Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
At how much risk do you think you are?
At this very moment? As my daughter is currently upstairs sick with Covid, probably at more risk than you ...
Overall? That all depends on how much of a git Omicron is. There seems to be universal views that its very infectious, and are mixed views as to how nasty it is. We all need to hope that the "not very nasty" perspective proves to be right.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
We're not spending billions on Covid tests in an attempt to avoid a case of the sniffles. Of course we're only worried about it while it has the potential to cause too many deaths, where "too many" is a hard to quantify number that relates to NHS capacity.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
I certainly am not an expert in any shape or form, nor have I ever claimed to be.
What do you mean by "let it rip"? – we have vaccinated 85% of the population.
As you know, the authorities here and in every other developed nation are trying to stop Covid from tearing through populations. Being vaccinated doesn't stop you from being sick or dying especially if we get a variant that is dodging around the best defences of our vaccine.
So it doesn't matter whether you are vaxxed or not, they have reimposed restrictions to stop it ripping through the 85% and the idiot 15% equally.
A man has been convicted for repeatedly stabbing and trying to murder his partner. This wasn't the first woman he's attacked, he'd previously stabbed a previous partner and her child too.
He's been jailed for 13 years. So could be out within a decade to stab a third woman again. Maybe third strike he'll kill someone.
How many times must a man be released back onto the streets to stab another woman before they get locked up for life? The woman he attacked is lucky to be alive but has been left with life altering injuries, how many more women is this man going to attack before he gets a life sentence?
Attempted murder should be treated as murder and as described this should be a life sentence for me.
And yet, its by no means the worst. There are cases, like the murders of Sarah Everard, Lynda Spence, or Barry Wallace that are so chilling.
I agree that there's others that are more chilling, but and I realise I may sound like @Cyclefree saying this . . . there has to be a point where a man attacks women and is told 'enough is enough'.
How can someone stab a woman and her child, could have potentially killed them both, be convicted and sentenced to jail . . . then after being released stab another woman and potentially have killed her? And then to make it worse the Court sentences him to a jail sentence that will almost certainly be less than a decade.
How is that right? And in ten years time when he stabs another woman and this time she dies, what polite words are going to be said about how this shouldn't have happened?
Scotland has 11 non-SNP MPs. The new boundaries make 8 of those seats more marginal (1 is abolished and the other 2 are unchanged).
Here are the current Unionist seats and successor seats, with Baxter’s prediction (likelihoods of HOLD on current boundaries in brackets). (Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross excluded as his Moray seat is being abolished and he is not standing at the next UK GE. Two seats are have unchanged boundaries.)
SCon seats
Banff and Buchan HOLD (58% Con Hold) new Banff and Buchan SNP GAIN
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD (55% Con Hold) new Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN (50% Con Hold) new Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN
Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN (40% Con Hold) new Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine SNP GAIN (35% Con Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
SLD seats
Orkney and Shetland SNP GAIN (44% LD Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
Edinburgh West SNP GAIN (35% LD Hold) new Edinburgh West SNP GAIN
North East Fife SNP GAIN (29% LD Hold) new North East Fife SNP GAIN
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP GAIN (22% LD Hold) new Highland North SNP GAIN
SLab seat
Edinburgh South HOLD (89% Lab Hold) new Edinburgh South HOLD
It’s looking like another Unionist massacre, with only 2 seats left (one SCon and one SLab), unless Sarwar, Ross and Cole-Hamilton can turn their ships around. But Johnson’s boundary changes are an unneeded additional headache.
Those percentage chances of holds are - of course - based on current opinion polls.
My guess - looking at the LD seats - is that Highland North is an SNP gain, O&S and Edinburgh West stay LD, and NE Fife depends entirely on the number of English students at St Andrews.
Although it has to be said that St Andrews is neither more nor less Lib Demmy than most of the other 80% of Fife NE, and twas ever thus.
Indeed. I’ve seen very little evidence that English immigrants vote differently from the indigenous population. The very little polling evidence I’ve ever seen (and anecdotal and personal evidence) suggests that English people in Scotland vote for the various political parties in roughly the same pattern as Scots do. Obvious exception being IndyRef1, but even there there were plenty of English-identifying voters who cast Yes votes.
When I lived in St Andrews English people were probably over represented among Labour voters - they were certainly over represented in the CLP. NE Fife is an interesting seat because it used to be dependably Tory, then loyal Lib Dem, and is now SNP. If the seat is getting some of the former Glenrothes seat I would guess it may be more firmly in the SNP camp, otherwise I would think it is one likely to flip back to the Lib Dems should the nationalist tide ever recede. I'm not sure the preponderance of posh English students (or Yahs as they were known in my day) is a significant electoral factor. I would imagine they are mostly too busy acting like prats to vote.
My dad was from Fife NE (Newport on Tay) and proudly self-identified as a Fifer his entire life, despite only spending a small fraction of his allotted time in the area. My sister used to live there and now lives nearby. It is an area I know reasonably well.
There is a rather naive assumption from folk furth of Fife to assume that the politics of the Kingdom are driven by young English Yahs like Prince Billy and his burd. It was never thus. But I can understand why foreigners try to impose their own mental maps on parts of the globe designated “Here Be Monsters”.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
We're not spending billions on Covid tests in an attempt to avoid a case of the sniffles. Of course we're only worried about it while it has the potential to cause too many deaths, where "too many" is a hard to quantify number that relates to NHS capacity.
And the reason why so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard. If we're unlucky and its not just "the sniffles" then we're in deep shit.
You and the other PB experts may not think a sustained 40k+ new cases per day is a problem as its just "the sniffles", but when other countries who had minimal levels spike past us its suddenly a major problem for them and a major vindication for good old Boris...
Scotland has 11 non-SNP MPs. The new boundaries make 8 of those seats more marginal (1 is abolished and the other 2 are unchanged).
Here are the current Unionist seats and successor seats, with Baxter’s prediction (likelihoods of HOLD on current boundaries in brackets). (Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross excluded as his Moray seat is being abolished and he is not standing at the next UK GE. Two seats are have unchanged boundaries.)
SCon seats
Banff and Buchan HOLD (58% Con Hold) new Banff and Buchan SNP GAIN
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD (55% Con Hold) new Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN (50% Con Hold) new Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN
Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN (40% Con Hold) new Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine SNP GAIN (35% Con Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
SLD seats
Orkney and Shetland SNP GAIN (44% LD Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
Edinburgh West SNP GAIN (35% LD Hold) new Edinburgh West SNP GAIN
North East Fife SNP GAIN (29% LD Hold) new North East Fife SNP GAIN
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP GAIN (22% LD Hold) new Highland North SNP GAIN
SLab seat
Edinburgh South HOLD (89% Lab Hold) new Edinburgh South HOLD
It’s looking like another Unionist massacre, with only 2 seats left (one SCon and one SLab), unless Sarwar, Ross and Cole-Hamilton can turn their ships around. But Johnson’s boundary changes are an unneeded additional headache.
using the same tecknick how many (if any) seats do the SNP loes, and do many/any have a low possibility of being retained by the SNP?
A valid question BigRich! And not immediately addressed by myself due to laziness/lack of time.
The short answer is: none, and not really.
The long answer is that if you look purely at the boundary changes (and totally ignore voting intention polling) then 2 SNP seats are abolished (Glasgow Central; and Ross, Skye and Lochaber); and 1 SNP seat (Gordon) “switches out” (seats lost because their political make-up has altered) while 3 seats (Highland North; Fife North East; and Highland East & Elgin) “switch in” to the SNP (seats gained because their political make-up has altered).
Where are you getting your earlier list from? On Martin Baxter's website the notional changes are -2 for the Lib Dems, and no change for everyone else.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
If it causes the sniffles then who cares if its let to rip?
We have vaccines, they've been used. If it rips, it rips, so frigging what?
I couldn't care less if it was a hundred thousand cases of sniffles per day. If post-vaccines Covid ends up like other coronaviruses that cause the common cold then we can live with it circling forever just as we always have with the other coronaviruses that exist.
