He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
Looks like you've gone negative again. Admissions 'with' covid is not a very useful metric. As I keep saying if there is more of it around you will have more admissions with covid. The biggest problem at the moment appears to be managing staff absences and separating covid and non-covid patients. Not the actual disease itself. And the early data from SAGE does suggest shorter hospital stays, particularly for older patients. If it is a milder variant, it would be very surprising if that weren't the case, no?
Two years ago today, I had just got back to Ilford after doing the Chinnor & Princes Risborough, the last time I rode on a heritage railway. I had intended to do the Cholsey & Wallingford, but upon seeing they didn't have a New Year's Day service, I got off the Bakerloo Line at Marylebone instead of Paddington!
If he was really angry about it you could type: Livid Sajid Javid: We must live with Covid
Nice
If he gets really REALLY angry about this brutal new flu-Covid crossbreed being irresponsibly dramatised in a children's movie then you could have the headline
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Well: if it turned out that there was a disease with the spread of original Covid, and the mortality rate of bubonic plague, then I think the Government would be warranted in putting in place some fairly major restrictions.
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
Nah, that model is "for COVID" and they're comparing it to real world data which is "with COVID" and the incremental admissions are coming in at only ~50% for COVID.
Annoyingly we only get the incidentals report once a week, this week it showed that of the ~11k in hospital registered on the dash in England 7k were primarily for COVID and the other 4k for something else and that with 1/3 English cases in the relating period being Delta infections.
If 1/20 people have got COVID then 1/20 hospital admissions will have it, and that's what the dashboard stats are registering right now. Once again, the journalists are doing a skin deep analysis rather than actually getting into it.
Doesn't make it much easier for the folk on the hospital staff, or the other patients, if the covid in the next bed is only incidental ...
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
I won't write an essay. I'm on my phone now. Suffice it to say that I don't think the Government will dare to lock down (mass rebellion of backbenchers, leadership crisis, much of country will ignore it,) hospitalisations (which will get bad) are less critical if the stays are of lower severity and shorter duration, and they probably know that a lockdown won't do much good anyway.
Let's not melt into a hot puddle whenever a newspaper publishes a new piece of clickbait.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
Nah, that model is "for COVID" and they're comparing it to real world data which is "with COVID" and the incremental admissions are coming in at only ~50% for COVID.
Annoyingly we only get the incidentals report once a week, this week it showed that of the ~11k in hospital registered on the dash in England 7k were primarily for COVID and the other 4k for something else and that with 1/3 English cases in the relating period being Delta infections.
If 1/20 people have got COVID then 1/20 hospital admissions will have it, and that's what the dashboard stats are registering right now. Once again, the journalists are doing a skin deep analysis rather than actually getting into it.
I think incidental admissions are around 60% of "with Covid" right now.
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
Nah, that model is "for COVID" and they're comparing it to real world data which is "with COVID" and the incremental admissions are coming in at only ~50% for COVID.
Annoyingly we only get the incidentals report once a week, this week it showed that of the ~11k in hospital registered on the dash in England 7k were primarily for COVID and the other 4k for something else and that with 1/3 English cases in the relating period being Delta infections.
If 1/20 people have got COVID then 1/20 hospital admissions will have it, and that's what the dashboard stats are registering right now. Once again, the journalists are doing a skin deep analysis rather than actually getting into it.
I hope you are right, Max. You often are
Yes I hope so too. What gives me a lot of hope is just how quickly Omicron is spreading clearly without causing the same chaotic scenes at hospitals that Alpha (at a quarter of the case rate) did last year. We have ~4x the cases of Omicron and we're seeing around net 500 people per day being added to the in hospital funnel that's why I'm not worried, even if that rate doubles because we get double the cases we vey quickly run out of hosts and within around a week the funnel equalises as people recover and go home.
I thought hospitalisations were supposed to be very often briefer than in Delta, at the moment ?
It's also complicated by the fact that - with around 1 in 15 or 1 in 20 Brits having Covid right now - there will be a lot of incidental admissions. *And* I suspect there will be a fair number of people infected in hospital.
Ultimately, though, we're probably close to the peak of cases - certainly it will be reached in the next 10 days (and is likely already behind us in London). Adding restrictions now seems like a case of bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted.
Is it still a week or so for interventions to show an effect on the case data? That was the time lag for Classic Covid. And then about a week for cases to turn into hospitalisations.
Long story short, whatever happens over the next week or two is probably inevitable, even in Boris did a Sad Serious Speech tonight. And the possibilities are either a short high spike that stops just before the system starts to break, or a short high spike that stops just afterwards.
Had my brother and sister-in-law and my little nephew round for Christmas. Anecdotally, per my sister-in-law (who, I must stress, works quite legally as an NHS medic in Essex), it appears that many of "our friends from the Indian Subcontinent", ah, "accidentally" destroy their papers on purpose after a few years so that the Home Office can't "prove" they are overstaying.
Not sure if she's right, but I wouldn't it past them!
I'd be careful about posting stuff like that here under your real name from which your relatives can presumably be easily identified and doorstepped.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Well: if it turned out that there was a disease with the spread of original Covid, and the mortality rate of bubonic plague, then I think the Government would be warranted in putting in place some fairly major restrictions.
Perhaps and that's what I thought we had the potential to be facing last year. We didn't though, so it was wrong to back it last year.
Post-vaccinations its most definitely not what we're facing now though. Nothing close to it.
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
Nah, that model is "for COVID" and they're comparing it to real world data which is "with COVID" and the incremental admissions are coming in at only ~50% for COVID.
Annoyingly we only get the incidentals report once a week, this week it showed that of the ~11k in hospital registered on the dash in England 7k were primarily for COVID and the other 4k for something else and that with 1/3 English cases in the relating period being Delta infections.
If 1/20 people have got COVID then 1/20 hospital admissions will have it, and that's what the dashboard stats are registering right now. Once again, the journalists are doing a skin deep analysis rather than actually getting into it.
I think incidental admissions are around 60% of "with Covid" right now.
Yes the incoming funnel looks around 60% incidental at the moment, which isn't without its own issues (isolation requirements) but those issues aren't going to take up staffing resources.
As we shake Delta out the incidental rate may go as high as 70%, especially as the case rate goes up to 1/15 everywhere. It's a shame that this series doesn't go back to the Alpha wave and isn't included in the dashboard but in a relatively hidden NHS weekly release.
robinkim.eth (Smiling face with horns,Smiling face with halo) @swaglord__420 the first thing our new hire did was fix a bug that's been bugging him forever as a user prior to joining.
he then breathed a sigh of relief and submitted his two weeks' notice. wtf??
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Well: if it turned out that there was a disease with the spread of original Covid, and the mortality rate of bubonic plague, then I think the Government would be warranted in putting in place some fairly major restrictions.
Perhaps and that's what I thought we had the potential to be facing last year. We didn't though, so it was wrong to back it last year.
Post-vaccinations its most definitely not what we're facing now though. Nothing close to it.
Not wrong. Reasonable to back it last year.
Heaven help us all if this new libertarian approach is still held by the Tory backbenchers and if they are still top dogs when Ebola comes calling.
I sense we are on the knife edge tonight as hospitalisation numbers (far more important than case or death numbers) are continuing to be worrying.
Javid may be whistling to keep his hopes (primarily political) up as he knows a return of restrictions will neuter his chances in a post-Johnson leadership election.
The argument of the re-imposition of restrictions to "help save the NHS and the hospitals" will carry a lot of weight and we've got through Christmas. I don't expect the stringency of spring 2020 or early 2021 but we may well see an attempt to reduce large gatherings and perhaps a return to table service for 4 weeks.
All speculation of course - the politics of it are curious. There's probably plenty of public support for a brief return of restrictions but the internal debate within the Conservative Party seems in a very different place.
But the issue at the moment doesn't really seem to be a health service collapsing under pandemic pressures but a health service that is no longer in a position to weather a winter crisis.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
That would end the monarchy.
Our taxes going to help Andrew and we'd have a new Oliver Cromwell by the morning.
Yes, it would turn me from an apathetic monarchist into a republican. Andrew needs to face the music on his own and if that means he declares bankruptcy then that's fine.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
Nah, that model is "for COVID" and they're comparing it to real world data which is "with COVID" and the incremental admissions are coming in at only ~50% for COVID.
Annoyingly we only get the incidentals report once a week, this week it showed that of the ~11k in hospital registered on the dash in England 7k were primarily for COVID and the other 4k for something else and that with 1/3 English cases in the relating period being Delta infections.
