Suspect if the polls asked something like 'would you support lockdown if it meant an additional 5% on income tax to pay for it for the duration' we might get different levels of support for it.
Would you rather like to 90 with 6 months a year of lockdown, or live to 80 without.
Live til 80. The last ten years are the shitty ones.
"The thing that probably spooked the politicians was the scientists and modellers explaining that by the time you could tell which trajectory you were on from the cases and admissions numbers, it would already be way too late to decide to impose restrictions. You're on the coaster now, and the effects are already baked in by then.
That's why we're seeing the various leaks and stuff from the internal discussions of "Do we go all in or not?"
Because for all the stuff that it looks as though it's probably less on the hospitalisation rates and durations - there have been occasional signs the other way, and it's by no means certain.
So if you go for caution, you are more likely than not blowing away Christmas unnecessarily and damaging a lot of businesses. And if you don't, there is still a fairly chunky chance you've guessed wrong whilst going all in on the pot and throwing it all away at the last moment.
Not an easy choice to make, and that's why the ones on the periphery or the ones who have the strongest views are blowing off steam into the media, or those on the outside are reading the tea leaves and wondering if there's a big black dog coming down the road or if those leaves are just clumping up there. "
Not trying to mislead anyone here, Labour MPs have been told to be in on Wednesday and this has not yet been cancelled but it looks as if the chaos in the Government means the previous plan of a recall on Wednesday has been dropped.
Thanks - Wednesday makes sense if the Government actually wants to lockdown. I can't see your average MP willing traipsing back to Westminster on the 27th/28th. That will just annoy them more.
Maybe Boris is hoping that by the 27th/28th they’ll have accidentally thrown out their 1922 letters with the wrapping paper?
If Parliament is recalled next week, there will be a fair few MPs bringing letters with them.
If Parliament is recalled next week - I suspect there will be a VoNC being held at the same time.
Remember that Brady announced that he would accept letters via email over Christmas. He may be very close to getting them this week.
And so Johnson would have to drop his tighter restrictions proposals, which might be his intention all along....??
Could the Scottish Government please state if it aims to or is developing a eugenics policy to be rolled out across Scotland. If 'no', could the Scottish Government please state why it has no plans to implement an eugenics policy.
I suppose there is a legitimate question about genetic screening, I think that is more widely done these days. Isn't that a form of eugenics?
So, Boris is going for Too Much, Too Late as usual?
Yep. Either it's too late and we're in for the ride or there wasn't a problem in the first place.
This decision isn't like which car to buy, where if you are missing some information you go away and do more research and in the meantime keep driving the car you already have. Here not deciding on an alternative due to lack of information is a decision for the course you are already on, with the consequences of that choice.
Gas futures near all time highs £3.70/therm ~12p/kWh
Wow! I'm currently paying £2.9p/kwh for my domestic supply on a fix which runs out in about 3 months (and somehow my supplier hasn't gone bump yet). There are going to be a lot of seriously unhappy people when this works through the price cap!
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon The UK government has a choice between believing in vaccines and believing in quack modelling. No country with such a high % of antibodies from vaccines and prior infection should be considering any restrictions on freedom.
Except the vaccines weren't designed to counter Omicron. Such a ridiculous dichotomy is a bigger sign of quackery than any modeling.
So yours is an argument for never ending lockdowns every time a new variant appears irrespective of how well the vaccines work against it because 'they weren't designed for it'?
You are poorly named. You should have been the White Witch rather than Aslan - condemning us to a world where it is always winter but never Christmas.
PR at the local level sounds even worse than at the national level. Given the lack of media scrutiny locally, it means there would be a handful of local politicians that can never be voted out of power, because they will always be first on the party list. You end up with Junckers in miniature controlling everything, focused on keeping the other permanent politicians happy than caring about the voters.
Implemented with candidate choice, rather than party lists, might actually be an improvement on the current system - where councils can be more than 90% controlled by a single party, and you need to spend a lot of time brown-nosing to get nominated for a seat in the first place, but that seat is pretty much for life once you get it.
Do you really expect voters at the local level to have enough knowledge to rank candidates within a party? It would all be determined on name recognition, and the local party leadership would make sure their local honchos are most well known.
Local voters largely vote on party label. That means the right way to keep the local politicians on their toes is Alternative Vote. They would have to spend all their time trying to impress voters for other parties, breaking up party machines and creating the ability for even safe seats to be threatened by opposition unity.
We're told that the more likely scenario - as disclosed by The Times at the weekend - is a two-week circuit breaker after Christmas
The 28th has been pencilled in by officials as the starting point for the new curbs - again taking into account the 48 hours needed for recall
What an utter shitshow
I think we can expect widespread disobedience this time around. Maybe enough to make the efforts entirely futile.
There won't be, though. My patents will follow it. So I won't be able to see them. And there will be the issue from last time of 'does family x feel the same way or will they be horrified if we suggest the children see their friends'? Some people will be able to break it with impunity, but most will just sit inside and seethe.
I think that's overly optimistic/pessimistic. Talking to people in my own group (I am of course aware that they may not be representative, but I don't have much else to go on):
- My parents are in their 60s, one of them quite vulnerable, they've been pretty obedient, now saying they won't follow it. - Friend in his late 50s, diabetic, has been off out almost every night for the last week. He was very careful pre-vaccination and has said he won't lock himself down against post-vaccination. - Friends more my age (late 20s and 30s), pretty much regardless of where they sat on the compliance spectrum for past restrictions have said not a chance in hell this time.
All triple vaxxed or about to be for what it's worth.
FWIW the people I know are mostly planning to see family at Xmas, though a few with very elderly relatives have cancelled. Everyone has cancelled any events this week, and everyone is postponing decision after Xmas to see what the disease is doing. General feeling is that the rules are too lax so they need to err on the side of caution. Like Cookie, though, I think a post-Xmas lockdown will be seen by most as an acceptable compromise.
The contrasting experiences show we can't really generalise. But I agree that a ban on Christmas meetings would have had real resistance.
Just pointing out that I don't see post-Christmas lockdown as an acceptable compromise at all! My earlier point was just that many do. (I don't think Nick was trying to suggest that that was my view but it could be read two ways!)
Gas futures near all time highs £3.70/therm ~12p/kWh
Wow! I'm currently paying £2.9p/kwh for my domestic supply on a fix which runs out in about 3 months (and somehow my supplier hasn't gone bump yet). There are going to be a lot of seriously unhappy people when this works through the price cap!
Yes, I've got about the same but fixed until the summer.
My gas bill is ridiculously low but I must be costing my supplier a fortune.
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon The UK government has a choice between believing in vaccines and believing in quack modelling. No country with such a high % of antibodies from vaccines and prior infection should be considering any restrictions on freedom.
Except the vaccines weren't designed to counter Omicron. Such a ridiculous dichotomy is a bigger sign of quackery than any modeling.
They weren't designed to counter delta either, but they do, and triple dose gives better protection against severe Omicron than a double dose did against severe delta (which was at it's peak when we unlocked).
The other issue is that the government are asking the whole population to be vaccinated for the rich reward of being locked up with no holidays, the fun of a balmy trip to the pub beer garden in the bleak midwinter and no family mixing.
I understand the caution of scientists in this respect but you can’t tell me that the optics arent pretty crap.
I'm still struggling to understand the connection between the data so far on omicron - South Africa and Denmark - with the UK government's panic(?)
From what it seems like someone in the DoH asked for data that would be used to make a lockdown decision so the modellers duly provided a bunch of unlikely doom laden scenarios. That has caused panic.
Not trying to mislead anyone here, Labour MPs have been told to be in on Wednesday and this has not yet been cancelled but it looks as if the chaos in the Government means the previous plan of a recall on Wednesday has been dropped.
Thanks - Wednesday makes sense if the Government actually wants to lockdown. I can't see your average MP willing traipsing back to Westminster on the 27th/28th. That will just annoy them more.
Maybe Boris is hoping that by the 27th/28th they’ll have accidentally thrown out their 1922 letters with the wrapping paper?
If Parliament is recalled next week, there will be a fair few MPs bringing letters with them.
If Parliament is recalled next week - I suspect there will be a VoNC being held at the same time.
Remember that Brady announced that he would accept letters via email over Christmas. He may be very close to getting them this week.
And so Johnson would have to drop his tighter restrictions proposals, which might be his intention all along....??
If it gets to a VONC Boris is gone anyway.
The question at the moment is what is whether Boris is going to bottle it and not do anything (which may well be the sane option but see @Andy_Cooke 's post slightly above / below this one for the downsides of that.
Could the Scottish Government please state if it aims to or is developing a eugenics policy to be rolled out across Scotland. If 'no', could the Scottish Government please state why it has no plans to implement an eugenics policy.
I've dealt with FOIs in the past. Based on my experience, this is by no means incredible!
I'm still struggling to understand the connection between the data so far on omicron - South Africa and Denmark - with the UK government's panic(?)
From what it seems like someone in the DoH asked for data that would be used to make a lockdown decision so the modellers duly provided a bunch of unlikely doom laden scenarios. That has caused panic.
I am still puzzled by the comment Javid made yesterday that they work on the presumption there are x7 the number of infections to recorded cases. He might have misspoke, but with LFT having become a national past time, that seems like an incredibly high multiple. 1.5 million tests a day, and sure there is asymptotic and people not wanting to record their positive or negative test, but still only picking up such a small proportion seems quite surprising.
I'm still struggling to understand the connection between the data so far on omicron - South Africa and Denmark - with the UK government's panic(?)
From what it seems like someone in the DoH asked for data that would be used to make a lockdown decision so the modellers duly provided a bunch of unlikely doom laden scenarios. That has caused panic.
Then the modellers said everyone knew that's what they were doing whilst Starmer continues to give interviews talking about their "predictions".
Thank you for the header @NickPalmer. One question. How would you persuade Scottish Labour not to support the Tories, as they see the SNP as their real enemies, not the Tories? Scotland already has STV for council elections. There is quite a lot of evidence of Labour/Tory tactical voting to keep SNP councillors out. https://ballotbox.scot/ has interesting data regarding this.
We're told that the more likely scenario - as disclosed by The Times at the weekend - is a two-week circuit breaker after Christmas
The 28th has been pencilled in by officials as the starting point for the new curbs - again taking into account the 48 hours needed for recall
What an utter shitshow
I think we can expect widespread disobedience this time around. Maybe enough to make the efforts entirely futile.
There won't be, though. My patents will follow it. So I won't be able to see them. And there will be the issue from last time of 'does family x feel the same way or will they be horrified if we suggest the children see their friends'? Some people will be able to break it with impunity, but most will just sit inside and seethe.
I think that's overly optimistic/pessimistic. Talking to people in my own group (I am of course aware that they may not be representative, but I don't have much else to go on):
- My parents are in their 60s, one of them quite vulnerable, they've been pretty obedient, now saying they won't follow it. - Friend in his late 50s, diabetic, has been off out almost every night for the last week. He was very careful pre-vaccination and has said he won't lock himself down against post-vaccination. - Friends more my age (late 20s and 30s), pretty much regardless of where they sat on the compliance spectrum for past restrictions have said not a chance in hell this time.
