Just saw the JCVI news. FFS. Liberal handwriting and British exceptionalism at its worst. How long are our children going to have to endure disrupted education?
What's the JCVI news? Something on vaccinating younger children?
They’ve said most under 12s are not getting jabbed
Ever? Or now? I thought trials in under 12s were still ongoing, for Pfizer at least [1] and no MHRA approval of anything for under 12s? I may be out of date, though...
Just saw the JCVI news. FFS. Liberal handwriting and British exceptionalism at its worst. How long are our children going to have to endure disrupted education?
What's the JCVI news? Something on vaccinating younger children?
They’ve said most under 12s are not getting jabbed
How many of them have had the lurgy already? Must be 80%+
Mind you, how sure are they that variant Pi / Omega / Orion won't affect children badly?
It is odd, SAGE seem to come up with every possible scenario of doom, whereas JCVI seem to plan for everything staying as it is at this instant.
I actually think the Labour score on the latest YouGov poll (36%) is pretty disappointing, with the Tory score down as low as 30%.
However, my disappointment is tempered by seeing LD/Greens on a combined 20%; I don't think many of them will go (back) to Tories. So if I were a Tory I'd be pretty anxious.
Not so sure about that, your Ken Clarke Rory Stewart type Tories are probably about 10% of the electorate and may well hate this particular government more than your average Labour voter does. They will be dispersed across DK, Lab, LD, Green (as a protest and single issue not eco-socialism). Depending on the direction of Tory change they are still quite winnable for the Tories in 2024 under the right new leader.
I sort of agree, except there's no sign whatsoever of the Ken Clarke Rory Stewart type Tories, as you call them, taking over before 2024. With the ERG/CRG-types calling the shots, quite the reverse I think.
I agree.
I think the lesson they drew from the May/Boris handover is that they can pick whoever they like and the party can reinvent itself. They’ll go for ideological purity. The retail offering for the electorate - as they see it - is a simple rebranding exercise.
I think it’s a miscalculation - and labour have a decent chance of winning a majority (better than the current 5/1).
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
Nice spin
Johnson panicked in a different direction. He is more wary of the swivel-eyed.CRG than he is "wobbly scientists".
And that's a bad thing if the swivel eyed ones have called it right?
...but if they have called in right on the toss of a coin rather than empirical evidence - yes!
Our swivel eyed loons appear to have coin tossed to the same position as the virtuous scientists of the USA, amongst others.
They also seem to place far more weight on empirical evidence (as opposed to models) than SAGE do presently.
I hope you and they are correct, and maybe you and they are. I think it disingenuous nonetheless when PB fanbois try to attribute any good fortune over this issue on Johnson's genius rather than his hostage to fortune status.
Welsh restrictions from 26th probably point to the sort of mid-ground I am expecting England to end up at on 27th/28th. HHave ospitality indoors but limited to rule of 6. Guidance against household mixing but no force of law (except gatherings over 30). Social distancing and mask wearing.
I’m still not on board with the idea of restrictions but if they’re something like that I can grudgingly accept them as fairly minimal disruption I think.
Absolutely in line with my expectations for England ie something similar to England Stage 3.
So no requirement to serve outside only, no curfews, no substantial meals. And no lockdown.
🥂 ins’allah
Are you starting to feel I've called it right again?
Yes. And serious respect is due, IF that happens
But let’s not tempt Fate, quite yet
Always makes me laugh when otherwise rational people (or even @Leon) worry about tempting fate - as if Fate were a sentient being with very little willpower.
Have you never watched a cricket match? Particularly one with England involved.
I think you're confusing 'tempting fate' with 'watching a tragedy unfold'.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
Nice spin
Johnson panicked in a different direction. He is more wary of the swivel-eyed.CRG than he is "wobbly scientists".
Or the CRG are listening to South Africa....
Pretty sure listening to pre 1990 South Africa would be to the taste of some of them.
South African in hospital figure up 300 today, but flat in Gauteng. Must be quite near a peak nationally now.
Wait until I make my official ruling
Cases falling in South Africa now. Much of the hospital numbers are incidental covid. Numbers on oxygen have gone up but those on ventilators fairly constant. The explosion in cases there has so far lead to a small blip in deaths.
So for us it's probably a matter of the vaccines holding up which they will likely do against severe disease. I'm off for my 3rd vaccine later, doing my civic duty to protect the unvaccinated from covid and lessen the burden on the health service.
Playing around with the inputs, since I have none of the co-morbidities the big factor that makes much difference is age. Losing 20kg would not make any difference. So much for obesity being the big factor.
I am probably misunderstanding but don't those figures imply I only have a 1 in 50 chance of catching covid (679 / 34483)? If so, that seems stupidly low. I was assuming we are all going to get it at some stage.
I just had a quick play with it, and weight definitely can have a significant impact in the output. I also think it is one of those things that once you start saying a fatty and ... and ...., it just compounds.
Javid is asked if people should make New Year plans: "The best advice to everyone is continue to remain cautious and keep looking forward to Christmas - as the prime minister said, no new restrictions before Christmas and beyond that we will just keep the situation under review."
To be grudgingly fair to Saj, if he were to announce now that New Year is on, that will promote socialising now and post-Christmas. What he wants is for New Year to be on but for people to stay cautious. Every person who voluntarily chooses not to socialise makes it that much easier not to place restrictions on those who do. So lack of detail and hints are par for the course.
Welsh restrictions from 26th probably point to the sort of mid-ground I am expecting England to end up at on 27th/28th. HHave ospitality indoors but limited to rule of 6. Guidance against household mixing but no force of law (except gatherings over 30). Social distancing and mask wearing.
I’m still not on board with the idea of restrictions but if they’re something like that I can grudgingly accept them as fairly minimal disruption I think.
Absolutely in line with my expectations for England ie something similar to England Stage 3.
So no requirement to serve outside only, no curfews, no substantial meals. And no lockdown.
🥂 ins’allah
Are you starting to feel I've called it right again?
Yes. And serious respect is due, IF that happens
But let’s not tempt Fate, quite yet
Always makes me laugh when otherwise rational people (or even @Leon) worry about tempting fate - as if Fate were a sentient being with very little willpower.
Have you never watched a cricket match? Particularly one with England involved.
I think you're confusing 'tempting fate' with 'watching a tragedy unfold'.
Hmm. You could be right.
Perhaps the fact that an England wicket always seems to fall just after I turn on the radio is not the intervention of Fate but rather a valid result of sampling.
Playing around with the inputs, since I have none of the co-morbidities the big factor that makes much difference is age. Losing 20kg would not make any difference. So much for obesity being the big factor.
I am probably misunderstanding but don't those figures imply I only have a 1 in 50 chance of catching covid (679 / 34483)? If so, that seems stupidly low. I was assuming we are all going to get it at some stage.
I just had a quick play with it, and weight definitely can have a significant impact in the output. I also think it is one of those things that once you start saying a fatty and ... and ...., it just compounds.
On that calculator, stick in not-vaccinated and fat = big trouble.
I stuck in some random figures stats for older man, not vaccinated and significantly overweight, soon goes from 1/38 chance of death if correct weight, to 1/16....
A middle aged man, not vaccinated and significantly overweight, soon goes from 1/1284, to 1/234
The assumption is that Johnsonism policies are actually popular
It's the assumption that Tory policies are popular. Simply change the figurehead and all will be fine. Lockdown or not is irrelevant in all this. Policies are bung huge amounts of cash to your mates and do what the heck you please. Tax the plebs till the pips squeak while handing out a little Maunday money back to the grateful peasantry.
Playing around with the inputs, since I have none of the co-morbidities the big factor that makes much difference is age. Losing 20kg would not make any difference. So much for obesity being the big factor.
I am probably misunderstanding but don't those figures imply I only have a 1 in 50 chance of catching covid (679 / 34483)? If so, that seems stupidly low. I was assuming we are all going to get it at some stage.
I just had a quick play with it, and weight definitely can have a significant impact in the output. I also think it is one of those things that once you start saying a fatty and ... and ...., it just compounds.
Interesting. Maybe weight has more impact on the calculator at different ages?
The other takeaway for me is: I don't like a risk of dying of 1 in 679, that seems rather too high for my liking. Call it 0.14% though, and I feel fairly chilled. Irrationally.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
Nice spin
Johnson panicked in a different direction. He is more wary of the swivel-eyed.CRG than he is "wobbly scientists".
And that's a bad thing if the swivel eyed ones have called it right?
...but if they have called in right on the toss of a coin rather than empirical evidence - yes!
Our swivel eyed loons appear to have coin tossed to the same position as the virtuous scientists of the USA, amongst others.
They also seem to place far more weight on empirical evidence (as opposed to models) than SAGE do presently.
I hope you and they are correct, and maybe you and they are. I think it disingenuous nonetheless when PB fanbois try to attribute any good fortune over this issue on Johnson's genius rather than his hostage to fortune status.
Is there a poster left, other than the 1 obvious exception, who doesn't think he's a fat clown we hope to see the back of soon? You're tilting at windmills if you're trying to have an argument about that muppet.
Playing around with the inputs, since I have none of the co-morbidities the big factor that makes much difference is age. Losing 20kg would not make any difference. So much for obesity being the big factor.
I am probably misunderstanding but don't those figures imply I only have a 1 in 50 chance of catching covid (679 / 34483)? If so, that seems stupidly low. I was assuming we are all going to get it at some stage.
I just had a quick play with it, and weight definitely can have a significant impact in the output. I also think it is one of those things that once you start saying a fatty and ... and ...., it just compounds.
Interesting. Maybe weight has more impact on the calculator at different ages?
The other takeaway for me is: I don't like a risk of dying of 1 in 679, that seems rather too high for my liking. Call it 0.14% though, and I feel fairly chilled. Irrationally.
(I'm still don;t facny tempting Ms Fate though.)
Not being vaccinated and overweight is really significant changes. Clearly vaccines are doing an amazing job even among those in terrible shape.
I just tried a 30 year old, when not vaccinated, no risk factors 1/3774, being overweight, 1/1355. That a massive difference.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
Nice spin
Johnson panicked in a different direction. He is more wary of the swivel-eyed.CRG than he is "wobbly scientists".
And that's a bad thing if the swivel eyed ones have called it right?
...but if they have called in right on the toss of a coin rather than empirical evidence - yes!
Our swivel eyed loons appear to have coin tossed to the same position as the virtuous scientists of the USA, amongst others.
They also seem to place far more weight on empirical evidence (as opposed to models) than SAGE do presently.