If 1/20 people have got COVID then 1/20 hospital admissions will have it, and that's what the dashboard stats are registering right now. Once again, the journalists are doing a skin deep analysis rather than actually getting into it.
I hope you are right, Max. You often are
Yes I hope so too. What gives me a lot of hope is just how quickly Omicron is spreading clearly without causing the same chaotic scenes at hospitals that Alpha (at a quarter of the case rate) did last year. We have ~4x the cases of Omicron and we're seeing around net 500 people per day being added to the in hospital funnel that's why I'm not worried, even if that rate doubles because we get double the cases we vey quickly run out of hosts and within around a week the funnel equalises as people recover and go home.
Good evening
Our daughter in law told us today that most every parent in her sons 8 year old class has gone down with omicron but throughout their social media and facebook pages not one has needed to see a doctor let alone be hospitalised
Indeed across our family and friends just nobody knows anyone who has gone into hospital
It does seem to be rampant but with high boosters and so many recovering surely it must be near peak
“A real, if rather odd, person I suspect. A covid extremist - not surprising they exist in both sides of the spectrum.
At the risk of generalising, I also suspect extreme lockdowners are more likely to be Remainers and extreme anti-vaxxers are more likely to be Brexiteers.
I've no evidence to support that speculation (it would be interesting to see some polling) but my logic is that Remainers were more risk averse on average, Brexiteers more stupid.
(Sorry about that last sentence, I just couldn't help myself 😂)”
++++
No offence taken, old sport, and I think you’re right.
It’s risk aversion. Remoaners are pathetic cowards scared of anything new, and deeply in love with bureaucratic control of everyone, of course they adore Lockdown
Some do mate, I agree. Always a mistake to over-generalise though.
For example, I think most Brexiters are stupid but there are plenty on here who are clearly very smart (if misguided).
Correction: most PEOPLE are stupid. Remember the average IQ - by definition - is 100. So half the nation - half of humanity - has a sub-100 IQ. They will all appear stupid to a smart PB-er
On top of those, you have the apparently clever, educated people, who also turn out to be as dim as all dandy-fuck. eg The Remoaners. Who expected Professor A C Grayling to reveal himself as a dribbling moron? But so it is. And there are millions like him
IQ measures how good you are at IQ tests and nothing more
My take is they are a bit more than that. They test a capacity for certain traits which many people associate with intelligence e.g. logical thinking and problem solving. But that is a narrow subset of what one might think of as general intelligence e.g. they don't measure any sort of creative abilities.
Nor indeed "soft skills". Broadly speaking the ability to get on with folk. Which is arguably just as, or even more, important for many occupations. Or indeed for a happy existence.
Yes that’s fair. Indeed there is evidence that extremely high IQs are associated with autism spectrum disorders, ie a severe lack of social skills and inability to empathize. Einstein and Newton have both been categorised as “autistic” (FWIW - and NB both were still spectacularly successful scientists)
I once read some fascinating research on the IQs of Nobel prize winners in science. The conclusion was that the ideal (and most frequent) IQs were in the 140-160 range. That’s the sweet spot where you are extremely smart but still likely to have good social skills - and you’re able to empathise and build a team around you. Which leads to prizes
Above 160 people get increasingly eccentric (or they so appear to everyone else) and become so clever they can’t figure out why regular humans do what they do - like Spock on Star Trek
Hence we have also likely never had an election winning PM with an IQ over 160
Wasn’t Harold Wilson enormously smart? As in a brilliant Oxford First in Maths or something? He might have troubled the 160 line
Oxford's youngest ever don iirc.
Super smart.
You can make a case for Thatcher too
Successful scientist Successful lawyer Super successful politician And doing all of that as a grammar school girl in a sexist era
Thatcher got a second class degree, not even a first. She was bright and sharp but she was not over 160 IQ super intelligent
I don't think she had much emotional intelligence either. She was famously poor at humour and couldn't empathise with her political opponents, not even within her own party.
This was the achilies heal that ended her premiership, her arrogant disregard for the Scots, those on the sharp end of the Poll Tax or even those within her own party who wanted a One Nation approach. Hence her defenestration by her own party, despite a comfortable majority and 2 years off an election.
Wouldn't Mrs T. fit into Leon's (in my opinion stereotypical, flawed, and simplistic) autism analysis?
Yes, but I think that just shows his simplistic understanding of ASD. Lots of people lack EQ or empathy without being ASD, ASD is found at all intelligence levels, but lower mean than the general population, and there are plenty of superintelligent people with good people skills.
Oh do fuck off, doc. I have done endless research on ASD, for a side project. I probably know a lot more than you. And I always make sure I actually read the first line of a paper I am going to quote, especially if it turns out that line is going to defeat my entire argument
Although on this occasion your analysis is more sympathetic than usual, nonetheless you once again have to refer to anyone who is somewhat unusual as autistic. Your regular thesis regarding ASD is stereotypical, hackneyed uniformed and quite frankly offensive (and no I didn't off topic you, so I am clearly not alone).
Life for many people on the spectrum is particularly difficult without uninformed bollocks from people like yourself serving to make matters worse. Even when autistic people succeed others expect them to fail. As an example, when my son passed his driving test on the first time of asking he was issued with a one year driving license because he had reported his autism on his original application form. After intervention from Alun Cairns that was resolved, but it serves to remind me that when people like you offload your autism prejudice it has consequences.
Time for me to bugger off and calm down.
It does not occur to you that I might have very close personal experience of ASD? Hence my pretty deep knowledge?
You are clearly upset, so I will not argue this further. But I will continue to use the word "autistic" advisedly and carefully when I perceive it: in politicians or others
Off topic.
I didn't off topic you even if I am somewhat skeptical of your "deep knowledge".
I sense we are on the knife edge tonight as hospitalisation numbers (far more important than case or death numbers) are continuing to be worrying.
Javid may be whistling to keep his hopes (primarily political) up as he knows a return of restrictions will neuter his chances in a post-Johnson leadership election.
The argument of the re-imposition of restrictions to "help save the NHS and the hospitals" will carry a lot of weight and we've got through Christmas. I don't expect the stringency of spring 2020 or early 2021 but we may well see an attempt to reduce large gatherings and perhaps a return to table service for 4 weeks.
All speculation of course - the politics of it are curious. There's probably plenty of public support for a brief return of restrictions but the internal debate within the Conservative Party seems in a very different place.
The Govt would be wise to hold firm this time. A hard lockdown may or may not do some good against Omicron, but the numbers coming out of other countries suggest that mucking about with more modest restrictions probably won't. Collateral damage inflicted for no return.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
I sense we are on the knife edge tonight as hospitalisation numbers (far more important than case or death numbers) are continuing to be worrying.
Javid may be whistling to keep his hopes (primarily political) up as he knows a return of restrictions will neuter his chances in a post-Johnson leadership election.
The argument of the re-imposition of restrictions to "help save the NHS and the hospitals" will carry a lot of weight and we've got through Christmas. I don't expect the stringency of spring 2020 or early 2021 but we may well see an attempt to reduce large gatherings and perhaps a return to table service for 4 weeks.
All speculation of course - the politics of it are curious. There's probably plenty of public support for a brief return of restrictions but the internal debate within the Conservative Party seems in a very different place.
The Govt would be wise to hold firm this time. A hard lockdown may or may not do some good against Omicron, but the numbers coming out of other countries suggest that mucking about with more modest restrictions probably won't. Collateral damage inflicted for no return.
Even hard lockdown looks fairly pointless. Holland has been totally shut for several weeks (after a period of semi-lockdown), through December their cases declined somewhat, but they are now going back up. 15,000 today: a definite spike
So what has total lockdown achieved? Apart from crushing their economy and their spirits over Xmas?
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
Extremism in defence of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
Nah, that model is "for COVID" and they're comparing it to real world data which is "with COVID" and the incremental admissions are coming in at only ~50% for COVID.
Annoyingly we only get the incidentals report once a week, this week it showed that of the ~11k in hospital registered on the dash in England 7k were primarily for COVID and the other 4k for something else and that with 1/3 English cases in the relating period being Delta infections.
If 1/20 people have got COVID then 1/20 hospital admissions will have it, and that's what the dashboard stats are registering right now. Once again, the journalists are doing a skin deep analysis rather than actually getting into it.
I hope you are right, Max. You often are
Yes I hope so too. What gives me a lot of hope is just how quickly Omicron is spreading clearly without causing the same chaotic scenes at hospitals that Alpha (at a quarter of the case rate) did last year. We have ~4x the cases of Omicron and we're seeing around net 500 people per day being added to the in hospital funnel that's why I'm not worried, even if that rate doubles because we get double the cases we vey quickly run out of hosts and within around a week the funnel equalises as people recover and go home.