All triple vaxxed or about to be for what it's worth.
FWIW the people I know are mostly planning to see family at Xmas, though a few with very elderly relatives have cancelled. Everyone has cancelled any events this week, and everyone is postponing decision after Xmas to see what the disease is doing. General feeling is that the rules are too lax so they need to err on the side of caution. Like Cookie, though, I think a post-Xmas lockdown will be seen by most as an acceptable compromise.
The contrasting experiences show we can't really generalise. But I agree that a ban on Christmas meetings would have had real resistance.
Nick please engage your brain on this. It’s not an acceptable compromise. It’s a total fucking travesty.
We are drowning in too much poor quality information with insufficient context. Imagine if in normal times South African doctors reported that a new cold virus was circulating there. It was interesting because it seemed to have quite fast transmission rates. But not to worry, it doesn’t seem to really be causing much in the way of serious illness or impacting hospitals much.
Then a bunch of scientists in other countries all said, “huh yeah we have that too. Oh well. Doesn’t seem to be doing much here either”. And the head of the CDC in the US said “yeah we’ve looked at that, don’t worry about that”.
It wouldn’t have made the news. And interestingly if you have been reading the South African news the last couple of weeks, you’ll have noticed that it’s not in the news now! Try the US. Where even Biden is downplaying the need for any major reaction.
And then see here. We as a nation have gone completely fucking gaga that you think criminalising normal social and economic activity is an appropriate measure against this. And sensible people nod along.
PR at the local level sounds even worse than at the national level. Given the lack of media scrutiny locally, it means there would be a handful of local politicians that can never be voted out of power, because they will always be first on the party list. You end up with Junckers in miniature controlling everything, focused on keeping the other permanent politicians happy than caring about the voters.
Implemented with candidate choice, rather than party lists, might actually be an improvement on the current system - where councils can be more than 90% controlled by a single party, and you need to spend a lot of time brown-nosing to get nominated for a seat in the first place, but that seat is pretty much for life once you get it.
Do you really expect voters at the local level to have enough knowledge to rank candidates within a party? It would all be determined on name recognition, and the local party leadership would make sure their local honchos are most well known.
Local voters largely vote on party label. That means the right way to keep the local politicians on their toes is Alternative Vote. They would have to spend all their time trying to impress voters for other parties, breaking up party machines and creating the ability for even safe seats to be threatened by opposition unity.
Yes, I expect that local voters will happily choose to vote for the same party as always, but also choose to remove an incumbent ineffective/time-served/corrupt councillor and replace him or her with someone else.
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon The UK government has a choice between believing in vaccines and believing in quack modelling. No country with such a high % of antibodies from vaccines and prior infection should be considering any restrictions on freedom.
Except the vaccines weren't designed to counter Omicron. Such a ridiculous dichotomy is a bigger sign of quackery than any modeling.
So yours is an argument for never ending lockdowns every time a new variant appears irrespective of how well the vaccines work against it because 'they weren't designed for it'?
You are poorly named. You should have been the White Witch rather than Aslan - condemning us to a world where it is always winter but never Christmas.
What with global warming and the supermarkets selling mince pies starting in October it seems to be always Christmas but never winter
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon The UK government has a choice between believing in vaccines and believing in quack modelling. No country with such a high % of antibodies from vaccines and prior infection should be considering any restrictions on freedom.
Except the vaccines weren't designed to counter Omicron. Such a ridiculous dichotomy is a bigger sign of quackery than any modeling.
So yours is an argument for never ending lockdowns every time a new variant appears irrespective of how well the vaccines work against it because 'they weren't designed for it'?
You are poorly named. You should have been the White Witch rather than Aslan - condemning us to a world where it is always winter but never Christmas.
What with global warming and the supermarkets selling mince pies starting in October it seems to be always Christmas but never winter
PR at the local level sounds even worse than at the national level. Given the lack of media scrutiny locally, it means there would be a handful of local politicians that can never be voted out of power, because they will always be first on the party list. You end up with Junckers in miniature controlling everything, focused on keeping the other permanent politicians happy than caring about the voters.
So it would be sensible to harmonise with Scotland and not go near party lists!
Your description is pretty close to the current state in most parts of the country.
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon The UK government has a choice between believing in vaccines and believing in quack modelling. No country with such a high % of antibodies from vaccines and prior infection should be considering any restrictions on freedom.
Except the vaccines weren't designed to counter Omicron. Such a ridiculous dichotomy is a bigger sign of quackery than any modeling.
So yours is an argument for never ending lockdowns every time a new variant appears irrespective of how well the vaccines work against it because 'they weren't designed for it'?
You are poorly named. You should have been the White Witch rather than Aslan - condemning us to a world where it is always winter but never Christmas.
No, I was breaking down the bad logic in another argument, not making one of my own. My proposal would be to look at vaccine effectiveness and growth rates of hospitalization to determine whether to have a lockdown. It seems both of those look poor when it comes to Omicron. I am not arguing for another lockdown, but it should be on the table as an option. As milder variants emerge, lockdowns will be rarer over time.
As for the White Witch, I imagine Narnians would be more upset by her constant ending of life rather than the bad weather. I value life over luxury.
We're told that the more likely scenario - as disclosed by The Times at the weekend - is a two-week circuit breaker after Christmas
The 28th has been pencilled in by officials as the starting point for the new curbs - again taking into account the 48 hours needed for recall
What an utter shitshow
I think we can expect widespread disobedience this time around. Maybe enough to make the efforts entirely futile.
There won't be, though. My patents will follow it. So I won't be able to see them. And there will be the issue from last time of 'does family x feel the same way or will they be horrified if we suggest the children see their friends'? Some people will be able to break it with impunity, but most will just sit inside and seethe.
I think that's overly optimistic/pessimistic. Talking to people in my own group (I am of course aware that they may not be representative, but I don't have much else to go on):
- My parents are in their 60s, one of them quite vulnerable, they've been pretty obedient, now saying they won't follow it. - Friend in his late 50s, diabetic, has been off out almost every night for the last week. He was very careful pre-vaccination and has said he won't lock himself down against post-vaccination. - Friends more my age (late 20s and 30s), pretty much regardless of where they sat on the compliance spectrum for past restrictions have said not a chance in hell this time.
All triple vaxxed or about to be for what it's worth.
FWIW the people I know are mostly planning to see family at Xmas, though a few with very elderly relatives have cancelled. Everyone has cancelled any events this week, and everyone is postponing decision after Xmas to see what the disease is doing. General feeling is that the rules are too lax so they need to err on the side of caution. Like Cookie, though, I think a post-Xmas lockdown will be seen by most as an acceptable compromise.
The contrasting experiences show we can't really generalise. But I agree that a ban on Christmas meetings would have had real resistance.
Nick please engage your brain on this. It’s not an acceptable compromise. It’s a total fucking travesty.
We are drowning in too much poor quality information with insufficient context. Imagine if in normal times South African doctors reported that a new cold virus was circulating there. It was interesting because it seemed to have quite fast transmission rates. But not to worry, it doesn’t seem to really be causing much in the way of serious illness or impacting hospitals much.
Then a bunch of scientists in other countries all said, “huh yeah we have that too. Oh well. Doesn’t seem to be doing much here either”. And the head of the CDC in the US said “yeah we’ve looked at that, don’t worry about that”.
It wouldn’t have made the news. And interestingly if you have been reading the South African news the last couple of weeks, you’ll have noticed that it’s not in the news now! Try the US. Where even Biden is downplaying the need for any major reaction.
And then see here. We as a nation have gone completely fucking gaga that you think criminalising normal social and economic activity is an appropriate measure against this. And sensible people nod along.
The evidence that this is milder than regular COVID is very mixed.
PR at the local level sounds even worse than at the national level. Given the lack of media scrutiny locally, it means there would be a handful of local politicians that can never be voted out of power, because they will always be first on the party list. You end up with Junckers in miniature controlling everything, focused on keeping the other permanent politicians happy than caring about the voters.
So it would be sensible to harmonise with Scotland and not go near party lists!
Your description is pretty close to the current state in most parts of the country.
If ever there was an area that ever needed serious reform, it is local government.
It's probably the best thing the SNP have done for Scotland.
We're told that the more likely scenario - as disclosed by The Times at the weekend - is a two-week circuit breaker after Christmas
The 28th has been pencilled in by officials as the starting point for the new curbs - again taking into account the 48 hours needed for recall
What an utter shitshow
I think we can expect widespread disobedience this time around. Maybe enough to make the efforts entirely futile.
There won't be, though. My patents will follow it. So I won't be able to see them. And there will be the issue from last time of 'does family x feel the same way or will they be horrified if we suggest the children see their friends'? Some people will be able to break it with impunity, but most will just sit inside and seethe.
I think that's overly optimistic/pessimistic. Talking to people in my own group (I am of course aware that they may not be representative, but I don't have much else to go on):
- My parents are in their 60s, one of them quite vulnerable, they've been pretty obedient, now saying they won't follow it. - Friend in his late 50s, diabetic, has been off out almost every night for the last week. He was very careful pre-vaccination and has said he won't lock himself down against post-vaccination. - Friends more my age (late 20s and 30s), pretty much regardless of where they sat on the compliance spectrum for past restrictions have said not a chance in hell this time.
All triple vaxxed or about to be for what it's worth.
FWIW the people I know are mostly planning to see family at Xmas, though a few with very elderly relatives have cancelled. Everyone has cancelled any events this week, and everyone is postponing decision after Xmas to see what the disease is doing. General feeling is that the rules are too lax so they need to err on the side of caution. Like Cookie, though, I think a post-Xmas lockdown will be seen by most as an acceptable compromise.
The contrasting experiences show we can't really generalise. But I agree that a ban on Christmas meetings would have had real resistance.
Nick please engage your brain on this. It’s not an acceptable compromise. It’s a total fucking travesty.
We are drowning in too much poor quality information with insufficient context. Imagine if in normal times South African doctors reported that a new cold virus was circulating there. It was interesting because it seemed to have quite fast transmission rates. But not to worry, it doesn’t seem to really be causing much in the way of serious illness or impacting hospitals much.
Then a bunch of scientists in other countries all said, “huh yeah we have that too. Oh well. Doesn’t seem to be doing much here either”. And the head of the CDC in the US said “yeah we’ve looked at that, don’t worry about that”.
It wouldn’t have made the news. And interestingly if you have been reading the South African news the last couple of weeks, you’ll have noticed that it’s not in the news now! Try the US. Where even Biden is downplaying the need for any major reaction.
And then see here. We as a nation have gone completely fucking gaga that you think criminalising normal social and economic activity is an appropriate measure against this. And sensible people nod along.
The evidence that this is milder than regular COVID is very mixed.
Whether it is milder or has the same virulence against naive immune systems may be open to debate, although there is compelling evidence leading to it being a bit milder. Happily, it’s not that relevant because we now have so few naive immune systems in the groups at risk from covid.
We're told that the more likely scenario - as disclosed by The Times at the weekend - is a two-week circuit breaker after Christmas
The 28th has been pencilled in by officials as the starting point for the new curbs - again taking into account the 48 hours needed for recall
What an utter shitshow
I think we can expect widespread disobedience this time around. Maybe enough to make the efforts entirely futile.
