a lunchbreak, someone with inside knowledge who decides to vent.
If you rely entirely on blue tick authorities you soon end up in an echo chamber and an info bubble. You NEED the random odd opinions from all quarters. Even people with 5 followers can produce startling insights.
The trick is knowing how to filter them, however. To ignore the genuinely mad stuff. Not always easy.
We may just luck out and this variant will be extremely infectious, but relatively mild, and the whole fucking kerfuffle finally fizzles out, as new SuperMild NuNu outcompetes its nastier but less viral peers
I for one shall say a prayer to Gaia
An Rt of 1.94 is tiny (actually lower than original COVID), Delta has an Rt of 6.5, for example. Is there any further information?
I'm trying to work out what he means by "effective reproduction number" - presumably it is not pure R, but some kind of R in the real world, where there is some immunity and mitigation?
I'm sure I could pass a GCSE in epidemiology now. But not an A Level
R of 1.94 in a fully vaccinated population would imply a high level of immunity escape, in a poorly vaccinated population it would be around the same Rt as Delta, maybe a bit higher at Rt 8-9 which is not a disaster, at least not for a country like the UK where there are 51m people with some level of vaccination and a further 8-10m with natural immunity.
Guy on Twitter reckons this data implies that Nu's R0 is close to measles: R16
You need 95% immunity to suppress measles, we won't get that until we've all got the Nunu, it will infect everyone vulnerable very fast
Still not a disaster if it is not severe, indeed possibly the end of the pandemic, as you have said
"Guy on Twitter reckons..."
Hmmm...
Actually some of the smartest and quickest information often comes from quite random people in the Twittersphere: geeks at home crunching numbers, random scientists in a lunchbreak, someone with inside knowledge who decides to vent.
If you rely entirely on blue tick authorities you soon end up in an echo chamber and an info bubble. You NEED the random odd opinions from all quarters. Even people with 5 followers can produce startling insights.
The trick is knowing how to filter them, however. To ignore the genuinely mad stuff. Not always easy.
And the worst, most ill-informed, and pointless. You're dead right about filtering.
Which is interesting - because Delta went through households like a dose of salts....
It's almost like there's a bunch of panic, and no actual evidence that the new variant is meaningfully worse
I've noted something of an overlap between those panicking and those with a prior Covid record of muscular 'we just gotta get on with things and live with it' sentiment.
There will be an overlap - they are panicking about the politicians' responses rather than about the virus itself. (See the Israeli PM's comments earlier.)
We may just luck out and this variant will be extremely infectious, but relatively mild, and the whole fucking kerfuffle finally fizzles out, as new SuperMild NuNu outcompetes its nastier but less viral peers
I for one shall say a prayer to Gaia
An Rt of 1.94 is tiny (actually lower than original COVID), Delta has an Rt of 6.5, for example. Is there any further information?
I'm trying to work out what he means by "effective reproduction number" - presumably it is not pure R, but some kind of R in the real world, where there is some immunity and mitigation?
I'm sure I could pass a GCSE in epidemiology now. But not an A Level
R of 1.94 in a fully vaccinated population would imply a high level of immunity escape, in a poorly vaccinated population it would be around the same Rt as Delta, maybe a bit higher at Rt 8-9 which is not a disaster, at least not for a country like the UK where there are 51m people with some level of vaccination and a further 8-10m with natural immunity.
Guy on Twitter reckons this data implies that Nu's R0 is close to measles: R16
You need 95% immunity to suppress measles, we won't get that until we've all got the Nunu, it will infect everyone vulnerable very fast
Still not a disaster if it is not severe, indeed possibly the end of the pandemic, as you have said
- Some indications that cases have stopped rising - Cases heading down, steadily in the older groups. - Deaths down - Some indication of interesting segmentation in the hospitalisation ages (England only data) - 18-64 levelling off and 85+ as well, but 65-84 falling strongly. Hard to say why that is, the broad segments are annoying.....
Disease running out of undefended victims + booster effect in older age groups, with the very ancient still being somewhat worse affected due to having the weakest immune systems and most knackered bodies?