I hope you and they are correct, and maybe you and they are. I think it disingenuous nonetheless when PB fanbois try to attribute any good fortune over this issue on Johnson's genius rather than his hostage to fortune status.
Is there a poster left, other than the 1 obvious exception, who doesn't think he's a fat clown we hope to see the back of soon? You're tilting at windmills if you're trying to have an argument about that muppet.
That user thinks Johnson is the best PM since Thatcher, possibly third behind Cameron.
Not Blair, who reduced poverty by a third, fixed schools and hospitals that were falling down, genuinely invested in the NHS, created SureStart, practically eliminated homelessness.
No, Boris Johnson who has achieved nothing. And David Cameron who ran away when he split the country in two.
I remember a few years ago somebody saying that Boris Johnson was unsuited to be leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister.
That person was Boris Johnson.
If only he'd listened to his own advice, we'd all be in a better place.
Downside of that is you look at 2019 and it's easy to see why Boris ran, no-one else could get Brexit through...
The sad bit is that as I said earlier by hanging round he's destroying his reputation when he really could have left on a Churchillian like high.
Depends which of Mr Churchill's terms you mean, though.
Did he ever really leave on a high? Given a V sign by the ungrateful electorate1945 after mumbling about Labour being the Gestapo, shuffled out in 1955 maundering on about keeping England white. Regard seems to have been given very much in hindsight.
Pretty sure BJ won't receive regard at the moment of departure or with hindsight.
The assumption is that Johnsonism policies are actually popular
It's the assumption that Tory policies are popular. Simply change the figurehead and all will be fine. Lockdown or not is irrelevant in all this. Policies are bung huge amounts of cash to your mates and do what the heck you please. Tax the plebs till the pips squeak while handing out a little Maunday money back to the grateful peasantry.
The problem is that the Country wants 2 very different things
Down South where everything is fine - the country doesn't want money to be spent on anything Up North they know that money spent now will improve their lives and make things better in the future
Boris promised everything to both sets of people and now a decision has to be made as to which one should be kept happy - and it's looking increasingly likely that neither side are going to be happy.
There's some fairly doom language being used in Wales with regards to omicron. Words like storm, tidal wave, truly awful being used and of course further restrictions. Call me a cynic but might not the politicians simply be trying to make sure that if there is pressure on services in January (hardly unknown in winter time) they have an easy explanation. It's not our fault, it's this damn covid.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
Nice spin
Johnson panicked in a different direction. He is more wary of the swivel-eyed.CRG than he is "wobbly scientists".
And that's a bad thing if the swivel eyed ones have called it right?
...but if they have called in right on the toss of a coin rather than empirical evidence - yes!
Our swivel eyed loons appear to have coin tossed to the same position as the virtuous scientists of the USA, amongst others.
They also seem to place far more weight on empirical evidence (as opposed to models) than SAGE do presently.
I hope you and they are correct, and maybe you and they are. I think it disingenuous nonetheless when PB fanbois try to attribute any good fortune over this issue on Johnson's genius rather than his hostage to fortune status.
Is there a poster left, other than the 1 obvious exception, who doesn't think he's a fat clown we hope to see the back of soon? You're tilting at windmills if you're trying to have an argument about that muppet.
Just saw the JCVI news. FFS. Liberal handwriting and British exceptionalism at its worst. How long are our children going to have to endure disrupted education?
What's the JCVI news? Something on vaccinating younger children?
They’ve said most under 12s are not getting jabbed
Ever? Or now? I thought trials in under 12s were still ongoing, for Pfizer at least [1] and no MHRA approval of anything for under 12s? I may be out of date, though...
Ever, if they have their way. They say it’s only worthwhile for “vulnerable” 5-11s (as usual completely ignoring the educational impacts from school closures)
Note though Starmer has a lower lead over Boris as preferred PM than Labour has over the Tories.
I would expect Tory MPs will give Boris until May's local elections to turn it round, if not and the Tories suffer a 1995 or 2019 style local elections meltdown he would face a VONC.
Remember Major faced a leadership challenge from John Redwood after the 1995 local elections and May was forced to resign in between the 2019 local elections and the even more disastrous for the Tories 2019 European elections
Bet you’re pleased not to be up in front of the voters this year!
In London, Tories could be facing devastating results (with any luck)
Dec 17 - Nicola Sturgeon asked about cutting self-isolation time. Reply: “Yeah, that would really help because that would spread infection even further.”
Dec 22 - John Swinney says self-isolation changes being considered.
Dec 17 - Nicola Sturgeon ridicules idea of finding more business support cash from her Budget in answer to Press Q. “I don't know where you think I should take it from? The health service?"
Dec 21 - Ms Sturgeon announces “a further £100 million from elsewhere in our budget”
Dec 18 - Nicola Sturgeon rubbishes Herald on Sunday front page about recall of parliament between Christmas New Year. Prompts 5.3k likes, accusations of "media lies", "bullshit", etc
Dec 21 - It’s confirmed Parliament is to be recalled between Christmas and New Year
Note though Starmer has a lower lead over Boris as preferred PM than Labour has over the Tories.
I would expect Tory MPs will give Boris until May's local elections to turn it round, if not and the Tories suffer a 1995 or 2019 style local elections meltdown he would face a VONC.
Remember Major faced a leadership challenge from John Redwood after the 1995 local elections and May was forced to resign in between the 2019 local elections and the even more disastrous for the Tories 2019 European elections
Anyone making much of the LibDem by-election wins should remember the Tory vote-strike in early 2019. May was unable to turn that around - but the voters returned with Boris later that year. If Boris can't fix things, he will be gone. Either way, expect many of the Tory voters to return.....
I think they can recover to 38-40% with a new leader at the next GE but it will be very difficult for any Tory replacement to retain the Tory majority.
The assumption is that Johnsonism policies are actually popular
It's the assumption that Tory policies are popular. Simply change the figurehead and all will be fine. Lockdown or not is irrelevant in all this. Policies are bung huge amounts of cash to your mates and do what the heck you please. Tax the plebs till the pips squeak while handing out a little Maunday money back to the grateful peasantry.
The problem is that the Country wants 2 very different things
Down South where everything is fine - the country doesn't want money to be spent on anything Up North they know that money spent now will improve their lives and make things better in the future
Boris promised everything to both sets of people and now a decision has to be made as to which one should be kept happy - and it's looking increasingly likely that neither side are going to be happy.
Indeed. Was always going to come to a crunch point. The next Tory leader will go all in on the side of the already affluent. That's who their members are. That's who provide the vast bulk of their MP's. To do otherwise would be insane.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
Nice spin
Johnson panicked in a different direction. He is more wary of the swivel-eyed.CRG than he is "wobbly scientists".
And that's a bad thing if the swivel eyed ones have called it right?
...but if they have called in right on the toss of a coin rather than empirical evidence - yes!
Our swivel eyed loons appear to have coin tossed to the same position as the virtuous scientists of the USA, amongst others.
They also seem to place far more weight on empirical evidence (as opposed to models) than SAGE do presently.
I hope you and they are correct, and maybe you and they are. I think it disingenuous nonetheless when PB fanbois try to attribute any good fortune over this issue on Johnson's genius rather than his hostage to fortune status.
Is there a poster left, other than the 1 obvious exception, who doesn't think he's a fat clown we hope to see the back of soon? You're tilting at windmills if you're trying to have an argument about that muppet.
I am relieved you have seen the light.
I've had what I wanted out of him, and now he is surplus to requirements. It's not a personality cult like the far left.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
Nice spin
Johnson panicked in a different direction. He is more wary of the swivel-eyed.CRG than he is "wobbly scientists".
And that's a bad thing if the swivel eyed ones have called it right?
...but if they have called in right on the toss of a coin rather than empirical evidence - yes!
Our swivel eyed loons appear to have coin tossed to the same position as the virtuous scientists of the USA, amongst others.
They also seem to place far more weight on empirical evidence (as opposed to models) than SAGE do presently.
I hope you and they are correct, and maybe you and they are. I think it disingenuous nonetheless when PB fanbois try to attribute any good fortune over this issue on Johnson's genius rather than his hostage to fortune status.
Is there a poster left, other than the 1 obvious exception, who doesn't think he's a fat clown we hope to see the back of soon? You're tilting at windmills if you're trying to have an argument about that muppet.
I am relieved you have seen the light.
The rush by PBers to assure everyone that they're not a BJ fan after 2 years of applauding his ability to connect with the common man, his annoying of all the right people and general enthusiastic Johnson rimming is most entertaining.
Putting my real details into that COVID calculator it seems like me gaining a few kg won't make any difference at all according to the stats....does that mean I can go mad at Christmas and pile on the pounds?
Playing around with the inputs, since I have none of the co-morbidities the big factor that makes much difference is age. Losing 20kg would not make any difference. So much for obesity being the big factor.
I am probably misunderstanding but don't those figures imply I only have a 1 in 50 chance of catching covid (679 / 34483)? If so, that seems stupidly low. I was assuming we are all going to get it at some stage.
I just had a quick play with it, and weight definitely can have a significant impact in the output. I also think it is one of those things that once you start saying a fatty and ... and ...., it just compounds.
Interesting. Maybe weight has more impact on the calculator at different ages?
The other takeaway for me is: I don't like a risk of dying of 1 in 679, that seems rather too high for my liking. Call it 0.14% though, and I feel fairly chilled. Irrationally.
(I'm still don;t facny tempting Ms Fate though.)
Not being vaccinated and overweight is really significant changes. Clearly vaccines are doing an amazing job even among those in terrible shape.
I just tried a 30 year old, when not vaccinated, no risk factors 1/3774, being overweight, 1/1355. That a massive difference.
Yet as a 61 year old, losing 20kg to get to a BMI of 25 would take my risk from 1/679 to 1/743. I suppose that is a 10% difference but I was expecting more.
Anyhow I am determined to lose weight in the New Year and I hope to find that marginally easier than losing 20 years off my age.
The assumption is that Johnsonism policies are actually popular
It's the assumption that Tory policies are popular. Simply change the figurehead and all will be fine. Lockdown or not is irrelevant in all this. Policies are bung huge amounts of cash to your mates and do what the heck you please. Tax the plebs till the pips squeak while handing out a little Maunday money back to the grateful peasantry.
The problem is that the Country wants 2 very different things
Down South where everything is fine - the country doesn't want money to be spent on anything Up North they know that money spent now will improve their lives and make things better in the future
Boris promised everything to both sets of people and now a decision has to be made as to which one should be kept happy - and it's looking increasingly likely that neither side are going to be happy.
Indeed. Was always going to come to a crunch point. The next Tory leader will go all in on the side of the already affluent. That's who their members are. That's who provide the vast bulk of their MP's. To do otherwise would be insane.