Scotland has 11 non-SNP MPs. The new boundaries make 8 of those seats more marginal (1 is abolished and the other 2 are unchanged).
Here are the current Unionist seats and successor seats, with Baxter’s prediction (likelihoods of HOLD on current boundaries in brackets). (Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross excluded as his Moray seat is being abolished and he is not standing at the next UK GE. Two seats are have unchanged boundaries.)
SCon seats
Banff and Buchan HOLD (58% Con Hold) new Banff and Buchan SNP GAIN
Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD (55% Con Hold) new Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk HOLD
Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN (50% Con Hold) new Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale SNP GAIN
Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN (40% Con Hold) new Dumfries and Galloway SNP GAIN
West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine SNP GAIN (35% Con Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
SLD seats
Orkney and Shetland SNP GAIN (44% LD Hold) Unchanged SNP GAIN
Edinburgh West SNP GAIN (35% LD Hold) new Edinburgh West SNP GAIN
North East Fife SNP GAIN (29% LD Hold) new North East Fife SNP GAIN
Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross SNP GAIN (22% LD Hold) new Highland North SNP GAIN
SLab seat
Edinburgh South HOLD (89% Lab Hold) new Edinburgh South HOLD
It’s looking like another Unionist massacre, with only 2 seats left (one SCon and one SLab), unless Sarwar, Ross and Cole-Hamilton can turn their ships around. But Johnson’s boundary changes are an unneeded additional headache.
Those percentage chances of holds are - of course - based on current opinion polls.
My guess - looking at the LD seats - is that Highland North is an SNP gain, O&S and Edinburgh West stay LD, and NE Fife depends entirely on the number of English students at St Andrews.
Although it has to be said that St Andrews is neither more nor less Lib Demmy than most of the other 80% of Fife NE, and twas ever thus.
Indeed. I’ve seen very little evidence that English immigrants vote differently from the indigenous population. The very little polling evidence I’ve ever seen (and anecdotal and personal evidence) suggests that English people in Scotland vote for the various political parties in roughly the same pattern as Scots do. Obvious exception being IndyRef1, but even there there were plenty of English-identifying voters who cast Yes votes.
When I lived in St Andrews English people were probably over represented among Labour voters - they were certainly over represented in the CLP. NE Fife is an interesting seat because it used to be dependably Tory, then loyal Lib Dem, and is now SNP. If the seat is getting some of the former Glenrothes seat I would guess it may be more firmly in the SNP camp, otherwise I would think it is one likely to flip back to the Lib Dems should the nationalist tide ever recede. I'm not sure the preponderance of posh English students (or Yahs as they were known in my day) is a significant electoral factor. I would imagine they are mostly too busy acting like prats to vote.
My dad was from Fife NE (Newport on Tay) and proudly self-identified as a Fifer his entire life, despite only spending a small fraction of his allotted time in the area. My sister used to live there and now lives nearby. It is an area I know reasonably well.
There is a rather naive assumption from folk furth of Fife to assume that the politics of the Kingdom are driven by young English Yahs like Prince Billy and his burd. It was never thus. But I can understand why foreigners try to impose their own mental maps on parts of the globe designated “Here Be Monsters”.
Newport is nice, great views of the bridges and the silvery Tay itself. It's a singular place, NE Fife, not really like the rest of Fife, which in turn is distinct from the rest of the central belt. I've not lived there since the early-mid 90s but it's my birthplace and it never leaves you. I'll always be a Fifer, too!
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
I certainly am not an expert in any shape or form, nor have I ever claimed to be.
What do you mean by "let it rip"? – we have vaccinated 85% of the population.
As you know, the authorities here and in every other developed nation are trying to stop Covid from tearing through populations. Being vaccinated doesn't stop you from being sick or dying especially if we get a variant that is dodging around the best defences of our vaccine.
So it doesn't matter whether you are vaxxed or not, they have reimposed restrictions to stop it ripping through the 85% and the idiot 15% equally.
As always the critical point is whether hospital admissions rise to a level that severely impacts the ability of the health service to a. treat Covid patients and b. deliver on the rest of its obligations. That's what restrictions have been focused on up to now.
The equation is complicated now by 3 things in my view:
1. The fact the health service here is under major pressure anyway and a question whether the solution really should be NPIs or investment/reform (there was never pressure on e.g. social distancing during previous bad flu seasons) 2. The uncertainty around Omicron meaning that things could get very bad very quickly even if overall case hospitalisation rates are lower than for Delta 3. The fact that the boosters seemed, at least with Delta, to have further cut the link between cases and hospitalisation
A man has been convicted for repeatedly stabbing and trying to murder his partner. This wasn't the first woman he's attacked, he'd previously stabbed a previous partner and her child too.
He's been jailed for 13 years. So could be out within a decade to stab a third woman again. Maybe third strike he'll kill someone.
How many times must a man be released back onto the streets to stab another woman before they get locked up for life? The woman he attacked is lucky to be alive but has been left with life altering injuries, how many more women is this man going to attack before he gets a life sentence?
Attempted murder should be treated as murder and as described this should be a life sentence for me.
And yet, its by no means the worst. There are cases, like the murders of Sarah Everard, Lynda Spence, or Barry Wallace that are so chilling.
I agree that there's others that are more chilling, but and I realise I may sound like @Cyclefree saying this . . . there has to be a point where a man attacks women and is told 'enough is enough'.
How can someone stab a woman and her child, could have potentially killed them both, be convicted and sentenced to jail . . . then after being released stab another woman and potentially have killed her? And then to make it worse the Court sentences him to a jail sentence that will almost certainly be less than a decade.
How is that right? And in ten years time when he stabs another woman and this time she dies, what polite words are going to be said about how this shouldn't have happened?
When the crime is violent / sexual in nature there needs to be rehabilitation. When the prisoner gets towards parole hearings time they review behaviour and psychology. Unless the prisoner is straight in the head they don't get out.
The same needs to be applied if they reach the end of their term. If they murdered someone and are saying "I will go out and murder if you release me" we can't just let them go even if they've served their sentance.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
We're not spending billions on Covid tests in an attempt to avoid a case of the sniffles. Of course we're only worried about it while it has the potential to cause too many deaths, where "too many" is a hard to quantify number that relates to NHS capacity.
And the reason why so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard. If we're unlucky and its not just "the sniffles" then we're in deep shit.
You and the other PB experts may not think a sustained 40k+ new cases per day is a problem as its just "the sniffles", but when other countries who had minimal levels spike past us its suddenly a major problem for them and a major vindication for good old Boris...
I'm no fan of Johnson.
My interest is in returning to a proper normal as soon as possible with the minimum number of deaths. I have enough problems with anxiety in general without people working very hard to make me feel scared of something that isn't particularly dangerous.
For someone double-dosed Delta is not particularly dangerous, and that's why I've argued against the people who try so hard to scare me back indoors.
For Omicron we don't know yet, but however lethal it turns out to be that level of lethality is a new thing we have to deal with which doesn't say anything about whether our approach to Delta was right or wrong.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
All good questions. However, we are dealing with the shutdown of society. I wish your daughter both a speedy recovery and an absence of any mental health issues that might come with the latter.
We can't wish Covid away (not even on PB) and it is not just "the flu" (although Delta was certainly heading that way). But we need to balance risks. What exactly is wrong, for example, with lots of people getting a bad case of the flu and how much of society would you close down to avoid this happening and for how long.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
We're not spending billions on Covid tests in an attempt to avoid a case of the sniffles. Of course we're only worried about it while it has the potential to cause too many deaths, where "too many" is a hard to quantify number that relates to NHS capacity.
And the reason why so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard. If we're unlucky and its not just "the sniffles" then we're in deep shit.
You and the other PB experts may not think a sustained 40k+ new cases per day is a problem as its just "the sniffles", but when other countries who had minimal levels spike past us its suddenly a major problem for them and a major vindication for good old Boris...
