Highest score for an England opener on this tour to date. Not sure I would call it progress though.
Given we have only 1 won Ashes series in Australia in the last 30 years the result is pretty much almost guaranteed, for most England cricket fans it is just a backdrop for a winter sun holiday Christmas break
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
Given historical levels of underfunding, another lockdown would likely lead to Mental Health services being overwhelmed. They’ve been on the verge for years.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
In 2-3 weeks time when hospitalisations are way up, deaths rising, i fully expect the same public to be say why didn't the government introduction restrictions earlier.....we wanted locking down much sooner.
Hospitalisations will not be way up and deaths rising, half the population have already had their boosters and that that number is rising everyday
Even in the most optimistic scenario (i certainly don't believe the we are going to hell in a handcart), but simple maths tells you they will be. If you don't understand this, you don't understand simple statistics.
Even with boosters, the best number is low 90% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalisation, while being less effective against infection versus Omicron than Delta. Millions being infected in a very short period will result in a significant uptick in this and thus deaths.
The only debate is how large the increases will be, from quite a lot to massive.
Yes some people will die but the vast majority will be unvaccinated.
Introduce another lockdown and Farage wlll return and the Tories will leak votes like a sieve to RefUK. Tory MPs will not back allowing a further lockdown to save a few mainly unvaccinated people from dying if it means they risk seeing a collapse of the Tory vote to RefUK
You sound a bit like Scott n Paste fighting the last war. Restrictions are coming, its just a matter of quite how far they go, when they will be announced and when they will be introduced / for how long.
Increased hospitalisations and deaths are already baked in, even among double and triple jabbed. If when the sombero is finally flatten as a total is very large is a different debate to if we will get at best a short period of time when there will be a significant increase in deaths...and the public will be scared and be pro lockdown.
They are not coming, we are not going to impose another lockdown to save a few people from dying (mainly unvaccinated) if it means collapsing the Tory vote. You do not understand the Tory Party, our people, many of them owning or working in small businesses, do not want another lockdown.
You sound a bit like Scott n Paste fighting the last war.
Which "last war" are you referring to?
The "Brexit is done" zealots are freaking out because Frosty fucking off suggests that perhaps it is not quite as "done" as they had previously claimed...
Frost's departure is symptomatic of BJ's weakness - and weakens him further, since he was one of the PM's few real allies. If he has any sense, Johnson will focus on his domestic problems and try to avoid big fights with EU. By-election showed Brexit no longer a vote-winner. END
Actually there could be a silver lining if Boris agrees the new EU proposals on NI and the threat of serving A16 disappears
As various experts have said quoted above, the government no longer has the political capital to survive the inevitable fall-out from taking on the EU so aggressively.
Experts? Pah! Who needs them?
A have a govt of amateurs. Look how well it is working out.
Highest score for an England opener on this tour to date. Not sure I would call it progress though.
Given we have only 1 won Ashes series in Australia in the last 30 years the result is pretty much almost guaranteed, for most England fans it is just a backdrop for a winter sun holiday Christmas break
It's not the losing I mind so much. Australia is a tough place to tour and the Australians are a very good team.
It's the way we're doing it. It's not even a pretence at being competitive. You could put a county Second XI out and they would be doing about as well (OK, that may be an exaggeration, given how weak Sussex 2nd XI is, but you get the picture.)
I knew it would be bad, but this is worse than I ever dreamed. It's time for some pretty dramatic reorganisations.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
In 2-3 weeks time when hospitalisations are way up, deaths rising, i fully expect the same public to be say why didn't the government introduction restrictions earlier.....we wanted locking down much sooner.
Hospitalisations will not be way up and deaths rising, half the population have already had their boosters and that that number is rising everyday
Even in the most optimistic scenario (i certainly don't believe the we are going to hell in a handcart), but simple maths tells you they will be. If you don't understand this, you don't understand simple statistics.
Even with boosters, the best number is low 90% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalisation, while being less effective against infection versus Omicron than Delta. Millions being infected in a very short period will result in a significant uptick in this and thus deaths.
The only debate is how large the increases will be, from quite a lot to massive.
We have to balance the damage caused by the virus with the damage to society by lockdowns, which is something experts can't do. It's the job of politicians to do that.
That is all true, but it is crystal clear now that the government are going to introduce restrictions. Its just are they before Christmas, after Christmas or the New Year.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
In 2-3 weeks time when hospitalisations are way up, deaths rising, i fully expect the same public to be say why didn't the government introduction restrictions earlier.....we wanted locking down much sooner.
Hospitalisations will not be way up and deaths rising, half the population have already had their boosters and that that number is rising everyday
Even in the most optimistic scenario (i certainly don't believe the we are going to hell in a handcart), but simple maths tells you they will be. If you don't understand this, you don't understand simple statistics.
Even with boosters, the best number is low 90% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalisation, while being less effective against infection versus Omicron than Delta. Millions being infected in a very short period will result in a significant uptick in this and thus deaths.
The only debate is how large the increases will be, from quite a lot to massive.
Yes some people will die but the vast majority will be unvaccinated.
Introduce another lockdown and Farage wlll return and the Tories will leak votes like a sieve to RefUK. Tory MPs will not back allowing a further lockdown to save a few mainly unvaccinated people from dying if it means they risk seeing a collapse of the Tory vote to RefUK
You sound a bit like Scott n Paste fighting the last war. Restrictions are coming, its just a matter of quite how far they go, when they will be announced and when they will be introduced / for how long.
Increased hospitalisations and deaths are already baked in, even among double and triple jabbed. If when the sombero is finally flatten as a total is very large is a different debate to if we will get at best a short period of time when there will be a significant increase in deaths...and the public will be scared and be pro lockdown.
Is it a good idea or bad idea to do restrictions Franny? If yes, when should they be and for how long? What's your opinion on the matter? I know you know what the public and the various factions think but I really want to know what you think.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
In 2-3 weeks time when hospitalisations are way up, deaths rising, i fully expect the same public to be say why didn't the government introduction restrictions earlier.....we wanted locking down much sooner.
Hospitalisations will not be way up and deaths rising, half the population have already had their boosters and that that number is rising everyday
Even in the most optimistic scenario (i certainly don't believe the we are going to hell in a handcart), but simple maths tells you they will be. If you don't understand this, you don't understand simple statistics.
Even with boosters, the best number is low 90% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalisation, while being less effective against infection versus Omicron than Delta. Millions being infected in a very short period will result in a significant uptick in this and thus deaths.
The only debate is how large the increases will be, from quite a lot to massive.
Yes some people will die but the vast majority will be unvaccinated.
Introduce another lockdown and Farage wlll return and the Tories will leak votes like a sieve to RefUK. Tory MPs will not back allowing a further lockdown to save a few mainly unvaccinated people from dying if it means they risk seeing a collapse of the Tory vote to RefUK
You sound a bit like Scott n Paste fighting the last war. Restrictions are coming, its just a matter of quite how far they go, when they will be announced and when they will be introduced / for how long.
Increased hospitalisations and deaths are already baked in, even among double and triple jabbed. If when the sombero is finally flatten as a total is very large is a different debate to if we will get at best a short period of time when there will be a significant increase in deaths...and the public will be scared and be pro lockdown.
They are not coming, we are not going to impose another lockdown to save a few people from dying (mainly unvaccinated) if it means collapsing the Tory vote. You do not understand the Tory Party, our people, many of them small businesses do not want another lockdown.
Boosters not another lockdown
If you notice i said restrictions not lockdown. I think it will be spun as enhanced restrictions, the public will say they wanted a lockdown retrospectively.
Someone pressed the off-Topic button. A quick flick through the thread will show that my post was about the only post ON-TOPIC!
On topic
Or the fanbois are so grumpy at the prospect of some kind of circuit breaker/lockdown that they are taking out their ire on innocent centrist Remainer posters.
The circuit breaker, should it happen, will take some humble pie consumption by Johnsonian enthusiasts, who having heartily guffawed at the (admittedly poorly executed) circuit breaker in Wales in November 2020 will have to spin it as Johnsonian genius.
If Boris imposes a circuit breaker lockdown, judging by last night's posts the only Boris fanboy left would be BigG
A circuit breaker is only going to be a prelude for a six month lockdown in this scenario.
Boris would lose a VONC amongst Tory MPs well before he got to that
Which is why it will be presented as a circuit breaker, then extended to end of Jan, then another review middle of Feb, etc
What are the realistic conditions where the reasons to go into lockdown no longer apply?
Either we stay open, or we realistically have to wait for an omicron vaccine to be designed, get approval, produced, get enough supply here in another global race for the specific vaccines, and then a 2-3 month roll out.
The realistic conditions are that it peaks soon, starts to decline and doesn't put too many people in hospital for too long.
Well that's what realistically will happen with the virus. But I don't fear the virus, I fear the government, whose actions seem only tangentially related to the likely trajectory of the virus. The lockdown-forever lobby seems worryingly influential in government. They're not going to see a circuit breaker as temporary even if presented as such: there will always be reasons for it to be extended.
The only Cabinet Minister who comes close to supporting lockdown forever is Gove.
Sunak, Truss, Rees-Mogg, Kwarteng etc are all more anti restrictions than Boris, let alone Gove
And yet, the threats cotinue. I don't have the confidence that you do that the opinions of individual ministers are that relevant. They will get led down whatever path the civil service wants to take them.
Johnson's problem is that he's been forced into putting Whitty, Valance etc front and centre of the public health messaging because repeated rule flouting by politicians and appointees like Cummings have destroyed public trust. So if he goes against scientific advice and the scientists resign, then the government is completely fucked - I don't think his premiership would survive Whitty resigning. But it's his own actions that have given the scientists this veto.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
In 2-3 weeks time when hospitalisations are way up, deaths rising, i fully expect the same public to be say why didn't the government introduction restrictions earlier.....we wanted locking down much sooner.
Hospitalisations will not be way up and deaths rising, half the population have already had their boosters and that that number is rising everyday
Even in the most optimistic scenario (i certainly don't believe the we are going to hell in a handcart), but simple maths tells you they will be. If you don't understand this, you don't understand simple statistics.
