The German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce has written to the Lithuanian government warning that German investors may close their plants in the country unless a "constructive solution to restore Lithuanian-Chinese economic relations" is found
Germany really are a mercantilist nation. Shameful.
To be fair this is a chamber of commerce ie an industry group not the government. Still, what with this and Nordstream2 there does seem to be a degree of realpolitik gone mad in some corners of the German economy.
The Nordstream debate is interesting, as it's a wedge between the new German government partners. It's built, ready to use, and would help dampen the soaring gas price. Everyone agrees that if Russia actually attacked Ukraine then it shouldn't be opened for a long time, if ever. The SPD and CDU are in favour of opening it if they don't, the Greens are against, both because they don't like gas (fossil fuel) and they don't like Russia (and do like Ukraine). Not sure what the FDP thinks - does anyone know?
The obvious deal to be done is for Putin to stop willy-waving and the pipeline to open after a few months, after which it becomes a profitable lever to restrain Putin from a return to willy-waving. I think that's what will happen in the end, but Putin is populist enough to be unpredictable.
Putin doesn’t care about profits.
Nordstream 2 absolutely fucks Ukraine.
It allows Russia to bypass them and cut off the transit fees.
It will be a strategic calamity for the West.
But Gerhard Schroeder and other German politicians are richer than they were.
Nordstream 2 fucks the Ukrainians, and I get that.
But you are equally asking German consumers to accept higher priced gas, because it includes transit fees, solely to benefit the Ukrainians.
Irrespective, the big news - driven no doubt by Putin turning the screws - is that two LNG import terminal projects in Germany are now going to be built. Germany's dependence on Russian gas - with Nordstream 2 or without it - will diminish, because for the first time it will be able to directly import LNG from the US, Australia or elsewhere.
Indeed, the law of unintended consequences is that a whole host of LNG projects have been greenlighted in the last few months. The most important of these is that Mozambique LNG is now actually going to happen. (If the Russians had waited another six or twelve months it might have gotten permanently shelved. Now, it is not inconceivable the first cargoes flow in 2024. I suspect there will be no shortage of European buyers for the gas. Amazing to think that six months ago, everyone thought it was dead.)
Nah I’m asking Germans to accept higher prices to preserve Germany’s strategic flexibility and an independent Ukraine. That’s the sort of call the government should make - while at the same time looking to other sources such as LNG.
Otherwise they are weakening their position for a handful of silver
There is a small cost to achieve strategic resilience that the West hasn’t been willing to pay for decades, due to the transactional nature of its politics. It’s highly disturbing to me. I would make it my number one policy objective. The trouble is, there’s not many votes in it. Because the public has been fed a fairy tale that History Ended, the West won and human progress can only go forwards. In a globalised world, it also requires the nationalisation or quasi nationalisation of chunks of industry, which everyone has been taught is always wrong.
Another example is the reluctance of certain libertarians to shield the food and farmingt sector from total free marketry post-Brexit - heaven help the UK if this happens and a crisis comes along.
For a country with an import dependency on food, it’s a dereliction of duty not to have built a long term strategic nutrition reserve. It could be easily achieved by outsourcing it to the supermarkets and providing free financing for the increased working capital requirement / capex for the storage facilities. We could live our whole lives and people would wonder why we needed it. Equally an extraneous event could happen at any time and it might be the difference between maintaining order in society or seeing it quickly turn to dust.
Interesting comments, but focusing on the last one - when I was PPS in Defra, I was surprised to discover that it was long-established Government policy by both parties to rule out any attempt at food self-sufficiency, for the free-market argument that our weather and size made it impractical to produce at a reasonable price. 70% self-sufficiency was regarded then (I don't know if it's changed) as a reasonable goal.
As someone who now works with farmers (trying to promote high-welfare systems), I think it's best to see them as businesspeople rather than be either sentimental or critical - generally they'll try to make a decent living following the rules (and, subject to that, won't impose unnecessary suffering on their animals). The possibility of global disruption paralysing imports is non-zero, so it makes sense to maintain 70%ish self-sufficiency at whatever standards we regard as tolerable, and as you say to maintain reserves for a short-term crisis if it arises. Those decisions have a cost, and we should be prepared to pay it.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...</blockquote
Spain was much stricter - masks are once again obligatory indoors and out! Vaxports needed for hostelry , etc. Some of it pointless probably but the UK has had it much easier throughout.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
We shouldn't let people who don't care how many people have to die for *their* freedom to reinterpret society, either.
Everyone has to die.
Unless you've discovered immortality when I wasn't looking.
I think you should know that since the birth of humanity people have had quite strong feelings about the timing of when they have to die.
Think about all the epic poems, hymns and novels that have been written about the people who have been commanded to lay down their lives in sacrifice to a total Phil.
"You shall die so I don't have to wear a mask" is the foundation stone of western Christendom.
C14th Phil: Ignore the buboes under your arm and that your entire family have died puking up black bile; live, laugh, love!
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, little village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
Good morning
To be honest if Christians have a different view then that is upto them
It is Christmas, a time for goodwill and not sniping on the side
As Dave Allen used to say 'may your God go with you'
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
Based on the documentary “The Life of Brian” the Galilean accent was more Welsh than northern.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, little village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
Good morning
To be honest if Christians have a different view then that is upto them
It is Christmas, a time for goodwill and not sniping on the side
As Dave Allen used to say 'may your God go with you'
Yes and I think that's an important point. I shall go to Midnight Mass tonight and enjoy the pageant of it all.
As a piece of history the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke are almost certainly nonsense but that doesn't mean that one cannot, in the words of Leslie Houlden, look 'backward into light'. You may if you wish take your starting point as faith in Jesus as the Christ and so look back into his messianic birth.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
In that situation you are carrying a not yet fully understood disease with an intense propensity to spread. You want to go out and do whatever you like because you're bored at home (perhpas you spend too much time on PB?) and inevitably infect some more people? That's not just irresponsible, it's criminally reckless. It is also extremely unusual. I know numerous people who've had it, and there have been plenty on the board here too. Some got over it quickly, others like Dixiedean are still suffering effects after weeks. How many of them have cheerily gone out to spread the disease?
You're entitled to your views, of course, but don't be under the illusion that you're speaking for many - you're an extremist on the subject, and while many here intensely resent the situation and hope that the Government doesn't impose new restrictions, nobody else is really advocating complete selfishness.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
I'm in Scotland, remember. But I suppose I agree.
Just don't take young people for granted. The pandemic response depends on us doing our bit, and a lot of us are close to telling our masters to piss off.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
Based on the documentary “The Life of Brian” the Galilean accent was more Welsh than northern.
There's one of those clues that slips through the Gospel writers' censorship in Luke 22:59 when those in the courtyard accuse Peter of being one of Jesus' followers based on his accent: 'for he too is a Galilean' they remark.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
I suspect not. Once the chill blast of omi hits full-force in January, I reckon HMG will succumb to the pressure to tighten things further.
I hope I am wrong.
I think we’re past that. Restrictions were only ever a temporary emergency measure, to be used in extremis. Omi will be familiar to us by January - it will have lost the terror factor of the unknown and exotic. I get the feeling that people across the political spectrum have finally come to some consensus that it’s time to get back to a more normal situation.
It’s not easy, and it feels like tempting fate: like reducing the terrorist threat from imminent to severe, or whatever the terminology is, but as with terrorism nobody wants to live in a permanent state of emergency.
"I get the feeling that people across the political spectrum have finally come to some consensus"
I wonder whether the various parties are starting to seriously pick up in their focus groups that the voting public have reached the point where they accept no more or little more can be done and we have to live with it.
Yep, he's completely buggered. What chance does he have when even his friends like the Telegraph and Big G start ganging up on him? None.
@Big_G_NorthWales manages the contortions required to vote for the donkey in the blue rosette every time. He is very flexible for his years.
A year ago I would have said that Big G was one of the most respected, likeable and liked posters on PB.
A year is a long time in blogland.
Motes and beams come to mind - don't like his comments - ignore him!
It seems the left do not like the fact a Welsh scientist has accused Drakeford of lying and that posting the report is a prompt to attack the messenger without even having listened to Drakeford, which I had live and can affirm the criticism is fair
The German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce has written to the Lithuanian government warning that German investors may close their plants in the country unless a "constructive solution to restore Lithuanian-Chinese economic relations" is found
Germany really are a mercantilist nation. Shameful.
To be fair this is a chamber of commerce ie an industry group not the government. Still, what with this and Nordstream2 there does seem to be a degree of realpolitik gone mad in some corners of the German economy.
The Nordstream debate is interesting, as it's a wedge between the new German government partners. It's built, ready to use, and would help dampen the soaring gas price. Everyone agrees that if Russia actually attacked Ukraine then it shouldn't be opened for a long time, if ever. The SPD and CDU are in favour of opening it if they don't, the Greens are against, both because they don't like gas (fossil fuel) and they don't like Russia (and do like Ukraine). Not sure what the FDP thinks - does anyone know?
The obvious deal to be done is for Putin to stop willy-waving and the pipeline to open after a few months, after which it becomes a profitable lever to restrain Putin from a return to willy-waving. I think that's what will happen in the end, but Putin is populist enough to be unpredictable.
Putin doesn’t care about profits.
Nordstream 2 absolutely fucks Ukraine.
It allows Russia to bypass them and cut off the transit fees.
It will be a strategic calamity for the West.
But Gerhard Schroeder and other German politicians are richer than they were.
Nordstream 2 fucks the Ukrainians, and I get that.
But you are equally asking German consumers to accept higher priced gas, because it includes transit fees, solely to benefit the Ukrainians.
Irrespective, the big news - driven no doubt by Putin turning the screws - is that two LNG import terminal projects in Germany are now going to be built. Germany's dependence on Russian gas - with Nordstream 2 or without it - will diminish, because for the first time it will be able to directly import LNG from the US, Australia or elsewhere.
Indeed, the law of unintended consequences is that a whole host of LNG projects have been greenlighted in the last few months. The most important of these is that Mozambique LNG is now actually going to happen. (If the Russians had waited another six or twelve months it might have gotten permanently shelved. Now, it is not inconceivable the first cargoes flow in 2024. I suspect there will be no shortage of European buyers for the gas. Amazing to think that six months ago, everyone thought it was dead.)
