"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
It’s too late to improve this Christmas etc from anti-vaxxers but I would be very happy for the govt to announce that by the end of September 2022 everyone needs to be vaxxed to the required level (assuming fourth booster) unless they have an official letter signed by a doctor to confirm why they cannot be vaxxed.*
Anyone who is not vaxxed without permission from doctor will from the end of September not be admitted to pubs/clubs/sports stadiums etc.
Also they should set up a hospital - one hospital - solely for unvaxxed idiots so if they get hospitalised with any future wave they are all together and if it’s inconvenient area then tough shit.
September gives enough time for it to be done and people to consider whether they want to be restricted or jabbed next winter.
* the doctor has an opportunity to try and persuade people to have the vax in this appointment before signing off the letter and the letters will be logged so patterns can be seen if certain doctors are dishing out exemptions or there are still specific areas of country where it’s a problem.
It all goes against a lot of my more libertarian views but I’m fucked if the country should risk this again next year and so until we can ensure as few people as possible will be hospitalised from covid in future then there is always the risk of lockdowns and therefore we need to absolutely hammer anti-vaxxers.
"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
Don’t worry, omicron will deal with the anti-vaxxers in short order.
I hope not. Schadenfreude (or something related) it might be, but for all our futures we need omicron to prove to be fairly harmless.
You misinterpreted what I meant. Yes, some will die, more will get seriously ill, but more importantly, most will get some immunity to future strains. In six weeks from now, there won’t be anyone who has had no exposure to COVID-19.
It's becoming noteworthy among what might be described as my extended family that some people are exposed to the virus, but don't seem to develop any symptoms. However sometimes, at a later, unrelated, date, they do.
Yes, I never caught it when Mrs Foxy did, and am increasingly seeing people who are on their second bout. I am not that convinced that Omicron will act like an infectious vaccine. Immunity between strains does seem limited.
It doesn’t need to provide sterilising immunity. Only to build up sufficient stocks of T-Cells in everyone so that any future variant exhibits an even milder effect at a population level.
Yes, immunity is rarely total, people just fight it off better. Second cases don't necessarily seem lighter than the first one though.
There does seem to be quite poor data on the number reinfected.
"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
Don’t worry, omicron will deal with the anti-vaxxers in short order.
I hope not. Schadenfreude (or something related) it might be, but for all our futures we need omicron to prove to be fairly harmless.
You misinterpreted what I meant. Yes, some will die, more will get seriously ill, but more importantly, most will get some immunity to future strains. In six weeks from now, there won’t be anyone who has had no exposure to COVID-19.
It's becoming noteworthy among what might be described as my extended family that some people are exposed to the virus, but don't seem to develop any symptoms. However sometimes, at a later, unrelated, date, they do.
Yes, I never caught it when Mrs Foxy did, and am increasingly seeing people who are on their second bout. I am not that convinced that Omicron will act like an infectious vaccine. Immunity between strains does seem limited.
It doesn’t need to provide sterilising immunity. Only to build up sufficient stocks of T-Cells in everyone so that any future variant exhibits an even milder effect at a population level.
Precisely.
Vaccines + Natural Immunity won't be a 100% guarantee that there's no future reinfection, but what it does seem to offer is an extremely high immunity against serious illness. Which should be all that matters ultimately, as the virus goes endemic and we learn to live with it.
What irritates me is the way the term Natural Immunity is abused by antivaxxers. No vaccines don't harm your "natural immunity", you don't have any "natural immunity" pre-infection. Natural immunity is something you gain from recovering from the virus in the past and you're more likely to recover from the virus if you've been vaccinated. Hence vaccines + natural immunity are the way out, not either/or.
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
So the first few headlines of the story are good. A less severe version of Covid says the UK data that various posters have been attacking on here endlessly. Then you keep reading - not mild enough to avoid large numbers in hospital and the ones who get there just as likely to die as before. So if infection rates grow exponentially there's our risk to the system.
Although here’s the thing. The modelling from last week assumed no decline in severity. And assumed significant transmission. So at the very least this should reduce the estimates in the model downwards. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest transmissibility is greater than they thought. They can’t constantly keep the call for restrictions going by focusing on the uncertainties in the modelling. Especially when it is uncertainty that has delayed action (or been used as the excuse to delay action) thus far.
President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had no room to retreat in a standoff with the United States over Ukraine and would be forced into a tough response unless the West dropped its ‘aggressive line’ https://reut.rs/3Ewglnz
If you don't stop telling me to do the thing I'm planning on doing, I'll be forced to do it anyway.
If you don't stop telling me to be a twat, I'll be forced to be a bigger twat.
He's totally lost the plot, hasn't he? I wonder if he's scared of disorder at home over his calamitously inept Covid response. But if he is, it's a bit stupid to send his entire army to try and control Ukraine.
It’s hard to know exactly how worried we should be about Putin. Does seem increasingly hellbent on achieving some kind of legacy, righting-in his view- the wrongs of the Versailles like fall of the USSR.
"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
It’s too late to improve this Christmas etc from anti-vaxxers but I would be very happy for the govt to announce that by the end of September 2022 everyone needs to be vaxxed to the required level (assuming fourth booster) unless they have an official letter signed by a doctor to confirm why they cannot be vaxxed.*
Anyone who is not vaxxed without permission from doctor will from the end of September not be admitted to pubs/clubs/sports stadiums etc.
Also they should set up a hospital - one hospital - solely for unvaxxed idiots so if they get hospitalised with any future wave they are all together and if it’s inconvenient area then tough shit.
September gives enough time for it to be done and people to consider whether they want to be restricted or jabbed next winter.
* the doctor has an opportunity to try and persuade people to have the vax in this appointment before signing off the letter and the letters will be logged so patterns can be seen if certain doctors are dishing out exemptions or there are still specific areas of country where it’s a problem.
It all goes against a lot of my more libertarian views but I’m fucked if the country should risk this again next year and so until we can ensure as few people as possible will be hospitalised from covid in future then there is always the risk of lockdowns and therefore we need to absolutely hammer anti-vaxxers.
I would exempt people with documented infection and recovery, as I would in the NHS and Care Homes.
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
Yeah, the mildness is positive. But the negative is a simple equation: does the increased infectivity of the bu**er offset the milder disease?
That's the central question IMO - and we don't know yet.
(There are other questions, such as whether Omicron causes long Covid, or whether it has other effects. But these are long-term unknowns and can't really influence policy making as much as the immediate potential hospitalisation crisis.)
That's a very fair question:
3x as many infections * 50% fewer hospitalisations per case...
Still equals a 50% rise in hospitalisations.
And we don't know anything for sure yet.
But we do know South Africa (and Guateng province) have survived Omicron without restrictions. And we do know that hospitalisations aren't much lagged.
So, given that Omicron is a massive share of cases, if we don't see hospitalisations ("for", not "with") soaring in the next day or so, we can probably start to breath a sigh of relief. In London, for example, we're probably not much more than a week or ten days away from Omicron peaking.
I think that's right. As always though, I do share a note of caution about comparing countries. Even ignoring the immunodeficiency / demographic differences between SA and UK, there have been plenty of similar countries with similar approaches to Covid that have had wildly different experiences - and it's not all down to how deaths are logged.
I'm hopeful though. Wouldn't it be a nice Christmas present to wake up on Christmas morning (at my parents - yay!) and find new data that Omicron is actually. in general, a positive development?
"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
Don’t worry, omicron will deal with the anti-vaxxers in short order.
I hope not. Schadenfreude (or something related) it might be, but for all our futures we need omicron to prove to be fairly harmless.
You misinterpreted what I meant. Yes, some will die, more will get seriously ill, but more importantly, most will get some immunity to future strains. In six weeks from now, there won’t be anyone who has had no exposure to COVID-19.
It's becoming noteworthy among what might be described as my extended family that some people are exposed to the virus, but don't seem to develop any symptoms. However sometimes, at a later, unrelated, date, they do.
Yes, I never caught it when Mrs Foxy did, and am increasingly seeing people who are on their second bout. I am not that convinced that Omicron will act like an infectious vaccine. Immunity between strains does seem limited.
It doesn’t need to provide sterilising immunity. Only to build up sufficient stocks of T-Cells in everyone so that any future variant exhibits an even milder effect at a population level.
Yes, immunity is rarely total, people just fight it off better. Second cases don't necessarily seem lighter than the first one though.
There does seem to be quite poor data on the number reinfected.
Other than in the immunocompromised, how many confirmed second cases have needed hospital though?
UK government has purchased 1.75 million additional courses of Merck's Molnupiravir (Lagevrio) pill and 2.5 million additional courses of PF-07321332/ritonavir (Paxlovid) from Pfizer.
Lagevrio has been approved by MHRA, Paxlovid still awaiting approval
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
I don’t believe that Sainsbury’s and Asda are considered to be more leak proof than the government. You tell them to prepare, to prepare they have to tell everyone in their supply chain, which is a hell of a lot of people, so you may as well announce it. These “hospitals/supermarkets/civil servants have been told…” stories just don’t make sense. Yeah, I think new restrictions next week are likely, but the idea that they’ve been trailed to an enormous part of the retail sector before everyone else, all of whom keep quiet about it, beggars belief.
Makes sense. Broadly known what restrictions will be in place, if and when they go ahead. Supermarkets get the heads up because they are effectively an essential service.
"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
It’s too late to improve this Christmas etc from anti-vaxxers but I would be very happy for the govt to announce that by the end of September 2022 everyone needs to be vaxxed to the required level (assuming fourth booster) unless they have an official letter signed by a doctor to confirm why they cannot be vaxxed.*
Anyone who is not vaxxed without permission from doctor will from the end of September not be admitted to pubs/clubs/sports stadiums etc.
Also they should set up a hospital - one hospital - solely for unvaxxed idiots so if they get hospitalised with any future wave they are all together and if it’s inconvenient area then tough shit.
September gives enough time for it to be done and people to consider whether they want to be restricted or jabbed next winter.
* the doctor has an opportunity to try and persuade people to have the vax in this appointment before signing off the letter and the letters will be logged so patterns can be seen if certain doctors are dishing out exemptions or there are still specific areas of country where it’s a problem.
It all goes against a lot of my more libertarian views but I’m fucked if the country should risk this again next year and so until we can ensure as few people as possible will be hospitalised from covid in future then there is always the risk of lockdowns and therefore we need to absolutely hammer anti-vaxxers.
I would exempt people with documented infection and recovery, as I would in the NHS and Care Homes.
Nope. AIUI there are too many cases of people getting reinfected and still ending up in hospital. Whilst reinfection is rare (it looks as though Omicron might change this), the risk of hospitalisation *increases* about reinfection.
Fuck 'em.
It also sends a message that, next time there is a crisis, don't be such big blithering idiots.
President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had no room to retreat in a standoff with the United States over Ukraine and would be forced into a tough response unless the West dropped its ‘aggressive line’ https://reut.rs/3Ewglnz
If you don't stop telling me to do the thing I'm planning on doing, I'll be forced to do it anyway.
If you don't stop telling me to be a twat, I'll be forced to be a bigger twat.