The trick is to string along enough of the red wall to win a majority. Their strategy has to be to go to the country as early as possible, with bullshit, low/no cost policies that generate decent headlines. Lots of “Poor peoples railcards!*” type bollox. Basically, Osbornomics redux.
I don’t think it will work, personally, but they may get enough seats to make labours life difficult.
*the 1/3 off off-peak railcards don’t actually cost the exchequer anything. The rail companies eat the discount to encourage off-peak travel from people who wouldn’t otherwise use the railways.
The assumption is that Johnsonism policies are actually popular
It's the assumption that Tory policies are popular. Simply change the figurehead and all will be fine. Lockdown or not is irrelevant in all this. Policies are bung huge amounts of cash to your mates and do what the heck you please. Tax the plebs till the pips squeak while handing out a little Maunday money back to the grateful peasantry.
The problem is that the Country wants 2 very different things
Down South where everything is fine - the country doesn't want money to be spent on anything Up North they know that money spent now will improve their lives and make things better in the future
Boris promised everything to both sets of people and now a decision has to be made as to which one should be kept happy - and it's looking increasingly likely that neither side are going to be happy.
There's an awful lot of people having crap, poor lives Down South as well, you know. Okay, less than Up North, I agree. But still - the levels of deprivation in some areas of the Kent Coast, other parts of the coastal strip like Hastings, and cities like Portsmouth, Southampton, and parts of London are pretty eye-watering. I'm not sure it's always helpful to draw such a sharp dichotomy between Up North and Down South. And as for the Midlands.....
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd prefer if we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
Playing around with the inputs, since I have none of the co-morbidities the big factor that makes much difference is age. Losing 20kg would not make any difference. So much for obesity being the big factor.
I am probably misunderstanding but don't those figures imply I only have a 1 in 50 chance of catching covid (679 / 34483)? If so, that seems stupidly low. I was assuming we are all going to get it at some stage.
I just had a quick play with it, and weight definitely can have a significant impact in the output. I also think it is one of those things that once you start saying a fatty and ... and ...., it just compounds.
Interesting. Maybe weight has more impact on the calculator at different ages?
The other takeaway for me is: I don't like a risk of dying of 1 in 679, that seems rather too high for my liking. Call it 0.14% though, and I feel fairly chilled. Irrationally.
(I'm still don;t facny tempting Ms Fate though.)
Not being vaccinated and overweight is really significant changes. Clearly vaccines are doing an amazing job even among those in terrible shape.
I just tried a 30 year old, when not vaccinated, no risk factors 1/3774, being overweight, 1/1355. That a massive difference.
Yet as a 61 year old, losing 20kg to get to a BMI of 25 would take my risk from 1/679 to 1/743. I suppose that is a 10% difference but I was expecting more.
Anyhow I am determined to lose weight in the New Year and I hope to find that marginally easier than losing 20 years off my age.
~1/700 is already quite high hisk (as you noted), I presume there all sorts of other risk factors in the mix there, so weight is only playing a small role relative to those other factors.
Some more random playing about, obviously age is the biggest factor, but where weight is bad news is younger demographics, 30-40s, who with no other conditions aren't really that high risk. And then if they also don't get vaccinated, that extra weight clearly does make a big difference to their risk.
Playing around with the inputs, since I have none of the co-morbidities the big factor that makes much difference is age. Losing 20kg would not make any difference. So much for obesity being the big factor.
I am probably misunderstanding but don't those figures imply I only have a 1 in 50 chance of catching covid (679 / 34483)? If so, that seems stupidly low. I was assuming we are all going to get it at some stage.
I just had a quick play with it, and weight definitely can have a significant impact in the output. I also think it is one of those things that once you start saying a fatty and ... and ...., it just compounds.
Interesting. Maybe weight has more impact on the calculator at different ages?
The other takeaway for me is: I don't like a risk of dying of 1 in 679, that seems rather too high for my liking. Call it 0.14% though, and I feel fairly chilled. Irrationally.
(I'm still don;t facny tempting Ms Fate though.)
It's a guesstimate - and if you've had the recent booster (and/or prior infection) your odds are a great deal better than that.
The assumption is that Johnsonism policies are actually popular
It's the assumption that Tory policies are popular. Simply change the figurehead and all will be fine. Lockdown or not is irrelevant in all this. Policies are bung huge amounts of cash to your mates and do what the heck you please. Tax the plebs till the pips squeak while handing out a little Maunday money back to the grateful peasantry.
The problem is that the Country wants 2 very different things
Down South where everything is fine - the country doesn't want money to be spent on anything Up North they know that money spent now will improve their lives and make things better in the future
Boris promised everything to both sets of people and now a decision has to be made as to which one should be kept happy - and it's looking increasingly likely that neither side are going to be happy.
And if it's Johnson's fate to go down in history (which he wants, I suspect) as a terrible warning (which he doesn't want, surely) then being a fable for why you can't have your cake and eat it is as useful a way as any.
The 2019 promise was extra spending without extra taxes. Somehow, Brexit and Foreign Aid cuts were going to pay for it all.
The reality by 2024 looks like being little or no extra spending with extra taxes. And whilst Covid hasn't helped, that was always likely because of inevitable increasing demands from pensions, health and social care.
I actually think the Labour score on the latest YouGov poll (36%) is pretty disappointing, with the Tory score down as low as 30%.
However, my disappointment is tempered by seeing LD/Greens on a combined 20%; I don't think many of them will go (back) to Tories. So if I were a Tory I'd be pretty anxious.
Not so sure about that, your Ken Clarke Rory Stewart type Tories are probably about 10% of the electorate and may well hate this particular government more than your average Labour voter does. They will be dispersed across DK, Lab, LD, Green (as a protest and single issue not eco-socialism). Depending on the direction of Tory change they are still quite winnable for the Tories in 2024 under the right new leader.
I sort of agree, except there's no sign whatsoever of the Ken Clarke Rory Stewart type Tories, as you call them, taking over before 2024. With the ERG/CRG-types calling the shots, quite the reverse I think.
I agree.
I think the lesson they drew from the May/Boris handover is that they can pick whoever they like and the party can reinvent itself. They’ll go for ideological purity. The retail offering for the electorate - as they see it - is a simple rebranding exercise.
I think it’s a miscalculation - and labour have a decent chance of winning a majority (better than the current 5/1).
Party members have a remarkably myopic view of the consequences of their leadership decisions.
Labour members electing Corbyn were making a statement about their own values, with complete disregard for the consequences for their party and, strongly arguably, the country.
Similarly the many Tories that gave the clown such responsibility, purely because he would win the coming election and despite all the warnings that where we are now is where we would inexorably go.
We see this again in the casual way that HY considers the possibility of JRM becoming Tory leader, not considering the years during which it would condemn his party to the wilderness nor the likelihood that his own potentially stellar career in parish politics would be brutally truncated.
More than 13 million residents in the Chinese city of Xi'an have been confined to their homes as officials implement a strict lockdown. Every two days, only one member of each household will be allowed outdoors to buy essentials.
If Omicron gets seeded there, there are just going to be in this rotation of this for years across China.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd rather we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
London hospital admissions for covid (not excluding incidentals, but excluding people who caught covid whilst in hospital so were already there for something else) -
128 126 117 120 147 157 155 164 157 168
that's for the 10th to the 19th of December.
Pretty paltry rise and even that is likely driven by incidentals as much as real covid illness.
Mechnical ventilation for Covid in London from 10th to 21st of Dec -
Playing around with the inputs, since I have none of the co-morbidities the big factor that makes much difference is age. Losing 20kg would not make any difference. So much for obesity being the big factor.
I am probably misunderstanding but don't those figures imply I only have a 1 in 50 chance of catching covid (679 / 34483)? If so, that seems stupidly low. I was assuming we are all going to get it at some stage.
I just had a quick play with it, and weight definitely can have a significant impact in the output. I also think it is one of those things that once you start saying a fatty and ... and ...., it just compounds.
Interesting. Maybe weight has more impact on the calculator at different ages?
The other takeaway for me is: I don't like a risk of dying of 1 in 679, that seems rather too high for my liking. Call it 0.14% though, and I feel fairly chilled. Irrationally.
(I'm still don;t facny tempting Ms Fate though.)
Not being vaccinated and overweight is really significant changes. Clearly vaccines are doing an amazing job even among those in terrible shape.
I just tried a 30 year old, when not vaccinated, no risk factors 1/3774, being overweight, 1/1355. That a massive difference.
Yet as a 61 year old, losing 20kg to get to a BMI of 25 would take my risk from 1/679 to 1/743. I suppose that is a 10% difference but I was expecting more.
Anyhow I am determined to lose weight in the New Year and I hope to find that marginally easier than losing 20 years off my age.
~1/700 is already quite high hisk (as you noted), I presume there all sorts of other risk factors in the mix there, so weight is only playing a small role relative to those other factors.
Some more random playing about, obviously age is the biggest factor, but where weight is bad news is younger demographics, 30-40s, who with no other conditions aren't really that high risk. And then if they also don't get vaccinated, that extra weight clearly does make a big difference to their risk.
Yep, f*ck it, I'm just going to have to get younger!
Oh, yes, I've seen such things as well as (quite often these days) the 3-D computed x-ray tomographic images. The painting doesn't quite look like the fossil, which is however spectacular enough:
Playing around with the inputs, since I have none of the co-morbidities the big factor that makes much difference is age. Losing 20kg would not make any difference. So much for obesity being the big factor.
I am probably misunderstanding but don't those figures imply I only have a 1 in 50 chance of catching covid (679 / 34483)? If so, that seems stupidly low. I was assuming we are all going to get it at some stage.
I just had a quick play with it, and weight definitely can have a significant impact in the output. I also think it is one of those things that once you start saying a fatty and ... and ...., it just compounds.
It’s dumb.
Not least because the chance of catching covid is correlated with lifestyle and social interaction, about which it asks precisely nothing, and not with height, weight or medical history, about which it ask a lot.
The assumption is that Johnsonism policies are actually popular
It's the assumption that Tory policies are popular. Simply change the figurehead and all will be fine. Lockdown or not is irrelevant in all this. Policies are bung huge amounts of cash to your mates and do what the heck you please. Tax the plebs till the pips squeak while handing out a little Maunday money back to the grateful peasantry.
The problem is that the Country wants 2 very different things
Down South where everything is fine - the country doesn't want money to be spent on anything Up North they know that money spent now will improve their lives and make things better in the future
Boris promised everything to both sets of people and now a decision has to be made as to which one should be kept happy - and it's looking increasingly likely that neither side are going to be happy.
