It will be a real struggle to get people to wear masks again because Covid is a clear and present danger having told them that they don't need them because Covid is over.
We were in the toon today. In fenwicks, John Lewis and other major stores makes wearing was no more than 20%. Was surprised.
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
I think that they were a perfectly reasonable thing to try. They might have helped as a hypothetical. Last winter, even if they did not help much with Covid, I think that they probably helped us have a very mild flu season when our hospitals were chokka. That very probably saved lives. I would be open to an argument we should try the same again this flu season where our hospitals are busy enough. But I agree with your observation that there is "no correlation with mask wearing".
The weight of the evidence, to me, seems to supports the contention that mask wearing by amateurs really has a negligible or no effect on the spread of Covid. Its a pity, but there we are.
On mask wearing the number of people wearing them incorrectly including below the nose is astonishing
Not up here it isn't. Compliance both in terms of mask wearing and doing it correctly is high enough that some angry looking prannock not doing really makes you notice.
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
The only thing I can think of as a sort of general anecdote in their favour is that while they were compulsory in schools - which overwhelming evidence shows are the main vector of transmission - cases actually remained pretty low.
When they were removed, case numbers climbed rapidly.
Now that's not bad evidence that - contrary to what I would dearly wish - they can be quite effective.
However, there is another question. Is the considerable damage and inconvenience they can cause - particularly to those who, like me, are somewhat deaf and rely on lip reading to communicate effectively - worth the impact on transmission?
I would argue, not up to this moment.
What hasn't been laid out yet is clear evidence that this new form of the virus changes that.
All of Europe has been facemasking and they are now all in lockdown - they do sod all
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
From what I've read on this masks, and certainly ordinary cloth and surgical masks, have a very marginal effect on the order of a change of the reproduction rate by as little as 0.1. So any effect they have is swamped by things like reopening schools, returning to office work, changes in behaviour due to weather, and of course the higher transmisibility of new variants. It can still be worth asking people to wear masks, as the cost is low, and it might make some people a bit more careful generally.
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
Pretty sure I heard the equivalent of "All contacts of suspected Omicron cases must self-isolate for 10 days, regardless of their vaccination status."
Dont remember "They will be contacted by NHS Test and Trace."
Anyone know when the rules on mask wearing in shops/transport is coming into force? And is being legally enforced again or just strongly advised?
We don't find out until tomorrow. I assume therefore it is from Monday.
I am expecting Sajid to brief Parliament on Monday. They will need to vote on it so unlikely to be law before mid week. We will be asked to follow the requirements 'informally' as soon as the detail is published.
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
I think that they were a perfectly reasonable thing to try. They might have helped as a hypothetical. Last winter, even if they did not help much with Covid, I think that they probably helped us have a very mild flu season when our hospitals were chokka. That very probably saved lives. I would be open to an argument we should try the same again this flu season where our hospitals are busy enough. But I agree with your observation that there is "no correlation with mask wearing".
The weight of the evidence, to me, seems to supports the contention that mask wearing by amateurs really has a negligible or no effect on the spread of Covid. Its a pity, but there we are.
On mask wearing the number of people wearing them incorrectly including below the nose is astonishing
Not up here it isn't. Compliance both in terms of mask wearing and doing it correctly is high enough that some angry looking prannock not doing really makes you notice.
Nor in West Wales. Tesco is virtually 100%. It's the corner shops where some people take the piss, by not wearing masks whilst buying cigarettes.
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
The only thing I can think of as a sort of general anecdote in their favour is that while they were compulsory in schools - which overwhelming evidence shows are the main vector of transmission - cases actually remained pretty low.
When they were removed, case numbers climbed rapidly.
Now that's not bad evidence that - contrary to what I would dearly wish - they can be quite effective.
However, there is another question. Is the considerable damage and inconvenience they can cause - particularly to those who, like me, are somewhat deaf and rely on lip reading to communicate effectively - worth the impact on transmission?
I would argue, not up to this moment.
What hasn't been laid out yet is clear evidence that this new form of the virus changes that.
All of Europe has been facemasking and they are now all in lockdown - they do sod all
Living in such a binary world must be fascinating. Everything wonderful or completely pointless.
We've been wearing masks throughout in Scotland. Do we have any evidence that it's had a significant effect on admissions?
At this point the only meaningful thing you can do is close some combination of pubs, schools and inside gatherings, which is basically full lockdown and won't happen unless this really is a problem.
Boost, boost, boost!
Doubt there si hard evidence but our rates are well below England , last I saw we were running at 35% lower rates than England, so something different.
Today's data. 7 day rate per 100,000. Wales 500, Scotland 364, NI 628, England 434.
It will be a real struggle to get people to wear masks again because Covid is a clear and present danger having told them that they don't need them because Covid is over.
Who told them Covid is over? Having no restrictions is not the same as saying it’s over. I agree that it will be a struggle though. I’ve never stopped wearing masks in shops, so no bother for me, but a lot have.
Its been the clear and consistent implication for yonks. No need to worry about it any more, and even if there's 40k cases a day for months and months so what.
Mate, you've got no fucking idea how the virus works. Look across the continent, hospitalisations and deaths are exploding. They're getting their exit wave in the winter and all at once. The idea that a nation can simply avoid it is something put forwards by simpletons.
That response went right over your head then.
I quite enjoyed "You have got absolutely zero loyalty, not to your party and not to your nation"
As you are a self-stated federalist, that certainly is wrong, whether Max meant the UK or Scotland!
[edited - sorry, suddenly realised soi-disant had a possible negative meaning, not intended]
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
I think that they were a perfectly reasonable thing to try. They might have helped as a hypothetical. Last winter, even if they did not help much with Covid, I think that they probably helped us have a very mild flu season when our hospitals were chokka. That very probably saved lives. I would be open to an argument we should try the same again this flu season where our hospitals are busy enough. But I agree with your observation that there is "no correlation with mask wearing".
The weight of the evidence, to me, seems to supports the contention that mask wearing by amateurs really has a negligible or no effect on the spread of Covid. Its a pity, but there we are.
On mask wearing the number of people wearing them incorrectly including below the nose is astonishing
Not up here it isn't. Compliance both in terms of mask wearing and doing it correctly is high enough that some angry looking prannock not doing really makes you notice.
Pharmacist in Edinburgh who gave me my flu vaccination yesterday was a nose-outer. Certainly lots of them in Edinburgh and on the ferry to Cairnryan.
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
From what I've read on this masks, and certainly ordinary cloth and surgical masks, have a very marginal effect on the order of a change of the reproduction rate by as little as 0.1. So any effect they have is swamped by things like reopening schools, returning to office work, changes in behaviour due to weather, and of course the higher transmisibility of new variants. It can still be worth asking people to wear masks, as the cost is low, and it might make some people a bit more careful generally.