Nah I’m asking Germans to accept higher prices to preserve Germany’s strategic flexibility and an independent Ukraine. That’s the sort of call the government should make - while at the same time looking to other sources such as LNG.
Otherwise they are weakening their position for a handful of silver
There is a small cost to achieve strategic resilience that the West hasn’t been willing to pay for decades, due to the transactional nature of its politics. It’s highly disturbing to me. I would make it my number one policy objective. The trouble is, there’s not many votes in it. Because the public has been fed a fairy tale that History Ended, the West won and human progress can only go forwards. In a globalised world, it also requires the nationalisation or quasi nationalisation of chunks of industry, which everyone has been taught is always wrong.
Another example is the reluctance of certain libertarians to shield the food and farmingt sector from total free marketry post-Brexit - heaven help the UK if this happens and a crisis comes along.
For a country with an import dependency on food, it’s a dereliction of duty not to have built a long term strategic nutrient reserve. It could be easily achieved by outsourcing it to the supermarkets and providing free financing for the increased working capital requirement / capex for the storage facilities. We could live our whole lives and people would wonder why we needed it. Equally an extraneous event could happen at any time and it might be the difference between maintaining order in society or seeing it quickly turn to dust.
Indeed, and a particularly odd piece of neglect by the ruling Brexiter faction given their frequent referencing of WW2 and Churchill - who was more frightened by that very issue of import dependency than anything else, at least when it came to the Battle of the Atlantic.
There used to be food reserves into the 1950s and 1960s, I believe,though some at least of that was for after the Bomb dropped.
Yes, though it is odd that Churchill never gave Coastal Command any Lancasters, preferring to bomb cows and cabbages, and later civilians.
Was that actually Churchill's decision? (I think CC did get some Lancasters, powered by a different engine because bomber command didn't want them.)
Coastal Command got Liberators because Bomber Command did not want them. I don't think they ever got Lancasters, though I can't be bothered to check at 9am on Christmas Eve. (There was more but I was mysteriously logged out while replying.)
Apparently Lancasters with Hercules engine:
"Designed as a back up in case Merlin production was interrupted, the 300 Hercules-powered Lancaster Mk.IIs built were dropped by Bomber Command in the interests of commonality in autumn 1944. Because of their better performance at lower altitudes many of them found their way to Coastal Command, operating alongside Liberators in the long range anti-submarine role."
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
Oh not this Long Covid shit again. The last desperate whinge from the Covid obsessives.
We're all going to get Covid sooner or later, its endemic. Get your vaccine and live your life.
The entire point of vaccination is that if you catch covid it’s going to be a mild rather than serious illness because the body knows how to deal with.
While there are a lot of long covid cases I suspect all of them date from before the first vaccination.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Do you mean 'the study of the historical Jesus?'
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
We shouldn't let people who don't care how many people have to die for *their* freedom to reinterpret society, either.
Everyone has to die.
Unless you've discovered immortality when I wasn't looking.
I think you should know that since the birth of humanity people have had quite strong feelings about the timing of when they have to die.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
We shouldn't let people who don't care how many people have to die for *their* freedom to reinterpret society, either.
Everyone has to die.
Unless you've discovered immortality when I wasn't looking.
I really struggle to see any reasonable point you're trying to make with this. Yes, everyone has to die. The point is that we rather try to prevent unavoidable deaths. Often those of people we may never meet.
The really troubling thing about your comment is that it can be used to excuse any number of hideous excesses - perhaps some even you wouldn't agree with.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
In that situation you are carrying a not yet fully understood disease with an intense propensity to spread. You want to go out and do whatever you like because you're bored at home (perhpas you spend too much time on PB?) and inevitably infect some more people? That's not just irresponsible, it's criminally reckless. It is also extremely unusual. I know numerous people who've had it, and there have been plenty on the board here too. Some got over it quickly, others like Dixiedean are still suffering effects after weeks. How many of them have cheerily gone out to spread the disease?
You're entitled to your views, of course, but don't be under the illusion that you're speaking for many - you're an extremist on the subject, and while many here intensely resent the situation and hope that the Government doesn't impose new restrictions, nobody else is really advocating complete selfishness.
The difficulty we will have is if omicron spreads so fast that large numbers of people who are asymptomatic and otherwise capable of functioning have to isolate.
That's where I can imagine pressure on hospitals, schools, supply chains even if omicron is slightly less dangerous than a grazed knee (which it isn't, of course).
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
We shouldn't let people who don't care how many people have to die for *their* freedom to reinterpret society, either.
Everyone has to die.
Unless you've discovered immortality when I wasn't looking.
I really struggle to see any reasonable point you're trying to make with this. Yes, everyone has to die. The point is that we rather try to prevent unavoidable deaths. Often those of people we may never meet.
The really troubling thing about your comment is that it can be used to excuse any number of hideous excesses - perhaps some even you wouldn't agree with.
The German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce has written to the Lithuanian government warning that German investors may close their plants in the country unless a "constructive solution to restore Lithuanian-Chinese economic relations" is found
Germany really are a mercantilist nation. Shameful.
To be fair this is a chamber of commerce ie an industry group not the government. Still, what with this and Nordstream2 there does seem to be a degree of realpolitik gone mad in some corners of the German economy.
The Nordstream debate is interesting, as it's a wedge between the new German government partners. It's built, ready to use, and would help dampen the soaring gas price. Everyone agrees that if Russia actually attacked Ukraine then it shouldn't be opened for a long time, if ever. The SPD and CDU are in favour of opening it if they don't, the Greens are against, both because they don't like gas (fossil fuel) and they don't like Russia (and do like Ukraine). Not sure what the FDP thinks - does anyone know?
The obvious deal to be done is for Putin to stop willy-waving and the pipeline to open after a few months, after which it becomes a profitable lever to restrain Putin from a return to willy-waving. I think that's what will happen in the end, but Putin is populist enough to be unpredictable.
Putin doesn’t care about profits.
Nordstream 2 absolutely fucks Ukraine.
It allows Russia to bypass them and cut off the transit fees.
It will be a strategic calamity for the West.
But Gerhard Schroeder and other German politicians are richer than they were.
Nordstream 2 fucks the Ukrainians, and I get that.
But you are equally asking German consumers to accept higher priced gas, because it includes transit fees, solely to benefit the Ukrainians.
Irrespective, the big news - driven no doubt by Putin turning the screws - is that two LNG import terminal projects in Germany are now going to be built. Germany's dependence on Russian gas - with Nordstream 2 or without it - will diminish, because for the first time it will be able to directly import LNG from the US, Australia or elsewhere.
Indeed, the law of unintended consequences is that a whole host of LNG projects have been greenlighted in the last few months. The most important of these is that Mozambique LNG is now actually going to happen. (If the Russians had waited another six or twelve months it might have gotten permanently shelved. Now, it is not inconceivable the first cargoes flow in 2024. I suspect there will be no shortage of European buyers for the gas. Amazing to think that six months ago, everyone thought it was dead.)
Nah I’m asking Germans to accept higher prices to preserve Germany’s strategic flexibility and an independent Ukraine. That’s the sort of call the government should make - while at the same time looking to other sources such as LNG.
Otherwise they are weakening their position for a handful of silver
There is a small cost to achieve strategic resilience that the West hasn’t been willing to pay for decades, due to the transactional nature of its politics. It’s highly disturbing to me. I would make it my number one policy objective. The trouble is, there’s not many votes in it. Because the public has been fed a fairy tale that History Ended, the West won and human progress can only go forwards. In a globalised world, it also requires the nationalisation or quasi nationalisation of chunks of industry, which everyone has been taught is always wrong.
Another example is the reluctance of certain libertarians to shield the food and farmingt sector from total free marketry post-Brexit - heaven help the UK if this happens and a crisis comes along.
For a country with an import dependency on food, it’s a dereliction of duty not to have built a long term strategic nutrient reserve. It could be easily achieved by outsourcing it to the supermarkets and providing free financing for the increased working capital requirement / capex for the storage facilities. We could live our whole lives and people would wonder why we needed it. Equally an extraneous event could happen at any time and it might be the difference between maintaining order in society or seeing it quickly turn to dust.
Indeed, and a particularly odd piece of neglect by the ruling Brexiter faction given their frequent referencing of WW2 and Churchill - who was more frightened by that very issue of import dependency than anything else, at least when it came to the Battle of the Atlantic.
There used to be food reserves into the 1950s and 1960s, I believe,though some at least of that was for after the Bomb dropped.
Yes, though it is odd that Churchill never gave Coastal Command any Lancasters, preferring to bomb cows and cabbages, and later civilians.
Was that actually Churchill's decision? (I think CC did get some Lancasters, powered by a different engine because bomber command didn't want them.)
Coastal Command got Liberators because Bomber Command did not want them. I don't think they ever got Lancasters, though I can't be bothered to check at 9am on Christmas Eve. (There was more but I was mysteriously logged out while replying.)
They got an influx of Liberators because they could be adapted to operate over super long distances from about 1943 and weren't great for night bombing. Without that range there were sections of the Atlantic that were essentially unprotected. Coastal command did have access to some extraordinary machines though - my father flew with them from 1942 over the atlantic and then Indian ocean, mostly in Catalinas. He always claimed Churchill fought Coastal Commands corner v Harris who just wanted to focus on area bombing. Not sure if thats entirely true.
It seems duty calls and I would like to wish everyone on this amazing forum a happy and safe Christmas, and especially a much better 2022 for so many right across this precious world we all have the privilege to live on
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
We shouldn't let people who don't care how many people have to die for *their* freedom to reinterpret society, either.
Everyone has to die.
Unless you've discovered immortality when I wasn't looking.
I really struggle to see any reasonable point you're trying to make with this. Yes, everyone has to die. The point is that we rather try to prevent unavoidable deaths. Often those of people we may never meet.
The really troubling thing about your comment is that it can be used to excuse any number of hideous excesses - perhaps some even you wouldn't agree with.