And if it's Johnson's fate to go down in history (which he wants, I suspect) as a terrible warning (which he doesn't want, surely) then being a fable for why you can't have your cake and eat it is as useful a way as any.
The 2019 promise was extra spending without extra taxes. Somehow, Brexit and Foreign Aid cuts were going to pay for it all.
The reality by 2024 looks like being little or no extra spending with extra taxes. And whilst Covid hasn't helped, that was always likely because of inevitable increasing demands from pensions, health and social care.
Not quite. The 2019 promise was to maintain foreign aid, not cut it. Brexit would lead to great prosperity.
Playing around with the inputs, since I have none of the co-morbidities the big factor that makes much difference is age. Losing 20kg would not make any difference. So much for obesity being the big factor.
I am probably misunderstanding but don't those figures imply I only have a 1 in 50 chance of catching covid (679 / 34483)? If so, that seems stupidly low. I was assuming we are all going to get it at some stage.
I just had a quick play with it, and weight definitely can have a significant impact in the output. I also think it is one of those things that once you start saying a fatty and ... and ...., it just compounds.
It’s dumb.
Not least because the chance of catching covid is correlated with lifestyle and social interaction, about which it asks precisely nothing, and not with height, weight or medical history, about which it ask a lot.
I wouldn't say its dumb. I would say its very rough estimates, as clearly it is just giving some rough metrics based upon purely demographic data. I was only interested in the stats related to confirmed case to death, as that isn't really anything about lifestyle. You could argue being a doctor or a bus driver obviously means more exposure to high viral loads, but as a finger in the air to get a rough handle on things is fine.
But it is all backward looking as well....we now have Omicron, which is a different set of risk factors.
I wouldn't take too much notice of the exact 1/x figure.
I remember a few years ago somebody saying that Boris Johnson was unsuited to be leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister.
That person was Boris Johnson.
If only he'd listened to his own advice, we'd all be in a better place.
Downside of that is you look at 2019 and it's easy to see why Boris ran, no-one else could get Brexit through...
The sad bit is that as I said earlier by hanging round he's destroying his reputation when he really could have left on a Churchillian like high.
Depends which of Mr Churchill's terms you mean, though.
Did he ever really leave on a high? Given a V sign by the ungrateful electorate1945 after mumbling about Labour being the Gestapo, shuffled out in 1955 maundering on about keeping England white. Regard seems to have been given very much in hindsight.
Pretty sure BJ won't receive regard at the moment of departure or with hindsight.
Wasn't too sure about 1945 myself I must admit - war still going on, and lots of rationing and deprivation ahead.
There's some fairly doom language being used in Wales with regards to omicron. Words like storm, tidal wave, truly awful being used and of course further restrictions. Call me a cynic but might not the politicians simply be trying to make sure that if there is pressure on services in January (hardly unknown in winter time) they have an easy explanation. It's not our fault, it's this damn covid.
It’s all s**t. Omicron is the beginning of the end. Once this wave is over, our worries will substantially be over, except that winter flu for the next five years or so will be significantly, but not dramatically, worse than usual.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd rather we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
London hospital admissions for covid (not excluding incidentals, but excluding people who caught covid whilst in hospital so were already there for something else) -
128 126 117 120 147 157 155 164 157 168
that's for the 10th to the 19th of December.
Pretty paltry rise and even that is likely driven by incidentals as much as real covid illness.
Mechnical ventilation for Covid in London from 10th to 21st of Dec -
201 199 197 203 194 195 199 208 201 210 206 201
Unchanged.
Why then are mainland Europe, Scotland and Wales panicking unnecessarily, along with the majority of reputable scientists, oh, and Javid?
A genuine rhetorical question, I am not requesting an answer.
Welsh restrictions from 26th probably point to the sort of mid-ground I am expecting England to end up at on 27th/28th. Hospitality indoors but limited to rule of 6. Guidance against household mixing but no force of law (except gatherings over 30). Social distancing and mask wearing.
I’m still not on board with the idea of restrictions but if they’re something like that I can grudgingly accept them as fairly minimal disruption I think.
Absolutely in line with my expectations for England ie something similar to England Stage 3.
So no requirement to serve outside only, no curfews, no substantial meals. And no lockdown.
🥂 ins’allah
Are you starting to feel I've called it right again?
Yes. And serious respect is due, IF that happens
But let’s not tempt Fate, quite yet
Always makes me laugh when otherwise rational people (or even @Leon) worry about tempting fate - as if Fate were a sentient being with very little willpower.
I envisage Fate the same way I envisage the PB mods. Dim witted, insecure beings inexplicably granted enormous power, and given to bouts of querulous wrath, so it’s best to avoid their attention, if at all possible
It's prudent to turn away their wrath by providing generous libations of wine from the krater, or in this modern era a 12-bottle case from one's preferred internet vintner.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
Nice spin
Johnson panicked in a different direction. He is more wary of the swivel-eyed.CRG than he is "wobbly scientists".
And that's a bad thing if the swivel eyed ones have called it right?
...but if they have called in right on the toss of a coin rather than empirical evidence - yes!
Our swivel eyed loons appear to have coin tossed to the same position as the virtuous scientists of the USA, amongst others.
They also seem to place far more weight on empirical evidence (as opposed to models) than SAGE do presently.
I hope you and they are correct, and maybe you and they are. I think it disingenuous nonetheless when PB fanbois try to attribute any good fortune over this issue on Johnson's genius rather than his hostage to fortune status.
Is there a poster left, other than the 1 obvious exception, who doesn't think he's a fat clown we hope to see the back of soon? You're tilting at windmills if you're trying to have an argument about that muppet.
I am relieved you have seen the light.
The rush by PBers to assure everyone that they're not a BJ fan after 2 years of applauding his ability to connect with the common man, his annoying of all the right people and general enthusiastic Johnson rimming is most entertaining.
Not guilty. I’ve seen him close up and have spent time with him in private, and have been trying to tell you what he is really like for years.
I actually think the Labour score on the latest YouGov poll (36%) is pretty disappointing, with the Tory score down as low as 30%.
However, my disappointment is tempered by seeing LD/Greens on a combined 20%; I don't think many of them will go (back) to Tories. So if I were a Tory I'd be pretty anxious.
Not so sure about that, your Ken Clarke Rory Stewart type Tories are probably about 10% of the electorate and may well hate this particular government more than your average Labour voter does. They will be dispersed across DK, Lab, LD, Green (as a protest and single issue not eco-socialism). Depending on the direction of Tory change they are still quite winnable for the Tories in 2024 under the right new leader.
I sort of agree, except there's no sign whatsoever of the Ken Clarke Rory Stewart type Tories, as you call them, taking over before 2024. With the ERG/CRG-types calling the shots, quite the reverse I think.
I agree.
I think the lesson they drew from the May/Boris handover is that they can pick whoever they like and the party can reinvent itself. They’ll go for ideological purity. The retail offering for the electorate - as they see it - is a simple rebranding exercise.
I think it’s a miscalculation - and labour have a decent chance of winning a majority (better than the current 5/1).
Just whistling to keep their spirits up, I think.
Listening to the mother on Women's Hour (caught it on the car radio) this morning, whose daughter died on the same day as the recent leaked No10 photo was taken, wasn't even remotely like anything I can recall under May. And it wasn't just Johnson she was angry with.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
Nice spin
Johnson panicked in a different direction. He is more wary of the swivel-eyed.CRG than he is "wobbly scientists".
And that's a bad thing if the swivel eyed ones have called it right?
...but if they have called in right on the toss of a coin rather than empirical evidence - yes!
Our swivel eyed loons appear to have coin tossed to the same position as the virtuous scientists of the USA, amongst others.
They also seem to place far more weight on empirical evidence (as opposed to models) than SAGE do presently.
I hope you and they are correct, and maybe you and they are. I think it disingenuous nonetheless when PB fanbois try to attribute any good fortune over this issue on Johnson's genius rather than his hostage to fortune status.
Is there a poster left, other than the 1 obvious exception, who doesn't think he's a fat clown we hope to see the back of soon? You're tilting at windmills if you're trying to have an argument about that muppet.
I am relieved you have seen the light.
The rush by PBers to assure everyone that they're not a BJ fan after 2 years of applauding his ability to connect with the common man, his annoying of all the right people and general enthusiastic Johnson rimming is most entertaining.
Not guilty. I’ve seen him close up and have spent time with him in private, and have been trying to tell you what he is really like for years.
You definitely weren't on my little list! Actually, not that little.
Alistair's Initial Week 51 projections: Admissions: 10660 (+27%) This is super sketchy - the first 3 days of numbers do not give a good guide to final figure looking at previous weeks - same point for week 50 had the projection at 11168) Deaths: 644 (+57%) This is more solid, equivalent Week 50 prediction was 409)
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd prefer if we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
Check the cases in hospital and numbers being ventilated graph. By beginning of December the number of cases had doubled, we should expect to see a large uptick in severe cases now. Not really there thus far.
More than 13 million residents in the Chinese city of Xi'an have been confined to their homes as officials implement a strict lockdown. Every two days, only one member of each household will be allowed outdoors to buy essentials.
Another entry for the "It is completely mysterious and deeply suspicious that China has stopped Covid spreading in the country" file.
There's some fairly doom language being used in Wales with regards to omicron. Words like storm, tidal wave, truly awful being used and of course further restrictions. Call me a cynic but might not the politicians simply be trying to make sure that if there is pressure on services in January (hardly unknown in winter time) they have an easy explanation. It's not our fault, it's this damn covid.
It’s all s**t. Omicron is the beginning of the end. Once this wave is over, our worries will substantially be over, except that winter flu for the next five years or so will be significantly, but not dramatically, worse than usual.
LDs come out against the UK trade deal with Australia and pitch a more protectionist message as they look for farmers' votes after the North Shropshire by election
It's a bad deal for farmers and one that can be 100% pinned on the Tory Party.
Expect a lot of similar items to be announced because there will be a lot of ammo available at the next election.
Not necessarily if farmers also expand their exports to Australia and removal of tariffs will be phased in anyway.
A complete change from 100 years ago though when it was the Liberals who were pure free traders and the Tories who often supported tariffs and protectionism.
For the LDs it seems free trade only applies with the EU
Are you utterly clueless.
Mrs Eek was chatting to a large landowner yesterday - their plan is to gut the farming and close farms as leases come to an end. Remaining farms will expand a bit and a lot of land will be left to rewild - because the new grant schemes make anything else utterly impossible.
And that's before Australia with it's even larger farmers way more efficient farms get started exporting to the UK.
