Embarrassing drivel from Leon, one of the most pathetic about turns I've ever seen in my life from "we're all fucked" to "nothing to worry about" overnight. He must do this for reactions.
Doubtless we’ll have a few more days of incessant ‘it’s good news’ posts and then he’ll try and claim he was first to foresee this from the beginning….
Thread on the imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine. It looks like a WWI situation, where, having mobilised, the two choices are fight or put yourself at a permanent disadvantage. The difference is that this time around, there’s only one country - and one person - responsible.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1473362849871368195 75% of Russia’s total battalion tactical groups have been moved. Artillery, air defense units, tanks, APCs, bridge-laying equipment, mine clearers, armored excavators, engineering equipment, refueling, huge amount of logistics, etc. Follow @RALee85 for details
Putin really is a total arse.
Other than the whole nukes thing, it would be a great time for China to invade Russia...
Or Taiwan…
Taiwan will still be there in twelve months, but they may never have a better opportunity to take Eastern Siberia. That would also encircle Mongolia.
- Boosters. 12.2 Million left to do in Scotland and England. - Cases. Rising sharply across all regions. Nearly all the growth is in the sub 50s groups. London R is now falling
- Admissions. Rising slowly. - Deaths - still falling.
Is there a reason why you spell it “preverts” in each of these pictures?
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1m Imperial find for a 69% reduction in the risk of being hospitalised for more than one day with omicron vs delta.
Debate over, Omicron is milder, enjoy christmas and new years all you like.
It does feel like that Father Ted sketch talking to Dougal about cows at times.
Its been broadly accepted for some time that Omicron looks milder than Delta. If you listen to Whitty, Taylor et al that isn't what concerns them. Its that Omicron is so much more infectious than the others have been.
A lower percentage in hospital of a much larger number is still a larger number in hospital. For most people Omicron would not threaten their life. But if so many people get it that the small percentage it does threaten means a lot of people, its still very much a problem.
Problem with that argument is that unless you shut things down ages ago by the time you discover you have a problem it's too late to do anything about it.
This is what made Boris's Plan B stuff so bad - it was too little and introduced too late to make any real difference. And the Welsh / Scottish post Xmas lockdowns are really far, far too late.
What lockdowns? We are NOT being locked down.
See my comment earlier today - enough of Glasgow is being shut down that we are no longer heading that way post Christmas.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1m Imperial find for a 69% reduction in the risk of being hospitalised for more than one day with omicron vs delta.
Debate over, Omicron is milder, enjoy christmas and new years all you like.
It does feel like that Father Ted sketch talking to Dougal about cows at times.
Its been broadly accepted for some time that Omicron looks milder than Delta. If you listen to Whitty, Taylor et al that isn't what concerns them. Its that Omicron is so much more infectious than the others have been.
A lower percentage in hospital of a much larger number is still a larger number in hospital. For most people Omicron would not threaten their life. But if so many people get it that the small percentage it does threaten means a lot of people, its still very much a problem.
Yes, yes yes, we get that.
But if Omicron is as mild as Imperial's data suggests, cases would have to be ludricously large to reach a level of hospitalisations equivalent to the Alpha wave earlier this year. And there are already signs that they won't get that high.
We all know that. Whats more the medical powers that be know that. Double jabbed doesn't give enough protection, triple does. So as we get through January with more and more tripled the risk recedes. Its just the immediate period thats the problem.
Whats more, they not only have the data on the virus, they have the data on the NHS. How many hospitals are already swamped after 20 months of this crap. It does make me chuckle when PB experts say "everything is fine" when they have literally no idea what its like in the NHS system.
It looks like we're going to dodge this bullet - just. Brilliant news! But the idea that there was not a bullet to dodge is wishful thinking, and its turned into attack the experts, which is how we got into this wider mess...
On that I agree. The JCVI is clearly not fit for purpose, in part because of the clear lack of faith in vaccines held by some of its members, and it part because of its extremely narrow mandate (only looking at the impact of vaccination on the health individual rather than the benefits for wider society, education). We've seen this madness once again today over jabs for 5-11 year olds.
I sense a shift in PB sentiment from "Lockdown is coming cos of crazy scientists" to "Lockdown is NOT coming cos Omi is a pussy."
This is a better vibe, I think. Fingers crossed for no backslide.
I wouldn't breathe too much of a sigh of relief yet. Remember, the Government, Parliament and most of the media are all based in and fixated on London, it's full of bloody vaccine refuser twats, and they're driving the spike in hospitalisations (especially the more serious ones.) Johnson might easily be panicked into a whole raft of Drakefordesque panic flapping nonsense if London starts to look really iffy, even if the rest of England continues to cope relatively well.
Is it possible for me to remove my profile from this site or, if not, could the moderators do it pls? Thanks.
About half the time since Mar. 2020, PB has been like a new organisation 'Hypochondriacs Anonymous'.
I'm sorry some people were terrified by the relentless fear campaign SAGE, SPI-B etc have waged. But they should have exercised critical thinking and learned which MSM might not be telling the truth. If you didn't even know there was a fear campaign, that 'COVID deaths' were exagerrated, etc, etc, chances are you're one of its victims. Read Laura Dodsworth's book.
Bye bye.
Why not come to Bedford Russell Park on a Sunday and chat with the dwindling band of very nice "refuseniks"?
The ones necking White Lightning around burning crates? Or is there some significance to the partk that escapes me?
Hopefully there is still time to reverse all of those lockdown decisions for Scotland and Wales (and for Sadiq to get London's NYE back on track). One thing I worry about is that this "mild narrative" will take hold and people will stop queueing for boosters in January.
Yes, and excellent analysis as always. A little unfair to Matthew Goodwin (who I am sure is being referred to) here:
From the end of January to early September, the Conservatives led in every published poll (as one prominent academic monotonously pointed out: he has since fallen silent on the subject).
As he has several times pointed out that Labour have started taking the lead.
like here:
Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 23h And ... 16th Labour lead in row
Labour 39% Cons 31% Lib Dem 13% Green 6% SNP 5% Reform 5%
But none of that detracts from the fact that Mr Meeks is an outstandingly interesting analyst, commentator and predictor.
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.
No, it's the Andromeda strain that will get the children
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex could be called as witness in Prince Andrew's sex case.
Virginia Giuffre's lawyer says Duchess can be 'counted on to tell the truth' but said he is unlikely to depose the Queen 'out of respect'
The Duchess of Sussex could be called as a witness in the civil suit against Prince Andrew brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
David Boies, the lawyer representing Ms Giuffre, told the Daily Beast that the Duchess of Sussex “is somebody we can count on to tell the truth”.
Mr Boies said there are three reasons she may be deposed: “One; she is in the U.S. so we have jurisdiction over her.”
“Two; she is somebody who obviously, at least for a period of time, was a close associate of Prince Andrew and hence is in a position to perhaps have seen what he did, and perhaps if not to have seen what he did to have heard people talk about it. Because of her past association with him, she may very well have important knowledge, and will certainly have some knowledge.”
“Three; she is somebody who we can count on to tell the truth. She checks all three boxes.”
Mr Boies stressed that no final decision had been made on who he would depose, stating that the Duchess is just “one of the people we are considering”.
But she didn't know him at the time of the allegations, did she?
Surely hearsay is inadmissible, so unless she witnessed it herself (unlikely given timeframes and, well, everything),on what basis could she be called?
Not getting involved in this case thanks, but on the subject of hearsay, as a general rule hearsay is not admissible as evidence against a defendant, but an important exception is hearsay evidence of what the defendant himself said about what he himself did.
So, for example in an English criminal case a policeman gives evidence of what the defendant X said about the doings of himself. This is evidence against X. But if the defendants are X and Y, what X said to the the policeman about what Y is NOT evidence against Y unless and until X repeats it in court as X and Y dish each other in a cutthroat defence.
There are a few other exceptions too. And in recent years it has widened a bit to include sometimes hearsay accounts of what witness Z said about defendant W before the witness got intimidated out of repeating it in court.
Thanks. I can hardly imagine Andrew and Meghan having detailed discussions about the whole Epstein thing, and particularly not conversations in which Andrew made self-incriminating comments about any aspects relevant to the court case.
And if Maghan says they did, in private, how can she be proven wrong?
Embarrassing drivel from Leon, one of the most pathetic about turns I've ever seen in my life from "we're all fucked" to "nothing to worry about" overnight. He must do this for reactions.
To be fair, it could've been really bad, and the SAGE worst case scenarios backed that up.
The real world data has now come in and things are looking good. Shouldn't get complacent though - the next variant could be the real deal.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1m Imperial find for a 69% reduction in the risk of being hospitalised for more than one day with omicron vs delta.
Debate over, Omicron is milder, enjoy christmas and new years all you like.
It does feel like that Father Ted sketch talking to Dougal about cows at times.
Its been broadly accepted for some time that Omicron looks milder than Delta. If you listen to Whitty, Taylor et al that isn't what concerns them. Its that Omicron is so much more infectious than the others have been.
A lower percentage in hospital of a much larger number is still a larger number in hospital. For most people Omicron would not threaten their life. But if so many people get it that the small percentage it does threaten means a lot of people, its still very much a problem.
Delta caused 1k hospitalisations per day with recorded cases of 50k per day. To get to 4k matching last Jan, we'd need recorded cases of 400-600k rather than the current 100k.
So we're a long way away from large volumes overwhelming the weaker mode of action.