Good evening
Our daughter in law told us today that most every parent in her sons 8 year old class has gone down with omicron but throughout their social media and facebook pages not one has needed to see a doctor let alone be hospitalised
Indeed across our family and friends just nobody knows anyone who has gone into hospital
It does seem to be rampant but with high boosters and so many recovering surely it must be near peak
This is indeed very similar to my family and friends' experience over Christmas, which is partly why I'm quite surprised by some of those reports just put on the thread. I heard a figure yesterday for four fifths without boosters for the hospitalised - I wonder if the figure could be even higher .
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
And this is after what are they now 10-11 days in to Viagra hard lockdown....150 cases a day my arse.
It's the instant pop-up Covid hospital that gets me - exactly as they did in Wuhan (if the report is true, and it seems to be - but this stuff is hard to prove)
I can just about believe - maybe - that they are reacting with extreme measures of quarantine to a few cases because of their fanatical zero Covid approach. But you don't build an entire hospital in a weekend unless you have serious trouble
I haven’t been to the Mary Rose since the late 80s.
The new museum that Garfield Weston has built for it is absolutely incredible. Quite possibly the best museum for anything that I have been to (and I’ve been to a lot over the years). Really extraordinary
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
I sense we are on the knife edge tonight as hospitalisation numbers (far more important than case or death numbers) are continuing to be worrying.
Javid may be whistling to keep his hopes (primarily political) up as he knows a return of restrictions will neuter his chances in a post-Johnson leadership election.
The argument of the re-imposition of restrictions to "help save the NHS and the hospitals" will carry a lot of weight and we've got through Christmas. I don't expect the stringency of spring 2020 or early 2021 but we may well see an attempt to reduce large gatherings and perhaps a return to table service for 4 weeks.
All speculation of course - the politics of it are curious. There's probably plenty of public support for a brief return of restrictions but the internal debate within the Conservative Party seems in a very different place.
The Govt would be wise to hold firm this time. A hard lockdown may or may not do some good against Omicron, but the numbers coming out of other countries suggest that mucking about with more modest restrictions probably won't. Collateral damage inflicted for no return.
Even hard lockdown looks fairly pointless. Holland has been totally shut for several weeks (after a period of semi-lockdown), through December their cases declined somewhat, but they are now going back up. 15,000 today: a definite spike
So what has total lockdown achieved? Apart from crushing their economy and their spirits over Xmas?
Yup, look at Italy, a similar case rate to us and they've had masks, social distancing and vaccine passports for months.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
That would end the monarchy.
Our taxes going to help Andrew and we'd have a new Oliver Cromwell by the morning.
HMQ has a lot of her own money. If you don't like people having lots of their own money I am not sure why you identify as a conservative.
Cromwell wasn't against monarchs, just against monarchs who were not called Cromwell. Against the hereditary principle, but what an amazing coincidence who happened to be the best person to succeed him. What are the odds of that?
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
And this is after what are they now 10-11 days in to Viagra hard lockdown....150 cases a day my arse.
It's the instant pop-up Covid hospital that gets me - exactly as they did in Wuhan (if the report is true, and it seems to be - but this stuff is hard to prove)
I can just about believe - maybe - that they are reacting with extreme measures of quarantine to a few cases because of their fanatical zero Covid approach. But you don't build an entire hospital in a weekend unless you have serious trouble
They have had small outbreaks over the past 2 years, resulting in restrictions and mass testing, but AFAIK never gone for this level of lockdown for so long. This as hard, if not harder, than Wuhan level of restrictions.
Its supposed to be Delta right, not Omicron? But their vaccines are shit, so perhaps thats the panic.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
And this is after what are they now 10-11 days in to Viagra hard lockdown....150 cases a day my arse.
It's the instant pop-up Covid hospital that gets me - exactly as they did in Wuhan (if the report is true, and it seems to be - but this stuff is hard to prove)
I can just about believe - maybe - that they are reacting with extreme measures of quarantine to a few cases because of their fanatical zero Covid approach. But you don't build an entire hospital in a weekend unless you have serious trouble
It could be ofcourse that they're terrified by the higher transmissibility above all else. Don't forget the incredible population density in many Chinese big cities.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
If you have a heart attack then the NHS should triage and prioritise that. Putting investment into the NHS or having proper triage is an acceptable way to run the system, locking down the innocent in order to protect antivaxxers from the consequences of their choices is not.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
Which is why harsh triage is needed, not lockdowns. If people aren't going to take the precaution of getting vaccinated then they can wait at the back of the queue for healthcare. It can be implemented quietly as well with instructions to A&E to send unvaccinated COVID patients home if the resources don't exist and other non-COVID patients need care.
There's a lot of tools in the arsenal that don't require lockdowns and push the consequences of vaccine refusal onto vaccine refusers.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
And this is after what are they now 10-11 days in to Viagra hard lockdown....150 cases a day my arse.
It's the instant pop-up Covid hospital that gets me - exactly as they did in Wuhan (if the report is true, and it seems to be - but this stuff is hard to prove)
I can just about believe - maybe - that they are reacting with extreme measures of quarantine to a few cases because of their fanatical zero Covid approach. But you don't build an entire hospital in a weekend unless you have serious trouble
In Wuhan they used their prefab hospitals to house all positives, not just the ill, until 2 weeks was up. They were used to isolate and contain rather than to treat.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
If you have a heart attack then the NHS should triage and prioritise that. Putting investment into the NHS or having proper triage is an acceptable way to run the system, locking down the innocent in order to protect antivaxxers from the consequences of their choices is not.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Lockdown is only going to work on Omicron if total and early. Once the sparks have set the fire going, it is too late, as we will see.
Its supposed Delta, not Omicron..
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
And this is after what are they now 10-11 days in to Viagra hard lockdown....150 cases a day my arse.
It's the instant pop-up Covid hospital that gets me - exactly as they did in Wuhan (if the report is true, and it seems to be - but this stuff is hard to prove)
I can just about believe - maybe - that they are reacting with extreme measures of quarantine to a few cases because of their fanatical zero Covid approach. But you don't build an entire hospital in a weekend unless you have serious trouble
They have had small outbreaks over the past 2 years, resulting in restrictions and mass testing, but AFAIK never gone for this level of lockdown for so long. This as hard, if not harder, than Wuhan level of restrictions.
Its supposed to be Delta right, not Omicron? But their vaccines are shit, so perhaps thats the panic.
Priti Patel isn't, she is leading Cabinet resistance to any easing of migration rules for Indian citizens as the article makes clear, with an eye on a future leadership bid
I sense we are on the knife edge tonight as hospitalisation numbers (far more important than case or death numbers) are continuing to be worrying.
Javid may be whistling to keep his hopes (primarily political) up as he knows a return of restrictions will neuter his chances in a post-Johnson leadership election.
The argument of the re-imposition of restrictions to "help save the NHS and the hospitals" will carry a lot of weight and we've got through Christmas. I don't expect the stringency of spring 2020 or early 2021 but we may well see an attempt to reduce large gatherings and perhaps a return to table service for 4 weeks.
All speculation of course - the politics of it are curious. There's probably plenty of public support for a brief return of restrictions but the internal debate within the Conservative Party seems in a very different place.
The Govt would be wise to hold firm this time. A hard lockdown may or may not do some good against Omicron, but the numbers coming out of other countries suggest that mucking about with more modest restrictions probably won't. Collateral damage inflicted for no return.
Even hard lockdown looks fairly pointless. Holland has been totally shut for several weeks (after a period of semi-lockdown), through December their cases declined somewhat, but they are now going back up. 15,000 today: a definite spike
So what has total lockdown achieved? Apart from crushing their economy and their spirits over Xmas?
Too early to be sure, but the Dutch case rate has indeed started to go back up. Could be a case of restrictions slowing down the rate at which Omicron has sunk its teeth into the population but not stopped it?
The Italian situation suggests that measures short of hard lockdown are very likely to be ineffectual.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
Which is why harsh triage is needed, not lockdowns. If people aren't going to take the precaution of getting vaccinated then they can wait at the back of the queue for healthcare. It can be implemented quietly as well with instructions to A&E to send unvaccinated COVID patients home if the resources don't exist and other non-COVID patients need care.
There's a lot of tools in the arsenal that don't require lockdowns and push the consequences of vaccine refusal onto vaccine refusers.
Tell me of your experience of medical processes that allows you to say that some finger-waving 'harsh triage' will be able to tell who has had the vaxes and who has not in time to save lives?
I'll take it you are now in the 'no lockdown ever' group?