On topic, I'm on Johnson at 1.9 to still be there at the next Tory Party Conf and I like that bet very much. It's far more likely than not he survives that long imo.
I suspect not. Once the chill blast of omi hits full-force in January, I reckon HMG will succumb to the pressure to tighten things further.
I hope I am wrong.
I think we’re past that. Restrictions were only ever a temporary emergency measure, to be used in extremis. Omi will be familiar to us by January - it will have lost the terror factor of the unknown and exotic. I get the feeling that people across the political spectrum have finally come to some consensus that it’s time to get back to a more normal situation.
It’s not easy, and it feels like tempting fate: like reducing the terrorist threat from imminent to severe, or whatever the terminology is, but as with terrorism nobody wants to live in a permanent state of emergency.
"I get the feeling that people across the political spectrum have finally come to some consensus"
I wonder whether the various parties are starting to seriously pick up in their focus groups that the voting public have reached the point where they accept no more or little more can be done and we have to live with it.
Yep, he's completely buggered. What chance does he have when even his friends like the Telegraph and Big G start ganging up on him? None.
@Big_G_NorthWales manages the contortions required to vote for the donkey in the blue rosette every time. He is very flexible for his years.
A year ago I would have said that Big G was one of the most respected, likeable and liked posters on PB.
A year is a long time in blogland.
Motes and beams come to mind - don't like his comments - ignore him!
It seems the left do not like the fact a Welsh scientist has accused Drakeford of lying and that posting the report is a prompt to attack the messenger without even having listened to Drakeford, which I had live and can affirm the criticism is fair
I see this inanity lasted all of 7 minutes.
‘To be honest if Christians have a different view then that is upto them
It is Christmas, a time for goodwill and not sniping on the side’
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Strongly recommend the Penguin paperback 'The Historical figure of Jesus' by E P Sanders. As close to an unbiased mainstream account by a historian (even though he was once prof at Oxford) you can get. Every word is fascinating. Fundamentalists and sceptics alike would all hate it.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Strongly recommend the Penguin paperback 'The Historical figure of Jesus' by E P Sanders. As close to an unbiased mainstream account by a historian (even though he was once prof at Oxford) you can get. Every word is fascinating. Fundamentalists and sceptics alike would all hate it.
The work of Geza Vermes e.g. Jesus the Jew is probably more useful in unravelling his life and the secular setting of his teachings than that of Sanders, which is not to denigrate Sanders.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Strongly recommend the Penguin paperback 'The Historical figure of Jesus' by E P Sanders. As close to an unbiased mainstream account by a historian (even though he was once prof at Oxford) you can get. Every word is fascinating. Fundamentalists and sceptics alike would all hate it.
Also, Robin Lane Fox The Unauthorised Version: Truth and Fiction in the Bible (1991; new edition, Penguin Books, 2006)
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
In that situation you are carrying a not yet fully understood disease with an intense propensity to spread. You want to go out and do whatever you like because you're bored at home (perhpas you spend too much time on PB?) and inevitably infect some more people? That's not just irresponsible, it's criminally reckless. It is also extremely unusual. I know numerous people who've had it, and there have been plenty on the board here too. Some got over it quickly, others like Dixiedean are still suffering effects after weeks. How many of them have cheerily gone out to spread the disease?
You're entitled to your views, of course, but don't be under the illusion that you're speaking for many - you're an extremist on the subject, and while many here intensely resent the situation and hope that the Government doesn't impose new restrictions, nobody else is really advocating complete selfishness.
The inevitable consequence of covid being endemic is that people will be regularly come into contact with it.
Which will in turn boost their own level of immunity.
And if covid continues its process of having symptoms similar to that of a common cold then people will react in the same way as when they have a common cold.
Now that's not going to stop some people having a week 'working from home' or a week off sick.
But even if they'll do they'll be less and less inclined to restrict themselves while they are infected.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
We shouldn't let people who don't care how many people have to die for *their* freedom to reinterpret society, either.
Everyone has to die.
Unless you've discovered immortality when I wasn't looking.
I really struggle to see any reasonable point you're trying to make with this. Yes, everyone has to die. The point is that we rather try to prevent unavoidable deaths. Often those of people we may never meet.
The really troubling thing about your comment is that it can be used to excuse any number of hideous excesses - perhaps some even you wouldn't agree with.
I'm assuming autocorrect?
Nope, can't blame autocorrect; the mistake was mine. Having an excited seven-year old jumping on the bed as I type. That's my excuse, anyway. Yes, I meant avoidable deaths. Sorry.
There was a time when having someone jumping on the bed with me heralded excitement. Now it just means there's a kid who has had too much sugar ...
I've never seen Die Hard or Home Alone so could not usefully comment but they are right that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the greatest Christmas film. God bless us, every one!
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
Morning Carnyx, dry at moment on west coast but expecting rain. \Re your comment, remember you are talking to someone as thick as two short planks and callous with it.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
Morning Carnyx, dry at moment on west coast but expecting rain. \Re your comment, remember you are talking to someone as thick as two short planks and callous with it.
Oh, I think you're a bit harsh there Malc. Even if you can be a bit fruity we don't think of you as 'thick as two short planks.'
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
In that situation you are carrying a not yet fully understood disease with an intense propensity to spread. You want to go out and do whatever you like because you're bored at home (perhpas you spend too much time on PB?) and inevitably infect some more people? That's not just irresponsible, it's criminally reckless. It is also extremely unusual. I know numerous people who've had it, and there have been plenty on the board here too. Some got over it quickly, others like Dixiedean are still suffering effects after weeks. How many of them have cheerily gone out to spread the disease?
You're entitled to your views, of course, but don't be under the illusion that you're speaking for many - you're an extremist on the subject, and while many here intensely resent the situation and hope that the Government doesn't impose new restrictions, nobody else is really advocating complete selfishness.
The inevitable consequence of covid being endemic is that people will be regularly come into contact with it.
Which will in turn boost their own level of immunity.
And if covid continues its process of having symptoms similar to that of a common cold then people will react in the same way as when they have a common cold.
Now that's not going to stop some people having a week 'working from home' or a week off sick.
But even if they'll do they'll be less and less inclined to restrict themselves while they are infected.
And this is not 'selfishness'. There is a string argument that 'no restrictions' is the utilitarian solution.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
In that situation you are carrying a not yet fully understood disease with an intense propensity to spread. You want to go out and do whatever you like because you're bored at home (perhpas you spend too much time on PB?) and inevitably infect some more people? That's not just irresponsible, it's criminally reckless. It is also extremely unusual. I know numerous people who've had it, and there have been plenty on the board here too. Some got over it quickly, others like Dixiedean are still suffering effects after weeks. How many of them have cheerily gone out to spread the disease?
You're entitled to your views, of course, but don't be under the illusion that you're speaking for many - you're an extremist on the subject, and while many here intensely resent the situation and hope that the Government doesn't impose new restrictions, nobody else is really advocating complete selfishness.
The inevitable consequence of covid being endemic is that people will be regularly come into contact with it.
Which will in turn boost their own level of immunity.
And if covid continues its process of having symptoms similar to that of a common cold then people will react in the same way as when they have a common cold.
Now that's not going to stop some people having a week 'working from home' or a week off sick.
But even if they'll do they'll be less and less inclined to restrict themselves while they are infected.
And this is not 'selfishness'. There is a string argument that 'no restrictions' is the utilitarian solution.
Indeed.
The people banging on about selfishness and infections it seems are in total denial about Covid and think that if they wish very hard and we all just stay at home, or stay home while infected, then its all going away.
It isn't going away.
I wouldn't visit anyone vulnerable if positive, but I wouldn't visit anyone vulnerable with a cold or a cough either. I would go to the shops, or to a restaurant or similar with a cold or a cough though.
But I must get off now and get things ready for tomorrow. Have a good day everyone, and if I don't speak to you all again first then have a good Christmas!
I've never seen Die Hard or Home Alone so could not usefully comment but they are right that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the greatest Christmas film. God bless us, every one!
Home Alone I’m not keen on, but Die Hard is a genre defining film, with a particularly fine performance by the protagonist, played by the late great Alan Rickman. Bruce Willis is pretty good too.
Edit to add: agree with you about The Muppet Christmas Carol btw.
I've never seen Die Hard or Home Alone so could not usefully comment but they are right that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the greatest Christmas film. God bless us, every one!
Home Alone I’m not keen on, but Die Hard is a genre defining film, with a particularly fine performance by the protagonist, played by the late great Alan Rickman. Bruce Willis is pretty good too.
Edit to add: agree with you about The Muppet Christmas Carol btw.
The love we've found...
Incidentally on Die Hard, which genre does it define? Christmas films or action films?
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
So, yes, nice one. Wish you all the very best with it.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
In that situation you are carrying a not yet fully understood disease with an intense propensity to spread. You want to go out and do whatever you like because you're bored at home (perhpas you spend too much time on PB?) and inevitably infect some more people? That's not just irresponsible, it's criminally reckless. It is also extremely unusual. I know numerous people who've had it, and there have been plenty on the board here too. Some got over it quickly, others like Dixiedean are still suffering effects after weeks. How many of them have cheerily gone out to spread the disease?
You're entitled to your views, of course, but don't be under the illusion that you're speaking for many - you're an extremist on the subject, and while many here intensely resent the situation and hope that the Government doesn't impose new restrictions, nobody else is really advocating complete selfishness.
The inevitable consequence of covid being endemic is that people will be regularly come into contact with it.
Which will in turn boost their own level of immunity.
And if covid continues its process of having symptoms similar to that of a common cold then people will react in the same way as when they have a common cold.
Now that's not going to stop some people having a week 'working from home' or a week off sick.
But even if they'll do they'll be less and less inclined to restrict themselves while they are infected.
And this is not 'selfishness'. There is a string argument that 'no restrictions' is the utilitarian solution.
Indeed.
The people banging on about selfishness and infections it seems are in total denial about Covid and think that if they wish very hard and we all just stay at home, or stay home while infected, then its all going away.
It isn't going away.
I wouldn't visit anyone vulnerable if positive, but I wouldn't visit anyone vulnerable with a cold or a cough either. I would go to the shops, or to a restaurant or similar with a cold or a cough though.