There won't be, though. My patents will follow it. So I won't be able to see them. And there will be the issue from last time of 'does family x feel the same way or will they be horrified if we suggest the children see their friends'? Some people will be able to break it with impunity, but most will just sit inside and seethe.
I think that's overly optimistic/pessimistic. Talking to people in my own group (I am of course aware that they may not be representative, but I don't have much else to go on):
- My parents are in their 60s, one of them quite vulnerable, they've been pretty obedient, now saying they won't follow it. - Friend in his late 50s, diabetic, has been off out almost every night for the last week. He was very careful pre-vaccination and has said he won't lock himself down against post-vaccination. - Friends more my age (late 20s and 30s), pretty much regardless of where they sat on the compliance spectrum for past restrictions have said not a chance in hell this time.
All triple vaxxed or about to be for what it's worth.
FWIW the people I know are mostly planning to see family at Xmas, though a few with very elderly relatives have cancelled. Everyone has cancelled any events this week, and everyone is postponing decision after Xmas to see what the disease is doing. General feeling is that the rules are too lax so they need to err on the side of caution. Like Cookie, though, I think a post-Xmas lockdown will be seen by most as an acceptable compromise.
The contrasting experiences show we can't really generalise. But I agree that a ban on Christmas meetings would have had real resistance.
The only options with Covid (as has been demonstrated multiple times over the past 2 years) is lockdown immediately or don't bother.
Given that we didn't lockdown two weeks ago, with Omicron now all over the country and the anecdotal evidence coming from South Africa / Denmark it's utterly insane to be saying - everything fine this week but next week we are going to lock things done.
Doing that doesn't stop the spread and while it may make you happy that Xmas continues as before it screws up the plans of others who were planning to spend next week doing the things you are planning to do on Christmas / Boxing Day.
We're told that the more likely scenario - as disclosed by The Times at the weekend - is a two-week circuit breaker after Christmas
The 28th has been pencilled in by officials as the starting point for the new curbs - again taking into account the 48 hours needed for recall
What an utter shitshow
I think we can expect widespread disobedience this time around. Maybe enough to make the efforts entirely futile.
There won't be, though. My patents will follow it. So I won't be able to see them. And there will be the issue from last time of 'does family x feel the same way or will they be horrified if we suggest the children see their friends'? Some people will be able to break it with impunity, but most will just sit inside and seethe.
I think that's overly optimistic/pessimistic. Talking to people in my own group (I am of course aware that they may not be representative, but I don't have much else to go on):
- My parents are in their 60s, one of them quite vulnerable, they've been pretty obedient, now saying they won't follow it. - Friend in his late 50s, diabetic, has been off out almost every night for the last week. He was very careful pre-vaccination and has said he won't lock himself down against post-vaccination. - Friends more my age (late 20s and 30s), pretty much regardless of where they sat on the compliance spectrum for past restrictions have said not a chance in hell this time.
All triple vaxxed or about to be for what it's worth.
FWIW the people I know are mostly planning to see family at Xmas, though a few with very elderly relatives have cancelled. Everyone has cancelled any events this week, and everyone is postponing decision after Xmas to see what the disease is doing. General feeling is that the rules are too lax so they need to err on the side of caution. Like Cookie, though, I think a post-Xmas lockdown will be seen by most as an acceptable compromise.
The contrasting experiences show we can't really generalise. But I agree that a ban on Christmas meetings would have had real resistance.
Nick please engage your brain on this. It’s not an acceptable compromise. It’s a total fucking travesty.
We are drowning in too much poor quality information with insufficient context. Imagine if in normal times South African doctors reported that a new cold virus was circulating there. It was interesting because it seemed to have quite fast transmission rates. But not to worry, it doesn’t seem to really be causing much in the way of serious illness or impacting hospitals much.
Then a bunch of scientists in other countries all said, “huh yeah we have that too. Oh well. Doesn’t seem to be doing much here either”. And the head of the CDC in the US said “yeah we’ve looked at that, don’t worry about that”.
It wouldn’t have made the news. And interestingly if you have been reading the South African news the last couple of weeks, you’ll have noticed that it’s not in the news now! Try the US. Where even Biden is downplaying the need for any major reaction.
And then see here. We as a nation have gone completely fucking gaga that you think criminalising normal social and economic activity is an appropriate measure against this. And sensible people nod along.
The evidence that this is milder than regular COVID is very mixed.
Genuine question. Where is there evidence that it is not? So far I have seen inconclusive evidence that would point in the direction of it being milder (with relevant caveats), such as the SA data, and the data indicating an upper respiratory tract infection. But I have seen nothing that provides anything like positive evidence that it is just as virulent as Delta. Am I missing something?
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon The UK government has a choice between believing in vaccines and believing in quack modelling. No country with such a high % of antibodies from vaccines and prior infection should be considering any restrictions on freedom.
Except the vaccines weren't designed to counter Omicron. Such a ridiculous dichotomy is a bigger sign of quackery than any modeling.
So yours is an argument for never ending lockdowns every time a new variant appears irrespective of how well the vaccines work against it because 'they weren't designed for it'?
You are poorly named. You should have been the White Witch rather than Aslan - condemning us to a world where it is always winter but never Christmas.
No, I was breaking down the bad logic in another argument, not making one of my own. My proposal would be to look at vaccine effectiveness and growth rates of hospitalization to determine whether to have a lockdown. It seems both of those look poor when it comes to Omicron. I am not arguing for another lockdown, but it should be on the table as an option. As milder variants emerge, lockdowns will be rarer over time.
As for the White Witch, I imagine Narnians would be more upset by her constant ending of life rather than the bad weather. I value life over luxury.
But vaccine efficacy is very good, 93-95% reduction in severe symptoms for people with three doses.
PR at the local level sounds even worse than at the national level. Given the lack of media scrutiny locally, it means there would be a handful of local politicians that can never be voted out of power, because they will always be first on the party list. You end up with Junckers in miniature controlling everything, focused on keeping the other permanent politicians happy than caring about the voters.
So it would be sensible to harmonise with Scotland and not go near party lists!
Your description is pretty close to the current state in most parts of the country.
My personal solution to @Aslan’s concern - which I think is legitimate - is not to have a pre-defined party list but rather one constructed from the “best performing losers, in order of performance”.
This would incentivise parties to take more seats seriously, but not disincentivise voted for “third parties”.
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon The UK government has a choice between believing in vaccines and believing in quack modelling. No country with such a high % of antibodies from vaccines and prior infection should be considering any restrictions on freedom.
Except the vaccines weren't designed to counter Omicron. Such a ridiculous dichotomy is a bigger sign of quackery than any modeling.
So yours is an argument for never ending lockdowns every time a new variant appears irrespective of how well the vaccines work against it because 'they weren't designed for it'?
You are poorly named. You should have been the White Witch rather than Aslan - condemning us to a world where it is always winter but never Christmas.
What with global warming and the supermarkets selling mince pies starting in October it seems to be always Christmas but never winter
Our corner shop has had Creme Eggs since November 24th.
Thinking what is the possible option Boris could go with....Tier'ed restrictions....get ready everybody :-)
Just trying to catch-up - been out in the workshop bashing metal all day.
Are we expecting further restrictions? I thought Johnson has bottled it / has not got the votes / has switched off for the holidays... for any further restrictions.
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon The UK government has a choice between believing in vaccines and believing in quack modelling. No country with such a high % of antibodies from vaccines and prior infection should be considering any restrictions on freedom.
Except the vaccines weren't designed to counter Omicron. Such a ridiculous dichotomy is a bigger sign of quackery than any modeling.
So yours is an argument for never ending lockdowns every time a new variant appears irrespective of how well the vaccines work against it because 'they weren't designed for it'?
You are poorly named. You should have been the White Witch rather than Aslan - condemning us to a world where it is always winter but never Christmas.
What with global warming and the supermarkets selling mince pies starting in October it seems to be always Christmas but never winter
Our corner shop has had Creme Eggs since November 24th.
But good luck getting any sort of Easter egg during Easter. Only sold in Lent and the lead up.
Thinking what is the possible option Boris could go with....Tier'ed restrictions....get ready everybody :-)
Just trying to catch-up - been out in the workshop bashing metal all day.
Are we expecting further restrictions? I thought Johnson has bottled it / has not got the votes / has switched off for the holidays... for any further restrictions.
Bunch of noise including throw away account on here claiming inside knowledge for parliamentary recall.
Thinking what is the possible option Boris could go with....Tier'ed restrictions....get ready everybody :-)
Just trying to catch-up - been out in the workshop bashing metal all day.
Are we expecting further restrictions? I thought Johnson has bottled it / has not got the votes / has switched off for the holidays... for any further restrictions.
Talk is that a lockdown will now imposed the day after Boxing Day and into 2022.
We're told that the more likely scenario - as disclosed by The Times at the weekend - is a two-week circuit breaker after Christmas
The 28th has been pencilled in by officials as the starting point for the new curbs - again taking into account the 48 hours needed for recall
What an utter shitshow
I think we can expect widespread disobedience this time around. Maybe enough to make the efforts entirely futile.
There won't be, though. My patents will follow it. So I won't be able to see them. And there will be the issue from last time of 'does family x feel the same way or will they be horrified if we suggest the children see their friends'? Some people will be able to break it with impunity, but most will just sit inside and seethe.
I think that's overly optimistic/pessimistic. Talking to people in my own group (I am of course aware that they may not be representative, but I don't have much else to go on):
- My parents are in their 60s, one of them quite vulnerable, they've been pretty obedient, now saying they won't follow it. - Friend in his late 50s, diabetic, has been off out almost every night for the last week. He was very careful pre-vaccination and has said he won't lock himself down against post-vaccination. - Friends more my age (late 20s and 30s), pretty much regardless of where they sat on the compliance spectrum for past restrictions have said not a chance in hell this time.
All triple vaxxed or about to be for what it's worth.
FWIW the people I know are mostly planning to see family at Xmas, though a few with very elderly relatives have cancelled. Everyone has cancelled any events this week, and everyone is postponing decision after Xmas to see what the disease is doing. General feeling is that the rules are too lax so they need to err on the side of caution. Like Cookie, though, I think a post-Xmas lockdown will be seen by most as an acceptable compromise.
The contrasting experiences show we can't really generalise. But I agree that a ban on Christmas meetings would have had real resistance.
Nick please engage your brain on this. It’s not an acceptable compromise. It’s a total fucking travesty.
We are drowning in too much poor quality information with insufficient context. Imagine if in normal times South African doctors reported that a new cold virus was circulating there. It was interesting because it seemed to have quite fast transmission rates. But not to worry, it doesn’t seem to really be causing much in the way of serious illness or impacting hospitals much.
Then a bunch of scientists in other countries all said, “huh yeah we have that too. Oh well. Doesn’t seem to be doing much here either”. And the head of the CDC in the US said “yeah we’ve looked at that, don’t worry about that”.
It wouldn’t have made the news. And interestingly if you have been reading the South African news the last couple of weeks, you’ll have noticed that it’s not in the news now! Try the US. Where even Biden is downplaying the need for any major reaction.