Even with boosters, the best number is low 90% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalisation, while being less effective against infection versus Omicron than Delta. Millions being infected in a very short period will result in a significant uptick in this and thus deaths.
The only debate is how large the increases will be, from quite a lot to massive.
Yes some people will die but the vast majority will be unvaccinated.
Introduce another lockdown and Farage wlll return and the Tories will leak votes like a sieve to RefUK. Tory MPs will not back allowing a further lockdown to save a few mainly unvaccinated people from dying if it means they risk seeing a collapse of the Tory vote to RefUK
You sound a bit like Scott n Paste fighting the last war. Restrictions are coming, its just a matter of quite how far they go, when they will be announced and when they will be introduced / for how long.
Increased hospitalisations and deaths are already baked in, even among double and triple jabbed. If when the sombero is finally flatten as a total is very large is a different debate to if we will get at best a short period of time when there will be a significant increase in deaths...and the public will be scared and be pro lockdown.
They are not coming, we are not going to impose another lockdown to save a few people from dying (mainly unvaccinated) if it means collapsing the Tory vote. You do not understand the Tory Party, our people, many of them owning or working in small businesses, do not want another lockdown.
Someone pressed the off-Topic button. A quick flick through the thread will show that my post was about the only post ON-TOPIC!
On topic
Or the fanbois are so grumpy at the prospect of some kind of circuit breaker/lockdown that they are taking out their ire on innocent centrist Remainer posters.
The circuit breaker, should it happen, will take some humble pie consumption by Johnsonian enthusiasts, who having heartily guffawed at the (admittedly poorly executed) circuit breaker in Wales in November 2020 will have to spin it as Johnsonian genius.
If Boris imposes a circuit breaker lockdown, judging by last night's posts the only Boris fanboy left would be BigG
A circuit breaker is only going to be a prelude for a six month lockdown in this scenario.
Boris would lose a VONC amongst Tory MPs well before he got to that
Which is why it will be presented as a circuit breaker, then extended to end of Jan, then another review middle of Feb, etc
What are the realistic conditions where the reasons to go into lockdown no longer apply?
Either we stay open, or we realistically have to wait for an omicron vaccine to be designed, get approval, produced, get enough supply here in another global race for the specific vaccines, and then a 2-3 month roll out.
The realistic conditions are that it peaks soon, starts to decline and doesn't put too many people in hospital for too long.
Well that's what realistically will happen with the virus. But I don't fear the virus, I fear the government, whose actions seem only tangentially related to the likely trajectory of the virus. The lockdown-forever lobby seems worryingly influential in government. They're not going to see a circuit breaker as temporary even if presented as such: there will always be reasons for it to be extended.
The only Cabinet Minister who comes close to supporting lockdown forever is Gove.
Sunak, Truss, Rees-Mogg, Kwarteng etc are all more anti restrictions than Boris, let alone Gove
And yet, the threats cotinue. I don't have the confidence that you do that the opinions of individual ministers are that relevant. They will get led down whatever path the civil service wants to take them.
Johnson's problem is that he's been forced into putting Whitty, Valance etc front and centre of the public health messaging because repeated rule flouting by politicians and appointees like Cummings have destroyed public trust. So if he goes against scientific advice and the scientists resign, then the government is completely fucked - I don't think his premiership would survive Whitty resigning. But it's his own actions that have given the scientists this veto.
Witty won't resign. Its clear he hasn't agreed with a number of the government moves, but he then chooses his words carefully to make it clear he would have chosen a different path.
Highest score for an England opener on this tour to date. Not sure I would call it progress though.
Given we have only 1 won Ashes series in Australia in the last 30 years the result is pretty much almost guaranteed, for most England fans it is just a backdrop for a winter sun holiday Christmas break
It's not the losing I mind so much. Australia is a tough place to tour and the Australians are a very good team.
It's the way we're doing it. It's not even a pretence at being competitive. You could put a county Second XI out and they would be doing about as well (OK, that may be an exaggeration, given how weak Sussex 2nd XI is, but you get the picture.)
I knew it would be bad, but this is worse than I ever dreamed. It's time for some pretty dramatic reorganisations.
England Ashes series in Australia since 1991.
1991 lost 3-0 1995 lost 3-1 1999 lost 3-1 2003 lost 4-1 2007 lost 5-0 2011 won 3-1 2014 lost 5-0 2018 lost 4-0 2021/22 already down 1-0
Apart from 2011, we Poms getting trounced in Ashes winter tours in Australia is as regular a Christmas tradition as Turkey and Mistletoe
"Yvette Cooper @YvetteCooperMP Appalling Piers Corbyn video. We have lost 2 MPs to terrible violence in recent years - we know how incredibly serious this is. Police will have all our support in pursuing this"
"Priti Patel @pritipatel The Piers Corbyn video is sickening. I back the police to take the strongest possible action against him."
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
In 2-3 weeks time when hospitalisations are way up, deaths rising, i fully expect the same public to be say why didn't the government introduction restrictions earlier.....we wanted locking down much sooner.
Hospitalisations will not be way up and deaths rising, half the population have already had their boosters and that that number is rising everyday
Even in the most optimistic scenario (i certainly don't believe the we are going to hell in a handcart), but simple maths tells you they will be. If you don't understand this, you don't understand simple statistics.
Even with boosters, the best number is low 90% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalisation, while being less effective against infection versus Omicron than Delta. Millions being infected in a very short period will result in a significant uptick in this and thus deaths.
The only debate is how large the increases will be, from quite a lot to massive.
Yes some people will die but the vast majority will be unvaccinated.
Introduce another lockdown and Farage wlll return and the Tories will leak votes like a sieve to RefUK. Tory MPs will not back allowing a further lockdown to save a few mainly unvaccinated people from dying if it means they risk seeing a collapse of the Tory vote to RefUK
You sound a bit like Scott n Paste fighting the last war. Restrictions are coming, its just a matter of quite how far they go, when they will be announced and when they will be introduced / for how long.
Increased hospitalisations and deaths are already baked in, even among double and triple jabbed. If when the sombero is finally flatten as a total is very large is a different debate to if we will get at best a short period of time when there will be a significant increase in deaths...and the public will be scared and be pro lockdown.
Is it a good idea or bad idea to do restrictions Franny? If yes, when should they be and for how long? What's your opinion on the matter? I know you know what the public and the various factions think but I really want to know what you think.
Why do you have such a personal animus against one poster? Particularly the incredibly offensive and unnecessary way you misspell his name.
"Yvette Cooper @YvetteCooperMP Appalling Piers Corbyn video. We have lost 2 MPs to terrible violence in recent years - we know how incredibly serious this is. Police will have all our support in pursuing this"
"Priti Patel @pritipatel The Piers Corbyn video is sickening. I back the police to take the strongest possible action against him."
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
In 2-3 weeks time when hospitalisations are way up, deaths rising, i fully expect the same public to be say why didn't the government introduction restrictions earlier.....we wanted locking down much sooner.
Hospitalisations will not be way up and deaths rising, half the population have already had their boosters and that that number is rising everyday
Even in the most optimistic scenario (i certainly don't believe the we are going to hell in a handcart), but simple maths tells you they will be. If you don't understand this, you don't understand simple statistics.
Even with boosters, the best number is low 90% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalisation, while being less effective against infection versus Omicron than Delta. Millions being infected in a very short period will result in a significant uptick in this and thus deaths.
The only debate is how large the increases will be, from quite a lot to massive.
Yes some people will die but the vast majority will be unvaccinated.
Introduce another lockdown and Farage wlll return and the Tories will leak votes like a sieve to RefUK. Tory MPs will not back allowing a further lockdown to save a few mainly unvaccinated people from dying if it means they risk seeing a collapse of the Tory vote to RefUK
You sound a bit like Scott n Paste fighting the last war. Restrictions are coming, its just a matter of quite how far they go, when they will be announced and when they will be introduced / for how long.
Increased hospitalisations and deaths are already baked in, even among double and triple jabbed. If when the sombero is finally flatten as a total is very large is a different debate to if we will get at best a short period of time when there will be a significant increase in deaths...and the public will be scared and be pro lockdown.
They are not coming, we are not going to impose another lockdown to save a few people from dying (mainly unvaccinated) if it means collapsing the Tory vote. You do not understand the Tory Party, our people, many of them owning or working in small businesses, do not want another lockdown.
Boosters not another lockdown
Collapse the Tory vote or collapse the NHS.
Tough call.
For Tory MPs who want to keep their seats and who with a Tory majority hold the balance of power they are obviously not going to do the former.
(Though as stated the boosters should still help protect the NHS even given Tory MPs will depose any Tory PM who tries another lockdown)
Have you tested positive for COVID-19 with symptoms starting in the last 5 days? Are you aged 50 or over? Or aged 18+ with an underlying health condition? Then you could be eligible to join the PANORAMIC study looking at new COVID-19 antiviral treatments http://panoramictrial.org
Listening to the Mayor of London, he says his Major Incident is based on number of cases, then admits that numbers in hospital are 80% lower than last year.
Which is a completely fallacious argument.
Does anyone have up to date numbers about hospital admissions in London?
Bear in mind that he also declared a Major Incident last year - he's just doing it earlier this time because the disease spreads much more quickly. That doesn't seem intrinsically fallacious, but simply consistent. You could argue that he should never declare one, but it's a technical measure to accelerate cooperation between the different public services beyond the routine level, and that seems justified.
I haven't got the data to comment on the regional position. I was surprised by Sadiq's comparison between last year and this year, which seemed to skate over the benefits of vaccines now being in place, compared to not being in place last year.
But like you, I live alone with limited contacts at present - so that colours my views.
I expect the load on the NHS to be significantly less than the worst fears - and for the Omicron wave to perhaps be over in the UK far more quickly than we expect. IMO the wave's relationship to the continent's one will be not dissimilar to the relationship from the Delta wave last summer.