But I must get off now and get things ready for tomorrow. Have a good day everyone, and if I don't speak to you all again first then have a good Christmas!
I'd like to think that people in general would be more inclined to stay at home in future if they have colds, or perhaps wear a mask if they need to go to the shops. Not for ten days, mind, but while symptomatic.
I've never seen Die Hard or Home Alone so could not usefully comment but they are right that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the greatest Christmas film. God bless us, every one!
Home Alone I’m not keen on, but Die Hard is a genre defining film, with a particularly fine performance by the protagonist, played by the late great Alan Rickman. Bruce Willis is pretty good too.
Edit to add: agree with you about The Muppet Christmas Carol btw.
The love we've found...
Incidentally on Die Hard, which genre does it define? Christmas films or action films?
Action films confined to one location.
“Rear Window” is another great single location film, but not really an action film.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Strongly recommend the Penguin paperback 'The Historical figure of Jesus' by E P Sanders. As close to an unbiased mainstream account by a historian (even though he was once prof at Oxford) you can get. Every word is fascinating. Fundamentalists and sceptics alike would all hate it.
The work of Geza Vermes e.g. Jesus the Jew is probably more useful in unravelling his life and the secular setting of his teachings than that of Sanders, which is not to denigrate Sanders.
Agree. Top man. Sanders is probably an easier read, and Vermes views are spread over a lot more books. For one book distilling a sane view the Sanders Penguin is very good.
I've never seen Die Hard or Home Alone so could not usefully comment but they are right that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the greatest Christmas film. God bless us, every one!
Home Alone I’m not keen on, but Die Hard is a genre defining film, with a particularly fine performance by the protagonist, played by the late great Alan Rickman. Bruce Willis is pretty good too.
Edit to add: agree with you about The Muppet Christmas Carol btw.
The love we've found...
Incidentally on Die Hard, which genre does it define? Christmas films or action films?
Action films confined to one location.
“Rear Window” is another great single location film, but not really an action film.
According to Wales’s deputy climate change minister, Lee Waters, the Aberpergwm scheme could emit 100m tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime, along with considerable quantities of methane. He says the date of the licence means that new devolved powers – which came into force in 2018 and have been used to block new opencast mining applications last year – do not apply to this case. Waters has written to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in which the Coal Authority is housed, to request the licence be cancelled.
“We want to keep this coal in the ground,” he told the Welsh parliament. “But the UK government, because of the powers in place, threaten to sit by and watch this coal being extracted in the face of our wishes.”
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
We shouldn't let people who don't care how many people have to die for *their* freedom to reinterpret society, either.
Everyone has to die.
Unless you've discovered immortality when I wasn't looking.
I really struggle to see any reasonable point you're trying to make with this. Yes, everyone has to die. The point is that we rather try to prevent unavoidable deaths. Often those of people we may never meet.
The really troubling thing about your comment is that it can be used to excuse any number of hideous excesses - perhaps some even you wouldn't agree with.
I'm assuming autocorrect?
Nope, can't blame autocorrect; the mistake was mine. Having an excited seven-year old jumping on the bed as I type. That's my excuse, anyway. Yes, I meant avoidable deaths. Sorry.
There was a time when having someone jumping on the bed with me heralded excitement. Now it just means there's a kid who has had too much sugar ...
You're obviously excellent at this parenting lark, given that you've got a seven year-old yet are still in bed at 9.32.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
Dylan going electric with Bringing It All Back Home.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
We shouldn't let people who don't care how many people have to die for *their* freedom to reinterpret society, either.
Everyone has to die.
Unless you've discovered immortality when I wasn't looking.
I really struggle to see any reasonable point you're trying to make with this. Yes, everyone has to die. The point is that we rather try to prevent unavoidable deaths. Often those of people we may never meet.
The really troubling thing about your comment is that it can be used to excuse any number of hideous excesses - perhaps some even you wouldn't agree with.
I'm assuming autocorrect?
Nope, can't blame autocorrect; the mistake was mine. Having an excited seven-year old jumping on the bed as I type. That's my excuse, anyway. Yes, I meant avoidable deaths. Sorry.
There was a time when having someone jumping on the bed with me heralded excitement. Now it just means there's a kid who has had too much sugar ...
You're obviously excellent at this parenting lark, given that you've got a seven year-old yet are still in bed at 9.32.
We do tag-team parenting: one of us looks after him whilst the other does their own thing. Since I'm about to take him out for his daily 2K run, it's my turn to relax. Then Mrs J will take over as I shower and load up the car (I may even get dressed between the two...)
According to Wales’s deputy climate change minister, Lee Waters, the Aberpergwm scheme could emit 100m tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime, along with considerable quantities of methane. He says the date of the licence means that new devolved powers – which came into force in 2018 and have been used to block new opencast mining applications last year – do not apply to this case. Waters has written to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in which the Coal Authority is housed, to request the licence be cancelled.
“We want to keep this coal in the ground,” he told the Welsh parliament. “But the UK government, because of the powers in place, threaten to sit by and watch this coal being extracted in the face of our wishes.”
I can't believe the UK government, during an energy crisis, wants to extract some energy. A rare shaft of common sense. They'll be approving that oil field next.
I've never seen Die Hard or Home Alone so could not usefully comment but they are right that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the greatest Christmas film. God bless us, every one!
Home Alone I’m not keen on, but Die Hard is a genre defining film, with a particularly fine performance by the protagonist, played by the late great Alan Rickman. Bruce Willis is pretty good too.
Edit to add: agree with you about The Muppet Christmas Carol btw.
If we are talking Mupppets Christmas Carol we watched the original (restored for Disney+) version last night.
The additional song “When Love has Gone” really doesn’t add anything to the plot and it’s one of those times when less really is more.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
So, yes, nice one. Wish you all the very best with it.
Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali? Like Philip/Bartholomew, real heavyweights.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Do you mean 'the study of the historical Jesus?'
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
It’s a noun meaning historical authenticity. Don’t read anything more into it than that.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
Dylan going electric with Bringing It All Back Home.
Yes, I did think of that one. Just a bit too fanciful though. I wanted to keep it grounded and real so people didn't think I was taking the piss.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
We shouldn't let people who don't care how many people have to die for *their* freedom to reinterpret society, either.
Everyone has to die.
Unless you've discovered immortality when I wasn't looking.
I really struggle to see any reasonable point you're trying to make with this. Yes, everyone has to die. The point is that we rather try to prevent unavoidable deaths. Often those of people we may never meet.
The really troubling thing about your comment is that it can be used to excuse any number of hideous excesses - perhaps some even you wouldn't agree with.
I'm assuming autocorrect?
Nope, can't blame autocorrect; the mistake was mine. Having an excited seven-year old jumping on the bed as I type. That's my excuse, anyway. Yes, I meant avoidable deaths. Sorry.
There was a time when having someone jumping on the bed with me heralded excitement. Now it just means there's a kid who has had too much sugar ...
You're obviously excellent at this parenting lark, given that you've got a seven year-old yet are still in bed at 9.32.
We do tag-team parenting: one of us looks after him whilst the other does their own thing. Since I'm about to take him out for his daily 2K run, it's my turn to relax. Then Mrs J will take over as I shower and load up the car (I may even get dressed between the two...)
You're going to get dressed after going out for a 2K run but before you load up the car?
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
So, yes, nice one. Wish you all the very best with it.
Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali? Like Philip/Bartholomew, real heavyweights.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
Dylan going electric with Bringing It All Back Home.
In England Guildford, Reading, Middlesbrough and Northampton look the most sensible options.
Boro? LOL!
If you look at the list of places I would have Boro as the likeliest option firstly because of levelling up and secondly because a lot of others have regional rivals.
Guildford or Reading both are close to each other and compete for investment Milton Keynes v Northampton - similar
There are actually surprisingly few likely options when you look at the list - most places that should be a City already are.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
My facebook-friend-vicar usually posts lengthily at this time of year on the subject of how we've got the Christmas Story all wrong and the circumstances actually weren't small and unpromising and humble but great and triumphant, and God had provided the best entrance into the world possible for his son/himself; I often think that while he knows more theology than anyone else I might know, and he might technically be right, he is missing at least some aspects of the story's cultural significance beyond Christianity. But that's a separate point entirely.
Well I'm afraid your facebook-friend-vicar doesn't know as much theology as you seem to think, if that's his view.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
The historicity of Jesus is a fascinating topic.
Do you mean 'the study of the historical Jesus?'
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
It’s a noun meaning historical authenticity. Don’t read anything more into it than that.
In New Testament studies it carries a definite meaning, I.e. the attempts to question whether Jesus was actually historically authentic. All such attempts having been consistently debunked as pseudoscholarly and in many cases actually fraudulent, peddled by religious fundies. So I'd advise you to steer clear of it.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
In that situation you are carrying a not yet fully understood disease with an intense propensity to spread. You want to go out and do whatever you like because you're bored at home (perhpas you spend too much time on PB?) and inevitably infect some more people? That's not just irresponsible, it's criminally reckless. It is also extremely unusual. I know numerous people who've had it, and there have been plenty on the board here too. Some got over it quickly, others like Dixiedean are still suffering effects after weeks. How many of them have cheerily gone out to spread the disease?
You're entitled to your views, of course, but don't be under the illusion that you're speaking for many - you're an extremist on the subject, and while many here intensely resent the situation and hope that the Government doesn't impose new restrictions, nobody else is really advocating complete selfishness.
I think Chris Whitty himself said we would all get covid eventually? Even if Mr Roberts constrained his essential human liberties like you argue he should, he would only contributing to postponing the inevitable, wouldn't he? (unfortunate though that is for some people who have contracted COVID).
The argument about all restrictions has only ever been about slowing the virus, not stopping it, I believe. In terms of actually getting it, the writing was always on the wall, regrettably.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
We shouldn't let people who don't care how many people have to die for *their* freedom to reinterpret society, either.
Everyone has to die.
Unless you've discovered immortality when I wasn't looking.
I really struggle to see any reasonable point you're trying to make with this. Yes, everyone has to die. The point is that we rather try to prevent unavoidable deaths. Often those of people we may never meet.
