Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
No, not the entire population of the country who isn't me. I'm fully expecting to get the virus myself one day and as I've said I put my trust in the vaccines. I've had my three jabs, now when I get it it, I get it. I don't especially care when I get it.
People may not knowingly go out to infect others, but we should ASAP get into a position where people can unknowingly do so (because they're asymptomatic and not testing) and then after that it needs to be a personal choice whether people go out as opposed to a matter of law.
I've been out with a cough or a cold before and its never seemed weird to do so. Covid will ultimately need to become in the same bracket as that.
Do you think you could please take a little bell with you to tinkle? I really hate being sneezed on by people who come out with all their bugs.
Do you think it should be against the law to leave your house for ten days when you have any cough or cold?
Indeed and if the data continues to hold up with actual COVID admissions not going anywhere in London despite all these cases when we get to Boxing day the case for lockdown will be weaker still.
In the same vein as Oct-Nov when the Govt and media kept stating for ages that cases were rising when they were demonstrably falling, how much will omicron growth have to slow before ministers/media are forced to change tune on “omicron is growing like never before...?)
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
No, not the entire population of the country who isn't me. I'm fully expecting to get the virus myself one day and as I've said I put my trust in the vaccines. I've had my three jabs, now when I get it it, I get it. I don't especially care when I get it.
People may not knowingly go out to infect others, but we should ASAP get into a position where people can unknowingly do so (because they're asymptomatic and not testing) and then after that it needs to be a personal choice whether people go out as opposed to a matter of law.
I've been out with a cough or a cold before and its never seemed weird to do so. Covid will ultimately need to become in the same bracket as that.
Yes, the entire population who isn't you. Nobody is going out knowingly whilst sick with Covid. It is not "a cough and a cold".
With the amount of vaccinations and previous infection it's going to be that way for huge swathes of the population. My colleagues would both have carried on coming into the office if it wasn't notifiable.
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
Still looking good that case numbers may have plateaued. Case numbers have been pretty level for 6 days now so reasonably sure we are no longer seeing exponential growth. A million cases a day looking increasingly unlikely.
Bit of take off in the London hospitalisations but no take off in patients on ventilation at all which could be a sign that a lot of the additional London admissions are incidental. I think that report comes out every Thursday and will be very, very key in knowing what kind of danger Omicron presents.
At least 50% are incidental
What do you mean by an incidental hospitalisation? "Not all that serious" or something more specific?
Its when you are admitted to hospital for something completely different, but they test you and find you have COVID.
It doesn't necessarily mean it is benign. Anaesthesia even in asymptomatic cases greatly increases the risk of death. An asymptomatic covid in a hip fracture patient is quite risky for example.
Never said it was. It was just asked what incidental meant.
It seems less than ideal to get such a nasty virus when you are possibly already sick with something else. Just like norovirus kills a load of hospitalised people after they picked it up while on the wards.
I imagine going forward this is going to be an ongoing issue for a long time to come in hospitals, where like norovirus etc have been problematic, that COVID transmission among sick patients will be as well.
Nosocomial infections has long been one of the biggest (top 10) causes of death in the US.
There's nosocomial and there's nosocomial. I mean a 25 year old skateboarder with a broken leg and a 70 year old cancer patient might both pick up a Covid infection whilst in hospital but the situation is wildly different for them.
I did say cause of death. Whether your a 25-year old skateboarder or a 70 year old cancer patient, death is death.
Bit of take off in the London hospitalisations but no take off in patients on ventilation at all which could be a sign that a lot of the additional London admissions are incidental. I think that report comes out every Thursday and will be very, very key in knowing what kind of danger Omicron presents.
At least 50% are incidental
What do you mean by an incidental hospitalisation? "Not all that serious" or something more specific?
Its when you are admitted to hospital for something completely different, but they test you and find you have COVID.
It doesn't necessarily mean it is benign. Anaesthesia even in asymptomatic cases greatly increases the risk of death. An asymptomatic covid in a hip fracture patient is quite risky for example.
Thank you. I’ve had a few operations, so your post made me think.
A friend of mine whose a Buddhist refused any injections when she had her teeth done. She wanted to transcend dental medication.
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
The first point is debatable, I'm sure work was being discussed, but on the second point isn't he right? There was a twitter thread a few days ago demonstrating why it wasn't contrary to the regs.
Lincoln County Georgia, which is nearly one-third Black, proposes closing 6 of 7 polling sites for 2022 after GOP took over local election board & purged Dems
Still looking good that case numbers may have plateaued. Case numbers have been pretty level for 6 days now so reasonably sure we are no longer seeing exponential growth. A million cases a day looking increasingly unlikely.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
There will come a day when policy changes to no longer require isolation of people with a positive test result, simply COVID is endemic and we can't be in a situation where we pay people to sit at home with the sniffles. How can you square that with what you're saying? Or are you suggesting that COVID should forever be a special case disease that we treat differently to every other one?
I am talking about Covid now. Not variant x in the future which literally is a cold. You've just had it, my wife has just had it, a lot a lot of people now have it. Its not a cold - the idea that she was going to go on teaching or to her Xmas party or frankly even drive in that state is laughable.
Nobody about from Philip is going out whilst full of Covid symptoms. Not because the law dictates that they can't, because they feel crap and they're not a Phil.
Some excellent post on the last thread guys. I mean really good.
Re poor Comprehensives in deprived areas I agree, but this is probably a lot more to do with the issues of the area than anything else. The answer certainly isn't going back to Secondary Moderns.
I see @HYUFD is continuing to compare stats on Grammar schools to Comprehensives and ignoring the samples are completely different because the Grammar has selected.
If you lived in a deprived area 50 years ago you could go to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice would be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name if you do not have wealthy parents who can send you to private school
That doesn't answer the point.
It does. Unless you live in a wealthy suburb or rural area (or go to a comprehensive or academy where admission is based on church attendance) comprehensives are often just renamed secondary moderns effectively.
@MikeSmithson is correct. It doesn't answer the point. As usual you just raise another point and don't address the point raised. It is a moving target.
Re your point on living in a poor area and being able to go to a grammar, this is very naïve. What actually happens is the middle class and well off in surrounding areas get tutored for the test and fill the spaces. The bright kids in the poor areas don't and they still don't get in by and large.
I lived in a relatively poor large village with 2 primary schools. Only one boy got into the boys grammar school and no girls to the girls grammar school. And that boy dropped out. I have no memory of even taking a test let alone getting tutored. After O levels a whole bunch of replaced those that had dropped out. The system is crap at selection and selecting at 11 is far too soon.
There are limits on how much you can tutor for 11+ and 13+ tests which are designed to test raw iq not subject knowledge as such. Indeed very often even a few bright kids from council estates got into grammar schools even without tutors and then onto Oxbridge or other top universities and professional careers. That path is not open to them to the same extent now if they live in a deprived area and just get sent to the local very average, if that, comp.
If you were well off and had a kid who was not so bright and would not pass the 11 or 13+ you could still send them private however and still do. Most wealthy parents did not send their children to secondary moderns and do not send their children to comprehensives and certainly not comprehensives or academies which are any less than Outstanding. So the rich generally don't use comprehensives anyway while the bright but poor no longer have the opportunities grammars provided. Most grammars of course also have entries at sixth form level too
a) You can tutor for IQ tests very easily. Not sure where you got it that it was difficult. There are lots of techniques.
b) In between our posts I have been chopping wood and did a rough mental calculation of how many should have got into the grammar school from my village all other things being equal (I know how many classes there were, the size of them, the fact that our village was a 3 member ward and how many councillors there were in the borough). The answer is about 25. There was 1 and he dropped out. If that doesn't give you an idea of the disparity between poor and middle class areas nothing will.
c) If you think the well off don't send their children to Comprehensives you live in a different world. I live in a well off area now. I am wealthy by most peoples measure as are most of the people I know. Nearly all use the local comprehensive, which I grant you is good, but that is not what you were saying.
d) Moving to a Grammar at sixth form is too late. The damage has been done. Many won't go who should. Many who were at the Grammar who shouldn't have been have dropped out.
Select by subject on an ongoing basis throughout the child's education.
a) You can't. IQ test results are in part based on genetics, they are difficult to tutor for unlike subject knowledge based exams.
b) And all of them would likely have gone to a sink comprehensive otherwise, at least 1 still got to a grammar.
c) If the wealthy send their kids to a comp it will only be an Outstanding comp they have bought their kids admission to by buying a house in its catchment area, meaning there are well above average house prices for that catchment area. You buy a place at an Outstanding comp or academy much like you buy a place at private school effectively or else you go to church more regularly to get a vicar's reference for a top church school. I notice you did not send your kids to a sink school the bright but poor have little choice but to go to!
d) Sixth form entry for A levels and top university is fine for late developers
I am absolutely minted and our kids go to the local comp (it is an academy but most secondaries in London are). Rated good not outstanding. Plenty of other parents similar to us, judging from how posh some of our kids' friends talk. House prices are high it's true but that's more because they're nice houses. But half the housing in the catchment, I'm guessing, is social housing so it's far from true that most of the kids at the school have bought their way in somehow. Proportion of minorities and with English as an additional language much higher than average; those on pupil premium broadly average. If actual GCSE grades match the predictions after my eldest's mocks I'll be very happy, but let's see in June.
So still a good school not a crap school even then. If however you live on a council estate and your local comp is inadequate or requires improvement you would have no choice but to attend it even if you were bright enough to get into a grammar school.
Middle class parents however would move to the catchment area of a Good or Outstanding school even if more expensive. Or else start going to church more regularly to gets their children into an Outstanding church school
Most comps are rated good or outstanding. Those that aren't need to be improved. Most gifted working class kids didn't pass the 11 plus when we had grammars, plenty of average middle class kids did. Secondary moderns, where most working class kids went, were often dreadful schools. Very few parents want to see them brought back. Let's focus on improving standards and find a way of breaking the culture of low expectations that affects too many kids, not try to resurrect the failed, divisive policies of the past. I think I'm done on this subject, my substandard comprehensive-schooled brain is growing weary!
No, most gifted working class kids with high IQs easily passed the 11 plus, a few average middle class pupils may also have scraped a pass but that did not hold back high iq working class pupils.
Now if you are poor but high IQ avoiding a requires improvement or inadequate school is a lottery dependent on where your parents live. You would almost certainly have got into a grammar though whereever you lived.
If you are middle class though your parents will buy your education either via private schools or the catchment area of good or outstanding schools. Or they will go to church more regularly for a vicar's reference for a top church school
Why are you continuing to post bullshit without any evidence to back it up when multiple posters have provided examples that show your ideas to be completely and utterly incorrect?
They haven't, they have just used ideological anecdote which I ideologically disagree with.
Plenty on here like Richard Tyndall and Pagan agree with me on grammars
Nope Richard Tyndall posted something that Cookie then showed to be completely regional as I had already argued.
You were making the absurd argument that selective grammars should not select on exam result but solely on catchment area.
In which case they become no different to the best comprehensives which select mainly on house price anyway
Your reading comprehension skills demonstrate that you definitely aren't bright enough to go to a grammar school.
My argument was that the pass mark should be set to ensure the brightest x% of the children in the catchment area of the school are selected and not x-y% with y% coming from children outside the school's catchment area.
So effectively you want to deny a grammar school place to a pupil slightly outside its catchment area even though that pupil got a higher mark on the 11 or 13 plus than a pupil within the catchment area? That rather defeats the point of grammar schools which are based on entrance on academic merit not house price or vicar's reference as the best comprehensive or academies are
No it doesn't.
1) house prices aren't an issue in Buckinghamshire. you can't tell me that High Wycombe is more expensive than Uxbridge or Rickmansworth / Pinner / Harrow is cheaper than Chesham.
2) If you want to live in an area with Grammar schools go and create them - we have a Tory Government with an 80 seat majority, why aren't they creating them.
Yes it does.
1) House prices are an issue in comprehensive areas as the best schools are in the areas with the most expensive catchment areas. They are less an issue in Bucks and surrounding areas as admission to grammars is based on academic merit not house price.
2) I would have no problem creating more if we had won a majority on a manifesto like we had in 2017 to expand grammars nationwide. Otherwise we could have ballots to open new ones as you now can ballot to close grammars. In Tory controlled local authorities with grammars like Kent of course new satellite grammars are being created eg in Sevenoaks
On 1 - this is a conversation about Grammar schools because you side tracked the conversation that way.
We know the issue with Comprehensive schools but you decided to shift the conversation away from comprehensive schools towards Grammar schools and it's only 30 odd posts later that you are returning to the starting point which was good comprehensive schools have an issue that requires selection or random lotteries to fix.
Academic selection is fine with me, an ideological conservative, as is school choice and education vouchers.
One size fits all bog standard comprehensives are fine with you, an ideological leftwinger, including using busing and random lotteries to fix. That means moving half the pupils from a good school to a bad school and from a bad school to a good school which will likely just end up making the good schools worse
So you say it's the children that make a good school bad - nice to see that you don't believe people can change, but hardly surprising given your other views.
And again your reading comprehension schools are bad - which part of selection or random lotteries says I approve of random lotteries. It's just a possible solution to the problem nothing more than that and in fact it's one of the suggested approaches that the Sutton Trust recommend.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
No, not the entire population of the country who isn't me. I'm fully expecting to get the virus myself one day and as I've said I put my trust in the vaccines. I've had my three jabs, now when I get it it, I get it. I don't especially care when I get it.
People may not knowingly go out to infect others, but we should ASAP get into a position where people can unknowingly do so (because they're asymptomatic and not testing) and then after that it needs to be a personal choice whether people go out as opposed to a matter of law.