He's totally lost the plot, hasn't he? I wonder if he's scared of disorder at home over his calamitously inept Covid response. But if he is, it's a bit stupid to send his entire army to try and control Ukraine.
It’s hard to know exactly how worried we should be about Putin. Does seem increasingly hellbent on achieving some kind of legacy, righting-in his view- the wrongs of the Versailles like fall of the USSR.
I'm more worried by all the signs that we're moving into the endgame of his premiership. His flailing over the last three years suggests a man increasingly fearful of losing power, but the incompetence with which he's been doing it further suggests that there's a reason why he's about to lose it.
If he is removed in a messy and disorderly fashion, it could destabilise huge areas of the globe. The former USSR. Iran. Venezuela. The areas where he's been meddling (usually badly) and which, bereft of his support, could suddenly implode if Russia were distracted by its own internal issues. Of course this might be beneficial in the long term (would anyone mourn if the ayatollahs of Iran or that bastard Lukashenko were all shot?) but in the short term it would raise awkward questions about security, stability and humanitarian assistance to the populations.
But it's hard to see how power can be transferred in any way other than a disorderly fashion given there's no mechanism to do so bar elections, which he always rigs.
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
So the first few headlines of the story are good. A less severe version of Covid says the UK data that various posters have been attacking on here endlessly. Then you keep reading - not mild enough to avoid large numbers in hospital and the ones who get there just as likely to die as before. So if infection rates grow exponentially there's our risk to the system.
Although here’s the thing. The modelling from last week assumed no decline in severity. And assumed significant transmission. So at the very least this should reduce the estimates in the model downwards. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest transmissibility is greater than they thought. They can’t constantly keep the call for restrictions going by focusing on the uncertainties in the modelling. Especially when it is uncertainty that has delayed action (or been used as the excuse to delay action) thus far.
Well the worst case scenario model assumed that - what about the other models? I have to build loads of models with various variables - usually with a nice summary / inputs tab where variances to the different inputs can be made. Want to take this down by 12.5% and that one by 7.8%? Click click, done, here's the revised data.
It is unlikely in the extreme that the medical scientists are modelling the worst case scenario only because they are hell bent on locking us down and crippling their own health system.
So yes, they can call for restrictions when they have got sufficient data to be able to see what this thing is actually doing vs forecast and adjust the forward view accordingly if that still points to an explosion in hospitalisation and deaths.
It might not do that - and lets hope to God it doesn't. But if the position of you and certain others is "the data is a conspiracy, no lockdown" then what do you care what the data says?
"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
Don’t worry, omicron will deal with the anti-vaxxers in short order.
I hope not. Schadenfreude (or something related) it might be, but for all our futures we need omicron to prove to be fairly harmless.
You misinterpreted what I meant. Yes, some will die, more will get seriously ill, but more importantly, most will get some immunity to future strains. In six weeks from now, there won’t be anyone who has had no exposure to COVID-19.
It's becoming noteworthy among what might be described as my extended family that some people are exposed to the virus, but don't seem to develop any symptoms. However sometimes, at a later, unrelated, date, they do.
Yes, I never caught it when Mrs Foxy did, and am increasingly seeing people who are on their second bout. I am not that convinced that Omicron will act like an infectious vaccine. Immunity between strains does seem limited.
It doesn’t need to provide sterilising immunity. Only to build up sufficient stocks of T-Cells in everyone so that any future variant exhibits an even milder effect at a population level.
Precisely.
Vaccines + Natural Immunity won't be a 100% guarantee that there's no future reinfection, but what it does seem to offer is an extremely high immunity against serious illness. Which should be all that matters ultimately, as the virus goes endemic and we learn to live with it.
What irritates me is the way the term Natural Immunity is abused by antivaxxers. No vaccines don't harm your "natural immunity", you don't have any "natural immunity" pre-infection. Natural immunity is something you gain from recovering from the virus in the past and you're more likely to recover from the virus if you've been vaccinated. Hence vaccines + natural immunity are the way out, not either/or.
I appreciate I may have accidentally picked this up via anti-vaxx somewhere, but is that completely undisputed (by experts)? The main reason for getting vaccinated is, and remains, the enormous risks you are running by exposing yourself unprotected to the virus, and potentially never testing out the long term. But the question of whether a vaccinated person is in a better place than a previously infected person - is the evidence for that conclusive?
It is an additional question (which you seem to be encouraging) about whether a vaccinated person at the height of their protection should be actively seeking out contracting the virus...
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
So the first few headlines of the story are good. A less severe version of Covid says the UK data that various posters have been attacking on here endlessly. Then you keep reading - not mild enough to avoid large numbers in hospital and the ones who get there just as likely to die as before. So if infection rates grow exponentially there's our risk to the system.
Although here’s the thing. The modelling from last week assumed no decline in severity. And assumed significant transmission. So at the very least this should reduce the estimates in the model downwards. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest transmissibility is greater than they thought. They can’t constantly keep the call for restrictions going by focusing on the uncertainties in the modelling. Especially when it is uncertainty that has delayed action (or been used as the excuse to delay action) thus far.
Well the worst case scenario model assumed that - what about the other models? I have to build loads of models with various variables - usually with a nice summary / inputs tab where variances to the different inputs can be made. Want to take this down by 12.5% and that one by 7.8%? Click click, done, here's the revised data.
It is unlikely in the extreme that the medical scientists are modelling the worst case scenario only because they are hell bent on locking us down and crippling their own health system.
So yes, they can call for restrictions when they have got sufficient data to be able to see what this thing is actually doing vs forecast and adjust the forward view accordingly if that still points to an explosion in hospitalisation and deaths.
It might not do that - and lets hope to God it doesn't. But if the position of you and certain others is "the data is a conspiracy, no lockdown" then what do you care what the data says?
Alastair Grant @AlastairGrant4 #Omicron makes up 72% of cases in England for 19th December The peak total number is still for specimens from 15th December, with both Omicron and Delta now declining Omicron down from about 55k on 15th to 42k on 18th Delta from 43k on 13th to 19.4k on 18th
Folk have voluntarily cut back on contacts from around those dates. In order to "save" their Christmas.. Plus, anecdotally, folk aren't testing or reporting results. They are determined to go ahead with a "normal' Christmas. Which means huge mixing across geographical and age ranges. And they'll be perfectly willing to be off sick come the New Year, when they anticipate a lockdown anyways. That's my cynical take on all of it.
We can test your theory out by looking at Christmas last year.
Oh look on the 20thish of December there was a weird dip and flattening out in the in the positive case stats that ended immediately after Christmas.
"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
It’s too late to improve this Christmas etc from anti-vaxxers but I would be very happy for the govt to announce that by the end of September 2022 everyone needs to be vaxxed to the required level (assuming fourth booster) unless they have an official letter signed by a doctor to confirm why they cannot be vaxxed.*
Anyone who is not vaxxed without permission from doctor will from the end of September not be admitted to pubs/clubs/sports stadiums etc.
Also they should set up a hospital - one hospital - solely for unvaxxed idiots so if they get hospitalised with any future wave they are all together and if it’s inconvenient area then tough shit.
September gives enough time for it to be done and people to consider whether they want to be restricted or jabbed next winter.
* the doctor has an opportunity to try and persuade people to have the vax in this appointment before signing off the letter and the letters will be logged so patterns can be seen if certain doctors are dishing out exemptions or there are still specific areas of country where it’s a problem.
It all goes against a lot of my more libertarian views but I’m fucked if the country should risk this again next year and so until we can ensure as few people as possible will be hospitalised from covid in future then there is always the risk of lockdowns and therefore we need to absolutely hammer anti-vaxxers.
I would exempt people with documented infection and recovery, as I would in the NHS and Care Homes.
Nope. AIUI there are too many cases of people getting reinfected and still ending up in hospital. Whilst reinfection is rare (it looks as though Omicron might change this), the risk of hospitalisation *increases* about reinfection.
Fuck 'em.
It also sends a message that, next time there is a crisis, don't be such big blithering idiots.
Nailed this dichotomy weeks ago 😌
Now significant new restrictions are threatened, compulsory vaccines are on the agenda.
"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
It’s too late to improve this Christmas etc from anti-vaxxers but I would be very happy for the govt to announce that by the end of September 2022 everyone needs to be vaxxed to the required level (assuming fourth booster) unless they have an official letter signed by a doctor to confirm why they cannot be vaxxed.*
Anyone who is not vaxxed without permission from doctor will from the end of September not be admitted to pubs/clubs/sports stadiums etc.
Also they should set up a hospital - one hospital - solely for unvaxxed idiots so if they get hospitalised with any future wave they are all together and if it’s inconvenient area then tough shit.
September gives enough time for it to be done and people to consider whether they want to be restricted or jabbed next winter.
* the doctor has an opportunity to try and persuade people to have the vax in this appointment before signing off the letter and the letters will be logged so patterns can be seen if certain doctors are dishing out exemptions or there are still specific areas of country where it’s a problem.
It all goes against a lot of my more libertarian views but I’m fucked if the country should risk this again next year and so until we can ensure as few people as possible will be hospitalised from covid in future then there is always the risk of lockdowns and therefore we need to absolutely hammer anti-vaxxers.
I would exempt people with documented infection and recovery, as I would in the NHS and Care Homes.
That’s the Joe Rogan argument - I had Covid, so now I dont need to get vaccinated - usually accompanied by the idea that people who have already had Covid can have bad reactions to the vaccines.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
I don’t believe that Sainsbury’s and Asda are considered to be more leak proof than the government. You tell them to prepare, to prepare they have to tell everyone in their supply chain, which is a hell of a lot of people, so you may as well announce it. These “hospitals/supermarkets/civil servants have been told…” stories just don’t make sense. Yeah, I think new restrictions next week are likely, but the idea that they’ve been trailed to an enormous part of the retail sector before everyone else, all of whom keep quiet about it, beggars belief.
Makes sense. Broadly known what restrictions will be in place, if and when they go ahead. Supermarkets get the heads up because they are effectively an essential service.
Yes - what would change under "lockdown lite" is how people shop for food - an uplift in home deliveries. The industry is better set up for doing more (having had to invest in more capacity last year) but it will still need to plan the staff requirements and provision for all the money they lose on home delivery.
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
Yeah, the mildness is positive. But the negative is a simple equation: does the increased infectivity of the bu**er offset the milder disease?
That's the central question IMO - and we don't know yet.
(There are other questions, such as whether Omicron causes long Covid, or whether it has other effects. But these are long-term unknowns and can't really influence policy making as much as the immediate potential hospitalisation crisis.)
That's a very fair question:
3x as many infections * 50% fewer hospitalisations per case...
Still equals a 50% rise in hospitalisations.
And we don't know anything for sure yet.
But we do know South Africa (and Guateng province) have survived Omicron without restrictions. And we do know that hospitalisations aren't much lagged.
So, given that Omicron is a massive share of cases, if we don't see hospitalisations ("for", not "with") soaring in the next day or so, we can probably start to breath a sigh of relief. In London, for example, we're probably not much more than a week or ten days away from Omicron peaking.