And then see here. We as a nation have gone completely fucking gaga that you think criminalising normal social and economic activity is an appropriate measure against this. And sensible people nod along.
The evidence that this is milder than regular COVID is very mixed.
The issue is that we don't know what this variant does.
We know it grows initially in the throat rather than lungs which is why it's so infectious and people start feeling ill earlier. But we don't know enough beyond that.
Personally, however, as we aren't locked down already it's too late so let's see what happens.
Thinking what is the possible option Boris could go with....Tier'ed restrictions....get ready everybody :-)
Just trying to catch-up - been out in the workshop bashing metal all day.
Are we expecting further restrictions? I thought Johnson has bottled it / has not got the votes / has switched off for the holidays... for any further restrictions.
Current media speculation seems to be suggestion lockdown lite from 27th/28th for a month.
If the reports are correct, that the PM can’t agree with the cabinet on an immediate course of action without resignations, then someone does indeed need to nominate Fraser Nelson for a knighthood.
Obviously I have no special insight into this but surely every day were Sunak doesn't resign is a day that harms his leadership chances?
You're not wrong, but it seems as though Cabinet has resisted this round of being bounced into restrictions so if he's led that cabinet rebellion he will have enhanced his standing among MPs for sure.
Suspect if the polls asked something like 'would you support lockdown if it meant an additional 5% on income tax to pay for it for the duration' we might get different levels of support for it.
Would you rather like to 90 with 6 months a year of lockdown, or live to 80 without.
Live til 80. The last ten years are the shitty ones.
And what if you'd expect to live to 100?
It would all depend on what I’d expect my health and fitness level to be.
1 - There is some evidence that Omicron will lead to a lower rate of hospitalisation. It's strong evidence in South Africa, but we don't know the confounders (population immunity vs Beta, lower age population, far greater excess death rate having already killed many of the most vulnerable). Which is why here it is "some evidence" rather than "strong evidence"
2 - Assuming it is lower effective severity (which could be linked to vaccine immunity already in place), by how much is it lower? Will it more than balance out the considerably higher spread?
3 - How high does the higher spread go? It does seem, from SA, to zoom up, but top out early. My underinformed speculation would be in the direction that when it hits people with higher immunity, it goes asymptomatic/minimal infectivity with a sudden toggle when it gets below a certain viral loading (or whatever the term is for how well it keeps going in the body). The balance point between higher spread and lower effective severity is the crucial one. If you have a third the severity and a hundred times the spread of the Delta peak - not good. If you have ten times the spread and a quarter the severity, we could probably sustain it as long as it's quick.
4 - Arguments around how much the hospitals could sustain last January aren't very solid - we know they burned out a lot of long-term capacity and built up huge problems. Exhausted staff and reduced numbers don't help. The argument "We could cope with this level last winter," is as valid when talking about restrictions as when talking about hospital loading: in both cases it runs into exhausted and demoralised people.
5 - Any restrictions put in place from 27th December are missing the boat completely, to the point where the boat has not just gone, it's been replaced by an air service and been decommissioned.
Overall - I don't envy them making this choice. My instincts are that we should ensure we have anything we need (as much as possible) to see us out a few weeks, and tray our damndest to avoid needing medical help for ANYTHING if possible. Because it might well not be available. Or it might. We don't yet know.
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon The UK government has a choice between believing in vaccines and believing in quack modelling. No country with such a high % of antibodies from vaccines and prior infection should be considering any restrictions on freedom.
Except the vaccines weren't designed to counter Omicron. Such a ridiculous dichotomy is a bigger sign of quackery than any modeling.
So yours is an argument for never ending lockdowns every time a new variant appears irrespective of how well the vaccines work against it because 'they weren't designed for it'?
You are poorly named. You should have been the White Witch rather than Aslan - condemning us to a world where it is always winter but never Christmas.
No, I was breaking down the bad logic in another argument, not making one of my own. My proposal would be to look at vaccine effectiveness and growth rates of hospitalization to determine whether to have a lockdown. It seems both of those look poor when it comes to Omicron. I am not arguing for another lockdown, but it should be on the table as an option. As milder variants emerge, lockdowns will be rarer over time.
As for the White Witch, I imagine Narnians would be more upset by her constant ending of life rather than the bad weather. I value life over luxury.
All depends on what you consider life. Being alive, for all that it might be a prerequisite for living, is not all it amounts to. I no longer feel it is worth sacrificing the quality of life for many millions of people for the fact of life for a very few. All the more so when many of 'the few' have chosen to put their own lives at risk.
I'm still struggling to understand the connection between the data so far on omicron - South Africa and Denmark - with the UK government's panic(?)
From what it seems like someone in the DoH asked for data that would be used to make a lockdown decision so the modellers duly provided a bunch of unlikely doom laden scenarios. That has caused panic.
I don't think this is what happened, unless I've missed something - as far as I can see, they modelled three scenarios, and provided ranges for various metrics to illustrate what might happen under each. Because they don't have enough data to estimate the necessary parameters accurately, they put a lot of volatility around the key ones, which means they ended up with absolutely massive ranges for each. The problem now is that no-one can focus on anything except the upper end of all the ranges, which are being interpreted as "plausible" rather than "only if everything that possibly can go wrong, goes wrong, and even then only if we're completely wrong on the base case".
If my understanding is correct, this is exactly what happened with BSE, and with various other epidemiological modelling since, including some of the COVID models. It seems to me that we need to get better at communicating likelihoods of scenarios, and interpreting output of stochastic modelling, to policymakers. Although possibly the issue is that the precautionary principle is rearing its ugly head, and policymakers just need to get better at not getting trapped by it.
PR at the local level sounds even worse than at the national level. Given the lack of media scrutiny locally, it means there would be a handful of local politicians that can never be voted out of power, because they will always be first on the party list. You end up with Junckers in miniature controlling everything, focused on keeping the other permanent politicians happy than caring about the voters.
Implemented with candidate choice, rather than party lists, might actually be an improvement on the current system - where councils can be more than 90% controlled by a single party, and you need to spend a lot of time brown-nosing to get nominated for a seat in the first place, but that seat is pretty much for life once you get it.
Do you really expect voters at the local level to have enough knowledge to rank candidates within a party? It would all be determined on name recognition, and the local party leadership would make sure their local honchos are most well known.
Local voters largely vote on party label. That means the right way to keep the local politicians on their toes is Alternative Vote. They would have to spend all their time trying to impress voters for other parties, breaking up party machines and creating the ability for even safe seats to be threatened by opposition unity.
Yes, I expect that local voters will happily choose to vote for the same party as always, but also choose to remove an incumbent ineffective/time-served/corrupt councillor and replace him or her with someone else.
Look at what happens when you get multi-seat elections (London boroughs, or all-up elections to new councils... it happens quite a lot.) There's often 10 % or so difference between votes for different candidates for the same party and where I've known enough to judge, it correlates fairly well with doing a good job for all the voters.
The other problem with council wards is that they're generally quite small, so often fairly homogeneous. A ward might be an ex-council estate, or the posh Georgian bit, or where the yuppy flats were built. That doesn't make for competitive elections.
"The thing that probably spooked the politicians was the scientists and modellers explaining that by the time you could tell which trajectory you were on from the cases and admissions numbers, it would already be way too late to decide to impose restrictions. You're on the coaster now, and the effects are already baked in by then.
That's why we're seeing the various leaks and stuff from the internal discussions of "Do we go all in or not?"
Because for all the stuff that it looks as though it's probably less on the hospitalisation rates and durations - there have been occasional signs the other way, and it's by no means certain.
So if you go for caution, you are more likely than not blowing away Christmas unnecessarily and damaging a lot of businesses. And if you don't, there is still a fairly chunky chance you've guessed wrong whilst going all in on the pot and throwing it all away at the last moment.
Not an easy choice to make, and that's why the ones on the periphery or the ones who have the strongest views are blowing off steam into the media, or those on the outside are reading the tea leaves and wondering if there's a big black dog coming down the road or if those leaves are just clumping up there. "
Makes sense. The suggestion is that this is a balanced call based on the data. Political problem here is that there much more appetite to do stuff (a) after Christmas and (b) once we have more clarity on the data. Which is no good.
1 - There is some evidence that Omicron will lead to a lower rate of hospitalisation. It's strong evidence in South Africa, but we don't know the confounders (population immunity vs Beta, lower age population, far greater excess death rate having already killed many of the most vulnerable). Which is why here it is "some evidence" rather than "strong evidence"
2 - Assuming it is lower effective severity (which could be linked to vaccine immunity already in place), by how much is it lower? Will it more than balance out the considerably higher spread?
3 - How high does the higher spread go? It does seem, from SA, to zoom up, but top out early. My underinformed speculation would be in the direction that when it hits people with higher immunity, it goes asymptomatic/minimal infectivity with a sudden toggle when it gets below a certain viral loading (or whatever the term is for how well it keeps going in the body). The balance point between higher spread and lower effective severity is the crucial one. If you have a third the severity and a hundred times the spread of the Delta peak - not good. If you have ten times the spread and a quarter the severity, we could probably sustain it as long as it's quick.
4 - Arguments around how much the hospitals could sustain last January aren't very solid - we know they burned out a lot of long-term capacity and built up huge problems. Exhausted staff and reduced numbers don't help. The argument "We could cope with this level last winter," is as valid when talking about restrictions as when talking about hospital loading: in both cases it runs into exhausted and demoralised people.
5 - Any restrictions put in place from 27th December are missing the boat completely, to the point where the boat has not just gone, it's been replaced by an air service and been decommissioned.
Overall - I don't envy them making this choice. My instincts are that we should ensure we have anything we need (as much as possible) to see us out a few weeks, and tray our damndest to avoid needing medical help for ANYTHING if possible. Because it might well not be available. Or it might. We don't yet know.
If the reports are correct, that the PM can’t agree with the cabinet on an immediate course of action without resignations, then someone does indeed need to nominate Fraser Nelson for a knighthood.
Yup, it does seem like the SAGE revelations on how they come up with their numbers has been extremely damaging for lockdowns. As I said this morning, I understand that the Fraser Nelson article and the Speccie July model tracker got shared a lot this morning. Nelson has said himself he's had ministers contact him for further details and for him to put into context of what the twitter conversation meant.
I wouldn't be surprised if part of the cabinet push back is based on ministers demanding a balanced view from the models rather than just the negative ones. Once we get a firm idea on observed VE this week and a really good fix on disease severity those numbers could go down by 90%.
@rcs1000 looks like yesterday's Gauteng Health tweet was some kind of data snafu as today's has the figure back up to 3286 (which does actually match the NICD figures from the 19th Dec PDF!)
1 - There is some evidence that Omicron will lead to a lower rate of hospitalisation. It's strong evidence in South Africa, but we don't know the confounders (population immunity vs Beta, lower age population, far greater excess death rate having already killed many of the most vulnerable). Which is why here it is "some evidence" rather than "strong evidence"
2 - Assuming it is lower effective severity (which could be linked to vaccine immunity already in place), by how much is it lower? Will it more than balance out the considerably higher spread?