Happily people have pulled the plug on so much of what they were going to do. Omicron wasn't just doubling every two days, it hit a peak of 2.5x. Its now slowed a touch to a (stable for 2 days) 1.64x growth every two days. Won't take too long at that rate for cases to smash their way north to something silly - lets hope the Chrostmas period slows it down.
Hopefully there is still time to reverse all of those lockdown decisions for Scotland and Wales (and for Sadiq to get London's NYE back on track). One thing I worry about is that this "mild narrative" will take hold and people will stop queueing for boosters in January.
Which is probably why the news - which was reasonably predictable from the beginning - that the new variant is not a significant long-term threat (despite the very short-run challenge of having so many key workers off work) isn’t being pitched by the government. They’d rather we (falsely) believe that the world is about to end in the hope that every person who panics reduces the size of the potential infection peak.
Just consulted with some medical types (appreciate we have our own in-house PB experts) and they said they are really struggling with the number of people isolating after a test or going off sick with booster side effects.
The good news on Omi severity doesn't help with its insane transmissibility and the subsequent staffing issues in the NHS or elsewhere, so we aren't out of the woods yet.
Scotland needs to follow England by going to 7 days isolation ASAP.
This is what would worry me with schools. If it does go zipping through them, including staff, we may have individual more or less random school closures, or year groups sent home.
How then do we allow for further disruption of small numbers in the exams that are being sat? That's even before we consider that no useful allowance has been made for the impact of Covid on these (already quite flawed) exams so there are awkward questions about how to mark and grade this year.
Hopefully there will be no lockdown but this level of transmission could still cause problems.
I'm inclined to agree with @BartholomewRoberts point yesterday that if it is significantly milder and this transmissible it might be better to scrap isolation altogether.
How seriously do you think we should take the government's "Ex-teachers, please please please come back and teach for a bit. Please?" campaign?
(And yes, Omicron does look like a bit of dumb luck for humanity, but I'll take that right now. And whilst getting Omicron looks fairly low-risk, there's a limit on how many people we want getting it a day. Probably linked to keeping hospitals staffed; we really need sickly people working in hospitals to stay home. What I don't know, and I hope someone is asking, is what that limit is.)
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1m Imperial find for a 69% reduction in the risk of being hospitalised for more than one day with omicron vs delta.
Debate over, Omicron is milder, enjoy christmas and new years all you like.
It does feel like that Father Ted sketch talking to Dougal about cows at times.
Its been broadly accepted for some time that Omicron looks milder than Delta. If you listen to Whitty, Taylor et al that isn't what concerns them. Its that Omicron is so much more infectious than the others have been.
A lower percentage in hospital of a much larger number is still a larger number in hospital. For most people Omicron would not threaten their life. But if so many people get it that the small percentage it does threaten means a lot of people, its still very much a problem.
Delta caused 1k hospitalisations per day with recorded cases of 50k per day. To get to 4k matching last Jan, we'd need recorded cases of 400-600k rather than the current 100k.
So we're a long way away from large volumes overwhelming the weaker mode of action.
It’s also hard to believe that even Omicron could infect half a million a day in the UK, it would run out of hosts long before then?
And if it did somehow hit that momentary peak the collapse in cases would come immediately after and be steep
It has been growing exponentially - the drop away from exponential growth is usually as steep downwards. Triple jabbing restores the protections we had before Omicron, so this was never going to be a long term risk.
There’ll probably be a good run into the New Year, as the news that the new variant looks like the end of the major waves of infection sinks in, but thereafter the market will turn its attention to the medium-term prospects for the pandemic-ravaged economy, and the various other threats from fuel prices and stagflation. After the market rises of the past few years, it’s possible the coming year will be rocky indeed.
If you share the optimistic scenario, the bargains are in the travel sector. I bought back into Carnival a couple of weeks back at £11-something and they’re now already above £13. The company is carrying a lot of new debt, so it’s a gamble on cruising returning to normal by summer 2022; DYOR.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1m Imperial find for a 69% reduction in the risk of being hospitalised for more than one day with omicron vs delta.
Debate over, Omicron is milder, enjoy christmas and new years all you like.
It does feel like that Father Ted sketch talking to Dougal about cows at times.
Its been broadly accepted for some time that Omicron looks milder than Delta. If you listen to Whitty, Taylor et al that isn't what concerns them. Its that Omicron is so much more infectious than the others have been.
A lower percentage in hospital of a much larger number is still a larger number in hospital. For most people Omicron would not threaten their life. But if so many people get it that the small percentage it does threaten means a lot of people, its still very much a problem.
Delta caused 1k hospitalisations per day with recorded cases of 50k per day. To get to 4k matching last Jan, we'd need recorded cases of 400-600k rather than the current 100k.
So we're a long way away from large volumes overwhelming the weaker mode of action.
It’s also hard to believe that even Omicron could infect half a million a day in the UK, it would run out of hosts long before then?
And if it did somehow hit that momentary peak the collapse in cases would come immediately after and be steep
It has been growing exponentially - the drop away from exponential growth is usually as steep downwards. Triple jabbing restores the protections we had before Omicron, so this was never going to be a long term risk.
Just consulted with some medical types (appreciate we have our own in-house PB experts) and they said they are really struggling with the number of people isolating after a test or going off sick with booster side effects.
The good news on Omi severity doesn't help with its insane transmissibility and the subsequent staffing issues in the NHS or elsewhere, so we aren't out of the woods yet.
Scotland needs to follow England by going to 7 days isolation ASAP.
This is what would worry me with schools. If it does go zipping through them, including staff, we may have individual more or less random school closures, or year groups sent home.
How then do we allow for further disruption of small numbers in the exams that are being sat? That's even before we consider that no useful allowance has been made for the impact of Covid on these (already quite flawed) exams so there are awkward questions about how to mark and grade this year.
Hopefully there will be no lockdown but this level of transmission could still cause problems.
I'm inclined to agree with @BartholomewRoberts point yesterday that if it is significantly milder and this transmissible it might be better to scrap isolation altogether.
How seriously do you think we should take the government's "Ex-teachers, please please please come back and teach for a bit. Please?" campaign?
(And yes, Omicron does look like a bit of dumb luck for humanity, but I'll take that right now. And whilst getting Omicron looks fairly low-risk, there's a limit on how many people we want getting it a day. Probably linked to keeping hospitals staffed; we really need sickly people working in hospitals to stay home. What I don't know, and I hope someone is asking, is what that limit is.)
Not very. Most of them will have left for good reason. It says a lot that they don't grasp that.
Edit - it might have had mileage if done 18 months ago in a serious bid to drive down class sizes and add more space between pupils. But not in this scenario.
I really just want this over with. I've spent almost half my twenties in this pandemic. I've had essentially no social life in that time. I've been trapped paying half my income to live and work in a 12 square metre room with no outdoor space. There are people I've not met, experiences I haven't had, places I've not been, entirely because of an illness that poses no threat to me (or the overwhelming majority of the population now everyone has been offered a vaccination and a much milder strain has emerged). I really cannot justify pissing away more months or years of what was supposed to be a formative period of my life, so I doubt I'll respect any new restrictions moving forward.
I sense a shift in PB sentiment from "Lockdown is coming cos of crazy scientists" to "Lockdown is NOT coming cos Omi is a pussy."
This is a better vibe, I think. Fingers crossed for no backslide.
I wouldn't breathe too much of a sigh of relief yet. Remember, the Government, Parliament and most of the media are all based in and fixated on London, it's full of bloody vaccine refuser twats, and they're driving the spike in hospitalisations (especially the more serious ones.) Johnson might easily be panicked into a whole raft of Drakefordesque panic flapping nonsense if London starts to look really iffy, even if the rest of England continues to cope relatively well.
Is it possible for me to remove my profile from this site or, if not, could the moderators do it pls? Thanks.
About half the time since Mar. 2020, PB has been like a new organisation 'Hypochondriacs Anonymous'.
I'm sorry some people were terrified by the relentless fear campaign SAGE, SPI-B etc have waged. But they should have exercised critical thinking and learned which MSM might not be telling the truth. If you didn't even know there was a fear campaign, that 'COVID deaths' were exagerrated, etc, etc, chances are you're one of its victims. Read Laura Dodsworth's book.
Bye bye.
Why not come to Bedford Russell Park on a Sunday and chat with the dwindling band of very nice "refuseniks"?
Oh is that why he/she/it threw a strop with me, they're one of those buggers? Perhaps I ought to have realised this, but I haven't succeeded in accumulating an encyclopaedic knowledge of all the other posters' predilections just yet.
Anyhow, in other news, I know that there's been a record reporting day for cases today, but the figures collated by specimen date look mildly encouraging - albeit that they might also have been significantly disturbed by the LFT shortage, so we could do with a few more days' figures (they are only complete to the 17th) before we get too excited.
If the Government can, in the next few days, accumulate sufficient evidence that the Omicron spike is a dramatic but brief phenomenon (as suggested by the SA data,) *and* be satisfied that the variant causes less serious disease as well, then - we must fervently hope - they can tell the "panic lockdown now" mob to take a running jump.
I have to say, this is surely it for lockdown 4, Boris won't tempt the wrath of his party with these reports from respected Scotland and London universities saying Omicron is significantly more mild than Delta. It was one thing for him to say "we can't trust SA data" now it's our own universities basing it on our own infection and hospitalisation data. The scientists and pro-lockdown ministers can't ignore this as easily.