I think that's right. As always though, I do share a note of caution about comparing countries. Even ignoring the immunodeficiency / demographic differences between SA and UK, there have been plenty of similar countries with similar approaches to Covid that have had wildly different experiences - and it's not all down to how deaths are logged.
I'm hopeful though. Wouldn't it be a nice Christmas present to wake up on Christmas morning (at my parents - yay!) and find new data that Omicron is actually. in general, a positive development?
The numbers in hospital have doubled in London this month. What I don't know, given that Delta was still dominant and growing in London at the start of this month, is how much that hospital wave remains due to lagged Delta and how much Omicron has added.
And if Omicron tanks quickly, will we still have an underlying Delta wave and an incomplete switchover. That's not a massive worry as such, since Delta is a pretty well known quantity.
"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
Don’t worry, omicron will deal with the anti-vaxxers in short order.
I hope not. Schadenfreude (or something related) it might be, but for all our futures we need omicron to prove to be fairly harmless.
You misinterpreted what I meant. Yes, some will die, more will get seriously ill, but more importantly, most will get some immunity to future strains. In six weeks from now, there won’t be anyone who has had no exposure to COVID-19.
It's becoming noteworthy among what might be described as my extended family that some people are exposed to the virus, but don't seem to develop any symptoms. However sometimes, at a later, unrelated, date, they do.
Yes, I never caught it when Mrs Foxy did, and am increasingly seeing people who are on their second bout. I am not that convinced that Omicron will act like an infectious vaccine. Immunity between strains does seem limited.
It doesn’t need to provide sterilising immunity. Only to build up sufficient stocks of T-Cells in everyone so that any future variant exhibits an even milder effect at a population level.
Precisely.
Vaccines + Natural Immunity won't be a 100% guarantee that there's no future reinfection, but what it does seem to offer is an extremely high immunity against serious illness. Which should be all that matters ultimately, as the virus goes endemic and we learn to live with it.
What irritates me is the way the term Natural Immunity is abused by antivaxxers. No vaccines don't harm your "natural immunity", you don't have any "natural immunity" pre-infection. Natural immunity is something you gain from recovering from the virus in the past and you're more likely to recover from the virus if you've been vaccinated. Hence vaccines + natural immunity are the way out, not either/or.
I appreciate I may have accidentally picked this up via anti-vaxx somewhere, but is that completely undisputed (by experts)? The main reason for getting vaccinated is, and remains, the enormous risks you are running by exposing yourself unprotected to the virus, and potentially never testing out the long term. But the question of whether a vaccinated person is in a better place than a previously infected person - is the evidence for that conclusive?
It is an additional question (which you seem to be encouraging) about whether a vaccinated person at the height of their protection should be actively seeking out contracting the virus...
Others have the data better but yes the evidence is that vaccinated plus previously infected is best level of protection I believe.
The protection from vaccines and the protection from prior infection ('natural immunity') are I do believe relatively additive. A triple-vaccinated plus previously infected individual is going to be extremely protected. A previously infected but unvaccinated, or someone jabbed only once but never infected or receiving more doses will better off than those whose immune system is entirely naïve, but not as protected as others.
I never said anyone should actively seek out the virus, just that we shouldn't actively seek to stop it. Get our jabs, but then let nature take its course. But there does seem to be evidence that you'll get through Covid easier if you get infected a couple of weeks after your most recent jab, rather than many months after it.
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
So the first few headlines of the story are good. A less severe version of Covid says the UK data that various posters have been attacking on here endlessly. Then you keep reading - not mild enough to avoid large numbers in hospital and the ones who get there just as likely to die as before. So if infection rates grow exponentially there's our risk to the system.
Although here’s the thing. The modelling from last week assumed no decline in severity. And assumed significant transmission. So at the very least this should reduce the estimates in the model downwards. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest transmissibility is greater than they thought. They can’t constantly keep the call for restrictions going by focusing on the uncertainties in the modelling. Especially when it is uncertainty that has delayed action (or been used as the excuse to delay action) thus far.
Well the worst case scenario model assumed that - what about the other models? I have to build loads of models with various variables - usually with a nice summary / inputs tab where variances to the different inputs can be made. Want to take this down by 12.5% and that one by 7.8%? Click click, done, here's the revised data.
It is unlikely in the extreme that the medical scientists are modelling the worst case scenario only because they are hell bent on locking us down and crippling their own health system.
So yes, they can call for restrictions when they have got sufficient data to be able to see what this thing is actually doing vs forecast and adjust the forward view accordingly if that still points to an explosion in hospitalisation and deaths.
It might not do that - and lets hope to God it doesn't. But if the position of you and certain others is "the data is a conspiracy, no lockdown" then what do you care what the data says?
Indeed. And they make the key point - two jabs is not sufficient protection against "both symptomatic infection and ending up in hospital". They aren't rushing boosters out for everyone for kicks - they're doing it because Omicron isn't that interested if you've had Delta etc or been jabbed. It can get you anyway.
Once we get into January and the booster programme has got the majority, the way out that some were bemoaning would never be seen would be self-evident. Three jabs gives you an equivalent protection against Omicron as two did against Delta.
How we mop up the great unwashed and unvaxxed is tricky. I do not want a "your papers please" society, but something has to be done. How about an incentive - a cash payment to everyone who has been triple jabbed. Scummers can't fake that as its based on your NHS records, and they're likely the kind of people who would be very aggrieved not to get money they are "entitled" to.
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
So the first few headlines of the story are good. A less severe version of Covid says the UK data that various posters have been attacking on here endlessly. Then you keep reading - not mild enough to avoid large numbers in hospital and the ones who get there just as likely to die as before. So if infection rates grow exponentially there's our risk to the system.
Although here’s the thing. The modelling from last week assumed no decline in severity. And assumed significant transmission. So at the very least this should reduce the estimates in the model downwards. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest transmissibility is greater than they thought. They can’t constantly keep the call for restrictions going by focusing on the uncertainties in the modelling. Especially when it is uncertainty that has delayed action (or been used as the excuse to delay action) thus far.
Well the worst case scenario model assumed that - what about the other models? I have to build loads of models with various variables - usually with a nice summary / inputs tab where variances to the different inputs can be made. Want to take this down by 12.5% and that one by 7.8%? Click click, done, here's the revised data.
It is unlikely in the extreme that the medical scientists are modelling the worst case scenario only because they are hell bent on locking us down and crippling their own health system.
So yes, they can call for restrictions when they have got sufficient data to be able to see what this thing is actually doing vs forecast and adjust the forward view accordingly if that still points to an explosion in hospitalisation and deaths.
It might not do that - and lets hope to God it doesn't. But if the position of you and certain others is "the data is a conspiracy, no lockdown" then what do you care what the data says?
Indeed. And they make the key point - two jabs is not sufficient protection against "both symptomatic infection and ending up in hospital". They aren't rushing boosters out for everyone for kicks - they're doing it because Omicron isn't that interested if you've had Delta etc or been jabbed. It can get you anyway.
Once we get into January and the booster programme has got the majority, the way out that some were bemoaning would never be seen would be self-evident. Three jabs gives you an equivalent protection against Omicron as two did against Delta.
How we mop up the great unwashed and unvaxxed is tricky. I do not want a "your papers please" society, but something has to be done. How about an incentive - a cash payment to everyone who has been triple jabbed. Scummers can't fake that as its based on your NHS records, and they're likely the kind of people who would be very aggrieved not to get money they are "entitled" to.
Sounds like you’re itching to start a new culture war so you can feel superior astride your moral high horse.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
Can't see the 28th as realistic. Parliament will need to be recalled, won't it, before any further restrictions are imposed. That surely would not happen until 29th at the earliest. Looks like new year is when something would kick in - if it does at all.
The Govt have acted to “save Christmas”. Even though everyone knows that if restrictions are justified it should have been cancelled. There’s absolutely zero way that they can let New Year’s Eve survive as well, and STILL introduce restrictions afterwards. Even if it is difficult they will find a way. But there is an enormous chance it will cost Johnson his job.
I don’t think it’s an enormous chance, it’s a stone certainty.
But then, he should have resigned last Friday anyway. He’s been a dead man walking since that result was announced, as the cabinet demonstrated on Monday.
Johnson resigning in January, even before any confidence vote, can't entirely be ruled out IMO.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
Can't see the 28th as realistic. Parliament will need to be recalled, won't it, before any further restrictions are imposed. That surely would not happen until 29th at the earliest. Looks like new year is when something would kick in - if it does at all.
The Govt have acted to “save Christmas”. Even though everyone knows that if restrictions are justified it should have been cancelled. There’s absolutely zero way that they can let New Year’s Eve survive as well, and STILL introduce restrictions afterwards. Even if it is difficult they will find a way. But there is an enormous chance it will cost Johnson his job.
I don’t think it’s an enormous chance, it’s a stone certainty.
But then, he should have resigned last Friday anyway. He’s been a dead man walking since that result was announced, as the cabinet demonstrated on Monday.
Johnson resigning in January, even before any confidence vote, can't entirely be ruled out IMO.
If, as I suspect, England is one of very few places in Western Europe not under severe restrictions in January, he’ll probably be able to sweat it out until the May elections.
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
So the first few headlines of the story are good. A less severe version of Covid says the UK data that various posters have been attacking on here endlessly. Then you keep reading - not mild enough to avoid large numbers in hospital and the ones who get there just as likely to die as before. So if infection rates grow exponentially there's our risk to the system.
Although here’s the thing. The modelling from last week assumed no decline in severity. And assumed significant transmission. So at the very least this should reduce the estimates in the model downwards. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest transmissibility is greater than they thought. They can’t constantly keep the call for restrictions going by focusing on the uncertainties in the modelling. Especially when it is uncertainty that has delayed action (or been used as the excuse to delay action) thus far.
Well the worst case scenario model assumed that - what about the other models? I have to build loads of models with various variables - usually with a nice summary / inputs tab where variances to the different inputs can be made. Want to take this down by 12.5% and that one by 7.8%? Click click, done, here's the revised data.
It is unlikely in the extreme that the medical scientists are modelling the worst case scenario only because they are hell bent on locking us down and crippling their own health system.
So yes, they can call for restrictions when they have got sufficient data to be able to see what this thing is actually doing vs forecast and adjust the forward view accordingly if that still points to an explosion in hospitalisation and deaths.
It might not do that - and lets hope to God it doesn't. But if the position of you and certain others is "the data is a conspiracy, no lockdown" then what do you care what the data says?
The reporting of the data is close to a conspiracy because any data that doesn't say restrictions are needed isn't getting passed from the scientists to the politicians as it's "not informative". I'll be generous and put that down to incompetence over conspiracy: Data that says lockdowns are a bad idea absolutely are informative.
But even if the data says the NHS is to be overwhelmed I'd still oppose restrictions now. Then the Government needs to be investing in surge protocols, increasing capacity, and the NHS can use triage etc.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
So the first few headlines of the story are good. A less severe version of Covid says the UK data that various posters have been attacking on here endlessly. Then you keep reading - not mild enough to avoid large numbers in hospital and the ones who get there just as likely to die as before. So if infection rates grow exponentially there's our risk to the system.