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
From what I've read on this masks, and certainly ordinary cloth and surgical masks, have a very marginal effect on the order of a change of the reproduction rate by as little as 0.1. So any effect they have is swamped by things like reopening schools, returning to office work, changes in behaviour due to weather, and of course the higher transmisibility of new variants. It can still be worth asking people to wear masks, as the cost is low, and it might make some people a bit more careful generally.
The cost is not low for a start and there is no evidence masks work in the real world beyond a lad experiment - Look at Scotland look at Wales look at Europe. They are a politicians go to for showing they can control a virus which patently nobody can.King Canute would love this
By the way, Taz masks are not being worn less and less where I live. And I noticed much greater compliance on my train the other day. One couple weren't wearing them but they got a piece of my mind.
Sorry. Wear a mask. It's tough shit. On the grand scale is not a big deal.
There are much more important issues surrounding this e.g. working in offices, policies on jabbing children, travel, lockdowns etc. etc. etc. A bit of cloth over your face is no more an inconvenience than wearing it over your vagina or willy.
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
The only thing I can think of as a sort of general anecdote in their favour is that while they were compulsory in schools - which overwhelming evidence shows are the main vector of transmission - cases actually remained pretty low.
When they were removed, case numbers climbed rapidly.
Now that's not bad evidence that - contrary to what I would dearly wish - they can be quite effective.
However, there is another question. Is the considerable damage and inconvenience they can cause - particularly to those who, like me, are somewhat deaf and rely on lip reading to communicate effectively - worth the impact on transmission?
I would argue, not up to this moment.
What hasn't been laid out yet is clear evidence that this new form of the virus changes that.
All of Europe has been facemasking and they are now all in lockdown - they do sod all
Almost all of Europe has benefited from months of very low Covid rates
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
I think that they were a perfectly reasonable thing to try. They might have helped as a hypothetical. Last winter, even if they did not help much with Covid, I think that they probably helped us have a very mild flu season when our hospitals were chokka. That very probably saved lives. I would be open to an argument we should try the same again this flu season where our hospitals are busy enough. But I agree with your observation that there is "no correlation with mask wearing".
The weight of the evidence, to me, seems to supports the contention that mask wearing by amateurs really has a negligible or no effect on the spread of Covid. Its a pity, but there we are.
On mask wearing the number of people wearing them incorrectly including below the nose is astonishing
Not up here it isn't. Compliance both in terms of mask wearing and doing it correctly is high enough that some angry looking prannock not doing really makes you notice.
Pharmacist in Edinburgh who gave me my flu vaccination yesterday was a nose-outer. Certainly lots of them in Edinburgh and on the ferry to Cairnryan.
I really find it hard to believe any part of the UK is better on the correct use of masks
I mean I'm fully jabbed and getting my booster on 6th December. If possible I would absolutely not want to wear a mask in the shops again but if it's made illegal not to wear a mask then I will comply as I'm a law abiding citizen (most of the time )
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
I think that they were a perfectly reasonable thing to try. They might have helped as a hypothetical. Last winter, even if they did not help much with Covid, I think that they probably helped us have a very mild flu season when our hospitals were chokka. That very probably saved lives. I would be open to an argument we should try the same again this flu season where our hospitals are busy enough. But I agree with your observation that there is "no correlation with mask wearing".
The weight of the evidence, to me, seems to supports the contention that mask wearing by amateurs really has a negligible or no effect on the spread of Covid. Its a pity, but there we are.
On mask wearing the number of people wearing them incorrectly including below the nose is astonishing
There are far too many stupid people in the UK for sure.
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
I heard Boris say that
Just how do you know most people watching didn't
An extraordinary claim
Johnson definitely said the stuff about contacts of omicron victims.
Or I am going mad. Which is possible given the day I have had.
My take on the press conference: if the situation is serious enough to reintroduce some restrictions then it's serious enough to make a decision this weekend on speeding up and extending the booster doses, instead of leaving that to the Joint Committee on Vacillation and Indecision.
We're buying time with travel restrictions so that a committee can take weeks to come to an obvious decision.
My wife is taking comfort from small mercies. She detects evidence of learning from previous repeated mistakes.
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
I heard Boris say that
Just how do you know most people watching didn't
An extraordinary claim
Johnson definitely said the stuff about contacts of omicron victims.
Or I am going mad. Which is possible given the day I have had.
On topic, the Wiki GE polling chart (pictured in the article) suggests that Labour are a point or two ahead. They aren't. The Tories were ahead in the latest two, and tied the one before. Looking at it neutrally you have to conclude that they are tied on about 37% each, with the recent trend towards Labour.
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
From what I've read on this masks, and certainly ordinary cloth and surgical masks, have a very marginal effect on the order of a change of the reproduction rate by as little as 0.1. So any effect they have is swamped by things like reopening schools, returning to office work, changes in behaviour due to weather, and of course the higher transmisibility of new variants. It can still be worth asking people to wear masks, as the cost is low, and it might make some people a bit more careful generally.
Its one of a series of measures that we tried when we had nothing else. So, for example, when I examine a witness in a criminal court I am required to wipe down the lectern at the end of my questioning so that my opposite number can then use it "safely". We have known for over a year now that Covid is an airborne virus that does not survive on hard surfaces but the rule remains in force. We had Boris washing his hands rigorously whilst singing Happy Birthday twice but we also know now that this virus is not spread by skin to skin contact. The washing of hands may well help with a range of other viruses and possible infections but not Covid.
I really wish that masks worked. They are cheap, easy to enforce (because they are highly visible) and a relatively minor inconvenience. But what we have found actually works is good ventilation and not doing some group activities such as singing, especially indoors. We need to focus on what works.
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
The only thing I can think of as a sort of general anecdote in their favour is that while they were compulsory in schools - which overwhelming evidence shows are the main vector of transmission - cases actually remained pretty low.
When they were removed, case numbers climbed rapidly.
Now that's not bad evidence that - contrary to what I would dearly wish - they can be quite effective.
However, there is another question. Is the considerable damage and inconvenience they can cause - particularly to those who, like me, are somewhat deaf and rely on lip reading to communicate effectively - worth the impact on transmission?
I would argue, not up to this moment.
What hasn't been laid out yet is clear evidence that this new form of the virus changes that.
All of Europe has been facemasking and they are now all in lockdown - they do sod all
Almost all of Europe has benefited from months of very low Covid rates
Anyone know when the rules on mask wearing in shops/transport is coming into force? And is being legally enforced again or just strongly advised?
We don't find out until tomorrow. I assume therefore it is from Monday.
I am expecting Sajid to brief Parliament on Monday. They will need to vote on it so unlikely to be law before mid week. We will be asked to follow the requirements 'informally' as soon as the detail is published.
I seem to remember @Cyclefree pointed out there are existing laws the government could have used in this scenario rather than coming up with more - not sure whether it was the Civil Contingencies Act or a different Infectious Diseases Act.
I wonder if Johnson is regretting not going to down that route and having to go cap in hand to Parliament over every change now.