There are a lot of strange things in the stats, such as the line around the northern French border which marks countries with earlier increasing death rates from those that have been far more successful over the last few months. Scandi is generally similar to UK.
Have you tested positive for COVID-19 with symptoms starting in the last 5 days? Are you aged 50 or over? Or aged 18+ with an underlying health condition? Then you could be eligible to join the PANORAMIC study looking at new COVID-19 antiviral treatments http://panoramictrial.org
"Yvette Cooper @YvetteCooperMP Appalling Piers Corbyn video. We have lost 2 MPs to terrible violence in recent years - we know how incredibly serious this is. Police will have all our support in pursuing this"
"Priti Patel @pritipatel The Piers Corbyn video is sickening. I back the police to take the strongest possible action against him."
There is an effective lockdown now for all those sectors dependant on socialising as people try and protect themselves.
Last night:
Well. Am in pub. Live music from a great band. Plenty of people here if not rammed. The atmosphere is wonderful.
Christ! Life is for living. Not cowering. Understand that others may take a different view. But I want to feel ALIVE! I want to bop and dance with a living breathing warm body and smile and laugh and flirt and just be with people.
And yes I have had a drink or two - a very nice Pasion Bobal.
...
Well, place is now full. People are bopping, it is FUCKING awesome!
How quickly the line changes when its required to demand another handout.
Shall I mention all the other nights when there were 4 people in the pub all evening? Or in one case one person. Even last night it was not as full as on previous occasions when this band has performed.
Revenue this month so far has been down 60%. One night will help. But Daughter expects to make a loss in December.
Someone pressed the off-Topic button. A quick flick through the thread will show that my post was about the only post ON-TOPIC!
On topic
Or the fanbois are so grumpy at the prospect of some kind of circuit breaker/lockdown that they are taking out their ire on innocent centrist Remainer posters.
The circuit breaker, should it happen, will take some humble pie consumption by Johnsonian enthusiasts, who having heartily guffawed at the (admittedly poorly executed) circuit breaker in Wales in November 2020 will have to spin it as Johnsonian genius.
If Boris imposes a circuit breaker lockdown, judging by last night's posts the only Boris fanboy left would be BigG
A circuit breaker is only going to be a prelude for a six month lockdown in this scenario.
Boris would lose a VONC amongst Tory MPs well before he got to that
Which is why it will be presented as a circuit breaker, then extended to end of Jan, then another review middle of Feb, etc
What are the realistic conditions where the reasons to go into lockdown no longer apply?
Either we stay open, or we realistically have to wait for an omicron vaccine to be designed, get approval, produced, get enough supply here in another global race for the specific vaccines, and then a 2-3 month roll out.
The realistic conditions are that it peaks soon, starts to decline and doesn't put too many people in hospital for too long.
Well that's what realistically will happen with the virus. But I don't fear the virus, I fear the government, whose actions seem only tangentially related to the likely trajectory of the virus. The lockdown-forever lobby seems worryingly influential in government. They're not going to see a circuit breaker as temporary even if presented as such: there will always be reasons for it to be extended.
The only Cabinet Minister who comes close to supporting lockdown forever is Gove.
Sunak, Truss, Rees-Mogg, Kwarteng etc are all more anti restrictions than Boris, let alone Gove
And yet, the threats cotinue. I don't have the confidence that you do that the opinions of individual ministers are that relevant. They will get led down whatever path the civil service wants to take them.
Johnson's problem is that he's been forced into putting Whitty, Valance etc front and centre of the public health messaging because repeated rule flouting by politicians and appointees like Cummings have destroyed public trust. So if he goes against scientific advice and the scientists resign, then the government is completely fucked - I don't think his premiership would survive Whitty resigning. But it's his own actions that have given the scientists this veto.
Johnson's bigger problem is that he can't game a pandemic. With Brexit he can do all kinds of performative nonsense to keep his cult happy. With the pandemic, unless he applies the brakes firmly and now, or unless expert opinion is completely wrong, those bodies will be piling up. The body pile is his, not Witty's and not his anti-lockdown opponents.
Someone pressed the off-Topic button. A quick flick through the thread will show that my post was about the only post ON-TOPIC!
On topic
Or the fanbois are so grumpy at the prospect of some kind of circuit breaker/lockdown that they are taking out their ire on innocent centrist Remainer posters.
The circuit breaker, should it happen, will take some humble pie consumption by Johnsonian enthusiasts, who having heartily guffawed at the (admittedly poorly executed) circuit breaker in Wales in November 2020 will have to spin it as Johnsonian genius.
If Boris imposes a circuit breaker lockdown, judging by last night's posts the only Boris fanboy left would be BigG
A circuit breaker is only going to be a prelude for a six month lockdown in this scenario.
Boris would lose a VONC amongst Tory MPs well before he got to that
Which is why it will be presented as a circuit breaker, then extended to end of Jan, then another review middle of Feb, etc
What are the realistic conditions where the reasons to go into lockdown no longer apply?
Either we stay open, or we realistically have to wait for an omicron vaccine to be designed, get approval, produced, get enough supply here in another global race for the specific vaccines, and then a 2-3 month roll out.
The realistic conditions are that it peaks soon, starts to decline and doesn't put too many people in hospital for too long.
Well that's what realistically will happen with the virus. But I don't fear the virus, I fear the government, whose actions seem only tangentially related to the likely trajectory of the virus. The lockdown-forever lobby seems worryingly influential in government. They're not going to see a circuit breaker as temporary even if presented as such: there will always be reasons for it to be extended.
The only Cabinet Minister who comes close to supporting lockdown forever is Gove.
Sunak, Truss, Rees-Mogg, Kwarteng etc are all more anti restrictions than Boris, let alone Gove
And yet, the threats cotinue. I don't have the confidence that you do that the opinions of individual ministers are that relevant. They will get led down whatever path the civil service wants to take them.
Johnson's problem is that he's been forced into putting Whitty, Valance etc front and centre of the public health messaging because repeated rule flouting by politicians and appointees like Cummings have destroyed public trust. So if he goes against scientific advice and the scientists resign, then the government is completely fucked - I don't think his premiership would survive Whitty resigning. But it's his own actions that have given the scientists this veto.
Johnson's bigger problem is that he can't game a pandemic. With Brexit he can do all kinds of performative nonsense to keep his cult happy. With the pandemic, unless he applies the brakes firmly and now, or unless expert opinion is completely wrong, those bodies will be piling up. The body pile is his, not Witty's and not his anti-lockdown opponents.
With half the UK population already having had their boosters and more and more getting them each day the only bodies piling up will be almost entirely amongst the unvaccinated but they made their personal choice and took that risk.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust
Someone pressed the off-Topic button. A quick flick through the thread will show that my post was about the only post ON-TOPIC!
On topic
Or the fanbois are so grumpy at the prospect of some kind of circuit breaker/lockdown that they are taking out their ire on innocent centrist Remainer posters.
The circuit breaker, should it happen, will take some humble pie consumption by Johnsonian enthusiasts, who having heartily guffawed at the (admittedly poorly executed) circuit breaker in Wales in November 2020 will have to spin it as Johnsonian genius.
If Boris imposes a circuit breaker lockdown, judging by last night's posts the only Boris fanboy left would be BigG
A circuit breaker is only going to be a prelude for a six month lockdown in this scenario.
Boris would lose a VONC amongst Tory MPs well before he got to that
Which is why it will be presented as a circuit breaker, then extended to end of Jan, then another review middle of Feb, etc
What are the realistic conditions where the reasons to go into lockdown no longer apply?
Either we stay open, or we realistically have to wait for an omicron vaccine to be designed, get approval, produced, get enough supply here in another global race for the specific vaccines, and then a 2-3 month roll out.
The realistic conditions are that it peaks soon, starts to decline and doesn't put too many people in hospital for too long.
Well that's what realistically will happen with the virus. But I don't fear the virus, I fear the government, whose actions seem only tangentially related to the likely trajectory of the virus. The lockdown-forever lobby seems worryingly influential in government. They're not going to see a circuit breaker as temporary even if presented as such: there will always be reasons for it to be extended.
The only Cabinet Minister who comes close to supporting lockdown forever is Gove.
Sunak, Truss, Rees-Mogg, Kwarteng etc are all more anti restrictions than Boris, let alone Gove
And yet, the threats cotinue. I don't have the confidence that you do that the opinions of individual ministers are that relevant. They will get led down whatever path the civil service wants to take them.
Johnson's problem is that he's been forced into putting Whitty, Valance etc front and centre of the public health messaging because repeated rule flouting by politicians and appointees like Cummings have destroyed public trust. So if he goes against scientific advice and the scientists resign, then the government is completely fucked - I don't think his premiership would survive Whitty resigning. But it's his own actions that have given the scientists this veto.
Witty won't resign. Its clear he hasn't agreed with a number of the government moves, but he then chooses his words carefully to make it clear he would have chosen a different path.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
In 2-3 weeks time when hospitalisations are way up, deaths rising, i fully expect the same public to be say why didn't the government introduction restrictions earlier.....we wanted locking down much sooner.
Hospitalisations will not be way up and deaths rising, half the population have already had their boosters and that that number is rising everyday
Even in the most optimistic scenario (i certainly don't believe the we are going to hell in a handcart), but simple maths tells you they will be. If you don't understand this, you don't understand simple statistics.
Even with boosters, the best number is low 90% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalisation, while being less effective against infection versus Omicron than Delta. Millions being infected in a very short period will result in a significant uptick in this and thus deaths.
The only debate is how large the increases will be, from quite a lot to massive.
Yes some people will die but the vast majority will be unvaccinated.
Introduce another lockdown and Farage wlll return and the Tories will leak votes like a sieve to RefUK. Tory MPs will not back allowing a further lockdown to save a few mainly unvaccinated people from dying if it means they risk seeing a collapse of the Tory vote to RefUK
You sound a bit like Scott n Paste fighting the last war. Restrictions are coming, its just a matter of quite how far they go, when they will be announced and when they will be introduced / for how long.