3 - How high does the higher spread go? It does seem, from SA, to zoom up, but top out early. My underinformed speculation would be in the direction that when it hits people with higher immunity, it goes asymptomatic/minimal infectivity with a sudden toggle when it gets below a certain viral loading (or whatever the term is for how well it keeps going in the body). The balance point between higher spread and lower effective severity is the crucial one. If you have a third the severity and a hundred times the spread of the Delta peak - not good. If you have ten times the spread and a quarter the severity, we could probably sustain it as long as it's quick.
4 - Arguments around how much the hospitals could sustain last January aren't very solid - we know they burned out a lot of long-term capacity and built up huge problems. Exhausted staff and reduced numbers don't help. The argument "We could cope with this level last winter," is as valid when talking about restrictions as when talking about hospital loading: in both cases it runs into exhausted and demoralised people.
5 - Any restrictions put in place from 27th December are missing the boat completely, to the point where the boat has not just gone, it's been replaced by an air service and been decommissioned.
Overall - I don't envy them making this choice. My instincts are that we should ensure we have anything we need (as much as possible) to see us out a few weeks, and tray our damndest to avoid needing medical help for ANYTHING if possible. Because it might well not be available. Or it might. We don't yet know.
Point 5 needs the additional context that there's no point putting in place restrictions before 27 December, because they won't be followed, and are politically unviable anyway.
And for all the valid points that we couldn't ramp up doctors and nurses in quick time, there was/is an alternative:
- Recruit a shit-tonne more administrators and managers. Yes, I know all the complaints about wasting NHS money on beancounters and paper-pushers, but in reality, the NHS has far fewer managerial and administrative posts than almost any other sizeable organisation. And the cost of that is that doctors and nurses spend a considerable chunk of their time doing that administration, paperwork, and management.
Remove that burden, and the effective number of people working goes up. If they spend 20-25% of their time pushing paper at the moment, give them an Administrative Assistant, and you've suddenly increased effective capacity by 20%+ at a stroke.
- Pay them more - a genuine significant uptick. Yes, they're not in it for the money, but it does bloody help and lets them know they're genuinely appreciated - and can help them get support at home for other things.
- Capital spend for anything else needed. We use "number of beds" as a shorthand for capacity, when we know it's not about the furniture, otherwise a trip to IKEA could have solved it. But there are some limits on capital equipment - resolve them.
The big issue is that all of that would certainly cost. But penny-wise and pound-foolish: how much does it cost in comparison to a lockdown? Or on-and-off restrictions because the health service is now too damaged to support even small surges? Or how much will it cost when so many pubs and restaurants collapse, or need long-term support in order to avoid the future where the only hospitality establishment remaining in Central London is 10 Downing Street?
I'm still struggling to understand the connection between the data so far on omicron - South Africa and Denmark - with the UK government's panic(?)
From what it seems like someone in the DoH asked for data that would be used to make a lockdown decision so the modellers duly provided a bunch of unlikely doom laden scenarios. That has caused panic.
I don't think this is what happened, unless I've missed something - as far as I can see, they modelled three scenarios, and provided ranges for various metrics to illustrate what might happen under each. Because they don't have enough data to estimate the necessary parameters accurately, they put a lot of volatility around the key ones, which means they ended up with absolutely massive ranges for each. The problem now is that no-one can focus on anything except the upper end of all the ranges, which are being interpreted as "plausible" rather than "only if everything that possibly can go wrong, goes wrong, and even then only if we're completely wrong on the base case".
If my understanding is correct, this is exactly what happened with BSE, and with various other epidemiological modelling since, including some of the COVID models. It seems to me that we need to get better at communicating likelihoods of scenarios, and interpreting output of stochastic modelling, to policymakers. Although possibly the issue is that the precautionary principle is rearing its ugly head, and policymakers just need to get better at not getting trapped by it.
No, the problem as discovered by Fraser Nelson was that likely but positive data was specifically excluded from the modelling because it would produce data which wouldn't inform the decision making process. Simply, whoever asked for the data wanted the most negative scenarios to present to ministers so the modellers gave it to them.
I’m reminded on those periods on history when not much happens - but boy, are the 2020s proving to be fascinating. How will the history books look back on this?
Gas futures near all time highs £3.70/therm ~12p/kWh
We can't afford a lockdown.
That’s in one hand. Agreed. In the other hand main selling point for lockdown type measures is to protect the NHS from surge predicted by people you pay to predict surges. To be honest, if I lost a loved one because ambulance didn’t come, they were Queued up outside broken hospital, I would blame the government.
And in the middle a government that can’t make a decision on it one way or other 🤦♀️
BBC reporting it is all back to the save the NHS from collapsing narrative
Twas ever going to be thus. The NHS is the ultimate political shield.
I wonder sometimes if the NHS helps itself. I have to take my Dad in tomorrow and I was reassured that there wouldn't be many people around because 'it was the staff Christmas party in the morning'.
Given the circumstances, is having all the staff in the same place at once a good idea? It is a recipe for having the whole department unstaffed in about 4 days time.
@rcs1000 looks like yesterday's Gauteng Health tweet was some kind of data snafu as today's has the figure back up to 3286 (which does actually match the NICD figures from the 19th Dec PDF!)
I’m reminded on those periods on history when not much happens - but boy, are the 2020s proving to be fascinating. How will the history books look back on this?
North Shropshire and Frost’s resignation were both fantastically good news.
I'm still struggling to understand the connection between the data so far on omicron - South Africa and Denmark - with the UK government's panic(?)
From what it seems like someone in the DoH asked for data that would be used to make a lockdown decision so the modellers duly provided a bunch of unlikely doom laden scenarios. That has caused panic.
I don't think this is what happened, unless I've missed something - as far as I can see, they modelled three scenarios, and provided ranges for various metrics to illustrate what might happen under each. Because they don't have enough data to estimate the necessary parameters accurately, they put a lot of volatility around the key ones, which means they ended up with absolutely massive ranges for each. The problem now is that no-one can focus on anything except the upper end of all the ranges, which are being interpreted as "plausible" rather than "only if everything that possibly can go wrong, goes wrong, and even then only if we're completely wrong on the base case".
If my understanding is correct, this is exactly what happened with BSE, and with various other epidemiological modelling since, including some of the COVID models. It seems to me that we need to get better at communicating likelihoods of scenarios, and interpreting output of stochastic modelling, to policymakers. Although possibly the issue is that the precautionary principle is rearing its ugly head, and policymakers just need to get better at not getting trapped by it.
No, the problem as discovered by Fraser Nelson was that likely but positive data was specifically excluded from the modelling because it would produce data which wouldn't inform the decision making process. Simply, whoever asked for the data wanted the most negative scenarios to present to ministers so the modellers gave it to them.
And then washed their hands pretending they thought everyone knew that's what they were doing. Really dreadful stuff.
1 - There is some evidence that Omicron will lead to a lower rate of hospitalisation. It's strong evidence in South Africa, but we don't know the confounders (population immunity vs Beta, lower age population, far greater excess death rate having already killed many of the most vulnerable). Which is why here it is "some evidence" rather than "strong evidence"
2 - Assuming it is lower effective severity (which could be linked to vaccine immunity already in place), by how much is it lower? Will it more than balance out the considerably higher spread?
3 - How high does the higher spread go? It does seem, from SA, to zoom up, but top out early. My underinformed speculation would be in the direction that when it hits people with higher immunity, it goes asymptomatic/minimal infectivity with a sudden toggle when it gets below a certain viral loading (or whatever the term is for how well it keeps going in the body). The balance point between higher spread and lower effective severity is the crucial one. If you have a third the severity and a hundred times the spread of the Delta peak - not good. If you have ten times the spread and a quarter the severity, we could probably sustain it as long as it's quick.
4 - Arguments around how much the hospitals could sustain last January aren't very solid - we know they burned out a lot of long-term capacity and built up huge problems. Exhausted staff and reduced numbers don't help. The argument "We could cope with this level last winter," is as valid when talking about restrictions as when talking about hospital loading: in both cases it runs into exhausted and demoralised people.
5 - Any restrictions put in place from 27th December are missing the boat completely, to the point where the boat has not just gone, it's been replaced by an air service and been decommissioned.
Overall - I don't envy them making this choice. My instincts are that we should ensure we have anything we need (as much as possible) to see us out a few weeks, and tray our damndest to avoid needing medical help for ANYTHING if possible. Because it might well not be available. Or it might. We don't yet know.
On point 4 and as a counterpoint to the public having little remaining appetite for restrictions, last January we were out of ammunition. Once you have fully locked down you have have nothing left in your armoury. This time we do have the choice at least right now to deploy more ammunition. That's fundamentally what the discussion is about.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure - a pretty good rule of thumb that has been ignored at every opportunity throughout this pandemic by this government.
Those today complaining about a possible month long lockdown after Christmas were complaining about the work from home and increased mask usage guidance from two weeks ago. And now, because that wasn't enough, we may lockdown.
I'm young (had my 30th last Jan in lockdown), I want a social Christmas, NY and birthday, I didn't want to be stuck in my house the last 2 years, and it has been crap for me personally. But I also want to live in a functioning society, so I accept these measures, begrudgingly and with criticism for the government usually not doing the prevention part sooner.
The scientists are being cautious because, during a pandemic, that is their job. When a new mutation of a deadly virus emerges, and we don't fully understand it, it is best to try and contain it lest it 1) be worse than we think or 2) mutate again and become worse. A precautionary approach needn't be draconian, even - circuit break lockdowns and swift border controls alongside payments out to people who cannot work would be pretty reasonable. But the government doesn't want to pay for that, doesn't want to piss off foreign investment / business too much by reducing business flights, and refuses to have small lockdowns where needed. So they do "Too Much, Too Late" as another poster described.
We still don't really know the extent to which Long Covid is going to have generational impacts on health and workplace productivity - people a year on still suffering fatigue, complications, etc. will have a massive strain on the NHS and workplaces for years. But the only metric people seem to care about is deaths, hardly even the hospitalisations any more, and as long as deaths are low it seems people here are happy for a virus to spread that could seriously debilitate people for a long time.
1 - There is some evidence that Omicron will lead to a lower rate of hospitalisation. It's strong evidence in South Africa, but we don't know the confounders (population immunity vs Beta, lower age population, far greater excess death rate having already killed many of the most vulnerable). Which is why here it is "some evidence" rather than "strong evidence"
2 - Assuming it is lower effective severity (which could be linked to vaccine immunity already in place), by how much is it lower? Will it more than balance out the considerably higher spread?
3 - How high does the higher spread go? It does seem, from SA, to zoom up, but top out early. My underinformed speculation would be in the direction that when it hits people with higher immunity, it goes asymptomatic/minimal infectivity with a sudden toggle when it gets below a certain viral loading (or whatever the term is for how well it keeps going in the body). The balance point between higher spread and lower effective severity is the crucial one. If you have a third the severity and a hundred times the spread of the Delta peak - not good. If you have ten times the spread and a quarter the severity, we could probably sustain it as long as it's quick.