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
I think that they were a perfectly reasonable thing to try. They might have helped as a hypothetical. Last winter, even if they did not help much with Covid, I think that they probably helped us have a very mild flu season when our hospitals were chokka. That very probably saved lives. I would be open to an argument we should try the same again this flu season where our hospitals are busy enough. But I agree with your observation that there is "no correlation with mask wearing".
The weight of the evidence, to me, seems to supports the contention that mask wearing by amateurs really has a negligible or no effect on the spread of Covid. Its a pity, but there we are.
On mask wearing the number of people wearing them incorrectly including below the nose is astonishing
There are far too many stupid people in the UK for sure.
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
From what I've read on this masks, and certainly ordinary cloth and surgical masks, have a very marginal effect on the order of a change of the reproduction rate by as little as 0.1. So any effect they have is swamped by things like reopening schools, returning to office work, changes in behaviour due to weather, and of course the higher transmisibility of new variants. It can still be worth asking people to wear masks, as the cost is low, and it might make some people a bit more careful generally.
Prima facie. Different patterns of change at different time indicate other factors also operating. Impossible to separate out AFAIK.Scotland was better than England some of the time - worse some of the time - with no correlation with mask wearing. Ditto Wales. Masks are known to help in principle and in tests. They are a reasonable precaution in the current circumstances.
From what I've read on this masks, and certainly ordinary cloth and surgical masks, have a very marginal effect on the order of a change of the reproduction rate by as little as 0.1. So any effect they have is swamped by things like reopening schools, returning to office work, changes in behaviour due to weather, and of course the higher transmisibility of new variants. It can still be worth asking people to wear masks, as the cost is low, and it might make some people a bit more careful generally.
The cost is not low for a start and there is no evidence masks work in the real world beyond a lad experiment - Look at Scotland look at Wales look at Europe. They are a politicians go to for showing they can control a virus which patently nobody can.King Canute would love this
That is just embarrassingly wrong. The preponderance of the evidence is, masks work
Those may all be wrong, and admittedly the Lancet being on this side of the question throws doubt on the whole thing, but what the bollocking fcuk is this about "not beyond a lad (?lab) experiment"?
NEW: Israel considering to close its border to all foreigners due to new coronavirus variant
That could be interesting depending on how you define 'foreigners' given how many Palestinians need to cross the border daily to y'know, work and eat and things...
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask
2. The same person WFH
I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health
Government is about trade offs
So Pret comes first. Fair enough.
In our company, we have not perceived any reduction in efficiency or effectiveness resulting from WFH. If anything, people* have spent more time working, during the hours they would otherwise have spent commuting.
And fighting for a space on a train (when it runs) or being stuck in nose to tail traffic twice a day is hardly conducive to good mental health.
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
I was watching the BBC and I heard it.
It was in the middle of a garbled answer (no surprise there) but he said it.
Something like “we will want all of the contacts of people who are confirmed case of omnicrom, they will be required to self isolate, test and trace is working on that now”
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
I was watching the BBC and I heard it.
It was in the middle of a garbled answer (no surprise there) but he said it.
Something like “we will want all of the contacts of people who are confirmed case of omnicrom, they will be required to self isolate, test and trace is working on that now”
We've been wearing masks throughout in Scotland. Do we have any evidence that it's had a significant effect on admissions?
At this point the only meaningful thing you can do is close some combination of pubs, schools and inside gatherings, which is basically full lockdown and won't happen unless this really is a problem.
Boost, boost, boost!
Doubt there si hard evidence but our rates are well below England , last I saw we were running at 35% lower rates than England, so something different.
Today's data. 7 day rate per 100,000. Wales 500, Scotland 364, NI 628, England 434.
Thanks for that John, so seems England improving as down to 20% higher now and big drop from last numbers I saw though I don't exactly follow closely.
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
I was watching the BBC and I heard it.
It was in the middle of a garbled answer (no surprise there) but he said it.
Something like “we will want all of the contacts of people who are confirmed case of omnicrom, they will be required to self isolate, test and trace is working on that now”
That last subclause is either a barefaced lie or a dramatic break with tradition.
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
The only thing I can think of as a sort of general anecdote in their favour is that while they were compulsory in schools - which overwhelming evidence shows are the main vector of transmission - cases actually remained pretty low.
When they were removed, case numbers climbed rapidly.
Now that's not bad evidence that - contrary to what I would dearly wish - they can be quite effective.
However, there is another question. Is the considerable damage and inconvenience they can cause - particularly to those who, like me, are somewhat deaf and rely on lip reading to communicate effectively - worth the impact on transmission?
I would argue, not up to this moment.
What hasn't been laid out yet is clear evidence that this new form of the virus changes that.
All of Europe has been facemasking and they are now all in lockdown - they do sod all
Almost all of Europe has benefited from months of very low Covid rates
I thought Europe was in a covid crisis
Eh yeh. In spades. I've just read a long piece in this weekend's NewStatesman about how shit it all is, particularly in German speaking countries and those nearby.
They are looking at a long winter lockdown over xmas and well into the new year.
On topic, the Wiki GE polling chart (pictured in the article) suggests that Labour are a point or two ahead. They aren't. The Tories were ahead in the latest two, and tied the one before. Looking at it neutrally you have to conclude that they are tied on about 37% each, with the recent trend towards Labour.
If you go to the website, and click on the graph, you will see it actually still shows the Tories slightly ahead
It will be a real struggle to get people to wear masks again because Covid is a clear and present danger having told them that they don't need them because Covid is over.
Who told them Covid is over? Having no restrictions is not the same as saying it’s over. I agree that it will be a struggle though. I’ve never stopped wearing masks in shops, so no bother for me, but a lot have.
Its been the clear and consistent implication for yonks. No need to worry about it any more, and even if there's 40k cases a day for months and months so what.
Mate, you've got no fucking idea how the virus works. Look across the continent, hospitalisations and deaths are exploding. They're getting their exit wave in the winter and all at once. The idea that a nation can simply avoid it is something put forwards by simpletons.
That response went right over your head then.
I quite enjoyed "You have got absolutely zero loyalty, not to your party and not to your nation"
As you are a self-stated federalist, that certainly is wrong, whether Max meant the UK or Scotland!
[edited - sorry, suddenly realised soi-disant had a possible negative meaning, not intended]
For Max England = UK
I am a traitor to England in that I moved somewhere else. But I don't think that's what he meant. Not thinking like him and voting like him makes me a Traitor. Obvs
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
My take on the press conference: if the situation is serious enough to reintroduce some restrictions then it's serious enough to make a decision this weekend on speeding up and extending the booster doses, instead of leaving that to the Joint Committee on Vacillation and Indecision.
We're buying time with travel restrictions so that a committee can take weeks to come to an obvious decision.
My wife is taking comfort from small mercies. She detects evidence of learning from previous repeated mistakes.
There’s a process though. I suspect that a decision that is not based on JCVI advice might be open to judicial review by an anti-vaxxer or something
We've been wearing masks throughout in Scotland. Do we have any evidence that it's had a significant effect on admissions?