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
Re header: Mike I presumed you'd correct your logic in the header. The difference from the polls is that there needs to be a referndum for the bet to stand. There won't be a referendum unless there's a reasonable chance. @MikeSmithson
Thus demonstrating that the increase in cases that some people are still hyperventilating about is principally in almost invulnerable school aged children, followed (some distance behind) by gradual ramping in parents of said school aged children. Most of which is probably accounted for by perfectly well, asymptomatic adults doing precautionary testing after the plague has been found through routine testing of their kiddies.
Meanwhile, infections in the ancients are low and continuing to fall.
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
Which is interesting - because Delta went through households like a dose of salts....
It's almost like there's a bunch of panic, and no actual evidence that the new variant is meaningfully worse
I've noted something of an overlap between those panicking and those with a prior Covid record of muscular 'we just gotta get on with things and live with it' sentiment.
My general self-imposed rule is to neither whoop with delight nor plunge into gloom until a week's data is consistent. What we can say on that basisis that things are tight in hospitals but have eased slightly, cases are still high but plateaued, death rate is low. We can't say anything sensible, positive or otherwise, about the South African variant yet.
We may just luck out and this variant will be extremely infectious, but relatively mild, and the whole fucking kerfuffle finally fizzles out, as new SuperMild NuNu outcompetes its nastier but less viral peers
I for one shall say a prayer to Gaia
An Rt of 1.94 is tiny (actually lower than original COVID), Delta has an Rt of 6.5, for example. Is there any further information?
I'm trying to work out what he means by "effective reproduction number" - presumably it is not pure R, but some kind of R in the real world, where there is some immunity and mitigation?
I'm sure I could pass a GCSE in epidemiology now. But not an A Level
R of 1.94 in a fully vaccinated population would imply a high level of immunity escape, in a poorly vaccinated population it would be around the same Rt as Delta, maybe a bit higher at Rt 8-9 which is not a disaster, at least not for a country like the UK where there are 51m people with some level of vaccination and a further 8-10m with natural immunity.
Guy on Twitter reckons this data implies that Nu's R0 is close to measles: R16
You need 95% immunity to suppress measles, we won't get that until we've all got the Nunu, it will infect everyone vulnerable very fast
Still not a disaster if it is not severe, indeed possibly the end of the pandemic, as you have said
"Guy on Twitter reckons..."
Hmmm...
Actually some of the smartest and quickest information often comes from quite random people in the Twittersphere: geeks at home crunching numbers, random scientists in a lunchbreak, someone with inside knowledge who decides to vent.
If you rely entirely on blue tick authorities you soon end up in an echo chamber and an info bubble. You NEED the random odd opinions from all quarters. Even people with 5 followers can produce startling insights.
The trick is knowing how to filter them, however. To ignore the genuinely mad stuff. Not always easy.
And the worst, most ill-informed, and pointless. You're dead right about filtering.
If you can find the entry level staff/PhD candidates who are actually crunching the numbers and making the sexy graphs you'll get the best stuff (if you can understand it yourself).
Whitty is one of the few public figures who sounds close to the numbers and hasn't been spoiled by decades of bias and politics.
That statement is a little unsettling. It seems that "reinfection" is an issue. Suggesting Omigod is sufficiently different it is reinfecting Saffers who have supposed natural immunity from Beta or Delta. This reinforces what Javid said in the Commons, and explains why governments have reacted with alarm
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
Cardiff Rugby club and Scarletts are both in South Africa and are looking to repatriate their players and officials back to the UK but do not have a way of doing so at present
Tales of travel woe on the six o'clock news tonight.
Somethings never change....which bit of there is a global pandemic, the situation might change extremely rapidly and be an inconvenience do people not get. Plans are at your own risk.
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
UK should ask all asylum seekers to attend their French embassies to be processed which would be interesting
And if they say no? This is the problem with simple answers to complex problems. There aren't any.
This is all going to end with about half-a-million migrants crossing the Channel in dinghies every year and none of them ever being deported. The dreams of the open borders lunatics being made flesh (except for the part where the occasional dinghy occupant drowns, at least until the inevitable court case forces the Government to buy them all tickets to come over on the Eurostar.)