If the observed vaccine efficacy holds up at 93-95% against severe disease as we hope it does then I just can't see how the government rams lockdown through. I'm sure the likes of SAGE and Gove will have one final attempt but it feels like the Cabinet is wise to their dodgy data and constant leaks to the media playbook now.
Some parts of Germany, going to be fun if you are an antivaxxer you will be spending your Christmas day with a maximum of 2 people. Rest of Germany those rules come into force after Christmas.
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
Yes, the end state is that it shades into another winter flu virus, so the illness and mortality totals from winter flu will be higher than usual for the next few years. But the good news is that the point when covid ceases to sit at the top of the news and public policy agenda may not be far away now.
My second ever business trip was to Finland in mid-December*. I got up at 8am to go to my meeting. It was dark. I got in a taxi. It was dark. I arrived at my meeting. It was dark.
Had lunch at about 12pm. The sun was low in the sky.
Finished meeting at 2pm and headed to the airport. It was dark.
At this time of year, there are just three and a half hours of sunlight in Oulu. (And Helsinki's not much better.)
* My first ever business meeting was in Norway. I sure do pick'em for exciting places to visit.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1m Imperial find for a 69% reduction in the risk of being hospitalised for more than one day with omicron vs delta.
Debate over, Omicron is milder, enjoy christmas and new years all you like.
It does feel like that Father Ted sketch talking to Dougal about cows at times.
Its been broadly accepted for some time that Omicron looks milder than Delta. If you listen to Whitty, Taylor et al that isn't what concerns them. Its that Omicron is so much more infectious than the others have been.
A lower percentage in hospital of a much larger number is still a larger number in hospital. For most people Omicron would not threaten their life. But if so many people get it that the small percentage it does threaten means a lot of people, its still very much a problem.
Delta caused 1k hospitalisations per day with recorded cases of 50k per day. To get to 4k matching last Jan, we'd need recorded cases of 400-600k rather than the current 100k.
So we're a long way away from large volumes overwhelming the weaker mode of action.
It’s also hard to believe that even Omicron could infect half a million a day in the UK, it would run out of hosts long before then?
And if it did somehow hit that momentary peak the collapse in cases would come immediately after and be steep
It would be half a million recorded cases, so actual infections well above that - no chance.
And yes, any peak this year us going to cause half as many hospitalisations as it would have done last year as the base of the triangle is half the length it was - as Omicron cycles twice as fast.
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
Not necessarily- in principle, it could mutate into something that spreads a bit faster and also causes more sickness. (I don't know enough about the virus structure to say how likely that is; the experts I've seen are optimistic, but never say never.)
Most viruses that persist over the long term settle into something fairly harmless, but that's not inevitable (e.g. smallpox), or a direct line.
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.
No, it's the Andromeda strain that will get the children
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex could be called as witness in Prince Andrew's sex case.
Virginia Giuffre's lawyer says Duchess can be 'counted on to tell the truth' but said he is unlikely to depose the Queen 'out of respect'
The Duchess of Sussex could be called as a witness in the civil suit against Prince Andrew brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
David Boies, the lawyer representing Ms Giuffre, told the Daily Beast that the Duchess of Sussex “is somebody we can count on to tell the truth”.
Mr Boies said there are three reasons she may be deposed: “One; she is in the U.S. so we have jurisdiction over her.”
“Two; she is somebody who obviously, at least for a period of time, was a close associate of Prince Andrew and hence is in a position to perhaps have seen what he did, and perhaps if not to have seen what he did to have heard people talk about it. Because of her past association with him, she may very well have important knowledge, and will certainly have some knowledge.”
“Three; she is somebody who we can count on to tell the truth. She checks all three boxes.”
Mr Boies stressed that no final decision had been made on who he would depose, stating that the Duchess is just “one of the people we are considering”.
But she didn't know him at the time of the allegations, did she?
Surely hearsay is inadmissible, so unless she witnessed it herself (unlikely given timeframes and, well, everything),on what basis could she be called?
Not getting involved in this case thanks, but on the subject of hearsay, as a general rule hearsay is not admissible as evidence against a defendant, but an important exception is hearsay evidence of what the defendant himself said about what he himself did.
So, for example in an English criminal case a policeman gives evidence of what the defendant X said about the doings of himself. This is evidence against X. But if the defendants are X and Y, what X said to the the policeman about what Y is NOT evidence against Y unless and until X repeats it in court as X and Y dish each other in a cutthroat defence.
There are a few other exceptions too. And in recent years it has widened a bit to include sometimes hearsay accounts of what witness Z said about defendant W before the witness got intimidated out of repeating it in court.
Thanks. I can hardly imagine Andrew and Meghan having detailed discussions about the whole Epstein thing, and particularly not conversations in which Andrew made self-incriminating comments about any aspects relevant to the court case.
And if Maghan says they did, in private, how can she be proven wrong?
This is simply the general question of the quality, credibility, nature and reliability of evidence. If this was easy there would be no litigation and few lawyers.
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
No, mutations are random. Could be worse for all we know.
And that also assumes someone doesn't decide to dine off kinkajou tartare or something like that too soon.
Mutations are random, but the prospects for their survival and propagation hugely favour those that are more transmissible and less severe. The risk is a mutation that significantly evades the existing vaccines, but the experts argue convincingly that the limits on the types of mutations that can take place make this unlikely, if not impossible.
North Lab 42% Con 26% Midlands/Wales Lab 40% Con 32% London Lab 53% Con 22% Rest of South Con 40% Lab 29% Scotland SNP 47% Lab 22% Con 13%
(YouGov/The Times; Sample Size: 1790 adults in GB Fieldwork: 19th - 20th December 2021)
The Midlands/Wales is the key swing region and largely in line with the national polls, if the Tories regain the lead nationally they will regain the lead in the Midlands.
London and Scotland did not vote Tory even in 2019, the Tories can still win while losing most of the North and the South still has a comfortable Tory lead.
The more people get their boosters, already up to half of adults and the more we avoid further restrictions the quicker there will be some swingback to the blues
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
No, mutations are random. Could be worse for all we know.
And that also assumes someone doesn't decide to dine off kinkajou tartare or something like that too soon.
Mutations are random, but the prospects for their survival and propagation hugely favour those that are more transmissible and less severe. The risk is a mutation that significantly evades the existing vaccines, but the experts argue convincingly that the limits on the types of mutations that can take place make this unlikely, if not impossible.
Yes, it may turn out that Omicron is the extent to which the virus can mutate to evade immunity but also infect us to any great extent. One of the reasons it's thought be less virulent is because the spike mutations make it a less good ACE-2 binding agent.
- Boosters. 12.2 Million left to do in Scotland and England. - Cases. Rising sharply across all regions. Nearly all the growth is in the sub 50s groups. London R is now falling
- Admissions. Rising slowly. - Deaths - still falling.
Is there a reason why you spell it “preverts” in each of these pictures?
It's because they're not communist yet - they are pre-converts, or preverts for short.
I have to say, this is surely it for lockdown 4, Boris won't tempt the wrath of his party with these reports from respected Scotland and London universities saying Omicron is significantly more mild than Delta. It was one thing for him to say "we can't trust SA data" now it's our own universities basing it on our own infection and hospitalisation data. The scientists and pro-lockdown ministers can't ignore this as easily.
If the observed vaccine efficacy holds up at 93-95% against severe disease as we hope it does then I just can't see how the government rams lockdown through. I'm sure the likes of SAGE and Gove will have one final attempt but it feels like the Cabinet is wise to their dodgy data and constant leaks to the media playbook now.
If Owen Paterson has forced Boris Johnson to pause before inflicting a damaging lockdown that proved unnecessary upon us, then after a lifetime of graft and wasting he will in his departure have performed an enormous act of public service that should redound to his credit down the ages.
I really just want this over with. I've spent almost half my twenties in this pandemic. I've had essentially no social life in that time. I've been trapped paying half my income to live and work in a 12 square metre room with no outdoor space. There are people I've not met, experiences I haven't had, places I've not been, entirely because of an illness that poses no threat to me (or the overwhelming majority of the population now everyone has been offered a vaccination and a much milder strain has emerged). I really cannot justify pissing away more months or years of what was supposed to be a formative period of my life, so I doubt I'll respect any new restrictions moving forward.
I understand how you feel. It doesn't offer a threat to you *directly*, but: *) It does to any elderly relatives and friends, etc. *) It does if the health system breaks down, and you injure yourself doing your 20-something antics, or are just unlucky and get a random illness that requires treatment.
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
No, mutations are random. Could be worse for all we know.
And that also assumes someone doesn't decide to dine off kinkajou tartare or something like that too soon.
Mutations are random, but the prospects for their survival and propagation hugely favour those that are more transmissible and less severe. The risk is a mutation that significantly evades the existing vaccines, but the experts argue convincingly that the limits on the types of mutations that can take place make this unlikely, if not impossible.
"and less severe" is not true, and there is very little reason in principle why it should be true if you are infecting humanity rather than say snow leopards.
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
Not necessarily- in principle, it could mutate into something that spreads a bit faster and also causes more sickness. (I don't know enough about the virus structure to say how likely that is; the experts I've seen are optimistic, but never say never.)
Most viruses that persist over the long term settle into something fairly harmless, but that's not inevitable (e.g. smallpox), or a direct line.
I think the scariest thing about Omicron is how much it mutated from the previous version. That increases the chance for vaccine escape.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1m Imperial find for a 69% reduction in the risk of being hospitalised for more than one day with omicron vs delta.