At this point the only meaningful thing you can do is close some combination of pubs, schools and inside gatherings, which is basically full lockdown and won't happen unless this really is a problem.
Boost, boost, boost!
Doubt there si hard evidence but our rates are well below England , last I saw we were running at 35% lower rates than England, so something different.
Today's data. 7 day rate per 100,000. Wales 500, Scotland 364, NI 628, England 434.
Thanks for that John, so seems England improving as down to 20% higher now and big drop from last numbers I saw though I don't exactly follow closely.
I wanted to do the same for death rates, but the Dashboard only seems to do that for "over the whole pandemic" rather than over the last 7 days
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
I was watching the BBC and I heard it.
It was in the middle of a garbled answer (no surprise there) but he said it.
Something like “we will want all of the contacts of people who are confirmed case of omnicrom, they will be required to self isolate, test and trace is working on that now”
We were talking about masks. Scroll back up the quotes. Sandy said "Sky's on-screen caption claims that the PM said masks will be mandatory. I didn't hear it."
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask
2. The same person WFH
I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health
Government is about trade offs
So Pret comes first. Fair enough.
In our company, we have not perceived any reduction in efficiency or effectiveness resulting from WFH. If anything, people* have spent more time working, during the hours they would otherwise have spent commuting.
And fighting for a space on a train (when it runs) or being stuck in nose to tail traffic twice a day is hardly conducive to good mental health.
*Not me, obviously.
In our company people were really productive for the first 12-15 months but we were seeing erosion. They’ve been really glad to get back in the office.
My take on the press conference: if the situation is serious enough to reintroduce some restrictions then it's serious enough to make a decision this weekend on speeding up and extending the booster doses, instead of leaving that to the Joint Committee on Vacillation and Indecision.
We're buying time with travel restrictions so that a committee can take weeks to come to an obvious decision.
My wife is taking comfort from small mercies. She detects evidence of learning from previous repeated mistakes.
There’s a process though. I suspect that a decision that is not based on JCVI advice might be open to judicial review by an anti-vaxxer or something
Realistically even if that was the case, when they finally judge this, all the appeals etc, what would happen? It would be done and dusted. We don't have a public vaccine mandate forcing people. You could simply say those that want to get it earlier, they can do, agreed to be at own risk.
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
The only thing I can think of as a sort of general anecdote in their favour is that while they were compulsory in schools - which overwhelming evidence shows are the main vector of transmission - cases actually remained pretty low.
When they were removed, case numbers climbed rapidly.
Now that's not bad evidence that - contrary to what I would dearly wish - they can be quite effective.
However, there is another question. Is the considerable damage and inconvenience they can cause - particularly to those who, like me, are somewhat deaf and rely on lip reading to communicate effectively - worth the impact on transmission?
I would argue, not up to this moment.
What hasn't been laid out yet is clear evidence that this new form of the virus changes that.
All of Europe has been facemasking and they are now all in lockdown - they do sod all
Living in such a binary world must be fascinating. Everything wonderful or completely pointless.
well you can fart around for ever with miniscule measures because it will be forever- last thing you want in this situation is to pretend you can do anything about covid (flu has been around for 500 years , covid will be ) - If you make restrictions more than the illness it is detrimental to society . What a pathetic site it will be for years to come with people being trussed up in masks for no good reason
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
I was watching the BBC and I heard it.
It was in the middle of a garbled answer (no surprise there) but he said it.
Something like “we will want all of the contacts of people who are confirmed case of omnicrom, they will be required to self isolate, test and trace is working on that now”
That last subclause is either a barefaced lie or a dramatic break with tradition.
To be fair “working on it” just refers to effort not effectiveness
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
The only thing I can think of as a sort of general anecdote in their favour is that while they were compulsory in schools - which overwhelming evidence shows are the main vector of transmission - cases actually remained pretty low.
When they were removed, case numbers climbed rapidly.
Now that's not bad evidence that - contrary to what I would dearly wish - they can be quite effective.
However, there is another question. Is the considerable damage and inconvenience they can cause - particularly to those who, like me, are somewhat deaf and rely on lip reading to communicate effectively - worth the impact on transmission?
I would argue, not up to this moment.
What hasn't been laid out yet is clear evidence that this new form of the virus changes that.
All of Europe has been facemasking and they are now all in lockdown - they do sod all
Almost all of Europe has benefited from months of very low Covid rates
I thought Europe was in a covid crisis
Eh yeh. In spades. I've just read a long piece in this weekend's NewStatesman about how shit it all is, particularly in German speaking countries and those nearby.
They are looking at a long winter lockdown over xmas and well into the new year.
My point was that for the months and months that we have been suffering 30-40k new cases a day they haven't. That they are now isn't disputed.
As for "a long winter lockdown", there but for the grace of God go we"
I see Brighton are playing in blue and white...and Leeds are playing in...blue and white....
I just commented to my wife as I find it hard to follow and she agreed
I thought there were rules that the shirts had to be significantly different in colour. Given dirty Leeds usually play in White, there isn't any excuse.
Seems to me that today was just about messaging “we are doing something” when in reality they are quite deliberately doing nothing to slow the spread. About all there was is the return of mask theatre in limited circumstances which as we know, is not really moving the dial on R meaningfully at this point of the virus’s evolution (if it ever did). Amusing how worked up some here are about others not masking. Just wear an FPP3 and keep your weird anecdotes about cloths over genitals to yourself.
The telling answer was about there being two variants and our strategy for each being different. Essentially, we are continuing with the Let It Burn strategy for Dura Ace, Contrarian and their mates.
While doing some theatre around foreign travel so you can’t blame us in a month or two when Omicron is inevitably 99% of all new cases.
And using it as a chance to remind people to get boosted. Amazing how many people (including on here) still haven’t clocked that the strategy since July has been to deliberately infect all the last pockets of naive immune systems, while giving it a “boost” through modern science.
When is the penny going to drop for the thickos that this virus will be circulating pretty broadly for the rest of our lives? But that things will never again be as bad as March 2020 to March 2021 as it has now ceased to be a novel virus in this country.
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
I was watching the BBC and I heard it.
It was in the middle of a garbled answer (no surprise there) but he said it.
Something like “we will want all of the contacts of people who are confirmed case of omnicrom, they will be required to self isolate, test and trace is working on that now”
That last subclause is either a barefaced lie or a dramatic break with tradition.
To be fair “working on it” just refers to effort not effectiveness
My take on the press conference: if the situation is serious enough to reintroduce some restrictions then it's serious enough to make a decision this weekend on speeding up and extending the booster doses, instead of leaving that to the Joint Committee on Vacillation and Indecision.
We're buying time with travel restrictions so that a committee can take weeks to come to an obvious decision.
My wife is taking comfort from small mercies. She detects evidence of learning from previous repeated mistakes.