Increased hospitalisations and deaths are already baked in, even among double and triple jabbed. If when the sombero is finally flatten as a total is very large is a different debate to if we will get at best a short period of time when there will be a significant increase in deaths...and the public will be scared and be pro lockdown.
Is it a good idea or bad idea to do restrictions Franny? If yes, when should they be and for how long? What's your opinion on the matter? I know you know what the public and the various factions think but I really want to know what you think.
Why do you have such a personal animus against one poster? Particularly the incredibly offensive and unnecessary way you misspell his name.
I don't. I come on this site to read his predictions. He's a professional modeller who always gets it right. Just a shame he isn't supporting the government/civil service/SAGE with his modelling skills.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
Hitler was a fool, wasn't he? He should just have asked people smugglers to get the SS across rather than all that BS with invasion barges and the Luftwaffe. The invasion would have taken mere hours!
It seems to me that yet again we've spent an entire summer being complacent and saying the virus had gone away, some of us said this seemed unlikely and were shouted down.
This was compounded by Johnson's ridiculous argument about making the changes "irreversible" and that two jabs would get us to freedom, as I believe the Daily Mail reported.
The truth of the matter is that as long as COVID is around, Governments will have to decide how to deal with it. The Tories need to decide at what level they will accept deaths and cases being at and stick to that. It's the constant flip-flopping and lack of clarity that isn't helpful to anyone.
If the cases and deaths are irrelevant then they need to say so.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
Unless it is a group of more than 6 campaigning for Scottish independence or the end of the monarchy in which case send in the secret police and a few tanks just to be sure.
Hitler was a fool, wasn't he? He should just have asked people smugglers to get the SS across rather than all that BS with invasion barges and the Luftwaffe. The invasion would have taken mere hours!
Well we are hardly going to send in the RAF to bomb boats of migrants crossing the channel as the RAF would have bombed Nazi invasion barges and the RN shelled them too
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
Someone pressed the off-Topic button. A quick flick through the thread will show that my post was about the only post ON-TOPIC!
On topic
Or the fanbois are so grumpy at the prospect of some kind of circuit breaker/lockdown that they are taking out their ire on innocent centrist Remainer posters.
The circuit breaker, should it happen, will take some humble pie consumption by Johnsonian enthusiasts, who having heartily guffawed at the (admittedly poorly executed) circuit breaker in Wales in November 2020 will have to spin it as Johnsonian genius.
If Boris imposes a circuit breaker lockdown, judging by last night's posts the only Boris fanboy left would be BigG
A circuit breaker is only going to be a prelude for a six month lockdown in this scenario.
Boris would lose a VONC amongst Tory MPs well before he got to that
Which is why it will be presented as a circuit breaker, then extended to end of Jan, then another review middle of Feb, etc
What are the realistic conditions where the reasons to go into lockdown no longer apply?
Either we stay open, or we realistically have to wait for an omicron vaccine to be designed, get approval, produced, get enough supply here in another global race for the specific vaccines, and then a 2-3 month roll out.
The realistic conditions are that it peaks soon, starts to decline and doesn't put too many people in hospital for too long.
Well that's what realistically will happen with the virus. But I don't fear the virus, I fear the government, whose actions seem only tangentially related to the likely trajectory of the virus. The lockdown-forever lobby seems worryingly influential in government. They're not going to see a circuit breaker as temporary even if presented as such: there will always be reasons for it to be extended.
The only Cabinet Minister who comes close to supporting lockdown forever is Gove.
Sunak, Truss, Rees-Mogg, Kwarteng etc are all more anti restrictions than Boris, let alone Gove
And yet, the threats cotinue. I don't have the confidence that you do that the opinions of individual ministers are that relevant. They will get led down whatever path the civil service wants to take them.
Johnson's problem is that he's been forced into putting Whitty, Valance etc front and centre of the public health messaging because repeated rule flouting by politicians and appointees like Cummings have destroyed public trust. So if he goes against scientific advice and the scientists resign, then the government is completely fucked - I don't think his premiership would survive Whitty resigning. But it's his own actions that have given the scientists this veto.
Johnson's bigger problem is that he can't game a pandemic. With Brexit he can do all kinds of performative nonsense to keep his cult happy. With the pandemic, unless he applies the brakes firmly and now, or unless expert opinion is completely wrong, those bodies will be piling up. The body pile is his, not Witty's and not his anti-lockdown opponents.
With half the UK population already having had their boosters and more and more getting them each day the only bodies piling up will be almost entirely amongst the unvaccinated but those made their personal choice and took that risk.
I don't think the body pile will be quite as cleanly segmented as that. It will be more than directly attributable deaths. The basic issue will be a health system close to being overwhelmed.
The political point is that if Johnson wants to avoid a body pile attributable to him, he needs to take all reasonable measures now.
Hitler was a fool, wasn't he? He should just have asked people smugglers to get the SS across rather than all that BS with invasion barges and the Luftwaffe. The invasion would have taken mere hours!
If Johnson had been our wartime leader Hitler would have invaded the UK first. The tanks would have been driving up Whitehall whilst Boris would have been looking for a fridge in his size...
It seems to me that yet again we've spent an entire summer being complacent and saying the virus had gone away, some of us said this seemed unlikely and were shouted down.
This was compounded by Johnson's ridiculous argument about making the changes "irreversible" and that two jabs would get us to freedom, as I believe the Daily Mail reported.
The truth of the matter is that as long as COVID is around, Governments will have to decide how to deal with it. The Tories need to decide at what level they will accept deaths and cases being at and stick to that. It's the constant flip-flopping and lack of clarity that isn't helpful to anyone.
If the cases and deaths are irrelevant then they need to say so.
Lockdown til the summer again is a realistic (likely?) possibility now. If so I will certainly be "complacent" again in the summer and act without regard to the virus at the time for as long as we can next year.
It seems to me that yet again we've spent an entire summer being complacent and saying the virus had gone away, some of us said this seemed unlikely and were shouted down.
This was compounded by Johnson's ridiculous argument about making the changes "irreversible" and that two jabs would get us to freedom, as I believe the Daily Mail reported.
The truth of the matter is that as long as COVID is around, Governments will have to decide how to deal with it. The Tories need to decide at what level they will accept deaths and cases being at and stick to that. It's the constant flip-flopping and lack of clarity that isn't helpful to anyone.
If the cases and deaths are irrelevant then they need to say so.
I do agree with Philip on one thing. 'How long it's around' is in effect forever. We've only ever eliminated one infectious disease - smallpox - and that took centuries. Even TB, polio and measles where we have proven, effective vaccines widely used haven't succeeded in eliminating them, although polio has got close.
So we do need to learn that this is an ongoing risk and we need to learn to manage it without lockdowns now we have vaccines that mitigate the risk (twelve months ago it was a somewhat different story).
'Lockdown every time there's a new variant' simply isn't feasible. They were the right decision in the first few months when there was literally no other solution. It's very questionable whether they are now, and at some point even the idea will have to be abandoned.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
That's from 10 days ago, there's been a lot of covid growth since then.
The Sunday Times also has a poll out today showing voters against further lockdowns and 2019 Tory voters especially so and with a majority Tory government it is Tory voters views which count most for this government
It is doing the right thing for the country that is important, not self interest
There is an effective lockdown now for all those sectors dependant on socialising as people try and protect themselves.
Last night:
Well. Am in pub. Live music from a great band. Plenty of people here if not rammed. The atmosphere is wonderful.
Christ! Life is for living. Not cowering. Understand that others may take a different view. But I want to feel ALIVE! I want to bop and dance with a living breathing warm body and smile and laugh and flirt and just be with people.
And yes I have had a drink or two - a very nice Pasion Bobal.
...
Well, place is now full. People are bopping, it is FUCKING awesome!
How quickly the line changes when its required to demand another handout.
Shall I mention all the other nights when there were 4 people in the pub all evening? Or in one case one person. Even last night it was not as full as on previous occasions when this band has performed.
Revenue this month so far has been down 60%. One night will help. But Daughter expects to make a loss in December.
Stuff happens.
Lots of people have struggled, lost money, have had to adapt.
And they all have my sympathy.
But what you're asking for is that the people who are still working pay more taxes so that others can get a handout while doing nothing.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
You can still get access to a venue if you take a LFT....so that logic doesn't really hold.
It seems to me that yet again we've spent an entire summer being complacent and saying the virus had gone away, some of us said this seemed unlikely and were shouted down.
This was compounded by Johnson's ridiculous argument about making the changes "irreversible" and that two jabs would get us to freedom, as I believe the Daily Mail reported.
The truth of the matter is that as long as COVID is around, Governments will have to decide how to deal with it. The Tories need to decide at what level they will accept deaths and cases being at and stick to that. It's the constant flip-flopping and lack of clarity that isn't helpful to anyone.
If the cases and deaths are irrelevant then they need to say so.
I do agree with Philip on one thing. 'How long it's around' is in effect forever. We've only ever eliminated one infectious disease - smallpox - and that took centuries. Even TB, polio and measles where we have proven, effective vaccines widely used haven't succeeded in eliminating them, although polio has got close.
So we do need to learn that this is an ongoing risk and we need to learn to manage it without lockdowns now we have vaccines that mitigate the risk (twelve months ago it was a somewhat different story).
'Lockdown every time there's a new variant' simply isn't feasible. They were the right decision in the first few months when there was literally no other solution. It's very questionable whether they are now, and at some point even the idea will have to be abandoned.
I have time for you as you know, as you're one of the few posters who doesn't shout me down when I oppose the "just let it rip" view. So I appreciate that - and I hope also you are keeping well.
I agree that COVID is going to be around forever but then the Government needs to make a very public, very obvious call that we will not be doing anything, or what we will be doing, going forward.
The approach seems to be, wait for it to get bad and then put restrictions in. They need tighter parameters which determine if we do anything - what level of cases, what level of deaths. If there is no limit, then say so and we'll carry on.