I've been out with a cough or a cold before and its never seemed weird to do so. Covid will ultimately need to become in the same bracket as that.
Yes, the entire population who isn't you. Nobody is going out knowingly whilst sick with Covid. It is not "a cough and a cold".
They're not currently because its against the law.
Drop the law and some people will go out with it and I see nothing wrong with that.
Of course you don't. You want to kill off as many people as humanly possible so that you can have your personal liberty. We know. You keep saying it. But again, almost everyone out there isn't a complete Phil so isn't.
Indeed and if the data continues to hold up with actual COVID admissions not going anywhere in London despite all these cases when we get to Boxing day the case for lockdown will be weaker still.
My primary concern now is if we do get a genuinely scary variant (or Omi kicks off again after New Year), no one will believe Sage.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
There will come a day when policy changes to no longer require isolation of people with a positive test result, simply COVID is endemic and we can't be in a situation where we pay people to sit at home with the sniffles. How can you square that with what you're saying? Or are you suggesting that COVID should forever be a special case disease that we treat differently to every other one?
I am talking about Covid now. Not variant x in the future which literally is a cold. You've just had it, my wife has just had it, a lot a lot of people now have it. Its not a cold - the idea that she was going to go on teaching or to her Xmas party or frankly even drive in that state is laughable.
Nobody about from Philip is going out whilst full of Covid symptoms. Not because the law dictates that they can't, because they feel crap and they're not a Phil.
Was your experience typical? I thought there was a whole spectrum, ranging from not noticeable whatsoever, to hospital treatment.
The PM did not put a specific proposal to cabinet y’day eg banning indoor mixing. But the chancellor, business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, transport secretary Grant Shapps and Alister Jack were, I was told, most opposed to restrictions. Javid, Gove and Nadine Dorries in favour.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
There will come a day when policy changes to no longer require isolation of people with a positive test result, simply COVID is endemic and we can't be in a situation where we pay people to sit at home with the sniffles. How can you square that with what you're saying? Or are you suggesting that COVID should forever be a special case disease that we treat differently to every other one?
I am talking about Covid now. Not variant x in the future which literally is a cold. You've just had it, my wife has just had it, a lot a lot of people now have it. Its not a cold - the idea that she was going to go on teaching or to her Xmas party or frankly even drive in that state is laughable.
Nobody about from Philip is going out whilst full of Covid symptoms. Not because the law dictates that they can't, because they feel crap and they're not a Phil.
I'm not either, I'm saying the law should say they can.
Not everyone who has Covid feels like crap. Many people who get it are entirely asymptomatic. When my wife got it, she would never have known she had it apart from having a routine PCR Test tell her she was positive. According to the NHS one third of all cases are asymptomatic like that.
The idea that asymptomatic people are staying at home because they feel like crap is laughable.
Even for those who have symptoms, they don't necessarily have them for ten days.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
No, not the entire population of the country who isn't me. I'm fully expecting to get the virus myself one day and as I've said I put my trust in the vaccines. I've had my three jabs, now when I get it it, I get it. I don't especially care when I get it.
People may not knowingly go out to infect others, but we should ASAP get into a position where people can unknowingly do so (because they're asymptomatic and not testing) and then after that it needs to be a personal choice whether people go out as opposed to a matter of law.
I've been out with a cough or a cold before and its never seemed weird to do so. Covid will ultimately need to become in the same bracket as that.
Yes, the entire population who isn't you. Nobody is going out knowingly whilst sick with Covid. It is not "a cough and a cold".
With the amount of vaccinations and previous infection it's going to be that way for huge swathes of the population. My colleagues would both have carried on coming into the office if it wasn't notifiable.
We know that double vaxxed is not "its just a cold" for most people because the government is making a herculean effort to get boosters into arms immediately. Once we are all triple jabbed and we have more data we can assess again.
An acquaintance of mine is in his 20s. He is double vaxxed+boosted (the latter last week). His girlfriend suffers from bad asthma, and her dad is a cancer sufferer, which means she really doesn't want to get the lurgy, so they're being careful. Last week he had to work doing manual labour in enclosed spaces with another young man who is unvaccinated.
The colleague apparently doesn't want to get vaxxed because all his mates are unvaxxed, and they take the p*ss out of everyone who has been vaxxed.
I don't know how widespread that sort of thinking is, but I wonder how the government could address it? Can we stop idiotic young lads (*) being idiotic young lads?
(*) I was certainly idiotic when I was a lad, albeit in different ways to them. In some ways it's called growing up.
Daily Week-on-week percentage case change since the start of November
Which I think is a neat graphical way of showing what I was saying earlier. By most standards, today's WoW is big. But it's smaller than yesterday. And if we're going to get to a point of WoW falls - which we will - we will get there through several days of decreasing WoW increases. So today's figures indicate we are approaching a plateau. How far away that plateau is remains to be seen, of course. As I said, I reckon it's within the next couple of days by reporting date - but we'll only know that at least a week afterwards.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
No, not the entire population of the country who isn't me. I'm fully expecting to get the virus myself one day and as I've said I put my trust in the vaccines. I've had my three jabs, now when I get it it, I get it. I don't especially care when I get it.
People may not knowingly go out to infect others, but we should ASAP get into a position where people can unknowingly do so (because they're asymptomatic and not testing) and then after that it needs to be a personal choice whether people go out as opposed to a matter of law.
I've been out with a cough or a cold before and its never seemed weird to do so. Covid will ultimately need to become in the same bracket as that.
Yes, the entire population who isn't you. Nobody is going out knowingly whilst sick with Covid. It is not "a cough and a cold".
With the amount of vaccinations and previous infection it's going to be that way for huge swathes of the population. My colleagues would both have carried on coming into the office if it wasn't notifiable.
We know that double vaxxed is not "its just a cold" for most people because the government is making a herculean effort to get boosters into arms immediately. Once we are all triple jabbed and we have more data we can assess again.
Are there stats to back up that claim? I thought even with only two jabs the majority of cases were asymptomatic.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
There will come a day when policy changes to no longer require isolation of people with a positive test result, simply COVID is endemic and we can't be in a situation where we pay people to sit at home with the sniffles. How can you square that with what you're saying? Or are you suggesting that COVID should forever be a special case disease that we treat differently to every other one?
I am talking about Covid now. Not variant x in the future which literally is a cold. You've just had it, my wife has just had it, a lot a lot of people now have it. Its not a cold - the idea that she was going to go on teaching or to her Xmas party or frankly even drive in that state is laughable.
Nobody about from Philip is going out whilst full of Covid symptoms. Not because the law dictates that they can't, because they feel crap and they're not a Phil.
Tbf, I think the isolation period should be cut from 10 days though. The last three days seems largely pointless now that we're both clear on LFTs. I think a minimum of 5 days or when you get two negative lateral flows in a row, whichever is longer.
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
The first point is debatable, I'm sure work was being discussed, but on the second point isn't he right? There was a twitter thread a few days ago demonstrating why it wasn't contrary to the regs.
Indeed - and as well as a Twitter thread concerted serious denials by government ministers.
Meanwhile, amongst the non-cultists, people are openly mocking the excuses.
An acquaintance of mine is in his 20s. He is double vaxxed+boosted (the latter last week). His girlfriend suffers from bad asthma, and her dad is a cancer sufferer, which means she really doesn't want to get the lurgy, so they're being careful. Last week he had to work doing manual labour in enclosed spaces with another young man who is unvaccinated.
The colleague apparently doesn't want to get vaxxed because all his mates are unvaxxed, and they take the p*ss out of everyone who has been vaxxed.
I don't know how widespread that sort of thinking is, but I wonder how the government could address it? Can we stop idiotic young lads (*) being idiotic young lads?
(*) I was certainly idiotic when I was a lad, albeit in different ways to them. In some ways it's called growing up.
How would his mates find out - you just do a Trump and keep quiet about getting vaccinated.
An acquaintance of mine is in his 20s. He is double vaxxed+boosted (the latter last week). His girlfriend suffers from bad asthma, and her dad is a cancer sufferer, which means she really doesn't want to get the lurgy, so they're being careful. Last week he had to work doing manual labour in enclosed spaces with another young man who is unvaccinated.
The colleague apparently doesn't want to get vaxxed because all his mates are unvaxxed, and they take the p*ss out of everyone who has been vaxxed.
I don't know how widespread that sort of thinking is, but I wonder how the government could address it? Can we stop idiotic young lads (*) being idiotic young lads?
(*) I was certainly idiotic when I was a lad, albeit in different ways to them. In some ways it's called growing up.
A punitive national insurance tax for those that aren't vaccinated without a legitimate medical reason.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
There will come a day when policy changes to no longer require isolation of people with a positive test result, simply COVID is endemic and we can't be in a situation where we pay people to sit at home with the sniffles. How can you square that with what you're saying? Or are you suggesting that COVID should forever be a special case disease that we treat differently to every other one?
It's not difficult to square. You just need to say we aren't anywhere near the point yet where we can say it's endemic. In particular, we've only achieved the current flat rate of daily cases because people changed their behaviour to reduce the transmission rate, and we won't be at "endemic" status until that's no longer necessary.
The issue is how we get there without just allowing the virus to let rip until it runs out of viable hosts, which we can't do, because there isn't enough capacity in the NHS to cope in the short term.
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
The first point is debatable, I'm sure work was being discussed, but on the second point isn't he right? There was a twitter thread a few days ago demonstrating why it wasn't contrary to the regs.
Indeed - and as well as a Twitter thread concerted serious denials by government ministers.
Meanwhile, amongst the non-cultists, people are openly mocking the excuses.
I don't know how you can lie through your teeth when you are saying something that is true. But okay.
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
The first point is debatable, I'm sure work was being discussed, but on the second point isn't he right? There was a twitter thread a few days ago demonstrating why it wasn't contrary to the regs.
If it is Work then you have a secondary question - why is Carrie in a business meeting with 2 senior Downing Street workers.
Some excellent post on the last thread guys. I mean really good.
Re poor Comprehensives in deprived areas I agree, but this is probably a lot more to do with the issues of the area than anything else. The answer certainly isn't going back to Secondary Moderns.
I see @HYUFD is continuing to compare stats on Grammar schools to Comprehensives and ignoring the samples are completely different because the Grammar has selected.
If you lived in a deprived area 50 years ago you could go to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice would be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name if you do not have wealthy parents who can send you to private school
That doesn't answer the point.
It does. Unless you live in a wealthy suburb or rural area (or go to a comprehensive or academy where admission is based on church attendance) comprehensives are often just renamed secondary moderns effectively.
@MikeSmithson is correct. It doesn't answer the point. As usual you just raise another point and don't address the point raised. It is a moving target.
Re your point on living in a poor area and being able to go to a grammar, this is very naïve. What actually happens is the middle class and well off in surrounding areas get tutored for the test and fill the spaces. The bright kids in the poor areas don't and they still don't get in by and large.
I lived in a relatively poor large village with 2 primary schools. Only one boy got into the boys grammar school and no girls to the girls grammar school. And that boy dropped out. I have no memory of even taking a test let alone getting tutored. After O levels a whole bunch of replaced those that had dropped out. The system is crap at selection and selecting at 11 is far too soon.
There are limits on how much you can tutor for 11+ and 13+ tests which are designed to test raw iq not subject knowledge as such. Indeed very often even a few bright kids from council estates got into grammar schools even without tutors and then onto Oxbridge or other top universities and professional careers. That path is not open to them to the same extent now if they live in a deprived area and just get sent to the local very average, if that, comp.
If you were well off and had a kid who was not so bright and would not pass the 11 or 13+ you could still send them private however and still do. Most wealthy parents did not send their children to secondary moderns and do not send their children to comprehensives and certainly not comprehensives or academies which are any less than Outstanding. So the rich generally don't use comprehensives anyway while the bright but poor no longer have the opportunities grammars provided. Most grammars of course also have entries at sixth form level too
a) You can tutor for IQ tests very easily. Not sure where you got it that it was difficult. There are lots of techniques.
b) In between our posts I have been chopping wood and did a rough mental calculation of how many should have got into the grammar school from my village all other things being equal (I know how many classes there were, the size of them, the fact that our village was a 3 member ward and how many councillors there were in the borough). The answer is about 25. There was 1 and he dropped out. If that doesn't give you an idea of the disparity between poor and middle class areas nothing will.
c) If you think the well off don't send their children to Comprehensives you live in a different world. I live in a well off area now. I am wealthy by most peoples measure as are most of the people I know. Nearly all use the local comprehensive, which I grant you is good, but that is not what you were saying.
d) Moving to a Grammar at sixth form is too late. The damage has been done. Many won't go who should. Many who were at the Grammar who shouldn't have been have dropped out.
Select by subject on an ongoing basis throughout the child's education.
a) You can't. IQ test results are in part based on genetics, they are difficult to tutor for unlike subject knowledge based exams.
b) And all of them would likely have gone to a sink comprehensive otherwise, at least 1 still got to a grammar.
c) If the wealthy send their kids to a comp it will only be an Outstanding comp they have bought their kids admission to by buying a house in its catchment area, meaning there are well above average house prices for that catchment area. You buy a place at an Outstanding comp or academy much like you buy a place at private school effectively or else you go to church more regularly to get a vicar's reference for a top church school. I notice you did not send your kids to a sink school the bright but poor have little choice but to go to!
d) Sixth form entry for A levels and top university is fine for late developers
I am absolutely minted and our kids go to the local comp (it is an academy but most secondaries in London are). Rated good not outstanding. Plenty of other parents similar to us, judging from how posh some of our kids' friends talk. House prices are high it's true but that's more because they're nice houses. But half the housing in the catchment, I'm guessing, is social housing so it's far from true that most of the kids at the school have bought their way in somehow. Proportion of minorities and with English as an additional language much higher than average; those on pupil premium broadly average. If actual GCSE grades match the predictions after my eldest's mocks I'll be very happy, but let's see in June.