As I mentioned in a thread the other day, my cousin, a manager in a large northern NHS Trust reported, as of three days ago, 1 covid case in ICU. Reporting without comment given the talk of further restrictions.
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
Nah, that model is "for COVID" and they're comparing it to real world data which is "with COVID" and the incremental admissions are coming in at only ~50% for COVID.
Annoyingly we only get the incidentals report once a week, this week it showed that of the ~11k in hospital registered on the dash in England 7k were primarily for COVID and the other 4k for something else and that with 1/3 English cases in the relating period being Delta infections.
If 1/20 people have got COVID then 1/20 hospital admissions will have it, and that's what the dashboard stats are registering right now. Once again, the journalists are doing a skin deep analysis rather than actually getting into it.
I think incidental admissions are around 60% of "with Covid" right now.
Yes the incoming funnel looks around 60% incidental at the moment, which isn't without its own issues (isolation requirements) but those issues aren't going to take up staffing resources.
As we shake Delta out the incidental rate may go as high as 70%, especially as the case rate goes up to 1/15 everywhere. It's a shame that this series doesn't go back to the Alpha wave and isn't included in the dashboard but in a relatively hidden NHS weekly release.
However. Isn't one of the issues that COVID makes every other condition worse to a greater or lesser degree? Therefore, you can be admitted for a heart attack, have COVID, and therefore not be in a condition to be released for a longer time than without. This applies to pretty much every condition. Your body can't heal as quickly fighting on multiple fronts. I actually see the incidental cases as probably more worrying in terms of pressures. You've got all the infection control, plus longer recovery times than normal.
Is anyone doing a “2022 predictions” thread this year? The 2021 threads make for interesting reading. Well done to @rcs1000 for forecasting inflation would be an issue
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
If you have a heart attack then the NHS should triage and prioritise that. Putting investment into the NHS or having proper triage is an acceptable way to run the system, locking down the innocent in order to protect antivaxxers from the consequences of their choices is not.
You really don't live in the real world.
The NHS has previously rationed or triaged pretty harshly. Doing it for COVID would not be anything new. You need to let go of the idea that we can eliminate or halt COVID or prevent anyone from dying of it. We can minimise the risks with vaccines and hopefully anti-virals pretty soon. Beyond that if people refuse vaccines the consequence of that is a high risk of death. Let them live with their stupid decisions.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
And this is after what are they now 10-11 days in to Viagra hard lockdown....150 cases a day my arse.
It's the instant pop-up Covid hospital that gets me - exactly as they did in Wuhan (if the report is true, and it seems to be - but this stuff is hard to prove)
I can just about believe - maybe - that they are reacting with extreme measures of quarantine to a few cases because of their fanatical zero Covid approach. But you don't build an entire hospital in a weekend unless you have serious trouble
They have had small outbreaks over the past 2 years, resulting in restrictions and mass testing, but AFAIK never gone for this level of lockdown for so long. This as hard, if not harder, than Wuhan level of restrictions.
Its supposed to be Delta right, not Omicron? But their vaccines are shit, so perhaps thats the panic.
Why don't they buy some of ours?
Because in China their handling of everything COVID is being spun as a victory for the nation, why those useless westerners are all dying. They absolutely can't entertain that the vaccines they have produced are duffers. And Pfizer / Moderna are definitely not interested in letting them learn how to produce their mRNA vaccines under licence.
But I am not sure anybody would be surprised if the leadership have had Pfizer.
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
Nah, that model is "for COVID" and they're comparing it to real world data which is "with COVID" and the incremental admissions are coming in at only ~50% for COVID.
Annoyingly we only get the incidentals report once a week, this week it showed that of the ~11k in hospital registered on the dash in England 7k were primarily for COVID and the other 4k for something else and that with 1/3 English cases in the relating period being Delta infections.
If 1/20 people have got COVID then 1/20 hospital admissions will have it, and that's what the dashboard stats are registering right now. Once again, the journalists are doing a skin deep analysis rather than actually getting into it.
I hope you are right, Max. You often are
Yes I hope so too. What gives me a lot of hope is just how quickly Omicron is spreading clearly without causing the same chaotic scenes at hospitals that Alpha (at a quarter of the case rate) did last year. We have ~4x the cases of Omicron and we're seeing around net 500 people per day being added to the in hospital funnel that's why I'm not worried, even if that rate doubles because we get double the cases we vey quickly run out of hosts and within around a week the funnel equalises as people recover and go home.
Good evening
Our daughter in law told us today that most every parent in her sons 8 year old class has gone down with omicron but throughout their social media and facebook pages not one has needed to see a doctor let alone be hospitalised
Indeed across our family and friends just nobody knows anyone who has gone into hospital
It does seem to be rampant but with high boosters and so many recovering surely it must be near peak
This is indeed very similar to my family and friends' experience over Christmas, which is partly why I'm surprised by some of these reports just copied over. I heard a figure yesterday for four fifths without boosters for the hospitalised - I wonder if the figure could be even higher .
I really do think the NHS data does need to provide far more detail to the public
The variables on hospitalisations must be considerable from those admitted for non covid reasons, and those directly because of covid
Additionally we are all entitled to know the age cohorts, their vaccination status, the regions with the highest admissions, length of stay and the percentage of omicron patients in ICU and sadly deaths directly from omicron
This is not a political point it is one of treating the population with respect and helping support for decisions or indeed non
I believe omicron is absolutely going through the population like wildfire and of course the number of NHS staff off due to omicron is a factor but do we really need future restrictions
I would ask, provide the detail and take us with you
I haven’t been to the Mary Rose since the late 80s.
The new museum that Garfield Weston has built for it is absolutely incredible. Quite possibly the best museum for anything that I have been to (and I’ve been to a lot over the years). Really extraordinary
It is fantastic. We got married on HMS Warrior, so we've always liked the historic dockyard. The Mary Rose has been massively improved from a decade or so ago.
Johnson cannot lockdown after "Partygate". If he does he's finished.
What did he say about corpses 18 months ago?
I don't think he can yet. But if (and it's still just an if) hospital capacity (not ICU, just isolation) does become visibly overwhelmed and we get some days of people reporting critical non-Covid patients being refused access, then (a) he won't be able to not lockdown and (b) the Tories will be incredibly unpopular if they censure him for it. I think they'd swallow it and replace him later.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
That would end the monarchy.
Our taxes going to help Andrew and we'd have a new Oliver Cromwell by the morning.
HMQ has a lot of her own money. If you don't like people having lots of their own money I am not sure why you identify as a conservative.
Cromwell wasn't against monarchs, just against monarchs who were not called Cromwell. Against the hereditary principle, but what an amazing coincidence who happened to be the best person to succeed him. What are the odds of that?
I'm fine with people having lots of their own money but she gives any money to help Andrew with his difficulties then it is clear she doesn't need the Sovereign Grant which is close to £100 million per annum.
Cromwell was awesome, as I'd expect some who attended Sidney Sussex.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Lockdown is only going to work on Omicron if total and early. Once the sparks have set the fire going, it is too late, as we will see.
Its supposed Delta, not Omicron..
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
If you have a heart attack then the NHS should triage and prioritise that. Putting investment into the NHS or having proper triage is an acceptable way to run the system, locking down the innocent in order to protect antivaxxers from the consequences of their choices is not.
You really don't live in the real world.
The NHS has previously rationed or triaged pretty harshly. Doing it for COVID would not be anything new. You need to let go of the idea that we can eliminate or halt COVID or prevent anyone from dying of it. We can minimise the risks with vaccines and hopefully anti-virals pretty soon. Beyond that if people refuse vaccines the consequence of that is a high risk of death. Let them live with their stupid decisions.
I think you're wishing on fairy-dust. Could you answer my question please? Are you now in the 'no lockdown ever' group? If not, you agree with me on the fundamental point.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
And this is after what are they now 10-11 days in to Viagra hard lockdown....150 cases a day my arse.
It's the instant pop-up Covid hospital that gets me - exactly as they did in Wuhan (if the report is true, and it seems to be - but this stuff is hard to prove)
I can just about believe - maybe - that they are reacting with extreme measures of quarantine to a few cases because of their fanatical zero Covid approach. But you don't build an entire hospital in a weekend unless you have serious trouble
They have had small outbreaks over the past 2 years, resulting in restrictions and mass testing, but AFAIK never gone for this level of lockdown for so long. This as hard, if not harder, than Wuhan level of restrictions.
Its supposed to be Delta right, not Omicron? But their vaccines are shit, so perhaps thats the panic.