"so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard"
It sounds as though you are arguing for complete elimination. If that is the case it is a legitimate viewpoint but please state it explicitly.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
If it causes the sniffles then who cares if its let to rip?
We have vaccines, they've been used. If it rips, it rips, so frigging what?
I couldn't care less if it was a hundred thousand cases of sniffles per day. If post-vaccines Covid ends up like other coronaviruses that cause the common cold then we can live with it circling forever just as we always have with the other coronaviruses that exist.
And if it isn't the sniffles? We don't know yet with Omicron, and if you wait until we do know its too late to lock it down if its bad. And if Omicron is mild, we don't know what the next one will be like.
You aren't exactly representative of even the PB expert virologists with your "people die so what" approach.
"Mark Steel @mrmarksteel By the end of the day, footage will emerge of Boris Johnson dealing cocaine in the House of Commons toilets, but the police won’t prosecute because it happened last Thursday which is too long ago. 9:51 am · 6 Dec 2021·Twitter for iPhone 1,264 Retweets 36 Quote Tweets 10.6K Likes"
If the GOP take stage legislatures in key swing states in next year's midterms and win both chambers of Congress then yes they could legally overturn the EC results and make Trump President.
However they may not even need to, some current polls already have Trump ahead of Biden
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
If it causes the sniffles then who cares if its let to rip?
We have vaccines, they've been used. If it rips, it rips, so frigging what?
I couldn't care less if it was a hundred thousand cases of sniffles per day. If post-vaccines Covid ends up like other coronaviruses that cause the common cold then we can live with it circling forever just as we always have with the other coronaviruses that exist.
From what I understand it is almost certain that Omicron will take over from Delta to become the dominant strain but evidence is emerging that the deadliness of Omicron is slightly reduced. If this proves true then we can expect much higher new infections combined with proportionally less hospitalisations. The main concern, as always, is that health systems can cope while natural and vaccine-based protection grows further.
"Mark Steel @mrmarksteel By the end of the day, footage will emerge of Boris Johnson dealing cocaine in the House of Commons toilets, but the police won’t prosecute because it happened last Thursday which is too long ago. 9:51 am · 6 Dec 2021·Twitter for iPhone 1,264 Retweets 36 Quote Tweets 10.6K Likes"
"Mark Steel @mrmarksteel By the end of the day, footage will emerge of Boris Johnson dealing cocaine in the House of Commons toilets, but the police won’t prosecute because it happened last Thursday which is too long ago. 9:51 am · 6 Dec 2021·Twitter for iPhone 1,264 Retweets 36 Quote Tweets 10.6K Likes"
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
We're not spending billions on Covid tests in an attempt to avoid a case of the sniffles. Of course we're only worried about it while it has the potential to cause too many deaths, where "too many" is a hard to quantify number that relates to NHS capacity.
And the reason why so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard. If we're unlucky and its not just "the sniffles" then we're in deep shit.
You and the other PB experts may not think a sustained 40k+ new cases per day is a problem as its just "the sniffles", but when other countries who had minimal levels spike past us its suddenly a major problem for them and a major vindication for good old Boris...
"so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard"
It sounds as though you are arguing for complete elimination. If that is the case it is a legitimate viewpoint but please state it explicitly.
Elimination of the virus as one *of pandemic-level concern*. Its almost impossible to eliminate one completely. But there are plenty of nasty viruses out there that don;t threaten public health on this scale. We can reduce Covid down to something like Norovirus and be ok, but we can't do that by saying "no restrictions" endlessly like Peter Pan has to chant that he believes in fairies.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
We're not spending billions on Covid tests in an attempt to avoid a case of the sniffles. Of course we're only worried about it while it has the potential to cause too many deaths, where "too many" is a hard to quantify number that relates to NHS capacity.
And the reason why so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard. If we're unlucky and its not just "the sniffles" then we're in deep shit.
You and the other PB experts may not think a sustained 40k+ new cases per day is a problem as its just "the sniffles", but when other countries who had minimal levels spike past us its suddenly a major problem for them and a major vindication for good old Boris...
The question is not 40K per day *detected* cases, but the actual case rate. Which we only know after the fact, from the ONS survey.
In the case of South Africa, for example, the evidence is that they have many, many more cases than they are detecting. Because they are testing less.
The worrying trend at the moment in the UK is the slowing down in the drops for admissions and deaths, which is related to the relative overall rates for older people not falling as fast - or at all. Which is down to the sum of regional variations - the regions that are increasing are now beginning to do so more than other regions are falling.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
There's been a lot of talk of allowing Covid to let rip being bad because it encourages mutations. I get the point to some degree, but two problems with this:
First, it's a pretty UK-centric view of the world. Our 50k cases per day (probably really closer to 100k given testing doesn't pick up everything) is officially about 1/10 of total global cases and in reality given different testing rates probably closer to 1/50. If case numbers are a problem for mutation then UK is statistically unlikely to be the culprit.
Second, both the Alpha variant and now Omicron (and who knows, quite possibly Delta) seem to have emerged through incubation in a long term infection in a single immunocompromised individual. So it's not been the volume infections that have been the issue.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
'I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.' Prepare for holidays in Blackpool, Margate and Cornwall then indefinitely, certainly if unvaccinated, as there will always be new variants of some form.
However if you are double vaccinated and had your booster and provided you test negative in lateral flow or PCR tests before travel out and return you should still be able to travel abroad even with Omnicron and whatever the variants after that are and without long periods of isolation before and after travel.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
Prepare for holidays in Blackpool, Margate and Cornwall then indefinitely, certainly if unvaccinated, as there will always be new variants of some form.
However if you are double vaccinated and had your booster and provided you test negative in lateral flow or PCR tests before travel out and return you should still be able to travel abroad even with Omnicron and whatever the variants after that are
Exactly, not sure I buy the 'travel isn't going to happen' schtick – which is very commonplace on PB. Yet many PBers wrote off this year, but many of us have travelled this year very happily.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
If it causes the sniffles then who cares if its let to rip?
We have vaccines, they've been used. If it rips, it rips, so frigging what?
I couldn't care less if it was a hundred thousand cases of sniffles per day. If post-vaccines Covid ends up like other coronaviruses that cause the common cold then we can live with it circling forever just as we always have with the other coronaviruses that exist.
From what I understand it is almost certain that Omicron will take over from Delta to become the dominant strain but evidence is emerging that the deadliness of Omicron is slightly reduced. If this proves true then we can expect much higher new infections combined with proportionally less hospitalisations. The main concern, as always, is that health systems can cope while natural and vaccine-based protection grows further.
And given that vaccination is the way out of this (and it looks like triple-dosing is really good), anyone know what's taking so long?
I understand the aim is to change the admin by this weekend, so from 13 December on, many more sites and booking will move to the 3 month cut-off and inviting <40s.
In the meantime, if you are <6 months you need to find a walk-in with a doctor onsite who can sign you off.</i>
That's not the first article to say as much - I remember a different one with a very similar tone last month.
When it comes to 2024 I will be betting on Trump becoming President because it looks almost unavoidable.
Indeed, but it's a good one. It is going to take something remarkable to prevent the election being stolen in 2024 - and I will not be in the slightest bit surprised when some here defend it as state governments exercising their 'constitutional right' to dispense with the actual votes of their electorate. (Edit - I see that HYUFD is already there.)
I would have been astonished had the coup attempt succeeded last year. I will be pleasantly surprised if the next one doesn't.
A man has been convicted for repeatedly stabbing and trying to murder his partner. This wasn't the first woman he's attacked, he'd previously stabbed a previous partner and her child too.
He's been jailed for 13 years. So could be out within a decade to stab a third woman again. Maybe third strike he'll kill someone.
How many times must a man be released back onto the streets to stab another woman before they get locked up for life? The woman he attacked is lucky to be alive but has been left with life altering injuries, how many more women is this man going to attack before he gets a life sentence?
Attempted murder should be treated as murder and as described this should be a life sentence for me.