In New Zealand, for example, they have strict parameters around when they bring lockdowns in. Now we can call the approach flawed but it is obvious when restrictions will go in there.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
Indeed, Vaxports for nightclubs, cafes, restraurants, bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, concerts, sporting events etc effectively mean a lockdown for the unvaccinated only which is the fairest way. No mandatory vaccination but you have to accept another lockdown if you refuse to get jabbed and get your booster
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
In 2-3 weeks time when hospitalisations are way up, deaths rising, i fully expect the same public to be say why didn't the government introduction restrictions earlier.....we wanted locking down much sooner.
Hospitalisations will not be way up and deaths rising, half the population have already had their boosters and that that number is rising everyday
Even in the most optimistic scenario (i certainly don't believe the we are going to hell in a handcart), but simple maths tells you they will be. If you don't understand this, you don't understand simple statistics.
Even with boosters, the best number is low 90% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalisation, while being less effective against infection versus Omicron than Delta. Millions being infected in a very short period will result in a significant uptick in this and thus deaths.
The only debate is how large the increases will be, from quite a lot to massive.
Yes some people will die but the vast majority will be unvaccinated.
Introduce another lockdown and Farage wlll return and the Tories will leak votes like a sieve to RefUK. Tory MPs will not back allowing a further lockdown to save a few mainly unvaccinated people from dying if it means they risk seeing a collapse of the Tory vote to RefUK
You sound a bit like Scott n Paste fighting the last war. Restrictions are coming, its just a matter of quite how far they go, when they will be announced and when they will be introduced / for how long.
Increased hospitalisations and deaths are already baked in, even among double and triple jabbed. If when the sombero is finally flatten as a total is very large is a different debate to if we will get at best a short period of time when there will be a significant increase in deaths...and the public will be scared and be pro lockdown.
They are not coming, we are not going to impose another lockdown to save a few people from dying (mainly unvaccinated) if it means collapsing the Tory vote. You do not understand the Tory Party, our people, many of them owning or working in small businesses, do not want another lockdown.
Boosters not another lockdown
If you haven't noticed, the conservative vote has already collapsed
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
You can still get access to a venue if you take a LFT....
Well that should be changed for those who can be vaccinated then.
Pubs and restaurants here in Gloucestershire are still busy.
I get the impression that people are being a lot more cautious in places closer to London where omicron is rampant, but it may not quite feel real if you're in Gloucestershire or Tyneside. It can be hard for customers to get a feel for how a place is doing, given that this weekend should be the busiest of the year, I could equally give you anecdotes of bars shutting at 8pm on "Mad" Friday for want of custom https://twitter.com/shaneswindells/status/1472131597407297541
The timing is just terrible for pubs & restaurants, some can make 25% of the annual turnover in December, which sees them through the lean months of January and February, and the average pub has taken on £50k of debt over the pandemic so they're financially a lot more fragile then they were.
It seems to me that yet again we've spent an entire summer being complacent and saying the virus had gone away, some of us said this seemed unlikely and were shouted down.
This was compounded by Johnson's ridiculous argument about making the changes "irreversible" and that two jabs would get us to freedom, as I believe the Daily Mail reported.
The truth of the matter is that as long as COVID is around, Governments will have to decide how to deal with it. The Tories need to decide at what level they will accept deaths and cases being at and stick to that. It's the constant flip-flopping and lack of clarity that isn't helpful to anyone.
If the cases and deaths are irrelevant then they need to say so.
I do agree with Philip on one thing. 'How long it's around' is in effect forever. We've only ever eliminated one infectious disease - smallpox - and that took centuries. Even TB, polio and measles where we have proven, effective vaccines widely used haven't succeeded in eliminating them, although polio has got close.
So we do need to learn that this is an ongoing risk and we need to learn to manage it without lockdowns now we have vaccines that mitigate the risk (twelve months ago it was a somewhat different story).
'Lockdown every time there's a new variant' simply isn't feasible. They were the right decision in the first few months when there was literally no other solution. It's very questionable whether they are now, and at some point even the idea will have to be abandoned.
Everyone being infected is not something to be avoided but rather a necessity of bringing things back to normal.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
You can still get access to a venue if you take a LFT....
Well that should be changed for those who can be vaccinated then.
That is why it is a crap policy. Its not achieving any real objective. It neither stops spread nor forces anybody to get jabbed nor stops antivaxxers from actually getting into venues.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
Extending vaxports definitely for me. Plus measures to hit the unvaccinated in the pocket and reward the vaccinated. Around 80% of hospital cases are amongst the unvaccinated, so best to address the problem at source.
Highest score for an England opener on this tour to date. Not sure I would call it progress though.
Given we have only 1 won Ashes series in Australia in the last 30 years the result is pretty much almost guaranteed, for most England fans it is just a backdrop for a winter sun holiday Christmas break
It's not the losing I mind so much. Australia is a tough place to tour and the Australians are a very good team.
It's the way we're doing it. It's not even a pretence at being competitive. You could put a county Second XI out and they would be doing about as well (OK, that may be an exaggeration, given how weak Sussex 2nd XI is, but you get the picture.)
I knew it would be bad, but this is worse than I ever dreamed. It's time for some pretty dramatic reorganisations.
England Ashes series in Australia since 1991.
1991 lost 3-0 1995 lost 3-1 1999 lost 3-1 2003 lost 4-1 2007 lost 5-0 2011 won 3-1 2014 lost 5-0 2018 lost 4-0 2021/22 already down 1-0
Apart from 2011, we Poms getting trounced in Ashes winter tours in Australia is as regular a Christmas tradition as Turkey and Mistletoe
The overall results do not tell the whole story. If Giles had held onto that catch in Adelaide 2006, then that series might have turned out very differently. So far in this series there hasn't been a single turning point, because we've been so far behind.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
In 2-3 weeks time when hospitalisations are way up, deaths rising, i fully expect the same public to be say why didn't the government introduction restrictions earlier.....we wanted locking down much sooner.
Hospitalisations will not be way up and deaths rising, half the population have already had their boosters and that that number is rising everyday
Even in the most optimistic scenario (i certainly don't believe the we are going to hell in a handcart), but simple maths tells you they will be. If you don't understand this, you don't understand simple statistics.
Even with boosters, the best number is low 90% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalisation, while being less effective against infection versus Omicron than Delta. Millions being infected in a very short period will result in a significant uptick in this and thus deaths.
The only debate is how large the increases will be, from quite a lot to massive.
Yes some people will die but the vast majority will be unvaccinated.
Introduce another lockdown and Farage wlll return and the Tories will leak votes like a sieve to RefUK. Tory MPs will not back allowing a further lockdown to save a few mainly unvaccinated people from dying if it means they risk seeing a collapse of the Tory vote to RefUK
You sound a bit like Scott n Paste fighting the last war. Restrictions are coming, its just a matter of quite how far they go, when they will be announced and when they will be introduced / for how long.
Increased hospitalisations and deaths are already baked in, even among double and triple jabbed. If when the sombero is finally flatten as a total is very large is a different debate to if we will get at best a short period of time when there will be a significant increase in deaths...and the public will be scared and be pro lockdown.
They are not coming, we are not going to impose another lockdown to save a few people from dying (mainly unvaccinated) if it means collapsing the Tory vote. You do not understand the Tory Party, our people, many of them owning or working in small businesses, do not want another lockdown.
Boosters not another lockdown
If you haven't noticed, the conservative vote has already collapsed
The latest polling still has the Conservatives in the mid 30s, introduce another lockdown and the Tory vote would collapse back to the early 20s or below and RefUK over 10% ie back to levels under May in Spring 2019 after she failed to deliver Brexit as promised
It's possible to have outdoor seating for pubs in winter but you'd need a lot of those patio heaters which probably wouldn't go down well with environmental campaigners. A lot of city centre places already do.
A lot of places have no outdoor space, and many/most places that do have outdoor space are not economic using only outdoor space. There's also the issue of toilet facilities if you can't go indoors, and portaloos are confined spaces too.
Hitler was a fool, wasn't he? He should just have asked people smugglers to get the SS across rather than all that BS with invasion barges and the Luftwaffe. The invasion would have taken mere hours!
Well we are hardly going to send in the RAF to bomb boats of migrants crossing the channel as the RAF would have bombed Nazi invasion barges and the RN shelled them too
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
Indeed, Vaxports for nightclubs, cafes, restraurants, bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, concerts, sporting events etc effectively mean a lockdown for the unvaccinated only which is the fairest way. No mandatory vaccination but you have to accept another lockdown if you refuse to get jabbed and get your booster
It doesn't though. They just have to show a negative LFT from the past 48hrs... which we already know people can and do cheat.
The "state injectable" idiots will just not do the tests properly / share around negative ones from other people.
LFT rely on people being good faith actors, which those who have already done their civic duty and got vaccinated are....Piers Corbyn isn't.
It seems to me that yet again we've spent an entire summer being complacent and saying the virus had gone away, some of us said this seemed unlikely and were shouted down.
This was compounded by Johnson's ridiculous argument about making the changes "irreversible" and that two jabs would get us to freedom, as I believe the Daily Mail reported.
The truth of the matter is that as long as COVID is around, Governments will have to decide how to deal with it. The Tories need to decide at what level they will accept deaths and cases being at and stick to that. It's the constant flip-flopping and lack of clarity that isn't helpful to anyone.
If the cases and deaths are irrelevant then they need to say so.
I do agree with Philip on one thing. 'How long it's around' is in effect forever. We've only ever eliminated one infectious disease - smallpox - and that took centuries. Even TB, polio and measles where we have proven, effective vaccines widely used haven't succeeded in eliminating them, although polio has got close.
So we do need to learn that this is an ongoing risk and we need to learn to manage it without lockdowns now we have vaccines that mitigate the risk (twelve months ago it was a somewhat different story).
'Lockdown every time there's a new variant' simply isn't feasible. They were the right decision in the first few months when there was literally no other solution. It's very questionable whether they are now, and at some point even the idea will have to be abandoned.
I have time for you as you know, as you're one of the few posters who doesn't shout me down when I oppose the "just let it rip" view. So I appreciate that - and I hope also you are keeping well.