One of the easiest votes for any opposition to win is going to be agricultural / rural voters and like a lot of things there is only one direction for the next few years as the reality hits home.
Remember you are sat in London Suburbia. Mrs Eek is driving round a national park talking to people farming for a living.
I'm failing to see the problem.
Agriculture provides 0.6% of GDP. It should sink or swim on its own merits, not be pandered to like Scargill trying to hold the rest of the country to ransom.
If you believe that British agriculture is of good quality then you should have every faith that it will swim and do even better going forwards. That can only be a good thing.
If you think its going to sink instead, then so be it. That's the free market working as intended and the land will still be available if anyone more efficient and productive wishes to use it instead.
I'm desperately hoping this is what it appears to be - Philip under a new name.
The alternative, 2 separate Philips, is a prospect not easily contemplated.
It is - he gave his reasons earlier in the thread.
Yep, saw that. He no longer wishes to post under his birth name of "Philip Thompson" and has thus transitioned for PB purposes to "Bartholomew Roberts".
I will respect this in accordance with my principles. He is from this point "Bartholomew" to me. Perhaps when we've had a few tumbles and established an awkward intimacy I will risk a "Barty".
Very woke of him, but sits ill with the assorted atrocities and all the other piracy.
Isn't that punching down against the Legally Challenged Community members of the sea-faring world?
Have you checked your privilege?
Not to mention the Welsh.
Simultaneously burning and drowning a shipload of enslaved people does count as punching down against Legally Challenged Community (albewit temporary) members of the sea-faring world.
According to some recent scholarship (ha ha ha) pirates were a rebellion against the hierarchical, hetro-normative patriarchal tyranny of the "normal" sea going world.
So they were the oppressed. And the oppressed can't really oppress other people - the apparent oppression is just false consciousness.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
Nice spin
Johnson panicked in a different direction. He is more wary of the swivel-eyed.CRG than he is "wobbly scientists".
And that's a bad thing if the swivel eyed ones have called it right?
...but if they have called in right on the toss of a coin rather than empirical evidence - yes!
Our swivel eyed loons appear to have coin tossed to the same position as the virtuous scientists of the USA, amongst others.
They also seem to place far more weight on empirical evidence (as opposed to models) than SAGE do presently.
I hope you and they are correct, and maybe you and they are. I think it disingenuous nonetheless when PB fanbois try to attribute any good fortune over this issue on Johnson's genius rather than his hostage to fortune status.
Is there a poster left, other than the 1 obvious exception, who doesn't think he's a fat clown we hope to see the back of soon? You're tilting at windmills if you're trying to have an argument about that muppet.
I am relieved you have seen the light.
The rush by PBers to assure everyone that they're not a BJ fan after 2 years of applauding his ability to connect with the common man, his annoying of all the right people and general enthusiastic Johnson rimming is most entertaining.
Not guilty. I’ve seen him close up and have spent time with him in private, and have been trying to tell you what he is really like for years.
You definitely weren't on my little list! Actually, not that little.
It’s reassuring to know that, when the revolution comes, I will be some way down the queue.
Looks like a 1m+ day for vaccines overall today, I'm still very annoyed that we didn't throw the door open earlier. There has been essentially no new capacity added yet, just the effect of people queuing up and getting rid of the 15 minute observation period.
We're moving up to a run rate of around 500k second doses and 300k first doses per week, if we can sustain that for a few months after our booster programme it will make a huge difference to our overall national immunity rates and our ability to withstand variants.
Hopefully the government won't lose focus on vaccines after the new year because a lot of good is being done right now to make inroads into our vaccine unwilling.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd prefer if we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
Check the cases in hospital and numbers being ventilated graph. By beginning of December the number of cases had doubled, we should expect to see a large uptick in severe cases now. Not really there thus far.
I remember a few years ago somebody saying that Boris Johnson was unsuited to be leader of the Conservative Party and Prime Minister.
That person was Boris Johnson.
If only he'd listened to his own advice, we'd all be in a better place.
Downside of that is you look at 2019 and it's easy to see why Boris ran, no-one else could get Brexit through...
The sad bit is that as I said earlier by hanging round he's destroying his reputation when he really could have left on a Churchillian like high.
Depends which of Mr Churchill's terms you mean, though.
Did he ever really leave on a high? Given a V sign by the ungrateful electorate1945 after mumbling about Labour being the Gestapo, shuffled out in 1955 maundering on about keeping England white. Regard seems to have been given very much in hindsight.
Pretty sure BJ won't receive regard at the moment of departure or with hindsight.
Wasn't too sure about 1945 myself I must admit - war still going on, and lots of rationing and deprivation ahead.
According to some polling done around 1945, many people expected (and wanted) a National government led by Churchill, with a bigger Labour party contribution.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd rather we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
London hospital admissions for covid (not excluding incidentals, but excluding people who caught covid whilst in hospital so were already there for something else) -
128 126 117 120 147 157 155 164 157 168
that's for the 10th to the 19th of December.
Pretty paltry rise and even that is likely driven by incidentals as much as real covid illness.
Mechnical ventilation for Covid in London from 10th to 21st of Dec -
201 199 197 203 194 195 199 208 201 210 206 201
Unchanged.
Why then are mainland Europe, Scotland and Wales panicking unnecessarily, along with the majority of reputable scientists, oh, and Javid?
A genuine rhetorical question, I am not requesting an answer.
Indeed. Why on earth is Holland in hard lockdown?!
The sensible Dutch
Tho I’m not sure “the majority of reputable scientists” are pro lockdown. Those who have professional skin in the game tend to be pro lockdown, for obvious reasons. You gain nothing from being “reckless” and everything from being “cautious” - and you don’t have to find the money for furlough
Beyond govt and Twitter nutters the boffins are more divided. Cf Farrar
LDs come out against the UK trade deal with Australia and pitch a more protectionist message as they look for farmers' votes after the North Shropshire by election
It's a bad deal for farmers and one that can be 100% pinned on the Tory Party.
Expect a lot of similar items to be announced because there will be a lot of ammo available at the next election.
Not necessarily if farmers also expand their exports to Australia and removal of tariffs will be phased in anyway.
A complete change from 100 years ago though when it was the Liberals who were pure free traders and the Tories who often supported tariffs and protectionism.
For the LDs it seems free trade only applies with the EU
Are you utterly clueless.
Mrs Eek was chatting to a large landowner yesterday - their plan is to gut the farming and close farms as leases come to an end. Remaining farms will expand a bit and a lot of land will be left to rewild - because the new grant schemes make anything else utterly impossible.
And that's before Australia with it's even larger farmers way more efficient farms get started exporting to the UK.
One of the easiest votes for any opposition to win is going to be agricultural / rural voters and like a lot of things there is only one direction for the next few years as the reality hits home.
Remember you are sat in London Suburbia. Mrs Eek is driving round a national park talking to people farming for a living.
I'm failing to see the problem.
Agriculture provides 0.6% of GDP. It should sink or swim on its own merits, not be pandered to like Scargill trying to hold the rest of the country to ransom.
If you believe that British agriculture is of good quality then you should have every faith that it will swim and do even better going forwards. That can only be a good thing.
If you think its going to sink instead, then so be it. That's the free market working as intended and the land will still be available if anyone more efficient and productive wishes to use it instead.
I'm desperately hoping this is what it appears to be - Philip under a new name.
The alternative, 2 separate Philips, is a prospect not easily contemplated.
It is - he gave his reasons earlier in the thread.
Yep, saw that. He no longer wishes to post under his birth name of "Philip Thompson" and has thus transitioned for PB purposes to "Bartholomew Roberts".
I will respect this in accordance with my principles. He is from this point "Bartholomew" to me. Perhaps when we've had a few tumbles and established an awkward intimacy I will risk a "Barty".
Very woke of him, but sits ill with the assorted atrocities and all the other piracy.
Isn't that punching down against the Legally Challenged Community members of the sea-faring world?
Have you checked your privilege?
Not to mention the Welsh.
Simultaneously burning and drowning a shipload of enslaved people does count as punching down against Legally Challenged Community (albewit temporary) members of the sea-faring world.
According to some recent scholarship (ha ha ha) pirates were a rebellion against the hierarchical, hetro-normative patriarchal tyranny of the "normal" sea going world...
LDs come out against the UK trade deal with Australia and pitch a more protectionist message as they look for farmers' votes after the North Shropshire by election
It's a bad deal for farmers and one that can be 100% pinned on the Tory Party.
Expect a lot of similar items to be announced because there will be a lot of ammo available at the next election.
Not necessarily if farmers also expand their exports to Australia and removal of tariffs will be phased in anyway.
A complete change from 100 years ago though when it was the Liberals who were pure free traders and the Tories who often supported tariffs and protectionism.
For the LDs it seems free trade only applies with the EU
Are you utterly clueless.
Mrs Eek was chatting to a large landowner yesterday - their plan is to gut the farming and close farms as leases come to an end. Remaining farms will expand a bit and a lot of land will be left to rewild - because the new grant schemes make anything else utterly impossible.
And that's before Australia with it's even larger farmers way more efficient farms get started exporting to the UK.
One of the easiest votes for any opposition to win is going to be agricultural / rural voters and like a lot of things there is only one direction for the next few years as the reality hits home.
Remember you are sat in London Suburbia. Mrs Eek is driving round a national park talking to people farming for a living.
I'm failing to see the problem.
Agriculture provides 0.6% of GDP. It should sink or swim on its own merits, not be pandered to like Scargill trying to hold the rest of the country to ransom.
If you believe that British agriculture is of good quality then you should have every faith that it will swim and do even better going forwards. That can only be a good thing.
If you think its going to sink instead, then so be it. That's the free market working as intended and the land will still be available if anyone more efficient and productive wishes to use it instead.
I'm desperately hoping this is what it appears to be - Philip under a new name.
The alternative, 2 separate Philips, is a prospect not easily contemplated.
It is - he gave his reasons earlier in the thread.
Yep, saw that. He no longer wishes to post under his birth name of "Philip Thompson" and has thus transitioned for PB purposes to "Bartholomew Roberts".
I will respect this in accordance with my principles. He is from this point "Bartholomew" to me. Perhaps when we've had a few tumbles and established an awkward intimacy I will risk a "Barty".
Very woke of him, but sits ill with the assorted atrocities and all the other piracy.
Isn't that punching down against the Legally Challenged Community members of the sea-faring world?
Have you checked your privilege?
Not to mention the Welsh.
Simultaneously burning and drowning a shipload of enslaved people does count as punching down against Legally Challenged Community (albewit temporary) members of the sea-faring world.
