Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 37m What Chris Whitty just said doesn’t make any sense. Yes a high number of South Africans will have built up immunity from previous waves. But so have we. Surely that supports the idea that this strain will be “less severe” than previous strains, at least for those who have had it.
Whitty was in agreement. Whilst it will not be "less severe" for you personally if you are unlucky enough to get absolutely flattened by it, far fewer people as a percentage infected will be that unlucky.
So it can still kill or hospitalise you, but its a lower percentage risk than it would have been otherwise. The reason why its not "less severe" overall is that so many people are going to be infected in a short time than a small percentage of a very large number is also a large number.
Its not difficult. A large percentage of a smaller number, and a small percentage of a larger number can be the same number.
And thankfully we will have a small percentage of a smaller number because we had the exit wave earlier this year.
If we'd not had the blessing of 40,000 cases a day for months to get rid of the dry tinder we'd be in for an inferno now.
78,610 cases......I presume 100k will be breeched by end of the week.
The usual suspects will be ramping up the pressure to cancel Christmas.
Well, what do you think?
No further restrictions needed? Everything going fine?
What would you do? You have been asked this repeatedly but if you have answered I must have missed it.
Tell us what restrictions you favour.
As I said and you were apparently unable to understand (or perhaps read), whatever it takes to try to prevent the NHS collapsing and people dying without medical care.
Are you saying that we shouldn't try to prevent the NHS collapsing? By implication that seems to be the opinion of many here.
OK we're getting there. So no one is allowed to die of Covid. Is that what you're after? How would you achieve that.
The tortuous way this troll avoids a) saying what he would do and/or b) putting his money where his very big sanctimonious mouth is is truly breathtaking.
Is @Chris a troll? The vast majority of the public would agree with him and disagree with you?
Agree with what? It's impossible to get him to explain his position.
Frankly, the fact that you people keep saying that is simply an admission of your fundamental dishonesty.
How can I make it any clearer? WE MUST DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO PREVENT THE NHS COLLAPSING AND BEING UNABLE TO GIVE PEOPLE MEDICAL CARE
It's a simple, fundamental political choice. If people disagree, they should have the honesty to say so. The fact that they have so much difficulty in doing so speaks volumes.
But you still haven't outlined any specific measures, just a generalised bit it rhetoric. What specific measures are we talking about here? Lockdown? Economic shutdown? For how long? How do we keep shelves stocked? Will the government send around the ration van? What are you specifically saying needs to be done?
Oh, for God's sake I don't believe you're really such a fool that you can't understand plain English.
Don't waste my time.
To prevent more time wasting, assume that all are in DISAGREE.
I've waited 18 months for NHS care. Annoying, but a balance had to be struck across financial resources and the life of the country outside of healthcare.
Much has been made of mental health, for example. There is no health-cost free option during a pandemic.
Interestingly, suicides fell quite substantially last year.
I noticed that. Its weirdly counter intuitive.
It makes some sense. E.g. fewer opportunities during lockdown due to other people being around.
But we are all supposed to be isolated, depressed, missing human company, drinking far too much at home, falling out with our spouses having seen more of them than we can cope with, suffered financial anxiety, not been getting prompt medical attention for anything other than Covid etc etc etc.
It shows the danger of just assuming or using common sense. I have heard the dangers to mental health, for example, mentioned countless times on the media and elsewhere. Its just not showing up in the figures.
One of my trustees committed suicide 10 days ago David. 47, with a lovely wife and a 12 year old girl. Everything to go for, but he’d lost his job and didn’t see a path forward with covid intensifying
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 37m What Chris Whitty just said doesn’t make any sense. Yes a high number of South Africans will have built up immunity from previous waves. But so have we. Surely that supports the idea that this strain will be “less severe” than previous strains, at least for those who have had it.
Whitty was in agreement. Whilst it will not be "less severe" for you personally if you are unlucky enough to get absolutely flattened by it, far fewer people as a percentage infected will be that unlucky.
So it can still kill or hospitalise you, but its a lower percentage risk than it would have been otherwise. The reason why its not "less severe" overall is that so many people are going to be infected in a short time than a small percentage of a very large number is also a large number.
Its not difficult. A large percentage of a smaller number, and a small percentage of a larger number can be the same number.
And thankfully we will have a small percentage of a smaller number because we had the exit wave earlier this year.
If we'd not had the blessing of 40,000 cases a day for months to get rid of the dry tinder we'd be in for an inferno now.
You don't think we're in for an inferno now?
I wish you were the person who knew what he was talking about. I much prefer your foot stamping arms crossed stroppy fantasy than reality.
As well as North Shropshire we have a bumper crop of local by-elections tomorrow. There are Lab defences in Bridgend, Medway, Telford and Wrekin, and Walsall. There is a MIG defence in Middlesbrough and a Ind elected as Con defence in West Lindsey. Finally there are Con defences in Argyll and Bute, Ashford, Horsham, Lichfield, Northumberland, and West Berkshire. It is possible that there will be no Conservatives elected tomorrow!
Just looked up the Argyll and Bute one. The single Con cuncillor in that Lomond North ward is (a) the one who resigned and (b) who got most first prefs when elected (29.4) vs the SNP coming second with 20.1%. So it's a reasonably true comparison to tomorrow. EXCEPT that OTOH two Independents, one a well knwon former councillor, are piling in as well - so comparisons are moot. Probably either Con Or Ind win.
Did anyone else see the WHO guy, Nabarro, on Sky News?
I have never seen a senior global health official look so shaken and full of foreboding
I have just sold all my shares
I just assumed he was another of your creations?
i really really wish he was. He was, unfortunately, very real and very persuasive
His interview reminded me strongly of an infamous TV interview early in 2020 - I wish I could find it - when this normally sober finance pundit on US morning telly suddenly said, of coronavirus, “this is the worst thing I have ever seen”
Worst case scenario? We lockdown in January and spread the burden on the health service over a slightly longer period. Once omicron has ripped through, where does the pandemic go from there?
I suspect if Whitty is favouring restrictions its because he thinks we need to prioritise the boosters so that people have the maximum protection by the time they get the new variant.
I have found that interview from Feb 2020, when the first American pundit finally realised what a fuckmare we were all facing with Coronavirus. Worth a watch.