Debate over, Omicron is milder, enjoy christmas and new years all you like.
It does feel like that Father Ted sketch talking to Dougal about cows at times.
Its been broadly accepted for some time that Omicron looks milder than Delta. If you listen to Whitty, Taylor et al that isn't what concerns them. Its that Omicron is so much more infectious than the others have been.
A lower percentage in hospital of a much larger number is still a larger number in hospital. For most people Omicron would not threaten their life. But if so many people get it that the small percentage it does threaten means a lot of people, its still very much a problem.
Delta caused 1k hospitalisations per day with recorded cases of 50k per day. To get to 4k matching last Jan, we'd need recorded cases of 400-600k rather than the current 100k.
So we're a long way away from large volumes overwhelming the weaker mode of action.
I'm a dove too but a point on that - NHS capacity is less now. They have the backlog and staff sickness. It's not a safe assumption that they can cope as well as last time for a similar admissions scenario,
I sense a shift in PB sentiment from "Lockdown is coming cos of crazy scientists" to "Lockdown is NOT coming cos Omi is a pussy."
This is a better vibe, I think. Fingers crossed for no backslide.
I wouldn't breathe too much of a sigh of relief yet. Remember, the Government, Parliament and most of the media are all based in and fixated on London, it's full of bloody vaccine refuser twats, and they're driving the spike in hospitalisations (especially the more serious ones.) Johnson might easily be panicked into a whole raft of Drakefordesque panic flapping nonsense if London starts to look really iffy, even if the rest of England continues to cope relatively well.
Is it possible for me to remove my profile from this site or, if not, could the moderators do it pls? Thanks.
About half the time since Mar. 2020, PB has been like a new organisation 'Hypochondriacs Anonymous'.
I'm sorry some people were terrified by the relentless fear campaign SAGE, SPI-B etc have waged. But they should have exercised critical thinking and learned which MSM might not be telling the truth. If you didn't even know there was a fear campaign, that 'COVID deaths' were exagerrated, etc, etc, chances are you're one of its victims. Read Laura Dodsworth's book.
Bye bye.
Is that the sort of “critical thinking” that led you to promote due right harmful “treatments” for Covid?
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
There's a working theory that a lot of our current common cold viruses started as severe respiratory illnesses like Covid-19, and there's certainly a powerful evolutionary pressure being exerted on the virus to become more transmissible. After all, the harder we work to suppress it, the greater the advantage conferred upon any mutation that counters that suppression.
To what extent these diseases evolve to become milder, and to what extent the disease they cause becomes less severe simply because our immune systems are trained by repeated reinfection, I have no idea.
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
No, mutations are random. Could be worse for all we know.
And that also assumes someone doesn't decide to dine off kinkajou tartare or something like that too soon.
Mutations are random, but the prospects for their survival and propagation hugely favour those that are more transmissible and less severe. The risk is a mutation that significantly evades the existing vaccines, but the experts argue convincingly that the limits on the types of mutations that can take place make this unlikely, if not impossible.
"and less severe" is not true, and there is very little reason in principle why it should be true if you are infecting humanity rather than say snow leopards.
Yes, there is - a severe virus takes you to your bed where you see immediate family only. A mild virus has you out and about living your normal life. In the second case the virus gets lots more opportunities for transmission.
I really just want this over with. I've spent almost half my twenties in this pandemic. I've had essentially no social life in that time. I've been trapped paying half my income to live and work in a 12 square metre room with no outdoor space. There are people I've not met, experiences I haven't had, places I've not been, entirely because of an illness that poses no threat to me (or the overwhelming majority of the population now everyone has been offered a vaccination and a much milder strain has emerged). I really cannot justify pissing away more months or years of what was supposed to be a formative period of my life, so I doubt I'll respect any new restrictions moving forward.
I understand how you feel. It doesn't offer a threat to you *directly*, but: *) It does to any elderly relatives and friends, etc. *) It does if the health system breaks down, and you injure yourself doing your 20-something antics, or are just unlucky and get a random illness that requires treatment.
I am an elderly relative and friend etc and I feel exactly as Bournville does. So do my mother aunt and godfather all in their late 80s. I think you should worry less about us and more about your 7 year old son.
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
No, mutations are random. Could be worse for all we know.
And that also assumes someone doesn't decide to dine off kinkajou tartare or something like that too soon.
Mutations are random, but the prospects for their survival and propagation hugely favour those that are more transmissible and less severe. The risk is a mutation that significantly evades the existing vaccines, but the experts argue convincingly that the limits on the types of mutations that can take place make this unlikely, if not impossible.
"and less severe" is not true, and there is very little reason in principle why it should be true if you are infecting humanity rather than say snow leopards.
Yes, there is - a severe virus takes you to your bed where you see immediate family only. A mild virus has you out and about living your normal life. In the second case the virus gets lots more opportunities for transmission.
There's a trade off with transmissibility though. If Omicron is more infectious it can in principle afford to be more severe too, we are just lucky the cookie has not yet crumbled that way.
Thread on the imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine. It looks like a WWI situation, where, having mobilised, the two choices are fight or put yourself at a permanent disadvantage. The difference is that this time around, there’s only one country - and one person - responsible.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1473362849871368195 75% of Russia’s total battalion tactical groups have been moved. Artillery, air defense units, tanks, APCs, bridge-laying equipment, mine clearers, armored excavators, engineering equipment, refueling, huge amount of logistics, etc. Follow @RALee85 for details
Putin really is a total arse.
Other than the whole nukes thing, it would be a great time for China to invade Russia...
Or Taiwan…
Taiwan will still be there in twelve months, but they may never have a better opportunity to take Eastern Siberia. That would also encircle Mongolia.
Taiwan would trigger a war with the US… unless the US is already at war with Russia
In a generation they will have Eastern Siberia anyway as a result of migration
I really just want this over with. I've spent almost half my twenties in this pandemic. I've had essentially no social life in that time. I've been trapped paying half my income to live and work in a 12 square metre room with no outdoor space. There are people I've not met, experiences I haven't had, places I've not been, entirely because of an illness that poses no threat to me (or the overwhelming majority of the population now everyone has been offered a vaccination and a much milder strain has emerged). I really cannot justify pissing away more months or years of what was supposed to be a formative period of my life, so I doubt I'll respect any new restrictions moving forward.
I sympathize with your position. Hopefully the latest data suggests we are at the beginning of the end. But if there is a new variant that does have vaccine escape we may need restrictions again. In a scenario where evading them causes death, it is supremely selfish to do so. Think of the generation that hit their 20s in the late 1930s. They had it massively worse than us.
Even if the government have called this right re Omicron, they will get zero credit.
Absolutely. Though to be brutally honest I'm not bothered about the Government getting credit, it's more the fact that iSAGE and the rest of the "lockdown now" brigade of scientists won't be discredited by it. They'll go to ground and crawl back out of the woodwork the nanosecond the next variant of concern is identified, the journalists will lap up everything they have to say, and we'll be at risk of going through the Omicronpanic all over again.
I really just want this over with. I've spent almost half my twenties in this pandemic. I've had essentially no social life in that time. I've been trapped paying half my income to live and work in a 12 square metre room with no outdoor space. There are people I've not met, experiences I haven't had, places I've not been, entirely because of an illness that poses no threat to me (or the overwhelming majority of the population now everyone has been offered a vaccination and a much milder strain has emerged). I really cannot justify pissing away more months or years of what was supposed to be a formative period of my life, so I doubt I'll respect any new restrictions moving forward.
I understand how you feel. It doesn't offer a threat to you *directly*, but: *) It does to any elderly relatives and friends, etc. *) It does if the health system breaks down, and you injure yourself doing your 20-something antics, or are just unlucky and get a random illness that requires treatment.
All my vulnerable friends and family are vaccinated, they are essentially as safe as they can possibly be; how many more sacrifices am I expected to make on behalf of people who have been offered a vaccine and refused it?
And the problem is, the health system has already shut down for people like me and our "20-something antics". All the GPs are doing boosters instead (which I don't mind, but the idea that they'd be free to help me if I just sat quietly in my room for the rest of life isn't right).
I have to say, this is surely it for lockdown 4, Boris won't tempt the wrath of his party with these reports from respected Scotland and London universities saying Omicron is significantly more mild than Delta. It was one thing for him to say "we can't trust SA data" now it's our own universities basing it on our own infection and hospitalisation data. The scientists and pro-lockdown ministers can't ignore this as easily.
If the observed vaccine efficacy holds up at 93-95% against severe disease as we hope it does then I just can't see how the government rams lockdown through. I'm sure the likes of SAGE and Gove will have one final attempt but it feels like the Cabinet is wise to their dodgy data and constant leaks to the media playbook now.
Re the Scottish study Boris could troll Sturgeon beautifully by announcing no extra measures and say it’s on the basis of the study by Scottish universities…..
Thread on the imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine. It looks like a WWI situation, where, having mobilised, the two choices are fight or put yourself at a permanent disadvantage. The difference is that this time around, there’s only one country - and one person - responsible.
https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1473362849871368195 75% of Russia’s total battalion tactical groups have been moved. Artillery, air defense units, tanks, APCs, bridge-laying equipment, mine clearers, armored excavators, engineering equipment, refueling, huge amount of logistics, etc. Follow @RALee85 for details
Putin really is a total arse.
Other than the whole nukes thing, it would be a great time for China to invade Russia...