So still a good school not a crap school even then. If however you live on a council estate and your local comp is inadequate or requires improvement you would have no choice but to attend it even if you were bright enough to get into a grammar school.
Middle class parents however would move to the catchment area of a Good or Outstanding school even if more expensive. Or else start going to church more regularly to gets their children into an Outstanding church school
Most comps are rated good or outstanding. Those that aren't need to be improved. Most gifted working class kids didn't pass the 11 plus when we had grammars, plenty of average middle class kids did. Secondary moderns, where most working class kids went, were often dreadful schools. Very few parents want to see them brought back. Let's focus on improving standards and find a way of breaking the culture of low expectations that affects too many kids, not try to resurrect the failed, divisive policies of the past. I think I'm done on this subject, my substandard comprehensive-schooled brain is growing weary!
No, most gifted working class kids with high IQs easily passed the 11 plus, a few average middle class pupils may also have scraped a pass but that did not hold back high iq working class pupils.
Now if you are poor but high IQ avoiding a requires improvement or inadequate school is a lottery dependent on where your parents live. You would almost certainly have got into a grammar though whereever you lived.
If you are middle class though your parents will buy your education either via private schools or the catchment area of good or outstanding schools. Or they will go to church more regularly for a vicar's reference for a top church school
Why are you continuing to post bullshit without any evidence to back it up when multiple posters have provided examples that show your ideas to be completely and utterly incorrect?
They haven't, they have just used ideological anecdote which I ideologically disagree with.
Plenty on here like Richard Tyndall and Pagan agree with me on grammars
Nope Richard Tyndall posted something that Cookie then showed to be completely regional as I had already argued.
You were making the absurd argument that selective grammars should not select on exam result but solely on catchment area.
In which case they become no different to the best comprehensives which select mainly on house price anyway
Your reading comprehension skills demonstrate that you definitely aren't bright enough to go to a grammar school.
My argument was that the pass mark should be set to ensure the brightest x% of the children in the catchment area of the school are selected and not x-y% with y% coming from children outside the school's catchment area.
So effectively you want to deny a grammar school place to a pupil slightly outside its catchment area even though that pupil got a higher mark on the 11 or 13 plus than a pupil within the catchment area? That rather defeats the point of grammar schools which are based on entrance on academic merit not house price or vicar's reference as the best comprehensive or academies are
No it doesn't.
1) house prices aren't an issue in Buckinghamshire. you can't tell me that High Wycombe is more expensive than Uxbridge or Rickmansworth / Pinner / Harrow is cheaper than Chesham.
2) If you want to live in an area with Grammar schools go and create them - we have a Tory Government with an 80 seat majority, why aren't they creating them.
Yes it does.
1) House prices are an issue in comprehensive areas as the best schools are in the areas with the most expensive catchment areas. They are less an issue in Bucks and surrounding areas as admission to grammars is based on academic merit not house price.
2) I would have no problem creating more if we had won a majority on a manifesto like we had in 2017 to expand grammars nationwide. Otherwise we could have ballots to open new ones as you now can ballot to close grammars. In Tory controlled local authorities with grammars like Kent of course new satellite grammars are being created eg in Sevenoaks
On 1 - this is a conversation about Grammar schools because you side tracked the conversation that way.
We know the issue with Comprehensive schools but you decided to shift the conversation away from comprehensive schools towards Grammar schools and it's only 30 odd posts later that you are returning to the starting point which was good comprehensive schools have an issue that requires selection or random lotteries to fix.
Academic selection is fine with me, an ideological conservative, as is school choice and education vouchers.
One size fits all bog standard comprehensives are fine with you, an ideological leftwinger, including using busing and random lotteries to fix. That means moving half the pupils from a good school to a bad school and from a bad school to a good school which will likely just end up making the good schools worse
So you say it's the children that make a good school bad - nice to see that you don't believe people can change, but hardly surprising given your other views.
And again your reading comprehension schools are bad - which part of selection or random lotteries says I approve of random lotteries. It's just a possible solution to the problem nothing more than that and in fact it's one of the suggested approaches that the Sutton Trust recommend.
The intake has much to do with it, grammar schools at least ensured academic children of whatever background mixed together to get the best results.
The Sutton Trust also supports bursaries to top schools, it has a wide ranging view on education, some of which I agree with, some not
Christmas weekend without restrictions is good. 🙂. Here’s a stray Yey!
It just leaves the problem no one can be sure about plans for next week and week after, from parties to weddings for example deciding it this way on daily news rather than forecasts. Also the political danger of if it’s clear you need some action it’s likely too late to take it. Boring old Starmer will love that.
I would trust statisticians and scientists I think. I know PB knows better than me, but When Javid said 200K, and it took a bit of a pounding on here, as Eagles would say, if you look at the 90K we been getting and double it for mild or asymtopmtic couldn’t be bothered for a test, it’s not that far away from 200K? Also of course scientists would know it would first hit where the population is youngest as they are most social but also poor example to learn from their stats as they least likely to get hospitalised. Also we don’t know what sort of test weariness there is do we?
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
The first point is debatable, I'm sure work was being discussed, but on the second point isn't he right? There was a twitter thread a few days ago demonstrating why it wasn't contrary to the regs.
If it is Work then you have a secondary question - why is Carrie in a business meeting with 2 senior Downing Street workers.
Probably a more worrying question, but totally drowned out by all the fluff.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
There will come a day when policy changes to no longer require isolation of people with a positive test result, simply COVID is endemic and we can't be in a situation where we pay people to sit at home with the sniffles. How can you square that with what you're saying? Or are you suggesting that COVID should forever be a special case disease that we treat differently to every other one?
I am talking about Covid now. Not variant x in the future which literally is a cold. You've just had it, my wife has just had it, a lot a lot of people now have it. Its not a cold - the idea that she was going to go on teaching or to her Xmas party or frankly even drive in that state is laughable.
Nobody about from Philip is going out whilst full of Covid symptoms. Not because the law dictates that they can't, because they feel crap and they're not a Phil.
Was your experience typical? I thought there was a whole spectrum, ranging from not noticeable whatsoever, to hospital treatment.
I haven't had it, so not my experience. You can plot how people react to these things on a bell curve - at one end no symptoms at all. On the bottom left "its just a cold", across the top you're on the floor, bottom right in hospital, far end dead.
Most people - from all the feedback - are properly ill for at least a day or two with general cruddiness on either side. If the suggestion is that most people feel fine / have no symptoms at all then that is at best counter-factual.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
No, not the entire population of the country who isn't me. I'm fully expecting to get the virus myself one day and as I've said I put my trust in the vaccines. I've had my three jabs, now when I get it it, I get it. I don't especially care when I get it.
People may not knowingly go out to infect others, but we should ASAP get into a position where people can unknowingly do so (because they're asymptomatic and not testing) and then after that it needs to be a personal choice whether people go out as opposed to a matter of law.
I've been out with a cough or a cold before and its never seemed weird to do so. Covid will ultimately need to become in the same bracket as that.
Yes, the entire population who isn't you. Nobody is going out knowingly whilst sick with Covid. It is not "a cough and a cold".
With the amount of vaccinations and previous infection it's going to be that way for huge swathes of the population. My colleagues would both have carried on coming into the office if it wasn't notifiable.
We know that double vaxxed is not "its just a cold" for most people because the government is making a herculean effort to get boosters into arms immediately. Once we are all triple jabbed and we have more data we can assess again.
Are there stats to back up that claim? I thought even with only two jabs the majority of cases were asymptomatic.
Yes, I think for most double vaxxed people it is 'just a cold' - or even less.
We're a nation of nearly 70 million people, so there will be a LOT of people for whom it is worse than 'just a cold' in absolute terms. But most double jabbed people will recover without incident in a week or so.
An acquaintance of mine is in his 20s. He is double vaxxed+boosted (the latter last week). His girlfriend suffers from bad asthma, and her dad is a cancer sufferer, which means she really doesn't want to get the lurgy, so they're being careful. Last week he had to work doing manual labour in enclosed spaces with another young man who is unvaccinated.
The colleague apparently doesn't want to get vaxxed because all his mates are unvaxxed, and they take the p*ss out of everyone who has been vaxxed.
I don't know how widespread that sort of thinking is, but I wonder how the government could address it? Can we stop idiotic young lads (*) being idiotic young lads?
(*) I was certainly idiotic when I was a lad, albeit in different ways to them. In some ways it's called growing up.
Very easy to be vaxxed and not tell their workmates if preferred. Perhaps some of those "bravely" taking the piss might have been vaxxed on the q.t. anyway.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
There will come a day when policy changes to no longer require isolation of people with a positive test result, simply COVID is endemic and we can't be in a situation where we pay people to sit at home with the sniffles. How can you square that with what you're saying? Or are you suggesting that COVID should forever be a special case disease that we treat differently to every other one?
I am talking about Covid now. Not variant x in the future which literally is a cold. You've just had it, my wife has just had it, a lot a lot of people now have it. Its not a cold - the idea that she was going to go on teaching or to her Xmas party or frankly even drive in that state is laughable.
Nobody about from Philip is going out whilst full of Covid symptoms. Not because the law dictates that they can't, because they feel crap and they're not a Phil.
Was your experience typical? I thought there was a whole spectrum, ranging from not noticeable whatsoever, to hospital treatment.
I haven't had it, so not my experience. You can plot how people react to these things on a bell curve - at one end no symptoms at all. On the bottom left "its just a cold", across the top you're on the floor, bottom right in hospital, far end dead.
Most people - from all the feedback - are properly ill for at least a day or two with general cruddiness on either side. If the suggestion is that most people feel fine / have no symptoms at all then that is at best counter-factual.
Again, there's that 'most people' claim. What's the evidence for this?
Boris also clearly has no authority to introduce new controls, especially not any new lockdown, given recent stories so he has returned to being Falstaff Boris and basically said party on through Christmas, forget SAGE (just also get your booster!)
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
I'm afraid to say I agree with Philip on this one. I may not put it in such dramatic terms as him, but the maths seems inescapable to me.
We have an almost fully vaccinated population, and a largely boosted one too. Plus a group of people boosted quite a few months ago (like my parents) whose immunity will be starting to wane over the next few months.
With a fully vaccinated population and immune-evading variant like Omicron, every infection avoided now is an infection that will happen later. It's a timing difference. The more infections we get through now, when the immunity of the boosted elderly and vulnerable is high and while hospitals can cope, the fewer we experience in a month or two.
The shortages in workforce and pressure on the NHS as a result of sickness absence are a real concern, but these are not new. What's new is the idea that the solution to this is to restrict social mixing and hospitality. We seem to have moved from supply side to demand side management of the NHS, in other words the solution to capacity constraints is to reduce demand (temporarily, before it comes back with a vengeance as indeed it has done this year) rather than building supply.
I am tired of the politicised and moralised nature of the arguments over restrictions. There are valid counter arguments to what I've written above, for example that we should minimise infections until we get an Omicron-specific booster, or that the real equilibrium winter daily case number in an endemic state should be closer to say 50k than 90k, but thinking one way rather than another does not make one by definition a cnut. Nor, and I am surely an example of this along with others on this forum, does being generally anti-Tory mean that every policy position the government takes is necessarily wrong.
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
The first point is debatable, I'm sure work was being discussed, but on the second point isn't he right? There was a twitter thread a few days ago demonstrating why it wasn't contrary to the regs.
If it is Work then you have a secondary question - why is Carrie in a business meeting with 2 senior Downing Street workers.
Perhaps because she's the PM's wife and he values her input?
Unless this was a security clearance required meeting, then what's the issue? And if it was, should it be held outdoors?
On topic, when the ratings go this negative then there is usually no comeback.
I suspect Boris Johnson will be safe until May's elections, the last time they were held it was a tie between Labour and the Tories, Any Lab lead in NESV should lead to Tory losses, the bigger the lead, the more losses.
I suspect the Lib Dems may also help create a carnage for the blue meanies.
Haven't you just rejoined the party you are calling meanies?
I've been calling them the Blue Meanies for years, as a joke at the expense of lefties who think Tories are evil and that Labour have a higher moral purpose.
ooh, have you rejoined the Tories Eagles? Presumably because you have a view on Boris's successor - who do you favour?
Has to be Hunt once more.
Doubt he'll make the final two. I have it down as Rishi vs the CRG candidate.
Rishi is going to fall short.
That's interesting information, Liz Truss stolen his base?
My expectation is that the leadership contest will be preceded by a cost of living crisis which is going to tarnish Sunak's popularity.
His numbers have been on the down for ages, he will be drawing level with Starmer shortly.
I think Labour form the next government regardless but will be good to have some competence on the Tory side back
Have you ever thought that Labour would not form the next government?
Have you ever though that Johnson and the Conservatives would not be excused by yourself irrespective of the indiscretion?😉
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
There will come a day when policy changes to no longer require isolation of people with a positive test result, simply COVID is endemic and we can't be in a situation where we pay people to sit at home with the sniffles. How can you square that with what you're saying? Or are you suggesting that COVID should forever be a special case disease that we treat differently to every other one?