I’d already guessed 3 weeks earlier but seeing it confirmed like this was nonetheless a definite moment
The WHO-Nabarro interview on Sky News just now had a somewhat similar feel. Perhaps not so alarming, because we already know we are in shit, but the same air of sombre, OMFG prepare-yourself fear and shock….
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
The New York State covid passport app lets you download the certificate to your phone's wallet once you've signed in and retrieved it.
(((Dan Hodges))) @DPJHodges · 37m What Chris Whitty just said doesn’t make any sense. Yes a high number of South Africans will have built up immunity from previous waves. But so have we. Surely that supports the idea that this strain will be “less severe” than previous strains, at least for those who have had it.
Whitty was in agreement. Whilst it will not be "less severe" for you personally if you are unlucky enough to get absolutely flattened by it, far fewer people as a percentage infected will be that unlucky.
So it can still kill or hospitalise you, but its a lower percentage risk than it would have been otherwise. The reason why its not "less severe" overall is that so many people are going to be infected in a short time than a small percentage of a very large number is also a large number.
Its not difficult. A large percentage of a smaller number, and a small percentage of a larger number can be the same number.
And thankfully we will have a small percentage of a smaller number because we had the exit wave earlier this year.
If we'd not had the blessing of 40,000 cases a day for months to get rid of the dry tinder we'd be in for an inferno now.
You don't think we're in for an inferno now?
I wish you were the person who knew what he was talking about. I much prefer your foot stamping arms crossed stroppy fantasy than reality.
Nah this is going to be a damp squib.
Millions were already cleared out of the path of this earlier in the year. The virus is running into a massive wall of immunity and while its going to have some breakthroughs, its not breaking through for everyone.
Had we not had the 40k per day for months though we'd be in for a complete clusterfuck now. But we did, so we'll be sweet. Some people will die, but que sera sera.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Have raised this point before. No one gave an answer. Given how infectious omicron is, is it wise to encourage folk to gather in massive queues for several hours all across the country?
Yes, that is a real concern. One of our junior doctors lost an uncle to covid caught in a vaccine queue earlier in the year.
The call has gone out in my Trust for medical injectors to help over Christmas. Not for me, I am on call.
Have raised this point before. No one gave an answer. Given how infectious omicron is, is it wise to encourage folk to gather in massive queues for several hours all across the country?
Yes. Outdoors. In a mask. With social distancing if possible as most people seem to do now instinctively.
Do we know those conditions still apply. I know I sound Uber paranoid, but am still gobsmacked I got it. Wouldn't have a clue how I contracted delta. Would be genuinely mystified. It is infectious to the max. But, just how infectious? Do we know?
I presume it is statistically younger as a population than the national average including more children? A lot of the unvaccinated will have had covid already - maybe that's why they didn't want to get vaccinated? Of course it would be better if they got the vaccine too.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
The New York State covid passport app lets you download the certificate to your phone's wallet once you've signed in and retrieved it.
As you can with the UK covid passport.
You can download to Google Pay or the Apple equivalent and add a link to it top you homepage, one click and you get the QR code.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Er, you just do a screenshot, Richard
You can get it sent as an email, or download as a pdf so not requiring a connection.
78,610 cases......I presume 100k will be breeched by end of the week.
The usual suspects will be ramping up the pressure to cancel Christmas.
Well, what do you think?
No further restrictions needed? Everything going fine?
What would you do? You have been asked this repeatedly but if you have answered I must have missed it.
Tell us what restrictions you favour.
As I said and you were apparently unable to understand (or perhaps read), whatever it takes to try to prevent the NHS collapsing and people dying without medical care.
Are you saying that we shouldn't try to prevent the NHS collapsing? By implication that seems to be the opinion of many here.
OK we're getting there. So no one is allowed to die of Covid. Is that what you're after? How would you achieve that.
The tortuous way this troll avoids a) saying what he would do and/or b) putting his money where his very big sanctimonious mouth is is truly breathtaking.
Is @Chris a troll? The vast majority of the public would agree with him and disagree with you?
Agree with what? It's impossible to get him to explain his position.
Frankly, the fact that you people keep saying that is simply an admission of your fundamental dishonesty.
How can I make it any clearer? WE MUST DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO PREVENT THE NHS COLLAPSING AND BEING UNABLE TO GIVE PEOPLE MEDICAL CARE
It's a simple, fundamental political choice. If people disagree, they should have the honesty to say so. The fact that they have so much difficulty in doing so speaks volumes.
But you still haven't outlined any specific measures, just a generalised bit it rhetoric. What specific measures are we talking about here? Lockdown? Economic shutdown? For how long? How do we keep shelves stocked? Will the government send around the ration van? What are you specifically saying needs to be done?
Oh, for God's sake I don't believe you're really such a fool that you can't understand plain English.
Don't waste my time.
To prevent more time wasting, assume that all are in DISAGREE.
I've waited 18 months for NHS care. Annoying, but a balance had to be struck across financial resources and the life of the country outside of healthcare.
Much has been made of mental health, for example. There is no health-cost free option during a pandemic.
Interestingly, suicides fell quite substantially last year.
I noticed that. Its weirdly counter intuitive.
It makes some sense. E.g. fewer opportunities during lockdown due to other people being around.
But we are all supposed to be isolated, depressed, missing human company, drinking far too much at home, falling out with our spouses having seen more of them than we can cope with, suffered financial anxiety, not been getting prompt medical attention for anything other than Covid etc etc etc.
It shows the danger of just assuming or using common sense. I have heard the dangers to mental health, for example, mentioned countless times on the media and elsewhere. Its just not showing up in the figures.
One of my trustees committed suicide 10 days ago David. 47, with a lovely wife and a 12 year old girl. Everything to go for, but he’d lost his job and didn’t see a path forward with covid intensifying
I lost a friend recently, came completely out of the blue. No idea what happened, his wife just let us know he'd passed "suddenly". Didn't think he was sick or anything, it makes me wonder if that was it for him too. I didn't want to press his wife on what had happened and she didn't volunteer more information. 😢
The damage this is doing to people is catastrophic and nobody much seem to want to talk about it.
AFAIK the covid pass should also save to Apple Pay or Google Pay wallets as though it is any other card, and you can do that directly from the NHS App, and also from NHS App website in Chrome on Android. So once you have got your 30 day pass that should be a convenient and safe place to keep it.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
You can do that by sending it to your Apple wallet (assume there is an android equivalent), or notes or email. Can also phone up and get a paper copy.