Something is definitely up
"xi'an city Another video about workers toiling day and night to build this covid quarantine camp. 2022/1/1"
This bleak little vid is meant to cheer Chinese people up:
"this is food provided by CPC, it is delivered directly to each family in Xian city.... this is how CPC "starves" 13 million people in the city lockdown"
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
Which is why harsh triage is needed, not lockdowns. If people aren't going to take the precaution of getting vaccinated then they can wait at the back of the queue for healthcare. It can be implemented quietly as well with instructions to A&E to send unvaccinated COVID patients home if the resources don't exist and other non-COVID patients need care.
There's a lot of tools in the arsenal that don't require lockdowns and push the consequences of vaccine refusal onto vaccine refusers.
Tell me of your experience of medical processes that allows you to say that some finger-waving 'harsh triage' will be able to tell who has had the vaxes and who has not in time to save lives?
I'll take it you are now in the 'no lockdown ever' group?
The information of who has been vaxxed or not is in everyone NHS record, the decision to proceed with treatment is made after the records are known. That's what the triage process is about. Doctors and nurses make a judgement on who needs treatment the most and who is most likely to benefit from limited resources. I think you need to get real about how the triage process works. I say this because the NHS has already used triaging and rationing in the past, it also has the concept of QALYs to deny treatment options that are deemed poor value for money.
I'm not "no lockdown ever" if there was ever a variant that was as deadly as Delta but evaded vaccines completely I'd probably live with one while vaccines were adjusted and rolled out.
You've got yourself into the position of valuing a COVID death differently to a death from anything else. Plenty of people have previously died from the flu without receiving treatment. COVID should be the same now. Get vaccinated or risk death.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
I haven’t been to the Mary Rose since the late 80s.
The new museum that Garfield Weston has built for it is absolutely incredible. Quite possibly the best museum for anything that I have been to (and I’ve been to a lot over the years). Really extraordinary
It is fantastic. We got married on HMS Warrior, so we've always liked the historic dockyard. The Mary Rose has been massively improved from a decade or so ago.
I saw the Vasa a couple of years back. It is a century later than the Mary Rose, but in better condition, the baltic mud being less saline and far fewer wood destroying worms. It was a highlight of our break in the gorgeous city of Stockholm.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Lockdown is only going to work on Omicron if total and early. Once the sparks have set the fire going, it is too late, as we will see.
Its supposed Delta, not Omicron..
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
If Delta, then a better chance of it working. Totalitarian regimes are abhorrent, but can enforce public health measures far more strictly.
While there is a certain karma about it exploding in China, it is not the fault of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
It might be, it might this haemorrhagic fever is the real issue. I have been rather suspicious for a number of days. They have had small flair ups before, but never gone this hard. This is Wuhan+++ restrictions. Only one member of a household is allowed out every third day to get food supplies and that's your lot.
Now it might be they know their vaccines aren't going to do much against delta, hence the reaction. It could be the delta numbers are much higher than they are willing to admit. Could be both.
But the authorities are clearly much more concerned than previous similar (on paper) small outbreaks.
Priti Patel isn't, she is leading Cabinet resistance to any easing of migration rules for Indian citizens as the article makes clear, with an eye on a future leadership bid
Don’t Gujaratis have a pretty strong dislike of other Indians? I think they ended up where they did because they were pushed out?
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
Nah, that model is "for COVID" and they're comparing it to real world data which is "with COVID" and the incremental admissions are coming in at only ~50% for COVID.
Annoyingly we only get the incidentals report once a week, this week it showed that of the ~11k in hospital registered on the dash in England 7k were primarily for COVID and the other 4k for something else and that with 1/3 English cases in the relating period being Delta infections.
If 1/20 people have got COVID then 1/20 hospital admissions will have it, and that's what the dashboard stats are registering right now. Once again, the journalists are doing a skin deep analysis rather than actually getting into it.
I hope you are right, Max. You often are
Yes I hope so too. What gives me a lot of hope is just how quickly Omicron is spreading clearly without causing the same chaotic scenes at hospitals that Alpha (at a quarter of the case rate) did last year. We have ~4x the cases of Omicron and we're seeing around net 500 people per day being added to the in hospital funnel that's why I'm not worried, even if that rate doubles because we get double the cases we vey quickly run out of hosts and within around a week the funnel equalises as people recover and go home.
Good evening
Our daughter in law told us today that most every parent in her sons 8 year old class has gone down with omicron but throughout their social media and facebook pages not one has needed to see a doctor let alone be hospitalised
Indeed across our family and friends just nobody knows anyone who has gone into hospital
It does seem to be rampant but with high boosters and so many recovering surely it must be near peak
I fervently hope so. One of these days someone, somewhere will call the peak and be proved right.
How long will the people allow the state to act like this when anti vaxxers are trashing testing centres and acting far more irresponsibly
Fortunately the state in England is not acting like this thanks to Boris, who allowed people to have New Year's Eve dinner parties without sending in the police to break them up like Sturgeon
Priti Patel isn't, she is leading Cabinet resistance to any easing of migration rules for Indian citizens as the article makes clear, with an eye on a future leadership bid
She is just wrong and so are you in promoting her
Fortunately I have faith in tne mps to ensure she is not in the final two sent to the membership
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
Which is why harsh triage is needed, not lockdowns. If people aren't going to take the precaution of getting vaccinated then they can wait at the back of the queue for healthcare. It can be implemented quietly as well with instructions to A&E to send unvaccinated COVID patients home if the resources don't exist and other non-COVID patients need care.
There's a lot of tools in the arsenal that don't require lockdowns and push the consequences of vaccine refusal onto vaccine refusers.
Tell me of your experience of medical processes that allows you to say that some finger-waving 'harsh triage' will be able to tell who has had the vaxes and who has not in time to save lives?
I'll take it you are now in the 'no lockdown ever' group?
The information of who has been vaxxed or not is in everyone NHS record, the decision to proceed with treatment is made after the records are known. That's what the triage process is about. Doctors and nurses make a judgement on who needs treatment the most and who is most likely to benefit from limited resources. I think you need to get real about how the triage process works. I say this because the NHS has already used triaging and rationing in the past, it also has the concept of QALYs to deny treatment options that are deemed poor value for money.
I'm not "no lockdown ever" if there was ever a variant that was as deadly as Delta but evaded vaccines completely I'd probably live with one while vaccines were adjusted and rolled out.
You've got yourself into the position of valuing a COVID death differently to a death from anything else. Plenty of people have previously died from the flu without receiving treatment. COVID should be the same now. Get vaccinated or risk death.
Moreover JJ seems to have fallen into the trap of believing that lockdowns are a victimless action. People die because of lockdowns due to missed diagnoses, missed treatments and missed help and support. I would fully expect that, given how mild this version is, more people will die of lockdown if it happens than of the virus.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
Indeed and it's the healthcare capacity issue that's going to be the make-or-break for the renewed imposition of some restrictions.
Looking at the dashboard, ignoring those who have chosen not to have any vaccination, there are 17 million (or roughly a third of the total) who have had one or two vaccinations but not three. Of those, 4 million have had one vaccination but not two.
Clearly, a number of these will have contracted Omicron and that means vaccination appointments postponed so it may not be as it seems (is it ever with data?).
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
If you have a heart attack then the NHS should triage and prioritise that. Putting investment into the NHS or having proper triage is an acceptable way to run the system, locking down the innocent in order to protect antivaxxers from the consequences of their choices is not.
You really don't live in the real world.
The NHS has previously rationed or triaged pretty harshly. Doing it for COVID would not be anything new. You need to let go of the idea that we can eliminate or halt COVID or prevent anyone from dying of it. We can minimise the risks with vaccines and hopefully anti-virals pretty soon. Beyond that if people refuse vaccines the consequence of that is a high risk of death. Let them live with their stupid decisions.
The issue is capacity management
Let’s say that you have 5 spare icu beds. Over the following week there are 5 unvaxxed covid patients who need them. Do you leave them empty?
If not and then a cardiac patient comes in needing one do you kick a covid patient out?
I’m not sure it is feasible (or ethical) to do either of those
The only point triage is possible is if there is one empty bed with simultaneous demand from unvaxxed covid vs another allowing you to make a choice
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Lockdown is only going to work on Omicron if total and early. Once the sparks have set the fire going, it is too late, as we will see.
Its supposed Delta, not Omicron..
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
If Delta, then a better chance of it working. Totalitarian regimes are abhorrent, but can enforce public health measures far more strictly.