I am talking about Covid now. Not variant x in the future which literally is a cold. You've just had it, my wife has just had it, a lot a lot of people now have it. Its not a cold - the idea that she was going to go on teaching or to her Xmas party or frankly even drive in that state is laughable.
Nobody about from Philip is going out whilst full of Covid symptoms. Not because the law dictates that they can't, because they feel crap and they're not a Phil.
I'm not either, I'm saying the law should say they can.
Not everyone who has Covid feels like crap. Many people who get it are entirely asymptomatic. When my wife got it, she would never have known she had it apart from having a routine PCR Test tell her she was positive. According to the NHS one third of all cases are asymptomatic like that.
The idea that asymptomatic people are staying at home because they feel like crap is laughable.
Even for those who have symptoms, they don't necessarily have them for ten days.
So this is literally my point. Your wife may have been completely asymptomatic. Great! I assume that because she isn't a complete Phil she understood that "no symptoms" for her could be "your dead" for others.
People choose their behaviour not just about how it impacts themselves, but how it impacts others. You don't - and that's why you're on the sociopathic end of this one - but most people do...
An acquaintance of mine is in his 20s. He is double vaxxed+boosted (the latter last week). His girlfriend suffers from bad asthma, and her dad is a cancer sufferer, which means she really doesn't want to get the lurgy, so they're being careful. Last week he had to work doing manual labour in enclosed spaces with another young man who is unvaccinated.
The colleague apparently doesn't want to get vaxxed because all his mates are unvaxxed, and they take the p*ss out of everyone who has been vaxxed.
I don't know how widespread that sort of thinking is, but I wonder how the government could address it? Can we stop idiotic young lads (*) being idiotic young lads?
(*) I was certainly idiotic when I was a lad, albeit in different ways to them. In some ways it's called growing up.
Social conforming, peer pressure, teasing and bullying all play a big factor in behaviours in general, and clearly do in the decision to get vaccinated or not.
You can try to change the culture in these groups, but that is unlikely to be successful if attempted from the outside. Best have someone from within the community spearhead that effort.
I know of three people (one professional acquaintance in the infection control business, one physician colleague of my wife's, and a close relative) for whom some combination of these social pressures is holding them back from getting vaccinated.
An acquaintance of mine is in his 20s. He is double vaxxed+boosted (the latter last week). His girlfriend suffers from bad asthma, and her dad is a cancer sufferer, which means she really doesn't want to get the lurgy, so they're being careful. Last week he had to work doing manual labour in enclosed spaces with another young man who is unvaccinated.
The colleague apparently doesn't want to get vaxxed because all his mates are unvaxxed, and they take the p*ss out of everyone who has been vaxxed.
I don't know how widespread that sort of thinking is, but I wonder how the government could address it? Can we stop idiotic young lads (*) being idiotic young lads?
(*) I was certainly idiotic when I was a lad, albeit in different ways to them. In some ways it's called growing up.
Not much you can do except appeal to their sense of care to other people and explain it'll help avoid future lockdowns.
The argument that it will keep you out of hospital almost certainly doesn't apply to them (particularly with this new variant). My one anti-vaxxer friend didn't want to deal with any side effects and was a bit concerned about lack of long term data.
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
The first point is debatable, I'm sure work was being discussed, but on the second point isn't he right? There was a twitter thread a few days ago demonstrating why it wasn't contrary to the regs.
If it is Work then you have a secondary question - why is Carrie in a business meeting with 2 senior Downing Street workers.
Because (a) it isn't a business meeting and (b) they're taking the absolute piss and (c) they still think people are gullible enough to accept any old crap as an excuse.
An acquaintance of mine is in his 20s. He is double vaxxed+boosted (the latter last week). His girlfriend suffers from bad asthma, and her dad is a cancer sufferer, which means she really doesn't want to get the lurgy, so they're being careful. Last week he had to work doing manual labour in enclosed spaces with another young man who is unvaccinated.
The colleague apparently doesn't want to get vaxxed because all his mates are unvaxxed, and they take the p*ss out of everyone who has been vaxxed.
I don't know how widespread that sort of thinking is, but I wonder how the government could address it? Can we stop idiotic young lads (*) being idiotic young lads?
(*) I was certainly idiotic when I was a lad, albeit in different ways to them. In some ways it's called growing up.
How would his mates find out - you just do a Trump and keep quiet about getting vaccinated.
Yeah, but they're young lads - late teens and twenties apparently. My acquaintance was rather off-put by it - but then he's a sensible lad.
It might be somewhere that a group young lads look up to might help - say footballers. People who could encourage them by example.
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
Bit of take off in the London hospitalisations but no take off in patients on ventilation at all which could be a sign that a lot of the additional London admissions are incidental. I think that report comes out every Thursday and will be very, very key in knowing what kind of danger Omicron presents.
At least 50% are incidental
What do you mean by an incidental hospitalisation? "Not all that serious" or something more specific?
Its when you are admitted to hospital for something completely different, but they test you and find you have COVID.
It doesn't necessarily mean it is benign. Anaesthesia even in asymptomatic cases greatly increases the risk of death. An asymptomatic covid in a hip fracture patient is quite risky for example.
Thank you. I’ve had a few operations, so your post made me think.
A friend of mine whose a Buddhist refused any injections when she had her teeth done. She wanted to transcend dental medication.
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
No, not the entire population of the country who isn't me. I'm fully expecting to get the virus myself one day and as I've said I put my trust in the vaccines. I've had my three jabs, now when I get it it, I get it. I don't especially care when I get it.
People may not knowingly go out to infect others, but we should ASAP get into a position where people can unknowingly do so (because they're asymptomatic and not testing) and then after that it needs to be a personal choice whether people go out as opposed to a matter of law.
I've been out with a cough or a cold before and its never seemed weird to do so. Covid will ultimately need to become in the same bracket as that.
Yes, the entire population who isn't you. Nobody is going out knowingly whilst sick with Covid. It is not "a cough and a cold".
With the amount of vaccinations and previous infection it's going to be that way for huge swathes of the population. My colleagues would both have carried on coming into the office if it wasn't notifiable.
We know that double vaxxed is not "its just a cold" for most people because the government is making a herculean effort to get boosters into arms immediately. Once we are all triple jabbed and we have more data we can assess again.
Are there stats to back up that claim? I thought even with only two jabs the majority of cases were asymptomatic.
Yes, I think for most double vaxxed people it is 'just a cold' - or even less.
We're a nation of nearly 70 million people, so there will be a LOT of people for whom it is worse than 'just a cold' in absolute terms. But most double jabbed people will recover without incident in a week or so.
It's clearly not just a cold. Most people I know who've had it, even the Omicron variant recently, have been laid low for a couple of days at least (one or two lucky people have been entirely asymptomatic). But fatality rates for the triple vaccinated are now pretty much the same as flu. Flu itself, despite the cute and domesticated name, is a nasty bugger of a disease. It carried off a couple of elderly members of my family a few years ago.
The trouble is the false binary that is set up by the modern culture war. You have to choose sides: Covid is the DESTROYER OF WORLDS, or "just a cold". Milder is equated with completely harmless, severe is read to mean hospitals overwhelmed.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
I'm afraid to say I agree with Philip on this one. I may not put it in such dramatic terms as him, but the maths seems inescapable to me.
We have an almost fully vaccinated population, and a largely boosted one too. Plus a group of people boosted quite a few months ago (like my parents) whose immunity will be starting to wane over the next few months.
With a fully vaccinated population and immune-evading variant like Omicron, every infection avoided now is an infection that will happen later. It's a timing difference. The more infections we get through now, when the immunity of the boosted elderly and vulnerable is high and while hospitals can cope, the fewer we experience in a month or two.
The shortages in workforce and pressure on the NHS as a result of sickness absence are a real concern, but these are not new. What's new is the idea that the solution to this is to restrict social mixing and hospitality. We seem to have moved from supply side to demand side management of the NHS, in other words the solution to capacity constraints is to reduce demand (temporarily, before it comes back with a vengeance as indeed it has done this year) rather than building supply.
I am tired of the politicised and moralised nature of the arguments over restrictions. There are valid counter arguments to what I've written above, for example that we should minimise infections until we get an Omicron-specific booster, or that the real equilibrium winter daily case number in an endemic state should be closer to say 50k than 90k, but thinking one way rather than another does not make one by definition a cnut. Nor, and I am surely an example of this along with others on this forum, does being generally anti-Tory mean that every policy position the government takes is necessarily wrong.
I don't think you and I are far apart on this one. I said - and continue to say - that if Omicron spikes as badly as they are saying then restrictions won't make any difference. That we have "shutdown" as opposed to "lockdown" as people voluntarily change their behaviour because they / their friends & family are sick or they are concerned about becoming so before Christmas. And that government needed to give cash to business and people.
Even if 40% of infected people are completely asymptomatic, that still leaves 60% who are symptomatic and for at least a few days they are not going to be working / socialising. That has a massive impact on things like hospitality which is why Sunak was right to put funding up.
You say this is "demand side management of the NHS" - if so what is the solution? You can't persuade people to go to work when they are sick, or know there is a good chance they will make someone else sick. People are not going to be going out partying when they are sick or think they could make their mates sick. Its basic human nature of people who aren't complete Phils.
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
See ya.
So you'd rather have avoidable deaths in childbirth; than tolerate unvaccinated NHS staff?
Bit of take off in the London hospitalisations but no take off in patients on ventilation at all which could be a sign that a lot of the additional London admissions are incidental. I think that report comes out every Thursday and will be very, very key in knowing what kind of danger Omicron presents.
At least 50% are incidental
What do you mean by an incidental hospitalisation? "Not all that serious" or something more specific?
Its when you are admitted to hospital for something completely different, but they test you and find you have COVID.
It doesn't necessarily mean it is benign. Anaesthesia even in asymptomatic cases greatly increases the risk of death. An asymptomatic covid in a hip fracture patient is quite risky for example.
Thank you. I’ve had a few operations, so your post made me think.
A friend of mine whose a Buddhist refused any injections when she had her teeth done. She wanted to transcend dental medication.
That one, on the other hand…ooof….
No. I didn’t understand it either.
Really? Those of us who support the England cricket team have an all too vivid understanding of what it's like to have our teeth pulled out without an anaesthetic.
Appalling Con splits in the new Redfield & Wilton poll:
NE Lab 61% Con 22% NW Lab 51% Con 28% W Midlands Lab 47% Con 37% E Midlands Lab 41% Con 35%
Not necessarily, the Tories can win without the North provided they win the South and Midlands.
Those Midlands numbers are not so far behind midterm they cannot be caught up
Well they are getting absolutely tonked in the West Midlands according the R and W., so where exactly in the Midlands did you have in mind?
5% behind in the East Midlands, 10% behind in the West Midlands is about the amount the Tories trail nationally, so if the Tories regain the lead nationally they will also regain the lead in the Midlands
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
See ya.
So you'd rather have avoidable deaths in childbirth; than tolerate unvaccinated NHS staff?
If they are so selfish that they won't get vaccinated to protect not only themselves but the people they are treating, they can collect their P45s.
Appalling Con splits in the new Redfield & Wilton poll:
NE Lab 61% Con 22% NW Lab 51% Con 28% W Midlands Lab 47% Con 37% E Midlands Lab 41% Con 35%
Not necessarily, the Tories can win without the North provided they win the South and Midlands.
Those Midlands numbers are not so far behind midterm they cannot be caught up
I would go and look at the Lib Dem figures in the breakdowns.
E Midlands have 14% compared to 8% in the W Midlands.
I would say both W Midlands and E Midlands are nearer 47% Lab, 36% Tory.
And if you look at the South East - those figures should be given Tory MPs a nightmare as I suspect the Labour / Lib Dem votes will be a lot more efficient than those figures make out.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
No, not the entire population of the country who isn't me. I'm fully expecting to get the virus myself one day and as I've said I put my trust in the vaccines. I've had my three jabs, now when I get it it, I get it. I don't especially care when I get it.
People may not knowingly go out to infect others, but we should ASAP get into a position where people can unknowingly do so (because they're asymptomatic and not testing) and then after that it needs to be a personal choice whether people go out as opposed to a matter of law.
I've been out with a cough or a cold before and its never seemed weird to do so. Covid will ultimately need to become in the same bracket as that.
Yes, the entire population who isn't you. Nobody is going out knowingly whilst sick with Covid. It is not "a cough and a cold".
With the amount of vaccinations and previous infection it's going to be that way for huge swathes of the population. My colleagues would both have carried on coming into the office if it wasn't notifiable.
We know that double vaxxed is not "its just a cold" for most people because the government is making a herculean effort to get boosters into arms immediately. Once we are all triple jabbed and we have more data we can assess again.
Are there stats to back up that claim? I thought even with only two jabs the majority of cases were asymptomatic.
Yes, I think for most double vaxxed people it is 'just a cold' - or even less.
We're a nation of nearly 70 million people, so there will be a LOT of people for whom it is worse than 'just a cold' in absolute terms. But most double jabbed people will recover without incident in a week or so.
It's clearly not just a cold. Most people I know who've had it, even the Omicron variant recently, have been laid low for a couple of days at least (one or two lucky people have been entirely asymptomatic). But fatality rates for the triple vaccinated are now pretty much the same as flu. Flu itself, despite the cute and domesticated name, is a nasty bugger of a disease. It carried off a couple of elderly members of my family a few years ago.
The trouble is the false binary that is set up by the modern culture war. You have to choose sides: Covid is the DESTROYER OF WORLDS, or "just a cold". Milder is equated with completely harmless, severe is read to mean hospitals overwhelmed.