We may just luck out and this variant will be extremely infectious, but relatively mild, and the whole fucking kerfuffle finally fizzles out, as new SuperMild NuNu outcompetes its nastier but less viral peers
I for one shall say a prayer to Gaia
An Rt of 1.94 is tiny (actually lower than original COVID), Delta has an Rt of 6.5, for example. Is there any further information?
I'm trying to work out what he means by "effective reproduction number" - presumably it is not pure R, but some kind of R in the real world, where there is some immunity and mitigation?
I'm sure I could pass a GCSE in epidemiology now. But not an A Level
R of 1.94 in a fully vaccinated population would imply a high level of immunity escape, in a poorly vaccinated population it would be around the same Rt as Delta, maybe a bit higher at Rt 8-9 which is not a disaster, at least not for a country like the UK where there are 51m people with some level of vaccination and a further 8-10m with natural immunity.
Guy on Twitter reckons this data implies that Nu's R0 is close to measles: R16
You need 95% immunity to suppress measles, we won't get that until we've all got the Nunu, it will infect everyone vulnerable very fast
Still not a disaster if it is not severe, indeed possibly the end of the pandemic, as you have said
"Guy on Twitter reckons..."
Hmmm...
Actually some of the smartest and quickest information often comes from quite random people in the Twittersphere: geeks at home crunching numbers, random scientists in a lunchbreak, someone with inside knowledge who decides to vent.
If you rely entirely on blue tick authorities you soon end up in an echo chamber and an info bubble. You NEED the random odd opinions from all quarters. Even people with 5 followers can produce startling insights.
The trick is knowing how to filter them, however. To ignore the genuinely mad stuff. Not always easy.
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
UK should ask all asylum seekers to attend their French embassies to be processed which would be interesting
And if they say no? This is the problem with simple answers to complex problems. There aren't any.
I understood applying for asylum to any countries embassy was part of their legitimate purpose
Yes, but requiring folk to apply to somebody else's isn't. And since the French take 4 times the number we do, it wouldn't help us to be reciprocal. Still. Shout the slogans even louder across the Channel. That should sort it.
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
UK should ask all asylum seekers to attend their French embassies to be processed which would be interesting
And if they say no? This is the problem with simple answers to complex problems. There aren't any.
I understood applying for asylum to any countries embassy was part of their legitimate purpose
Yes, but requiring folk to apply to somebody else's isn't. And since the French take 4 times the number we do, it wouldn't help us to be reciprocal. Still. Shout the slogans even louder across the Channel. That should sort it.
Re your last sentence the correct response is a plague on both your houses
Cardiff Rugby club and Scarletts are both in South Africa and are looking to repatriate their players and officials back to the UK but do not have a way of doing so at present
Either someone charters them a plane or they'll be spending the next six months on an extended break in Cape Town.
We may just luck out and this variant will be extremely infectious, but relatively mild, and the whole fucking kerfuffle finally fizzles out, as new SuperMild NuNu outcompetes its nastier but less viral peers
I for one shall say a prayer to Gaia
An Rt of 1.94 is tiny (actually lower than original COVID), Delta has an Rt of 6.5, for example. Is there any further information?
I'm trying to work out what he means by "effective reproduction number" - presumably it is not pure R, but some kind of R in the real world, where there is some immunity and mitigation?
I'm sure I could pass a GCSE in epidemiology now. But not an A Level
R of 1.94 in a fully vaccinated population would imply a high level of immunity escape, in a poorly vaccinated population it would be around the same Rt as Delta, maybe a bit higher at Rt 8-9 which is not a disaster, at least not for a country like the UK where there are 51m people with some level of vaccination and a further 8-10m with natural immunity.
Guy on Twitter reckons this data implies that Nu's R0 is close to measles: R16
You need 95% immunity to suppress measles, we won't get that until we've all got the Nunu, it will infect everyone vulnerable very fast
Still not a disaster if it is not severe, indeed possibly the end of the pandemic, as you have said
"Guy on Twitter reckons..."
Hmmm...
Actually some of the smartest and quickest information often comes from quite random people in the Twittersphere: geeks at home crunching numbers, random scientists in a lunchbreak, someone with inside knowledge who decides to vent.