While there is a certain karma about it exploding in China, it is not the fault of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
There's a whole swirl of rumours. It's Delta. It's a "hantavirus" plus Covid. It's haemmorhagic fever plus Covid (great!). It's Omicron leaked from a flight "from Pakistan"
My wild guess looking at these videos is: Omicron. They've got a population with very little natural immunity, they know their vaccines are iffy (and 2 isn't enough) they know Omicron infects EVERYONE very soon, and they known there will be lots and lots of patients, even if fewer die than with Delta
Priti Patel isn't, she is leading Cabinet resistance to any easing of migration rules for Indian citizens as the article makes clear, with an eye on a future leadership bid
Don’t Gujaratis have a pretty strong dislike of other Indians? I think they ended up where they did because they were pushed out?
Not noticeably in Leicester, where we have mostly Gujerati, but also significant numbers from the Punjab, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala. They seem to get on fine. The only recent conflict that I have encountered is the Sikhs supporting the farmers against Modi. Incidentally the farmers protests seem to have brought significant concessions.
"UK hospitalisations are outpacing three of the four projections produced by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) in the run-up to Christmas.
"Currently, the real-world hospital data fits only into the lower range of the modeller's most "pessimistic" scenario – a scenario that could see hospitalisations spike in the next few weeks at more than double last January's peak (see charts above)."
Nah, that model is "for COVID" and they're comparing it to real world data which is "with COVID" and the incremental admissions are coming in at only ~50% for COVID.
Annoyingly we only get the incidentals report once a week, this week it showed that of the ~11k in hospital registered on the dash in England 7k were primarily for COVID and the other 4k for something else and that with 1/3 English cases in the relating period being Delta infections.
If 1/20 people have got COVID then 1/20 hospital admissions will have it, and that's what the dashboard stats are registering right now. Once again, the journalists are doing a skin deep analysis rather than actually getting into it.
I think incidental admissions are around 60% of "with Covid" right now.
Yes the incoming funnel looks around 60% incidental at the moment, which isn't without its own issues (isolation requirements) but those issues aren't going to take up staffing resources.
As we shake Delta out the incidental rate may go as high as 70%, especially as the case rate goes up to 1/15 everywhere. It's a shame that this series doesn't go back to the Alpha wave and isn't included in the dashboard but in a relatively hidden NHS weekly release.
Of course, the funny bit is that if we're 1-in-15 right now, that means that - what - 1-in-4 people will end up getting Covid during the Omicron wave. It's amazing how many people won't get it, given how infectious it is.
Why are Chinese vaccines no good, if this is correct ?
Both the Chinese vaccines are inactivated vaccines, which use killed SARS-CoV-2 virus. Researchers say this type of vaccine seems to be less potent because it triggers an immune response against many viral proteins. By contrast, mRNA and viral-vector vaccines target the response to the spike protein, which is what the virus uses to enter human cells.
They have been found that they don't offer much protection, especially in older people and they wane really fast (and this was against common old school COVID). They aren't going to do jack against Omicron.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
Which is why harsh triage is needed, not lockdowns. If people aren't going to take the precaution of getting vaccinated then they can wait at the back of the queue for healthcare. It can be implemented quietly as well with instructions to A&E to send unvaccinated COVID patients home if the resources don't exist and other non-COVID patients need care.
There's a lot of tools in the arsenal that don't require lockdowns and push the consequences of vaccine refusal onto vaccine refusers.
Tell me of your experience of medical processes that allows you to say that some finger-waving 'harsh triage' will be able to tell who has had the vaxes and who has not in time to save lives?
I'll take it you are now in the 'no lockdown ever' group?
The information of who has been vaxxed or not is in everyone NHS record, the decision to proceed with treatment is made after the records are known. That's what the triage process is about. Doctors and nurses make a judgement on who needs treatment the most and who is most likely to benefit from limited resources. I think you need to get real about how the triage process works. I say this because the NHS has already used triaging and rationing in the past, it also has the concept of QALYs to deny treatment options that are deemed poor value for money.
I'm not "no lockdown ever" if there was ever a variant that was as deadly as Delta but evaded vaccines completely I'd probably live with one while vaccines were adjusted and rolled out.
You've got yourself into the position of valuing a COVID death differently to a death from anything else. Plenty of people have previously died from the flu without receiving treatment. COVID should be the same now. Get vaccinated or risk death.
Moreover JJ seems to have fallen into the trap of believing that lockdowns are a victimless action. People die because of lockdowns due to missed diagnoses, missed treatments and missed help and support. I would fully expect that, given how mild this version is, more people will die of lockdown if it happens than of the virus.
Yes, lockdowns are the "break glass in case of emergency" button. In fact any restrictions on normal life should be behind that glass. Rationing healthcare for vaccine refusers comes earlier than something like plan B for me. We don't even need to do it openly, just make some technical change to QALY formulas and push up healthcare resourcing costs for vaccine refusers.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Rather funny though that the only one of Epstein and Maxwell's numerous clients action has been taken against in the US is a British Prince. If Andrew loses his case but no action is taken against a single American in Epstein's black book it could set back US UK relations to their lowest since Suez, if not the War of Independence or War of 1812.
At the end of the day it is still Her Majesty's government Boris leads
My son was out with his pals last night in Dundee. They found a pub that had an impromptu nightclub in their basement for well more than 100 people and no social distancing whatsoever. They had a great time but it indicates to me that we have reached the end of the road for these kind of restrictions.
There was none of this by businesses in the 2020 or early 2021 lockdowns. The law has fallen into disrepute and people are learning that they have the right to choose which laws they follow and which they don't. These are not helpful lessons.
I haven’t been to the Mary Rose since the late 80s.
The new museum that Garfield Weston has built for it is absolutely incredible. Quite possibly the best museum for anything that I have been to (and I’ve been to a lot over the years). Really extraordinary
It is fantastic. We got married on HMS Warrior, so we've always liked the historic dockyard. The Mary Rose has been massively improved from a decade or so ago.
Had a long conversation with one of the Mary Rose guides about the Vasa today. Apparently a lot less interesting (Mandy Rice-Davies notwithstanding) because there was nothing on it - it was on its first sea trial when it sank vs having been in use for 40 years.
It was designed personally by the king who had strong views on what made a ship look pretty (eg the V shape rather than a rounded berth) but he wasn’t a shipwright…
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Rather funny though that the only one of Epstein and Maxwell's numerous clients action has been taken against in the US is a British Prince. If Andrew loses his case but no action is taken against a single American in Epstein's black book it could set back US UK relations to their lowest since Suez, if not the War of Independence or War of 1812
Really? I think the public are not on the side of Andrew and many would like to see him in court.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
If you have a heart attack then the NHS should triage and prioritise that. Putting investment into the NHS or having proper triage is an acceptable way to run the system, locking down the innocent in order to protect antivaxxers from the consequences of their choices is not.
You really don't live in the real world.
The NHS has previously rationed or triaged pretty harshly. Doing it for COVID would not be anything new. You need to let go of the idea that we can eliminate or halt COVID or prevent anyone from dying of it. We can minimise the risks with vaccines and hopefully anti-virals pretty soon. Beyond that if people refuse vaccines the consequence of that is a high risk of death. Let them live with their stupid decisions.
The issue is capacity management
Let’s say that you have 5 spare icu beds. Over the following week there are 5 unvaxxed covid patients who need them. Do you leave them empty?
If not and then a cardiac patient comes in needing one do you kick a covid patient out?
I’m not sure it is feasible (or ethical) to do either of those
The only point triage is possible is if there is one empty bed with simultaneous demand from unvaxxed covid vs another allowing you to make a choice
You do it with QALYs, push up the value of COVID healthcare provision for unvaccinated COVID patients. It would push the balance of something like that to not bothering for older vaccine refusers which would keep resources available for non-COVID care.
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
It isn't ridiculous. Lockdowns are a tool in the toolbox to deal with Covid. Blankly saying they should not be used under any circumstances is the ridiculous comment - and not one I believe you've made.
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
Which is why harsh triage is needed, not lockdowns. If people aren't going to take the precaution of getting vaccinated then they can wait at the back of the queue for healthcare. It can be implemented quietly as well with instructions to A&E to send unvaccinated COVID patients home if the resources don't exist and other non-COVID patients need care.
There's a lot of tools in the arsenal that don't require lockdowns and push the consequences of vaccine refusal onto vaccine refusers.
Tell me of your experience of medical processes that allows you to say that some finger-waving 'harsh triage' will be able to tell who has had the vaxes and who has not in time to save lives?
I'll take it you are now in the 'no lockdown ever' group?
The information of who has been vaxxed or not is in everyone NHS record, the decision to proceed with treatment is made after the records are known. That's what the triage process is about. Doctors and nurses make a judgement on who needs treatment the most and who is most likely to benefit from limited resources. I think you need to get real about how the triage process works. I say this because the NHS has already used triaging and rationing in the past, it also has the concept of QALYs to deny treatment options that are deemed poor value for money.