Although here’s the thing. The modelling from last week assumed no decline in severity. And assumed significant transmission. So at the very least this should reduce the estimates in the model downwards. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest transmissibility is greater than they thought. They can’t constantly keep the call for restrictions going by focusing on the uncertainties in the modelling. Especially when it is uncertainty that has delayed action (or been used as the excuse to delay action) thus far.
Well the worst case scenario model assumed that - what about the other models? I have to build loads of models with various variables - usually with a nice summary / inputs tab where variances to the different inputs can be made. Want to take this down by 12.5% and that one by 7.8%? Click click, done, here's the revised data.
It is unlikely in the extreme that the medical scientists are modelling the worst case scenario only because they are hell bent on locking us down and crippling their own health system.
So yes, they can call for restrictions when they have got sufficient data to be able to see what this thing is actually doing vs forecast and adjust the forward view accordingly if that still points to an explosion in hospitalisation and deaths.
It might not do that - and lets hope to God it doesn't. But if the position of you and certain others is "the data is a conspiracy, no lockdown" then what do you care what the data says?
Indeed. And they make the key point - two jabs is not sufficient protection against "both symptomatic infection and ending up in hospital". They aren't rushing boosters out for everyone for kicks - they're doing it because Omicron isn't that interested if you've had Delta etc or been jabbed. It can get you anyway.
Once we get into January and the booster programme has got the majority, the way out that some were bemoaning would never be seen would be self-evident. Three jabs gives you an equivalent protection against Omicron as two did against Delta.
How we mop up the great unwashed and unvaxxed is tricky. I do not want a "your papers please" society, but something has to be done. How about an incentive - a cash payment to everyone who has been triple jabbed. Scummers can't fake that as its based on your NHS records, and they're likely the kind of people who would be very aggrieved not to get money they are "entitled" to.
Sounds like you’re itching to start a new culture war so you can feel superior astride your moral high horse.
I'm struggling and failing to understand how your comment relates to RP's.
A lovely sunrise into a blue sky this morning, still getting later until the end of the month but at least we already have three minutes more daylight in the evening.
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
So the first few headlines of the story are good. A less severe version of Covid says the UK data that various posters have been attacking on here endlessly. Then you keep reading - not mild enough to avoid large numbers in hospital and the ones who get there just as likely to die as before. So if infection rates grow exponentially there's our risk to the system.
Although here’s the thing. The modelling from last week assumed no decline in severity. And assumed significant transmission. So at the very least this should reduce the estimates in the model downwards. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest transmissibility is greater than they thought. They can’t constantly keep the call for restrictions going by focusing on the uncertainties in the modelling. Especially when it is uncertainty that has delayed action (or been used as the excuse to delay action) thus far.
Well the worst case scenario model assumed that - what about the other models? I have to build loads of models with various variables - usually with a nice summary / inputs tab where variances to the different inputs can be made. Want to take this down by 12.5% and that one by 7.8%? Click click, done, here's the revised data.
It is unlikely in the extreme that the medical scientists are modelling the worst case scenario only because they are hell bent on locking us down and crippling their own health system.
So yes, they can call for restrictions when they have got sufficient data to be able to see what this thing is actually doing vs forecast and adjust the forward view accordingly if that still points to an explosion in hospitalisation and deaths.
It might not do that - and lets hope to God it doesn't. But if the position of you and certain others is "the data is a conspiracy, no lockdown" then what do you care what the data says?
That’s not what I said, even if you think it is. But we know that they weren’t asked to model other scenarios because the modellers have told us so (albeit they stated what uncertainties were there and what firmer data was needed to change the outcomes) and it was the “worst case” scenarios that were presented as the basis for pre-emotive action. One can obviously have a view about how much certainty you require to take action, but everyone is free to take their own position on how much action should be taken on the basis of uncertainty, especially when it covers such a wide range.
An in the case of the models there were two layers of uncertainty - those in the inputs (which were effectively disregarded for the purpose of instructing the modellers), and the uncertainties actually within the models about how the fixed inputs provided would translate into outcomes (3000-10000 hospitalisation a day etc)
Your column has been a great source of spot-on political analysis for me and my A-Level Politics students out here in Abu Dhabi. We have been following the Owen drama closely and have been comparing the sliding polls for Boris and negative media coverage to that which Major and the Tories received in the early 1990s. Two months ago, my students felt that Boris was invincible and I said "not quite so fast" - especially when the media narrative turns against you as PM. They have truly been fascinated. Thank you.
Greetings, from an expat up the road in Dubai.
Am curious. When Brits move abroad for work they are expats. When foreigners move here for work they are economic migrants / a threat to our very existence. Why is that...?
Not a pop at either of you. Its prodding the language that has Brits abroad considered in a completely different way to every other nationality living here.
That's the Henning Wehn joke. If you move somewhere better, you're a refugee or economic migrant. If you move somewhere worse, you're an expat. If you move somewhere really worse, you're a relief worker.
A lovely sunrise into a blue sky this morning, still getting later until the end of the month but at least we already have three minutes more daylight in the evening.
Same here in Dorset. Unfortunately though: Red in the morning, shepherd's warning.
(To which Mrs' P and can never stop adding the old Not the Nine O'clock News gag: Red sky at night, Chernobyl's alight. That one may be of its time tbf.)
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
So the first few headlines of the story are good. A less severe version of Covid says the UK data that various posters have been attacking on here endlessly. Then you keep reading - not mild enough to avoid large numbers in hospital and the ones who get there just as likely to die as before. So if infection rates grow exponentially there's our risk to the system.
Although here’s the thing. The modelling from last week assumed no decline in severity. And assumed significant transmission. So at the very least this should reduce the estimates in the model downwards. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest transmissibility is greater than they thought. They can’t constantly keep the call for restrictions going by focusing on the uncertainties in the modelling. Especially when it is uncertainty that has delayed action (or been used as the excuse to delay action) thus far.
Well the worst case scenario model assumed that - what about the other models? I have to build loads of models with various variables - usually with a nice summary / inputs tab where variances to the different inputs can be made. Want to take this down by 12.5% and that one by 7.8%? Click click, done, here's the revised data.
It is unlikely in the extreme that the medical scientists are modelling the worst case scenario only because they are hell bent on locking us down and crippling their own health system.
So yes, they can call for restrictions when they have got sufficient data to be able to see what this thing is actually doing vs forecast and adjust the forward view accordingly if that still points to an explosion in hospitalisation and deaths.
It might not do that - and lets hope to God it doesn't. But if the position of you and certain others is "the data is a conspiracy, no lockdown" then what do you care what the data says?
Indeed. And they make the key point - two jabs is not sufficient protection against "both symptomatic infection and ending up in hospital". They aren't rushing boosters out for everyone for kicks - they're doing it because Omicron isn't that interested if you've had Delta etc or been jabbed. It can get you anyway.
Once we get into January and the booster programme has got the majority, the way out that some were bemoaning would never be seen would be self-evident. Three jabs gives you an equivalent protection against Omicron as two did against Delta.
How we mop up the great unwashed and unvaxxed is tricky. I do not want a "your papers please" society, but something has to be done. How about an incentive - a cash payment to everyone who has been triple jabbed. Scummers can't fake that as its based on your NHS records, and they're likely the kind of people who would be very aggrieved not to get money they are "entitled" to.
Sounds like you’re itching to start a new culture war so you can feel superior astride your moral high horse.
I'm struggling and failing to understand how your comment relates to RP's.
Did you reply to the wrong post?
Scummers. Unwashed. The battle against Brextards is over, the culture war against the unwashed scummy unboosted is about to begin.
"Cakeism is not a formula that works in government because, in reality, the cake has to be rationed and people notice. They notice, too, when the prime minister and his friends help themselves to the fattest slice, while urging the public to abstain out of civic duty. They see how the man who treats everything as a joke is also laughing at the people who elected him. That is when the light changes, the smile darkens into a sneer, the populist loses his people, the polarities of his magnetism are flipped, and the force that was once attraction turns repulsive."
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Isn't Russia's economy somewhat bigger in Purchasing Parity terms?
The only slim chance the government have of regaining any credibility is to have no further lockdowns, and to gain credit for that as a vaccine success. Even then, they're on thin ice.
It was good to see last night in America Joe Biden tackled Omicron in a very Presidential way: recommending booster jabs and the unvaccinated to get jabbed; activating FEMA to boost supply for hospitals, ambulances and vaccination centres; and telling people to be calm and that this is not March of last year. Not a hint of talking about restrictions or lockdowns or any other madness.
The scientists, Civil Service, media and politicians here have become addicted to restrictions, to demand-side measures to manage the NHS. That's not their job, or their right. Post-vaccinations the politicians, scientists etc need to firmly be told that their job is to manage the supply side of the NHS. If that means taxing [preferably antivaxxers] and spending then that's their responsibility, lockdowns and restrictions are not. They need to rule out completely further restrictions.
If Whitty and Vallance or Gove or anyone else can't get on board with that, then they should resign or be fired.
Why the name change PT?
Don't want to have my real life name used.
Wouldn't it be better to change your vanilla account name (it's a config option but admins could do it).
If you are going to use a new account - wait a few days and then edit the avatar of the old account to be something different - the avatar gave away who you were.
President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had no room to retreat in a standoff with the United States over Ukraine and would be forced into a tough response unless the West dropped its ‘aggressive line’ https://reut.rs/3Ewglnz
What's he on about ? We're just asking that he doesn't advance.
He's conflating Russia with his own interest. Putin has no room to retreat. Causing problems for the West to show Russia is relevant has been Putin's SOP for most of his presidency. This is particularly high stakes for him though. He needs a "win" of some kind.
Russia has a lot of leverage right now over Europe through its supply of gas, but that hold will weaken in the medium term as LNG infrastructure gets built up and the continent moves to renewables. The timing of this threat is bad from Europe's point of view, which may be part of Putin's calculation.
"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
Don’t worry, omicron will deal with the anti-vaxxers in short order.
I hope not. Schadenfreude (or something related) it might be, but for all our futures we need omicron to prove to be fairly harmless.
You misinterpreted what I meant. Yes, some will die, more will get seriously ill, but more importantly, most will get some immunity to future strains. In six weeks from now, there won’t be anyone who has had no exposure to COVID-19.
It's becoming noteworthy among what might be described as my extended family that some people are exposed to the virus, but don't seem to develop any symptoms. However sometimes, at a later, unrelated, date, they do.
Yes, I never caught it when Mrs Foxy did, and am increasingly seeing people who are on their second bout. I am not that convinced that Omicron will act like an infectious vaccine. Immunity between strains does seem limited.
It doesn’t need to provide sterilising immunity. Only to build up sufficient stocks of T-Cells in everyone so that any future variant exhibits an even milder effect at a population level.
Precisely.
Vaccines + Natural Immunity won't be a 100% guarantee that there's no future reinfection, but what it does seem to offer is an extremely high immunity against serious illness. Which should be all that matters ultimately, as the virus goes endemic and we learn to live with it.