Or Taiwan…
Taiwan will still be there in twelve months, but they may never have a better opportunity to take Eastern Siberia. That would also encircle Mongolia.
Taiwan would trigger a war with the US… unless the US is already at war with Russia
In a generation they will have Eastern Siberia anyway as a result of migration
It is unlikely the US under Biden will counter-invade Ukraine if the Russians do invade. More probable that they will provide weaponry and 'advisers' (not quite like in Vietnam) for the Ukrainian army.
Taiwan, where so much US computer tech comes from...
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
Yes, the end state is that it shades into another winter flu virus, so the illness and mortality totals from winter flu will be higher than usual for the next few years. But the good news is that the point when covid ceases to sit at the top of the news and public policy agenda may not be far away now.
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
No, mutations are random. Could be worse for all we know.
And that also assumes someone doesn't decide to dine off kinkajou tartare or something like that too soon.
Mutations are random, but the prospects for their survival and propagation hugely favour those that are more transmissible and less severe. The risk is a mutation that significantly evades the existing vaccines, but the experts argue convincingly that the limits on the types of mutations that can take place make this unlikely, if not impossible.
"and less severe" is not true, and there is very little reason in principle why it should be true if you are infecting humanity rather than say snow leopards.
Yes, there is - a severe virus takes you to your bed where you see immediate family only. A mild virus has you out and about living your normal life. In the second case the virus gets lots more opportunities for transmission.
There's a trade off with transmissibility though. If Omicron is more infectious it can in principle afford to be more severe too, we are just lucky the cookie has not yet crumbled that way.
Yes, but the two are correlated. Maybe it’s more transmissible in part because it is less severe?
Look at the symptoms of the original variant - fever makes most people go to bed. Ditto breathing difficulties. A pronounced dry cough makes other people steer clear. All of these have diminished as principal symptoms in the later variants, replaced in the symptom league table by non-visible non-disabling things like headache, runny nose, and loss of smell. Indeed the latter is now pretty much the only way in which you can get a reliable steer (at least to begin with - which is the critical period for onward infection) as to whether you might have new covid or just a cold.
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.
No, it's the Andromeda strain that will get the children
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex could be called as witness in Prince Andrew's sex case.
Virginia Giuffre's lawyer says Duchess can be 'counted on to tell the truth' but said he is unlikely to depose the Queen 'out of respect'
The Duchess of Sussex could be called as a witness in the civil suit against Prince Andrew brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
David Boies, the lawyer representing Ms Giuffre, told the Daily Beast that the Duchess of Sussex “is somebody we can count on to tell the truth”.
Mr Boies said there are three reasons she may be deposed: “One; she is in the U.S. so we have jurisdiction over her.”
“Two; she is somebody who obviously, at least for a period of time, was a close associate of Prince Andrew and hence is in a position to perhaps have seen what he did, and perhaps if not to have seen what he did to have heard people talk about it. Because of her past association with him, she may very well have important knowledge, and will certainly have some knowledge.”
“Three; she is somebody who we can count on to tell the truth. She checks all three boxes.”
Mr Boies stressed that no final decision had been made on who he would depose, stating that the Duchess is just “one of the people we are considering”.
But she didn't know him at the time of the allegations, did she?
Surely hearsay is inadmissible, so unless she witnessed it herself (unlikely given timeframes and, well, everything),on what basis could she be called?
Not getting involved in this case thanks, but on the subject of hearsay, as a general rule hearsay is not admissible as evidence against a defendant, but an important exception is hearsay evidence of what the defendant himself said about what he himself did.
So, for example in an English criminal case a policeman gives evidence of what the defendant X said about the doings of himself. This is evidence against X. But if the defendants are X and Y, what X said to the the policeman about what Y is NOT evidence against Y unless and until X repeats it in court as X and Y dish each other in a cutthroat defence.
There are a few other exceptions too. And in recent years it has widened a bit to include sometimes hearsay accounts of what witness Z said about defendant W before the witness got intimidated out of repeating it in court.
Thanks. I can hardly imagine Andrew and Meghan having detailed discussions about the whole Epstein thing, and particularly not conversations in which Andrew made self-incriminating comments about any aspects relevant to the court case.
And if Maghan says they did, in private, how can she be proven wrong?
This is simply the general question of the quality, credibility, nature and reliability of evidence. If this was easy there would be no litigation and few lawyers.
The issue is the reputational damage
I’m aware that it’s Andrew we are talking about (!!) but the headlines would not be good for the RF as a whole
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
No, mutations are random. Could be worse for all we know.
And that also assumes someone doesn't decide to dine off kinkajou tartare or something like that too soon.
Mutations are random, but the prospects for their survival and propagation hugely favour those that are more transmissible and less severe. The risk is a mutation that significantly evades the existing vaccines, but the experts argue convincingly that the limits on the types of mutations that can take place make this unlikely, if not impossible.
"and less severe" is not true, and there is very little reason in principle why it should be true if you are infecting humanity rather than say snow leopards.
Yes, there is - a severe virus takes you to your bed where you see immediate family only. A mild virus has you out and about living your normal life. In the second case the virus gets lots more opportunities for transmission.
There's a trade off with transmissibility though. If Omicron is more infectious it can in principle afford to be more severe too, we are just lucky the cookie has not yet crumbled that way.
Yes, but the two are correlated. Maybe it’s more transmissible in part because it is less severe.
Look at the symptoms of the original variant - fever makes most people go to bed. Ditto breathing difficulties. A pronounced dry cough makes people steer clear. All of these have diminished as symptoms in later variants, replaced in the symptom league table by non-visible non-disabling things like headache, runny nose, and loss of smell.
Correlated in this one instance. No reason they have to be
I really just want this over with. I've spent almost half my twenties in this pandemic. I've had essentially no social life in that time. I've been trapped paying half my income to live and work in a 12 square metre room with no outdoor space. There are people I've not met, experiences I haven't had, places I've not been, entirely because of an illness that poses no threat to me (or the overwhelming majority of the population now everyone has been offered a vaccination and a much milder strain has emerged). I really cannot justify pissing away more months or years of what was supposed to be a formative period of my life, so I doubt I'll respect any new restrictions moving forward.
I understand how you feel. It doesn't offer a threat to you *directly*, but: *) It does to any elderly relatives and friends, etc. *) It does if the health system breaks down, and you injure yourself doing your 20-something antics, or are just unlucky and get a random illness that requires treatment.
All my vulnerable friends and family are vaccinated, they are essentially as safe as they can possibly be; how many more sacrifices am I expected to make on behalf of people who have been offered a vaccine and refused it?
And the problem is, the health system has already shut down for people like me and our "20-something antics". All the GPs are doing boosters instead (which I don't mind, but the idea that they'd be free to help me if I just sat quietly in my room for the rest of life isn't right).
Go for it. Go live your life. You are only 20-something for ten precious years. Enjoy them
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.
No, it's the Andromeda strain that will get the children
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex could be called as witness in Prince Andrew's sex case.
Virginia Giuffre's lawyer says Duchess can be 'counted on to tell the truth' but said he is unlikely to depose the Queen 'out of respect'
The Duchess of Sussex could be called as a witness in the civil suit against Prince Andrew brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
David Boies, the lawyer representing Ms Giuffre, told the Daily Beast that the Duchess of Sussex “is somebody we can count on to tell the truth”.
Mr Boies said there are three reasons she may be deposed: “One; she is in the U.S. so we have jurisdiction over her.”
“Two; she is somebody who obviously, at least for a period of time, was a close associate of Prince Andrew and hence is in a position to perhaps have seen what he did, and perhaps if not to have seen what he did to have heard people talk about it. Because of her past association with him, she may very well have important knowledge, and will certainly have some knowledge.”
“Three; she is somebody who we can count on to tell the truth. She checks all three boxes.”
Mr Boies stressed that no final decision had been made on who he would depose, stating that the Duchess is just “one of the people we are considering”.
But she didn't know him at the time of the allegations, did she?
Surely hearsay is inadmissible, so unless she witnessed it herself (unlikely given timeframes and, well, everything),on what basis could she be called?
Not getting involved in this case thanks, but on the subject of hearsay, as a general rule hearsay is not admissible as evidence against a defendant, but an important exception is hearsay evidence of what the defendant himself said about what he himself did.
So, for example in an English criminal case a policeman gives evidence of what the defendant X said about the doings of himself. This is evidence against X. But if the defendants are X and Y, what X said to the the policeman about what Y is NOT evidence against Y unless and until X repeats it in court as X and Y dish each other in a cutthroat defence.
There are a few other exceptions too. And in recent years it has widened a bit to include sometimes hearsay accounts of what witness Z said about defendant W before the witness got intimidated out of repeating it in court.
Thanks. I can hardly imagine Andrew and Meghan having detailed discussions about the whole Epstein thing, and particularly not conversations in which Andrew made self-incriminating comments about any aspects relevant to the court case.
And if Maghan says they did, in private, how can she be proven wrong?
This is simply the general question of the quality, credibility, nature and reliability of evidence. If this was easy there would be no litigation and few lawyers.
The issue is the reputational damage
I’m aware that it’s Andrew we are talking about (!!) but the headlines would not be good for the RF as a whole
I don’t know but I am sure the Mail and Sun would be happy to post a front page headlined “LIAR LIES” with a lovely photo of Megan……
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
No, mutations are random. Could be worse for all we know.
And that also assumes someone doesn't decide to dine off kinkajou tartare or something like that too soon.