According to some recent scholarship (ha ha ha) pirates were a rebellion against the hierarchical, hetro-normative patriarchal tyranny of the "normal" sea going world.
So they were the oppressed. And the oppressed can't really oppress other people - the apparent oppression is just false consciousness.
I've actually been reading up on the pirate era for a project. The average matelot did have a shitty time and it's not surprising some rebelled and went rogue. But if they didn't oppress other people (of various genders, colours, and social levels from Indian royalty to enslaved Africans) then I'm Chairperson of the Epping Tories.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd rather we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
London hospital admissions for covid (not excluding incidentals, but excluding people who caught covid whilst in hospital so were already there for something else) -
128 126 117 120 147 157 155 164 157 168
that's for the 10th to the 19th of December.
Pretty paltry rise and even that is likely driven by incidentals as much as real covid illness.
Mechnical ventilation for Covid in London from 10th to 21st of Dec -
201 199 197 203 194 195 199 208 201 210 206 201
Unchanged.
Why then are mainland Europe, Scotland and Wales panicking unnecessarily, along with the majority of reputable scientists, oh, and Javid?
A genuine rhetorical question, I am not requesting an answer.
Ok then, I’ll give you an answer that you didn’t ask for. It’s the precautionary principle in action. Taking action probably will reduce the spread, although I’d argue Christmas and human nature is already doing that. Other nations in the U.K. have taken the view that this is better on the whole than the damage that restrictions impose. That’s a judgement. They may be right. In England currently the decision is that there isn’t enough data to be sure that restrictions are needed. It’s possible that we won’t know until too late. But like weather forecasts, it’s not a good idea to call a result until we actually know who was right.
56% of Britons have experienced food shortages? In 2021? I mean, Tesco substituted Amaretto mincemeat for ruby port minemeat in my delivery this week. So I suppose I can count myself among the 56%.
I actually think the Labour score on the latest YouGov poll (36%) is pretty disappointing, with the Tory score down as low as 30%.
However, my disappointment is tempered by seeing LD/Greens on a combined 20%; I don't think many of them will go (back) to Tories. So if I were a Tory I'd be pretty anxious.
My reluctantly held but oft propounded theory of a high floor to Con support - due to Brexit and Culture War issues - has been holed below the waterline. I wave it goodbye with head a little clearer and a heart much lightened.
I actually think the Labour score on the latest YouGov poll (36%) is pretty disappointing, with the Tory score down as low as 30%.
However, my disappointment is tempered by seeing LD/Greens on a combined 20%; I don't think many of them will go (back) to Tories. So if I were a Tory I'd be pretty anxious.
My reluctantly held but oft propounded theory of a high floor to Con support - due to Brexit and Culture War issues - has been holed below the waterline. I wave it goodbye with head a little clearer and a heart much lightened.
Statue defending is so passe now, as is running around in nothing but an England [or whatever is preferred] footie shirt and lighted flare.
56% of Britons have experienced food shortages? In 2021? I mean, Tesco substituted Amaretto mincemeat for ruby port minemeat in my delivery this week. So I suppose I can count myself among the 56%.
Just saw the JCVI news. FFS. Liberal handwriting and British exceptionalism at its worst. How long are our children going to have to endure disrupted education?
What's the JCVI news? Something on vaccinating younger children?
They’ve said most under 12s are not getting jabbed
Ever? Or now? I thought trials in under 12s were still ongoing, for Pfizer at least [1] and no MHRA approval of anything for under 12s? I may be out of date, though...
Ever, if they have their way. They say it’s only worthwhile for “vulnerable” 5-11s (as usual completely ignoring the educational impacts from school closures)
The trial mention above is about 0.5-4. The issue was that in the 2-4 range, they aren't getting a big enough immune response, suggesting the dosage is too low.
56% of Britons have experienced food shortages? In 2021? I mean, Tesco substituted Amaretto mincemeat for ruby port minemeat in my delivery this week. So I suppose I can count myself among the 56%.
Wrong kind of polling?
Obviously Brits are such whimpering snowflakes that they characterise a dearth of ruby port mincemeat as a food shortage.
Just saw the JCVI news. FFS. Liberal handwriting and British exceptionalism at its worst. How long are our children going to have to endure disrupted education?
What's the JCVI news? Something on vaccinating younger children?
They’ve said most under 12s are not getting jabbed
How many of them have had the lurgy already? Must be 80%+
Mind you, how sure are they that variant Pi / Omega / Orion won't affect children badly?
It is odd, SAGE seem to come up with every possible scenario of doom, whereas JCVI seem to plan for everything staying as it is at this instant.
They're both excessively risk-averse but the "risk" is to their own careers not the public.
SAGE are averse to the risk that they underestimate the danger of a new variant, so they don't recommend action, and then get criticised as to why they didn't do so sooner.
JCVI are averse to the risk that vaccinations are redundant, so side-effects are unnecessary, and then they get criticised as to why they approved the vaccine unnecessarily.
Neither are thinking about the public, just their own reputation. They're both doing their own Henderson Report.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd rather we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
London hospital admissions for covid (not excluding incidentals, but excluding people who caught covid whilst in hospital so were already there for something else) -
128 126 117 120 147 157 155 164 157 168
that's for the 10th to the 19th of December.
Pretty paltry rise and even that is likely driven by incidentals as much as real covid illness.
Mechnical ventilation for Covid in London from 10th to 21st of Dec -
201 199 197 203 194 195 199 208 201 210 206 201
Unchanged.
Why then are mainland Europe, Scotland and Wales panicking unnecessarily, along with the majority of reputable scientists, oh, and Javid?
A genuine rhetorical question, I am not requesting an answer.
In the case of some chunks of Europe,
1) They have large numbers of elderly people with no vaccinations. 2) Since the Winnie-The-Pooh variant is so transmissible, everyone will either get immunity from it from vaccination or get it the disease itself. 3) If large numbers of elderly, unvaccinated people get COVID, many will be hospitalised and many will die. 4) Because of the speed of transmission, this many happen in a very short space of time.
Just saw the JCVI news. FFS. Liberal handwriting and British exceptionalism at its worst. How long are our children going to have to endure disrupted education?
What's the JCVI news? Something on vaccinating younger children?
They’ve said most under 12s are not getting jabbed
Ever? Or now? I thought trials in under 12s were still ongoing, for Pfizer at least [1] and no MHRA approval of anything for under 12s? I may be out of date, though...
Ever, if they have their way. They say it’s only worthwhile for “vulnerable” 5-11s (as usual completely ignoring the educational impacts from school closures)
The trial mention above is about 0.5-4. The issue was that in the 2-4 range, they aren't getting a big enough immune response, suggesting the dosage is too low.
Exactly, there is clearly no real risk to vaxxing all 5-11 and plenty of benefits
More than 13 million residents in the Chinese city of Xi'an have been confined to their homes as officials implement a strict lockdown. Every two days, only one member of each household will be allowed outdoors to buy essentials.
Another entry for the "It is completely mysterious and deeply suspicious that China has stopped Covid spreading in the country" file.
You are surely not suggesting there may be some fiddling of the figures going on.....
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd rather we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
London hospital admissions for covid (not excluding incidentals, but excluding people who caught covid whilst in hospital so were already there for something else) -
128 126 117 120 147 157 155 164 157 168
that's for the 10th to the 19th of December.
Pretty paltry rise and even that is likely driven by incidentals as much as real covid illness.
Mechnical ventilation for Covid in London from 10th to 21st of Dec -
201 199 197 203 194 195 199 208 201 210 206 201
Unchanged.
Why then are mainland Europe, Scotland and Wales panicking unnecessarily, along with the majority of reputable scientists, oh, and Javid?
A genuine rhetorical question, I am not requesting an answer.
Ok then, I’ll give you an answer that you didn’t ask for. It’s the precautionary principle in action. Taking action probably will reduce the spread, although I’d argue Christmas and human nature is already doing that. Other nations in the U.K. have taken the view that this is better on the whole than the damage that restrictions impose. That’s a judgement. They may be right. In England currently the decision is that there isn’t enough data to be sure that restrictions are needed. It’s possible that we won’t know until too late. But like weather forecasts, it’s not a good idea to call a result until we actually know who was right.
Yes, it's the same old restrictions or "lockdown just in case" mentality that we've been battling against for two years. Lockdown is the "break glass in case of emergencies" big red button that should be used only when it is absolutely necessary. Too many people see it as a cost free way of controlling the spread of COVID, even when there is a case to be made that we maybe shouldn't be controlling spread in a largely vaccinated population to get natural immunity built up in the won't vaccinate cohort.
It feels like too many scientists here, politicians across the whole of Europe (here and on the continent) simply don't see the cost of lockdown beyond having to borrow a bit of extra money to pay for support schemes. It's easy to deal with lockdown in a big house with a big garden, secure employment that can be done from home, an established social and family network who you see during lockdown ("but they're all in our bubble, why wouldn't we see them?"). The consideration given to people who aren't like them is tiny and the suffering that lockdown causes for younger less established people is untold, the damage it causes to children who have had their education fucked up for at least a year now is immeasurable.
What really annoyed me today when we went out for coffee with my sister and brother in law was the older couple in the cafe visibly upset at having four under 40s and two kids sitting indoors with them. It's as if the older generation think they're entitled to all of life's niceties while young people have to sacrifice "whatever it takes" (to borrow a phrase) to ensure they can live unencumbered by COVID.
LDs come out against the UK trade deal with Australia and pitch a more protectionist message as they look for farmers' votes after the North Shropshire by election
It's a bad deal for farmers and one that can be 100% pinned on the Tory Party.
Expect a lot of similar items to be announced because there will be a lot of ammo available at the next election.
Not necessarily if farmers also expand their exports to Australia and removal of tariffs will be phased in anyway.
A complete change from 100 years ago though when it was the Liberals who were pure free traders and the Tories who often supported tariffs and protectionism.
For the LDs it seems free trade only applies with the EU
Are you utterly clueless.
Mrs Eek was chatting to a large landowner yesterday - their plan is to gut the farming and close farms as leases come to an end. Remaining farms will expand a bit and a lot of land will be left to rewild - because the new grant schemes make anything else utterly impossible.
And that's before Australia with it's even larger farmers way more efficient farms get started exporting to the UK.
One of the easiest votes for any opposition to win is going to be agricultural / rural voters and like a lot of things there is only one direction for the next few years as the reality hits home.
Remember you are sat in London Suburbia. Mrs Eek is driving round a national park talking to people farming for a living.
I'm failing to see the problem.
Agriculture provides 0.6% of GDP. It should sink or swim on its own merits, not be pandered to like Scargill trying to hold the rest of the country to ransom.