I agree that COVID is going to be around forever but then the Government needs to make a very public, very obvious call that we will not be doing anything, or what we will be doing, going forward.
The approach seems to be, wait for it to get bad and then put restrictions in. They need tighter parameters which determine if we do anything - what level of cases, what level of deaths. If there is no limit, then say so and we'll carry on.
In New Zealand, for example, they have strict parameters around when they bring lockdowns in. Now we can call the approach flawed but it is obvious when restrictions will go in there.
They do, and that is one of the weaknesses of Johnson - as a journalist, he makes ad hoc decisions based on immediate deadlines.
What I'm not seeing from anyone involved in the government - including SAGE or the DoH - is serious thought as to what those parameters should be.
Now they may have them, in which case they're fools not to have shared it as it would add certainty. But it looks to me as though they've become obsessed with lockdowns to the point of 'when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.'
Which isn't healthy (no pun intended) particularly when the implications of lockdown and the ineffectuality of partial lockdowns haven't been properly considered.
And that really does need to be done. It should have been done in the summer when they were making contingency plans for a wider spread, but it doesn't look to me as though it was.
Thank you for the good wishes. Like you, I have been fortunate in the counsellor I have been seeing for my stress-related illness.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
In 2-3 weeks time when hospitalisations are way up, deaths rising, i fully expect the same public to be say why didn't the government introduction restrictions earlier.....we wanted locking down much sooner.
Hospitalisations will not be way up and deaths rising, half the population have already had their boosters and that that number is rising everyday
Even in the most optimistic scenario (i certainly don't believe the we are going to hell in a handcart), but simple maths tells you they will be. If you don't understand this, you don't understand simple statistics.
Even with boosters, the best number is low 90% efficacy against severe disease and hospitalisation, while being less effective against infection versus Omicron than Delta. Millions being infected in a very short period will result in a significant uptick in this and thus deaths.
The only debate is how large the increases will be, from quite a lot to massive.
Yes some people will die but the vast majority will be unvaccinated.
Introduce another lockdown and Farage wlll return and the Tories will leak votes like a sieve to RefUK. Tory MPs will not back allowing a further lockdown to save a few mainly unvaccinated people from dying if it means they risk seeing a collapse of the Tory vote to RefUK
You sound a bit like Scott n Paste fighting the last war. Restrictions are coming, its just a matter of quite how far they go, when they will be announced and when they will be introduced / for how long.
Increased hospitalisations and deaths are already baked in, even among double and triple jabbed. If when the sombero is finally flatten as a total is very large is a different debate to if we will get at best a short period of time when there will be a significant increase in deaths...and the public will be scared and be pro lockdown.
They are not coming, we are not going to impose another lockdown to save a few people from dying (mainly unvaccinated) if it means collapsing the Tory vote. You do not understand the Tory Party, our people, many of them owning or working in small businesses, do not want another lockdown.
Boosters not another lockdown
If you haven't noticed, the conservative vote has already collapsed
Perhaps they are the "unclean" Tories who may have once voted for a different party or thought about doing so? The "Pure Tories" are remaining true. Sound chaps and good eggs, all of them....
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
Indeed, Vaxports for nightclubs, cafes, restraurants, bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, concerts, sporting events etc effectively mean a lockdown for the unvaccinated only which is the fairest way. No mandatory vaccination but you have to accept another lockdown if you refuse to get jabbed and get your booster
It doesn't though. They just have to show a negative LFT from the past 48hrs... which we already know people can and do cheat.
So why not change that and only allow access to 'high risk' areas to those who are fully jabbed ?
That slows the spread amongst those most vulnerable and allows the jabbed to continue to have their freedoms.
@ydoethur I was not aware of your seeing a counsellor before, I spend so much time talking about my self, I have selfishly not thought as to whether others may be going through trouble.
I really hope you keep well - and for your sake and mine, I hope we do avoid another lockdown.
It seems to me that yet again we've spent an entire summer being complacent and saying the virus had gone away, some of us said this seemed unlikely and were shouted down.
This was compounded by Johnson's ridiculous argument about making the changes "irreversible" and that two jabs would get us to freedom, as I believe the Daily Mail reported.
The truth of the matter is that as long as COVID is around, Governments will have to decide how to deal with it. The Tories need to decide at what level they will accept deaths and cases being at and stick to that. It's the constant flip-flopping and lack of clarity that isn't helpful to anyone.
If the cases and deaths are irrelevant then they need to say so.
Lockdown til the summer again is a realistic (likely?) possibility now. If so I will certainly be "complacent" again in the summer and act without regard to the virus at the time for as long as we can next year.
This is what my wife is thinking. We'd decided to be cautious last summer, waiting for our second doses, and then taking a while to get used to leaving the house again. She thinks a lockdown is inevitable for the rest of the winter, the sooner the better, but then reckons we need to go for broke in spending time with people during the summer.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
Indeed, Vaxports for nightclubs, cafes, restraurants, bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, concerts, sporting events etc effectively mean a lockdown for the unvaccinated only which is the fairest way. No mandatory vaccination but you have to accept another lockdown if you refuse to get jabbed and get your booster
It doesn't though. They just have to show a negative LFT from the past 48hrs... which we already know people can and do cheat.
The "state injectable" idiots will just not do the tests properly / share around negative ones from other people.
LFT rely on people being good faith actors, which those who have already done their civic duty and got vaccinated are....Piers Corbyn isn't.
I said mandatory vaxports not LFTs. If necessary vaxports only accepted for admission to large events and bars and cinemas and restaurants etc not even negative LFTs enough if you are unvaccinated
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
Indeed, Vaxports for nightclubs, cafes, restraurants, bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, concerts, sporting events etc effectively mean a lockdown for the unvaccinated only which is the fairest way. No mandatory vaccination but you have to accept another lockdown if you refuse to get jabbed and get your booster
It doesn't though. They just have to show a negative LFT from the past 48hrs... which we already know people can and do cheat.
The "state injectable" idiots will just not do the tests properly / share around negative ones from other people.
Sure some people will cheat but most people will be honest and a lot of infectious people won't attend big event venues. It will have an impact on reducing the spread, whether that is a worth the cost to businesses who knows, but just because it is not perfect does not mean it has no impact.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
Indeed, Vaxports for nightclubs, cafes, restraurants, bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, concerts, sporting events etc effectively mean a lockdown for the unvaccinated only which is the fairest way. No mandatory vaccination but you have to accept another lockdown if you refuse to get jabbed and get your booster
It doesn't though. They just have to show a negative LFT from the past 48hrs... which we already know people can and do cheat.
So why not change that and only allow access to 'high risk' areas to those who are fully jabbed ?
That slows the spread amongst those most vulnerable and allows the jabbed to continue to have their freedoms/
That's the law the government have gone with. Also, it could be argued that those going to high risk venues e.g. nightclubs arent 50+ year old people. And as MaxPB has said from the South Asian community they aren't going to these places.
@ydoethur I was not aware of your seeing a counsellor before, I spend so much time talking about my self, I have selfishly not thought as to whether others may be going through trouble.
I really hope you keep well - and for your sake and mine, I hope we do avoid another lockdown.
Sending you and family my very best wishes.
I'm not surprised you don't know, as I've never mentioned it before! However, I thought you might like to know you weren't alone.
To be honest, from a purely personal point of view I don't mind being locked down. I've got a nice house, all of Cannock Chase to play with, a decent income and ways of topping it up. Lockdowns don't hurt me personally. That's not to say I want another one because I am aware I am in a very fortunate position that most others are not. I can see high rises in Walsall from my windows, for example.
It's the rubbish they imposed on schools last year to try and avoid shutting them that half killed me to the extent there were times I couldn't actually walk due to stress related pains in my legs.
Which is another reason why I'm exploring options going forward.
If we are to have more restrictions, the Government really needs to spend the next several months coming up with an actual plan around whether we need more boosters, what level of restrictions is acceptable or not, what level of deaths and cases are acceptable and having very strict parameters around what we do going forward.
We simply cannot continue to respond as and when things happen anymore. We had a whole summer to prepare and we seem to have done very little, let's please not make that mistake again. For all our sakes.
No it's much prettier than that at the moment with the low sun but it's glorious sunshine and if it wasn't for your comrades in the Tory Party the South of France or Venice or Forence or Palma would be as accessible as Newcastle or Bristol or Aberdeen or even Cumbria.
If it wasn't for Macron it would still be easily accessible for travellers who were vaccinated and had had negative tests
Question for Macron is whether it was worth him breaking the legs of France's winter tourism economy for.
Tourism is 9% of France's economy. UK is 15% of France's Tourism.
According to wiki international tourism is 3% of French economy, and I doubt UK is 15% of French international tourism, though no doubt important to some winter resorts.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
Indeed, Vaxports for nightclubs, cafes, restraurants, bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, concerts, sporting events etc effectively mean a lockdown for the unvaccinated only which is the fairest way. No mandatory vaccination but you have to accept another lockdown if you refuse to get jabbed and get your booster
It doesn't though. They just have to show a negative LFT from the past 48hrs... which we already know people can and do cheat.
So why not change that and only allow access to 'high risk' areas to those who are fully jabbed ?
That slows the spread amongst those most vulnerable and allows the jabbed to continue to have their freedoms/
That's the law the government have gone with. Also, it could be argued that those going to high risk venues e.g. nightclubs arent 50+ year old people. And as MaxPB has said from the South Asian community they aren't going to these places.
Yep.
I agree that the current law is crap.
But can see an easy solution to that crap policy, rather surprising they don't make such a simple change as I strongly suspect there would be almost zero opposition from anyone who is fully jabbed.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
Indeed, Vaxports for nightclubs, cafes, restraurants, bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, concerts, sporting events etc effectively mean a lockdown for the unvaccinated only which is the fairest way. No mandatory vaccination but you have to accept another lockdown if you refuse to get jabbed and get your booster
It doesn't though. They just have to show a negative LFT from the past 48hrs... which we already know people can and do cheat.