Mutations are random, but the prospects for their survival and propagation hugely favour those that are more transmissible and less severe. The risk is a mutation that significantly evades the existing vaccines, but the experts argue convincingly that the limits on the types of mutations that can take place make this unlikely, if not impossible.
"and less severe" is not true, and there is very little reason in principle why it should be true if you are infecting humanity rather than say snow leopards.
Yes, there is - a severe virus takes you to your bed where you see immediate family only. A mild virus has you out and about living your normal life. In the second case the virus gets lots more opportunities for transmission.
There's a trade off with transmissibility though. If Omicron is more infectious it can in principle afford to be more severe too, we are just lucky the cookie has not yet crumbled that way.
Yes, but the two are correlated. Maybe it’s more transmissible in part because it is less severe.
Look at the symptoms of the original variant - fever makes most people go to bed. Ditto breathing difficulties. A pronounced dry cough makes people steer clear. All of these have diminished as symptoms in later variants, replaced in the symptom league table by non-visible non-disabling things like headache, runny nose, and loss of smell.
Correlated in this one instance. No reason they have to be
Not every time, for sure. But on average, in the long run, generally so.
If a virus disables you or produces highly visible symptoms like a face covered in red spots, its opportunities to jump to new hosts are generally much reduced.
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
Yes, the end state is that it shades into another winter flu virus, so the illness and mortality totals from winter flu will be higher than usual for the next few years. But the good news is that the point when covid ceases to sit at the top of the news and public policy agenda may not be far away now.
Rabies.
Yes, but this is a Coronavirus, and we know a lot about them already.
I have to say, this is surely it for lockdown 4, Boris won't tempt the wrath of his party with these reports from respected Scotland and London universities saying Omicron is significantly more mild than Delta. It was one thing for him to say "we can't trust SA data" now it's our own universities basing it on our own infection and hospitalisation data. The scientists and pro-lockdown ministers can't ignore this as easily.
If the observed vaccine efficacy holds up at 93-95% against severe disease as we hope it does then I just can't see how the government rams lockdown through. I'm sure the likes of SAGE and Gove will have one final attempt but it feels like the Cabinet is wise to their dodgy data and constant leaks to the media playbook now.
If Owen Paterson has forced Boris Johnson to pause before inflicting a damaging lockdown that proved unnecessary upon us, then after a lifetime of graft and wasting he will in his departure have performed an enormous act of public service that should redound to his credit down the ages.
Just trying to imagine a togate statue labelled on tne plinth simply PATTERSON in the lobby of the HoC.
Look on the bright side!! Think of all the crazy awful relationships you are dodging, the drug addictions you will swerve by being in your room, the dull departmental meetings you aren’t having to stay awake through, and you don’t have to worry about the cost of having a family as you can’t meet anyone to settle down with……
I really do sympathise with you and hope that this is the end and you grasp every opportunity once it’s over to live a life, make mistakes, look stupid, laugh, wake up in good looking strangers beds and build a life and make memories rather than the hell it sounds you have been in.
I would rather have the regrets of my 20’s than not because the upsides are so much better.
I really just want this over with. I've spent almost half my twenties in this pandemic. I've had essentially no social life in that time. I've been trapped paying half my income to live and work in a 12 square metre room with no outdoor space. There are people I've not met, experiences I haven't had, places I've not been, entirely because of an illness that poses no threat to me (or the overwhelming majority of the population now everyone has been offered a vaccination and a much milder strain has emerged). I really cannot justify pissing away more months or years of what was supposed to be a formative period of my life, so I doubt I'll respect any new restrictions moving forward.
I sympathize with your position. Hopefully the latest data suggests we are at the beginning of the end. But if there is a new variant that does have vaccine escape we may need restrictions again. In a scenario where evading them causes death, it is supremely selfish to do so. Think of the generation that hit their 20s in the late 1930s. They had it massively worse than us.
These things are relative. Telling someone who's just been given a terminal diagnosis and told they have five years left to live "well, it could've been worse, so and so down the road lost all four limbs, his wife and three kids in an horrific road traffic accident, so what have you got to complain about" might technically be true, but it's not going to help matters.
Besides which, we really must move beyond permanent cycles of restrictions every time something scary happens with this virus. Some elderly and medically vulnerable people are doubtless quite content to spend the rest of their lives locked indoors watching the TV, but even amongst those at elevated risk from a disease like this, not nearly all of them want to keep having everything cancelled and being told to sit at home and rot for the next few months over and over and over again.
It's evidently not possible to have quality of life in the absence of life itself, but life without much quality to it is eminently possible and isn't very much fun. FWIW, I would also gently point out that the comparisons between Covid and wartime are sometimes overdone: wars are won in part by making as many people as possible useful to the effort, not by getting most of the population to sit on its arse at home doing nothing and feeling hopeless.
We're all entitled to feel that we have had enough of doing nothing and feeling hopeless by this stage of the game, I believe.
Andrew Lilico @andrew_lilico · 1m Imperial find for a 69% reduction in the risk of being hospitalised for more than one day with omicron vs delta.
Debate over, Omicron is milder, enjoy christmas and new years all you like.
It does feel like that Father Ted sketch talking to Dougal about cows at times.
Its been broadly accepted for some time that Omicron looks milder than Delta. If you listen to Whitty, Taylor et al that isn't what concerns them. Its that Omicron is so much more infectious than the others have been.
A lower percentage in hospital of a much larger number is still a larger number in hospital. For most people Omicron would not threaten their life. But if so many people get it that the small percentage it does threaten means a lot of people, its still very much a problem.
Problem with that argument is that unless you shut things down ages ago by the time you discover you have a problem it's too late to do anything about it.
This is what made Boris's Plan B stuff so bad - it was too little and introduced too late to make any real difference. And the Welsh / Scottish post Xmas lockdowns are really far, far too late.
What lockdowns? We are NOT being locked down.
See my comment earlier today - enough of Glasgow is being shut down that we are no longer heading that way post Christmas.
Even if the government have called this right re Omicron, they will get zero credit.
Absolutely. Though to be brutally honest I'm not bothered about the Government getting credit, it's more the fact that iSAGE and the rest of the "lockdown now" brigade of scientists won't be discredited by it. They'll go to ground and crawl back out of the woodwork the nanosecond the next variant of concern is identified, the journalists will lap up everything they have to say, and we'll be at risk of going through the Omicronpanic all over again.
Gove should be put back in his box, chip firmly removed from his shoulder and lid locked shut. Javid should announce to the nation that’s he’s been over promoted and start training for Strictly. BoJo should hold his hands up that he is still trying to figure out what a graph is and go back to his florid biography of Shakespeare. Truss should apologise for not finding the Cabinet debate important enough to stay to the end but fortunately enough for us all the call was from the head of HR at GB News and #shesaidyes.
And Sunak and his merry band of 100 that have so skilfully undermined the case for lockdown should inherit the earth. Or the keys to No 10 at any rate.
Yes, and excellent analysis as always. A little unfair to Matthew Goodwin (who I am sure is being referred to) here:
From the end of January to early September, the Conservatives led in every published poll (as one prominent academic monotonously pointed out: he has since fallen silent on the subject).
As he has several times pointed out that Labour have started taking the lead.
like here:
Matt Goodwin @GoodwinMJ · 23h And ... 16th Labour lead in row
Labour 39% Cons 31% Lib Dem 13% Green 6% SNP 5% Reform 5%
But none of that detracts from the fact that Mr Meeks is an outstandingly interesting analyst, commentator and predictor.
Yes, it's good. I particularly like:
"There’s also a danger of ecological fallacies at work. Conservative voters in the red wall generally look quite like Conservative voters elsewhere: typically older homeowners who’ve done alright for themselves. The Conservatives have long held loads of seats in Essex and Kent thanks to this type of voter. Similarly, Lib Dem and Labour voters in the Home Counties look like the urban professionals that you find in London who are progressive voters, and that’s not particularly surprising because a lot of them were progressive urban professionals in London till they moved out."
I think there's a lot in this. If you aren't too fussy about where you live in your retirement, you can buy an extremely nice detached house in the Red Wall for the same money as a 2-bed terrace in London, and plenty of retired people with moderate savings have done exactly that, taking their Conservative voting habits with them and changing the nature of places like Bolsover. In the same way, Labour is picking up council seats like mine in the deepest blue areas, not because lifelong Tories have had a Damoscene conversion but because the demography is changing (getting the incoming Labour voters to lend tactical support to LDs at GEs where appropriate is a separate issue but the LDs are on the case).
Even if the government have called this right re Omicron, they will get zero credit.
Absolutely. Though to be brutally honest I'm not bothered about the Government getting credit, it's more the fact that iSAGE and the rest of the "lockdown now" brigade of scientists won't be discredited by it. They'll go to ground and crawl back out of the woodwork the nanosecond the next variant of concern is identified, the journalists will lap up everything they have to say, and we'll be at risk of going through the Omicronpanic all over again.
Gove should be put back in his box, chip firmly removed from his shoulder and lid locked shut. Javid should announce to the nation that’s he’s been over promoted and start training for Strictly. BoJo should hold his hands up that he is still trying to figure out what a graph is and go back to his florid biography of Shakespeare. Truss should apologise for not finding the Cabinet debate important enough to stay to the end but fortunately enough for us all the call was from the head of HR at GB News and #shesaidyes.
And Sunak and his merry band of 100 that have so skilfully undermined the case for lockdown should inherit the earth. Or the keys to No 10 at any rate.