If you rely entirely on blue tick authorities you soon end up in an echo chamber and an info bubble. You NEED the random odd opinions from all quarters. Even people with 5 followers can produce startling insights.
The trick is knowing how to filter them, however. To ignore the genuinely mad stuff. Not always easy.
This is exactly the challenge on PB too. If you get the knack of screening out the stuff that is bad and wrong and just run with the stuff that is good and right you end up sitting pretty. Prettier than you would have sat if you hadn't stopped by in the first place.
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
UK should ask all asylum seekers to attend their French embassies to be processed which would be interesting
And if they say no? This is the problem with simple answers to complex problems. There aren't any.
This is all going to end with about half-a-million migrants crossing the Channel in dinghies every year and none of them ever being deported. The dreams of the open borders lunatics being made flesh (except for the part where the occasional dinghy occupant drowns, at least until the inevitable court case forces the Government to buy them all tickets to come over on the Eurostar.)
That'll all go down well in Hartlepool, I'm sure.
Good job we took back control. Or maybe a slogan isn't sufficient?
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
UK should ask all asylum seekers to attend their French embassies to be processed which would be interesting
And if they say no? This is the problem with simple answers to complex problems. There aren't any.
I understood applying for asylum to any countries embassy was part of their legitimate purpose
Yes, but requiring folk to apply to somebody else's isn't. And since the French take 4 times the number we do, it wouldn't help us to be reciprocal. Still. Shout the slogans even louder across the Channel. That should sort it.
Re your last sentence the correct response is a plague on both your houses
Two possible cases (based on presence of SGTF at a federal testing platform) have been sequenced on 26/11/2021. Among these, one was identified as a Delta variant presenting the Del69/70, and the second was confirmed to be B.1.1.529.
The patient infected with B.1.1.529 is a young adult woman who developed symptoms 11 days after travelling to Egypt via Turkey. The patient had a high viral load at the time of diagnosis (Cq of 14,2) The patient did not report any link with South Africa or other Southern African countries. This patient had not previously been vaccinated and had not yet been infected. She developed flu-like symptoms, but does not present at this stage signs of severe disease.
I thought it was a requirement of travel in and out of Europe to be vaccinated or proof of recovery from COVID?
---
#BelgianNucase 11 days sounds too long to be sure that this variant 1.1.529 has definitely come from Egypt and not picked up more recently in Europe instead. Although we dont know its real danger yet, .The horse may already have bolted.....
North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner
Conservative 60.8% (-0.2)
Labour 39.2 (+0.2)
Total votes 68,655
Conservative hold
Why don't we over-analyse this poll like all the Labour ones last night which showed Starmer must now resign?!?!?
This week's locals were better than expected for the conservatives, good for the lib dems, especially in remain areas, but poor for labour at a time when Starmer should be well ahead
Cardiff Rugby club and Scarletts are both in South Africa and are looking to repatriate their players and officials back to the UK but do not have a way of doing so at present
Either someone charters them a plane or they'll be spending the next six months on an extended break in Cape Town.
14 day compulsory quarantine at their expense at present
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
UK should ask all asylum seekers to attend their French embassies to be processed which would be interesting
And if they say no? This is the problem with simple answers to complex problems. There aren't any.
This is all going to end with about half-a-million migrants crossing the Channel in dinghies every year and none of them ever being deported. The dreams of the open borders lunatics being made flesh (except for the part where the occasional dinghy occupant drowns, at least until the inevitable court case forces the Government to buy them all tickets to come over on the Eurostar.)
That'll all go down well in Hartlepool, I'm sure.
Good job we took back control. Or maybe a slogan isn't sufficient?
Can anyone on this site use the quote button correctly
For some reason it does not seem to be working on your last Quote
It is there
It gets horribly confused with two different types of blockquote. This is why it's better not to use blockquote within the post and use italics instead.
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
UK should ask all asylum seekers to attend their French embassies to be processed which would be interesting
And if they say no? This is the problem with simple answers to complex problems. There aren't any.
This is all going to end with about half-a-million migrants crossing the Channel in dinghies every year and none of them ever being deported. The dreams of the open borders lunatics being made flesh (except for the part where the occasional dinghy occupant drowns, at least until the inevitable court case forces the Government to buy them all tickets to come over on the Eurostar.)