@MaxPB and I have argued the point. The difference between the ONS and NIMS estimates is 1.6 million which is not a small number. However, where the Standard derived its figure of "2 million unvaccinated Londoners" is anyone's guess.
There are unvaccinated Londoners and I fear a sizeable number of older people in some of the ethnic communities - it's also worth noting the GLA stats mention those alive and with an NHS number. There will be those below the radar who may have the former but not the latter.
You know how the New Zealand PM wants to ban smoking completely?
This idea was put forward by a famous Telegraph columnist in 2014, (on pages which mysteriously aren't available on the Telegraph website now, so you have to use the Internet Archive / Wayback Machine to find them).
And the consequences of Johnson's lies and weakness ...
The UK looks to be heading for the worst of all worlds: a large number of cases with the potential to devastate the country’s ability to provide healthcare and to maintain supply chains, and a voluntary, partial lockdown that does a great deal of economic damage without doing much to stem the tide of the Omicron variant.
Omicron is like an oncoming megastorm everyone in its path gets fucked. I'm not sure that the media really understand just how infectious it is and how little any lockdowns are going to do to stop it. Boosters are the only way out, anyone trying to say otherwise is selling you a fantasy.
He's not advocating lockdowns, he is saying they will not happen - but that the economy is basically going to shut down anyway in many sectors and a lot of businesses are going to pay a very heavy price for that.
But what can you do? Omicron spreads at a rate 4x faster than Delta. We'd have to close supermarkets, warehouses, anywhere that people can be in the same room together to stop it. Simply, we all need to shop or have shopping delivered and that alone pushes the R well above 1 because of the associated activity.
A practical point re shopping is to minimise trips/deliveries. Stock up with dry/frozen/long-life stuff. It's noticeable that delivery slots from my local Sainsbury are filling up quickly.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
Government’s former chief scientific adviser Prof Sir Mark Walport tells me on @Channel4News : “The science is very straightforward…You have to reduce as much social contact as you can” but the “policy decision” is “much more difficult”;
he also warns that while it’s difficult to be accurate, the risk of overwhelming the NHS could be as great or greater than the last peak. Sobering…
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
The New York State covid passport app lets you download the certificate to your phone's wallet once you've signed in and retrieved it.
As you can with the UK covid passport.
You can download to Google Pay or the Apple equivalent and add a link to it top you homepage, one click and you get the QR code.
Yes, and from within the Apple wallet you can see the full details of the vaccination - date, batch no, etc. It's very easy to use.
Is there any chance that we could end up with just a London lockdown?
No...idea of tiered localised restrictions in small country like UK are flawed.
A policy being flawed doesn't appear to disqualify it from consideration!
I'm just wondering if London's distinct vax profile might put its hospitals under considerably more strain than the rest of the country. If it were just London's NHS seriously suffering could it warrant a nationwide lockdown?
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
It just took me about five seconds to do, sort of.
1. Open App 2. Touch fingerprint 3. Click on NHS Covid Status Service 4. Get a "Service Unavailable" error message
Lets try it again 1. Press home button 2. Click NHS Covid Status Service 3. Get another error message
Try it again 1. Press Home Button 2. Click on NHS Covid Status Service 3. Click Get Your NHS Covid Pass 4. Shows QR code.
And the consequences of Johnson's lies and weakness ...
The UK looks to be heading for the worst of all worlds: a large number of cases with the potential to devastate the country’s ability to provide healthcare and to maintain supply chains, and a voluntary, partial lockdown that does a great deal of economic damage without doing much to stem the tide of the Omicron variant.
Omicron is like an oncoming megastorm everyone in its path gets fucked. I'm not sure that the media really understand just how infectious it is and how little any lockdowns are going to do to stop it. Boosters are the only way out, anyone trying to say otherwise is selling you a fantasy.
He's not advocating lockdowns, he is saying they will not happen - but that the economy is basically going to shut down anyway in many sectors and a lot of businesses are going to pay a very heavy price for that.
But what can you do? Omicron spreads at a rate 4x faster than Delta. We'd have to close supermarkets, warehouses, anywhere that people can be in the same room together to stop it. Simply, we all need to shop or have shopping delivered and that alone pushes the R well above 1 because of the associated activity.
A practical point re shopping is to minimise trips/deliveries. Stock up with dry/frozen/long-life stuff. It's noticeable that delivery slots from my local Sainsbury are filling up quickly.
However one great consolation of isolation is cooking. In isolation I'll shop once a day, and happily emanate a demeanour of wishing to kill you if you're in my space. It seems to work.
As well as North Shropshire we have a bumper crop of local by-elections tomorrow. There are Lab defences in Bridgend, Medway, Telford and Wrekin, and Walsall. There is a MIG defence in Middlesbrough and a Ind elected as Con defence in West Lindsey. Finally there are Con defences in Argyll and Bute, Ashford, Horsham, Lichfield, Northumberland, and West Berkshire. It is possible that there will be no Conservatives elected tomorrow!
The Northumberland one is for control of the Council. Currently Con 33 of 67. Con defence after a scandal ridden resignation. It is Hexham East. The rough end of town. Con/LD marginal. Course the Tories will have Indies to call on. But nonetheless.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
Download or email it first. How hard is that?
The onus is on the designers of the app to make it super-easy, or is in any software product I've ever designed. As I said, any answer which is 'ah, but you can do it this way to work around the lunacy..' is missing the point.
In this ex vivo study (press release), Michael Chan, Malik Peiris & John Nicholls et al. @hkumed show that at 24h after infection Omicron replicated ~70x faster than Delta in bronchus. Interestingly, it replicated ~10x less efficiently in the lung tissue.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
It just took me about five seconds to do, sort of.
1. Open App 2. Touch fingerprint 3. Click on NHS Covid Status Service 4. Get a "Service Unavailable" error message
Lets try it again 1. Press home button 2. Click NHS Covid Status Service 3. Get another error message
Try it again 1. Press Home Button 2. Click on NHS Covid Status Service 3. Click Get Your NHS Covid Pass 4. Shows QR code.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
Download or email it first. How hard is that?
The onus is on the designers of the app to make it super-easy, or is in any software product I've ever designed. As I said, any answer which is 'ah, but you can do it this way to work around the lunacy..' is missing the point.