The "state injectable" idiots will just not do the tests properly / share around negative ones from other people.
Sure some people will cheat but most people will be honest and a lot of infectious people won't attend big event venues. It will have an impact on reducing the spread, whether that is a worth the cost to businesses who knows, but just because it is not perfect does not mean it has no impact.
Wrong....if you are fully vaccinated you don't have to do one. Its only unvaccinated. So again the responsible people might do one regardless of the law, but the law doesn't require it. Responsible people aren't going to be unvaccinated (except rare case of medical reasons).
If you goal is to impact antivaxxers, either to get to to.go.get jabbed or keep them away from risk, it doesn't achieve either.
LFT clear! Not even a faint line now. Agree with the calls for reducing isolation to 7 days with clear LFTs. Now my wife and I are stuck indoors for three more days spending no money at Xmas when wed be happy to splash some cash at bara and pubs this week.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
That's from 10 days ago, there's been a lot of covid growth since then.
The Sunday Times also has a poll out today showing voters against further lockdowns and 2019 Tory voters especially so and with a majority Tory government it is Tory voters views which count most for this government
All voters views should count for all governments. That’s why MPs are elected to represent a constituency, not a party. How would you feel if Epping Forest was represented by, say, the Lib Dems, and your constituency MP refused to listen to you because you voted for a different party?
Have you tested positive for COVID-19 with symptoms starting in the last 5 days? Are you aged 50 or over? Or aged 18+ with an underlying health condition? Then you could be eligible to join the PANORAMIC study looking at new COVID-19 antiviral treatments http://panoramictrial.org
@ydoethur I was not aware of your seeing a counsellor before, I spend so much time talking about my self, I have selfishly not thought as to whether others may be going through trouble.
I really hope you keep well - and for your sake and mine, I hope we do avoid another lockdown.
Sending you and family my very best wishes.
I'm not surprised you don't know, as I've never mentioned it before! However, I thought you might like to know you weren't alone.
To be honest, from a purely personal point of view I don't mind being locked down. I've got a nice house, all of Cannock Chase to play with, a decent income and ways of topping it up. Lockdowns don't hurt me personally.
It's the rubbish they imposed on schools last year to try and avoid shutting them that half killed me to the extent there were times I couldn't actually walk due to stress related pains in my legs.
Which is another reason why I'm exploring options going forward.
Sorry to hear that, and hope it all works out for you.
I think Mrs Capitano is probably about to reach the same point, not helped by an unsympathetic academy trust. Trying to keep a school running with a quarter of the staff off at any given point, the supply budget all gone, and barely any supply teachers available in any case, is not a bundle of laughs right now.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
Indeed, Vaxports for nightclubs, cafes, restraurants, bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, concerts, sporting events etc effectively mean a lockdown for the unvaccinated only which is the fairest way. No mandatory vaccination but you have to accept another lockdown if you refuse to get jabbed and get your booster
It doesn't though. They just have to show a negative LFT from the past 48hrs... which we already know people can and do cheat.
The "state injectable" idiots will just not do the tests properly / share around negative ones from other people.
LFT rely on people being good faith actors, which those who have already done their civic duty and got vaccinated are....Piers Corbyn isn't.
I said vaxports not LFTs, if necessary vaxports only accepted for admission to large events and bars and cinemas and restaurants etc not even negative LFTs enough if you are unvaccinated
LFTs are the issue here. If you’re going to restrict areas to either those with vaccines or tests, then make them PCR tests administered at private clinics. No at-home tests nor LFTs. That way, there’s an actual cost associated with being unvaccinated.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
That's from 10 days ago, there's been a lot of covid growth since then.
The Sunday Times also has a poll out today showing voters against further lockdowns and 2019 Tory voters especially so and with a majority Tory government it is Tory voters views which count most for this government
All voters views should count for all governments. That’s why MPs are elected to represent a constituency, not a party. How would you feel if Epping Forest was represented by, say, the Lib Dems, and your constituency MP refused to listen to you because you voted for a different party?
I would expect a LD MP to ignore my views as a Tory voter unless they could help on a specific personal casework matter, obviously they would focus on what the LD voters who elected them thought
It seems to me that yet again we've spent an entire summer being complacent and saying the virus had gone away, some of us said this seemed unlikely and were shouted down.
With respect unless you were claiming that a new variant with a lot of mutations leading to deep reductions in vaccine efficacy and extremely high rates of transmission was coming then your "this seemed unlikely" isn't really much more accurate or useful than the people saying it was all over. The number of people predicting something like the Omicron variant coming in late 2021 could probably be counted on the fingers of one hand. For a longtime I've personally thought that a sting in the tail could be ahead of us, but I didn't think we'd face it anything like this soon.
We have had a black swan of a variant crop up, that has left everyone dumbstruck.
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
Indeed, Vaxports for nightclubs, cafes, restraurants, bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, concerts, sporting events etc effectively mean a lockdown for the unvaccinated only which is the fairest way. No mandatory vaccination but you have to accept another lockdown if you refuse to get jabbed and get your booster
It doesn't though. They just have to show a negative LFT from the past 48hrs... which we already know people can and do cheat.
The "state injectable" idiots will just not do the tests properly / share around negative ones from other people.
Sure some people will cheat but most people will be honest and a lot of infectious people won't attend big event venues. It will have an impact on reducing the spread, whether that is a worth the cost to businesses who knows, but just because it is not perfect does not mean it has no impact.
Wrong....if you are fully vaccinated you don't have to do one. Its only unvaccinated. So again the responsible people might do one regardless of the law, but the law doesn't require it.
Some venues are now LFT required regardless of vaccination. And anyway my point is not wrong, for venues that apply the minimum by law. Infectious, honest unvaccinated people who would otherwise attend an event will not go, thereby reducing spread. That infectious, dishonest unvaccinated people will attend regardless does not change that.
"Vaccine hesitancy: what is behind the fears circulating in BAME communities?
Several national surveys suggest people from black, Asian and minority backgrounds are far more likely to reject having the Covid-19 vaccine than their white counterparts. Nazia Parveen and Annabel Sowemimo explain the root causes of this hesitancy"
@HYUFD out of interest, what level of restrictions would you accept?
Vaxports maybe but not another lockdown
What about rule of 6?
No
So you support a measure that has no impact on spread and the government forces people to present their paper, but not something that probably does have some and the government doesn't actually enforce it, its based on trust.
Spread is largely irrelevant, getting more people to get vaccinated and get their boosters is more important in avoiding hospitalisations rise
I think it rather debatable at this point how much vax passports will convince antivaxxers to get jabbed.
But surely the benefit of vax passports is that the most vulnerable to hospitalisation can have reduced access to areas that they are likely to catch the virus thus slowing it down amongst those most likely to overwhelm the health care system ?
Indeed, Vaxports for nightclubs, cafes, restraurants, bars, gyms, theatres, cinemas, concerts, sporting events etc effectively mean a lockdown for the unvaccinated only which is the fairest way. No mandatory vaccination but you have to accept another lockdown if you refuse to get jabbed and get your booster
It doesn't though. They just have to show a negative LFT from the past 48hrs... which we already know people can and do cheat.
The "state injectable" idiots will just not do the tests properly / share around negative ones from other people.
Sure some people will cheat but most people will be honest and a lot of infectious people won't attend big event venues. It will have an impact on reducing the spread, whether that is a worth the cost to businesses who knows, but just because it is not perfect does not mean it has no impact.
Wrong....if you are fully vaccinated you don't have to do one. Its only unvaccinated. So again the responsible people might do one regardless of the law, but the law doesn't require it.
If you goal is to impact antivaxxers, either to get to to.go.get jabbed or keep them away from risk, it doesn't achieve either.
But it will impact some people.
Some may break the rules, but a majority won't, that will have an impact.
The law is crap, but better than nothing, it would be vastly enhanced by getting rid of the LFT option to get the pass.
Hitler was a fool, wasn't he? He should just have asked people smugglers to get the SS across rather than all that BS with invasion barges and the Luftwaffe. The invasion would have taken mere hours!
Well we are hardly going to send in the RAF to bomb boats of migrants crossing the channel as the RAF would have bombed Nazi invasion barges and the RN shelled them too
*discernible note of regret*
The brief militarisation of the channel crisis came and went in August 2020. Priti, desperate to be seen to be doing something, called in the RAF. The ever opportunistic RAF put and A400M, P8 and Shadow R1 over the channel which achieved precisely nothing apart from an abiding sense of horror when the bill (A400M £50k/hour, lol) for it all landed in the Home Office.
LFT clear! Not even a faint line now. Agree with the calls for reducing isolation to 7 days with clear LFTs. Now my wife and I are stuck indoors for three more days spending no money at Xmas when wed be happy to splash some cash at bara and pubs this week.
You're an example of the 'covid conveyor belt' - some people dropping out of circulation and then ten days later going back into circulation with money to spend, a desire to spend it and safe from further infection.
As I see it they are caught between a rock and a hard place.
Impose restrictions to slow the spread so that Health services don't become overwhelmed but that leads to economic, societal and other problems such as Mental Health.
Do nothing and let it rip, thousands could end up in hospital, thousands will die directly from Covid and not from Covid as Health Services get overwhelmed.
Either decision could bring down a government at the next election. People won't forgive the government if they lose their jobs and businesses and are restricted in terms of what they can do. People won't forgive high death numbers and potentially lingering health issues that have ramifications for years to come.
Tough times ahead and whoever is running the government whether that is Boris or someone else at the helm they will be punished for it. It really is a no win situation.
I guess they'll wait until the hospitals are already full and then apply the restrictions, which is the worst of both worlds but the politically easiest.
The voters in general (as opposed to right-wing Conservatives) are quite enthusiastic about having their freedom taken away, so it should help Boris pick himself up off the floor.
They aren't now.
67% of voters oppose closing pubs and restaurants (including 79% of 2019 Tory voters) and 61% oppose not being allowed to meet people outside their household indoors (including 67% of 2019 Tory voters)
That's from 10 days ago, there's been a lot of covid growth since then.