The really troubling thing about your comment is that it can be used to excuse any number of hideous excesses - perhaps some even you wouldn't agree with.
I'm assuming autocorrect?
Nope, can't blame autocorrect; the mistake was mine. Having an excited seven-year old jumping on the bed as I type. That's my excuse, anyway. Yes, I meant avoidable deaths. Sorry.
There was a time when having someone jumping on the bed with me heralded excitement. Now it just means there's a kid who has had too much sugar ...
You're obviously excellent at this parenting lark, given that you've got a seven year-old yet are still in bed at 9.32.
We do tag-team parenting: one of us looks after him whilst the other does their own thing. Since I'm about to take him out for his daily 2K run, it's my turn to relax. Then Mrs J will take over as I shower and load up the car (I may even get dressed between the two...)
You're going to get dressed after going out for a 2K run but before you load up the car?
I didn't realise undressed running was a thing. 🤯
I was once accused of being the Naked Rambler. Whilst I was wearing clothes. (We were in the same town in East Scotland (Dornie, I think) at the same time during our walks.)
But no, 'between the two' means between the shower and loading the car. I assumed PBers would not be dirty enough to assume I run in the nuddie. Then I remembered what PB is like ...
Incidentally, on this morning's run I might have got 'accidentally' lost and gone off-path in the dark. Which is good, because it is another line on my map of runs. And bad because I had to 'run' through what appeared to be run-off from a pig farm.
Those trainers are being retired. And yes, I did have a shower afterwards, and the socks are in the bin as well.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
So, yes, nice one. Wish you all the very best with it.
Big G abjuring Johnson and all his works a big moment surely. Well, a lot of his works. Ok, some of his works.
Prof. Christina Pagel @chrischirp · 47m Some good news for Christmas - booster vaccinations are now at super high levels and almost half the population is boosted!
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
I'm agnostic too, but IMO it's important for agnostics and atheists to know about religion as well - if only because it matters to others.
I'd argue my little 'un's school (state) is teaching religion rather well. There are Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in his year, but no Jews to our knowledge. After our 2K run the other day, we were walking home and he told me about the history of Hanukkah and the Maccabees. I knew none of this, and he loved the story and the history. I love it when my son teaches me things!
We then got into a conversation about why some kids might not want people to know their religion, particularly in certain countries. His reaction: "That's stupid!".
I missed a few threads. Did Leon end up having a true spiritual experience after his jungle juice as many do, or did he interpret it as a manifestation of his own subconscious?
He met God. So, a manifestation of his own subconscious, yeah.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
Morning Carnyx, dry at moment on west coast but expecting rain. \Re your comment, remember you are talking to someone as thick as two short planks and callous with it.
Morning Malky. Dreich haar with occasional fine smirr over here - but it's an easterly from the Forth approaches anyway. Rest of last night's mutton (not lamb) stew to be had with curry and naan for dinner tonight. Boiled gammon tomorrow unless Mrs C scores some pheasant this morning (at the community foodstore, not roadkill).
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
I'm agnostic too, but IMO it's important for agnostics and atheists to know about religion as well - if only because it matters to others.
I'd argue my little 'un's school (state) is teaching religion rather well. There are Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in his year, but no Jews to our knowledge. After our 2K run the other day, we were walking home and he told me about the history of Hanukkah and the Maccabees. I knew none of this, and he loved the story and the history. I love it when my son teaches me things!
We then got into a conversation about why some kids might not want people to know their religion, particularly in certain countries. His reaction: "That's stupid!".
I missed a few threads. Did Leon end up having a true spiritual experience after his jungle juice as many do, or did he interpret it as a manifestation of his own subconscious?
He met God. So, a manifestation of his own subconscious, yeah.
A true and faithful representation of that moment, right down to the..er..equipment.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
I'm agnostic too, but IMO it's important for agnostics and atheists to know about religion as well - if only because it matters to others.
I'd argue my little 'un's school (state) is teaching religion rather well. There are Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in his year, but no Jews to our knowledge. After our 2K run the other day, we were walking home and he told me about the history of Hanukkah and the Maccabees. I knew none of this, and he loved the story and the history. I love it when my son teaches me things!
We then got into a conversation about why some kids might not want people to know their religion, particularly in certain countries. His reaction: "That's stupid!".
I missed a few threads. Did Leon end up having a true spiritual experience after his jungle juice as many do, or did he interpret it as a manifestation of his own subconscious?
He met God. So, a manifestation of his own subconscious, yeah.
Having "experimented" a bit myself in my younger days, I still have moments where I wonder if I'm actually still twenty years old, all of this is a hallucination, and in reality I'm just twitching away on my mate's floor, at any moment liable to wake up.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
So, yes, nice one. Wish you all the very best with it.
Cassius Clay to Muhammad Ali? Like Philip/Bartholomew, real heavyweights.
Yes, that's very good. Drop the Faldo - since no name change there - and have that instead.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
In that situation you are carrying a not yet fully understood disease with an intense propensity to spread. You want to go out and do whatever you like because you're bored at home (perhpas you spend too much time on PB?) and inevitably infect some more people? That's not just irresponsible, it's criminally reckless. It is also extremely unusual. I know numerous people who've had it, and there have been plenty on the board here too. Some got over it quickly, others like Dixiedean are still suffering effects after weeks. How many of them have cheerily gone out to spread the disease?
You're entitled to your views, of course, but don't be under the illusion that you're speaking for many - you're an extremist on the subject, and while many here intensely resent the situation and hope that the Government doesn't impose new restrictions, nobody else is really advocating complete selfishness.
The inevitable consequence of covid being endemic is that people will be regularly come into contact with it.
Which will in turn boost their own level of immunity.
And if covid continues its process of having symptoms similar to that of a common cold then people will react in the same way as when they have a common cold.
Now that's not going to stop some people having a week 'working from home' or a week off sick.
But even if they'll do they'll be less and less inclined to restrict themselves while they are infected.
And this is not 'selfishness'. There is a string argument that 'no restrictions' is the utilitarian solution.
My memory is that the self isolation rule was dropped for several months (for the vaxxed, perhaps?) and now it’s back? Is this right?
In any case, it needs to go fairly soon and/or be scaled back radically in duration. I know of several people - many of them children - who have spent much of their time in isolation with no symptoms at all. I.e. for all or part of the term they were not unwell.
We simply cannot run a society like that in the long term.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
Yes. Because most people aren't the kind of Total Phil that thinks infecting all and sundry is a good idea.
They are responsible even if you are not.
Most people are willing to go out if they have the sniffles.
Quite reasonably too.
Not with Covid they're not. I believe the appropriate phrase is "oh bollocks"
You are not - and never will be - anything other than a tiny supposedly libertarian voice singing the song of Piers Corbyn.
How would you know most people are not, when its never been legal to do so?
You also claimed most people liked masks but when it was legal to not wear one, most people didn't.
I fully expect the requirement to stay at home to be dropped next year and when it is, I expect only a minority will stay at home with the sniffles.
Just to remind you - Covid is a serious disease, quite apart from the mortality. Remember Long Covid. There is an apposite piece just out in the Graun:
All lies. People Die, So What. And should die. For Phil's personal bodily fluids liberty. He's as bad as Piers Corbyn.
That's a lie.
Piers Corbyn is unhinged and tells deranged untruths to deny Covid or the vaccinations.
I don't deny Covid. I'm OK to live with it. That's entirely different.
But you are denying Covid. Endlessly. Bemoaning people who have Covid not being allowed out with "the sniffles"
That's not denying Covid, that's a different prioritisation. Many people have no worse than the sniffles when Covid-positive.
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
Yes, we will transition to that but you're jumping the gun. Have a little patience. Hold onto a rational perspective. Don't become a fruitcake.
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
So, yes, nice one. Wish you all the very best with it.
Big G abjuring Johnson and all his works a big moment surely. Well, a lot of his works. Ok, some of his works.
That was mahoosive, no question, but I'm not 110% convinced it's going to stick, so caution advised with including it here.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
+1
At the very top of @Anabobazina ’s most egregious covidian cliches is:
Well, we've just had a call from one of our (adult) step-children. She's woken up unwell, with Covid symptoms. So at the last minute she and her sister have abandoned their trip to their father and grandparents up north, are staying down here but have no Xmas dinner etc., and can't come to ours. So today is now going to be a bit like the denouement of Goodfellas, as we race around sourcing and delivering provisions to their households. First stop Morrisons.
I suspect not. Once the chill blast of omi hits full-force in January, I reckon HMG will succumb to the pressure to tighten things further.
I hope I am wrong.
I think we’re past that. Restrictions were only ever a temporary emergency measure, to be used in extremis. Omi will be familiar to us by January - it will have lost the terror factor of the unknown and exotic. I get the feeling that people across the political spectrum have finally come to some consensus that it’s time to get back to a more normal situation.
It’s not easy, and it feels like tempting fate: like reducing the terrorist threat from imminent to severe, or whatever the terminology is, but as with terrorism nobody wants to live in a permanent state of emergency.
"I get the feeling that people across the political spectrum have finally come to some consensus"
I wonder whether the various parties are starting to seriously pick up in their focus groups that the voting public have reached the point where they accept no more or little more can be done and we have to live with it.
Yep, he's completely buggered. What chance does he have when even his friends like the Telegraph and Big G start ganging up on him? None.
@Big_G_NorthWales manages the contortions required to vote for the donkey in the blue rosette every time. He is very flexible for his years.
A year ago I would have said that Big G was one of the most respected, likeable and liked posters on PB.
A year is a long time in blogland.
Oh, I have no problem with him being likeable. It is the pretence of objective criticism that irks me. He is like an older version of the Essex Tankie.
The German-Baltic Chamber of Commerce has written to the Lithuanian government warning that German investors may close their plants in the country unless a "constructive solution to restore Lithuanian-Chinese economic relations" is found
Germany really are a mercantilist nation. Shameful.
To be fair this is a chamber of commerce ie an industry group not the government. Still, what with this and Nordstream2 there does seem to be a degree of realpolitik gone mad in some corners of the German economy.