I'm not "no lockdown ever" if there was ever a variant that was as deadly as Delta but evaded vaccines completely I'd probably live with one while vaccines were adjusted and rolled out.
You've got yourself into the position of valuing a COVID death differently to a death from anything else. Plenty of people have previously died from the flu without receiving treatment. COVID should be the same now. Get vaccinated or risk death.
Moreover JJ seems to have fallen into the trap of believing that lockdowns are a victimless action. People die because of lockdowns due to missed diagnoses, missed treatments and missed help and support. I would fully expect that, given how mild this version is, more people will die of lockdown if it happens than of the virus.
I have never fallen into that trap. I have, indeed, said that lockdowns are an evil. I've also said an anecdote where a friend's cancer was not detected due to Covid (though not necessarily lockdown). Where I differ from others is that I also say that the deaths from covid are an evil. It is a case of weighing up the evils. Reasonable people can weigh those up differently.
What isn't reasonable is saying that any number of deaths is worth an individual's freedom.
I'm also not calling for a lockdown at the moment; just that lockdowns should remain in the toolbox.
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Lockdown is only going to work on Omicron if total and early. Once the sparks have set the fire going, it is too late, as we will see.
Its supposed Delta, not Omicron..
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
If Delta, then a better chance of it working. Totalitarian regimes are abhorrent, but can enforce public health measures far more strictly.
While there is a certain karma about it exploding in China, it is not the fault of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
There's a whole swirl of rumours. It's Delta. It's a "hantavirus" plus Covid. It's haemmorhagic fever plus Covid (great!). It's Omicron leaked from a flight "from Pakistan"
My wild guess looking at these videos is: Omicron. They've got a population with very little natural immunity, they know their vaccines are iffy (and 2 isn't enough) they know Omicron infects EVERYONE very soon, and they known there will be lots and lots of patients, even if fewer die than with Delta
But we shall see. Such a bleak echo of 2020
Something is definitely up. As you say the most logical is its Omicron and so have gone Wuhan+++ lockdown.
That will make Red Wall Tories very cross but the important question is whether the poll shows Rishi, Liz or A N Other will save their seats. That might spur them to act.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Rather funny though that the only one of Epstein and Maxwell's numerous clients action has been taken against in the US is a British Prince. If Andrew loses his case but no action is taken against a single American in Epstein's black book it could set back US UK relations to their lowest since Suez, if not the War of Independence or War of 1812.
At the end of the day it is still Her Majesty's government Boris leads
Why? Prince Andrew is as dodgy as F**k - no one is going to protect such a fool, especially if it keeps Boris off the front pages for a day or so.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Like you I am not a lawyer and don't know. But it makes it impossible for someone to protect themselves if they have no way of knowing if the person they have sex with was trafficked.
Ignoring the age difference. If a 17 or 18 year old lad had had sex with her after meeting her at a London nightclub would we consider it reasonable that they should be subject to prosecution for something that is not a crime in this country?
He's meant to be pro-lockdown, so that's a good sign
And of course he is right. All the models said that if we wanted to impose even a halfway effective lockdown we had to do it by December 31st at the latest
It's Jan 1, 2022. It is now too late. We must endure
What are the odds that having said that in their prior models, the new models presented on 4 January say that we must lockdown now and its not too late. 🙄
They're so predictable.
And so are you. Whatever evidence is presented, your answer will always be that your personal freedom is more valuable than any number of lives.
Yes I will, its a point of principle for me. I'm not trying to twist the evidence to force it to suit my aims, I literally don't care what the "evidence" says.
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives? Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
Then you are an extremist. As bad - if not worse - than the 'lockdown zealots' you decry. Different sides of the same Roman toilet sponge.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
That's ridiculous, there's no both sides to this. This is like people trying to say there's two sides to the climate change discussion. There aren't.
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
Actually, I think that's a bit of an extremist statement.
There are lots of small measures that can have a decent sized impact - like mask wearing on public transport (given that is the one time people are likely to be mixing with large numbers of other people of various ages in a cramped and poorly ventilated space). That's a government restriction that doesn't seem totally unwarranted in the current environment. Now, will it make a massive difference? No. But it might mean that five people in a tube carriage get infected, not 40. And that means the pressure on hospitals is spread over a slightly longer period, and therefore they can cope.
I don't think that's an unreasonable restriction. It's not banning indoor socialising or seeing your friends or closing businesses down. It's a recognition that some situations are inherently high risk and that we might want to put some mitigation measures in place.
US judge delivers double setback to Prince Andrew’s abuse case battle
Pressure grows on duke to settle alleged victim’s claim before key hearing this week
Two of Prince Andrew’s avenues to prevent or stall the progression of Virginia Roberts Giuffre’s sex assault lawsuit against him were blocked on Saturday by a federal judge, increasing pressure to settle claims before a crucial court hearing this week.
Judge Lewis A Kaplan, in a written order, told the prince’s lawyers they must turn over documents on the schedule that has been set in the lawsuit brought by Guiffre who claims she was abused – aged 17 – by the prince on multiple occasions in 2001 while she was being sexually abused by financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Kaplan also rejected arguments by the prince’s lawyer, Andrew Brettler, on jurisdiction grounds after they argued last week that the lawsuit should be dismissed because Giuffre, a US citizen, no longer lives in the US.
The rulings come before an important case hearing in New York on Tuesday, one day after the scheduled public release on Monday of a 2009 settlement agreement between Epstein and Giuffre that lawyers for Andrew had hoped would protect him from Guiffre’s claims.
The developments follow revelations that Giuffre’s lawyers are reportedly claiming they have up to six witnesses linking the duke to his accuser on the eve of the hearing into a civil lawsuit filed by the 38-year-old, in which she accuses Prince Andrew of sexual assault.
In a separate development, Andrew’s lawyers are also reported to have not provided documentary evidence that he has the “inability to sweat”, despite the claim supporting his denial against allegations he had sex with Giuffre.
The duke is also said not to have so far named any witnesses to support his alibi that he was in Pizza Express in Woking on the night in 2001 he was accused of having sex with Giuffre.
He should get used to be called Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor from now on.
He should score 20m dollars off his mum and settle.
If he goes to court and is found guilty then part of his punishment should be to serve a community sentence hopefully to learn about folk.
Civil claim. So far anyway.
I have absolutely no time for Andrew at all but reading around it appears that all the claims are that he had sex with a 17 year old girl in the UK. This may have already been discussed elsewhere in which case apologies but I thought that this was legal? Creepy, given his age, but legal never the less. How can he be prosecuted in the US for something alleged to have happened in the UK that was not a crime here?
It is a Federal crime to have sex with anyone under-18 trafficked across state lines or internationally. Therefore its open to Federal prosecution if the under-18 victim is trafficked from the USA even if the sex happens in the UK.
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
Rather funny though that the only one of Epstein and Maxwell's numerous clients action has been taken against in the US is a British Prince. If Andrew loses his case but no action is taken against a single American in Epstein's black book it could set back US UK relations to their lowest since Suez, if not the War of Independence or War of 1812
Really? I think the public are not on the side of Andrew and many would like to see him in court.
They may but they have no great love of the US justice system either, already the comparisons with Anne Sacoolas not being sent here had been made as to why Andrew should not go to the US.
As far as I am concerned it looks anti British bias and especially anti British royal family bias
Johnson cannot lockdown after "Partygate". If he does he's finished.
What did he say about corpses 18 months ago?
I don't think he can yet. But if (and it's still just an if) hospital capacity (not ICU, just isolation) does become visibly overwhelmed and we get some days of people reporting critical non-Covid patients being refused access, then (a) he won't be able to not lockdown and (b) the Tories will be incredibly unpopular if they censure him for it. I think they'd swallow it and replace him later.
All of this assumes that the evidence will suggest by such a juncture that lockdowns work on Omicron. If they don't then there's no point.
How long will the people allow the state to act like this when anti vaxxers are trashing testing centres and acting far more irresponsibly
Fortunately the state in England is not acting like this thanks to Boris, who allowed people to have New Year's Eve dinner parties without sending in the police to break them up like Sturgeon
Not Boris - his cabinet who have him as their puppet and are likely to act soon to remove him
Comments
Where do you draw the line.
Would you imprison a suspected killer without any evidence in order to save lives?
Would you imprison an innocent person if it would save others lives?
I wouldn't. I regret accepting lockdown last year and I certainly can't accept it post-vaccines.