^This. With double and now triple vaccination we are in a completely different place to 12 months ago despite the unknowns of Omicron. But at the same time we can't just say "pandemic over" despite everyone's desperate wish that it was.
Appalling Con splits in the new Redfield & Wilton poll:
NE Lab 61% Con 22% NW Lab 51% Con 28% W Midlands Lab 47% Con 37% E Midlands Lab 41% Con 35%
The Red Wallers realise they’ve been played by the sneering metropolitan elitists that make up this government, and their equally sneering metropolitan elitist paymasters.
Shame it took so long, and that they got played in the first place.
Appalling Con splits in the new Redfield & Wilton poll:
NE Lab 61% Con 22% NW Lab 51% Con 28% W Midlands Lab 47% Con 37% E Midlands Lab 41% Con 35%
Not necessarily, the Tories can win without the North provided they win the South and Midlands.
Those Midlands numbers are not so far behind midterm they cannot be caught up
I would go and look at the Lib Dem figures in the breakdowns.
E Midlands have 14% compared to 8% in the W Midlands.
I would say both W Midlands and E Midlands are nearer 47% Lab, 36% Tory.
And if you look at the South East - those figures should be given Tory MPs a nightmare as I suspect the Labour / Lib Dem votes will be a lot more efficient than those figures make out.
The same poll also clearly has Sunak ahead of Starmer as preferred PM, so Boris has until the local elections to turn it round and get a lead nationally and in the Midlands again. If not he will likely be replaced by Sunak as Tory leader by next Christmas and the Tories will likely be back in front again
So we are OK for full-on Christmas dinner on the 25th.
But we might have to make do with cheese and wine for Boxing Day.
Our family do is on Boxing Day. They aren't going to announce on Christmas Day that "tomorrow we begin lockdown" and even if they did so many will disobey the hypocrites and liars in government.
Its the entertainment venues that lose another new year that I feel sorry for.
Some excellent post on the last thread guys. I mean really good.
Re poor Comprehensives in deprived areas I agree, but this is probably a lot more to do with the issues of the area than anything else. The answer certainly isn't going back to Secondary Moderns.
I see @HYUFD is continuing to compare stats on Grammar schools to Comprehensives and ignoring the samples are completely different because the Grammar has selected.
If you lived in a deprived area 50 years ago you could go to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice would be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name if you do not have wealthy parents who can send you to private school
That doesn't answer the point.
It does. Unless you live in a wealthy suburb or rural area (or go to a comprehensive or academy where admission is based on church attendance) comprehensives are often just renamed secondary moderns effectively.
@MikeSmithson is correct. It doesn't answer the point. As usual you just raise another point and don't address the point raised. It is a moving target.
Re your point on living in a poor area and being able to go to a grammar, this is very naïve. What actually happens is the middle class and well off in surrounding areas get tutored for the test and fill the spaces. The bright kids in the poor areas don't and they still don't get in by and large.
I lived in a relatively poor large village with 2 primary schools. Only one boy got into the boys grammar school and no girls to the girls grammar school. And that boy dropped out. I have no memory of even taking a test let alone getting tutored. After O levels a whole bunch of replaced those that had dropped out. The system is crap at selection and selecting at 11 is far too soon.
There are limits on how much you can tutor for 11+ and 13+ tests which are designed to test raw iq not subject knowledge as such. Indeed very often even a few bright kids from council estates got into grammar schools even without tutors and then onto Oxbridge or other top universities and professional careers. That path is not open to them to the same extent now if they live in a deprived area and just get sent to the local very average, if that, comp.
If you were well off and had a kid who was not so bright and would not pass the 11 or 13+ you could still send them private however and still do. Most wealthy parents did not send their children to secondary moderns and do not send their children to comprehensives and certainly not comprehensives or academies which are any less than Outstanding. So the rich generally don't use comprehensives anyway while the bright but poor no longer have the opportunities grammars provided. Most grammars of course also have entries at sixth form level too
a) You can tutor for IQ tests very easily. Not sure where you got it that it was difficult. There are lots of techniques.
b) In between our posts I have been chopping wood and did a rough mental calculation of how many should have got into the grammar school from my village all other things being equal (I know how many classes there were, the size of them, the fact that our village was a 3 member ward and how many councillors there were in the borough). The answer is about 25. There was 1 and he dropped out. If that doesn't give you an idea of the disparity between poor and middle class areas nothing will.
c) If you think the well off don't send their children to Comprehensives you live in a different world. I live in a well off area now. I am wealthy by most peoples measure as are most of the people I know. Nearly all use the local comprehensive, which I grant you is good, but that is not what you were saying.
d) Moving to a Grammar at sixth form is too late. The damage has been done. Many won't go who should. Many who were at the Grammar who shouldn't have been have dropped out.
Select by subject on an ongoing basis throughout the child's education.
a) You can't. IQ test results are in part based on genetics, they are difficult to tutor for unlike subject knowledge based exams.
b) And all of them would likely have gone to a sink comprehensive otherwise, at least 1 still got to a grammar.
c) If the wealthy send their kids to a comp it will only be an Outstanding comp they have bought their kids admission to by buying a house in its catchment area, meaning there are well above average house prices for that catchment area. You buy a place at an Outstanding comp or academy much like you buy a place at private school effectively or else you go to church more regularly to get a vicar's reference for a top church school.
d) Sixth form entry for A levels and top university is fine for late developers
a) you can - just allowing children to sit a few past papers so they understand how the questions work allows children to know how to answer the questions quicker allowing them more time to concentrate on more difficult questions.
You can understand the format of the questions but it is harder to prepare for the specific questions that will come up as they are logic and reasoning based, not subject knowledge based which are more tests of memory
As someone who has got 3 of 4 children into local grammars and sent the other private, I can confirm HYUFD doesn't know what he's talking about here, as well as constantly missing the point.
Tutoring makes a massive difference to ability to tackle the 11+. You see it all the time with kids that got tutored and then struggle to keep up once they're in.
It may make a marginal difference to borderline candidates but if you have an iq of 130+ you will get into a grammar school with no tutoring at all even if you live on a council estate
@HYUFD as usual you are pontificating with certainty about something on which I am guessing you have no knowledge whatsoever. It has been pointed by many on here how you can tutor for IQ tests / 11+ not least by just practicing papers, but there are many other techniques as well. I have some experience in this (as I am sure do many others on here) as it was a requirement of a development centre of one of the largest computer companies at the time at which I was a manager to take an IQ test and score at least 130. All undergraduates on the milk round had to do so before an interview. I would interview between 20 and 30 undergraduates on the milk round each year so I was very familiar with these test.
I couldn't do anything for someone who is stupid and could probably only add a point or two to a genius, but for a reasonably bright person I could probably get 10 to 20 IQ points added. Here are some ways how:
a) Just get familiar with the tests by practicing loads and getting your timing right (basic exam technique, but not something an 11 year old without tutoring has a clue about).
b) If you get a sequence of numbers and can't see the next number start subtracting each number from the next number. If the sequence doesn't become apparent then do again until it does. This takes just seconds to do and usually results in the answer. I've not seen one on an IQ test that doesn't.
c) Another common question is an arithmetic question which is too hard to do in the time but with an multiple choice answers so estimation is required. Someone with maths knowledge can do this easily, but someone who hasn't can be given about 5 easy tricks to solve these quickly.
d) Similarly a series of shapes at IQ test level is normally fairly straightforward, but again someone without the ability can be given half a dozen things to look out for in advance.
e) If you are given a True or False tests from a short paragraph and can't get it immediately you can convert it into a logical formulae (if you know how) and these tend to be so simple you can do it very quickly. I have to say that is something I find very useful to this day as I struggle to hold a lot of words in my head but can do logical formulae easily.
I could go on.
In response to the other items on your reply to me. You said 'at least one got to the grammar school'. You obviously missed the point that 'he crashed and burned'.
You also say 6th form is ok for late developers. Where did you get that from? It certainly wasn't for me. I missed out on so much. It was worse for others who were good enough but didn't get the chance. Also what about all those who pass the 11+ and then crash and burn because it isn't appropriate?
An acquaintance of mine is in his 20s. He is double vaxxed+boosted (the latter last week). His girlfriend suffers from bad asthma, and her dad is a cancer sufferer, which means she really doesn't want to get the lurgy, so they're being careful. Last week he had to work doing manual labour in enclosed spaces with another young man who is unvaccinated.
The colleague apparently doesn't want to get vaxxed because all his mates are unvaxxed, and they take the p*ss out of everyone who has been vaxxed.
I don't know how widespread that sort of thinking is, but I wonder how the government could address it? Can we stop idiotic young lads (*) being idiotic young lads?
(*) I was certainly idiotic when I was a lad, albeit in different ways to them. In some ways it's called growing up.
How would his mates find out - you just do a Trump and keep quiet about getting vaccinated.
Yeah, but they're young lads - late teens and twenties apparently. My acquaintance was rather off-put by it - but then he's a sensible lad.
It might be somewhere that a group young lads look up to might help - say footballers. People who could encourage them by example.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
There will come a day when policy changes to no longer require isolation of people with a positive test result, simply COVID is endemic and we can't be in a situation where we pay people to sit at home with the sniffles. How can you square that with what you're saying? Or are you suggesting that COVID should forever be a special case disease that we treat differently to every other one?
I am talking about Covid now. Not variant x in the future which literally is a cold. You've just had it, my wife has just had it, a lot a lot of people now have it. Its not a cold - the idea that she was going to go on teaching or to her Xmas party or frankly even drive in that state is laughable.
Nobody about from Philip is going out whilst full of Covid symptoms. Not because the law dictates that they can't, because they feel crap and they're not a Phil.
Was your experience typical? I thought there was a whole spectrum, ranging from not noticeable whatsoever, to hospital treatment.
I haven't had it, so not my experience. You can plot how people react to these things on a bell curve - at one end no symptoms at all. On the bottom left "its just a cold", across the top you're on the floor, bottom right in hospital, far end dead.
Most people - from all the feedback - are properly ill for at least a day or two with general cruddiness on either side. If the suggestion is that most people feel fine / have no symptoms at all then that is at best counter-factual.
Properly ill for a day or two with general cruddiness on either side IS a cold!
My normal pattern for a cold is day 1/2 sore throat/hurts to swallow, can't eat, constantly running nose; day 3/4 alternately hot and cold; can't control temperature; constantly tired, need to change bed linen because of the sweat; day 5/6 bunged up nose, hacking up phlegm, croaky voice but actually feel GREAT because days 1-4 are behind me. With covid it was just the same, but without days 5 and 6.
It's not very pleasant. But covid after being double jabbed doesn't come in the top ten worst illnesses I've had in the past decade. It's not worth closing the country down for.
For me, it was just a cold.
Some people are even luckier and are entirely asymptomatic..
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
See ya.
So you'd rather have avoidable deaths in childbirth; than tolerate unvaccinated NHS staff?
Given the poor vaccination rate of pregnant women, unvaccinated midwives represent a huge danger in the NHS. It's also hardly going to help women make a decision to be vaccinated when the midwife they talk to says "I've decided not to be vaccinated".
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
See ya.
It seems beyond belief that 40 midwives in one trust could all be against vax. Are they winding each other up all day with conspiracy theories? It is staggering.
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
The first point is debatable, I'm sure work was being discussed, but on the second point isn't he right? There was a twitter thread a few days ago demonstrating why it wasn't contrary to the regs.
If it is Work then you have a secondary question - why is Carrie in a business meeting with 2 senior Downing Street workers.
Perhaps because she's the PM's wife and he values her input?
Unless this was a security clearance required meeting, then what's the issue? And if it was, should it be held outdoors?
Security clearance? LOL!
Did someone have to check the cheese for a listening device?
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
See ya.
It seems beyond belief that 40 midwives in one trust could all be against vax. Are they winding each other up all day with conspiracy theories? It is staggering.
I thought that too. I wonder if the stat has just been made up to try to push back on the plans to require vaccination.
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
See ya.
So you'd rather have avoidable deaths in childbirth; than tolerate unvaccinated NHS staff?
If they are so selfish that they won't get vaccinated to protect not only themselves but the people they are treating, they can collect their P45s.
And we then lose a load of women and babies in childbirth. I'm happy to issue a fatwa against most people who are unvaccinated by choice. But we do need certain people to keep working.
What should have happened was what other countries have done. A campaign of public shame. Call them out for the selfish cretins they are - many would probably have Trumped and got it reluctantly.
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
See ya.
So you'd rather have avoidable deaths in childbirth; than tolerate unvaccinated NHS staff?
If they are so selfish that they won't get vaccinated to protect not only themselves but the people they are treating, they can collect their P45s.
And we then lose a load of women and babies in childbirth. I'm happy to issue a fatwa against most people who are unvaccinated by choice. But we do need certain people to keep working.
What should have happened was what other countries have done. A campaign of public shame. Call them out for the selfish cretins they are - many would probably have Trumped and got it reluctantly.
Na, they can be shamed by being fired. No place for anti-vaxxer nutters in the NHS.
"Stay at home as much as possible" "Minimise Hogmanay socialising" "Hogmanay party cancelled in Edinburgh" "No evidence omichron is less deadly" "3 weeks no spectator sports" "No casual sports" "3 weeks only table service, 1m distancing"
No evidence Omicron is less severe?????????
Careful use of 'deadly' rather than 'severe'? Bit early for much evidence on deaths (although less severe implies fewer deaths, it is possible, albeit unlikely, that you could have fewer hospitalised but a similar death rate)
The infection mechanism seems to imply significantly lower severity as well.