A screenshot takes 0.4 seconds. That’s it. Anyone who doesn’t understand how to do a screenshot is so dumb they will die of Covid anyway by accidentally shoving the vaccine needle in their eye or something
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
Download or email it first. How hard is that?
The onus is on the designers of the app to make it super-easy, or is in any software product I've ever designed. As I said, any answer which is 'ah, but you can do it this way to work around the lunacy..' is missing the point.
It isn't a workaround, it is one of several options when you login 🙄
Government’s former chief scientific adviser Prof Sir Mark Walport tells me on @Channel4News : “The science is very straightforward…You have to reduce as much social contact as you can” but the “policy decision” is “much more difficult”;
he also warns that while it’s difficult to be accurate, the risk of overwhelming the NHS could be as great or greater than the last peak. Sobering…
Actually the policy decision is easy, but BoZo can't make it, and his party won't back it.
Fucking clown.
Actually the policy decision is easy. Tell Walport and everyone like him to fuck off and have everyone enjoy a very Merry Christmas.
But Boris is pratting around introducing restrictions. If he tries anymore then his party should oust him.
Thank goodness clowns like you have left the party. Too chickenshit to handle Brexit, too afraid to face a virus that the vulnerable have had three vaccine doses for already too. Some consistency at least I guess.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
It just took me about five seconds to do, sort of.
1. Open App 2. Touch fingerprint 3. Click on NHS Covid Status Service 4. Get a "Service Unavailable" error message
Lets try it again 1. Press home button 2. Click NHS Covid Status Service 3. Get another error message
Try it again 1. Press Home Button 2. Click on NHS Covid Status Service 3. Click Get Your NHS Covid Pass 4. Shows QR code.
Which version is that?
"Last updated 1 December" according to Play Store. Can't see where to see a version number.
In this ex vivo study (press release), Michael Chan, Malik Peiris & John Nicholls et al. @hkumed show that at 24h after infection Omicron replicated ~70x faster than Delta in bronchus. Interestingly, it replicated ~10x less efficiently in the lung tissue.
That would tally well with the data on patients on oxygen in South Africa.
As a distraction from omastrophe - I have just put a small round of drinks on Clinton for POTUS 2024 at 130/1.
Chelsea, I presume.
Yes that’s more like it comedy post. We are not just doomsayers, conspiracy theorists and end of world ramper on this blog - we can do biting edge satire too.
*betting post. End the world might well be nigh, but surely Christmas is still shorter odds at moment 😀
*election post. Don’t forget as former Nurse Slade said, lots of elections coming tomorrow.
*economic post. What’s the Old Lady of Threadneedling Street going to do tomorrow? I went on record last Sunday saying a 0.17% increase.
*fun post. For those who need to take their head off doom for a moment, I have set my Lock Screen seasonal to Yorkshires own Grimmy 🎨 Ever since my friend John introduced me to Grimshaw, I don’t mind it. A sort of halfway house between Impressionism and Realism. Or a mixture. The realism of a photograph because like Canaletto and Vermeer Grimmy used camera obscura with a poets vision impressed on top. I don’t find it passé at all timeless imo.
I have lost 3 friends to Covid in the last 2 years. I know it was Covid because they were healthy, they caught this disease that affected their lungs and they died of it. I am sure the overwhelming number of Covid deaths are equally clear cut. I do not doubt the official numbers at all. Genuinely.
But I am annoyed because my cousin died on 1st December. He was younger than me - which in itself is scary - and had had terminal cancer for several years. He was a real mess. About 3 weeks before he died he contracted covid. He had no symptoms but tested positive from a test after being pinged. He then went into hospital due to the last stages of his cancer and died a couple of days later.
I heard from his mother today that his death certificate says Covid. Why? He died of cancer. And it was horrible.
As I say, I really do think this disease has been as bad as portrayed and do think we have largely dodged a very nasty bullet because of the vaccines. But things like this - whilst they don't for a second make me doubt the numbers - do make me angry as it looks like a lazy adherence to (I assume) a set of stupid rules.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
Download or email it first. How hard is that?
The onus is on the designers of the app to make it super-easy, or is in any software product I've ever designed. As I said, any answer which is 'ah, but you can do it this way to work around the lunacy..' is missing the point.
It isn't a workaround, it is one of several options when you login 🙄
No it's not. Those two options (at least on the Android version) are invisible, unless you are clairvoyant and realise that if you scroll down from the QR code you can find them. And in any case, the pass isn't valid indefinitely, so why would you want to do that? You want to always have the up-to-date version, which is the whole point of having an app for it in the first place.
Government’s former chief scientific adviser Prof Sir Mark Walport tells me on @Channel4News : “The science is very straightforward…You have to reduce as much social contact as you can” but the “policy decision” is “much more difficult”;
he also warns that while it’s difficult to be accurate, the risk of overwhelming the NHS could be as great or greater than the last peak. Sobering…
Actually the policy decision is easy, but BoZo can't make it, and his party won't back it.
Fucking clown.
Actually the policy decision is easy. Tell Walport and everyone like him to fuck off and have everyone enjoy a very Merry Christmas.
But Boris is pratting around introducing restrictions. If he tries anymore then his party should oust him.
Thank goodness clowns like you have left the party. Too chickenshit to handle Brexit, too afraid to face a virus that the vulnerable have had three vaccine doses for already too. Some consistency at least I guess.
As I have said I think the restrictions are proportional and I do not see Boris introducing anything further
At 16x as transmissible as original covid even a full lockdown won't stop omicron.
Technically, if people don't leave home for six weeks, then it'll be stopped. People need to congregate for the virus to spread, and if 95% of social interactions don't take place, then it's hard for the virus to find new hosts.
That being said, I think people are being a little too concerned on here today.
I've just booked tickets to the UK for work (and to visit OGH) for the middle of January. I expect Omicron to have been and largely gone by then.
I have lost 3 friends to Covid in the last 2 years. I know it was Covid because they were healthy, they caught this disease that affected their lungs and they died of it. I am sure the overwhelming number of Covid deaths are equally clear cut. I do not doubt the official numbers at all. Genuinely.