The Sunday Times also has a poll out today showing voters against further lockdowns and 2019 Tory voters especially so and with a majority Tory government it is Tory voters views which count most for this government
All voters views should count for all governments. That’s why MPs are elected to represent a constituency, not a party. How would you feel if Epping Forest was represented by, say, the Lib Dems, and your constituency MP refused to listen to you because you voted for a different party?
Excellent* idea, as lavishly and repeatedly enunciated by, erm, a certain Epping Tory activist on PB.
@ydoethur I was not aware of your seeing a counsellor before, I spend so much time talking about my self, I have selfishly not thought as to whether others may be going through trouble.
I really hope you keep well - and for your sake and mine, I hope we do avoid another lockdown.
Sending you and family my very best wishes.
I'm not surprised you don't know, as I've never mentioned it before! However, I thought you might like to know you weren't alone.
To be honest, from a purely personal point of view I don't mind being locked down. I've got a nice house, all of Cannock Chase to play with, a decent income and ways of topping it up. Lockdowns don't hurt me personally.
It's the rubbish they imposed on schools last year to try and avoid shutting them that half killed me to the extent there were times I couldn't actually walk due to stress related pains in my legs.
Which is another reason why I'm exploring options going forward.
Sorry to hear that, and hope it all works out for you.
I think Mrs Capitano is probably about to reach the same point, not helped by an unsympathetic academy trust. Trying to keep a school running with a quarter of the staff off at any given point, the supply budget all gone, and barely any supply teachers available in any case, is not a bundle of laughs right now.
We had a video presentation on a careers package we're rolling out school wide a week ago.
It was done remotely, and we were told, 'for example, if you look here it shows all the jobs teachers can transfer their skills too.'
And at that point the school server crashed because so many teachers had clicked on it all at once to see what options there were for them.
Comments
Two negative LFTs. So off we go to make a 'prioritised' visit to niece, nephew-in-law and baby great-niece.
We should see them again on Christmas Day, along with assorted others, but who can tell?
Boosters not another lockdown
The "Brexit is done" zealots are freaking out because Frosty fucking off suggests that perhaps it is not quite as "done" as they had previously claimed...
A have a govt of amateurs. Look how well it is working out.
It's the way we're doing it. It's not even a pretence at being competitive. You could put a county Second XI out and they would be doing about as well (OK, that may be an exaggeration, given how weak Sussex 2nd XI is, but you get the picture.)
I knew it would be bad, but this is worse than I ever dreamed. It's time for some pretty dramatic reorganisations.
https://twitter.com/haveigotnews/status/1472492125980082182
Tough call.
1991 lost 3-0
1995 lost 3-1
1999 lost 3-1
2003 lost 4-1
2007 lost 5-0
2011 won 3-1
2014 lost 5-0
2018 lost 4-0
2021/22 already down 1-0
Apart from 2011, we Poms getting trounced in Ashes winter tours in Australia is as regular a Christmas tradition as Turkey and Mistletoe
3s
IDS for Brexit minister is the Platonic Form of pure Shopping trolley
@YvetteCooperMP
Appalling Piers Corbyn video.
We have lost 2 MPs to terrible violence in recent years - we know how incredibly serious this is.
Police will have all our support in pursuing this"
"Priti Patel
@pritipatel
The Piers Corbyn video is sickening.
I back the police to take the strongest possible action against him."
https://twitter.com/YvetteCooperMP/status/1472328842077519877
https://twitter.com/pritipatel/status/1472314280754176004
(Though as stated the boosters should still help protect the NHS even given Tory MPs will depose any Tory PM who tries another lockdown)
https://twitter.com/NIHRresearch/status/1471450449744117762?s=20
I haven't got the data to comment on the regional position. I was surprised by Sadiq's comparison between last year and this year, which seemed to skate over the benefits of vaccines now being in place, compared to not being in place last year.
But like you, I live alone with limited contacts at present - so that colours my views.
I expect the load on the NHS to be significantly less than the worst fears - and for the Omicron wave to perhaps be over in the UK far more quickly than we expect. IMO the wave's relationship to the continent's one will be not dissimilar to the relationship from the Delta wave last summer.
There are a lot of strange things in the stats, such as the line around the northern French border which marks countries with earlier increasing death rates from those that have been far more successful over the last few months. Scandi is generally similar to UK.
Revenue this month so far has been down 60%. One night will help. But Daughter expects to make a loss in December.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-59710100
This was compounded by Johnson's ridiculous argument about making the changes "irreversible" and that two jabs would get us to freedom, as I believe the Daily Mail reported.
The truth of the matter is that as long as COVID is around, Governments will have to decide how to deal with it. The Tories need to decide at what level they will accept deaths and cases being at and stick to that. It's the constant flip-flopping and lack of clarity that isn't helpful to anyone.
If the cases and deaths are irrelevant then they need to say so.
The political point is that if Johnson wants to avoid a body pile attributable to him, he needs to take all reasonable measures now.
So we do need to learn that this is an ongoing risk and we need to learn to manage it without lockdowns now we have vaccines that mitigate the risk (twelve months ago it was a somewhat different story).
'Lockdown every time there's a new variant' simply isn't feasible. They were the right decision in the first few months when there was literally no other solution. It's very questionable whether they are now, and at some point even the idea will have to be abandoned.
Lots of people have struggled, lost money, have had to adapt.
And they all have my sympathy.
But what you're asking for is that the people who are still working pay more taxes so that others can get a handout while doing nothing.
This cannot go on forever.
I agree that COVID is going to be around forever but then the Government needs to make a very public, very obvious call that we will not be doing anything, or what we will be doing, going forward.
The approach seems to be, wait for it to get bad and then put restrictions in. They need tighter parameters which determine if we do anything - what level of cases, what level of deaths. If there is no limit, then say so and we'll carry on.
In New Zealand, for example, they have strict parameters around when they bring lockdowns in. Now we can call the approach flawed but it is obvious when restrictions will go in there.
https://twitter.com/shaneswindells/status/1472131597407297541
So it's perhaps better to look at more national metrics - Wifi data suggests footfall in pubs was already down by a third earlier in the week following the Whitty/Johnson double act.
https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2021/12/17/How-much-has-footfall-in-pubs-dropped-in-December-2021
and a BII survey released on Thursday had 78% of operators reporting trade "significantly down" and a similar number cutting staff hours, and half cutting trading hours in the face of 75% cancellations.
https://www.bii.org/BII/News/Articles/Devastating-results-of-Christmas-Trading-survey.aspx
The timing is just terrible for pubs & restaurants, some can make 25% of the annual turnover in December, which sees them through the lean months of January and February, and the average pub has taken on £50k of debt over the pandemic so they're financially a lot more fragile then they were.
"@Haggis_UK
Who knew Boris Johnson used to get his climate change info from anti-vaxxer Piers Corbyn."
https://twitter.com/Haggis_UK/status/1439915230969147395
The "state injectable" idiots will just not do the tests properly / share around negative ones from other people.
LFT rely on people being good faith actors, which those who have already done their civic duty and got vaccinated are....Piers Corbyn isn't.
What I'm not seeing from anyone involved in the government - including SAGE or the DoH - is serious thought as to what those parameters should be.
Now they may have them, in which case they're fools not to have shared it as it would add certainty. But it looks to me as though they've become obsessed with lockdowns to the point of 'when you have a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.'
Which isn't healthy (no pun intended) particularly when the implications of lockdown and the ineffectuality of partial lockdowns haven't been properly considered.
And that really does need to be done. It should have been done in the summer when they were making contingency plans for a wider spread, but it doesn't look to me as though it was.
Thank you for the good wishes. Like you, I have been fortunate in the counsellor I have been seeing for my stress-related illness.
That slows the spread amongst those most vulnerable and allows the jabbed to continue to have their freedoms.
I really hope you keep well - and for your sake and mine, I hope we do avoid another lockdown.
Sending you and family my very best wishes.
To be honest, from a purely personal point of view I don't mind being locked down. I've got a nice house, all of Cannock Chase to play with, a decent income and ways of topping it up. Lockdowns don't hurt me personally. That's not to say I want another one because I am aware I am in a very fortunate position that most others are not. I can see high rises in Walsall from my windows, for example.
It's the rubbish they imposed on schools last year to try and avoid shutting them that half killed me to the extent there were times I couldn't actually walk due to stress related pains in my legs.
Which is another reason why I'm exploring options going forward.
We simply cannot continue to respond as and when things happen anymore. We had a whole summer to prepare and we seem to have done very little, let's please not make that mistake again. For all our sakes.
I agree that the current law is crap.
But can see an easy solution to that crap policy, rather surprising they don't make such a simple change as I strongly suspect there would be almost zero opposition from anyone who is fully jabbed.
If you goal is to impact antivaxxers, either to get to to.go.get jabbed or keep them away from risk, it doesn't achieve either.
I think Mrs Capitano is probably about to reach the same point, not helped by an unsympathetic academy trust. Trying to keep a school running with a quarter of the staff off at any given point, the supply budget all gone, and barely any supply teachers available in any case, is not a bundle of laughs right now.
We have had a black swan of a variant crop up, that has left everyone dumbstruck.
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2021/jan/26/vaccine-hesitancy-what-is-behind-the-fears-circulating-in-bame-communities-podcast
"Vaccine hesitancy: what is behind the fears circulating in BAME communities?
Several national surveys suggest people from black, Asian and minority backgrounds are far more likely to reject having the Covid-19 vaccine than their white counterparts. Nazia Parveen and Annabel Sowemimo explain the root causes of this hesitancy"
Some may break the rules, but a majority won't, that will have an impact.
The law is crap, but better than nothing, it would be vastly enhanced by getting rid of the LFT option to get the pass.
It's that simple to me.
* = sarcastic
It was done remotely, and we were told, 'for example, if you look here it shows all the jobs teachers can transfer their skills too.'
And at that point the school server crashed because so many teachers had clicked on it all at once to see what options there were for them.
And I am not making that up.