That's not to say it's conclusive, but surely another bit of evidence that Omicron may not be as bad as we fear.
Yep, I'm speculating it was a cute choice of words to say something that is arguably true (even though unlikely) given the emerging evidence on severity. (If it's a quote, then "no evidence omicron less severe" would be hard to defend by now)
My booster jab text reminder said "get your life-saving booster jab..."
I am presuming that is a nudge team / behavioural insight idea.
LOLs, not sure that is subtle enough to qualify as a 'nudge'
For those interested, here is a link to the decision-making model for decision-making method use in civil aviation, that I found online:
It is right up the alley of the sort of things the nudge team did / do, where isn't necessary about being subtle, it is around the right use of language. Using the term life saving versus not, I bet has a decent impact on no-shows.
Sorry, did not realize that the 'nudge team' was an actual group. Had just thought you were using 'nudge' in the sense that Sunstein and Thaler do in their book, "Nudge"
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
I'm afraid to say I agree with Philip on this one. I may not put it in such dramatic terms as him, but the maths seems inescapable to me.
We have an almost fully vaccinated population, and a largely boosted one too. Plus a group of people boosted quite a few months ago (like my parents) whose immunity will be starting to wane over the next few months.
With a fully vaccinated population and immune-evading variant like Omicron, every infection avoided now is an infection that will happen later. It's a timing difference. The more infections we get through now, when the immunity of the boosted elderly and vulnerable is high and while hospitals can cope, the fewer we experience in a month or two.
The shortages in workforce and pressure on the NHS as a result of sickness absence are a real concern, but these are not new. What's new is the idea that the solution to this is to restrict social mixing and hospitality. We seem to have moved from supply side to demand side management of the NHS, in other words the solution to capacity constraints is to reduce demand (temporarily, before it comes back with a vengeance as indeed it has done this year) rather than building supply.
I am tired of the politicised and moralised nature of the arguments over restrictions. There are valid counter arguments to what I've written above, for example that we should minimise infections until we get an Omicron-specific booster, or that the real equilibrium winter daily case number in an endemic state should be closer to say 50k than 90k, but thinking one way rather than another does not make one by definition a cnut. Nor, and I am surely an example of this along with others on this forum, does being generally anti-Tory mean that every policy position the government takes is necessarily wrong.
I don't think you and I are far apart on this one. I said - and continue to say - that if Omicron spikes as badly as they are saying then restrictions won't make any difference. That we have "shutdown" as opposed to "lockdown" as people voluntarily change their behaviour because they / their friends & family are sick or they are concerned about becoming so before Christmas. And that government needed to give cash to business and people.
Even if 40% of infected people are completely asymptomatic, that still leaves 60% who are symptomatic and for at least a few days they are not going to be working / socialising. That has a massive impact on things like hospitality which is why Sunak was right to put funding up.
You say this is "demand side management of the NHS" - if so what is the solution? You can't persuade people to go to work when they are sick, or know there is a good chance they will make someone else sick. People are not going to be going out partying when they are sick or think they could make their mates sick. Its basic human nature of people who aren't complete Phils.
What I'm not in favour of is essentially central government policy to suppress infection down to artificially low levels if that means a rebound later. I am all in favour of voluntary behavioural changes - indeed I'm guilty of it this week, steering clear of social mixing for fear of the dreaded 2 red striped before Christmas. This week seems to have shown, in London at least, that it works without the need for government restrictions.
Of course the downside of voluntary changes is they don't come with a furlough scheme attached, but I think the endless tinkering with the rules over the last 2 years has probably damaged the hospitality and entertainment industries more than the public shying away for a week or so.
Appalling Con splits in the new Redfield & Wilton poll:
NE Lab 61% Con 22% NW Lab 51% Con 28% W Midlands Lab 47% Con 37% E Midlands Lab 41% Con 35%
Not necessarily, the Tories can win without the North provided they win the South and Midlands.
Those Midlands numbers are not so far behind midterm they cannot be caught up
Well they are getting absolutely tonked in the West Midlands according the R and W., so where exactly in the Midlands did you have in mind?
5% behind in the East Midlands, 10% behind in the West Midlands is about the amount the Tories trail nationally, so if the Tories regain the lead nationally they will also regain the lead in the Midlands
I see the E. Midlands as easy pickings, but in the W.Midlands the Cons. look quite comprehensively behind at 10%.
Don't forget on top of all this we are facing an economic Armageddon for the next two years, which is never a good look for the incumbent.
Yesterday's top five areas, based on cases over the most recent three days were: Lambeth (2623/100k) Wandsworth (2457) Hackney (2305) Southwark (2062) Islington (2054) These numbers are down by between 14 and 18% today No evidence for testing delays https://archive.uea.ac.uk/~e130/Latest.html
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
See ya.
So you'd rather have avoidable deaths in childbirth; than tolerate unvaccinated NHS staff?
If they are so selfish that they won't get vaccinated to protect not only themselves but the people they are treating, they can collect their P45s.
And we then lose a load of women and babies in childbirth. I'm happy to issue a fatwa against most people who are unvaccinated by choice. But we do need certain people to keep working.
What should have happened was what other countries have done. A campaign of public shame. Call them out for the selfish cretins they are - many would probably have Trumped and got it reluctantly.
Na, they can be shamed by being fired. No place for anti-vaxxer nutters in the NHS.
People in the NHS should be those who believe in medicine. To have antivaxxer nutters in the NHS is like having alcoholic landlords, or bent cops, or illiterate teachers.
If a footballer wants to be antivaxx that's bad but its not related to their job. Medicine is related to the NHS.
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
The first point is debatable, I'm sure work was being discussed, but on the second point isn't he right? There was a twitter thread a few days ago demonstrating why it wasn't contrary to the regs.
If it is Work then you have a secondary question - why is Carrie in a business meeting with 2 senior Downing Street workers.
Because (a) it isn't a business meeting and (b) they're taking the absolute piss and (c) they still think people are gullible enough to accept any old crap as an excuse.
The problem is that no one has been able to ask 2 questions to get the point over.
Some excellent post on the last thread guys. I mean really good.
Re poor Comprehensives in deprived areas I agree, but this is probably a lot more to do with the issues of the area than anything else. The answer certainly isn't going back to Secondary Moderns.
I see @HYUFD is continuing to compare stats on Grammar schools to Comprehensives and ignoring the samples are completely different because the Grammar has selected.
If you lived in a deprived area 50 years ago you could go to a grammar school if intelligent.
Now your only choice would be a comprehensive likely to be a secondary modern in all but name if you do not have wealthy parents who can send you to private school
That doesn't answer the point.
It does. Unless you live in a wealthy suburb or rural area (or go to a comprehensive or academy where admission is based on church attendance) comprehensives are often just renamed secondary moderns effectively.
@MikeSmithson is correct. It doesn't answer the point. As usual you just raise another point and don't address the point raised. It is a moving target.
Re your point on living in a poor area and being able to go to a grammar, this is very naïve. What actually happens is the middle class and well off in surrounding areas get tutored for the test and fill the spaces. The bright kids in the poor areas don't and they still don't get in by and large.
I lived in a relatively poor large village with 2 primary schools. Only one boy got into the boys grammar school and no girls to the girls grammar school. And that boy dropped out. I have no memory of even taking a test let alone getting tutored. After O levels a whole bunch of replaced those that had dropped out. The system is crap at selection and selecting at 11 is far too soon.
There are limits on how much you can tutor for 11+ and 13+ tests which are designed to test raw iq not subject knowledge as such. Indeed very often even a few bright kids from council estates got into grammar schools even without tutors and then onto Oxbridge or other top universities and professional careers. That path is not open to them to the same extent now if they live in a deprived area and just get sent to the local very average, if that, comp.
If you were well off and had a kid who was not so bright and would not pass the 11 or 13+ you could still send them private however and still do. Most wealthy parents did not send their children to secondary moderns and do not send their children to comprehensives and certainly not comprehensives or academies which are any less than Outstanding. So the rich generally don't use comprehensives anyway while the bright but poor no longer have the opportunities grammars provided. Most grammars of course also have entries at sixth form level too
a) You can tutor for IQ tests very easily. Not sure where you got it that it was difficult. There are lots of techniques.
b) In between our posts I have been chopping wood and did a rough mental calculation of how many should have got into the grammar school from my village all other things being equal (I know how many classes there were, the size of them, the fact that our village was a 3 member ward and how many councillors there were in the borough). The answer is about 25. There was 1 and he dropped out. If that doesn't give you an idea of the disparity between poor and middle class areas nothing will.
c) If you think the well off don't send their children to Comprehensives you live in a different world. I live in a well off area now. I am wealthy by most peoples measure as are most of the people I know. Nearly all use the local comprehensive, which I grant you is good, but that is not what you were saying.
d) Moving to a Grammar at sixth form is too late. The damage has been done. Many won't go who should. Many who were at the Grammar who shouldn't have been have dropped out.
Select by subject on an ongoing basis throughout the child's education.
a) You can't. IQ test results are in part based on genetics, they are difficult to tutor for unlike subject knowledge based exams.
b) And all of them would likely have gone to a sink comprehensive otherwise, at least 1 still got to a grammar.
c) If the wealthy send their kids to a comp it will only be an Outstanding comp they have bought their kids admission to by buying a house in its catchment area, meaning there are well above average house prices for that catchment area. You buy a place at an Outstanding comp or academy much like you buy a place at private school effectively or else you go to church more regularly to get a vicar's reference for a top church school.
d) Sixth form entry for A levels and top university is fine for late developers
a) you can - just allowing children to sit a few past papers so they understand how the questions work allows children to know how to answer the questions quicker allowing them more time to concentrate on more difficult questions.
You can understand the format of the questions but it is harder to prepare for the specific questions that will come up as they are logic and reasoning based, not subject knowledge based which are more tests of memory
As someone who has got 3 of 4 children into local grammars and sent the other private, I can confirm HYUFD doesn't know what he's talking about here, as well as constantly missing the point.
Tutoring makes a massive difference to ability to tackle the 11+. You see it all the time with kids that got tutored and then struggle to keep up once they're in.
It may make a marginal difference to borderline candidates but if you have an iq of 130+ you will get into a grammar school with no tutoring at all even if you live on a council estate
@HYUFD as usual you are pontificating with certainty about something on which I am guessing you have no knowledge whatsoever. It has been pointed by many on here how you can tutor for IQ tests / 11+ not least by just practicing papers, but there are many other techniques as well. I have some experience in this (as I am sure do many others on here) as it was a requirement of a development centre of one of the largest computer companies at the time at which I was a manager to take an IQ test and score at least 130. All undergraduates on the milk round had to do so before an interview. I would interview between 20 and 30 undergraduates on the milk round each year so I was very familiar with these test.
I couldn't do anything for someone who is stupid and could probably only add a point or two to a genius, but for a reasonably bright person I could probably get 10 to 20 IQ points added. Here are some ways how:
a) Just get familiar with the tests by practicing loads and getting your timing right (basic exam technique, but not something an 11 year old without tutoring has a clue about).
b) If you get a sequence of numbers and can't see the next number start subtracting each number from the next number. If the sequence doesn't become apparent then do again until it does. This takes just seconds to do and usually results in the answer. I've not seen one on an IQ test that doesn't.
c) Another common question is an arithmetic question which is too hard to do in the time but with an multiple choice answers so estimation is required. Someone with maths knowledge can do this easily, but someone who hasn't can be given about 5 easy tricks to solve these quickly.
d) Similarly a series of shapes at IQ test level is normally fairly straightforward, but again someone without the ability can be given half a dozen things to look out for in advance.
e) If you are given a True or False tests from a short paragraph and can't get it immediately you can convert it into a logical formulae (if you know how) and these tend to be so simple you can do it very quickly. I have to say that is something I find very useful to this day as I struggle to hold a lot of words in my head but can do logical formulae easily.
I could go on.
In response to the other items on your reply to me. You said 'at least one got to the grammar school'. You obviously missed the point that 'he crashed and burned'.
You also say 6th form is ok for late developers. Where did you get that from? It certainly wasn't for me. I missed out on so much. It was worse for others who were good enough but didn't get the chance. Also what about all those who pass the 11+ and then crash and burn because it isn't appropriate?
You cannot tutor for raw IQ tests of logic and reasoning to the same level as you can tutor for subject knowledge tests. In any case a pupil with a high IQ from a council estate would easily pass an IQ test tutored or not, the fact a few average IQ middle class pupils might scrape a pass at 11 pass after being heavily tutored does not make much difference to the former.
As opposed to all pupils crashing and burning at a sink comprehensive, at least grammar schools offered those with high IQs from deprived areas a chance to get on.
Sixth form entry offers a chance for those who are late developers and do well at GCSEs the fact you hated sixth form would probably have applied whichever school you went to
Lincoln County Georgia, which is nearly one-third Black, proposes closing 6 of 7 polling sites for 2022 after GOP took over local election board & purged Dems
I really wonder how people can look themselves in the mirror when they do this kind of thing.
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
There will come a day when policy changes to no longer require isolation of people with a positive test result, simply COVID is endemic and we can't be in a situation where we pay people to sit at home with the sniffles. How can you square that with what you're saying? Or are you suggesting that COVID should forever be a special case disease that we treat differently to every other one?
I am talking about Covid now. Not variant x in the future which literally is a cold. You've just had it, my wife has just had it, a lot a lot of people now have it. Its not a cold - the idea that she was going to go on teaching or to her Xmas party or frankly even drive in that state is laughable.
Nobody about from Philip is going out whilst full of Covid symptoms. Not because the law dictates that they can't, because they feel crap and they're not a Phil.