That'll all go down well in Hartlepool, I'm sure.
Good job we took back control. Or maybe a slogan isn't sufficient?
All of europe is going to get tough on migrants....if the climate change people are right there are over the next 3 or so decades 2 billion or so deplaced due to climate change....most of which will be heading towards europe from africa and the middle east. There was 28 countries in europe before we left....2 billion/28 is going to be about 71 million per country.....cant see any european country willing to take in anywhere like that number so the borders will be militarised and the migrants repulsed.
Meanwhile some candidates for French President such as Michel Barnier now saying Le Touquet agreement (whereby France polices UK external border in Calais) should be scrapped, and refugees allowed to go to the UK to apply there…
UK should ask all asylum seekers to attend their French embassies to be processed which would be interesting
And if they say no? This is the problem with simple answers to complex problems. There aren't any.
I understood applying for asylum to any countries embassy was part of their legitimate purpose
Yes, but requiring folk to apply to somebody else's isn't. And since the French take 4 times the number we do, it wouldn't help us to be reciprocal. Still. Shout the slogans even louder across the Channel. That should sort it.
Re your last sentence the correct response is a plague on both your houses
What should we do Big G?
To be honest I really do not know
However, it does look like the EU itself is becoming involved due to concerns at the Belarus- Poland border and apparently a large number of migrants seeking to move through that border to the channel coast to cross to the UK
As far as Boris and Macron are concerned they are as bad as each other
Chris Whitty: I worry people won't accept more Covid curbs
Prof Whitty told a panel discussion hosted by the Local Government Association: "My greatest worry at the moment is that people... if we need to do something more muscular at some point, whether it's for the current new variant or at some later stage, can we still take people with us?"
But he added that, despite previous restrictions being "very destructive" to society and the economy, the public had shown an "extraordinary" ability to "just accept that there are things we collectively have to do to protect one another and do collectively".
Prof Whitty added, however, that it had become harder to ensure compliance over time, saying: "It's easier to be confident of people's response right at the beginning than it is after people put up with two years of their lives being interfered with."
"She just held my hand and said: 'You won't let your dad go private, will you?"
Labour leader Keir Starmer tells @bbcnickrobinson about his late mother, a "passionate defender of the NHS"
Does Keir Starmer imagine he is the only person who has lost his mum? He is always banging on about her as if he has undergone some tragedy unimaginable to the average voter. Has he not seen the statistics for one-parent families or just old age?
Which is interesting - because Delta went through households like a dose of salts....
It's almost like there's a bunch of panic, and no actual evidence that the new variant is meaningfully worse
I've noted something of an overlap between those panicking and those with a prior Covid record of muscular 'we just gotta get on with things and live with it' sentiment.
My general self-imposed rule is to neither whoop with delight nor plunge into gloom until a week's data is consistent. What we can say on that basisis that things are tight in hospitals but have eased slightly, cases are still high but plateaued, death rate is low. We can't say anything sensible, positive or otherwise, about the South African variant yet.
That's right. For Delta we are as we were and on Omi we await data on how bad it is and whether it beats our vaccines. Hopefully it won't be a worst case outcome. I guess one good thing about getting really really worried before knowing the facts is that if the facts come in relatively benign you get a nice blast of relief and the current not brilliant situation looks a bit rosier.
Comments
I foolishly assumed at the time that she was another appointment from the chumocracy (à la Dido) and would be rather useless at best.
I was wrong - very wrong (thankfully).
Snobs would hate it, and yet, and yet ...
Hmmm...
The effective reproduction number of Nunu in Gauteng is, it is asserted, ~1.94. That's what it is doing in a region with low vax but quite high (presumed) natural immunity. It's notably infectious
The pure R0 in a wholly naive population, some are saying, is like measles, R16. Really bloody high, but still not necessarily a reason to throw swords in the Thames to propitiate an angry Woden - it might provoke relatively mild cases in the vaxxed (or even the unvaxxed)
OK, coffee. Later
- Some indications that cases have stopped rising
- Cases heading down, steadily in the older groups.