The Nordstream debate is interesting, as it's a wedge between the new German government partners. It's built, ready to use, and would help dampen the soaring gas price. Everyone agrees that if Russia actually attacked Ukraine then it shouldn't be opened for a long time, if ever. The SPD and CDU are in favour of opening it if they don't, the Greens are against, both because they don't like gas (fossil fuel) and they don't like Russia (and do like Ukraine). Not sure what the FDP thinks - does anyone know?
The obvious deal to be done is for Putin to stop willy-waving and the pipeline to open after a few months, after which it becomes a profitable lever to restrain Putin from a return to willy-waving. I think that's what will happen in the end, but Putin is populist enough to be unpredictable.
Putin doesn’t care about profits.
Nordstream 2 absolutely fucks Ukraine.
It allows Russia to bypass them and cut off the transit fees.
It will be a strategic calamity for the West.
But Gerhard Schroeder and other German politicians are richer than they were.
Nordstream 2 fucks the Ukrainians, and I get that.
But you are equally asking German consumers to accept higher priced gas, because it includes transit fees, solely to benefit the Ukrainians.
Irrespective, the big news - driven no doubt by Putin turning the screws - is that two LNG import terminal projects in Germany are now going to be built. Germany's dependence on Russian gas - with Nordstream 2 or without it - will diminish, because for the first time it will be able to directly import LNG from the US, Australia or elsewhere.
Indeed, the law of unintended consequences is that a whole host of LNG projects have been greenlighted in the last few months. The most important of these is that Mozambique LNG is now actually going to happen. (If the Russians had waited another six or twelve months it might have gotten permanently shelved. Now, it is not inconceivable the first cargoes flow in 2024. I suspect there will be no shortage of European buyers for the gas. Amazing to think that six months ago, everyone thought it was dead.)
Nah I’m asking Germans to accept higher prices to preserve Germany’s strategic flexibility and an independent Ukraine. That’s the sort of call the government should make - while at the same time looking to other sources such as LNG.
Otherwise they are weakening their position for a handful of silver
There is a small cost to achieve strategic resilience that the West hasn’t been willing to pay for decades, due to the transactional nature of its politics. It’s highly disturbing to me. I would make it my number one policy objective. The trouble is, there’s not many votes in it. Because the public has been fed a fairy tale that History Ended, the West won and human progress can only go forwards. In a globalised world, it also requires the nationalisation or quasi nationalisation of chunks of industry, which everyone has been taught is always wrong.
Another example is the reluctance of certain libertarians to shield the food and farmingt sector from total free marketry post-Brexit - heaven help the UK if this happens and a crisis comes along.
For a country with an import dependency on food, it’s a dereliction of duty not to have built a long term strategic nutrient reserve. It could be easily achieved by outsourcing it to the supermarkets and providing free financing for the increased working capital requirement / capex for the storage facilities. We could live our whole lives and people would wonder why we needed it. Equally an extraneous event could happen at any time and it might be the difference between maintaining order in society or seeing it quickly turn to dust.
Indeed, and a particularly odd piece of neglect by the ruling Brexiter faction given their frequent referencing of WW2 and Churchill - who was more frightened by that very issue of import dependency than anything else, at least when it came to the Battle of the Atlantic.
There used to be food reserves into the 1950s and 1960s, I believe,though some at least of that was for after the Bomb dropped.
Yes, though it is odd that Churchill never gave Coastal Command any Lancasters, preferring to bomb cows and cabbages, and later civilians.
Was that actually Churchill's decision? (I think CC did get some Lancasters, powered by a different engine because bomber command didn't want them.)
Coastal Command got Liberators because Bomber Command did not want them. I don't think they ever got Lancasters, though I can't be bothered to check at 9am on Christmas Eve. (There was more but I was mysteriously logged out while replying.)
They got an influx of Liberators because they could be adapted to operate over super long distances from about 1943 and weren't great for night bombing. Without that range there were sections of the Atlantic that were essentially unprotected. Coastal command did have access to some extraordinary machines though - my father flew with them from 1942 over the atlantic and then Indian ocean, mostly in Catalinas. He always claimed Churchill fought Coastal Commands corner v Harris who just wanted to focus on area bombing. Not sure if thats entirely true.
I've not come across a really good, deep history book on this one. The reasoning behind the various protagonists positions is not really explored.
In WWI, after the convoy system got going, some offensive minded Admirals instead on establishing hunter-killer patrols. Destroyers charged around at full speed - steamed a zillion miles and never saw a U-boat. With no sensors, they resorted to methodically patrolling in a fixed grid. Which the U-boat captains rapidly noticed.
In WWII, a series of layers of intelligence meant that (largely) the location of U-boats was known to a few dozen miles, for much of the war. This wasn't just the famous Enigma, but Huff-Duff and understanding Doenitz's rather rigid tactics was often enough.
The sources and comprehensiveness of the information was rather closely held - so Harris, Spaatz etc had no idea of the plot running at the Admiralty building. Instead Costal Command patrols were handed to the squadron's - search *this* box today - Given the accuracy of the location information, ASV and (at the end of the war) sonobuoys, it was quite possible to find the submarines, from there....
To an outsider, the searches looked completely random. It looked exactly like the WWI offensive nonsense, all over again.
In addition, the primary effect of the patrols wasn't to kill submarines. Though they did get a few. The major effect was causing the U-boats to dive. Which limited them to a literal walking pace - far slower than a convoy. The problem with that was that the only way to understand the effectiveness of this was to read the Fish cypher stuff. And Harris and Co. weren't "read in" on ULTRA.
So to the outsiders in this effort, Costal Command was chasing all over the ocean at random. To the insiders, they were punching the Germans in the gut, with some precision.
The failure to bring the European strategic bomber commands (American and British) into ULTRA* is a strange one, which has not been explained, as far as I know.
*They were given pieces of the intelligence, not the whole picture or where it was coming from.
Well, we've just had a call from one of our (adult) step-children. She's woken up unwell, with Covid symptoms. So at the last minute she and her sister have abandoned their trip to their father and grandparents up north, are staying down here but have no Xmas dinner etc., and can't come to ours. So today is now going to be a bit like the denouement of Goodfellas, as we race around sourcing and delivering provisions to their households. First stop Morrisons.
I've had enough of this Covid lark.
Sorry to hear that. I guess there will be many people going through the same thing today sadly.
It does put a rather large dent in one's credibility, when they claim that they are surprised that BoJo turned out to be a totally useless PM when literally from the day he ran to be leader, most of us said this would be the outcome. It is why so many left the Tory Party.
In England Guildford, Reading, Middlesbrough and Northampton look the most sensible options.
Boro? LOL!
If you look at the list of places I would have Boro as the likeliest option firstly because of levelling up and secondly because a lot of others have regional rivals.
Guildford or Reading both are close to each other and compete for investment Milton Keynes v Northampton - similar
There are actually surprisingly few likely options when you look at the list - most places that should be a City already are.
As that rare person, a lover of Middlesbrough, one thing I’ve always treasured is its status as a town. I really hope that doesn’t change.
Difficult decision ahead in terms of whether to give a 4th vaccine with the immunity of the booster waning after 10 weeks.
Do we start giving out a 4th jab in the New Year particularly aimed at the over 60s, those vulnerable and those who work in healthcare settings who had their boosters back in October and November. This is what Israel is starting to do right now and we have followed their lead often during this pandemic.
Or do we wait for an Omicron designed vaccine from Pfizer, Moderna et al.
The worry is that Omicron is mainly affecting the young right now as the vaccine wall from the booster is protecting older people and those vulnerable. But the vaccine could be about to wane for millions of people in the demographic groups in which we don't know what Omicron's real severity is. Look at the research including the Scotland study, not enough data when it comes to people over 65 and how they fare with Omicron.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
80% against hospitalisation? 75%?
What's the figure?
More important, perhaps, are:
-supply (though this never seems to be an issue ) -public sentiment
As pointed out below, it doesn't seem like we will ever reach herd immunity due to re-infection. In the minds of many young people, myself included, the social contract was that restrictions would ease as boosters were delivered.
Hibs fans and, weirdly, Roddy Dunlop both pointed this breach out yesterday. What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?
You won't find me cycling out to the Royal Highland show in the rain again to get jab number 4.
"What's the point in 3, 4, 5 jabs for young people if we make no progress towards normality?"
Are you living in some parallel universe?
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...
Oh bollocks.
That's like saying that a prisoner on a six month sentence in a light security jail has never been imprisoned because ask someone in a gulag with hard, forced manual labour and a life sentence what imprisonment is really like.
We were locked down. That others were locked down even harder doesn't change that.
We mustn't allow the lockdown lovers to reinterpret society so that only a complete and total abandonment of our civil liberties classes as lockdown and everything lighter than that is A-OK.
We shouldn't let people who don't care how many people have to die for *their* freedom to reinterpret society, either.
Everyone has to die.
Unless you've discovered immortality when I wasn't looking.
I really struggle to see any reasonable point you're trying to make with this. Yes, everyone has to die. The point is that we rather try to prevent unavoidable deaths. Often those of people we may never meet.
The really troubling thing about your comment is that it can be used to excuse any number of hideous excesses - perhaps some even you wouldn't agree with.
I'm assuming autocorrect?
Nope, can't blame autocorrect; the mistake was mine. Having an excited seven-year old jumping on the bed as I type. That's my excuse, anyway. Yes, I meant avoidable deaths. Sorry.
There was a time when having someone jumping on the bed with me heralded excitement. Now it just means there's a kid who has had too much sugar ...
You're obviously excellent at this parenting lark, given that you've got a seven year-old yet are still in bed at 9.32.
We do tag-team parenting: one of us looks after him whilst the other does their own thing. Since I'm about to take him out for his daily 2K run, it's my turn to relax. Then Mrs J will take over as I shower and load up the car (I may even get dressed between the two...)
You're going to get dressed after going out for a 2K run but before you load up the car?
I didn't realise undressed running was a thing. 🤯
I was once accused of being the Naked Rambler. Whilst I was wearing clothes. (We were in the same town in East Scotland (Dornie, I think) at the same time during our walks.)