On which. Can I bring forward my booster at a walk-in or not? I am 55 now and booked Online, but was given no date before Dec 8. Exactly 6 months since my second. The website seems to imply not, but I know some who have had it earlier.
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
NEW: Israel considering to close its border to all foreigners due to new coronavirus variant
Priti literally breathless in wonder at such a concept.
Really? I would have thought she'd be quite pissed off at the ending of her nice little junkets.
*giggles* I had forgotten about her traitorous actions with her own foreign policy.
No I meant that Israel will say "no-one comes in" and actions it so that it happens. Priti repeatedly says "no-one gets in" across the channel and the day after the numbers are higher. So she says "no-one gets in" and the day after the numbers are higher. And again and again.
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
Not surprised. So many people live in flats not designed to live in. The assumption is that you're out at work all day and out having a social life half the rest of the time.
Seems to me that today was just about messaging “we are doing something” when in reality they are quite deliberately doing nothing to slow the spread. About all there was is the return of mask theatre in limited circumstances which as we know, is not really moving the dial on R meaningfully at this point of the virus’s evolution (if it ever did). Amusing how worked up some here are about others not masking. Just wear an FPP3 and keep your weird anecdotes about cloths over genitals to yourself.
The telling answer was about there being two variants and our strategy for each being different. Essentially, we are continuing with the Let It Burn strategy for Dura Ace, Contrarian and their mates.
While doing some theatre around foreign travel so you can’t blame us in a month or two when Omicron is inevitably 99% of all new cases.
And using it as a chance to remind people to get boosted. Amazing how many people (including on here) still haven’t clocked that the strategy since July has been to deliberately infect all the last pockets of naive immune systems, while giving it a “boost” through modern science.
When is the penny going to drop for the thickos that this virus will be circulating pretty broadly for the rest of our lives? But that things will never again be as bad as March 2020 to March 2021 as it has now ceased to be a novel virus in this country.
As the German minister said the other day: "you will be either vaccinated, recovered, or dead".
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
The only thing I can think of as a sort of general anecdote in their favour is that while they were compulsory in schools - which overwhelming evidence shows are the main vector of transmission - cases actually remained pretty low.
When they were removed, case numbers climbed rapidly.
Now that's not bad evidence that - contrary to what I would dearly wish - they can be quite effective.
However, there is another question. Is the considerable damage and inconvenience they can cause - particularly to those who, like me, are somewhat deaf and rely on lip reading to communicate effectively - worth the impact on transmission?
I would argue, not up to this moment.
What hasn't been laid out yet is clear evidence that this new form of the virus changes that.
All of Europe has been facemasking and they are now all in lockdown - they do sod all
Almost all of Europe has benefited from months of very low Covid rates
Artificially suppressed through pointless restrictions.
Given that we have no realistic prospect of ever eradicating Covid-19, we are going to have to learn at some point to put up with an endemic level of infection in the population. That wobbly case graph we've been watching go up-down-up-down since July - that's almost certainly the stage at which we have arrived in the country.
We were correct to take the brake off the disease and let it run, because it's probably going to keep running at 40, 50, 60 thousand cases a day forever - and having it spread through the population unchecked for months, especially through schoolchildren, has greatly increased levels of population immunity prior to the Winter months (with all the fears about higher transmissibility, the flu season and the elderly falling over on slippery pavements converging all at once,) which is exactly the approach that the CMO endorsed.
All that's happened in Austria, the Netherlands and elsewhere is they've kept the cases low during the warm weather at the cost of getting them all at once when it's got cold and damp. Stuck with restrictions when we had practically none, and now stuck with lockdowns when we're just starting to talk about masking again. They'll suffer another wave of economic devastation, months more crap remote learning for children, and most of the people who were saved earlier in the year by all the extra rules and regulations will now simply perish in the tsunami wave of death that is to come. Germany's Covid death rate per capita, for example, is already 50% higher than ours and is climbing at a rate of knots.
The sole original justification for restrictions was to save the healthcare system from collapse. Not to drive cases down to nothing, or to stop anybody from dying of the disease ever, but to prevent sick old people from being wheeled into tents in hospital car parks, doped to the eyeballs with morphine and abandoned to snuff it. There were no restrictions and the cases were insufficient to result in tents, so getting rid of restrictions was the right thing to do.
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
Not surprised. So many people live in flats not designed to live in. The assumption is that you're out at work all day and out having a social life half the rest of the time.
Yep. Big enough to eat, sleep and sh*t in. Do something about the dire state of housing and many, many other issues disappear. But nobody will.
It will be a real struggle to get people to wear masks again because Covid is a clear and present danger having told them that they don't need them because Covid is over.
Who told them Covid is over? Having no restrictions is not the same as saying it’s over. I agree that it will be a struggle though. I’ve never stopped wearing masks in shops, so no bother for me, but a lot have.
Its been the clear and consistent implication for yonks. No need to worry about it any more, and even if there's 40k cases a day for months and months so what.
Mate, you've got no fucking idea how the virus works. Look across the continent, hospitalisations and deaths are exploding. They're getting their exit wave in the winter and all at once. The idea that a nation can simply avoid it is something put forwards by simpletons.
That response went right over your head then.
I quite enjoyed "You have got absolutely zero loyalty, not to your party and not to your nation"
As you are a self-stated federalist, that certainly is wrong, whether Max meant the UK or Scotland!
[edited - sorry, suddenly realised soi-disant had a possible negative meaning, not intended]
For Max England = UK
I am a traitor to England in that I moved somewhere else. But I don't think that's what he meant. Not thinking like him and voting like him makes me a Traitor. Obvs
Nah you stabbed the Labour party in the back and now you're going to stab the UK in the back by voting for the SNP. You're so obsessed with the government being wrong that you're actually excited about the prospect that Omicron can evade vaccines. I think you need to have a really hard think about where your life choices are taking you mate.
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
I have been struggling with motivating myself working from home. Back in lockdown it was no problem, it was the most interesting thing I had to do all day. Now real life gets in the way. As the office is 4 miles away I'm not too bothered and can still work from home if I have, say, a day of Teams meetings or (like Monday) I'm in self-isolation.
Seems to me that today was just about messaging “we are doing something” when in reality they are quite deliberately doing nothing to slow the spread. About all there was is the return of mask theatre in limited circumstances which as we know, is not really moving the dial on R meaningfully at this point of the virus’s evolution (if it ever did). Amusing how worked up some here are about others not masking. Just wear an FPP3 and keep your weird anecdotes about cloths over genitals to yourself.
The telling answer was about there being two variants and our strategy for each being different. Essentially, we are continuing with the Let It Burn strategy for Dura Ace, Contrarian and their mates.
While doing some theatre around foreign travel so you can’t blame us in a month or two when Omicron is inevitably 99% of all new cases.
And using it as a chance to remind people to get boosted. Amazing how many people (including on here) still haven’t clocked that the strategy since July has been to deliberately infect all the last pockets of naive immune systems, while giving it a “boost” through modern science.