And yet, its by no means the worst. There are cases, like the murders of Sarah Everard, Lynda Spence, or Barry Wallace that are so chilling.
I agree that there's others that are more chilling, but and I realise I may sound like @Cyclefree saying this . . . there has to be a point where a man attacks women and is told 'enough is enough'.
How can someone stab a woman and her child, could have potentially killed them both, be convicted and sentenced to jail . . . then after being released stab another woman and potentially have killed her? And then to make it worse the Court sentences him to a jail sentence that will almost certainly be less than a decade.
How is that right? And in ten years time when he stabs another woman and this time she dies, what polite words are going to be said about how this shouldn't have happened?
When the crime is violent / sexual in nature there needs to be rehabilitation. When the prisoner gets towards parole hearings time they review behaviour and psychology. Unless the prisoner is straight in the head they don't get out.
The same needs to be applied if they reach the end of their term. If they murdered someone and are saying "I will go out and murder if you release me" we can't just let them go even if they've served their sentance.
Ah right, how did I miss that? So he needs to say he won't attack someone else, oh what a safeguard that is. That makes everything OK then doesn't it!
I suppose this man, last time he stabbed a woman and her child had to say he wouldn't go out and attack another woman. And then he did stab another woman again.
But all is OK. When he's going to be released he needs to repeat his claims that he's rehabilitated and promise not to stab anyone else, and this time he means it . . .
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
My biggest fear is that I'll have to quarantine for a fortnight in a Premier Inn on my way back.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
We're not spending billions on Covid tests in an attempt to avoid a case of the sniffles. Of course we're only worried about it while it has the potential to cause too many deaths, where "too many" is a hard to quantify number that relates to NHS capacity.
And the reason why so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard. If we're unlucky and its not just "the sniffles" then we're in deep shit.
You and the other PB experts may not think a sustained 40k+ new cases per day is a problem as its just "the sniffles", but when other countries who had minimal levels spike past us its suddenly a major problem for them and a major vindication for good old Boris...
"so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard"
It sounds as though you are arguing for complete elimination. If that is the case it is a legitimate viewpoint but please state it explicitly.
Elimination of the virus as one *of pandemic-level concern*. Its almost impossible to eliminate one completely. But there are plenty of nasty viruses out there that don;t threaten public health on this scale. We can reduce Covid down to something like Norovirus and be ok, but we can't do that by saying "no restrictions" endlessly like Peter Pan has to chant that he believes in fairies.
How do we do that without keeping restrictions forever?
The exit wave is about having an exit from restrictions, not an exit from Covid.
Post-vaccines, it is restrictions that are the bigger evil.
The trick surely is to get the Russians to imagine that these old seaside towns are the key. When they blow them up we can rebuild them with nice places,
I see Javid saying omicron already spreading within the UK I.e here to stay
..so what’s the point in some of the measures introduced like pre departure testing to the UK?
The levels in the UK are still low enough that unrestricted foreign travel would significantly speed up its spread. It's worth remembering that, in the very first wave, most of the transmission into the UK was not from China, or Italy, but from France. Even once it had started spreading in the UK we could have slowed it down a lot by restricting travel from France.
A man has been convicted for repeatedly stabbing and trying to murder his partner. This wasn't the first woman he's attacked, he'd previously stabbed a previous partner and her child too.
He's been jailed for 13 years. So could be out within a decade to stab a third woman again. Maybe third strike he'll kill someone.
How many times must a man be released back onto the streets to stab another woman before they get locked up for life? The woman he attacked is lucky to be alive but has been left with life altering injuries, how many more women is this man going to attack before he gets a life sentence?
Attempted murder should be treated as murder and as described this should be a life sentence for me.
And yet, its by no means the worst. There are cases, like the murders of Sarah Everard, Lynda Spence, or Barry Wallace that are so chilling.
I agree that there's others that are more chilling, but and I realise I may sound like @Cyclefree saying this . . . there has to be a point where a man attacks women and is told 'enough is enough'.
How can someone stab a woman and her child, could have potentially killed them both, be convicted and sentenced to jail . . . then after being released stab another woman and potentially have killed her? And then to make it worse the Court sentences him to a jail sentence that will almost certainly be less than a decade.
How is that right? And in ten years time when he stabs another woman and this time she dies, what polite words are going to be said about how this shouldn't have happened?
When the crime is violent / sexual in nature there needs to be rehabilitation. When the prisoner gets towards parole hearings time they review behaviour and psychology. Unless the prisoner is straight in the head they don't get out.
The same needs to be applied if they reach the end of their term. If they murdered someone and are saying "I will go out and murder if you release me" we can't just let them go even if they've served their sentance.
Ah right, how did I miss that? So he needs to say he won't attack someone else, oh what a safeguard that is. That makes everything OK then doesn't it!
I suppose this man, last time he stabbed a woman and her child had to say he wouldn't go out and attack another woman. And then he did stab another woman again.
But all is OK. When he's going to be released he needs to repeat his claims that he's rehabilitated and promise not to stab anyone else, and this time he means it . . .
I meant that we need to apply the same vetting as we do for parole - that includes psychologists etc.
The other end of the spectrum is that for some crimes there should be no release ever. Which completely removes the entire purpose of the criminal justice system (punishment AND rehabilitation) in which case we may as well just shoot them on conviction...
Its a horrible shitty balance and its clear that we don't have it right in some cases. But I cling to the principle of rehabilitation.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
If it causes the sniffles then who cares if its let to rip?
We have vaccines, they've been used. If it rips, it rips, so frigging what?
I couldn't care less if it was a hundred thousand cases of sniffles per day. If post-vaccines Covid ends up like other coronaviruses that cause the common cold then we can live with it circling forever just as we always have with the other coronaviruses that exist.
From what I understand it is almost certain that Omicron will take over from Delta to become the dominant strain but evidence is emerging that the deadliness of Omicron is slightly reduced. If this proves true then we can expect much higher new infections combined with proportionally less hospitalisations. The main concern, as always, is that health systems can cope while natural and vaccine-based protection grows further.
And given that vaccination is the way out of this (and it looks like triple-dosing is really good), anyone know what's taking so long?
I understand the aim is to change the admin by this weekend, so from 13 December on, many more sites and booking will move to the 3 month cut-off and inviting <40s.
In the meantime, if you are <6 months you need to find a walk-in with a doctor onsite who can sign you off.</i>
Because the JCVI original recommendations were centred around just very old / vulnerable people and NHS workers, so the government / NHS shut two thirds of the vaccinations centres, GP went back to doing their day to day job, etc. Even with that, there was loads of empty slots.
Then they were asked to reassess, with the belief they would probably say booster for everybody, probably 6 months (because that is what the science had said was the optimal period), but JCVI came back with much much wider criteria of who will get jabs, 4th jabs, boosters for everybody 3 months, kids 2nd jabs, and it has totally caught the NHS off guard. They need to reopen loads of centres, get loads of staff back to the front line etc, and that is taking a couple of weeks to get in place.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
Prepare for holidays in Blackpool, Margate and Cornwall then indefinitely, certainly if unvaccinated, as there will always be new variants of some form.
However if you are double vaccinated and had your booster and provided you test negative in lateral flow or PCR tests before travel out and return you should still be able to travel abroad even with Omnicron and whatever the variants after that are
Exactly, not sure I buy the 'travel isn't going to happen' schtick – which is very commonplace on PB. Yet many PBers wrote off this year, but many of us have travelled this year very happily.
We had a trip to Finland booked over New year. 'Postponed' it yesterday (nominally to next winter). Sure you can go - but with the threat constantly hanging over you that you might have to quarantine out there. Not an attractive possibility for a family of five.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
Prepare for holidays in Blackpool, Margate and Cornwall then indefinitely, certainly if unvaccinated, as there will always be new variants of some form.
However if you are double vaccinated and had your booster and provided you test negative in lateral flow or PCR tests before travel out and return you should still be able to travel abroad even with Omnicron and whatever the variants after that are
Exactly, not sure I buy the 'travel isn't going to happen' schtick – which is very commonplace on PB. Yet many PBers wrote off this year, but many of us have travelled this year very happily.