Was your experience typical? I thought there was a whole spectrum, ranging from not noticeable whatsoever, to hospital treatment.
I haven't had it, so not my experience. You can plot how people react to these things on a bell curve - at one end no symptoms at all. On the bottom left "its just a cold", across the top you're on the floor, bottom right in hospital, far end dead.
Most people - from all the feedback - are properly ill for at least a day or two with general cruddiness on either side. If the suggestion is that most people feel fine / have no symptoms at all then that is at best counter-factual.
Properly ill for a day or two with general cruddiness on either side IS a cold!
My normal pattern for a cold is day 1/2 sore throat/hurts to swallow, can't eat, constantly running nose; day 3/4 alternately hot and cold; can't control temperature; constantly tired, need to change bed linen because of the sweat; day 5/6 bunged up nose, hacking up phlegm, croaky voice but actually feel GREAT because days 1-4 are behind me. With covid it was just the same, but without days 5 and 6.
It's not very pleasant. But covid after being double jabbed doesn't come in the top ten worst illnesses I've had in the past decade. It's not worth closing the country down for.
For me, it was just a cold.
Some people are even luckier and are entirely asymptomatic..
You do know that I am not trying to close the country down an have been consistently against a "lockdown" this time...?
Sounds like you were unhappy but not at risk of worse - great. Can I ask would you have voluntarily gone to work on day 3/4, or gone out on the piss to a pre-booked Christmas party? If the answer is no then that is all everyone else is doing. Which is why we're having a shutdown of economic activity not "lockdown". People aren't going out with Covid because they feel like shit as a best case scenario.
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
The first point is debatable, I'm sure work was being discussed, but on the second point isn't he right? There was a twitter thread a few days ago demonstrating why it wasn't contrary to the regs.
If it is Work then you have a secondary question - why is Carrie in a business meeting with 2 senior Downing Street workers.
Because (a) it isn't a business meeting and (b) they're taking the absolute piss and (c) they still think people are gullible enough to accept any old crap as an excuse.
The problem is that no one has been able to ask 2 questions to get the point over.
Why were you in the Garden - business meeting
Why if it's a business meeting is Carrie there
At which point the cogs should start whirring.
I think you could just (just) about excuse it as giving Johnson an opportunity to spend time with his newborn.
I've just been sent the Raab on GMTV interview as he doggedly lies through his teeth insisting that the Downing Street garden party was a work meeting and allowed by the law.
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
The first point is debatable, I'm sure work was being discussed, but on the second point isn't he right? There was a twitter thread a few days ago demonstrating why it wasn't contrary to the regs.
If it is Work then you have a secondary question - why is Carrie in a business meeting with 2 senior Downing Street workers.
Because (a) it isn't a business meeting and (b) they're taking the absolute piss and (c) they still think people are gullible enough to accept any old crap as an excuse.
The problem is that no one has been able to ask 2 questions to get the point over.
Why were you in the Garden - business meeting
Why if it's a business meeting is Carrie there
At which point the cogs should start whirring.
Perhaps because for years people have been moaning about Carrie being involved with the business of government, so her being in a business meeting isn't that odd if we've already been told she is getting involved.
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
See ya.
It seems beyond belief that 40 midwives in one trust could all be against vax. Are they winding each other up all day with conspiracy theories? It is staggering.
I suspect when it gets to Le Crunch and unemployment looms - at least 50% of them will get the jab
Appalling Con splits in the new Redfield & Wilton poll:
NE Lab 61% Con 22% NW Lab 51% Con 28% W Midlands Lab 47% Con 37% E Midlands Lab 41% Con 35%
The Red Wallers realise they’ve been played by the sneering metropolitan elitists that make up this government, and their equally sneering metropolitan elitist paymasters.
Shame it took so long, and that they got played in the first place.
Appalling Con splits in the new Redfield & Wilton poll:
NE Lab 61% Con 22% NW Lab 51% Con 28% W Midlands Lab 47% Con 37% E Midlands Lab 41% Con 35%
Not necessarily, the Tories can win without the North provided they win the South and Midlands.
Those Midlands numbers are not so far behind midterm they cannot be caught up
Well they are getting absolutely tonked in the West Midlands according the R and W., so where exactly in the Midlands did you have in mind?
5% behind in the East Midlands, 10% behind in the West Midlands is about the amount the Tories trail nationally, so if the Tories regain the lead nationally they will also regain the lead in the Midlands
I see the E. Midlands as easy pickings, but in the W.Midlands the Cons. look quite comprehensively behind at 10%.
Don't forget on top of all this we are facing an economic Armageddon for the next two years, which is never a good look for the incumbent.
Well if we face an economic Armageddon for the next decade even if Starmer did get in he would probably be out again within 5 years and the Tories back again
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
See ya.
So you'd rather have avoidable deaths in childbirth; than tolerate unvaccinated NHS staff?
If they are so selfish that they won't get vaccinated to protect not only themselves but the people they are treating, they can collect their P45s.
And we then lose a load of women and babies in childbirth. I'm happy to issue a fatwa against most people who are unvaccinated by choice. But we do need certain people to keep working.
What should have happened was what other countries have done. A campaign of public shame. Call them out for the selfish cretins they are - many would probably have Trumped and got it reluctantly.
Na, they can be shamed by being fired. No place for anti-vaxxer nutters in the NHS.
OK. Who will you be immediately replacing these midwives with once you fire them?
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
See ya.
So you'd rather have avoidable deaths in childbirth; than tolerate unvaccinated NHS staff?
If they are so selfish that they won't get vaccinated to protect not only themselves but the people they are treating, they can collect their P45s.
But they can get tested every day. If they are positive then they go in to self isolation and don't work. Makes no real difference if they are vaccinated or not vaccinated. Both the vaxxed and unvaxxed can get Covid. The main difference is in the severity of the illness.
In the end, policies like this fall apart under scrutiny, and are fuelling anti-vax conspiracy theories. Why are the government pursuing them?
Christmas weekend without restrictions is good. 🙂. Here’s a stray Yey!
It just leaves the problem no one can be sure about plans for next week and week after, from parties to weddings for example deciding it this way on daily news rather than forecasts. Also the political danger of if it’s clear you need some action it’s likely too late to take it. Boring old Starmer will love that.
I would trust statisticians and scientists I think. I know PB knows better than me, but When Javid said 200K, and it took a bit of a pounding on here, as Eagles would say, if you look at the 90K we been getting and double it for mild or asymtopmtic couldn’t be bothered for a test, it’s not that far away from 200K? Also of course scientists would know it would first hit where the population is youngest as they are most social but also poor example to learn from their stats as they least likely to get hospitalised. Also we don’t know what sort of test weariness there is do we?
It is a nasty virus but nobody I know has even seen a doctor with it, and so far there is little evidence it is causing substantial increases in hospital admissions and as far as I know there has been one death
The cabinet taking the decisions has greatly improved my confidence that they are proceeding correctly and interestingly Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and ex Sage endorsed HMG approach this morning
Back to boring old politics for a moment and some good polling for French President Macron today. He is now shown leading all his opponents (including Valerie Pecresse) in run-off scenarios and the latest Elabe poll as follows:
Very good for Macron and better for Le Pen and Melanchon but poor for Pecresse who, instead of challenging Macron in round one, finds herself fighting to get into the top two with Le Pen metaphorically snapping at her heels.
"Stay at home as much as possible" "Minimise Hogmanay socialising" "Hogmanay party cancelled in Edinburgh" "No evidence omichron is less deadly" "3 weeks no spectator sports" "No casual sports" "3 weeks only table service, 1m distancing"
No evidence Omicron is less severe?????????
Careful use of 'deadly' rather than 'severe'? Bit early for much evidence on deaths (although less severe implies fewer deaths, it is possible, albeit unlikely, that you could have fewer hospitalised but a similar death rate)
The infection mechanism seems to imply significantly lower severity as well.
That's not to say it's conclusive, but surely another bit of evidence that Omicron may not be as bad as we fear.
Yep, I'm speculating it was a cute choice of words to say something that is arguably true (even though unlikely) given the emerging evidence on severity. (If it's a quote, then "no evidence omicron less severe" would be hard to defend by now)
My booster jab text reminder said "get your life-saving booster jab..."
I am presuming that is a nudge team / behavioural insight idea.
LOLs, not sure that is subtle enough to qualify as a 'nudge'
For those interested, here is a link to the decision-making model for decision-making method use in civil aviation, that I found online:
It is right up the alley of the sort of things the nudge team did / do, where isn't necessary about being subtle, it is around the right use of language. Using the term life saving versus not, I bet has a decent impact on no-shows.
Sorry, did not realize that the 'nudge team' was an actual group. Had just thought you were using 'nudge' in the sense that Sunstein and Thaler do in their book, "Nudge"
Today's Tuesday figure really does start to feel like behaviour change has suppressed Omicron. Being a Tuesday should have been much higher.
Will we even see a 100k reporting day?
Again, I thought there was a backlog as the numbers seemed wrong. But looking at addition day, there is a bit of stretch out - 3.7k cases added to 16th, but the biggest additions are 19th (45.7k) then 20th (22.5k), then 18th (10.8k) and that doesn't seem an unusual mix to me.
So, I think it goes in the direction that (a) Omicron is relatively low R rate, (b) but is very short generation time, so (c) suppression below 1 hasn't been that hard to achieve.*
* The converse would be to note that Boris Johnson's DNA has an R rate of 3.5-4.0 (7 or 8 kids that are half his), but with an average generation time of 40+ years, so the world isn't entirely filled with Boris Johnson's DNA yet. Omicron is pulling the exact opposite trick.
The figures create problems for everyone. If voluntary "lockdown" (we have never been locked down in this country...) is stopping the exponential spike then it makes the case for formalising it. If its a lack of testing capacity and we're going to see a catch-up explosion then it makes the case for more restrictions. With *only* 90k cases as the current stabilised level, and Christmas weekend to come along with positive tests from the people infected who haven't had symptoms yet, it's likely to go pop just as they make their decision.
Would have been far better if we had seen a huuuuuuge spike which inevitably would top out and collapse back downward. The "attack the science" commentators might want to consider that the exponential forecast would be better for no formal restrictions than this. Because the last thing we want is "lockdown".
A huge spike would lead to a lockdown.
And if voluntary is working there's absolutely no reason to go for formal, none at all.
A flattened sombrero at 90k per day could be perfect. If Omicron is really half as virulent as Delta, then that's only like having 45k in the past which we were able to handle, so now we'd have twice as many people as we were before getting through the natural immunity funnel. The more the merrier so long as we can handle it.
Its ideal if you want swathes of the economy shut down because so many people are sick. Not being in hospital doesn't mean remotely fit to work. I know you will say "they should go on normally" but happily almost everyone who isn't you disagrees.
You disagree because you're still in denial of the fact that we will all get this. You're still operating under the delusion that this can and will go away. You've got about as much chance of that working as pastors who try to "pray away the gay".
We need to learn to live with the virus, the sooner the better.
For me, you mean the entire population of this country who isn't you. No matter how many times you say the same thing, people are not knowingly going to go out to infect other people, because they are not cnuts.
No, not the entire population of the country who isn't me. I'm fully expecting to get the virus myself one day and as I've said I put my trust in the vaccines. I've had my three jabs, now when I get it it, I get it. I don't especially care when I get it.
People may not knowingly go out to infect others, but we should ASAP get into a position where people can unknowingly do so (because they're asymptomatic and not testing) and then after that it needs to be a personal choice whether people go out as opposed to a matter of law.
I've been out with a cough or a cold before and its never seemed weird to do so. Covid will ultimately need to become in the same bracket as that.
Yes, the entire population who isn't you. Nobody is going out knowingly whilst sick with Covid. It is not "a cough and a cold".
With the amount of vaccinations and previous infection it's going to be that way for huge swathes of the population. My colleagues would both have carried on coming into the office if it wasn't notifiable.
We know that double vaxxed is not "its just a cold" for most people because the government is making a herculean effort to get boosters into arms immediately. Once we are all triple jabbed and we have more data we can assess again.
Are there stats to back up that claim? I thought even with only two jabs the majority of cases were asymptomatic.
Yes, I think for most double vaxxed people it is 'just a cold' - or even less.
We're a nation of nearly 70 million people, so there will be a LOT of people for whom it is worse than 'just a cold' in absolute terms. But most double jabbed people will recover without incident in a week or so.
It's clearly not just a cold. Most people I know who've had it, even the Omicron variant recently, have been laid low for a couple of days at least (one or two lucky people have been entirely asymptomatic). But fatality rates for the triple vaccinated are now pretty much the same as flu. Flu itself, despite the cute and domesticated name, is a nasty bugger of a disease. It carried off a couple of elderly members of my family a few years ago.
The trouble is the false binary that is set up by the modern culture war. You have to choose sides: Covid is the DESTROYER OF WORLDS, or "just a cold". Milder is equated with completely harmless, severe is read to mean hospitals overwhelmed.
You and I clearly have very different ideas of what a cold is!
A cold does lay you low for a couple of days at least. I don't want one. But I'm resigned to getting one at least every year. As often as not it results in missing a day or two at work. But I'm over it within a week. As I was with covid.
What it isn't, for most people, is what it appeared to be prior to vaccinations: two weeks in which you could barely get out of bed, in which you worried about being able to breathe, followed by a residual cough which lasted for weeks. It isn't, now, for most people, something which hospitalises, or even requires medical attention beyond hot lemony drinks and paracetamol. (Of course, some people pre-vax also had it and thought 'was that all' but these seemed to be a fortunate few).