When is the penny going to drop for the thickos that this virus will be circulating pretty broadly for the rest of our lives? But that things will never again be as bad as March 2020 to March 2021 as it has now ceased to be a novel virus in this country.
As the German minister said the other day: "you will be either vaccinated, recovered, or dead".
I think its even simpler, you are either recovered or dead....and vaccination goes a long way to avoiding the later.
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
Its depressing as shit. Yes, public health is more important, but personally even in a mostly empty office I'm more comfortable, happy and productive.
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
Not surprised. So many people live in flats not designed to live in. The assumption is that you're out at work all day and out having a social life half the rest of the time.
Isn't that how most people live? A home is just where you keep your stuff and sleep.
NEW: Israel considering to close its border to all foreigners due to new coronavirus variant
Priti literally breathless in wonder at such a concept.
Really? I would have thought she'd be quite pissed off at the ending of her nice little junkets.
*giggles* I had forgotten about her traitorous actions with her own foreign policy.
No I meant that Israel will say "no-one comes in" and actions it so that it happens. Priti repeatedly says "no-one gets in" across the channel and the day after the numbers are higher. So she says "no-one gets in" and the day after the numbers are higher. And again and again.
Because she is useless.
“This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,-- This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
A sea border was a slam dunk winner back in those days, but as we now see, that was because seafaring in wind-power-only wooden ships is a mug's game. It is a trite observation that if Napoleon had kept up with technology we'd all be speaking French, because the steam tugs were there for him to tow an invading army over in a flat calm by 1800. Given powered propulsion a coast is much harder to defend than a land border.
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
We've gone through different phases. At first, there was a sort of Dunkirk spirit - "we must all do what it takes, wfh no problem". Then came general lockdown so people couldn't see friends and family, and there was a lot of unhappiness and frustration. Once that eased, so did the mood, and now there's a lot of reluctance to return to the office, actually especially among younger staff because they tend to live further away (as rent is so expensive in Surrey) so they are faced with an unwelcome return to long commutes. And a lot of people have adjusted their lives to wfh, with reduced childcare costs etc. I can't see us ever going back to 5-day office work.
I think there may be a divide by location here. Your team is I think in London, where there is more flat-sharing and also better public transport. We will be restarting a hybrid model (typically 2-3 days a week in the office), but only from March. I live 10 minutes from work and don't really care, but I get that someone 60 minutes away is really not keen.
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
Not surprised. So many people live in flats not designed to live in. The assumption is that you're out at work all day and out having a social life half the rest of the time.
Yep. Big enough to eat, sleep and sh*t in. Do something about the dire state of housing and many, many other issues disappear. But nobody will.
What else do you do in your home?
People who claim to "live" at home are sad, deluded, asocial individuals
Think I'll be in the office come what may, we've got a maternity cover, new orders generally in & year end to deal with It's not really possible for me to manage all that from home
There are an awful lot of wankers trying to hype this up for clickbait.
There are an awful lot of selfish wankers not wearing masks in this country.
There's an awful lot of selfish wankers wanting to inflict masks upon others in this country.
We have had a large scale real time experiment on this. Both Scotland and Wales have required much more mask wearing by law than England for some months now. In my experience there has been large scale, if decreasing, compliance with the law. If masks worked there really should be a clear and unequivocal change in the infection rate by now. But there is no evidence of this. Scotland actually went to a much higher rate than England although they have come down a bit since.
The onus now must surely be on those contending that masks used by the general public, as opposed to by professionals in medical settings, are useful. I would like to see their evidence. If they have a compelling case that other confounding factors are why we are not seeing this differentiation in 2 different countries I would really like to see it.
The only thing I can think of as a sort of general anecdote in their favour is that while they were compulsory in schools - which overwhelming evidence shows are the main vector of transmission - cases actually remained pretty low.
When they were removed, case numbers climbed rapidly.
Now that's not bad evidence that - contrary to what I would dearly wish - they can be quite effective.
However, there is another question. Is the considerable damage and inconvenience they can cause - particularly to those who, like me, are somewhat deaf and rely on lip reading to communicate effectively - worth the impact on transmission?
I would argue, not up to this moment.
What hasn't been laid out yet is clear evidence that this new form of the virus changes that.
All of Europe has been facemasking and they are now all in lockdown - they do sod all
Almost all of Europe has benefited from months of very low Covid rates
Artificially suppressed through pointless restrictions.
Given that we have no realistic prospect of ever eradicating Covid-19, we are going to have to learn at some point to put up with an endemic level of infection in the population. That wobbly case graph we've been watching go up-down-up-down since July - that's almost certainly the stage at which we have arrived in the country.
We were correct to take the brake off the disease and let it run, because it's probably going to keep running at 40, 50, 60 thousand cases a day forever - and having it spread through the population unchecked for months, especially through schoolchildren, has greatly increased levels of population immunity prior to the Winter months (with all the fears about higher transmissibility, the flu season and the elderly falling over on slippery pavements converging all at once,) which is exactly the approach that the CMO endorsed.
All that's happened in Austria, the Netherlands and elsewhere is they've kept the cases low during the warm weather at the cost of getting them all at once when it's got cold and damp. Stuck with restrictions when we had practically none, and now stuck with lockdowns when we're just starting to talk about masking again. They'll suffer another wave of economic devastation, months more crap remote learning for children, and most of the people who were saved earlier in the year by all the extra rules and regulations will now simply perish in the tsunami wave of death that is to come. Germany's Covid death rate per capita, for example, is already 50% higher than ours and is climbing at a rate of knots. (Snip)
There's another scenario: we ran high levels during summer to try to reduce the severity over winter, only for a new variant to come along and make that pointless. I hope that isn't going to be the case - and I doubt it will be - but the probability appears much higher than it was last month.
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
Not surprised. So many people live in flats not designed to live in. The assumption is that you're out at work all day and out having a social life half the rest of the time.
Yep. Big enough to eat, sleep and sh*t in. Do something about the dire state of housing and many, many other issues disappear. But nobody will.
What else do you do in your home?
People who claim to "live" at home are sad, deluded, asocial individuals
Isn't that Mark Zuckerbergs vision for us all in the future?
"as uncertainty reigns over Biden's future and Harris is increasingly regarded as a busted flush, I very much doubt either of them would be given a clear run for the Democratic nomination.
Seven names were mentioned to me this week as likely contenders — and the presidential election is still three years way.
There is every prospect that the Democratic primaries will be a bloodbath."
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
Not surprised. So many people live in flats not designed to live in. The assumption is that you're out at work all day and out having a social life half the rest of the time.
Yep. Big enough to eat, sleep and sh*t in. Do something about the dire state of housing and many, many other issues disappear. But nobody will.
What else do you do in your home?
People who claim to "live" at home are sad, deluded, asocial individuals
Most people who were watching don't seem to have heard that. Perhaps you are here to correct the record and tell us that whilst we didn't hear that we definitely did.
I was watching the BBC and I heard it.