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.
No, it's the Andromeda strain that will get the children
Meghan, Duchess of Sussex could be called as witness in Prince Andrew's sex case.
Virginia Giuffre's lawyer says Duchess can be 'counted on to tell the truth' but said he is unlikely to depose the Queen 'out of respect'
The Duchess of Sussex could be called as a witness in the civil suit against Prince Andrew brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre.
David Boies, the lawyer representing Ms Giuffre, told the Daily Beast that the Duchess of Sussex “is somebody we can count on to tell the truth”.
Mr Boies said there are three reasons she may be deposed: “One; she is in the U.S. so we have jurisdiction over her.”
“Two; she is somebody who obviously, at least for a period of time, was a close associate of Prince Andrew and hence is in a position to perhaps have seen what he did, and perhaps if not to have seen what he did to have heard people talk about it. Because of her past association with him, she may very well have important knowledge, and will certainly have some knowledge.”
“Three; she is somebody who we can count on to tell the truth. She checks all three boxes.”
Mr Boies stressed that no final decision had been made on who he would depose, stating that the Duchess is just “one of the people we are considering”.
But she didn't know him at the time of the allegations, did she?
Surely hearsay is inadmissible, so unless she witnessed it herself (unlikely given timeframes and, well, everything),on what basis could she be called?
Not getting involved in this case thanks, but on the subject of hearsay, as a general rule hearsay is not admissible as evidence against a defendant, but an important exception is hearsay evidence of what the defendant himself said about what he himself did.
So, for example in an English criminal case a policeman gives evidence of what the defendant X said about the doings of himself. This is evidence against X. But if the defendants are X and Y, what X said to the the policeman about what Y is NOT evidence against Y unless and until X repeats it in court as X and Y dish each other in a cutthroat defence.
There are a few other exceptions too. And in recent years it has widened a bit to include sometimes hearsay accounts of what witness Z said about defendant W before the witness got intimidated out of repeating it in court.
Thanks. I can hardly imagine Andrew and Meghan having detailed discussions about the whole Epstein thing, and particularly not conversations in which Andrew made self-incriminating comments about any aspects relevant to the court case.
And if Maghan says they did, in private, how can she be proven wrong?
This is simply the general question of the quality, credibility, nature and reliability of evidence. If this was easy there would be no litigation and few lawyers.
The issue is the reputational damage
I’m aware that it’s Andrew we are talking about (!!) but the headlines would not be good for the RF as a whole
I don’t know but I am sure the Mail and Sun would be happy to post a front page headlined “LIAR LIES” with a lovely photo of Megan……
Yeah, but the trial is in the USA. Where strangely enough, Andy is NOT considered Meghan's moral superior.
Over her, she's basically just Harry's wife. And the years of effort that The Firm AND the UK media establishment spent building him up - along with his brother - as a paragon of royal virtue and the Windsor brand means that, over here, he - and thus she - are regarded in a generally favorable light. Much more so, anyway, than among most PBers and many (esp. older) UKers.
Boies is rattling several cages, and judging from PB commentary he must be pleased with the effects so far.
"Here's how Boris can still win" when the Tories are behind, "Starmer is doomed" when Labour are behind.
He's not impartial, he's not interesting. All he's obsessed with is the culture war and being cancelled and this is where all his articles come from
He interesting. But he also has a habit (as we all do to some extent) of twisting whatever new data there is to fit his preconceptions. It means I pay less attention to him that I probably could.
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
No, mutations are random. Could be worse for all we know.
And that also assumes someone doesn't decide to dine off kinkajou tartare or something like that too soon.
Mutations are random, but the prospects for their survival and propagation hugely favour those that are more transmissible and less severe. The risk is a mutation that significantly evades the existing vaccines, but the experts argue convincingly that the limits on the types of mutations that can take place make this unlikely, if not impossible.
"and less severe" is not true, and there is very little reason in principle why it should be true if you are infecting humanity rather than say snow leopards.
Yes, there is - a severe virus takes you to your bed where you see immediate family only. A mild virus has you out and about living your normal life. In the second case the virus gets lots more opportunities for transmission.
There's a trade off with transmissibility though. If Omicron is more infectious it can in principle afford to be more severe too, we are just lucky the cookie has not yet crumbled that way.
Yes, but the two are correlated. Maybe it’s more transmissible in part because it is less severe.
Look at the symptoms of the original variant - fever makes most people go to bed. Ditto breathing difficulties. A pronounced dry cough makes people steer clear. All of these have diminished as symptoms in later variants, replaced in the symptom league table by non-visible non-disabling things like headache, runny nose, and loss of smell.
Correlated in this one instance. No reason they have to be
Not every time, for sure. But on average, in the long run, generally so.
If a virus disables you or produces highly visible symptoms like a face covered in red spots, its opportunities to jump to new hosts are generally much reduced.
With Covid the presymptomatic infection phase meant that this evolutionary pressure was much reduced. The virus had already spread to new hosts before you started experiencing symptoms, so it doesn't create so much evolutionary pressure if those symptoms end up killing you, or otherwise preventing further transmission.
The key evolutionary pressure that is hypothesised to be at play with Omicron is the vaccines - because these were injected into the blood, there is a stronger immune response in the lower respiratory tract, rather than in the upper respiratory tract, and it is coincidental that greater virus activity in upper, rather than lower, makes the virus more transmissable and less deadly.
I really just want this over with. I've spent almost half my twenties in this pandemic. I've had essentially no social life in that time. I've been trapped paying half my income to live and work in a 12 square metre room with no outdoor space. There are people I've not met, experiences I haven't had, places I've not been, entirely because of an illness that poses no threat to me (or the overwhelming majority of the population now everyone has been offered a vaccination and a much milder strain has emerged). I really cannot justify pissing away more months or years of what was supposed to be a formative period of my life, so I doubt I'll respect any new restrictions moving forward.
I sympathize with your position. Hopefully the latest data suggests we are at the beginning of the end. But if there is a new variant that does have vaccine escape we may need restrictions again. In a scenario where evading them causes death, it is supremely selfish to do so. Think of the generation that hit their 20s in the late 1930s. They had it massively worse than us.
I get what you mean, but I'd like to think that the people in their 20s who died in the Second World War believed they were fighting for a better future for their descendants. I was perfectly happy to make those sacrifices in 2020, when there wasn't a widely available vaccine, but I don't want to keep making sacrifices indefinitely for people who refuse to get vaccinated, or a government which sees destroying the lives of young people as just another policy option.
I really just want this over with. I've spent almost half my twenties in this pandemic. I've had essentially no social life in that time. I've been trapped paying half my income to live and work in a 12 square metre room with no outdoor space. There are people I've not met, experiences I haven't had, places I've not been, entirely because of an illness that poses no threat to me (or the overwhelming majority of the population now everyone has been offered a vaccination and a much milder strain has emerged). I really cannot justify pissing away more months or years of what was supposed to be a formative period of my life, so I doubt I'll respect any new restrictions moving forward.
Hell mend you for living in London, get a life , go somewhere decent where houses are cheap and life is pleasant, whinging will get you nowhere.
Even if the government have called this right re Omicron, they will get zero credit.
Absolutely. Though to be brutally honest I'm not bothered about the Government getting credit, it's more the fact that iSAGE and the rest of the "lockdown now" brigade of scientists won't be discredited by it. They'll go to ground and crawl back out of the woodwork the nanosecond the next variant of concern is identified, the journalists will lap up everything they have to say, and we'll be at risk of going through the Omicronpanic all over again.
Gove should be put back in his box, chip firmly removed from his shoulder and lid locked shut. Javid should announce to the nation that’s he’s been over promoted and start training for Strictly. BoJo should hold his hands up that he is still trying to figure out what a graph is and go back to his florid biography of Shakespeare. Truss should apologise for not finding the Cabinet debate important enough to stay to the end but fortunately enough for us all the call was from the head of HR at GB News and #shesaidyes.
And Sunak and his merry band of 100 that have so skilfully undermined the case for lockdown should inherit the earth. Or the keys to No 10 at any rate.
This take is too lurid and complicated. We were only getting a Lockdown - as before - if there was compelling reason for one. There isn't, so we aren't.
A cynic would say the story is starting to die out so needs to fan the flames so more
Unless he has photos of Boris shagging the intern over the photocopier while doing coke of their arse, not sure it will add much.
Its pretty clear there was a culture of drinking within #10 during the pandemic, they had socials / parties. Not sure from what has been said revealed so far they were perhaps as wild as people might first imagine, but still clearly against the rules and the leadership at very least turned a blind eye, more likely encouraged them.
Everybody in the country know this and knows they lied about it.
Surely if we get another mutation, it's going to mutate further into a "cold", or is that not how it works
No, mutations are random. Could be worse for all we know.
And that also assumes someone doesn't decide to dine off kinkajou tartare or something like that too soon.
Mutations are random, but the prospects for their survival and propagation hugely favour those that are more transmissible and less severe. The risk is a mutation that significantly evades the existing vaccines, but the experts argue convincingly that the limits on the types of mutations that can take place make this unlikely, if not impossible.
"and less severe" is not true, and there is very little reason in principle why it should be true if you are infecting humanity rather than say snow leopards.
"Less severe" is perhaps not 100% accurate, but a virus that killed its host in minutes wouldn't survive long in the real world. Mutations that survive will tend to be those that increase transmissibility. Coughing and sneezing, for example, increases transmissibility. Making someone bedridden does not.