If you believe that British agriculture is of good quality then you should have every faith that it will swim and do even better going forwards. That can only be a good thing.
If you think its going to sink instead, then so be it. That's the free market working as intended and the land will still be available if anyone more efficient and productive wishes to use it instead.
I'm desperately hoping this is what it appears to be - Philip under a new name.
The alternative, 2 separate Philips, is a prospect not easily contemplated.
It is - he gave his reasons earlier in the thread.
Yep, saw that. He no longer wishes to post under his birth name of "Philip Thompson" and has thus transitioned for PB purposes to "Bartholomew Roberts".
I will respect this in accordance with my principles. He is from this point "Bartholomew" to me. Perhaps when we've had a few tumbles and established an awkward intimacy I will risk a "Barty".
Very woke of him, but sits ill with the assorted atrocities and all the other piracy.
Isn't that punching down against the Legally Challenged Community members of the sea-faring world?
Have you checked your privilege?
Not to mention the Welsh.
Simultaneously burning and drowning a shipload of enslaved people does count as punching down against Legally Challenged Community (albewit temporary) members of the sea-faring world.
According to some recent scholarship (ha ha ha) pirates were a rebellion against the hierarchical, hetro-normative patriarchal tyranny of the "normal" sea going world.
So they were the oppressed. And the oppressed can't really oppress other people - the apparent oppression is just false consciousness.
I've actually been reading up on the pirate era for a project. The average matelot did have a shitty time and it's not surprising some rebelled and went rogue. But if they didn't oppress other people (of various genders, colours, and social levels from Indian royalty to enslaved Africans) then I'm Chairperson of the Epping Tories.
Yes, they did have a shitty time. Indeed, until the squeeze of the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy was a surprisingly good employer, compared to the merchant ships.
As to oppressed people oppressing others - yes, it's horseshit. But it is the same horseshit that is supposed to stop us asking about bad actions prevalent in any minority culture.
Congrats on being appointed new Chairperson of the Epping Tories. The keys to the tank are behind the picture of Maggie, over the bar.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd rather we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
London hospital admissions for covid (not excluding incidentals, but excluding people who caught covid whilst in hospital so were already there for something else) -
128 126 117 120 147 157 155 164 157 168
that's for the 10th to the 19th of December.
Pretty paltry rise and even that is likely driven by incidentals as much as real covid illness.
Mechnical ventilation for Covid in London from 10th to 21st of Dec -
201 199 197 203 194 195 199 208 201 210 206 201
Unchanged.
Why then are mainland Europe, Scotland and Wales panicking unnecessarily, along with the majority of reputable scientists, oh, and Javid?
A genuine rhetorical question, I am not requesting an answer.
Ok then, I’ll give you an answer that you didn’t ask for. It’s the precautionary principle in action. Taking action probably will reduce the spread, although I’d argue Christmas and human nature is already doing that. Other nations in the U.K. have taken the view that this is better on the whole than the damage that restrictions impose. That’s a judgement. They may be right. In England currently the decision is that there isn’t enough data to be sure that restrictions are needed. It’s possible that we won’t know until too late. But like weather forecasts, it’s not a good idea to call a result until we actually know who was right.
Yes, it's the same old restrictions or "lockdown just in case" mentality that we've been battling against for two years. Lockdown is the "break glass in case of emergencies" big red button that should be used only when it is absolutely necessary. Too many people see it as a cost free way of controlling the spread of COVID, even when there is a case to be made that we maybe shouldn't be controlling spread in a largely vaccinated population to get natural immunity built up in the won't vaccinate cohort.
It feels like too many scientists here, politicians across the whole of Europe (here and on the continent) simply don't see the cost of lockdown beyond having to borrow a bit of extra money to pay for support schemes. It's easy to deal with lockdown in a big house with a big garden, secure employment that can be done from home, an established social and family network who you see during lockdown ("but they're all in our bubble, why wouldn't we see them?"). The consideration given to people who aren't like them is tiny and the suffering that lockdown causes for younger less established people is untold, the damage it causes to children who have had their education fucked up for at least a year now is immeasurable.
What really annoyed me today when we went out for coffee with my sister and brother in law was the older couple in the cafe visibly upset at having four under 40s and two kids sitting indoors with them. It's as if the older generation think they're entitled to all of life's niceties while young people have to sacrifice "whatever it takes" (to borrow a phrase) to ensure they can live unencumbered by COVID.
More than 13 million residents in the Chinese city of Xi'an have been confined to their homes as officials implement a strict lockdown. Every two days, only one member of each household will be allowed outdoors to buy essentials.
Another entry for the "It is completely mysterious and deeply suspicious that China has stopped Covid spreading in the country" file.
You are surely not suggesting there may be some fiddling of the figures going on.....
A regime that does things up to and including, light recreational genocide, telling fibs?
More than 13 million residents in the Chinese city of Xi'an have been confined to their homes as officials implement a strict lockdown. Every two days, only one member of each household will be allowed outdoors to buy essentials.
Another entry for the "It is completely mysterious and deeply suspicious that China has stopped Covid spreading in the country" file.
You are surely not suggesting there may be some fiddling of the figures going on.....
More that some people still like to float the "it was a carefully released bioweapon by the Chinese to disrupt the West and the Chinese were completely prepared for it and had pre-vaccinated the whole population" conspiracy theory to explain why Covid isn't running rampant through China rather than the fact that they are completely willing to lockdown (and actually really lockdown) millions of people at a time when someone so much as coughs.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd rather we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
London hospital admissions for covid (not excluding incidentals, but excluding people who caught covid whilst in hospital so were already there for something else) -
128 126 117 120 147 157 155 164 157 168
that's for the 10th to the 19th of December.
Pretty paltry rise and even that is likely driven by incidentals as much as real covid illness.
Mechnical ventilation for Covid in London from 10th to 21st of Dec -
201 199 197 203 194 195 199 208 201 210 206 201
Unchanged.
Why then are mainland Europe, Scotland and Wales panicking unnecessarily, along with the majority of reputable scientists, oh, and Javid?
A genuine rhetorical question, I am not requesting an answer.
Ok then, I’ll give you an answer that you didn’t ask for. It’s the precautionary principle in action. Taking action probably will reduce the spread, although I’d argue Christmas and human nature is already doing that. Other nations in the U.K. have taken the view that this is better on the whole than the damage that restrictions impose. That’s a judgement. They may be right. In England currently the decision is that there isn’t enough data to be sure that restrictions are needed. It’s possible that we won’t know until too late. But like weather forecasts, it’s not a good idea to call a result until we actually know who was right.
Yes, it's the same old restrictions or "lockdown just in case" mentality that we've been battling against for two years. Lockdown is the "break glass in case of emergencies" big red button that should be used only when it is absolutely necessary. Too many people see it as a cost free way of controlling the spread of COVID, even when there is a case to be made that we maybe shouldn't be controlling spread in a largely vaccinated population to get natural immunity built up in the won't vaccinate cohort.
It feels like too many scientists here, politicians across the whole of Europe (here and on the continent) simply don't see the cost of lockdown beyond having to borrow a bit of extra money to pay for support schemes. It's easy to deal with lockdown in a big house with a big garden, secure employment that can be done from home, an established social and family network who you see during lockdown ("but they're all in our bubble, why wouldn't we see them?"). The consideration given to people who aren't like them is tiny and the suffering that lockdown causes for younger less established people is untold, the damage it causes to children who have had their education fucked up for at least a year now is immeasurable.
What really annoyed me today when we went out for coffee with my sister and brother in law was the older couple in the cafe visibly upset at having four under 40s and two kids sitting indoors with them. It's as if the older generation think they're entitled to all of life's niceties while young people have to sacrifice "whatever it takes" (to borrow a phrase) to ensure they can live unencumbered by COVID.
South Africa at the height of the pandemic was at Level 5 restrictions. Even with Omicron it has now made the decision to stay at Level 1. Omicron levels are now falling in Gauteng Province. Hospitalisations are finding patients don't require oxygen or ventilation.
Boris may yet get out of jail - if he was shown not to have panicked in the face of the advice from the wobbly scientists.
I'd rather we focused on the London data rather than SA. Should that be positive, hats off to Johnson's genius.
London hospital admissions for covid (not excluding incidentals, but excluding people who caught covid whilst in hospital so were already there for something else) -
128 126 117 120 147 157 155 164 157 168
that's for the 10th to the 19th of December.
Pretty paltry rise and even that is likely driven by incidentals as much as real covid illness.
Mechnical ventilation for Covid in London from 10th to 21st of Dec -
201 199 197 203 194 195 199 208 201 210 206 201
Unchanged.
Why then are mainland Europe, Scotland and Wales panicking unnecessarily, along with the majority of reputable scientists, oh, and Javid?
A genuine rhetorical question, I am not requesting an answer.
Ok then, I’ll give you an answer that you didn’t ask for. It’s the precautionary principle in action. Taking action probably will reduce the spread, although I’d argue Christmas and human nature is already doing that. Other nations in the U.K. have taken the view that this is better on the whole than the damage that restrictions impose. That’s a judgement. They may be right. In England currently the decision is that there isn’t enough data to be sure that restrictions are needed. It’s possible that we won’t know until too late. But like weather forecasts, it’s not a good idea to call a result until we actually know who was right.
Yes, it's the same old restrictions or "lockdown just in case" mentality that we've been battling against for two years. Lockdown is the "break glass in case of emergencies" big red button that should be used only when it is absolutely necessary. Too many people see it as a cost free way of controlling the spread of COVID, even when there is a case to be made that we maybe shouldn't be controlling spread in a largely vaccinated population to get natural immunity built up in the won't vaccinate cohort.
It feels like too many scientists here, politicians across the whole of Europe (here and on the continent) simply don't see the cost of lockdown beyond having to borrow a bit of extra money to pay for support schemes. It's easy to deal with lockdown in a big house with a big garden, secure employment that can be done from home, an established social and family network who you see during lockdown ("but they're all in our bubble, why wouldn't we see them?"). The consideration given to people who aren't like them is tiny and the suffering that lockdown causes for younger less established people is untold, the damage it causes to children who have had their education fucked up for at least a year now is immeasurable.
What really annoyed me today when we went out for coffee with my sister and brother in law was the older couple in the cafe visibly upset at having four under 40s and two kids sitting indoors with them. It's as if the older generation think they're entitled to all of life's niceties while young people have to sacrifice "whatever it takes" (to borrow a phrase) to ensure they can live unencumbered by COVID.