But I am annoyed because my cousin died on 1st December. He was younger than me - which in itself is scary - and had had terminal cancer for several years. He was a real mess. About 3 weeks before he died he contracted covid. He had no symptoms but tested positive from a test after being pinged. He then went into hospital due to the last stages of his cancer and died a couple of days later.
I heard from his mother today that his death certificate says Covid. Why? He died of cancer. And it was horrible.
As I say, I really do think this disease has been as bad as portrayed and do think we have largely dodged a very nasty bullet because of the vaccines. But things like this - whilst they don't for a second make me doubt the numbers - do make me angry as it looks like a lazy adherence to (I assume) a set of stupid rules.
Sorry for your loss.
I expect that there's many stories like yours. They do make me doubt the numbers, the death certificate figures have long been much higher than the excess death figures, so I suspect your story is far from unique.
Sympathy for your family. Horrible any time, but especially right before Christmas.
Not true - I'd count myself as a supporter, despite also thinking he's been entirely useless for months. I'd currently not employ his corpse as a doorstop.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
How am I a Johnson fan when I've called for him to go and said he's terribly weak for allowing these restrictions to go ahead? 🤔
I'm with the 100 backbenchers and hope one of them replaces him at this rate. He's a shit, weak leader that's lost his nerve and is in hock to the "experts" he once was brave enough to disagree with but now he's lost it.
At 16x as transmissible as original covid even a full lockdown won't stop omicron.
Nope. It would have to be never leave your property for any reason whatsoever. Probably why it hasn't been seriously called for by anyone in the know.
If omi is more like the flu pandemic they were expecting then they could have reverted to the original flu plan - which was no lockdowns. Just manage the crisis as best we can.
Wonder IF concerns over Omircon, which appear to have ratcheted upwards pretty sharpish in recent days, will have an impact on turnout tomorrow in Septentrionalem Salop?
Which might be differential? For example, methinks it MIGHT give cover to local Tories who are NOT over-eager at this juncture to pat Boris on the back, but also reluctant to actually vote FOR another party, to simply let this cup pass their lips - in the interest of family safety and public health.
BTW, does anyone know how many postal ballots have bee requested AND returned so far?
EDIT - Hope my Latin may (just) pass muster with learned PB Latinists.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
Download or email it first. How hard is that?
The onus is on the designers of the app to make it super-easy, or is in any software product I've ever designed. As I said, any answer which is 'ah, but you can do it this way to work around the lunacy..' is missing the point.
A screenshot takes 0.4 seconds. That’s it. Anyone who doesn’t understand how to do a screenshot is so dumb they will die of Covid anyway by accidentally shoving the vaccine needle in their eye or something
I honestly cannot be bothered to learn how to do more than the following on my phone: - phone calls - text messaging - taking photos - internet explorer or whatever browser it is.
I haven't installed an app since I bought the phone and resent having to learn how to do so. No doubt it will involve having to makeup a password. I specifically don't want my phone to have access to my email. Without wanting to appear too much like my avatar, it seems like a massive invasion of privacy and I can't understand why more people don'tfeel like this.
Technology reached perfection about 2003. Anything which has happened since then is basically superfluous.
At 16x as transmissible as original covid even a full lockdown won't stop omicron.
Technically, if people don't leave home for six weeks, then it'll be stopped. People need to congregate for the virus to spread, and if 95% of social interactions don't take place, then it's hard for the virus to find new hosts.
That being said, I think people are being a little too concerned on here today.
I've just booked tickets to the UK for work (and to visit OGH) for the middle of January. I expect Omicron to have been and largely gone by then.
The problem is very few people aren't able to go weeks without leaving house at some point e.g. to get food....also you still need large numbers of people out there doing essential jobs. Then the initial data is this thing spreads like crazy within a household.
So i think the point is it is that infectious that even lockdown won't make a sufficient dent in the spread. You would have to go China++
On a personal level i am not massively concerned. But the unvaccinated and vulnerable, it will find them and find them quickly.
Not true - I'd count myself as a supporter, despite also thinking he's been entirely useless for months. I'd currently not employ his corpse as a doorstop.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
I'm intrigued. Whose corpse would you employ as a doorstop?
I have lost 3 friends to Covid in the last 2 years. I know it was Covid because they were healthy, they caught this disease that affected their lungs and they died of it. I am sure the overwhelming number of Covid deaths are equally clear cut. I do not doubt the official numbers at all. Genuinely.
But I am annoyed because my cousin died on 1st December. He was younger than me - which in itself is scary - and had had terminal cancer for several years. He was a real mess. About 3 weeks before he died he contracted covid. He had no symptoms but tested positive from a test after being pinged. He then went into hospital due to the last stages of his cancer and died a couple of days later.
I heard from his mother today that his death certificate says Covid. Why? He died of cancer. And it was horrible.
As I say, I really do think this disease has been as bad as portrayed and do think we have largely dodged a very nasty bullet because of the vaccines. But things like this - whilst they don't for a second make me doubt the numbers - do make me angry as it looks like a lazy adherence to (I assume) a set of stupid rules.
Very sad. Sorry to read this. My sympathy’s to everyone experiencing loss of such young life. 🙁
Not true - I'd count myself as a supporter, despite also thinking he's been entirely useless for months. I'd currently not employ his corpse as a doorstop.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
I'm intrigued. Whose corpse would you employ as a doorstop?
Big money in that you know. Ecorpsefordoorstops.com does a roaring trade. Mummy's are the top sellers (as they last) and most subject to fakery too.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
Download or email it first. How hard is that?
The onus is on the designers of the app to make it super-easy, or is in any software product I've ever designed. As I said, any answer which is 'ah, but you can do it this way to work around the lunacy..' is missing the point.
It isn't a workaround, it is one of several options when you login 🙄
No it's not. Those two options (at least on the Android version) are invisible, unless you are clairvoyant and realise that if you scroll down from the QR code you can find them. And in any case, the pass isn't valid indefinitely, so why would you want to do that? You want to always have the up-to-date version, which is the whole point of having an app for it in the first place.
Just get a paper copy then. That is indefinite (although will probably be out of date when they change to requiring a booster).
This is a great picture. Imagine replacing all of the second more light blue with red. We'd be fucked.
Royally.
Its hilarious to see people freaking out about this now, while also those very same people were bemoaning the immunonaive being allowed to get natural immunity through the summer and autumn.