What irritates me is the way the term Natural Immunity is abused by antivaxxers. No vaccines don't harm your "natural immunity", you don't have any "natural immunity" pre-infection. Natural immunity is something you gain from recovering from the virus in the past and you're more likely to recover from the virus if you've been vaccinated. Hence vaccines + natural immunity are the way out, not either/or.
I appreciate I may have accidentally picked this up via anti-vaxx somewhere, but is that completely undisputed (by experts)? The main reason for getting vaccinated is, and remains, the enormous risks you are running by exposing yourself unprotected to the virus, and potentially never testing out the long term. But the question of whether a vaccinated person is in a better place than a previously infected person - is the evidence for that conclusive?
It is an additional question (which you seem to be encouraging) about whether a vaccinated person at the height of their protection should be actively seeking out contracting the virus...
Others have the data better but yes the evidence is that vaccinated plus previously infected is best level of protection I believe.
The protection from vaccines and the protection from prior infection ('natural immunity') are I do believe relatively additive. A triple-vaccinated plus previously infected individual is going to be extremely protected. A previously infected but unvaccinated, or someone jabbed only once but never infected or receiving more doses will better off than those whose immune system is entirely naïve, but not as protected as others.
I never said anyone should actively seek out the virus, just that we shouldn't actively seek to stop it. Get our jabs, but then let nature take its course. But there does seem to be evidence that you'll get through Covid easier if you get infected a couple of weeks after your most recent jab, rather than many months after it.
You are talking about specific Covid related evidence - which is obviously still in its infancy in relation to the longer term. I am making general reference to viruses in general. I fully accept the possibility (probability) that the argument that vaccination can undermine the potential to acquire "natural" immunity is absolute nonsense. Or maybe it's not, and as i say the main argument for getting vaccinated may just be the risks of that initial infection.
I mean let's face it - at the start of all this there seemed to be a consensus, or at least significant body of opinion, within the scientific community that if and when an effective vaccination was produced it might only be offered/given to those most at risk. Maybe that was all just to do with economics, but one feels there must have been scientific opinion behind it as well. Similar to the JCVI saying that arguments on vaccines for children were finely balanced. Why, if the long term benefits of vaccination vs infection were so clear cut?
"The chief operating officer at CUH, Dr Ewen Cameron said: "About 80 per cent of the people admitted to Addenbrooke’s with Covid, to intensive care units and general Covid wards, are unvaccinated." (*)
If the NHS fails due to Omicron, a vast proportion of that failure would be down to the selfish fools (Hi, Dura_Ace!) who choose not to get vaccinated when they can. If we go into a lockdown (**), it will be because of the pressure they are putting on the NHS. And you don't even have to get Covid to be affected by them: get ill for another reason, or have an accident, and you may not get the treatment you require. And is we are forced into a lockdown, we all suffer.
Their mindless, stupid selfishness will harm all of us. It's time they paid for their arrogance. Tax the fuc*ers. Treat them not with understanding for their scientific illiteracy and cr@p they spread: treat them with the contempt they deserve.
Don’t worry, omicron will deal with the anti-vaxxers in short order.
I hope not. Schadenfreude (or something related) it might be, but for all our futures we need omicron to prove to be fairly harmless.
You misinterpreted what I meant. Yes, some will die, more will get seriously ill, but more importantly, most will get some immunity to future strains. In six weeks from now, there won’t be anyone who has had no exposure to COVID-19.
It's becoming noteworthy among what might be described as my extended family that some people are exposed to the virus, but don't seem to develop any symptoms. However sometimes, at a later, unrelated, date, they do.
Probably when they fancy a week off work
Not very 'spirit of the season'! My family has a strong work ethic, and tends to keep going even when, perhaps, it shouldn't. As, so far as I know do most of those 'around the fringes.
President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had no room to retreat in a standoff with the United States over Ukraine and would be forced into a tough response unless the West dropped its ‘aggressive line’ https://reut.rs/3Ewglnz
If you don't stop telling me to do the thing I'm planning on doing, I'll be forced to do it anyway.
If you don't stop telling me to be a twat, I'll be forced to be a bigger twat.
He's totally lost the plot, hasn't he? I wonder if he's scared of disorder at home over his calamitously inept Covid response. But if he is, it's a bit stupid to send his entire army to try and control Ukraine.
It’s hard to know exactly how worried we should be about Putin. Does seem increasingly hellbent on achieving some kind of legacy, righting-in his view- the wrongs of the Versailles like fall of the USSR.
I'm more worried by all the signs that we're moving into the endgame of his premiership. His flailing over the last three years suggests a man increasingly fearful of losing power, but the incompetence with which he's been doing it further suggests that there's a reason why he's about to lose it.
If he is removed in a messy and disorderly fashion, it could destabilise huge areas of the globe. The former USSR. Iran. Venezuela. The areas where he's been meddling (usually badly) and which, bereft of his support, could suddenly implode if Russia were distracted by its own internal issues. Of course this might be beneficial in the long term (would anyone mourn if the ayatollahs of Iran or that bastard Lukashenko were all shot?) but in the short term it would raise awkward questions about security, stability and humanitarian assistance to the populations.
But it's hard to see how power can be transferred in any way other than a disorderly fashion given there's no mechanism to do so bar elections, which he always rigs.
The BBC did a piece recently about how it is being reported on the Russian media, and their folk are clearly being fed an entirely different story.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
I recommend "The future is history" by Masha Gessen.
President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had no room to retreat in a standoff with the United States over Ukraine and would be forced into a tough response unless the West dropped its ‘aggressive line’ https://reut.rs/3Ewglnz
If you don't stop telling me to do the thing I'm planning on doing, I'll be forced to do it anyway.
If you don't stop telling me to be a twat, I'll be forced to be a bigger twat.
He's totally lost the plot, hasn't he? I wonder if he's scared of disorder at home over his calamitously inept Covid response. But if he is, it's a bit stupid to send his entire army to try and control Ukraine.
It’s hard to know exactly how worried we should be about Putin. Does seem increasingly hellbent on achieving some kind of legacy, righting-in his view- the wrongs of the Versailles like fall of the USSR.
I'm more worried by all the signs that we're moving into the endgame of his premiership. His flailing over the last three years suggests a man increasingly fearful of losing power, but the incompetence with which he's been doing it further suggests that there's a reason why he's about to lose it.
If he is removed in a messy and disorderly fashion, it could destabilise huge areas of the globe. The former USSR. Iran. Venezuela. The areas where he's been meddling (usually badly) and which, bereft of his support, could suddenly implode if Russia were distracted by its own internal issues. Of course this might be beneficial in the long term (would anyone mourn if the ayatollahs of Iran or that bastard Lukashenko were all shot?) but in the short term it would raise awkward questions about security, stability and humanitarian assistance to the populations.
But it's hard to see how power can be transferred in any way other than a disorderly fashion given there's no mechanism to do so bar elections, which he always rigs.
The BBC did a piece recently about how it is being reported on the Russian media, and their folk are clearly being fed an entirely different story.
Really? I missed that. Do you have a link?
That in itself is worrying. The more divorced from reality the propaganda of a regime is, the greater the sign of panic.
There is a reason why we use the phrase 'the view from the bunker.'
Those with potential inside knowledge touting lockdown from the 28th: do you mean including the 28th or after the 28th. Asking for a friend.
On the day of the cabinet meeting there was a comprehensive illustrated guide doing the rounds on Twitter and elsewhere apparently from an impeccable source explaining how we were about to move to Plan C (IIRC).
My view as stated a few days ago is that restrictions are not possible following the Revolt of the 100.
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
So the first few headlines of the story are good. A less severe version of Covid says the UK data that various posters have been attacking on here endlessly. Then you keep reading - not mild enough to avoid large numbers in hospital and the ones who get there just as likely to die as before. So if infection rates grow exponentially there's our risk to the system.
Although here’s the thing. The modelling from last week assumed no decline in severity. And assumed significant transmission. So at the very least this should reduce the estimates in the model downwards. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest transmissibility is greater than they thought. They can’t constantly keep the call for restrictions going by focusing on the uncertainties in the modelling. Especially when it is uncertainty that has delayed action (or been used as the excuse to delay action) thus far.
Well the worst case scenario model assumed that - what about the other models? I have to build loads of models with various variables - usually with a nice summary / inputs tab where variances to the different inputs can be made. Want to take this down by 12.5% and that one by 7.8%? Click click, done, here's the revised data.
It is unlikely in the extreme that the medical scientists are modelling the worst case scenario only because they are hell bent on locking us down and crippling their own health system.
So yes, they can call for restrictions when they have got sufficient data to be able to see what this thing is actually doing vs forecast and adjust the forward view accordingly if that still points to an explosion in hospitalisation and deaths.
It might not do that - and lets hope to God it doesn't. But if the position of you and certain others is "the data is a conspiracy, no lockdown" then what do you care what the data says?
Indeed. And they make the key point - two jabs is not sufficient protection against "both symptomatic infection and ending up in hospital". They aren't rushing boosters out for everyone for kicks - they're doing it because Omicron isn't that interested if you've had Delta etc or been jabbed. It can get you anyway.
Once we get into January and the booster programme has got the majority, the way out that some were bemoaning would never be seen would be self-evident. Three jabs gives you an equivalent protection against Omicron as two did against Delta.
How we mop up the great unwashed and unvaxxed is tricky. I do not want a "your papers please" society, but something has to be done. How about an incentive - a cash payment to everyone who has been triple jabbed. Scummers can't fake that as its based on your NHS records, and they're likely the kind of people who would be very aggrieved not to get money they are "entitled" to.
Sounds like you’re itching to start a new culture war so you can feel superior astride your moral high horse.
I'm struggling and failing to understand how your comment relates to RP's.
Did you reply to the wrong post?
Scummers. Unwashed. The battle against Brextards is over, the culture war against the unwashed scummy unboosted is about to begin.
Pah! That's not 'culture war' - culture war is an invented term reserved for use by reactionaries railing against modern society. See also 'political correctness', 'wokeism', 'SJW' etc.
Makes no difference though. they are pissing into the wind. Change gonna keep on coming.
The only slim chance the government have of regaining any credibility is to have no further lockdowns, and to gain credit for that as a vaccine success. Even then, they're on thin ice.
It was good to see last night in America Joe Biden tackled Omicron in a very Presidential way: recommending booster jabs and the unvaccinated to get jabbed; activating FEMA to boost supply for hospitals, ambulances and vaccination centres; and telling people to be calm and that this is not March of last year. Not a hint of talking about restrictions or lockdowns or any other madness.
The scientists, Civil Service, media and politicians here have become addicted to restrictions, to demand-side measures to manage the NHS. That's not their job, or their right. Post-vaccinations the politicians, scientists etc need to firmly be told that their job is to manage the supply side of the NHS. If that means taxing [preferably antivaxxers] and spending then that's their responsibility, lockdowns and restrictions are not. They need to rule out completely further restrictions.
If Whitty and Vallance or Gove or anyone else can't get on board with that, then they should resign or be fired.
Why the name change PT?
Don't want to have my real life name used.
And there was me assuming that the likes of @YBarddCwsc, @Big_G_NorthWales and I had convinced you of the natural awesomeness of the Welsh and so you had decided to join us. Illusion shattered
Ah, well, welcome anyway Barti Du.