"It feels like too many scientists... politicians.... simply don't see the cost of lockdown beyond having to borrow a bit of extra money to pay for support schemes. It's easy to deal with lockdown in a big house with a big garden, secure employment that can be done from home, an established social and family network who you see during lockdown...."
Comments
[1] https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/12/vaccine-trial-finds-a-glitch-with-children-in-one-age-range/
Rishi Sunak, a terrible chancellor
UK economy grew at slower pace than first thought in third quarter
Mind you, how sure are they that variant Pi / Omega / Orion won't affect children badly?
It is odd, SAGE seem to come up with every possible scenario of doom, whereas JCVI seem to plan for everything staying as it is at this instant.
I think the lesson they drew from the May/Boris handover is that they can pick whoever they like and the party can reinvent itself. They’ll go for ideological purity. The retail offering for the electorate - as they see it - is a simple rebranding exercise.
I think it’s a miscalculation - and labour have a decent chance of winning a majority (better than the current 5/1).
over this issue on Johnson's genius rather than his hostage to fortune status.
So for us it's probably a matter of the vaccines holding up which they will likely do against severe disease. I'm off for my 3rd vaccine later, doing my civic duty to protect the unvaccinated from covid and lessen the burden on the health service.
Rishi Sunak is fiscally hawkish, I can’t imagine him implementing spend spend spend
What he wants is for New Year to be on but for people to stay cautious. Every person who voluntarily chooses not to socialise makes it that much easier not to place restrictions on those who do.
So lack of detail and hints are par for the course.
Perhaps the fact that an England wicket always seems to fall just after I turn on the radio is not the intervention of Fate but rather a valid result of sampling.
I stuck in some random figures stats for older man, not vaccinated and significantly overweight, soon goes from 1/38 chance of death if correct weight, to 1/16....
A middle aged man, not vaccinated and significantly overweight, soon goes from 1/1284, to 1/234
Lockdown or not is irrelevant in all this.
Policies are bung huge amounts of cash to your mates and do what the heck you please.
Tax the plebs till the pips squeak while handing out a little Maunday money back to the grateful peasantry.
The other takeaway for me is: I don't like a risk of dying of 1 in 679, that seems rather too high for my liking. Call it 0.14% though, and I feel fairly chilled. Irrationally.
(I'm still don;t facny tempting Ms Fate though.)
I just tried a 30 year old, when not vaccinated, no risk factors 1/3774, being overweight, 1/1355. That a massive difference.
Not Blair, who reduced poverty by a third, fixed schools and hospitals that were falling down, genuinely invested in the NHS, created SureStart, practically eliminated homelessness.
No, Boris Johnson who has achieved nothing. And David Cameron who ran away when he split the country in two.
Pretty sure BJ won't receive regard at the moment of departure or with hindsight.
Down South where everything is fine - the country doesn't want money to be spent on anything
Up North they know that money spent now will improve their lives and make things better in the future
Boris promised everything to both sets of people and now a decision has to be made as to which one should be kept happy - and it's looking increasingly likely that neither side are going to be happy.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/dec/22/jcvi-set-to-recommend-vaccinating-vulnerable-five--to-11-year-olds?CMP=twt_gu&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium#Echobox=1640177232
Hopefully they will be overruled again.
In London, Tories could be facing devastating results (with any luck)
Dec 17 - Nicola Sturgeon asked about cutting self-isolation time. Reply: “Yeah, that would really help because that would spread infection even further.”
Dec 22 - John Swinney says self-isolation changes being considered.
Dec 17 - Nicola Sturgeon ridicules idea of finding more business support cash from her Budget in answer to Press Q. “I don't know where you think I should take it from? The health service?"
Dec 21 - Ms Sturgeon announces “a further £100 million from elsewhere in our budget”
Dec 18 - Nicola Sturgeon rubbishes Herald on Sunday front page about recall of parliament between Christmas New Year. Prompts 5.3k likes, accusations of "media lies", "bullshit", etc
Dec 21 - It’s confirmed Parliament is to be recalled between Christmas and New Year
https://twitter.com/chrismusson/status/1473626851847385090?s=21
That's who their members are. That's who provide the vast bulk of their MP's. To do otherwise would be insane.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/covid-cases-omicron-london-dropping-analysis-b973366.html
Anyhow I am determined to lose weight in the New Year and I hope to find that marginally easier than losing 20 years off my age.
https://news.sky.com/story/72-million-year-old-dinosaur-embryo-discovered-inside-fossilised-egg-12501849
I don’t think it will work, personally, but they may get enough seats to make labours life difficult.
*the 1/3 off off-peak railcards don’t actually cost the exchequer anything. The rail companies eat the discount to encourage off-peak travel from people who wouldn’t otherwise use the railways.
Some more random playing about, obviously age is the biggest factor, but where weight is bad news is younger demographics, 30-40s, who with no other conditions aren't really that high risk. And then if they also don't get vaccinated, that extra weight clearly does make a big difference to their risk.
The 2019 promise was extra spending without extra taxes. Somehow, Brexit and Foreign Aid cuts were going to pay for it all.
The reality by 2024 looks like being little or no extra spending with extra taxes. And whilst Covid hasn't helped, that was always likely because of inevitable increasing demands from pensions, health and social care.
Labour members electing Corbyn were making a statement about their own values, with complete disregard for the consequences for their party and, strongly arguably, the country.
Similarly the many Tories that gave the clown such responsibility, purely because he would win the coming election and despite all the warnings that where we are now is where we would inexorably go.
We see this again in the casual way that HY considers the possibility of JRM becoming Tory leader, not considering the years during which it would condemn his party to the wilderness nor the likelihood that his own potentially stellar career in parish politics would be brutally truncated.
If Omicron gets seeded there, there are just going to be in this rotation of this for years across China.
128 126 117 120 147 157 155 164 157 168
that's for the 10th to the 19th of December.
Pretty paltry rise and even that is likely driven by incidentals as much as real covid illness.
Mechnical ventilation for Covid in London from 10th to 21st of Dec -
201 199 197 203 194 195 199 208 201 210 206 201
Unchanged.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-59748281
Not least because the chance of catching covid is correlated with lifestyle and social interaction, about which it asks precisely nothing, and not with height, weight or medical history, about which it ask a lot.
But it is all backward looking as well....we now have Omicron, which is a different set of risk factors.
I wouldn't take too much notice of the exact 1/x figure.
A genuine rhetorical question, I am not requesting an answer.
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1473612350758477830?s=20
Listening to the mother on Women's Hour (caught it on the car radio) this morning, whose daughter died on the same day as the recent leaked No10 photo was taken, wasn't even remotely like anything I can recall under May.
And it wasn't just Johnson she was angry with.
Actually, not that little.
Admissions: 8348 (+16%)
Deaths: 410 (+86%)
Ventilated: 2.6%
Oxygenated: 14.3%
Alistair's Initial Week 51 projections:
Admissions: 10660 (+27%) This is super sketchy - the first 3 days of numbers do not give a good guide to final figure looking at previous weeks - same point for week 50 had the projection at 11168)
Deaths: 644 (+57%) This is more solid, equivalent Week 50 prediction was 409)
Check the cases in hospital and numbers being ventilated graph. By beginning of December the number of cases had doubled, we should expect to see a large uptick in severe cases now. Not really there thus far.
So they were the oppressed. And the oppressed can't really oppress other people - the apparent oppression is just false consciousness.
We're moving up to a run rate of around 500k second doses and 300k first doses per week, if we can sustain that for a few months after our booster programme it will make a huge difference to our overall national immunity rates and our ability to withstand variants.
Hopefully the government won't lose focus on vaccines after the new year because a lot of good is being done right now to make inroads into our vaccine unwilling.
The sensible Dutch
Tho I’m not sure “the majority of reputable scientists” are pro lockdown. Those who have professional skin in the game tend to be pro lockdown, for obvious reasons. You gain nothing from being “reckless” and everything from being “cautious” - and you don’t have to find the money for furlough
Beyond govt and Twitter nutters the boffins are more divided. Cf Farrar
In England currently the decision is that there isn’t enough data to be sure that restrictions are needed. It’s possible that we won’t know until too late. But like weather forecasts, it’s not a good idea to call a result until we actually know who was right.
I mean, Tesco substituted Amaretto mincemeat for ruby port minemeat in my delivery this week. So I suppose I can count myself among the 56%.
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/countries-vaccinating-children-against-covid-19-2021-06-29/
The trial mention above is about 0.5-4. The issue was that in the 2-4 range, they aren't getting a big enough immune response, suggesting the dosage is too low.
Obviously Brits are such whimpering snowflakes that they characterise a dearth of ruby port mincemeat as a food shortage.
SAGE are averse to the risk that they underestimate the danger of a new variant, so they don't recommend action, and then get criticised as to why they didn't do so sooner.
JCVI are averse to the risk that vaccinations are redundant, so side-effects are unnecessary, and then they get criticised as to why they approved the vaccine unnecessarily.
Neither are thinking about the public, just their own reputation. They're both doing their own Henderson Report.
1) They have large numbers of elderly people with no vaccinations.
2) Since the Winnie-The-Pooh variant is so transmissible, everyone will either get immunity from it from vaccination or get it the disease itself.
3) If large numbers of elderly, unvaccinated people get COVID, many will be hospitalised and many will die.
4) Because of the speed of transmission, this many happen in a very short space of time.
They come with a massive asterisk next to them saying Public Health Scotland are trying to work out why the number is banjoed.
So that's the UK figure going to be about 3-4k lower than it "should" be today
It feels like too many scientists here, politicians across the whole of Europe (here and on the continent) simply don't see the cost of lockdown beyond having to borrow a bit of extra money to pay for support schemes. It's easy to deal with lockdown in a big house with a big garden, secure employment that can be done from home, an established social and family network who you see during lockdown ("but they're all in our bubble, why wouldn't we see them?"). The consideration given to people who aren't like them is tiny and the suffering that lockdown causes for younger less established people is untold, the damage it causes to children who have had their education fucked up for at least a year now is immeasurable.
What really annoyed me today when we went out for coffee with my sister and brother in law was the older couple in the cafe visibly upset at having four under 40s and two kids sitting indoors with them. It's as if the older generation think they're entitled to all of life's niceties while young people have to sacrifice "whatever it takes" (to borrow a phrase) to ensure they can live unencumbered by COVID.
As to oppressed people oppressing others - yes, it's horseshit. But it is the same horseshit that is supposed to stop us asking about bad actions prevalent in any minority culture.
Congrats on being appointed new Chairperson of the Epping Tories. The keys to the tank are behind the picture of Maggie, over the bar.
Fixed that for you. No charge.