The exit wave got rid of about 80%+ of the dry tinder the vaccines didn't get to first. Job done.
Not true - I'd count myself as a supporter, despite also thinking he's been entirely useless for months. I'd currently not employ his corpse as a doorstop.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
I'm intrigued. Whose corpse would you employ as a doorstop?
Big money in that you know. Ecorpsefordoorstops.com does a roaring trade. Mummy's are the top sellers (as they last) and most subject to fakery too.
You use your Mummy as a doorstop? Blimey. I would say that isn't very Pharoah'n her.
I have lost 3 friends to Covid in the last 2 years. I know it was Covid because they were healthy, they caught this disease that affected their lungs and they died of it. I am sure the overwhelming number of Covid deaths are equally clear cut. I do not doubt the official numbers at all. Genuinely.
But I am annoyed because my cousin died on 1st December. He was younger than me - which in itself is scary - and had had terminal cancer for several years. He was a real mess. About 3 weeks before he died he contracted covid. He had no symptoms but tested positive from a test after being pinged. He then went into hospital due to the last stages of his cancer and died a couple of days later.
I heard from his mother today that his death certificate says Covid. Why? He died of cancer. And it was horrible.
As I say, I really do think this disease has been as bad as portrayed and do think we have largely dodged a very nasty bullet because of the vaccines. But things like this - whilst they don't for a second make me doubt the numbers - do make me angry as it looks like a lazy adherence to (I assume) a set of stupid rules.
Sorry for your loss.
I expect that there's many stories like yours. They do make me doubt the numbers, the death certificate figures have long been much higher than the excess death figures, so I suspect your story is far from unique.
Sympathy for your family. Horrible any time, but especially right before Christmas.
Yes, sorry for your loss. The only two covid deaths I knew personally also fall into that category, as does the one I know at one remove - I.e. deaths of people who have been at deaths door for months/ years and who happened to have covid at the time of death.
Not true - I'd count myself as a supporter, despite also thinking he's been entirely useless for months. I'd currently not employ his corpse as a doorstop.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
I'm intrigued. Whose corpse would you employ as a doorstop?
Big money in that you know. Ecorpsefordoorstops.com does a roaring trade. Mummy's are the top sellers (as they last) and most subject to fakery too.
You use your Mummy as a doorstop? Blimey. I would say that isn't very Pharoah'n her.
Not true - I'd count myself as a supporter, despite also thinking he's been entirely useless for months. I'd currently not employ his corpse as a doorstop.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
I'm intrigued. Whose corpse would you employ as a doorstop?
Big money in that you know. Ecorpsefordoorstops.com does a roaring trade. Mummy's are the top sellers (as they last) and most subject to fakery too.
You use your Mummy as a doorstop? Blimey. I would say that isn't very Pharoah'n her.
One other thing I took away from listening to Witty, there was resignation it can't be stopped and that even boosterised isn't going to stop infections, it is about mininizing serious illness.
Omicron is 8x more transmissible than Delta according to HSA. Delta was 1.9x more transmissible than original.
That early guesstimate from academic in SA that talked about 16x is now what HSA are basically saying.
That’s mind boggling. It is surely one of the most transmissible diseases in history. AND it’s dangerous. GREAT
Early on in the crisis, we used to get rough estimates of how much each NPI (like masks) would reduce R by.
I guess with Omicron we’d be looking at a very low practical impact on the R rate…
Imagine that mask mandates cut R by 25%. Well, that means it goes from 20 to 15.
To get R down below 1 for something with R of 20, you need to stack lots of measures.
That makes sense - although I wonder whether the efficacy of (say) masks stays at the same level for a more transmissible variant (in terms of %age reduction of R) - no reason it should drop I suppose.
I guess at some point too, with a truly astronomical R rate, percentage reductions still don’t take the absolute R down below 1 at all easily - ie you have to stack so many interventions that it becomes impractical.
As you say though, vaccines are doing the heavy lifting even with their reduced efficacy. Must do some digging for data on vaccine impact on R - a different way of evaluating their benefit rather than % reduction in chance of infection.
Not true - I'd count myself as a supporter, despite also thinking he's been entirely useless for months. I'd currently not employ his corpse as a doorstop.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
I'm intrigued. Whose corpse would you employ as a doorstop?
Big money in that you know. Ecorpsefordoorstops.com does a roaring trade. Mummy's are the top sellers (as they last) and most subject to fakery too.
You use your Mummy as a doorstop? Blimey. I would say that isn't very Pharoah'n her.
One other thing I took away from listening to Witty, there was resignation it can't be stopped and that even boosterised isn't going to stop infections, it is about mininizing serious illness.
They are treating like the flu pandemic they planned for now? Do what we can to keep services running and then pray.
Just had a look on twitter at some of the more alarmist feeds and they haven't managed to get me panicking. A lot of talk about cases, rising number of hospital admissions with covid in London - well yes there would be if case numbers are going up generally. The question is - what about total hospital admissions? How much strain are they under? How many people in ICU?
Give me the evidence and I'll gladly start calling for lockdown.
Talking of vaxports (well, we're not, but we should be), I went to the theatre yesterday (Ralph Fiennes' remarkable Four Quartets, and the theatre, like many in London, required Covid passes or other status as a condition of entry. No problem, except it's very striking that using the NHS app to show your Covid pass is very cumbersome: you have to start the app, and click through multiple layers to get to login, it doesn't always seem to remember your login, so you might have to type in your password, and then there are more multiple layers to get to the Covid pass. It's fine at a desktop, but very awkward standing outside a theatre, maybe in the rain. Unsurprisingly most people seemed to be struggling with it.
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
Enable fingerprint scan, it takes two seconds to log in. You can also download a pass into Google Pay or Apple Pay and not faf about with the NHS app at all.
It's not just the login, and in any case any answer which says 'if you're tech savvy, you can do it like this' is disqualified. The default is:
1. Click on the app 2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login' 3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue 4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue 5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass 6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic 7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
Download or email it first. How hard is that?
The onus is on the designers of the app to make it super-easy, or is in any software product I've ever designed. As I said, any answer which is 'ah, but you can do it this way to work around the lunacy..' is missing the point.