After the pirate, presumably - not an entirely happy name, and refreshing my memory from Wiki has his gang under his command thus, for instance:
"They captured several vessels in January 1722, then sailed into Ouidah (Whydah) harbour with black flags flying. The eleven ships at anchor there immediately struck their colours, but were restored to their owners after a ransom of eight pounds of gold dust per ship was paid.[34][35] When the master of one of the ships refused these terms, Roberts had his crew climb aboard the ship and set her on fire. The captured vessels were slave ships, and the one set on fire had around eighty enslaved Africans on board. They perished either as a result of the fire or by drowning or shark attack after jumping overboard.[35"]"
"Cakeism is not a formula that works in government because, in reality, the cake has to be rationed and people notice. They notice, too, when the prime minister and his friends help themselves to the fattest slice, while urging the public to abstain out of civic duty. They see how the man who treats everything as a joke is also laughing at the people who elected him. That is when the light changes, the smile darkens into a sneer, the populist loses his people, the polarities of his magnetism are flipped, and the force that was once attraction turns repulsive."
And this intro: Boris Johnson rose to the top by getting people to like him. His problems are the result of them subsequently getting to know him. There is no mask that has slipped, just a change in the light that gives a dark edge to the same features.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
They do it be screwing everything up. Take the military: they have a million active personnel, and two million in reserve. The US have 1.3 million active personnel, and ~800k reserves.
The US military has a budget of $778 billion, or 3.4% of GDP. The Russian military has a budget of just $61.7 billion, or 4.3% of GDP.
So in the military alone, Russia is trying to keep almost the same number of soldiers going (more, including reserves), for a tenth of the budget. Even if you do things more economically, that's a big ask. Then there are the cost of the weapons systems they have to create and maintain. That doesn't mean they don't have some brilliantly trained and effective units - they do. It's just that they've got an awful lot of dross that is of little immediate use.
It's the same throughout their economy. Their space program should be a jewel in their crown; instead Roscosmos is a basket-case that even official Russian newspapers have started criticising.
Russia is only a world power still because of the lingering legacy of its position in the Cold War. In most ways, it is an irrelevance to everyone bar its neighbours. And it is hating the loss if its power and influence.
Russia can be a great country - it has both the human and natural resources to be one. The fact it is not a great country is not down to its people, but down to its leadership.
Those with potential inside knowledge touting lockdown from the 28th: do you mean including the 28th or after the 28th. Asking for a friend.
On the day of the cabinet meeting there was a comprehensive illustrated guide doing the rounds on Twitter and elsewhere apparently from an impeccable source explaining how we were about to move to Plan C (IIRC).
My view as stated a few days ago is that restrictions are not possible following the Revolt of the 100.
Thanks.
(But 99 surely, not 100? 99 Rebel Loons, as somebody wonderfully paraphrased Nena.)
Those with potential inside knowledge touting lockdown from the 28th: do you mean including the 28th or after the 28th. Asking for a friend.
On the day of the cabinet meeting there was a comprehensive illustrated guide doing the rounds on Twitter and elsewhere apparently from an impeccable source explaining how we were about to move to Plan C (IIRC).
My view as stated a few days ago is that restrictions are not possible following the Revolt of the 100.
Thanks.
(But 99 surely, not 100? 99 Rebel Loons, as somebody wonderfully paraphrased Nena.)
Could have been. Less catchy film title for Netflix though.
President Vladimir Putin said that Russia had no room to retreat in a standoff with the United States over Ukraine and would be forced into a tough response unless the West dropped its ‘aggressive line’ https://reut.rs/3Ewglnz
If you don't stop telling me to do the thing I'm planning on doing, I'll be forced to do it anyway.
If you don't stop telling me to be a twat, I'll be forced to be a bigger twat.
He's totally lost the plot, hasn't he? I wonder if he's scared of disorder at home over his calamitously inept Covid response. But if he is, it's a bit stupid to send his entire army to try and control Ukraine.
It’s hard to know exactly how worried we should be about Putin. Does seem increasingly hellbent on achieving some kind of legacy, righting-in his view- the wrongs of the Versailles like fall of the USSR.
I'm more worried by all the signs that we're moving into the endgame of his premiership. His flailing over the last three years suggests a man increasingly fearful of losing power, but the incompetence with which he's been doing it further suggests that there's a reason why he's about to lose it.
If he is removed in a messy and disorderly fashion, it could destabilise huge areas of the globe. The former USSR. Iran. Venezuela. The areas where he's been meddling (usually badly) and which, bereft of his support, could suddenly implode if Russia were distracted by its own internal issues. Of course this might be beneficial in the long term (would anyone mourn if the ayatollahs of Iran or that bastard Lukashenko were all shot?) but in the short term it would raise awkward questions about security, stability and humanitarian assistance to the populations.
But it's hard to see how power can be transferred in any way other than a disorderly fashion given there's no mechanism to do so bar elections, which he always rigs.
The BBC did a piece recently about how it is being reported on the Russian media, and their folk are clearly being fed an entirely different story.
Really? I missed that. Do you have a link?
That in itself is worrying. The more divorced from reality the propaganda of a regime is, the greater the sign of panic.
There is a reason why we use the phrase 'the view from the bunker.'
It was on the radio, and I can't remember when. But a quick Google threw up this, which looks like a pertinent read:
133 people in hospital with Omicron according to the latest official data, an increase of 4 from the previous update.
We’re ten days on from when Zahawi said we would face “a million cases a day by the end of the month”, which would then double to two million and four million a day because that’s how exponentials work. Or something.
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
Yeah, the mildness is positive. But the negative is a simple equation: does the increased infectivity of the bu**er offset the milder disease?
That's the central question IMO - and we don't know yet.
(There are other questions, such as whether Omicron causes long Covid, or whether it has other effects. But these are long-term unknowns and can't really influence policy making as much as the immediate potential hospitalisation crisis.)
What a shame we are having to make wild guesses, rather than having a country with 60 million population that has already gone through this that we can refer to.
As I've said elsewhere, the way Covid has acted even in similar countries is very odd, with some countries having small waves and others larger; then switching between them. Beware comparing countries.
Scientists will be pouring through all the data for decades, trying to make sense of how things happened the way they did.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
They do it be screwing everything up. Take the military: they have a million active personnel, and two million in reserve. The US have 1.3 million active personnel, and ~800k reserves.
The US military has a budget of $778 billion, or 3.4% of GDP. The Russian military has a budget of just $61.7 billion, or 4.3% of GDP.
So in the military alone, Russia is trying to keep almost the same number of soldiers going (more, including reserves), for a tenth of the budget. Even if you do things more economically, that's a big ask. Then there are the cost of the weapons systems they have to create and maintain. That doesn't mean they don't have some brilliantly trained and effective units - they do. It's just that they've got an awful lot of dross that is of little immediate use.
It's the same throughout their economy. Their space program should be a jewel in their crown; instead Roscosmos is a basket-case that even official Russian newspapers have started criticising.
Russia is only a world power still because of the lingering legacy of its position in the Cold War. In most ways, it is an irrelevance to everyone bar its neighbours. And it is hating the loss if its power and influence.
Russia can be a great country - it has both the human and natural resources to be one. The fact it is not a great country is not down to its people, but down to its leadership.
"The New North: the world in 2050" by Laurence Smith is an interesting read, mapping out a more influential (if perhaps optimistic) future for Russia, and indeed Canada.
SCOOP: The Omicron coronavirus variant is causing a milder disease than the Delta strain in most Britons, U.K. government scientists are set to conclude. The U.K. Health Security Agency is due to publish its early real-world data on the severity of the disease before Christmas, and Playbook is told the experts are likely to offer a mixed outlook, with some positives and some negatives.
So the first few headlines of the story are good. A less severe version of Covid says the UK data that various posters have been attacking on here endlessly. Then you keep reading - not mild enough to avoid large numbers in hospital and the ones who get there just as likely to die as before. So if infection rates grow exponentially there's our risk to the system.
Although here’s the thing. The modelling from last week assumed no decline in severity. And assumed significant transmission. So at the very least this should reduce the estimates in the model downwards. I don’t think there’s anything to suggest transmissibility is greater than they thought. They can’t constantly keep the call for restrictions going by focusing on the uncertainties in the modelling. Especially when it is uncertainty that has delayed action (or been used as the excuse to delay action) thus far.
Well the worst case scenario model assumed that - what about the other models? I have to build loads of models with various variables - usually with a nice summary / inputs tab where variances to the different inputs can be made. Want to take this down by 12.5% and that one by 7.8%? Click click, done, here's the revised data.
It is unlikely in the extreme that the medical scientists are modelling the worst case scenario only because they are hell bent on locking us down and crippling their own health system.
So yes, they can call for restrictions when they have got sufficient data to be able to see what this thing is actually doing vs forecast and adjust the forward view accordingly if that still points to an explosion in hospitalisation and deaths.
It might not do that - and lets hope to God it doesn't. But if the position of you and certain others is "the data is a conspiracy, no lockdown" then what do you care what the data says?
Indeed. And they make the key point - two jabs is not sufficient protection against "both symptomatic infection and ending up in hospital". They aren't rushing boosters out for everyone for kicks - they're doing it because Omicron isn't that interested if you've had Delta etc or been jabbed. It can get you anyway.
Once we get into January and the booster programme has got the majority, the way out that some were bemoaning would never be seen would be self-evident. Three jabs gives you an equivalent protection against Omicron as two did against Delta.
How we mop up the great unwashed and unvaxxed is tricky. I do not want a "your papers please" society, but something has to be done. How about an incentive - a cash payment to everyone who has been triple jabbed. Scummers can't fake that as its based on your NHS records, and they're likely the kind of people who would be very aggrieved not to get money they are "entitled" to.
Sounds like you’re itching to start a new culture war so you can feel superior astride your moral high horse.
A "culture war" against unvaxxed wazzocks holding the country to ransom?
133 people in hospital with Omicron according to the latest official data, an increase of 4 from the previous update.
We’re ten days on from when Zahawi said we would face “a million cases a day by the end of the month”, which would then double to two million and four million a day because that’s how exponentials work. Or something.
For some unaccountable reason, after @Chris estimated that there would be 800k cases a day he has consistently refused to name terms for a bet to that effect.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
Your column has been a great source of spot-on political analysis for me and my A-Level Politics students out here in Abu Dhabi. We have been following the Owen drama closely and have been comparing the sliding polls for Boris and negative media coverage to that which Major and the Tories received in the early 1990s. Two months ago, my students felt that Boris was invincible and I said "not quite so fast" - especially when the media narrative turns against you as PM. They have truly been fascinated. Thank you.
Greetings, from an expat up the road in Dubai.
Am curious. When Brits move abroad for work they are expats. When foreigners move here for work they are economic migrants / a threat to our very existence. Why is that...?
Not a pop at either of you. Its prodding the language that has Brits abroad considered in a completely different way to every other nationality living here.
That's the Henning Wehn joke. If you move somewhere better, you're a refugee or economic migrant. If you move somewhere worse, you're an expat. If you move somewhere really worse, you're a relief worker.