But no, 'between the two' means between the shower and loading the car. I assumed PBers would not be dirty enough to assume I run in the nuddie. Then I remembered what PB is like ...
Incidentally, on this morning's run I might have got 'accidentally' lost and gone off-path in the dark. Which is good, because it is another line on my map of runs. And bad because I had to 'run' through what appeared to be run-off from a pig farm.
Those trainers are being retired. And yes, I did have a shower afterwards, and the socks are in the bin as well.
Sounds like you encounter the outflow from all the SeanT's minds. My sympathies.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
In that situation you are carrying a not yet fully understood disease with an intense propensity to spread. You want to go out and do whatever you like because you're bored at home (perhpas you spend too much time on PB?) and inevitably infect some more people? That's not just irresponsible, it's criminally reckless. It is also extremely unusual. I know numerous people who've had it, and there have been plenty on the board here too. Some got over it quickly, others like Dixiedean are still suffering effects after weeks. How many of them have cheerily gone out to spread the disease?
You're entitled to your views, of course, but don't be under the illusion that you're speaking for many - you're an extremist on the subject, and while many here intensely resent the situation and hope that the Government doesn't impose new restrictions, nobody else is really advocating complete selfishness.
I think Chris Whitty himself said we would all get covid eventually? Even if Mr Roberts constrained his essential human liberties like you argue he should, he would only contributing to postponing the inevitable, wouldn't he? (unfortunate though that is for some people who have contracted COVID).
The argument about all restrictions has only ever been about slowing the virus, not stopping it, I believe. In terms of actually getting it, the writing was always on the wall, regrettably.
Yes, but the endgame is it's endemic like flu, our protection accrued from prior infection and vaccination meaning when it hits we don't need NPIs or a change to normal behaviour to stop hospitals being swamped. We're not quite there yet but neither are we far off. Least here in the UK we aren't. The biggest imperative for 2022 is to get the world vaccinated.
Well, we've just had a call from one of our (adult) step-children. She's woken up unwell, with Covid symptoms. So at the last minute she and her sister have abandoned their trip to their father and grandparents up north, are staying down here but have no Xmas dinner etc., and can't come to ours. So today is now going to be a bit like the denouement of Goodfellas, as we race around sourcing and delivering provisions to their households. First stop Morrisons.
I've had enough of this Covid lark.
Sorry to hear that. I guess there will be many people going through the same thing today sadly.
We’ve been invited to a friend’s this evening for a lavish Fortnum’s supplied Xmas feast. The only thing is she’s just recovered from COVID and it depends on her having a negative LFT this lunchtime. Otherwise, it’s a pizza from the Coop round the corner for us.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
And if you are you are then imprisoned in your home for a week to ten days for a sniffle, even if you're feeling fit and healthy.
In that situation you are carrying a not yet fully understood disease with an intense propensity to spread. You want to go out and do whatever you like because you're bored at home (perhpas you spend too much time on PB?) and inevitably infect some more people? That's not just irresponsible, it's criminally reckless. It is also extremely unusual. I know numerous people who've had it, and there have been plenty on the board here too. Some got over it quickly, others like Dixiedean are still suffering effects after weeks. How many of them have cheerily gone out to spread the disease?
You're entitled to your views, of course, but don't be under the illusion that you're speaking for many - you're an extremist on the subject, and while many here intensely resent the situation and hope that the Government doesn't impose new restrictions, nobody else is really advocating complete selfishness.
I think Chris Whitty himself said we would all get covid eventually? Even if Mr Roberts constrained his essential human liberties like you argue he should, he would only contributing to postponing the inevitable, wouldn't he? (unfortunate though that is for some people who have contracted COVID).
The argument about all restrictions has only ever been about slowing the virus, not stopping it, I believe. In terms of actually getting it, the writing was always on the wall, regrettably.
Yes, but the endgame is it's endemic like flu, our protection accrued from prior infection and vaccination meaning when it hits we don't need NPIs or a change to normal behaviour to stop hospitals being swamped. We're not quite there yet but neither are we far off. Least here in the UK we aren't. The biggest imperative for 2022 is to get the world vaccinated.
Yes, we really need to get on with that. We might not be so lucky with the next variant from Africa.
In England Guildford, Reading, Middlesbrough and Northampton look the most sensible options.
Boro? LOL!
If you look at the list of places I would have Boro as the likeliest option firstly because of levelling up and secondly because a lot of others have regional rivals.
Guildford or Reading both are close to each other and compete for investment Milton Keynes v Northampton - similar
There are actually surprisingly few likely options when you look at the list - most places that should be a City already are.
As that rare person, a lover of Middlesbrough, one thing I’ve always treasured is its status as a town. I really hope that doesn’t change.
Not just a town. But a Small Town in Yorkshire, no less.
How serious of a problem is it that a vaccine which needs constant boosters perfectly suits interests or big pharma? Is there evidence that’s slowing down development of next gen (inc. sterilising) vaccines?
I've never seen Die Hard or Home Alone so could not usefully comment but they are right that The Muppet Christmas Carol is the greatest Christmas film. God bless us, every one!
Love the Muppet Christmas Carol but It's A Wonderful Life is the greatest Christmas film IMHO.
Aren't most champagne-producers French? Would they change bottles for just one market? Though come to think of it, didn't Pol Roger talk about reintroducing pints a few years back?
In England Guildford, Reading, Middlesbrough and Northampton look the most sensible options.
Boro? LOL!
If you look at the list of places I would have Boro as the likeliest option firstly because of levelling up and secondly because a lot of others have regional rivals.
Guildford or Reading both are close to each other and compete for investment Milton Keynes v Northampton - similar
There are actually surprisingly few likely options when you look at the list - most places that should be a City already are.
As that rare person, a lover of Middlesbrough, one thing I’ve always treasured is its status as a town. I really hope that doesn’t change.
Not just a town. But a Small Town in Yorkshire, no less.
By rights it ought to win.
Not that small, to be sure. And really quite sizeable in terms of the wider conurbation.
I don't know why people persist with the myth that Christmas has anything to do with a baby two thousand years ago.
I know, it’s the same at Easter. You can be perfectly happy eating chocolate mini eggs and using a few days off to redecorate the spare room, yet these annoying killjoys keep trying to bring religion into it.
Personally I think we need to take Easter back to its pagan roots. I am sick of it being perverted by all these recent add ons about crucifixions and caves.
It would be nice if schools could educate people about the real histories of holidays. There is some historical evidence to show that 25 December was a holiday to celebrity a birthday, but it was celebrating the birth of the Zoroastrian sun god Mithra not a baby.
The interconnections of a Persian sun god [as perceived by the Romans], Roman traditions and the Norse traditions all form a fascinating history of the festival we now know as Christmas and the traditions of food, merriment, drink and gifts etc that go with that have been celebrated now for well over two and a half thousand years.
Except for when the Puritans tried and failed to cancel it. So that brings cancel culture into the conversation too.
I wonder who was there to record Mithra's birth on 25th December? All this stuff is made up anyway so it doesn't really matter in the end which religion has overwritten the previous one. I like to see it as a way to celebrate the passing of the shortest day of the year and that Spring will be on the way.
Oh absolutely that's what its about. That's what its always been about.
Its just amusing when people bemoan feasting and drinking and gift giving etc as not being "the true meaning" of the holiday.
They literally are "the true meaning" and have been for about two and a half thousand years at least, minus the puritan era.
When the Church adopted Saturnalia as the birth of Jesus, society kept all the Pagan festivities which have largely passed through to today, despite the best wishes of the Puritans to stamp them out.
It’s funny how non-believers feel the need to denigrate other people’s faith.
It suggests a certain lack of confidence
I'm an agnostic, but I have the greatest respect for the moral teachings of Jesus, and envy those blessed with the certainty of belief*.
* Belief meaning certainty of either the existence or non-existence of God.
I'm agnostic too, but IMO it's important for agnostics and atheists to know about religion as well - if only because it matters to others.
I'd argue my little 'un's school (state) is teaching religion rather well. There are Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs in his year, but no Jews to our knowledge. After our 2K run the other day, we were walking home and he told me about the history of Hanukkah and the Maccabees. I knew none of this, and he loved the story and the history. I love it when my son teaches me things!
We then got into a conversation about why some kids might not want people to know their religion, particularly in certain countries. His reaction: "That's stupid!".
I missed a few threads. Did Leon end up having a true spiritual experience after his jungle juice as many do, or did he interpret it as a manifestation of his own subconscious?
He met God. So, a manifestation of his own subconscious, yeah.
Having "experimented" a bit myself in my younger days, I still have moments where I wonder if I'm actually still twenty years old, all of this is a hallucination, and in reality I'm just twitching away on my mate's floor, at any moment liable to wake up.
Don't do drugs, kids.
But if you woke up, 20 years old, with all you know...
Comments
As someone who now works with farmers (trying to promote high-welfare systems), I think it's best to see them as businesspeople rather than be either sentimental or critical - generally they'll try to make a decent living following the rules (and, subject to that, won't impose unnecessary suffering on their animals). The possibility of global disruption paralysing imports is non-zero, so it makes sense to maintain 70%ish self-sufficiency at whatever standards we regard as tolerable, and as you say to maintain reserves for a short-term crisis if it arises. Those decisions have a cost, and we should be prepared to pay it.
Jesus was almost certainly not born in Bethlehem but in a humble little, and utterly insignificant, village called Nazareth near the important Sepphoris. When after his death the early followers decided, or believed, him to be their (latest) Christ it became a significant Messianic problem. The heir of David was supposed to have been born in Bethlehem according to one prophecy. The earliest gospel, Mark's, made no mention of Jesus' birth at all. Later, Luke, writing around 50 years after Jesus' death made up a census story (which is tripe) and shunted the holy family on a journey south to Bethlehem. He parked some shepherds into the manger to make it all seem very humble. Meanwhile Matthew, writing even later, decided to go the full monty on the kingly status of Jesus and made up a story about a star (which doesn't appear in Mark, Luke or John) and the Magi from the east (same).
The fact is that Jesus was a Northern nobody. His followers also had thick northern accents.
His birth was utterly humdrum.
Get Christmas out at the way first but the government needs to be on the ball with this in the new year.