It was in the middle of a garbled answer (no surprise there) but he said it.
Something like “we will want all of the contacts of people who are confirmed case of omnicrom, they will be required to self isolate, test and trace is working on that now”
We were talking about masks. Scroll back up the quotes. Sandy said "Sky's on-screen caption claims that the PM said masks will be mandatory. I didn't hear it."
Well your quote was “he can’t announce critical stuff” (I paraphrase) and you included a tweet about self isolation.
On masks he didn’t say they were to be mandatory. He said that they were bringing them back for transport and retail only, and that Saj would announce more detail In the next day or so
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
Yes, I completely accept and understand for some people working at home doesn't, as it were, work.
I have never and would never advocate forced working from home - nor, conversely, would I support anyone being forced back to working at an office desk.
The work-life balance, much talked about and theorised in recent times, now has to be put into practice.
Within that there's what could be called the work-work balance - the balance between the networking, collaborative, inspirational activities best achieved via physical presence and contact and the more routine administrative tasks as well as those requiring concentration and reflection which, I would argue, are best done remotely or in a different environment.
It's going to be different for every individual and organisation but the ergonomic impact is already being seen - office workspaces are being re-designed away from banks of desks to more collaborative, networking spaces including meeting rooms. Thoughtful organisations are therefore re-purposing their space to best fit this new work pattern.
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
Not surprised. So many people live in flats not designed to live in. The assumption is that you're out at work all day and out having a social life half the rest of the time.
Yep. Big enough to eat, sleep and sh*t in. Do something about the dire state of housing and many, many other issues disappear. But nobody will.
What else do you do in your home?
People who claim to "live" at home are sad, deluded, asocial individuals
Are you one of those PBers who think they live on the edge because they go to a pub-turned-incompetent-restaurant once a week for the sea bream sur un lit de fennel?
It will be a real struggle to get people to wear masks again because Covid is a clear and present danger having told them that they don't need them because Covid is over.
Who told them Covid is over? Having no restrictions is not the same as saying it’s over. I agree that it will be a struggle though. I’ve never stopped wearing masks in shops, so no bother for me, but a lot have.
Its been the clear and consistent implication for yonks. No need to worry about it any more, and even if there's 40k cases a day for months and months so what.
Mate, you've got no fucking idea how the virus works. Look across the continent, hospitalisations and deaths are exploding. They're getting their exit wave in the winter and all at once. The idea that a nation can simply avoid it is something put forwards by simpletons.
That response went right over your head then.
I quite enjoyed "You have got absolutely zero loyalty, not to your party and not to your nation"
As you are a self-stated federalist, that certainly is wrong, whether Max meant the UK or Scotland!
[edited - sorry, suddenly realised soi-disant had a possible negative meaning, not intended]
For Max England = UK
I am a traitor to England in that I moved somewhere else. But I don't think that's what he meant. Not thinking like him and voting like him makes me a Traitor. Obvs
Nah you stabbed the Labour party in the back and now you're going to stab the UK in the back by voting for the SNP. You're so obsessed with the government being wrong that you're actually excited about the prospect that Omicron can evade vaccines. I think you need to have a really hard think about where your life choices are taking you mate.
Blimey. You actually think that way? Bizarre.
"Excited by the prospect that Omicron can evade vaccines".
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
Not surprised. So many people live in flats not designed to live in. The assumption is that you're out at work all day and out having a social life half the rest of the time.
Isn't that how most people live? A home is just where you keep your stuff and sleep.
John, a bit more pleasant though if you have spare rooms for an office, gym etc , nice garden back and front and enough space to wander about, have your french doors open , birds singing , etc
Whitty says the discovery of omicron "really changes the risk-benefit calculations" over booster vaccines for the under-40s. JCVI will come back with its conclusions "rapidly", he adds.
NEW: Israel considering to close its border to all foreigners due to new coronavirus variant
Priti literally breathless in wonder at such a concept.
Really? I would have thought she'd be quite pissed off at the ending of her nice little junkets.
*giggles* I had forgotten about her traitorous actions with her own foreign policy.
No I meant that Israel will say "no-one comes in" and actions it so that it happens. Priti repeatedly says "no-one gets in" across the channel and the day after the numbers are higher. So she says "no-one gets in" and the day after the numbers are higher. And again and again.
Because she is useless.
“This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, This other Eden, demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands,-- This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
A sea border was a slam dunk winner back in those days, but as we now see, that was because seafaring in wind-power-only wooden ships is a mug's game. It is a trite observation that if Napoleon had kept up with technology we'd all be speaking French, because the steam tugs were there for him to tow an invading army over in a flat calm by 1800. Given powered propulsion a coast is much harder to defend than a land border.
Really? Hitler didn't seem to find it so. The Wehrmacht forced the supposedly impenetrable Ardennes with comparative ease but were balked by the Strait of Dover.
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask 2. The same person WFH I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health Government is about trade offs
Those who seem most anxious to get people back to offices seem to be commercial property owners, developers and their clients.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
Personal anecdotes only, but there are people who have really struggled with lockdown. I’ve also seen my team - many of whom were young and in shared flats - finding WFH very difficult
Not surprised. So many people live in flats not designed to live in. The assumption is that you're out at work all day and out having a social life half the rest of the time.
Yep. Big enough to eat, sleep and sh*t in. Do something about the dire state of housing and many, many other issues disappear. But nobody will.
What else do you do in your home?
People who claim to "live" at home are sad, deluded, asocial individuals
Ah, you mean engineers.
But seriously: who the f*ck are you to judge others in that manner? I could turn that around and say that perhaps people who *have* to be sociable all the time are just sad, shallow, deluded individuals? Ones who cannot even be happy in their own company?
I've known all combinations: people who are happy in their own company, and those who are lonely and could really do with getting out more. Those who say they have thousands of friends, but cannot name them; who desperately phone people up mid-afternoon to arrange going out somewhere - anywhere. And those who are genuinely gregarious and happy.
That's the key thing: whatever makes someone happy. If they're happy and content in their own company, what's the harm?
1. Somebody travelling to work on the train while wearing a mask
2. The same person WFH
I vote for 2. Bozo's policy is 1.
2 has great cost to the economy and personal mental health
Government is about trade offs
So Pret comes first. Fair enough.
In our company, we have not perceived any reduction in efficiency or effectiveness resulting from WFH. If anything, people* have spent more time working, during the hours they would otherwise have spent commuting.
And fighting for a space on a train (when it runs) or being stuck in nose to tail traffic twice a day is hardly conducive to good mental health.
*Not me, obviously.
In our company people were really productive for the first 12-15 months but we were seeing erosion. They’ve been really glad to get back in the office.
We now have a company policy that most people should be in, typically 50% of their working week. Most of our team aren't too keen on this, but are all going in on a Wednesday. A couple of people, with a poor set up at home, go inmost days.
Comments
I was also in the toon today sans mask.
Here we go again eh?