Like you I have travelled abroad and it was also fine. A massive pain the arse as TSE says with regards to paperwork and declarations, but once you accept that travel is as it was.
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
We're not spending billions on Covid tests in an attempt to avoid a case of the sniffles. Of course we're only worried about it while it has the potential to cause too many deaths, where "too many" is a hard to quantify number that relates to NHS capacity.
And the reason why so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard. If we're unlucky and its not just "the sniffles" then we're in deep shit.
You and the other PB experts may not think a sustained 40k+ new cases per day is a problem as its just "the sniffles", but when other countries who had minimal levels spike past us its suddenly a major problem for them and a major vindication for good old Boris...
"so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard"
It sounds as though you are arguing for complete elimination. If that is the case it is a legitimate viewpoint but please state it explicitly.
Elimination of the virus as one *of pandemic-level concern*. Its almost impossible to eliminate one completely. But there are plenty of nasty viruses out there that don;t threaten public health on this scale. We can reduce Covid down to something like Norovirus and be ok, but we can't do that by saying "no restrictions" endlessly like Peter Pan has to chant that he believes in fairies.
What restrictions do we impose to control the spread of norovirus?
Its only a crumb. Nobody wants this to take off after month after month at "new normal" very high levels compared to everywhere else. But there's signs that it might. Apparently the bug isn't paying the slightest attention to the PB experts who claimed we had already had our exit wave and thus were not at risk.
We have had our Delta exit wave and the risk from Delta is now very low. A variant always has the potential to change things, though we're yet to see how badly.
Can someone clarify which strain has been a steady 35-45k cases per day if its not Delta? I didn't say "Delta", I said Covid. An exit from one variant to another isn't an exit from Covid is it?
Cases, positive tests, or actual poor health outcomes?
I'm still unsure what you and the other PB virology experts are playing. "Actual poor health outcomes" sounds like "unless you're going to die from it we should let it rip".
Case numbers. The number of new positive tests each day.
We're not spending billions on Covid tests in an attempt to avoid a case of the sniffles. Of course we're only worried about it while it has the potential to cause too many deaths, where "too many" is a hard to quantify number that relates to NHS capacity.
And the reason why so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard. If we're unlucky and its not just "the sniffles" then we're in deep shit.
You and the other PB experts may not think a sustained 40k+ new cases per day is a problem as its just "the sniffles", but when other countries who had minimal levels spike past us its suddenly a major problem for them and a major vindication for good old Boris...
"so much effort is being out into stopping "the sniffles" is because the sodding thing keeps mutating and we're now on one that's spreading like a bastard"
It sounds as though you are arguing for complete elimination. If that is the case it is a legitimate viewpoint but please state it explicitly.
Elimination of the virus as one *of pandemic-level concern*. Its almost impossible to eliminate one completely. But there are plenty of nasty viruses out there that don;t threaten public health on this scale. We can reduce Covid down to something like Norovirus and be ok, but we can't do that by saying "no restrictions" endlessly like Peter Pan has to chant that he believes in fairies.
Well I am no epidemiologist but how do you "reduce Covid down to something like the Novovirus"?
How will it all of a sudden or gradually become less virulent (in transmission and effect)? We are simply kicking the can down the road with NPIs. Because as soon as we lift them the virus will resurrect again. Unless it is eliminated. Which you don't want or at least accept is not possible.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
The sum total of "endless hassle" I had was to book a Day 2 test, upon arrival back home. No idea what the government did with that (probably nothing) and it was a bit of a faff sending it back.
Other than that, a smooth ride and a great trip – probably better overall than a normal trip given fewer crowds at the airport.
Just when you think people can't get any crazier, they form a fan club for a new variant of a deadly virus that escapes immunity and spreads at record speed.
Is there anything too stupid for people to believe?
Isn't this how epidemics come to an end?
No, epidemics are not generally brought to an end by a virus mutating to escape immunity and becoming far more transmissible.
Some of the experts disagree. They say if it's more transmissible and very mild it could end the epidemic.
The report from North Shropshire saying the situation is Con 40%, Lab 33%, LD 11%, Reform 7% was very interesting. I wonder how reliable it is.
Lab 33%? Do you mean LD?
That's what Labour is claiming.
It's probably enough to ensure a Conservative victory (which was what I reckoned likely all along), as it muddies the tactical voting picture.
End result
Con 45 LD 28 Lab 20 Reform 7
It would be difficult for the Tories to lose with 45% even with tactical voting turned up to the max, if one assumes Labour getting at least 5%, and Green/Reform/Others getting 5% between them.
Just when you think people can't get any crazier, they form a fan club for a new variant of a deadly virus that escapes immunity and spreads at record speed.
Is there anything too stupid for people to believe?
Isn't this how epidemics come to an end?
No, epidemics are not generally brought to an end by a virus mutating to escape immunity and becoming far more transmissible.
Some of the experts disagree. They say if it's more transmissible and very mild it could end the epidemic.
Well then they'd be daft. A virus cannot know it wants to escape immunity.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
Prepare for holidays in Blackpool, Margate and Cornwall then indefinitely, certainly if unvaccinated, as there will always be new variants of some form.
However if you are double vaccinated and had your booster and provided you test negative in lateral flow or PCR tests before travel out and return you should still be able to travel abroad even with Omnicron and whatever the variants after that are
Exactly, not sure I buy the 'travel isn't going to happen' schtick – which is very commonplace on PB. Yet many PBers wrote off this year, but many of us have travelled this year very happily.
We had a trip to Finland booked over New year. 'Postponed' it yesterday (nominally to next winter). Sure you can go - but with the threat constantly hanging over you that you might have to quarantine out there. Not an attractive possibility for a family of five.
Fair enough, I'd do likewise faced with that timetable. I can defer my French trip next year if I feel the faff/quarantine risk is too great. That said, it's not until early summer so I am sure as hell not going to start worrying about it now, less still writing it off, as some PBers are already doing.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
My biggest fear is that I'll have to quarantine for a fortnight in a Premier Inn on my way back.
That's not the first article to say as much - I remember a different one with a very similar tone last month.
When it comes to 2024 I will be betting on Trump becoming President because it looks almost unavoidable.
Indeed, but it's a good one. It is going to take something remarkable to prevent the election being stolen in 2024 - and I will not be in the slightest bit surprised when some here defend it as state governments exercising their 'constitutional right' to dispense with the actual votes of their electorate. (Edit - I see that HYUFD is already there.)
I would have been astonished had the coup attempt succeeded last year. I will be pleasantly surprised if the next one doesn't.
State governments are not enough, it requires the GOP to win control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate next year too to object to and overturn the EC results.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
My biggest fear is that I'll have to quarantine for a fortnight in a Premier Inn on my way back.
Could be worse, have you seen those army style camps they are sending Australians to now. But even those are better than the motorway service travelodges!
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
My biggest fear is that I'll have to quarantine for a fortnight in a Premier Inn on my way back.
I'd love to spend a fortnight in a Premier Inn. The beds are really comfy. And so many breakfast buffets...
Just when you think people can't get any crazier, they form a fan club for a new variant of a deadly virus that escapes immunity and spreads at record speed.
Is there anything too stupid for people to believe?
Isn't this how epidemics come to an end?
No, epidemics are not generally brought to an end by a virus mutating to escape immunity and becoming far more transmissible.
Some of the experts disagree. They say if it's more transmissible and very mild it could end the epidemic.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
My biggest fear is that I'll have to quarantine for a fortnight in a Premier Inn on my way back.
I'd love to spend a fortnight in a Premier Inn. The beds are really comfy. And so many breakfast buffets...
I went to a Sandhurst reunion one year (not as bad as it sounds) and stayed at the Premier Inn opposite. And very nice it was too - comfortable bed, hot water, powerful shower, excellent breakfast (talking of breakfasts as we were earlier). What's not to like.