"Although the general public knows little of theoretical epidemiology, nostrils have started twitching at the unmistakable odour of prime ordure. Anger and its electorally dangerous younger sibling, mockery, are on the rise."
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
It's a country in relative decline that harks back to a glorious past (skipping over the inglorious bits), the cultural memory of which plays into and distorts both official policy toward and public perception of its current place in the world.
A lovely sunrise into a blue sky this morning, still getting later until the end of the month but at least we already have three minutes more daylight in the evening.
Same here in Dorset. Unfortunately though: Red in the morning, shepherd's warning.
(To which Mrs' P and can never stop adding the old Not the Nine O'clock News gag: Red sky at night, Chernobyl's alight. That one may be of its time tbf.)
Big flashing lights for shepherds here in Eastern Devonshire ...
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
OTOH, car crashes don't breed potentially exponentially (a foggy day on the M6 excepted, admittedly).
Your column has been a great source of spot-on political analysis for me and my A-Level Politics students out here in Abu Dhabi. We have been following the Owen drama closely and have been comparing the sliding polls for Boris and negative media coverage to that which Major and the Tories received in the early 1990s. Two months ago, my students felt that Boris was invincible and I said "not quite so fast" - especially when the media narrative turns against you as PM. They have truly been fascinated. Thank you.
Greetings, from an expat up the road in Dubai.
Am curious. When Brits move abroad for work they are expats. When foreigners move here for work they are economic migrants / a threat to our very existence. Why is that...?
Not a pop at either of you. Its prodding the language that has Brits abroad considered in a completely different way to every other nationality living here.
Immigrant has become a very negative word in this country. It could therefore never be applied to the fine upstanding Daily Mail readers in their English speaking enclaves in Spain.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
It’s hard to get inside his mind. I’m not sure there are any deeper motivations than “If I lose power I’ll be dead, therefore I must keep power, therefore I must appear strong and tough to the proletariat, while keeping the elites onside with enrichment, a big stick and occasional appeals to national prestige”.
But I might be wrong. He might think he will live and rule forever and wants to see how far in the great power game he can take Mother Russia. Like Championship Manager for autocrats.
But the judges said that in order to secure convictions in cases of this kind, the prosecution must prove that the person accused of driving the boat “knew or had reasonable cause to believe that his act was assisting entry or attempted entry into the United Kingdom without leave”.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
I think the increased cost should fall primarily on them, we do it with other sin taxes such as booze and fag duty. Philip Thompson's idea of a 2-3% refundable income tax rise on people who aren't fully vaccinated makes the most sense to me, hypothecate the tax to the NHS.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
I think the better analogy than seatbelts was drunk drivers. If you decided to drink drive and the only person who would have a problem was you then no problem drink driving but as we know drink driving risks the driver’s safety, any passengers, other road users and risks taking up the time of all the emergency services and hospital staff to deal with any accident caused by the drink driver.
So choosing not to get vaxxed would be fine if it was literally only you running the risk - say you were unvaxxed and you get covid you just drop dead in your sleep and cannot pass it on - fine, your choice but because you increase the risk of harming others around you and taking up resources which you wouldn’t likely do if vaxxed then it’s a decision you take that negatively affects society.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
Let’s increase the NHS budget by a few million, sufficient to get a few field hospitals up and running on military land, where anyone sick and unvaccinated can be treated away from everyone else.
Paid for by a tax on the unvaccinated, just as smokers have to pay a tax.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
OTOH, car crashes don't breed potentially exponentially (a foggy day on the M6 excepted, admittedly).
I think one thing we have established is that you can be jabbed and get and pass on the virus.
Plus if you have been jabbed then why worry save for a bit of free riding.
Good to see some common sense for isolation rules. We're going to visit my sister and brother in law today after that change. All of us are testing negative and past day 6 of mandatory isolation.
Amazing thing about Putin is how he’s managed to do so much with so little
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Russia is a military industrial state. Its armed forces are better equipped than most similar economies. The problem with such a state is that, like America, it seeks military adventures to justify itself.
It’s hard to get inside his mind. I’m not sure there are any deeper motivations than “If I lose power I’ll be dead, therefore I must keep power, therefore I must appear strong and tough to the proletariat, while keeping the elites onside with enrichment, a big stick and occasional appeals to national prestige”.
But I might be wrong. He might think he will live and rule forever and wants to see how far in the great power game he can take Mother Russia. Like Championship Manager for autocrats.
Sorry to recommend three books in a row, but Krastev & Holmes have a thought-provoking explanation of Russian foreign policy in "The Light has Failed".
Your column has been a great source of spot-on political analysis for me and my A-Level Politics students out here in Abu Dhabi. We have been following the Owen drama closely and have been comparing the sliding polls for Boris and negative media coverage to that which Major and the Tories received in the early 1990s. Two months ago, my students felt that Boris was invincible and I said "not quite so fast" - especially when the media narrative turns against you as PM. They have truly been fascinated. Thank you.
Greetings, from an expat up the road in Dubai.
Am curious. When Brits move abroad for work they are expats. When foreigners move here for work they are economic migrants / a threat to our very existence. Why is that...?
Not a pop at either of you. Its prodding the language that has Brits abroad considered in a completely different way to every other nationality living here.
Immigrant has become a very negative word in this country. It could therefore never be applied to the fine upstanding Daily Mail readers in their English speaking enclaves in Spain.
It's just xenophobia, RP, plain and simple.
It wouldn't be applied to a French investment banker living in Fulham either.
Good to see some common sense for isolation rules. We're going to visit my sister and brother in law today after that change. All of us are testing negative and past day 6 of mandatory isolation.
Great to hear. Same for my niece. Christmas might be back on.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
I think the increased cost should fall primarily on them, we do it with other sin taxes such as booze and fag duty. Philip Thompson's idea of a 2-3% refundable income tax rise on people who aren't fully vaccinated makes the most sense to me, hypothecate the tax to the NHS.
Does add a bit of data creep as employers would need to know for PAYE purposes.
Good to see some common sense for isolation rules. We're going to visit my sister and brother in law today after that change. All of us are testing negative and past day 6 of mandatory isolation.
Maybe do an antibody test in a week's time or so. You might hit some sort of record.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
I think the increased cost should fall primarily on them, we do it with other sin taxes such as booze and fag duty. Philip Thompson's idea of a 2-3% refundable income tax rise on people who aren't fully vaccinated makes the most sense to me, hypothecate the tax to the NHS.
Does add a bit of data creep as employers would need to know for PAYE purposes.
Oh well. There's an easy solution - get vaccinated.
I am wary of trusting the MSM, for whom Boris Johnson is manna from heaven. He is the ultimate box office politician, the source of a billion clicks and I sense they do not want to let him go under any circumstances.
The very last thing they want is some highly capable but slightly boring managerial type, quietly getting on with governing Britain well.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
Can't see the 28th as realistic. Parliament will need to be recalled, won't it, before any further restrictions are imposed. That surely would not happen until 29th at the earliest. Looks like new year is when something would kick in - if it does at all.
The Govt have acted to “save Christmas”. Even though everyone knows that if restrictions are justified it should have been cancelled. There’s absolutely zero way that they can let New Year’s Eve survive as well, and STILL introduce restrictions afterwards. Even if it is difficult they will find a way. But there is an enormous chance it will cost Johnson his job.
I don’t think it’s an enormous chance, it’s a stone certainty.
But then, he should have resigned last Friday anyway. He’s been a dead man walking since that result was announced, as the cabinet demonstrated on Monday.
Johnson resigning in January, even before any confidence vote, can't entirely be ruled out IMO.
Johnson won't resign - nothing in his past tells you that he will do the honourable thing - heck he's had to be fired 3 times because even after being caught red-handed he wouldn't do the honourable thing.
Oh and I'm jabbed up but am extremely uncomfortable with all the anti-vax rhetoric.
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
I think the increased cost should fall primarily on them, we do it with other sin taxes such as booze and fag duty. Philip Thompson's idea of a 2-3% refundable income tax rise on people who aren't fully vaccinated makes the most sense to me, hypothecate the tax to the NHS.
Does add a bit of data creep as employers would need to know for PAYE purposes.
Better that everyone shows their employer their vaccination certificate once, than everyone is forced to do so whenever they visit shops, bars and restaurants.
I like vaccine passport solutions that only make life difficult for the unvaccinated, without imposing burdens on the vaccinated population and small businesses.
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
It’s the civil service again trying to bounce the politicians into tightening restrictions, as they have done at every stage of the pandemic.
It was the Civil Service, not the government, that was agitating to keep schools open this time last year when shutting them a week early for Christmas might have kept cases under control, including using very illegal methods to do so. It was Civil Servants who forced through the extremely reckless (although fortunately not disastrous) decision in early February about reopening them on March 8th regardless of the situation.
Admittedly this seems to have been because certain fairly senior civil servants couldn’t bear the thought of home schooling their own children again rather than any epidemiological or wider educational reason, but it’s not true to say they’ve always advocated tighter restrictions.
Nonsense, the March 8th reopening fo schools was sensible. It was times to be 2 weeks after all the vulnerable groups had had their 1st dose.
People with your attitude would have kept schools closed permanently
On Alison Pearson and lockdown from the 28th according to the supermarkets.
I have heard similar third hand from a senior civil servant.
Which if true, given the way Cabinet played out and the views of backbenchers, does make me wonder just what the feck happened to our democracy.
Can't see the 28th as realistic. Parliament will need to be recalled, won't it, before any further restrictions are imposed. That surely would not happen until 29th at the earliest. Looks like new year is when something would kick in - if it does at all.
The Govt have acted to “save Christmas”. Even though everyone knows that if restrictions are justified it should have been cancelled. There’s absolutely zero way that they can let New Year’s Eve survive as well, and STILL introduce restrictions afterwards. Even if it is difficult they will find a way. But there is an enormous chance it will cost Johnson his job.
I don’t think it’s an enormous chance, it’s a stone certainty.
But then, he should have resigned last Friday anyway. He’s been a dead man walking since that result was announced, as the cabinet demonstrated on Monday.
Johnson resigning in January, even before any confidence vote, can't entirely be ruled out IMO.
Johnson won't resign - nothing in his past tells you that he will do the honourable thing - heck he's had to be fired 3 times because even after being caught red-handed he wouldn't do the honourable thing.
That’s not quite true. He flounced out of the 2016 leadership election which was still very winnable for him, because he was worried he might lose. If he thinks he’ll suffer a humiliating defeat in a VONC then I can well see him resign before one is formally called. He just needs a safe exit point. Victory over Omicron might be it.
Those with potential inside knowledge touting lockdown from the 28th: do you mean including the 28th or after the 28th. Asking for a friend.
On the day of the cabinet meeting there was a comprehensive illustrated guide doing the rounds on Twitter and elsewhere apparently from an impeccable source explaining how we were about to move to Plan C (IIRC).
My view as stated a few days ago is that restrictions are not possible following the Revolt of the 100.