It isn't a workaround, it is one of several options when you login 🙄
No it's not. Those two options (at least on the Android version) are invisible, unless you are clairvoyant and realise that if you scroll down from the QR code you can find them. And in any case, the pass isn't valid indefinitely, so why would you want to do that? You want to always have the up-to-date version, which is the whole point of having an app for it in the first place.
It lasts for a moth. If you are off out it makes sense.
Not true - I'd count myself as a supporter, despite also thinking he's been entirely useless for months. I'd currently not employ his corpse as a doorstop.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
I'm intrigued. Whose corpse would you employ as a doorstop?
Big money in that you know. Ecorpsefordoorstops.com does a roaring trade. Mummy's are the top sellers (as they last) and most subject to fakery too.
You use your Mummy as a doorstop? Blimey. I would say that isn't very Pharoah'n her.
Not true - I'd count myself as a supporter, despite also thinking he's been entirely useless for months. I'd currently not employ his corpse as a doorstop.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
I'm intrigued. Whose corpse would you employ as a doorstop?
Big money in that you know. Ecorpsefordoorstops.com does a roaring trade. Mummy's are the top sellers (as they last) and most subject to fakery too.
You use your Mummy as a doorstop? Blimey. I would say that isn't very Pharoah'n her.
Not true - I'd count myself as a supporter, despite also thinking he's been entirely useless for months. I'd currently not employ his corpse as a doorstop.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
I'm intrigued. Whose corpse would you employ as a doorstop?
Not true - I'd count myself as a supporter, despite also thinking he's been entirely useless for months. I'd currently not employ his corpse as a doorstop.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
I'm intrigued. Whose corpse would you employ as a doorstop?
Big money in that you know. Ecorpsefordoorstops.com does a roaring trade. Mummy's are the top sellers (as they last) and most subject to fakery too.
You use your Mummy as a doorstop? Blimey. I would say that isn't very Pharoah'n her.
I sphinx ahead.
Really? she must be needled.
I think you need to Cleopatra up that last post.
That didn't work. I'm claiming game and Seti.
Ra ra ra!
(new thread btw. suspect we should call it a draw)
Comments
Why have they made it so complicated, and mixed it up with the full NHS app which requires lots of security? It should be a separate app which you can invoke with a single click to show your Covid pass.
If we'd not had the blessing of 40,000 cases a day for months to get rid of the dry tinder we'd be in for an inferno now.
I wish you were the person who knew what he was talking about. I much prefer your foot stamping arms crossed stroppy fantasy than reality.
This could mean a lot more supply-chain disruption and inflationary shortages if the Chinese economy is badly affected by lockdown/Omicron next year.
See the very helpful chap at
https://ballotbox.scot/lomond-north-by-election-2021
I suspect if Whitty is favouring restrictions its because he thinks we need to prioritise the boosters so that people have the maximum protection by the time they get the new variant.
Well, yay, ish
I have found that interview from Feb 2020, when the first American pundit finally realised what a fuckmare we were all facing with Coronavirus. Worth a watch.
I’d already guessed 3 weeks earlier but seeing it confirmed like this was nonetheless a definite moment
The WHO-Nabarro interview on Sky News just now had a somewhat similar feel. Perhaps not so alarming, because we already know we are in shit, but the same air of sombre, OMFG prepare-yourself fear and shock….
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2020-02-27/minerd-says-coronavirus-could-be-the-worst-thing-he-s-seen-in-his-carrer-video
Millions were already cleared out of the path of this earlier in the year. The virus is running into a massive wall of immunity and while its going to have some breakthroughs, its not breaking through for everyone.
Had we not had the 40k per day for months though we'd be in for a complete clusterfuck now. But we did, so we'll be sweet. Some people will die, but que sera sera.
The call has gone out in my Trust for medical injectors to help over Christmas. Not for me, I am on call.
I know I sound Uber paranoid, but am still gobsmacked I got it. Wouldn't have a clue how I contracted delta.
Would be genuinely mystified.
It is infectious to the max. But, just how infectious? Do we know?
I presume it is statistically younger as a population than the national average including more children?
A lot of the unvaccinated will have had covid already - maybe that's why they didn't want to get vaccinated? Of course it would be better if they got the vaccine too.
You can download to Google Pay or the Apple equivalent and add a link to it top you homepage, one click and you get the QR code.
The damage this is doing to people is catastrophic and nobody much seem to want to talk about it.
There are unvaccinated Londoners and I fear a sizeable number of older people in some of the ethnic communities - it's also worth noting the GLA stats mention those alive and with an NHS number. There will be those below the radar who may have the former but not the latter.
This idea was put forward by a famous Telegraph columnist in 2014, (on pages which mysteriously aren't available on the Telegraph website now, so you have to use the Internet Archive / Wayback Machine to find them).
https://web.archive.org/web/20140707140847/http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100266528/lets-ban-smoking-it-makes-you-smell-cough-look-old-get-sick-and-its-the-most-boring-drug-experience-ever/
You were referring to Pride And Prejudice And Zombies?
1. Click on the app
2. 'Access your NHS Services... Continue with NHS login'
3. Enter your email address (you might have saved it, which helps), press Continue
4. Enter your password (again you might have saved it, but in that case there is zero security once the phone is unlocked). Press Continue
5. Popular Services.. click on NHS Covid Pass
6. Get your NHS Covid Pass, click on Domestic
7. Yay, finally got there!
How in heaven's name did that survive half an hour's user testing?
That early guesstimate from academic in SA that talked about 16x is now what HSA are basically saying.
he also warns that while it’s difficult to be accurate, the risk of overwhelming the NHS could be as great or greater than the last peak. Sobering…
https://twitter.com/cathynewman/status/1471197192060813321
Actually the policy decision is easy, but BoZo can't make it, and his party won't back it.
Fucking clown.
I'm just wondering if London's distinct vax profile might put its hospitals under considerably more strain than the rest of the country. If it were just London's NHS seriously suffering could it warrant a nationwide lockdown?
1. Open App
2. Touch fingerprint
3. Click on NHS Covid Status Service
4. Get a "Service Unavailable" error message
Lets try it again
1. Press home button
2. Click NHS Covid Status Service
3. Get another error message
Try it again
1. Press Home Button
2. Click on NHS Covid Status Service
3. Click Get Your NHS Covid Pass
4. Shows QR code.
It is Hexham East. The rough end of town. Con/LD marginal.