4 - Arguments around how much the hospitals could sustain last January aren't very solid - we know they burned out a lot of long-term capacity and built up huge problems. Exhausted staff and reduced numbers don't help. The argument "We could cope with this level last winter," is as valid when talking about restrictions as when talking about hospital loading: in both cases it runs into exhausted and demoralised people.
5 - Any restrictions put in place from 27th December are missing the boat completely, to the point where the boat has not just gone, it's been replaced by an air service and been decommissioned.
Overall - I don't envy them making this choice. My instincts are that we should ensure we have anything we need (as much as possible) to see us out a few weeks, and tray our damndest to avoid needing medical help for ANYTHING if possible. Because it might well not be available. Or it might. We don't yet know.
Yes, good summary. Point 5 is the crucial one.
I agree. If NHS does need action to help it though tsunami surge, there’s right time and wrong time to take that action.
I have read through so much stuff on PB about Omicron, but also read here that circuit breakers don’t work. However, if PB collective mind is right, the difference in Omicron is rampant transmissibility blowing in fast and huge but then out quick and hopefully less lung and organ damage issue in waves wake compared to delta, that in this particular Omicron instance, PB has actually made a case for a short circuit break to protect NHS during rapid surge and peak of this wave?
Do you see my point. Variant different, wave different, assumed wisdom how to manage different?
Could the Scottish Government please state if it aims to or is developing a eugenics policy to be rolled out across Scotland. If 'no', could the Scottish Government please state why it has no plans to implement an eugenics policy.
I suppose there is a legitimate question about genetic screening, I think that is more widely done these days. Isn't that a form of eugenics?
Eugenics IIRC implies actual intervention in survival and/or reproduction of those who are genetically disadvantaged or defective in some way (in ways then perceived): the sort of thing that was common in the 1930s (and later) such as forced sterilisation of learning challenged people. The primary rationale was to maintain the population gene pool in better condition than otherwise.
Similar actions do happen today and one might think of antenatal screening and selective abortion for, for instance, trisomy-21 [Down's syndrome] or similar conditions, but the rationale is more immediate - to prevent people being born with serious, painful and disabling conditions, or to prevent (say) someone from having children which she is not fit to cope with.
Christopher Snowdon @cjsnowdon The UK government has a choice between believing in vaccines and believing in quack modelling. No country with such a high % of antibodies from vaccines and prior infection should be considering any restrictions on freedom.
Except the vaccines weren't designed to counter Omicron. Such a ridiculous dichotomy is a bigger sign of quackery than any modeling.
So yours is an argument for never ending lockdowns every time a new variant appears irrespective of how well the vaccines work against it because 'they weren't designed for it'?
You are poorly named. You should have been the White Witch rather than Aslan - condemning us to a world where it is always winter but never Christmas.
No, I was breaking down the bad logic in another argument, not making one of my own. My proposal would be to look at vaccine effectiveness and growth rates of hospitalization to determine whether to have a lockdown. It seems both of those look poor when it comes to Omicron. I am not arguing for another lockdown, but it should be on the table as an option. As milder variants emerge, lockdowns will be rarer over time.
As for the White Witch, I imagine Narnians would be more upset by her constant ending of life rather than the bad weather. I value life over luxury.
All depends on what you consider life. Being alive, for all that it might be a prerequisite for living, is not all it amounts to. I no longer feel it is worth sacrificing the quality of life for many millions of people for the fact of life for a very few. All the more so when many of 'the few' have chosen to put their own lives at risk.
Cool. If you really want to improve the quality of life for many millions of people, lets increase taxes on the minority and use the income to increase benefits to the poorest: an increase there improves QoL for millions where it is needed, and at the cost of people who do not feel the loss as much as those who gain, gain.
And BTW, it's not just unvaccinated people who die, let alone end up in hospital. Unvaccinated people may make up the majority, but there are many, many people who have been vaccinated. And then there is the issue that you'd better hope you don't get into a car crash, or have a heart attack, whilst the hospitals are under more strain.
I come at this from the position of being in favour of a *sensible* law on assisted dying. If someone believes their life has come to a worthwhile end, they are terminally ill etc, then it is sensible. But the problem is the vaccinated people who may be affected by this are people like my parents, who still have much to contribute.
Or my wife.
Life is what you make it. People like Philip who think lockdown equates to 'no life' must have a rather terminal lack of imagination. Lockdown was fairly awful, but we managed to find different things to do - even with a young 'un in the house. We had a life, and it gave me a fresh appreciation for what teachers go through.
At 1:30 it seemed Parliament was going to be recalled on Wednesday following a cabinet meeting at 2.
At 3:30 the cabinet meeting seems to have resulted in Parliament no longer being recalled.
so something significant occurred within that meeting - the question is what and whether it's delayed lockdown or cancelled it.
Do we have any independent verification for the “parliament being recalled” suggestion? Not to denigrate the poster in question but I have only seen it suggested on here without any source to back it up.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure - a pretty good rule of thumb that has been ignored at every opportunity throughout this pandemic by this government.
Those today complaining about a possible month long lockdown after Christmas were complaining about the work from home and increased mask usage guidance from two weeks ago. And now, because that wasn't enough, we may lockdown.
I'm young (had my 30th last Jan in lockdown), I want a social Christmas, NY and birthday, I didn't want to be stuck in my house the last 2 years, and it has been crap for me personally. But I also want to live in a functioning society, so I accept these measures, begrudgingly and with criticism for the government usually not doing the prevention part sooner.
The scientists are being cautious because, during a pandemic, that is their job. When a new mutation of a deadly virus emerges, and we don't fully understand it, it is best to try and contain it lest it 1) be worse than we think or 2) mutate again and become worse. A precautionary approach needn't be draconian, even - circuit break lockdowns and swift border controls alongside payments out to people who cannot work would be pretty reasonable. But the government doesn't want to pay for that, doesn't want to piss off foreign investment / business too much by reducing business flights, and refuses to have small lockdowns where needed. So they do "Too Much, Too Late" as another poster described.
We still don't really know the extent to which Long Covid is going to have generational impacts on health and workplace productivity - people a year on still suffering fatigue, complications, etc. will have a massive strain on the NHS and workplaces for years. But the only metric people seem to care about is deaths, hardly even the hospitalisations any more, and as long as deaths are low it seems people here are happy for a virus to spread that could seriously debilitate people for a long time.
Nobody is happy for the virus to spread, but it is going to. The only question is whether we want it to spread at warp speed or light speed.
1 - There is some evidence that Omicron will lead to a lower rate of hospitalisation. It's strong evidence in South Africa, but we don't know the confounders (population immunity vs Beta, lower age population, far greater excess death rate having already killed many of the most vulnerable). Which is why here it is "some evidence" rather than "strong evidence"
2 - Assuming it is lower effective severity (which could be linked to vaccine immunity already in place), by how much is it lower? Will it more than balance out the considerably higher spread?
3 - How high does the higher spread go? It does seem, from SA, to zoom up, but top out early. My underinformed speculation would be in the direction that when it hits people with higher immunity, it goes asymptomatic/minimal infectivity with a sudden toggle when it gets below a certain viral loading (or whatever the term is for how well it keeps going in the body). The balance point between higher spread and lower effective severity is the crucial one. If you have a third the severity and a hundred times the spread of the Delta peak - not good. If you have ten times the spread and a quarter the severity, we could probably sustain it as long as it's quick.
4 - Arguments around how much the hospitals could sustain last January aren't very solid - we know they burned out a lot of long-term capacity and built up huge problems. Exhausted staff and reduced numbers don't help. The argument "We could cope with this level last winter," is as valid when talking about restrictions as when talking about hospital loading: in both cases it runs into exhausted and demoralised people.
5 - Any restrictions put in place from 27th December are missing the boat completely, to the point where the boat has not just gone, it's been replaced by an air service and been decommissioned.
Overall - I don't envy them making this choice. My instincts are that we should ensure we have anything we need (as much as possible) to see us out a few weeks, and tray our damndest to avoid needing medical help for ANYTHING if possible. Because it might well not be available. Or it might. We don't yet know.
Yes, good summary. Point 5 is the crucial one.
I agree. If NHS does need action to help it though tsunami surge, there’s right time and wrong time to take that action.
I have read through so much stuff on PB about Omicron, but also read here that circuit breakers don’t work. However, if PB collective mind is right, the difference in Omicron is rampant transmissibility blowing in fast and huge but then out quick and hopefully less lung and organ damage issue in waves wake compared to delta, that in this particular Omicron instance, PB has actually made a case for a short circuit break to protect NHS during rapid surge and peak of this wave?
Do you see my point. Variant different, wave different, assumed wisdom how to manage different?
But if that's the case - the circuit break needs to begin today not a week tomorrow because well it's Christmas and because it's Christmas Omicron is going to have a few days off.
At 1:30 it seemed Parliament was going to be recalled on Wednesday following a cabinet meeting at 2.
At 3:30 the cabinet meeting seems to have resulted in Parliament no longer being recalled.
so something significant occurred within that meeting - the question is what and whether it's delayed lockdown or cancelled it.
Johnson lost his rubber stamp?
Was thinking someone has grown a backbone and Boris is now even weaker than he was this morning.
Yes, we'll need to wait for The Times to give us the rundown tomorrow morning but it does seem as though there is a lot of cabinet dissent on signing off on another lockdown. I actually think it might be dead in the water now, Boris must realise that too.
I’m reminded on those periods on history when not much happens - but boy, are the 2020s proving to be fascinating. How will the history books look back on this?
North Shropshire and Frost’s resignation were both fantastically good news.
Ah yes - some light at the end of the tunnel at least..
Very interesting article. Thank you. I may be unrealistic but it seems to me that the centre left need to not stand against each other in the seats they want to win from the Tories; that a deal with the SNP is one which plays into centre right hands. And that the Greens should stop trying to be a party rather than an influencer for this reason:
The Greens cannot possibly have common ground of any significance with any party that doesn't share its general views on saving the planet; if that common ground exists other policies are trivial in comparison; if they don't share it other things aren't going to exist anyway.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure - a pretty good rule of thumb that has been ignored at every opportunity throughout this pandemic by this government.
Those today complaining about a possible month long lockdown after Christmas were complaining about the work from home and increased mask usage guidance from two weeks ago. And now, because that wasn't enough, we may lockdown.
snipped...
Nope. Those complaining about WFH two weeks ago were right than and are right now. These restrictions are unnecessary and pointless, just as any lockdown now would be. To claim they weren't enough is just outright wrong.
No, we're ahead on the curve and France are seeking to stay in touch by jabbing 5 year olds because they have so many more pensioners who won't be jabbed.
Hmm. I've been bouncing around between 90 and 95 per cent since the start of the pandemic (ie since @Foxy told us to buy those pulse oximeter thingies) so am firmly in the amber zone with occasional visits to red. I did buy a second gadget from a different maker to check but no improvement. Otoh, I'm not dead yet.
Please get checked out. Even if there is no immediate risk, it can cause things like dementia longer term.
A checkup would seems sensible.
This is probably a stupid question but is @DecrepitJohnL sure he's using it the right way up ? When I had Covid I was a bit out of it, and put the thing on upside down on a couple of occasions; it still gave a reading, but significantly lower.... gave me a scare until I realised what I was doing.