My second ever business trip was to Finland in mid-December*. I got up at 8am to go to my meeting. It was dark. I got in a taxi. It was dark. I arrived at my meeting. It was dark.
Had lunch at about 12pm. The sun was low in the sky.
Finished meeting at 2pm and headed to the airport. It was dark.
At this time of year, there are just three and a half hours of sunlight in Oulu. (And Helsinki's not much better.)
* My first ever business meeting was in Norway. I sure do pick'em for exciting places to visit.
I once did a business trip to Oulu. Or rather a village in the middle of a pine forest 100km from it. Had Chinese black bean rain deer, which was unexpected.
I really just want this over with. I've spent almost half my twenties in this pandemic. I've had essentially no social life in that time. I've been trapped paying half my income to live and work in a 12 square metre room with no outdoor space. There are people I've not met, experiences I haven't had, places I've not been, entirely because of an illness that poses no threat to me (or the overwhelming majority of the population now everyone has been offered a vaccination and a much milder strain has emerged). I really cannot justify pissing away more months or years of what was supposed to be a formative period of my life, so I doubt I'll respect any new restrictions moving forward.
I sympathize with your position. Hopefully the latest data suggests we are at the beginning of the end. But if there is a new variant that does have vaccine escape we may need restrictions again. In a scenario where evading them causes death, it is supremely selfish to do so. Think of the generation that hit their 20s in the late 1930s. They had it massively worse than us.
This was very much my view last winter. But we can't keep doing this. It's simply not proportional any more.
Comments
People have fallen for the same routine before.
From the end of January to early September, the Conservatives led in every published poll (as one prominent academic monotonously pointed out: he has since fallen silent on the subject).
As he has several times pointed out that Labour have started taking the lead.
like here:
Matt Goodwin
@GoodwinMJ
·
23h
And ... 16th Labour lead in row
Labour 39%
Cons 31%
Lib Dem 13%
Green 6%
SNP 5%
Reform 5%
But none of that detracts from the fact that Mr Meeks is an outstandingly interesting analyst, commentator and predictor.
The real world data has now come in and things are looking good. Shouldn't get complacent though - the next variant could be the real deal.
Onwards.
https://twitter.com/MattCartoonist/status/1473715558201843713
"Here's how Boris can still win" when the Tories are behind, "Starmer is doomed" when Labour are behind.
He's not impartial, he's not interesting. All he's obsessed with is the culture war and being cancelled and this is where all his articles come from
(And yes, Omicron does look like a bit of dumb luck for humanity, but I'll take that right now. And whilst getting Omicron looks fairly low-risk, there's a limit on how many people we want getting it a day. Probably linked to keeping hospitals staffed; we really need sickly people working in hospitals to stay home. What I don't know, and I hope someone is asking, is what that limit is.)
If you share the optimistic scenario, the bargains are in the travel sector. I bought back into Carnival a couple of weeks back at £11-something and they’re now already above £13. The company is carrying a lot of new debt, so it’s a gamble on cruising returning to normal by summer 2022; DYOR.
And that also assumes someone doesn't decide to dine off kinkajou tartare or something like that too soon.
Edit - it might have had mileage if done 18 months ago in a serious bid to drive down class sizes and add more space between pupils. But not in this scenario.
Anyhow, in other news, I know that there's been a record reporting day for cases today, but the figures collated by specimen date look mildly encouraging - albeit that they might also have been significantly disturbed by the LFT shortage, so we could do with a few more days' figures (they are only complete to the 17th) before we get too excited.
If the Government can, in the next few days, accumulate sufficient evidence that the Omicron spike is a dramatic but brief phenomenon (as suggested by the SA data,) *and* be satisfied that the variant causes less serious disease as well, then - we must fervently hope - they can tell the "panic lockdown now" mob to take a running jump.
If the observed vaccine efficacy holds up at 93-95% against severe disease as we hope it does then I just can't see how the government rams lockdown through. I'm sure the likes of SAGE and Gove will have one final attempt but it feels like the Cabinet is wise to their dodgy data and constant leaks to the media playbook now.
Germany to limit private gatherings after Christmas
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYt_a7KlWs0
And yes, any peak this year us going to cause half as many hospitalisations as it would have done last year as the base of the triangle is half the length it was - as Omicron cycles twice as fast.
Most viruses that persist over the long term settle into something fairly harmless, but that's not inevitable (e.g. smallpox), or a direct line.
The ball has come out of the scrum and Boris has run away with it.
It's over. Sorry Keir, Ed, Nicola, Mark.
Probably not what lawyers on either side of the Atlantic (or the Pacific) call it, but what a great made-for-TV movie title.
*) It does to any elderly relatives and friends, etc.
*) It does if the health system breaks down, and you injure yourself doing your 20-something antics, or are just unlucky and get a random illness that requires treatment.
https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1473711052340748302?s=20
I wonder if he has any interesting snaps?
To what extent these diseases evolve to become milder, and to what extent the disease they cause becomes less severe simply because our immune systems are trained by repeated reinfection, I have no idea.
"this should worry us all"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8NN-haqJp0
In a generation they will have Eastern Siberia anyway as a result of migration
And the problem is, the health system has already shut down for people like me and our "20-something antics". All the GPs are doing boosters instead (which I don't mind, but the idea that they'd be free to help me if I just sat quietly in my room for the rest of life isn't right).
I blame the rostbif....
Taiwan, where so much US computer tech comes from...
Look at the symptoms of the original variant - fever makes most people go to bed. Ditto breathing difficulties. A pronounced dry cough makes other people steer clear. All of these have diminished as principal symptoms in the later variants, replaced in the symptom league table by non-visible non-disabling things like headache, runny nose, and loss of smell. Indeed the latter is now pretty much the only way in which you can get a reliable steer (at least to begin with - which is the critical period for onward infection) as to whether you might have new covid or just a cold.
I’m aware that it’s Andrew we are talking about (!!) but the headlines would not be good for the RF as a whole
If a virus disables you or produces highly visible symptoms like a face covered in red spots, its opportunities to jump to new hosts are generally much reduced.
I really do sympathise with you and hope that this is the end and you grasp every opportunity once it’s over to live a life, make mistakes, look stupid, laugh, wake up in good looking strangers beds and build a life and make memories rather than the hell it sounds you have been in.
I would rather have the regrets of my 20’s than not because the upsides are so much better.
Besides which, we really must move beyond permanent cycles of restrictions every time something scary happens with this virus. Some elderly and medically vulnerable people are doubtless quite content to spend the rest of their lives locked indoors watching the TV, but even amongst those at elevated risk from a disease like this, not nearly all of them want to keep having everything cancelled and being told to sit at home and rot for the next few months over and over and over again.
It's evidently not possible to have quality of life in the absence of life itself, but life without much quality to it is eminently possible and isn't very much fun. FWIW, I would also gently point out that the comparisons between Covid and wartime are sometimes overdone: wars are won in part by making as many people as possible useful to the effort, not by getting most of the population to sit on its arse at home doing nothing and feeling hopeless.
We're all entitled to feel that we have had enough of doing nothing and feeling hopeless by this stage of the game, I believe.
And Sunak and his merry band of 100 that have so skilfully undermined the case for lockdown should inherit the earth. Or the keys to No 10 at any rate.
"There’s also a danger of ecological fallacies at work. Conservative voters in the red wall generally look quite like Conservative voters elsewhere: typically older homeowners who’ve done alright for themselves. The Conservatives have long held loads of seats in Essex and Kent thanks to this type of voter. Similarly, Lib Dem and Labour voters in the Home Counties look like the urban professionals that you find in London who are progressive voters, and that’s not particularly surprising because a lot of them were progressive urban professionals in London till they moved out."
I think there's a lot in this. If you aren't too fussy about where you live in your retirement, you can buy an extremely nice detached house in the Red Wall for the same money as a 2-bed terrace in London, and plenty of retired people with moderate savings have done exactly that, taking their Conservative voting habits with them and changing the nature of places like Bolsover. In the same way, Labour is picking up council seats like mine in the deepest blue areas, not because lifelong Tories have had a Damoscene conversion but because the demography is changing (getting the incoming Labour voters to lend tactical support to LDs at GEs where appropriate is a separate issue but the LDs are on the case).
Over her, she's basically just Harry's wife. And the years of effort that The Firm AND the UK media establishment spent building him up - along with his brother - as a paragon of royal virtue and the Windsor brand means that, over here, he - and thus she - are regarded in a generally favorable light. Much more so, anyway, than among most PBers and many (esp. older) UKers.
Boies is rattling several cages, and judging from PB commentary he must be pleased with the effects so far.
The key evolutionary pressure that is hypothesised to be at play with Omicron is the vaccines - because these were injected into the blood, there is a stronger immune response in the lower respiratory tract, rather than in the upper respiratory tract, and it is coincidental that greater virus activity in upper, rather than lower, makes the virus more transmissable and less deadly.
Its pretty clear there was a culture of drinking within #10 during the pandemic, they had socials / parties. Not sure from what has been said revealed so far they were perhaps as wild as people might first imagine, but still clearly against the rules and the leadership at very least turned a blind eye, more likely encouraged them.
Everybody in the country know this and knows they lied about it.
virulence
/ˈvɪrʊl(ə)ns,ˈvɪrjʊl(ə)ns/
noun
noun: virulence
1.
the severity or harmfulness of a disease or poison.
"the proportion of birds which die depends on the virulence of the virus"