And good evening PB
Dont remember "They will be contacted by NHS Test and Trace."
Just how do you know most people watching didn't
An extraordinary claim
Government is about trade offs
Or I am going mad. Which is possible given the day I have had.
We're buying time with travel restrictions so that a committee can take weeks to come to an obvious decision.
My wife is taking comfort from small mercies. She detects evidence of learning from previous repeated mistakes.
Boris did refer to it
I really wish that masks worked. They are cheap, easy to enforce (because they are highly visible) and a relatively minor inconvenience. But what we have found actually works is good ventilation and not doing some group activities such as singing, especially indoors. We need to focus on what works.
I wonder if Johnson is regretting not going to down that route and having to go cap in hand to Parliament over every change now.
https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-72798-7
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(21)00003-0/fulltext
Those may all be wrong, and admittedly the Lancet being on this side of the question throws doubt on the whole thing, but what the bollocking fcuk is this about "not beyond a lad (?lab) experiment"?
In our company, we have not perceived any reduction in efficiency or effectiveness resulting from WFH. If anything, people* have spent more time working, during the hours they would otherwise have spent commuting.
And fighting for a space on a train (when it runs) or being stuck in nose to tail traffic twice a day is hardly conducive to good mental health.
*Not me, obviously.
It was in the middle of a garbled answer (no surprise there) but he said it.
Something like “we will want all of the contacts of people who are confirmed case of omnicrom, they will be required to self isolate, test and trace is working on that now”
They are looking at a long winter lockdown over xmas and well into the new year.
Do you have a scintilla of objective evidence for the point about mental health? I hear this quite often, again from those with a vested interest in having people back in office buildings working like battery hens at banks of desks but presumably free of mental health issues (apparently)?
As for "a long winter lockdown", there but for the grace of God go we"
At some point, if he wants to ensure compliance, he is going to have to make an issue of this and suspend a minister for 30 days.
The telling answer was about there being two variants and our strategy for each being different. Essentially, we are continuing with the Let It Burn strategy for Dura Ace, Contrarian and their mates.
While doing some theatre around foreign travel so you can’t blame us in a month or two when Omicron is inevitably 99% of all new cases.
And using it as a chance to remind people to get boosted. Amazing how many people (including on here) still haven’t clocked that the strategy since July has been to deliberately infect all the last pockets of naive immune systems, while giving it a “boost” through modern science.
When is the penny going to drop for the thickos that this virus will be circulating pretty broadly for the rest of our lives? But that things will never again be as bad as March 2020 to March 2021 as it has now ceased to be a novel virus in this country.
I am 55 now and booked Online, but was given no date before Dec 8. Exactly 6 months since my second.
The website seems to imply not, but I know some who have had it earlier.
No I meant that Israel will say "no-one comes in" and actions it so that it happens. Priti repeatedly says "no-one gets in" across the channel and the day after the numbers are higher. So she says "no-one gets in" and the day after the numbers are higher. And again and again.
Because she is useless.
Given that we have no realistic prospect of ever eradicating Covid-19, we are going to have to learn at some point to put up with an endemic level of infection in the population. That wobbly case graph we've been watching go up-down-up-down since July - that's almost certainly the stage at which we have arrived in the country.
We were correct to take the brake off the disease and let it run, because it's probably going to keep running at 40, 50, 60 thousand cases a day forever - and having it spread through the population unchecked for months, especially through schoolchildren, has greatly increased levels of population immunity prior to the Winter months (with all the fears about higher transmissibility, the flu season and the elderly falling over on slippery pavements converging all at once,) which is exactly the approach that the CMO endorsed.
All that's happened in Austria, the Netherlands and elsewhere is they've kept the cases low during the warm weather at the cost of getting them all at once when it's got cold and damp. Stuck with restrictions when we had practically none, and now stuck with lockdowns when we're just starting to talk about masking again. They'll suffer another wave of economic devastation, months more crap remote learning for children, and most of the people who were saved earlier in the year by all the extra rules and regulations will now simply perish in the tsunami wave of death that is to come. Germany's Covid death rate per capita, for example, is already 50% higher than ours and is climbing at a rate of knots.
The sole original justification for restrictions was to save the healthcare system from collapse. Not to drive cases down to nothing, or to stop anybody from dying of the disease ever, but to prevent sick old people from being wheeled into tents in hospital car parks, doped to the eyeballs with morphine and abandoned to snuff it. There were no restrictions and the cases were insufficient to result in tents, so getting rid of restrictions was the right thing to do.
Do something about the dire state of housing and many, many other issues disappear.
But nobody will.
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,--
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.”
A sea border was a slam dunk winner back in those days, but as we now see, that was because seafaring in wind-power-only wooden ships is a mug's game. It is a trite observation that if Napoleon had kept up with technology we'd all be speaking French, because the steam tugs were there for him to tow an invading army over in a flat calm by 1800. Given powered propulsion a coast is much harder to defend than a land border.
I think there may be a divide by location here. Your team is I think in London, where there is more flat-sharing and also better public transport. We will be restarting a hybrid model (typically 2-3 days a week in the office), but only from March. I live 10 minutes from work and don't really care, but I get that someone 60 minutes away is really not keen.
People who claim to "live" at home are sad, deluded, asocial individuals
It's not really possible for me to manage all that from home
Seven names were mentioned to me this week as likely contenders — and the presidential election is still three years way.
There is every prospect that the Democratic primaries will be a bloodbath."
Andrew Neil (Mail)
On masks he didn’t say they were to be mandatory. He said that they were bringing them back for transport and retail only, and that Saj would announce more detail In the next day or so
I have never and would never advocate forced working from home - nor, conversely, would I support anyone being forced back to working at an office desk.
The work-life balance, much talked about and theorised in recent times, now has to be put into practice.
Within that there's what could be called the work-work balance - the balance between the networking, collaborative, inspirational activities best achieved via physical presence and contact and the more routine administrative tasks as well as those requiring concentration and reflection which, I would argue, are best done remotely or in a different environment.
It's going to be different for every individual and organisation but the ergonomic impact is already being seen - office workspaces are being re-designed away from banks of desks to more collaborative, networking spaces including meeting rooms. Thoughtful organisations are therefore re-purposing their space to best fit this new work pattern.
"Excited by the prospect that Omicron can evade vaccines".
For "excited" substitute "very worried".
Alcohol does help if you have the strength to lift a wine glass; but not too much
But seriously: who the f*ck are you to judge others in that manner? I could turn that around and say that perhaps people who *have* to be sociable all the time are just sad, shallow, deluded individuals? Ones who cannot even be happy in their own company?
I've known all combinations: people who are happy in their own company, and those who are lonely and could really do with getting out more. Those who say they have thousands of friends, but cannot name them; who desperately phone people up mid-afternoon to arrange going out somewhere - anywhere. And those who are genuinely gregarious and happy.
That's the key thing: whatever makes someone happy. If they're happy and content in their own company, what's the harm?