Just when you think people can't get any crazier, they form a fan club for a new variant of a deadly virus that escapes immunity and spreads at record speed.
Is there anything too stupid for people to believe?
Isn't this how epidemics come to an end?
No, epidemics are not generally brought to an end by a virus mutating to escape immunity and becoming far more transmissible.
Some of the experts disagree. They say if it's more transmissible and very mild it could end the epidemic.
Well then they'd be daft. A virus cannot know it wants to escape immunity.
Why does it have to know anything for the claim to be valid?
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
Prepare for holidays in Blackpool, Margate and Cornwall then indefinitely, certainly if unvaccinated, as there will always be new variants of some form.
However if you are double vaccinated and had your booster and provided you test negative in lateral flow or PCR tests before travel out and return you should still be able to travel abroad even with Omnicron and whatever the variants after that are
Exactly, not sure I buy the 'travel isn't going to happen' schtick – which is very commonplace on PB. Yet many PBers wrote off this year, but many of us have travelled this year very happily.
We had a trip to Finland booked over New year. 'Postponed' it yesterday (nominally to next winter). Sure you can go - but with the threat constantly hanging over you that you might have to quarantine out there. Not an attractive possibility for a family of five.
Fair enough, I'd do likewise faced with that timetable. I can defer my French trip next year if I feel the faff/quarantine risk is too great. That said, it's not until early summer so I am sure as hell not going to start worrying about it now, less still writing it off, as some PBers are already doing.
International travel with a family of five is already such a mammoth pain in the arse it doesn't take much additional paperwork or uncertainty to make it an unattractive proposition, in my book. So much easier to go to Cornwall.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
My biggest fear is that I'll have to quarantine for a fortnight in a Premier Inn on my way back.
I'd love to spend a fortnight in a Premier Inn. The beds are really comfy. And so many breakfast buffets...
Pre-pandemic I spent about a year staying at various hotels in the Wimbledon area for work. Eventually I reluctantly decided that the Premier Inn was the best of a bad bunch, and while there were a lot of less comfortable beds, the beds really weren't that great. I never slept that well, though that was mainly due to the room temperatures, which were always too high. I also stopped eating their breakfast in favour of scones and jam from a supermarket.
Their main redeeming feature was the reliability of the hot water supply for showers, and the size of the baths.
Most of the beds at the airbnbs I stayed at were better, but there could be weirdnesses staying at airbnbs.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
Don't necessarily believe what you read - do the homework. I might look for the tests as part of the travel package.
He is a funny old stick, but that cost of 960 "to the UK" includes 400 charged by France, and is exaggerated according to the followups by 3-400%, whilst the claim that costs do not exist for Belgium to another EU country is simply untrue. Also debunked by the followups.
Whilst many of us find his fictional reporting funny, he has jobs across multiple major organisations including Politico.eu, New Statesman, and France24, amongst others, and has a platform and an audience.
I've been following the Times story from this morning about the "Interpretation Act", and there's no shortage of media pros or semi-pros jabbering about how the UK is moving towards passing Nazi style "Enabling Acts".
The EU-based EU-leaning media seems to have worked itself into a very deep, very dark hole. Is there a way back for them?
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
My biggest fear is that I'll have to quarantine for a fortnight in a Premier Inn on my way back.
I'd love to spend a fortnight in a Premier Inn. The beds are really comfy. And so many breakfast buffets...
Pre-pandemic I spent about a year staying at various hotels in the Wimbledon area for work. Eventually I reluctantly decided that the Premier Inn was the best of a bad bunch, and while there were a lot of less comfortable beds, the beds really weren't that great. I never slept that well, though that was mainly due to the room temperatures, which were always too high. I also stopped eating their breakfast in favour of scones and jam from a supermarket.
Their main redeeming feature was the reliability of the hot water supply for showers, and the size of the baths.
Most of the beds at the airbnbs I stayed at were better, but there could be weirdnesses staying at airbnbs.
I never sleep well when I'm travelling for work, but I think that's due to sleeping on my own. Both my Premier Inn stays were with my wife (one was sans kids, maybe that's why I have such happy memories of it!) and I remember the beds as very comfortable.
Just when you think people can't get any crazier, they form a fan club for a new variant of a deadly virus that escapes immunity and spreads at record speed.
Is there anything too stupid for people to believe?
Isn't this how epidemics come to an end?
No, epidemics are not generally brought to an end by a virus mutating to escape immunity and becoming far more transmissible.
Some of the experts disagree. They say if it's more transmissible and very mild it could end the epidemic.
I hope it's true, but for now I will take it with a large pinch of salt because they are seeing young people in hospital and they will have better outcomes because older age is a big factor with Covid outcomes. The media age of South Africa is just 26.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
Prepare for holidays in Blackpool, Margate and Cornwall then indefinitely, certainly if unvaccinated, as there will always be new variants of some form.
However if you are double vaccinated and had your booster and provided you test negative in lateral flow or PCR tests before travel out and return you should still be able to travel abroad even with Omnicron and whatever the variants after that are
Exactly, not sure I buy the 'travel isn't going to happen' schtick – which is very commonplace on PB. Yet many PBers wrote off this year, but many of us have travelled this year very happily.
We had a trip to Finland booked over New year. 'Postponed' it yesterday (nominally to next winter). Sure you can go - but with the threat constantly hanging over you that you might have to quarantine out there. Not an attractive possibility for a family of five.
Fair enough, I'd do likewise faced with that timetable. I can defer my French trip next year if I feel the faff/quarantine risk is too great. That said, it's not until early summer so I am sure as hell not going to start worrying about it now, less still writing it off, as some PBers are already doing.
International travel with a family of five is already such a mammoth pain in the arse it doesn't take much additional paperwork or uncertainty to make it an unattractive proposition, in my book. So much easier to go to Cornwall.
That's my view exactly! I would in all honesty happily stay in the UK until the kids are all grown up. My memory of childhood holidays is that they were brilliant in the UK and rubbish abroad. But the wife, quite reasonably, wants to bring them adventure and wonder while they are still young and while we are all still healthy. Hopefully next winter...
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
Don't necessarily believe what you read - do the homework. I might look for the tests as part of the travel package.
He is a funny old stick, but that cost of 960 "to the UK" includes 400 charged by France, and is exaggerated according to the followups by 3-400%, whilst the claim that costs do not exist for Belgium to another EU country is simply untrue. Also debunked by the followups.
Whilst many of us find his fictional reporting funny, he has jobs across multiple major organisations including Politico.eu, New Statesman, and France24, amongst others, and has a platform and an audience.
I've been following the Times story from this morning about the "Interpretation Act", and there's no shortage of media pros or semi-pros jabbering about how the UK is moving towards passing Nazi style "Enabling Acts".
The EU-based EU-leaning media seems to have worked itself into a very deep, very dark hole. Is there a way back for them?
Blast from the past Comedy Dave....good to see he hasn't given up on his fake news anti-UK shtick.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Why do you say that? Has something been announced?
The tone (and some of the new changes for red list countries) announced by Javid.
Full disclosure, I have a few health conditions (which is why I was double jabbed in March) and I live in the fear I get trapped overseas when a new variant hits.
I suspect the UK will come under pressure to do the same.
The White House has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Chinese Winter Olympics: "The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang"
If anyone needed an additional reason to steer clear of the Oadby and Wigston area, here you go.
BTW I thought I was terribly clever yesterday deducing that the new War Against Gove Drugs was North Shropshire related because I googled Oswestry drugs bust and got 1 trillion hits. Turns out this also works if you substitute {provincial_town_name} for Oswestry, including Oadby and Wigston.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Why do you say that? Has something been announced?
The tone (and some of the new changes for red list countries) announced by Javid.
Full disclosure, I have a few health conditions (which is why I was double jabbed in March) and I live in the fear I get trapped overseas when a new variant hits.
I'm someone who loves my foreign travels.
The tone has been absurd. Has gone in other direction though - at least in that Switzerland has backtracked on its knee-jerk quarantine insistence on arrival for ten days. Now no quarantine.