Suspect if the polls asked something like 'would you support lockdown if it meant an additional 5% on income tax to pay for it for the duration' we might get different levels of support for it.
Would you rather like to 90 with 6 months a year of lockdown, or live to 80 without.
Live til 80. The last ten years are the shitty ones.
1 - There is some evidence that Omicron will lead to a lower rate of hospitalisation. It's strong evidence in South Africa, but we don't know the confounders (population immunity vs Beta, lower age population, far greater excess death rate having already killed many of the most vulnerable). Which is why here it is "some evidence" rather than "strong evidence"
2 - Assuming it is lower effective severity (which could be linked to vaccine immunity already in place), by how much is it lower? Will it more than balance out the considerably higher spread?
3 - How high does the higher spread go? It does seem, from SA, to zoom up, but top out early. My underinformed speculation would be in the direction that when it hits people with higher immunity, it goes asymptomatic/minimal infectivity with a sudden toggle when it gets below a certain viral loading (or whatever the term is for how well it keeps going in the body). The balance point between higher spread and lower effective severity is the crucial one. If you have a third the severity and a hundred times the spread of the Delta peak - not good. If you have ten times the spread and a quarter the severity, we could probably sustain it as long as it's quick.
4 - Arguments around how much the hospitals could sustain last January aren't very solid - we know they burned out a lot of long-term capacity and built up huge problems. Exhausted staff and reduced numbers don't help. The argument "We could cope with this level last winter," is as valid when talking about restrictions as when talking about hospital loading: in both cases it runs into exhausted and demoralised people.
5 - Any restrictions put in place from 27th December are missing the boat completely, to the point where the boat has not just gone, it's been replaced by an air service and been decommissioned.
Overall - I don't envy them making this choice. My instincts are that we should ensure we have anything we need (as much as possible) to see us out a few weeks, and tray our damndest to avoid needing medical help for ANYTHING if possible. Because it might well not be available. Or it might. We don't yet know.
Yes, good summary. Point 5 is the crucial one.
I agree. If NHS does need action to help it though tsunami surge, there’s right time and wrong time to take that action.
I have read through so much stuff on PB about Omicron, but also read here that circuit breakers don’t work. However, if PB collective mind is right, the difference in Omicron is rampant transmissibility blowing in fast and huge but then out quick and hopefully less lung and organ damage issue in waves wake compared to delta, that in this particular Omicron instance, PB has actually made a case for a short circuit break to protect NHS during rapid surge and peak of this wave?
Do you see my point. Variant different, wave different, assumed wisdom how to manage different?
But if that's the case - the circuit break needs to begin today not a week tomorrow because well it's Christmas and because it's Christmas Omicron is going to have a few days off.
The only reason we’re probably not in lockdown right now is because of the optics of pulling the rug out before Christmas (again!) with all the stuff that has come out about what happened last year….
So, Boris is going for Too Much, Too Late as usual?
Yep. Either it's too late and we're in for the ride or there wasn't a problem in the first place.
This decision isn't like which car to buy, where if you are missing some information you go away and do more research and in the meantime keep driving the car you already have. Here not deciding on an alternative due to lack of information is a decision for the course you are already on, with the consequences of that choice.
Staying on the course you are already on should always be the right choice unless or until you have sufficient evidence to change course.
No, we're ahead on the curve and France are seeking to stay in touch by jabbing 5 year olds because they have so many more pensioners who won't be jabbed.
Omicron on an elderly unvaccinated population is a great unknown and is thankfully a scenario we won't see much of in the UK.
France, Germany and Italy, however, may be about to reveal how lucky we've been...
1 - There is some evidence that Omicron will lead to a lower rate of hospitalisation. It's strong evidence in South Africa, but we don't know the confounders (population immunity vs Beta, lower age population, far greater excess death rate having already killed many of the most vulnerable). Which is why here it is "some evidence" rather than "strong evidence"
2 - Assuming it is lower effective severity (which could be linked to vaccine immunity already in place), by how much is it lower? Will it more than balance out the considerably higher spread?
3 - How high does the higher spread go? It does seem, from SA, to zoom up, but top out early. My underinformed speculation would be in the direction that when it hits people with higher immunity, it goes asymptomatic/minimal infectivity with a sudden toggle when it gets below a certain viral loading (or whatever the term is for how well it keeps going in the body). The balance point between higher spread and lower effective severity is the crucial one. If you have a third the severity and a hundred times the spread of the Delta peak - not good. If you have ten times the spread and a quarter the severity, we could probably sustain it as long as it's quick.
4 - Arguments around how much the hospitals could sustain last January aren't very solid - we know they burned out a lot of long-term capacity and built up huge problems. Exhausted staff and reduced numbers don't help. The argument "We could cope with this level last winter," is as valid when talking about restrictions as when talking about hospital loading: in both cases it runs into exhausted and demoralised people.
5 - Any restrictions put in place from 27th December are missing the boat completely, to the point where the boat has not just gone, it's been replaced by an air service and been decommissioned.
Overall - I don't envy them making this choice. My instincts are that we should ensure we have anything we need (as much as possible) to see us out a few weeks, and tray our damndest to avoid needing medical help for ANYTHING if possible. Because it might well not be available. Or it might. We don't yet know.
Yes, good summary. Point 5 is the crucial one.
I agree. If NHS does need action to help it though tsunami surge, there’s right time and wrong time to take that action.
I have read through so much stuff on PB about Omicron, but also read here that circuit breakers don’t work. However, if PB collective mind is right, the difference in Omicron is rampant transmissibility blowing in fast and huge but then out quick and hopefully less lung and organ damage issue in waves wake compared to delta, that in this particular Omicron instance, PB has actually made a case for a short circuit break to protect NHS during rapid surge and peak of this wave?
Do you see my point. Variant different, wave different, assumed wisdom how to manage different?
But if that's the case - the circuit break needs to begin today not a week tomorrow because well it's Christmas and because it's Christmas Omicron is going to have a few days off.
The only reason we’re probably not in lockdown right now is because of the optics of pulling the rug out before Christmas (again!) with all the stuff that has come out about what happened last year….
At 1:30 it seemed Parliament was going to be recalled on Wednesday following a cabinet meeting at 2.
At 3:30 the cabinet meeting seems to have resulted in Parliament no longer being recalled.
so something significant occurred within that meeting - the question is what and whether it's delayed lockdown or cancelled it.
Do we have any independent verification for the “parliament being recalled” suggestion? Not to denigrate the poster in question but I have only seen it suggested on here without any source to back it up.
Well, with apologies to the poster in question, we necessarily tend to treat scoops from new posters with a degree of caution. However, we do know that there was a press conference scheduled which got pushed back. And none of the measures we were discussing were to be proposed seem to have come to light in the mainstream press yet.
It could be any one of a number of things. It could be that lockdown was never on the cards anyway and its suggestion was just mischief making from its remaining cheerleaders. It could be that - as HYUFD suggested yesterday - there was simply not the backing in cabinet to push it through. It could be that Fraser Nelson's efforts have raised enough questions about the modelling on which the decision was based that they have gone back to think again. It could be that rumblings in the Conservative Party have convinced government to back down. Who knows. But hopefully it means we should get to Saturday without lockdown.
My hope remains that if we leave it to next week it will be too late for lockdown and it will be clear to even journalists that the peak is already passing. Probably optimistic - possibly a few days too early for it to be properly clear, and a good three weeks for it to be clear to journalists - but we'll see.
I agree. If NHS does need action to help it though tsunami surge, there’s right time and wrong time to take that action.
I have read through so much stuff on PB about Omicron, but also read here that circuit breakers don’t work. However, if PB collective mind is right, the difference in Omicron is rampant transmissibility blowing in fast and huge but then out quick and hopefully less lung and organ damage issue in waves wake compared to delta, that in this particular Omicron instance, PB has actually made a case for a short circuit break to protect NHS during rapid surge and peak of this wave?
Do you see my point. Variant different, wave different, assumed wisdom how to manage different?
The key questions are:
1. What would restrictions be trying to achieve? 2. Would they work? 3. Does the collateral damage of the restrictions mean they are worse than doing nothing?
The answer to 1 is very clear: they'd be trying to limit the possible hit to the NHS from large numbers of admissions crowded into a short peak, and also they'd be trying to buy time for more boosters to go into arms, and for more already-administered boosters to become fully effective.
The answers to 2 and 3 are much more difficult, especially given the uncertainties on how bad Omicron will be.
What we do know, though, is that, if they are to work, they need to be done very quickly indeed.
My view is that it's probably too late already, but one can't have too much confidence in any conclusion, given the uncertainties.
Comments
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3704176/#Comment_3704176
"The thing that probably spooked the politicians was the scientists and modellers explaining that by the time you could tell which trajectory you were on from the cases and admissions numbers, it would already be way too late to decide to impose restrictions. You're on the coaster now, and the effects are already baked in by then.
That's why we're seeing the various leaks and stuff from the internal discussions of "Do we go all in or not?"
Because for all the stuff that it looks as though it's probably less on the hospitalisation rates and durations - there have been occasional signs the other way, and it's by no means certain.
So if you go for caution, you are more likely than not blowing away Christmas unnecessarily and damaging a lot of businesses.
And if you don't, there is still a fairly chunky chance you've guessed wrong whilst going all in on the pot and throwing it all away at the last moment.
Not an easy choice to make, and that's why the ones on the periphery or the ones who have the strongest views are blowing off steam into the media, or those on the outside are reading the tea leaves and wondering if there's a big black dog coming down the road or if those leaves are just clumping up there. "
This decision isn't like which car to buy, where if you are missing some information you go away and do more research and in the meantime keep driving the car you already have. Here not deciding on an alternative due to lack of information is a decision for the course you are already on, with the consequences of that choice.
There are going to be a lot of seriously unhappy people when this works through the price cap!
You are poorly named. You should have been the White Witch rather than Aslan - condemning us to a world where it is always winter but never Christmas.
Local voters largely vote on party label. That means the right way to keep the local politicians on their toes is Alternative Vote. They would have to spend all their time trying to impress voters for other parties, breaking up party machines and creating the ability for even safe seats to be threatened by opposition unity.
My gas bill is ridiculously low but I must be costing my supplier a fortune.
I understand the caution of scientists in this respect but you can’t tell me that the optics arent pretty crap.
The question at the moment is what is whether Boris is going to bottle it and not do anything (which may well be the sane option but see @Andy_Cooke 's post slightly above / below this one for the downsides of that.
Scotland already has STV for council elections. There is quite a lot of evidence of Labour/Tory tactical voting to keep SNP councillors out.
https://ballotbox.scot/ has interesting data regarding this.
We are drowning in too much poor quality information with insufficient context. Imagine if in normal times South African doctors reported that a new cold virus was circulating there. It was interesting because it seemed to have quite fast transmission rates. But not to worry, it doesn’t seem to really be causing much in the way of serious illness or impacting hospitals much.
Then a bunch of scientists in other countries all said, “huh yeah we have that too. Oh well. Doesn’t seem to be doing much here either”. And the head of the CDC in the US said “yeah we’ve looked at that, don’t worry about that”.