The current thinking is that the government may make some token guidance changes around not meeting too many people but nothing beyond that. No lockdown, no curfews and nothing really beyond what we have now. Omicron data is coming on significantly better than what has be forecast so there is less pressure to lockdown.
Comments
Anyone who is not vaxxed without permission from doctor will from the end of September not be admitted to pubs/clubs/sports stadiums etc.
Also they should set up a hospital - one hospital - solely for unvaxxed idiots so if they get hospitalised with any future wave they are all together and if it’s inconvenient area then tough shit.
September gives enough time for it to be done and people to consider whether they want to be restricted or jabbed next winter.
* the doctor has an opportunity to try and persuade people to have the vax in this appointment before signing off the letter and the letters will be logged so patterns can be seen if certain doctors are dishing out exemptions or there are still specific areas of country where it’s a problem.
It all goes against a lot of my more libertarian views but I’m fucked if the country should risk this again next year and so until we can ensure as few people as possible will be hospitalised from covid in future then there is always the risk of lockdowns and therefore we need to absolutely hammer anti-vaxxers.
Terry Nation, Mr. Pioneers!
There does seem to be quite poor data on the number reinfected.
Vaccines + Natural Immunity won't be a 100% guarantee that there's no future reinfection, but what it does seem to offer is an extremely high immunity against serious illness. Which should be all that matters ultimately, as the virus goes endemic and we learn to live with it.
What irritates me is the way the term Natural Immunity is abused by antivaxxers. No vaccines don't harm your "natural immunity", you don't have any "natural immunity" pre-infection. Natural immunity is something you gain from recovering from the virus in the past and you're more likely to recover from the virus if you've been vaccinated. Hence vaccines + natural immunity are the way out, not either/or.
I'm hopeful though. Wouldn't it be a nice Christmas present to wake up on Christmas morning (at my parents - yay!) and find new data that Omicron is actually. in general, a positive development?
Lagevrio has been approved by MHRA, Paxlovid still awaiting approval
https://twitter.com/mroliverbarnes/status/1473563251929661441?s=20
Fuck 'em.
It also sends a message that, next time there is a crisis, don't be such big blithering idiots.
If he is removed in a messy and disorderly fashion, it could destabilise huge areas of the globe. The former USSR. Iran. Venezuela. The areas where he's been meddling (usually badly) and which, bereft of his support, could suddenly implode if Russia were distracted by its own internal issues. Of course this might be beneficial in the long term (would anyone mourn if the ayatollahs of Iran or that bastard Lukashenko were all shot?) but in the short term it would raise awkward questions about security, stability and humanitarian assistance to the populations.
But it's hard to see how power can be transferred in any way other than a disorderly fashion given there's no mechanism to do so bar elections, which he always rigs.
It is unlikely in the extreme that the medical scientists are modelling the worst case scenario only because they are hell bent on locking us down and crippling their own health system.
So yes, they can call for restrictions when they have got sufficient data to be able to see what this thing is actually doing vs forecast and adjust the forward view accordingly if that still points to an explosion in hospitalisation and deaths.
It might not do that - and lets hope to God it doesn't. But if the position of you and certain others is "the data is a conspiracy, no lockdown" then what do you care what the data says?
It is an additional question (which you seem to be encouraging) about whether a vaccinated person at the height of their protection should be actively seeking out contracting the virus...
https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1473564121606012929?t=aVA3cL7v5wYOLWOajL-IgA&s=19
Oh look on the 20thish of December there was a weird dip and flattening out in the in the positive case stats that ended immediately after Christmas.
THEORY ACCEPTED.
Now significant new restrictions are threatened, compulsory vaccines are on the agenda.
It’s not something I’d seen discussed much by scientists, until this Austrian report in today’s papers that suggest previous Delta infection offers no protection against Omicron if you’re unvaccinated.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10332237/Unvaccinated-people-caught-Delta-virtually-no-protection-against-Omicron.html
And if Omicron tanks quickly, will we still have an underlying Delta wave and an incomplete switchover. That's not a massive worry as such, since Delta is a pretty well known quantity.
The protection from vaccines and the protection from prior infection ('natural immunity') are I do believe relatively additive. A triple-vaccinated plus previously infected individual is going to be extremely protected. A previously infected but unvaccinated, or someone jabbed only once but never infected or receiving more doses will better off than those whose immune system is entirely naïve, but not as protected as others.
I never said anyone should actively seek out the virus, just that we shouldn't actively seek to stop it. Get our jabs, but then let nature take its course. But there does seem to be evidence that you'll get through Covid easier if you get infected a couple of weeks after your most recent jab, rather than many months after it.
symptomatic infection and ending up in hospital". They aren't rushing boosters out for everyone for kicks - they're doing it because Omicron isn't that interested if you've had Delta etc or been jabbed. It can get you anyway.
Once we get into January and the booster programme has got the majority, the way out that some were bemoaning would never be seen would be self-evident. Three jabs gives you an equivalent protection against Omicron as two did against Delta.
How we mop up the great unwashed and unvaxxed is tricky. I do not want a "your papers please" society, but something has to be done. How about an incentive - a cash payment to everyone who has been triple jabbed. Scummers can't fake that as its based on your NHS records, and they're likely the kind of people who would be very aggrieved not to get money they are "entitled" to.
Jonathan Chew, who denies common assault, is given dressing down by judge for ‘cavalier approach to the severity of these proceedings’" (£)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/12/21/man-accused-assaulting-chris-whitty-makes-court-video-appearance/
But even if the data says the NHS is to be overwhelmed I'd still oppose restrictions now. Then the Government needs to be investing in surge protocols, increasing capacity, and the NHS can use triage etc.
Supply side management not demand side.
Russia’s economy is somewhat bigger than Spain’s and definitely smaller than Italy’s. Yes it is huge geographically but so is Canada, and Oz, and they are about the same size economically with a fraction of the population.
How has Putin done this? With a mixture of bluff, aggression, presidential charisma and geopolitical wishful thinking which is surely unsustainable
When Putin goes, Russia will deflate
Did you reply to the wrong post?
An in the case of the models there were two layers of uncertainty - those in the inputs (which were effectively disregarded for the purpose of instructing the modellers), and the uncertainties actually within the models about how the fixed inputs provided would translate into outcomes (3000-10000 hospitalisation a day etc)
(To which Mrs' P and can never stop adding the old Not the Nine O'clock News gag:
Red sky at night, Chernobyl's alight. That one may be of its time tbf.)
Assuming I am negative, I assume I can stop isolating then?
"Cakeism is not a formula that works in government because, in reality, the cake has to be rationed and people notice. They notice, too, when the prime minister and his friends help themselves to the fattest slice, while urging the public to abstain out of civic duty. They see how the man who treats everything as a joke is also laughing at the people who elected him. That is when the light changes, the smile darkens into a sneer, the populist loses his people, the polarities of his magnetism are flipped, and the force that was once attraction turns repulsive."
If you are going to use a new account - wait a few days and then edit the avatar of the old account to be something different - the avatar gave away who you were.
Russia has a lot of leverage right now over Europe through its supply of gas, but that hold will weaken in the medium term as LNG infrastructure gets built up and the continent moves to renewables. The timing of this threat is bad from Europe's point of view, which may be part of Putin's calculation.
I mean let's face it - at the start of all this there seemed to be a consensus, or at least significant body of opinion, within the scientific community that if and when an effective vaccination was produced it might only be offered/given to those most at risk. Maybe that was all just to do with economics, but one feels there must have been scientific opinion behind it as well. Similar to the JCVI saying that arguments on vaccines for children were finely balanced. Why, if the long term benefits of vaccination vs infection were so clear cut?
That in itself is worrying. The more divorced from reality the propaganda of a regime is, the greater the sign of panic.
There is a reason why we use the phrase 'the view from the bunker.'
My view as stated a few days ago is that restrictions are not possible following the Revolt of the 100.
Makes no difference though. they are pissing into the wind. Change gonna keep on coming.
"They captured several vessels in January 1722, then sailed into Ouidah (Whydah) harbour with black flags flying. The eleven ships at anchor there immediately struck their colours, but were restored to their owners after a ransom of eight pounds of gold dust per ship was paid.[34][35] When the master of one of the ships refused these terms, Roberts had his crew climb aboard the ship and set her on fire. The captured vessels were slave ships, and the one set on fire had around eighty enslaved Africans on board. They perished either as a result of the fire or by drowning or shark attack after jumping overboard.[35"]"
The US military has a budget of $778 billion, or 3.4% of GDP. The Russian military has a budget of just $61.7 billion, or 4.3% of GDP.
So in the military alone, Russia is trying to keep almost the same number of soldiers going (more, including reserves), for a tenth of the budget. Even if you do things more economically, that's a big ask. Then there are the cost of the weapons systems they have to create and maintain. That doesn't mean they don't have some brilliantly trained and effective units - they do. It's just that they've got an awful lot of dross that is of little immediate use.
It's the same throughout their economy. Their space program should be a jewel in their crown; instead Roscosmos is a basket-case that even official Russian newspapers have started criticising.
Russia is only a world power still because of the lingering legacy of its position in the Cold War. In most ways, it is an irrelevance to everyone bar its neighbours. And it is hating the loss if its power and influence.
Russia can be a great country - it has both the human and natural resources to be one. The fact it is not a great country is not down to its people, but down to its leadership.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
(But 99 surely, not 100? 99 Rebel Loons, as somebody wonderfully paraphrased Nena.)
Oh sorry, did you mean the defendants?
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/21/world/europe/russia-military-putin-kremlin.html
Scientists will be pouring through all the data for decades, trying to make sense of how things happened the way they did.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/21/a-world-first-devon-calls-victory-in-27-year-war-on-termites
Allison Pearson, Telegraph
How lucky we are not to be like that!
https://twitter.com/SpaJw/status/1473566491484332038
Let's say 5m people don't want to have a vaccine. They are a perfectly legitimate constituency and over time should be accommodated. If that means increase the NHS to do so then do be it.
Oh but seatbelts.
Except a vaccination is a different proposition. If you really don't like seatbelts for example you can still get from London to Leeds and take your part in society. And if you don't wear a seatbelt and have a smash I've heard of no one saying you shouldn't be treated in hospital.
We just accept that some people do what some people do.
It's just xenophobia, RP, plain and simple.
But I might be wrong. He might think he will live and rule forever and wants to see how far in the great power game he can take Mother Russia. Like Championship Manager for autocrats.
Seriously ?!
So choosing not to get vaxxed would be fine if it was literally only you running the risk - say you were unvaxxed and you get covid you just drop dead in your sleep and cannot pass it on - fine, your choice but because you increase the risk of harming others around you and taking up resources which you wouldn’t likely do if vaxxed then it’s a decision you take that negatively affects society.
Problem solved.
Plus if you have been jabbed then why worry save for a bit of free riding.
The very last thing they want is some highly capable but slightly boring managerial type, quietly getting on with governing Britain well.
Had they done that last week lots of people would have still gone out for their Christmas parties on the Friday/Saturday.
I like vaccine passport solutions that only make life difficult for the unvaccinated, without imposing burdens on the vaccinated population and small businesses.
People with your attitude would have kept schools closed permanently