I think countries are waking up to the fact that Omicron is going to take over and it is futile to think it won't - and this could be a good thing if it is less deadly.
I'm off to France in a few days: a LFT before, a LFT prior to return plus a PCR on return is not too much hassle really.
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Yep - I'm now planning for next year to be trips to Wales and Cornwall and a lot of weekends away.
I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.
In fairness, lots of PBers said that about this year, and still say it now. I have recently returned from a fantastic trip to Majorca, and it was absolutely fine.
I'd quite like to travel - lots of friends in Switzerland, Austria and the US, double-vaccinated and boosted. But several friends who have moan about endless hassle - extortionate prices for tests, changing rules, officials not aware of changing rules, etc. Maybe they've just been unlucky?
My biggest fear is that I'll have to quarantine for a fortnight in a Premier Inn on my way back.
I'd love to spend a fortnight in a Premier Inn. The beds are really comfy. And so many breakfast buffets...
Not all Premier Inns are the same. Get a new / refurbished one and sure - its ok. But how about one right next to the motorway. With a view of a brick wall and the motorway sound echoing off it. And no aircon. I've had that room - it was awful And no breakfast buffet for you quarantinies - you can't leave your room for it.
I suspect the UK will come under pressure to do the same.
The White House has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Chinese Winter Olympics: "The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang"
I suspect the UK will come under pressure to do the same.
The White House has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Chinese Winter Olympics: "The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang"
At least 46 ‘VIP lane’ £££ PPE deals were awarded to politically connected companies before formal due diligence was in place - not what we were told last year.
I suspect the UK will come under pressure to do the same.
The White House has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Chinese Winter Olympics: "The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang"
Foreign travel is going to be a PITA or a pipe dream for a while yet.
Why do you say that? Has something been announced?
The tone (and some of the new changes for red list countries) announced by Javid.
Full disclosure, I have a few health conditions (which is why I was double jabbed in March) and I live in the fear I get trapped overseas when a new variant hits.
I'm someone who loves my foreign travels.
The tone has been absurd. Has gone in other direction though - at least in that Switzerland has backtracked on its knee-jerk quarantine insistence on arrival for ten days. Now no quarantine.
I think countries are waking up to the fact that Omicron is going to take over and it is futile to think it won't - and this could be a good thing if it is less deadly.
I'm off to France in a few days: a LFT before, a LFT prior to return plus a PCR on return is not too much hassle really.
What odds are we putting on boris banning household mixing in homes for Christmas? Asking for a concerned grandmother!
I suspect the UK will come under pressure to do the same.
The White House has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Chinese Winter Olympics: "The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang"
Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta and Attorney General Merrick Garland announce voting right lawsuit against Texas, which argues the state’s redistricting plans unlawfully dilute the voting power of Black and Latino voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
Vanita Gupta says Texas forced this through with a rushed process, and the maps will not allow Black and Latino voters an equal opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.
I suspect the UK will come under pressure to do the same.
The White House has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Chinese Winter Olympics: "The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang"
It was the three wankers, Cameron, Clegg & Osborne, who ushered in "a golden era" with China.
Three people who everything they touched turned to shit.
King Midas' mentally defective brothers.
What utter nonsense on all fronts. Specifically on China, you do realise that Xi Jinping only became General Secretary in November 2012, I imagine? The China that the excellent Cameron-Osborne government wanted to have good relations with was very different from the China of 2021.
Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta and Attorney General Merrick Garland announce voting right lawsuit against Texas, which argues the state’s redistricting plans unlawfully dilute the voting power of Black and Latino voters in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
Vanita Gupta says Texas forced this through with a rushed process, and the maps will not allow Black and Latino voters an equal opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.
Comments
Always the case!
So it doesn't matter whether you are vaxxed or not, they have reimposed restrictions to stop it ripping through the 85% and the idiot 15% equally.
How can someone stab a woman and her child, could have potentially killed them both, be convicted and sentenced to jail . . . then after being released stab another woman and potentially have killed her? And then to make it worse the Court sentences him to a jail sentence that will almost certainly be less than a decade.
How is that right? And in ten years time when he stabs another woman and this time she dies, what polite words are going to be said about how this shouldn't have happened?
There is a rather naive assumption from folk furth of Fife to assume that the politics of the Kingdom are driven by young English Yahs like Prince Billy and his burd. It was never thus. But I can understand why foreigners try to impose their own mental maps on parts of the globe designated “Here Be Monsters”.
You and the other PB experts may not think a sustained 40k+ new cases per day is a problem as its just "the sniffles", but when other countries who had minimal levels spike past us its suddenly a major problem for them and a major vindication for good old Boris...
Take Baxter’s current Scottish VI data and pump them into his Scotland prediction tools, requesting output on the new boundaries.
We have vaccines, they've been used. If it rips, it rips, so frigging what?
I couldn't care less if it was a hundred thousand cases of sniffles per day. If post-vaccines Covid ends up like other coronaviruses that cause the common cold then we can live with it circling forever just as we always have with the other coronaviruses that exist.
January 6 was practice. Donald Trump’s GOP is much better positioned to subvert the next election.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/
The equation is complicated now by 3 things in my view:
1. The fact the health service here is under major pressure anyway and a question whether the solution really should be NPIs or investment/reform (there was never pressure on e.g. social distancing during previous bad flu seasons)
2. The uncertainty around Omicron meaning that things could get very bad very quickly even if overall case hospitalisation rates are lower than for Delta
3. The fact that the boosters seemed, at least with Delta, to have further cut the link between cases and hospitalisation
The same needs to be applied if they reach the end of their term. If they murdered someone and are saying "I will go out and murder if you release me" we can't just let them go even if they've served their sentance.
My interest is in returning to a proper normal as soon as possible with the minimum number of deaths. I have enough problems with anxiety in general without people working very hard to make me feel scared of something that isn't particularly dangerous.
For someone double-dosed Delta is not particularly dangerous, and that's why I've argued against the people who try so hard to scare me back indoors.
For Omicron we don't know yet, but however lethal it turns out to be that level of lethality is a new thing we have to deal with which doesn't say anything about whether our approach to Delta was right or wrong.
We can't wish Covid away (not even on PB) and it is not just "the flu" (although Delta was certainly heading that way). But we need to balance risks. What exactly is wrong, for example, with lots of people getting a bad case of the flu and how much of society would you close down to avoid this happening and for how long.
It sounds as though you are arguing for complete elimination. If that is the case it is a legitimate viewpoint but please state it explicitly.
When it comes to 2024 I will be betting on Trump becoming President because it looks almost unavoidable.
You aren't exactly representative of even the PB expert virologists with your "people die so what" approach.
@mrmarksteel
By the end of the day, footage will emerge of Boris Johnson dealing cocaine in the House of Commons toilets, but the police won’t prosecute because it happened last Thursday which is too long ago.
9:51 am · 6 Dec 2021·Twitter for iPhone
1,264 Retweets 36 Quote Tweets 10.6K Likes"
https://twitter.com/mrmarksteel/status/1467793825183719424
I toned the piece down.
However they may not even need to, some current polls already have Trump ahead of Biden
..so what’s the point in some of the measures introduced like pre departure testing to the UK?
What on earth has we done to even contemplate Trump in office again
In the case of South Africa, for example, the evidence is that they have many, many more cases than they are detecting. Because they are testing less.
The worrying trend at the moment in the UK is the slowing down in the drops for admissions and deaths, which is related to the relative overall rates for older people not falling as fast - or at all. Which is down to the sum of regional variations - the regions that are increasing are now beginning to do so more than other regions are falling.
First, it's a pretty UK-centric view of the world. Our 50k cases per day (probably really closer to 100k given testing doesn't pick up everything) is officially about 1/10 of total global cases and in reality given different testing rates probably closer to 1/50. If case numbers are a problem for mutation then UK is statistically unlikely to be the culprit.