It wouldn’t have made the news. And interestingly if you have been reading the South African news the last couple of weeks, you’ll have noticed that it’s not in the news now! Try the US. Where even Biden is downplaying the need for any major reaction.
And then see here. We as a nation have gone completely fucking gaga that you think criminalising normal social and economic activity is an appropriate measure against this. And sensible people nod along.
Your description is pretty close to the current state in most parts of the country.
As for the White Witch, I imagine Narnians would be more upset by her constant ending of life rather than the bad weather. I value life over luxury.
It's probably the best thing the SNP have done for Scotland.
Given that we didn't lockdown two weeks ago, with Omicron now all over the country and the anecdotal evidence coming from South Africa / Denmark it's utterly insane to be saying - everything fine this week but next week we are going to lock things done.
Doing that doesn't stop the spread and while it may make you happy that Xmas continues as before it screws up the plans of others who were planning to spend next week doing the things you are planning to do on Christmas / Boxing Day.
This would incentivise parties to take more seats seriously, but not disincentivise voted for “third parties”.
Are we expecting further restrictions? I thought Johnson has bottled it / has not got the votes / has switched off for the holidays... for any further restrictions.
90 minutes later still nothing thankfully.
We know it grows initially in the throat rather than lungs which is why it's so infectious and people start feeling ill earlier. But we don't know enough beyond that.
Personally, however, as we aren't locked down already it's too late so let's see what happens.
1 - There is some evidence that Omicron will lead to a lower rate of hospitalisation. It's strong evidence in South Africa, but we don't know the confounders (population immunity vs Beta, lower age population, far greater excess death rate having already killed many of the most vulnerable). Which is why here it is "some evidence" rather than "strong evidence"
2 - Assuming it is lower effective severity (which could be linked to vaccine immunity already in place), by how much is it lower? Will it more than balance out the considerably higher spread?
3 - How high does the higher spread go? It does seem, from SA, to zoom up, but top out early. My underinformed speculation would be in the direction that when it hits people with higher immunity, it goes asymptomatic/minimal infectivity with a sudden toggle when it gets below a certain viral loading (or whatever the term is for how well it keeps going in the body). The balance point between higher spread and lower effective severity is the crucial one. If you have a third the severity and a hundred times the spread of the Delta peak - not good. If you have ten times the spread and a quarter the severity, we could probably sustain it as long as it's quick.
4 - Arguments around how much the hospitals could sustain last January aren't very solid - we know they burned out a lot of long-term capacity and built up huge problems. Exhausted staff and reduced numbers don't help. The argument "We could cope with this level last winter," is as valid when talking about restrictions as when talking about hospital loading: in both cases it runs into exhausted and demoralised people.
5 - Any restrictions put in place from 27th December are missing the boat completely, to the point where the boat has not just gone, it's been replaced by an air service and been decommissioned.
Overall - I don't envy them making this choice. My instincts are that we should ensure we have anything we need (as much as possible) to see us out a few weeks, and tray our damndest to avoid needing medical help for ANYTHING if possible. Because it might well not be available. Or it might. We don't yet know.
If my understanding is correct, this is exactly what happened with BSE, and with various other epidemiological modelling since, including some of the COVID models. It seems to me that we need to get better at communicating likelihoods of scenarios, and interpreting output of stochastic modelling, to policymakers. Although possibly the issue is that the precautionary principle is rearing its ugly head, and policymakers just need to get better at not getting trapped by it.
The other problem with council wards is that they're generally quite small, so often fairly homogeneous. A ward might be an ex-council estate, or the posh Georgian bit, or where the yuppy flats were built. That doesn't make for competitive elections.
There are serious failings at the body that investigates complaints from members of the public about MSPs, councillors and members of public boards.
My report on the office of the Commissioner for Ethical Standards in Public Life in Scotland: http://buff.ly/3253YSd
https://twitter.com/AuditorGenScot/status/1472918926099156997?s=20
I wouldn't be surprised if part of the cabinet push back is based on ministers demanding a balanced view from the models rather than just the negative ones. Once we get a firm idea on observed VE this week and a really good fix on disease severity those numbers could go down by 90%.
https://twitter.com/GautengHealth/status/1472888556070842376/photo/1
- Recruit a shit-tonne more administrators and managers. Yes, I know all the complaints about wasting NHS money on beancounters and paper-pushers, but in reality, the NHS has far fewer managerial and administrative posts than almost any other sizeable organisation. And the cost of that is that doctors and nurses spend a considerable chunk of their time doing that administration, paperwork, and management.
Remove that burden, and the effective number of people working goes up. If they spend 20-25% of their time pushing paper at the moment, give them an Administrative Assistant, and you've suddenly increased effective capacity by 20%+ at a stroke.
- Pay them more - a genuine significant uptick. Yes, they're not in it for the money, but it does bloody help and lets them know they're genuinely appreciated - and can help them get support at home for other things.
- Capital spend for anything else needed. We use "number of beds" as a shorthand for capacity, when we know it's not about the furniture, otherwise a trip to IKEA could have solved it. But there are some limits on capital equipment - resolve them.
The big issue is that all of that would certainly cost. But penny-wise and pound-foolish: how much does it cost in comparison to a lockdown? Or on-and-off restrictions because the health service is now too damaged to support even small surges? Or how much will it cost when so many pubs and restaurants collapse, or need long-term support in order to avoid the future where the only hospitality establishment remaining in Central London is 10 Downing Street?
I’m reminded on those periods on history when not much happens - but boy, are the 2020s proving to be fascinating. How will the history books look back on this?
And in the middle a government that can’t make a decision on it one way or other 🤦♀️
Given the circumstances, is having all the staff in the same place at once a good idea? It is a recipe for having the whole department unstaffed in about 4 days time.
✍️ Bruce Anderson.
https://reaction.life/boris-cant-be-saved-the-tories-must-act/ https://twitter.com/reactionlife/status/1472957483220148241/photo/1
At 1:30 it seemed Parliament was going to be recalled on Wednesday following a cabinet meeting at 2.
At 3:30 the cabinet meeting seems to have resulted in Parliament no longer being recalled.
so something significant occurred within that meeting - the question is what and whether it's delayed lockdown or cancelled it.
Those today complaining about a possible month long lockdown after Christmas were complaining about the work from home and increased mask usage guidance from two weeks ago. And now, because that wasn't enough, we may lockdown.
I'm young (had my 30th last Jan in lockdown), I want a social Christmas, NY and birthday, I didn't want to be stuck in my house the last 2 years, and it has been crap for me personally. But I also want to live in a functioning society, so I accept these measures, begrudgingly and with criticism for the government usually not doing the prevention part sooner.
The scientists are being cautious because, during a pandemic, that is their job. When a new mutation of a deadly virus emerges, and we don't fully understand it, it is best to try and contain it lest it 1) be worse than we think or 2) mutate again and become worse. A precautionary approach needn't be draconian, even - circuit break lockdowns and swift border controls alongside payments out to people who cannot work would be pretty reasonable. But the government doesn't want to pay for that, doesn't want to piss off foreign investment / business too much by reducing business flights, and refuses to have small lockdowns where needed. So they do "Too Much, Too Late" as another poster described.
We still don't really know the extent to which Long Covid is going to have generational impacts on health and workplace productivity - people a year on still suffering fatigue, complications, etc. will have a massive strain on the NHS and workplaces for years. But the only metric people seem to care about is deaths, hardly even the hospitalisations any more, and as long as deaths are low it seems people here are happy for a virus to spread that could seriously debilitate people for a long time.
Highest Boosters to date: 904,958 (19/12)
Nearest estimate: @Richard_Nabavi (896,322)
Next nearest: @Nigelb (925,001)
Eliminated entries:
@Endillion 525,600
@MightyAlex 700,000
@Cyclefree 723,527
@Eabhal 825,000
@carnyx 854,217
I have read through so much stuff on PB about Omicron, but also read here that circuit breakers don’t work.
However, if PB collective mind is right, the difference in Omicron is rampant transmissibility blowing in fast and huge but then out quick and hopefully less lung and organ damage issue in waves wake compared to delta, that in this particular Omicron instance, PB has actually made a case for a short circuit break to protect NHS during rapid surge and peak of this wave?
Do you see my point. Variant different, wave different, assumed wisdom how to manage different?
Similar actions do happen today and one might think of antenatal screening and selective abortion for, for instance, trisomy-21 [Down's syndrome] or similar conditions, but the rationale is more immediate - to prevent people being born with serious, painful and disabling conditions, or to prevent (say) someone from having children which she is not fit to cope with.
And BTW, it's not just unvaccinated people who die, let alone end up in hospital. Unvaccinated people may make up the majority, but there are many, many people who have been vaccinated. And then there is the issue that you'd better hope you don't get into a car crash, or have a heart attack, whilst the hospitals are under more strain.
I come at this from the position of being in favour of a *sensible* law on assisted dying. If someone believes their life has come to a worthwhile end, they are terminally ill etc, then it is sensible. But the problem is the vaccinated people who may be affected by this are people like my parents, who still have much to contribute.
Or my wife.
Life is what you make it. People like Philip who think lockdown equates to 'no life' must have a rather terminal lack of imagination. Lockdown was fairly awful, but we managed to find different things to do - even with a young 'un in the house. We had a life, and it gave me a fresh appreciation for what teachers go through.
The Greens cannot possibly have common ground of any significance with any party that doesn't share its general views on saving the planet; if that common ground exists other policies are trivial in comparison; if they don't share it other things aren't going to exist anyway.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-59724766
We seem to be behind the curve again.
This is probably a stupid question but is @DecrepitJohnL sure he's using it the right way up ? When I had Covid I was a bit out of it, and put the thing on upside down on a couple of occasions; it still gave a reading, but significantly lower.... gave me a scare until I realised what I was doing.
France, Germany and Italy, however, may be about to reveal how lucky we've been...
It could be any one of a number of things. It could be that lockdown was never on the cards anyway and its suggestion was just mischief making from its remaining cheerleaders. It could be that - as HYUFD suggested yesterday - there was simply not the backing in cabinet to push it through. It could be that Fraser Nelson's efforts have raised enough questions about the modelling on which the decision was based that they have gone back to think again. It could be that rumblings in the Conservative Party have convinced government to back down.
Who knows. But hopefully it means we should get to Saturday without lockdown.
My hope remains that if we leave it to next week it will be too late for lockdown and it will be clear to even journalists that the peak is already passing. Probably optimistic - possibly a few days too early for it to be properly clear, and a good three weeks for it to be clear to journalists - but we'll see.
1. What would restrictions be trying to achieve?
2. Would they work?
3. Does the collateral damage of the restrictions mean they are worse than doing nothing?
The answer to 1 is very clear: they'd be trying to limit the possible hit to the NHS from large numbers of admissions crowded into a short peak, and also they'd be trying to buy time for more boosters to go into arms, and for more already-administered boosters to become fully effective.
The answers to 2 and 3 are much more difficult, especially given the uncertainties on how bad Omicron will be.
What we do know, though, is that, if they are to work, they need to be done very quickly indeed.
My view is that it's probably too late already, but one can't have too much confidence in any conclusion, given the uncertainties.