Lincoln County Georgia, which is nearly one-third Black, proposes closing 6 of 7 polling sites for 2022 after GOP took over local election board & purged Dems
I really wonder how people can look themselves in the mirror when they do this kind of thing.
Comments
Great news for people who want the Tories gone if the '22 are to leave Peppa in place until after they get demolished in the locals. We're down to only the most cultist devotees of Peppa believing the excuses. The longer this goes on, the worse it will get. For the Tories. Or they could remove Peppa and No Brain Raab and the rest of them and have a fighting chance of re-election.
What can I say, I love the classics.
https://twitter.com/AriBerman/status/1473331157626458115
Lincoln County Georgia, which is nearly one-third Black, proposes closing 6 of 7 polling sites for 2022 after GOP took over local election board & purged Dems
Nobody about from Philip is going out whilst full of Covid symptoms. Not because the law dictates that they can't, because they feel crap and they're not a Phil.
And again your reading comprehension schools are bad - which part of selection or random lotteries says I approve of random lotteries. It's just a possible solution to the problem nothing more than that and in fact it's one of the suggested approaches that the Sutton Trust recommend.
I My primary concern now is if we do get a genuinely scary variant (or Omi kicks off again after New Year), no one will believe Sage.
But the chancellor, business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng, transport secretary Grant Shapps and Alister Jack were, I was told, most opposed to restrictions.
Javid, Gove and Nadine Dorries in favour.
https://twitter.com/tamcohen/status/1473340302454935557?s=20
Not everyone who has Covid feels like crap. Many people who get it are entirely asymptomatic. When my wife got it, she would never have known she had it apart from having a routine PCR Test tell her she was positive. According to the NHS one third of all cases are asymptomatic like that.
The idea that asymptomatic people are staying at home because they feel like crap is laughable.
Even for those who have symptoms, they don't necessarily have them for ten days.
An acquaintance of mine is in his 20s. He is double vaxxed+boosted (the latter last week). His girlfriend suffers from bad asthma, and her dad is a cancer sufferer, which means she really doesn't want to get the lurgy, so they're being careful. Last week he had to work doing manual labour in enclosed spaces with another young man who is unvaccinated.
The colleague apparently doesn't want to get vaxxed because all his mates are unvaxxed, and they take the p*ss out of everyone who has been vaxxed.
I don't know how widespread that sort of thinking is, but I wonder how the government could address it? Can we stop idiotic young lads (*) being idiotic young lads?
(*) I was certainly idiotic when I was a lad, albeit in different ways to them. In some ways it's called growing up.
By most standards, today's WoW is big.
But it's smaller than yesterday.
And if we're going to get to a point of WoW falls - which we will - we will get there through several days of decreasing WoW increases.
So today's figures indicate we are approaching a plateau.
How far away that plateau is remains to be seen, of course. As I said, I reckon it's within the next couple of days by reporting date - but we'll only know that at least a week afterwards.
Meanwhile, amongst the non-cultists, people are openly mocking the excuses.
The issue is how we get there without just allowing the virus to let rip until it runs out of viable hosts, which we can't do, because there isn't enough capacity in the NHS to cope in the short term.
The Sutton Trust also supports bursaries to top schools, it has a wide ranging view on education, some of which I agree with, some not
NE Lab 61% Con 22%
NW Lab 51% Con 28%
W Midlands Lab 47% Con 37%
E Midlands Lab 41% Con 35%
It just leaves the problem no one can be sure about plans for next week and week after, from parties to weddings for example deciding it this way on daily news rather than forecasts. Also the political danger of if it’s clear you need some action it’s likely too late to take it. Boring old Starmer will love that.
I would trust statisticians and scientists I think. I know PB knows better than me, but When Javid said 200K, and it took a bit of a pounding on here, as Eagles would say, if you look at the 90K we been getting and double it for mild or asymtopmtic couldn’t be bothered for a test, it’s not that far away from 200K? Also of course scientists would know it would first hit where the population is youngest as they are most social but also poor example to learn from their stats as they least likely to get hospitalised. Also we don’t know what sort of test weariness there is do we?
Most people - from all the feedback - are properly ill for at least a day or two with general cruddiness on either side. If the suggestion is that most people feel fine / have no symptoms at all then that is at best counter-factual.
We're a nation of nearly 70 million people, so there will be a LOT of people for whom it is worse than 'just a cold' in absolute terms. But most double jabbed people will recover without incident in a week or so.
We have an almost fully vaccinated population, and a largely boosted one too. Plus a group of people boosted quite a few months ago (like my parents) whose immunity will be starting to wane over the next few months.
With a fully vaccinated population and immune-evading variant like Omicron, every infection avoided now is an infection that will happen later. It's a timing difference. The more infections we get through now, when the immunity of the boosted elderly and vulnerable is high and while hospitals can cope, the fewer we experience in a month or two.
The shortages in workforce and pressure on the NHS as a result of sickness absence are a real concern, but these are not new. What's new is the idea that the solution to this is to restrict social mixing and hospitality. We seem to have moved from supply side to demand side management of the NHS, in other words the solution to capacity constraints is to reduce demand (temporarily, before it comes back with a vengeance as indeed it has done this year) rather than building supply.
I am tired of the politicised and moralised nature of the arguments over restrictions. There are valid counter arguments to what I've written above, for example that we should minimise infections until we get an Omicron-specific booster, or that the real equilibrium winter daily case number in an endemic state should be closer to say 50k than 90k, but thinking one way rather than another does not make one by definition a cnut. Nor, and I am surely an example of this along with others on this forum, does being generally anti-Tory mean that every policy position the government takes is necessarily wrong.
Unless this was a security clearance required meeting, then what's the issue? And if it was, should it be held outdoors?
People choose their behaviour not just about how it impacts themselves, but how it impacts others. You don't - and that's why you're on the sociopathic end of this one - but most people do...
You can try to change the culture in these groups, but that is unlikely to be successful if attempted from the outside. Best have someone from within the community spearhead that effort.
I know of three people (one professional acquaintance in the infection control business, one physician colleague of my wife's, and a close relative) for whom some combination of these social pressures is holding them back from getting vaccinated.
Those Midlands numbers are not so far behind midterm they cannot be caught up
The argument that it will keep you out of hospital almost certainly doesn't apply to them (particularly with this new variant). My one anti-vaxxer friend didn't want to deal with any side effects and was a bit concerned about lack of long term data.
It might be somewhere that a group young lads look up to might help - say footballers. People who could encourage them by example.
Oh...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10322763/Premier-League-stars-refuse-Covid-jab-vegan-fertility-reasons-leaving-club-doctors-baffled.html
"Hopson said: “I was talking to a [trust] chief executive who said that 40 of the midwives on their midwifery service … were saying they were not prepared to be vaccinated. Those staff, given their skills and their expertise, are not easily redeployed but they’re also extremely difficult to replace.
The trust’s chief executive “is seriously concerned about the safety of the service” because of the potential exodus of midwives.
Maternity staff quitting over compulsory jabs posed a particular challenge because of the NHS-wide shortage of midwives, Hopson said. NHS England estimates that maternity services need 2,000 more whole-time equivalent midwives, while the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) puts the figure at 2,500."
The trouble is the false binary that is set up by the modern culture war. You have to choose sides: Covid is the DESTROYER OF WORLDS, or "just a cold". Milder is equated with completely harmless, severe is read to mean hospitals overwhelmed.
Even if 40% of infected people are completely asymptomatic, that still leaves 60% who are symptomatic and for at least a few days they are not going to be working / socialising. That has a massive impact on things like hospitality which is why Sunak was right to put funding up.
You say this is "demand side management of the NHS" - if so what is the solution? You can't persuade people to go to work when they are sick, or know there is a good chance they will make someone else sick. People are not going to be going out partying when they are sick or think they could make their mates sick. Its basic human nature of people who aren't complete Phils.
But we might have to make do with cheese and wine for Boxing Day.
E Midlands have 14% compared to 8% in the W Midlands.
I would say both W Midlands and E Midlands are nearer 47% Lab, 36% Tory.
And if you look at the South East - those figures should be given Tory MPs a nightmare as I suspect the Labour / Lib Dem votes will be a lot more efficient than those figures make out.
Shame it took so long, and that they got played in the first place.
Its the entertainment venues that lose another new year that I feel sorry for.
I couldn't do anything for someone who is stupid and could probably only add a point or two to a genius, but for a reasonably bright person I could probably get 10 to 20 IQ points added. Here are some ways how:
a) Just get familiar with the tests by practicing loads and getting your timing right (basic exam technique, but not something an 11 year old without tutoring has a clue about).
b) If you get a sequence of numbers and can't see the next number start subtracting each number from the next number. If the sequence doesn't become apparent then do again until it does. This takes just seconds to do and usually results in the answer. I've not seen one on an IQ test that doesn't.
c) Another common question is an arithmetic question which is too hard to do in the time but with an multiple choice answers so estimation is required. Someone with maths knowledge can do this easily, but someone who hasn't can be given about 5 easy tricks to solve these quickly.
d) Similarly a series of shapes at IQ test level is normally fairly straightforward, but again someone without the ability can be given half a dozen things to look out for in advance.
e) If you are given a True or False tests from a short paragraph and can't get it immediately you can convert it into a logical formulae (if you know how) and these tend to be so simple you can do it very quickly. I have to say that is something I find very useful to this day as I struggle to hold a lot of words in my head but can do logical formulae easily.
I could go on.
In response to the other items on your reply to me. You said 'at least one got to the grammar school'. You obviously missed the point that 'he crashed and burned'.
You also say 6th form is ok for late developers. Where did you get that from? It certainly wasn't for me. I missed out on so much. It was worse for others who were good enough but didn't get the chance. Also what about all those who pass the 11+ and then crash and burn because it isn't appropriate?
But equally everyone at Leeds United are fully vaccinated see https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-tragedy-that-inspired-leeds-united-stars-to-get-jab-75tx3x25z
My normal pattern for a cold is day 1/2 sore throat/hurts to swallow, can't eat, constantly running nose; day 3/4 alternately hot and cold; can't control temperature; constantly tired, need to change bed linen because of the sweat; day 5/6 bunged up nose, hacking up phlegm, croaky voice but actually feel GREAT because days 1-4 are behind me.
With covid it was just the same, but without days 5 and 6.
It's not very pleasant. But covid after being double jabbed doesn't come in the top ten worst illnesses I've had in the past decade. It's not worth closing the country down for.
For me, it was just a cold.
Some people are even luckier and are entirely asymptomatic..
Did someone have to check the cheese for a listening device?
What should have happened was what other countries have done. A campaign of public shame. Call them out for the selfish cretins they are - many would probably have Trumped and got it reluctantly.
Of course the downside of voluntary changes is they don't come with a furlough scheme attached, but I think the endless tinkering with the rules over the last 2 years has probably damaged the hospitality and entertainment industries more than the public shying away for a week or so.
Don't forget on top of all this we are facing an economic Armageddon for the next two years, which is never a good look for the incumbent.
Lambeth (2623/100k)
Wandsworth (2457)
Hackney (2305)
Southwark (2062)
Islington (2054)
These numbers are down by between 14 and 18% today
No evidence for testing delays
https://archive.uea.ac.uk/~e130/Latest.html
https://twitter.com/AlastairGrant4/status/1473328722820358149?s=20
If a footballer wants to be antivaxx that's bad but its not related to their job. Medicine is related to the NHS.
Why were you in the Garden - business meeting
Why if it's a business meeting is Carrie there
At which point the cogs should start whirring.
As opposed to all pupils crashing and burning at a sink comprehensive, at least grammar schools offered those with high IQs from deprived areas a chance to get on.
Sixth form entry offers a chance for those who are late developers and do well at GCSEs the fact you hated sixth form would probably have applied whichever school you went to
Sounds like you were unhappy but not at risk of worse - great. Can I ask would you have voluntarily gone to work on day 3/4, or gone out on the piss to a pre-booked Christmas party? If the answer is no then that is all everyone else is doing. Which is why we're having a shutdown of economic activity not "lockdown". People aren't going out with Covid because they feel like shit as a best case scenario.
In the end, policies like this fall apart under scrutiny, and are fuelling anti-vax conspiracy theories. Why are the government pursuing them?
The cabinet taking the decisions has greatly improved my confidence that they are proceeding correctly and interestingly Sir Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and ex Sage endorsed HMG approach this morning
Back to boring old politics for a moment and some good polling for French President Macron today. He is now shown leading all his opponents (including Valerie Pecresse) in run-off scenarios and the latest Elabe poll as follows:
Macron (LREM): 26% (+3)
Pécresse (LR): 17% (-3)
Le Pen (RN): 16% (+1)
Zemmour (REC): 13% (-1)
Mélenchon (LFI): 11% (+3)
Very good for Macron and better for Le Pen and Melanchon but poor for Pecresse who, instead of challenging Macron in round one, finds herself fighting to get into the top two with Le Pen metaphorically snapping at her heels.
A cold does lay you low for a couple of days at least. I don't want one. But I'm resigned to getting one at least every year. As often as not it results in missing a day or two at work. But I'm over it within a week. As I was with covid.
What it isn't, for most people, is what it appeared to be prior to vaccinations: two weeks in which you could barely get out of bed, in which you worried about being able to breathe, followed by a residual cough which lasted for weeks. It isn't, now, for most people, something which hospitalises, or even requires medical attention beyond hot lemony drinks and paracetamol. (Of course, some people pre-vax also had it and thought 'was that all' but these seemed to be a fortunate few).