Second, both the Alpha variant and now Omicron (and who knows, quite possibly Delta) seem to have emerged through incubation in a long term infection in a single immunocompromised individual. So it's not been the volume infections that have been the issue.
'I had one trip to France planned for next summer, but I'm already resigned to that not happening now.'
Prepare for holidays in Blackpool, Margate and Cornwall then indefinitely, certainly if unvaccinated, as there will always be new variants of some form.
However if you are double vaccinated and had your booster and provided you test negative in lateral flow or PCR tests before travel out and return you should still be able to travel abroad even with Omnicron and whatever the variants after that are and without long periods of isolation before and after travel.
However if you are double vaccinated and had your booster and provided you test negative in lateral flow or PCR tests before travel out and return you should still be able to travel abroad even with Omnicron and whatever the variants after that are
Exactly, not sure I buy the 'travel isn't going to happen' schtick – which is very commonplace on PB. Yet many PBers wrote off this year, but many of us have travelled this year very happily.
I understand the aim is to change the admin by this weekend, so from 13 December on, many more sites and booking will move to the 3 month cut-off and inviting <40s.
In the meantime, if you are <6 months you need to find a walk-in with a doctor onsite who can sign you off.</i>
https://twitter.com/PaulMainwood/status/1467904192065028105?t=iYcrLZyQVzNmnJP0WWiR1g&s=19
It is going to take something remarkable to prevent the election being stolen in 2024 - and I will not be in the slightest bit surprised when some here defend it as state governments exercising their 'constitutional right' to dispense with the actual votes of their electorate.
(Edit - I see that HYUFD is already there.)
I would have been astonished had the coup attempt succeeded last year. I will be pleasantly surprised if the next one doesn't.
I suppose this man, last time he stabbed a woman and her child had to say he wouldn't go out and attack another woman. And then he did stab another woman again.
But all is OK. When he's going to be released he needs to repeat his claims that he's rehabilitated and promise not to stab anyone else, and this time he means it . . .
The exit wave is about having an exit from restrictions, not an exit from Covid.
Post-vaccines, it is restrictions that are the bigger evil.
The trick surely is to get the Russians to imagine that these old seaside towns are the key. When they blow them up we can rebuild them with nice places,
PS Edit issues above
The other end of the spectrum is that for some crimes there should be no release ever. Which completely removes the entire purpose of the criminal justice system (punishment AND rehabilitation) in which case we may as well just shoot them on conviction...
Its a horrible shitty balance and its clear that we don't have it right in some cases. But I cling to the principle of rehabilitation.
Then they were asked to reassess, with the belief they would probably say booster for everybody, probably 6 months (because that is what the science had said was the optimal period), but JCVI came back with much much wider criteria of who will get jabs, 4th jabs, boosters for everybody 3 months, kids 2nd jabs, and it has totally caught the NHS off guard. They need to reopen loads of centres, get loads of staff back to the front line etc, and that is taking a couple of weeks to get in place.
We had a trip to Finland booked over New year. 'Postponed' it yesterday (nominally to next winter). Sure you can go - but with the threat constantly hanging over you that you might have to quarantine out there. Not an attractive possibility for a family of five.
Like you I have travelled abroad and it was also fine. A massive pain the arse as TSE says with regards to paperwork and declarations, but once you accept that travel is as it was.
How will it all of a sudden or gradually become less virulent (in transmission and effect)? We are simply kicking the can down the road with NPIs. Because as soon as we lift them the virus will resurrect again. Unless it is eliminated. Which you don't want or at least accept is not possible.
Other than that, a smooth ride and a great trip – probably better overall than a normal trip given fewer crowds at the airport.
The park with the alcoves is a bit weird, for some reason.
Fair enough, I'd do likewise faced with that timetable. I can defer my French trip next year if I feel the faff/quarantine risk is too great. That said, it's not until early summer so I am sure as hell not going to start worrying about it now, less still writing it off, as some PBers are already doing.
However given Trump leads Biden 49% to 44% in the latest Mclaughlin poll last month they may not even need to do that
https://mclaughlinonline.com/pols/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/National-Monthly-November-Release.pdf
Guy Elster
@guyelster
#BREAKING #Japan PM says Tokyo will fundamentally strengthen its defence posture by looking into options
International travel with a family of five is already such a mammoth pain in the arse it doesn't take much additional paperwork or uncertainty to make it an unattractive proposition, in my book. So much easier to go to Cornwall.
Their main redeeming feature was the reliability of the hot water supply for showers, and the size of the baths.
Most of the beds at the airbnbs I stayed at were better, but there could be weirdnesses staying at airbnbs.
Austria has a new Chancellor and Slovenian politics are interesting (they vote at the end of April 2022).
Here is Dave Keating on this yesterday:
https://twitter.com/DaveKeating/status/1467416360724709377
He is a funny old stick, but that cost of 960 "to the UK" includes 400 charged by France, and is exaggerated according to the followups by 3-400%, whilst the claim that costs do not exist for Belgium to another EU country is simply untrue. Also debunked by the followups.
Whilst many of us find his fictional reporting funny, he has jobs across multiple major organisations including Politico.eu, New Statesman, and France24, amongst others, and has a platform and an audience.
I've been following the Times story from this morning about the "Interpretation Act", and there's no shortage of media pros or semi-pros jabbering about how the UK is moving towards passing Nazi style "Enabling Acts".
The EU-based EU-leaning media seems to have worked itself into a very deep, very dark hole. Is there a way back for them?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59546948
The point about HIPS isn't that it was a huge deal, it's that it's the only thing anyone can think about when they think about her. What is Cooperism?
That's my view exactly! I would in all honesty happily stay in the UK until the kids are all grown up. My memory of childhood holidays is that they were brilliant in the UK and rubbish abroad. But the wife, quite reasonably, wants to bring them adventure and wonder while they are still young and while we are all still healthy. Hopefully next winter...
https://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/news/local-news/first-omicron-variant-coronavirus-case-6309959?utm_source=linkCopy&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=sharebar
🙄 it's all kicking off again...
- New cases: 6,381
- Average: 10,628 (+587)
- Positivity rate: 26.4% (+2.6)
- In hospital: 3,517 (+249)
- In ICU: 308 (+30)
- New deaths: 9
- Average: 21 (-3)
Positivity rate up again.
Full disclosure, I have a few health conditions (which is why I was double jabbed in March) and I live in the fear I get trapped overseas when a new variant hits.
I'm someone who loves my foreign travels.
The White House has announced a diplomatic boycott of the Chinese Winter Olympics: "The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics given the PRC's ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang"
https://twitter.com/DavidCharter/status/1467922583832211464
BTW I thought I was terribly clever yesterday deducing that the new War Against
GoveDrugs was North Shropshire related because I googled Oswestry drugs bust and got 1 trillion hits. Turns out this also works if you substitute {provincial_town_name} for Oswestry, including Oadby and Wigston.I wonder if before long we will be going back into diesel electric submarines.
I think countries are waking up to the fact that Omicron is going to take over and it is futile to think it won't - and this could be a good thing if it is less deadly.
I'm off to France in a few days: a LFT before, a LFT prior to return plus a PCR on return is not too much hassle really.
https://twitter.com/JacquiHeinrich/status/1467921651434205190
We should do the same.
V unwise for No10 to lie about this but PM set the course of lying on covid in spring when he decided to start rewriting history, deny herd immunity plan etc. NB some lobby hacks were also at parties in No10 flat so trying to bury this story...
https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1467907520840744961
https://twitter.com/AdamWagner1/status/1467855094280441856
It was the three wankers, Cameron, Clegg & Osborne, who ushered in "a golden era" with China.
Three people who everything they touched turned to shit.
King Midas' mentally defective brothers.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/06/at-least-46-vip-lane-ppe-deals-awarded-before-formal-due-diligence-in-place
Vanita Gupta says Texas forced this through with a rushed process, and the maps will not allow Black and Latino voters an equal opportunity to elect a representative of their choice.
https://twitter.com/ryanjreilly/status/1467927244190400523