- Deaths down
- Some indication of interesting segmentation in the hospitalisation ages (England only data) - 18-64 levelling off and 85+ as well, but 65-84 falling strongly. Hard to say why that is, the broad segments are annoying.....
There are other aspects.
If you rely entirely on blue tick authorities you soon end up in an echo chamber and an info bubble. You NEED the random odd opinions from all quarters. Even people with 5 followers can produce startling insights.
The trick is knowing how to filter them, however. To ignore the genuinely mad stuff. Not always easy.
Make things available for widely, and encourage takeup.
"Yup, there's your problem, people on Twitter"
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1464289658951585799?s=20
https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1464290434146918403?s=20
Meanwhile, infections in the ancients are low and continuing to fall.
It will be interesting to see how ND plays it.
Statement
Classification of Omicron (B.1.1.529): SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Concern
https://worldhealthorganization.cmail20.com/t/ViewEmail/d/CDFCE27C010D9B912540EF23F30FEDED/C79D3EA5F902C70A2A1BF84ACBDD178B
But we can call it Omigod, or Omacron?
This is the problem with simple answers to complex problems.
There aren't any.
To the extent she has any impact on cultural provision, it is likely to be detrimental.
Whitty is one of the few public figures who sounds close to the numbers and hasn't been spoiled by decades of bias and politics.
Hmm. Not particularly good
Cardiff Rugby club and Scarletts are both in South Africa and are looking to repatriate their players and officials back to the UK but do not have a way of doing so at present
Sounds like a transformer.
Nu was better.
LOOK ON MY WORKS, YE MIGHTY, AND DESPAIR
Conservative 60.8% (-0.2)
Labour 39.2 (+0.2)
Total votes 68,655
Conservative hold
That'll all go down well in Hartlepool, I'm sure.
And since the French take 4 times the number we do, it wouldn't help us to be reciprocal.
Still. Shout the slogans even louder across the Channel. That should sort it.
Can live with that, TBF.
Edit - @FrancisUrquhart beat me to it!
Or maybe a slogan isn't sufficient?
The patient infected with B.1.1.529 is a young adult woman who developed symptoms 11 days after travelling to Egypt via Turkey. The patient had a high viral load at the time of diagnosis (Cq of 14,2) The patient did not report any link with South Africa or other Southern African countries. This patient had not previously been vaccinated and had not yet been infected. She developed flu-like symptoms, but does not present at this stage signs of severe disease.
https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1464286406356967424?s=20
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I thought it was a requirement of travel in and out of Europe to be vaccinated or proof of recovery from COVID?
---
#BelgianNucase 11 days sounds too long to be sure that this variant 1.1.529 has definitely come from Egypt and not picked up more recently in Europe instead. Although we dont know its real danger yet, .The horse may already have bolted.....
https://twitter.com/timspector/status/1464292248816955408?s=20
This week's locals were better than expected for the conservatives, good for the lib dems, especially in remain areas, but poor for labour at a time when Starmer should be well ahead
Have the Labour MPs who defected to the Conservatives sent letters to the 1922 demanding a leadership election?
It is there
It's a vanilla bug, not the fault of site users.
Omicron.
Pause.
I'll get my coat.
And I have to, because I'm singing in a concert tonight.
Have a good evening,
https://christmasfood.marksandspencer.com/finished
However, it does look like the EU itself is becoming involved due to concerns at the Belarus- Poland border and apparently a large number of migrants seeking to move through that border to the channel coast to cross to the UK
As far as Boris and Macron are concerned they are as bad as each other
Prof Whitty told a panel discussion hosted by the Local Government Association: "My greatest worry at the moment is that people... if we need to do something more muscular at some point, whether it's for the current new variant or at some later stage, can we still take people with us?"
But he added that, despite previous restrictions being "very destructive" to society and the economy, the public had shown an "extraordinary" ability to "just accept that there are things we collectively have to do to protect one another and do collectively".
Prof Whitty added, however, that it had become harder to ensure compliance over time, saying: "It's easier to be confident of people's response right at the beginning than it is after people put up with two years of their lives being interfered with."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59434196
He's right to doubt the likelihood of public compliance. I think that most of us have had enough.