Course the Tories will have Indies to call on. But nonetheless.
https://twitter.com/mugecevik/status/1471088942543949829
In this ex vivo study (press release), Michael Chan, Malik Peiris & John Nicholls et al. @hkumed show that at 24h after infection Omicron replicated ~70x faster than Delta in bronchus. Interestingly, it replicated ~10x less efficiently in the lung tissue.
Oh.....
But Boris is pratting around introducing restrictions. If he tries anymore then his party should oust him.
Thank goodness clowns like you have left the party. Too chickenshit to handle Brexit, too afraid to face a virus that the vulnerable have had three vaccine doses for already too. Some consistency at least I guess.
I guess with Omicron we’d be looking at a very low practical impact on the R rate…
It would have to be never leave your property for any reason whatsoever.
Probably why it hasn't been seriously called for by anyone in the know.
John Burn-Murdoch
@jburnmurdoch
NEW: here’s a chart showing daily cases by specimen date in London, broken down by variant.
This is what is coming to ~every country across the world in the coming weeks.
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1471193909007106050
https://twitter.com/AliBunkallSKY/status/1471200990275805193
*betting post. End the world might well be nigh, but surely Christmas is still shorter odds at moment 😀
*election post. Don’t forget as former Nurse Slade said, lots of elections coming tomorrow.
*economic post. What’s the Old Lady of Threadneedling Street going to do tomorrow? I went on record last Sunday saying a 0.17% increase.
*fun post. For those who need to take their head off doom for a moment,
I have set my Lock Screen seasonal to Yorkshires own Grimmy 🎨
Ever since my friend John introduced me to Grimshaw, I don’t mind it. A sort of halfway house between Impressionism and Realism. Or a mixture. The realism of a photograph because like Canaletto and Vermeer Grimmy used camera obscura with a poets vision impressed on top. I don’t find it passé at all timeless imo. https://imgur.com/iuhCNPQ
I have lost 3 friends to Covid in the last 2 years. I know it was Covid because they were healthy, they caught this disease that affected their lungs and they died of it. I am sure the overwhelming number of Covid deaths are equally clear cut. I do not doubt the official numbers at all. Genuinely.
But I am annoyed because my cousin died on 1st December. He was younger than me - which in itself is scary - and had had terminal cancer for several years. He was a real mess. About 3 weeks before he died he contracted covid. He had no symptoms but tested positive from a test after being pinged. He then went into hospital due to the last stages of his cancer and died a couple of days later.
I heard from his mother today that his death certificate says Covid. Why? He died of cancer. And it was horrible.
As I say, I really do think this disease has been as bad as portrayed and do think we have largely dodged a very nasty bullet because of the vaccines. But things like this - whilst they don't for a second make me doubt the numbers - do make me angry as it looks like a lazy adherence to (I assume) a set of stupid rules.
@jburnmurdoch
·
28m
How about the rest of the UK?
Same story, just a few days behind London (the hot new thing always comes to London first).
That being said, I think people are being a little too concerned on here today.
I've just booked tickets to the UK for work (and to visit OGH) for the middle of January. I expect Omicron to have been and largely gone by then.
I expect that there's many stories like yours. They do make me doubt the numbers, the death certificate figures have long been much higher than the excess death figures, so I suspect your story is far from unique.
Sympathy for your family. Horrible any time, but especially right before Christmas.
However.. if he can be arsed to get out of bed one morning then he's still a capable poitician.
I'm with the 100 backbenchers and hope one of them replaces him at this rate. He's a shit, weak leader that's lost his nerve and is in hock to the "experts" he once was brave enough to disagree with but now he's lost it.
Which might be differential? For example, methinks it MIGHT give cover to local Tories who are NOT over-eager at this juncture to pat Boris on the back, but also reluctant to actually vote FOR another party, to simply let this cup pass their lips - in the interest of family safety and public health.
BTW, does anyone know how many postal ballots have bee requested AND returned so far?
EDIT - Hope my Latin may (just) pass muster with learned PB Latinists.
Chris Smyth
@Smyth_Chris
·
17m
Cases in London have gone in 50% in a single day.
19,294 cases reported today.
- phone calls
- text messaging
- taking photos
- internet explorer or whatever browser it is.
I haven't installed an app since I bought the phone and resent having to learn how to do so. No doubt it will involve having to makeup a password.
I specifically don't want my phone to have access to my email. Without wanting to appear too much like my avatar, it seems like a massive invasion of privacy and I can't understand why more people don'tfeel like this.
Technology reached perfection about 2003. Anything which has happened since then is basically superfluous.
So i think the point is it is that infectious that even lockdown won't make a sufficient dent in the spread. You would have to go China++
On a personal level i am not massively concerned. But the unvaccinated and vulnerable, it will find them and find them quickly.
Imagine the R0 of Omicron is 20. (That's about the same as measles and not entirely outside the realms of possibility.)
Imagine that mask mandates cut R by 25%. Well, that means it goes from 20 to 15.
To get R down below 1 for something with R of 20, you need to stack lots of measures.
(Of course, the combination of vaccines and prior infection will be doing most of the heavy lifting in the UK.)
This is a great picture. Imagine replacing all of the second more light blue with red. We'd be fucked.
But rather discouraging for countries with little prior immunity and low/poor vaccine coverage, esp boosters
Its hilarious to see people freaking out about this now, while also those very same people were bemoaning the immunonaive being allowed to get natural immunity through the summer and autumn.
The exit wave got rid of about 80%+ of the dry tinder the vaccines didn't get to first. Job done.
Dr Alina Chan says there is also a risk that Covid-19 is an engineered virus"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/15/wuhan-lab-leak-now-likely-origin-covid-mps-told/
The only two covid deaths I knew personally also fall into that category, as does the one I know at one remove - I.e. deaths of people who have been at deaths door for months/ years and who happened to have covid at the time of death.
I guess at some point too, with a truly astronomical R rate, percentage reductions still don’t take the absolute R down below 1 at all easily - ie you have to stack so many interventions that it becomes impractical.
As you say though, vaccines are doing the heavy lifting even with their reduced efficacy. Must do some digging for data on vaccine impact on R - a different way of evaluating their benefit rather than % reduction in chance of infection.
Give me the evidence and I'll gladly start calling for lockdown.
Scrolling is nor an obscure getaround!
(new thread btw. suspect we should call it a draw)