Hang on:
In an individual, vaccine efficacy (ignoring for a moment different variants) is *always* changing.
During the initial post injection period, antibody response rises and rises... then after a certain point, it starts to slowly decline.
So (lazily using efficacy number), you might have someone who has 60% protection against symptomatic Delta at the point of booster. Over the following - say - three weeks that will rise to 95% or so. It will then start to wane at a rate of (say) 1.5% per week. (Not 1.5 percentage points, 1.5%.)
That means it'll take eight to nine months before you get back to the efficacy pre-booster.
The question - therefore - is "at what efficacy level do you think you need to boost protection again?"
Normality is 90% back.
Yeah, we have to wear masks on public transport, and in shops. There's the stupid dance on the way to the bathrooms with putting on the mask.
But other than that... well, what's changed?
Dunno how things differ in California but it certainly doesn’t feel 90% normal here.
Yes, but that's not due to government diktat: that's due to people changing their behaviour.
People stop going out when they worry. It's why diseases have these curious waves.
The behavioural changes I’ve seen are nothing to do with worry about getting sick but worry about being told to isolate at home for a sniffle. And that’s a direct consequence of government diktat.
LFTs are free.
You have a sniffle, you spend 5 minutes and check if you have Covid and are infectious.
Some of the hysteria about "lockdown" has almost been pitiful.
We have never been locked down in the UK. At its worst I was outside running every day and going to the shop for supplies. Being allowed out of your home is not lockdown. Ask the people in places like Dubai what lockdown is really like...</blockquote
Spain was much stricter - masks are once again obligatory indoors and out! Vaxports needed for hostelry , etc. Some of it pointless probably but the UK has had it much easier throughout.
To be honest if Christians have a different view then that is upto them
It is Christmas, a time for goodwill and not sniping on the side
As Dave Allen used to say 'may your God go with you'
As a piece of history the birth narratives of Matthew and Luke are almost certainly nonsense but that doesn't mean that one cannot, in the words of Leslie Houlden, look 'backward into light'. You may if you wish take your starting point as faith in Jesus as the Christ and so look back into his messianic birth.
You're entitled to your views, of course, but don't be under the illusion that you're speaking for many - you're an extremist on the subject, and while many here intensely resent the situation and hope that the Government doesn't impose new restrictions, nobody else is really advocating complete selfishness.
Edit to include link!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/3F7Npf9hCk6cg7Zhr26PDMl/ali-plumbs-top-5-best-christmas-films-at-the-time-of-writing
I fully expect this battle to be won and by this time next year people with Covid sniffles will not be staying at home because it won't be legally mandated. Those with a semi-serious case will rest up with bed rest just as those with the flu or a bad cold have always done if they need to do so. But those with mild cases should and ultimately will be allowed to go about their business.
"Designed as a back up in case Merlin production was interrupted, the 300 Hercules-powered Lancaster Mk.IIs built were dropped by Bomber Command in the interests of commonality in autumn 1944. Because of their better performance at lower altitudes many of them found their way to Coastal Command, operating alongside Liberators in the long range anti-submarine role."
https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2017/04/19/avro-lancaster-coastal-command/
While there are a lot of long covid cases I suspect all of them date from before the first vaccination.
The 'historicity of Jesus' is a conspiracy theory by fundie pseudoscholars like Carrier, Murdock, Doherty and the Prices.
The really troubling thing about your comment is that it can be used to excuse any number of hideous excesses - perhaps some even you wouldn't agree with.
That's where I can imagine pressure on hospitals, schools, supply chains even if omicron is slightly less dangerous than a grazed knee (which it isn't, of course).
‘To be honest if Christians have a different view then that is upto them
It is Christmas, a time for goodwill and not sniping on the side’
Which will in turn boost their own level of immunity.
And if covid continues its process of having symptoms similar to that of a common cold then people will react in the same way as when they have a common cold.
Now that's not going to stop some people having a week 'working from home' or a week off sick.
But even if they'll do they'll be less and less inclined to restrict themselves while they are infected.
There was a time when having someone jumping on the bed with me heralded excitement. Now it just means there's a kid who has had too much sugar ...
The people banging on about selfishness and infections it seems are in total denial about Covid and think that if they wish very hard and we all just stay at home, or stay home while infected, then its all going away.
It isn't going away.
I wouldn't visit anyone vulnerable if positive, but I wouldn't visit anyone vulnerable with a cold or a cough either. I would go to the shops, or to a restaurant or similar with a cold or a cough though.
But I must get off now and get things ready for tomorrow. Have a good day everyone, and if I don't speak to you all again first then have a good Christmas!
Edit to add: agree with you about The Muppet Christmas Carol btw.
Incidentally on Die Hard, which genre does it define? Christmas films or action films?
That mild ticking off duly rendered, and since it's Christmas, I'll add a stonking great positive. Hats off to your id change. The Philip Thompson back catalogue consists of the best part of 100k posts. To ditch it, effectively throwing away all of the kudos and authority that came with it, and start again from scratch as Bartholomew Roberts is very principled and brave.
I tried to think of an equivalently radical move from other fields and the 2 which sprung to mind are Cat Stevens at the height of his fame becoming Yusuf Islam and Nick Faldo remodelling his entire golf swing despite already being the European number 1.
So, yes, nice one. Wish you all the very best with it.
“Rear Window” is another great single location film, but not really an action film.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/24/new-wales-coalmine-may-soon-be-approved-despite-cop26-pledges
According to Wales’s deputy climate change minister, Lee Waters, the Aberpergwm scheme could emit 100m tonnes of CO2 over its lifetime, along with considerable quantities of methane. He says the date of the licence means that new devolved powers – which came into force in 2018 and have been used to block new opencast mining applications last year – do not apply to this case. Waters has written to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, in which the Coal Authority is housed, to request the licence be cancelled.
“We want to keep this coal in the ground,” he told the Welsh parliament. “But the UK government, because of the powers in place, threaten to sit by and watch this coal being extracted in the face of our wishes.”
NYC - higher double vaccination (I think)
London - more boosters
We do tag-team parenting: one of us looks after him whilst the other does their own thing. Since I'm about to take him out for his daily 2K run, it's my turn to relax. Then Mrs J will take over as I shower and load up the car (I may even get dressed between the two...)
The additional song “When Love has Gone” really doesn’t add anything to the plot and it’s one of those times when less really is more.
Like Philip/Bartholomew, real heavyweights.
I didn't realise undressed running was a thing. 🤯
Guildford or Reading both are close to each other and compete for investment
Milton Keynes v Northampton - similar
There are actually surprisingly few likely options when you look at the list - most places that should be a City already are.
The argument about all restrictions has only ever been about slowing the virus, not stopping it, I believe. In terms of actually getting it, the writing was always on the wall, regrettably.
But no, 'between the two' means between the shower and loading the car. I assumed PBers would not be dirty enough to assume I run in the nuddie. Then I remembered what PB is like ...
Incidentally, on this morning's run I might have got 'accidentally' lost and gone off-path in the dark. Which is good, because it is another line on my map of runs. And bad because I had to 'run' through what appeared to be run-off from a pig farm.
Those trainers are being retired. And yes, I did have a shower afterwards, and the socks are in the bin as well.
Well, a lot of his works.
Ok, some of his works.
@chrischirp
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47m
Some good news for Christmas - booster vaccinations are now at super high levels and almost half the population is boosted!
So, a manifestation of his own subconscious, yeah.
Don't do drugs, kids.
In any case, it needs to go fairly soon and/or be scaled back radically in duration. I know of several people - many of them children - who have spent much of their time in isolation with no symptoms at all. I.e. for all or part of the term they were not unwell.
We simply cannot run a society like that in the long term.
We were never locked down.
I've had enough of this Covid lark.
In WWI, after the convoy system got going, some offensive minded Admirals instead on establishing hunter-killer patrols. Destroyers charged around at full speed - steamed a zillion miles and never saw a U-boat. With no sensors, they resorted to methodically patrolling in a fixed grid. Which the U-boat captains rapidly noticed.
In WWII, a series of layers of intelligence meant that (largely) the location of U-boats was known to a few dozen miles, for much of the war. This wasn't just the famous Enigma, but Huff-Duff and understanding Doenitz's rather rigid tactics was often enough.
The sources and comprehensiveness of the information was rather closely held - so Harris, Spaatz etc had no idea of the plot running at the Admiralty building. Instead Costal Command patrols were handed to the squadron's - search *this* box today - Given the accuracy of the location information, ASV and (at the end of the war) sonobuoys, it was quite possible to find the submarines, from there....
To an outsider, the searches looked completely random. It looked exactly like the WWI offensive nonsense, all over again.
In addition, the primary effect of the patrols wasn't to kill submarines. Though they did get a few. The major effect was causing the U-boats to dive. Which limited them to a literal walking pace - far slower than a convoy. The problem with that was that the only way to understand the effectiveness of this was to read the Fish cypher stuff. And Harris and Co. weren't "read in" on ULTRA.
So to the outsiders in this effort, Costal Command was chasing all over the ocean at random. To the insiders, they were punching the Germans in the gut, with some precision.
The failure to bring the European strategic bomber commands (American and British) into ULTRA* is a strange one, which has not been explained, as far as I know.
*They were given pieces of the intelligence, not the whole picture or where it was coming from.
Ministers plan to repeal unwanted EU 'hangover law', under which pint bottles of wine have been banned since 1973
Churchill branded it an “ideal size... enough for 2 at lunch & 1 at dinner”
https://twitter.com/LOS_Fisher/status/1474131559628345349
By rights it ought to win.
https://twitter.com/michaeljswalker/status/1474331034300956702
Oh goody, Novara's onto conspiracy theories now
The issue is the totally unvaxxed. It is this cohort that is filling up the hospitals.
So if we are to have further restrictions people will begin to look at these people and perhaps note their ethnicity.
And then there will be a debate about whether to lock everyone down on account of the unvaxxed or introduce vaxports or something else.
Whatever happens it will do nothing for national cohesion.
There was (apparently) a fair bit of research that people wanted something in between a half bottle and a full bottle for 2 people to share.
Straight to the bookies!