I won't write an essay. I'm on my phone now. Suffice it to say that I don't think the Government will dare to lock down (mass rebellion of backbenchers, leadership crisis, much of country will ignore it,) hospitalisations (which will get bad) are less critical if the stays are of lower severity and shorter duration, and they probably know that a lockdown won't do much good anyway.
Let's not melt into a hot puddle whenever a newspaper publishes a new piece of clickbait.
Long story short, whatever happens over the next week or two is probably inevitable, even in Boris did a Sad Serious Speech tonight. And the possibilities are either a short high spike that stops just before the system starts to break, or a short high spike that stops just afterwards.
Good luck everyone.
Post-vaccinations its most definitely not what we're facing now though. Nothing close to it.
As we shake Delta out the incidental rate may go as high as 70%, especially as the case rate goes up to 1/15 everywhere. It's a shame that this series doesn't go back to the Alpha wave and isn't included in the dashboard but in a relatively hidden NHS weekly release.
robinkim.eth (Smiling face with horns,Smiling face with halo)
@swaglord__420
the first thing our new hire did was fix a bug that's been bugging him forever as a user prior to joining.
he then breathed a sigh of relief and submitted his two weeks' notice. wtf??
Our taxes going to help Andrew and we'd have a new Oliver Cromwell by the morning.
China is building massive hospitals in 48 hours
"西安市 航空學院 連夜建方仓醫院
Xi'an Aeronautical College built Fangcang Hospital overnight"
https://twitter.com/yulin18494807/status/1477208077787090946?s=20
And the lockdown in Xi'an sounds fucking brutal
"Comer una vez cada tres días, el drama de estar confinado en Xian por un brote de coronavirus ➡ Desde la pasada semana, las autoridades de China ordenaron el confinamiento de la ciudad de trece millones de habitantes por un repunte de casos de covid-19
Eating once every three days, the drama of being confined in Xian by a coronavirus outbreak ➡ Since last week, the Chinese authorities ordered the confinement of the city of thirteen million inhabitants due to a rebound in cases of covid- 19"
https://twitter.com/larazon_es/status/1477304867106562051?s=20
WTF is going on in China? Are they really doing this in reaction to "150 cases a day"??
Heaven help us all if this new libertarian approach is still held by the Tory backbenchers and if they are still top dogs when Ebola comes calling.
I know you don't see it that way, but your entire view on this is extremist. For instance your (*) view that no-one ever had any life under lockdown.
(*) Under your previous iteration
Who are you and I to interfere with that?
Our daughter in law told us today that most every parent in her sons 8 year old class has gone down with omicron but throughout their social media and facebook pages not one has needed to see a doctor let alone be hospitalised
Indeed across our family and friends just nobody knows anyone who has gone into hospital
It does seem to be rampant but with high boosters and so many recovering surely it must be near peak
Off topic.
I didn't off topic you even if I am somewhat skeptical of your "deep knowledge".
COVID is now a personal risk, it's up to individuals to get vaccinated and reduce their risk of hospitalisation and death. Our freedoms cannot be curtailed to prevent the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. There's no argument you can make on "deaths" wrt lockdowns. There's a possible one on healthcare capacity in the short term but not on deaths. We've all had the chance to be vaccinated and to get boosters. You may be ok to lockdown to protect stupid people from their poor decisions, that's your personal choice, trying to impose that on the rest of us is ridiculous.
Ultimately, we don't lockdown or curtail freedoms to protect people from dying of the flu and for a triple jabbed person this is not even as deadly as the flu.
So what has total lockdown achieved? Apart from crushing their economy and their spirits over Xmas?
I can just about believe - maybe - that they are reacting with extreme measures of quarantine to a few cases because of their fanatical zero Covid approach. But you don't build an entire hospital in a weekend unless you have serious trouble
The new museum that Garfield Weston has built for it is absolutely incredible. Quite possibly the best museum for anything that I have been to (and I’ve been to a lot over the years). Really extraordinary
And the point you're missing is that it isn't just the deaths of those who chose not to get vaccinated. It's all of us. Heaven forfend, if you have a heart attack whilst out with your mates at the pub, or I'd got hit by a lorry whilst running earlier, we'd hope for excellent treatment in hospital. We won't get those things if the hospital system collapses.
I'm not calling for a lockdown. I am saying that lockdowns should remain in our arsenal for dealing with it. Hopefully they will not be required.
Cromwell wasn't against monarchs, just against monarchs who were not called Cromwell. Against the hereditary principle, but what an amazing coincidence who happened to be the best person to succeed him. What are the odds of that?
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1477364363673706496?s=20
Its supposed to be Delta right, not Omicron? But their vaccines are shit, so perhaps thats the panic.
There's a lot of tools in the arsenal that don't require lockdowns and push the consequences of vaccine refusal onto vaccine refusers.
Officials say the outbreak is the Delta variant of Covid and have not mentioned Omicron.
State media have been reporting this week that Xi'an is facing a "dual epidemic" as there have been "several reported cases of haemorrhagic fever, a natural epidemic disease with a high fatality rate". However, this is reported as being a "common" seasonal disease in northern China, and predominantly concentrated in rural areas.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-59743487
The Italian situation suggests that measures short of hard lockdown are very likely to be ineffectual.
I'll take it you are now in the 'no lockdown ever' group?
Therefore, you can be admitted for a heart attack, have COVID, and therefore not be in a condition to be released for a longer time than without. This applies to pretty much every condition. Your body can't heal as quickly fighting on multiple fronts.
I actually see the incidental cases as probably more worrying in terms of pressures. You've got all the infection control, plus longer recovery times than normal.
But I am not sure anybody would be surprised if the leadership have had Pfizer.
The variables on hospitalisations must be considerable from those admitted for non covid reasons, and those directly because of covid
Additionally we are all entitled to know the age cohorts, their vaccination status, the regions with the highest admissions, length of stay and the percentage of omicron patients in ICU and sadly deaths directly from omicron
This is not a political point it is one of treating the population with respect and helping support for decisions or indeed non
I believe omicron is absolutely going through the population like wildfire and of course the number of NHS staff off due to omicron is a factor but do we really need future restrictions
I would ask, provide the detail and take us with you
BTW, I've always wanted to see the Vasa. Apparently it makes the Mary Rose look unimpressive:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)
Cromwell was awesome, as I'd expect some who attended Sidney Sussex.
While there is a certain karma about it exploding in China, it is not the fault of hundreds of millions of ordinary Chinese.
"xi'an city
Another video about workers toiling day and night to build this covid quarantine camp.
2022/1/1"
https://twitter.com/songpinganq/status/1477379289439997953?s=20
This bleak little vid is meant to cheer Chinese people up:
"this is food provided by CPC, it is delivered directly to each family in Xian city....
this is how CPC "starves" 13 million people in the city lockdown"
https://twitter.com/Chinatech_kl/status/1477175790098083841?s=20
Twitter implies you are right: the Xi'an lockdown is even stricter than anything done in Wuhan in 2020
I'm not "no lockdown ever" if there was ever a variant that was as deadly as Delta but evaded vaccines completely I'd probably live with one while vaccines were adjusted and rolled out.
You've got yourself into the position of valuing a COVID death differently to a death from anything else. Plenty of people have previously died from the flu without receiving treatment. COVID should be the same now. Get vaccinated or risk death.
Now it might be they know their vaccines aren't going to do much against delta, hence the reaction. It could be the delta numbers are much higher than they are willing to admit. Could be both.
But the authorities are clearly much more concerned than previous similar (on paper) small outbreaks.
One of these days someone, somewhere will call the peak and be proved right.
Fortunately I have faith in tne mps to ensure she is not in the final two sent to the membership
Though it didn't just allegedly happen in the UK anyway.
Put the boot on the other foot. If an 11 year old were trafficked from the UK and abused in say Thailand or Pakistan then would we view it as a crime? IANAL but I believe that we would.
The fact she was 17 makes her a child under Federal American statutes.
https://twitter.com/MoS_Politics/status/1477384439072182278
Looking at the dashboard, ignoring those who have chosen not to have any vaccination, there are 17 million (or roughly a third of the total) who have had one or two vaccinations but not three. Of those, 4 million have had one vaccination but not two.
Clearly, a number of these will have contracted Omicron and that means vaccination appointments postponed so it may not be as it seems (is it ever with data?).
Let’s say that you have 5 spare icu beds. Over the following week there are 5 unvaxxed covid patients who need them. Do you leave them empty?
If not and then a cardiac patient comes in needing one do you kick a covid patient out?
I’m not sure it is feasible (or ethical) to do either of those
The only point triage is possible is if there is one empty bed with simultaneous demand from unvaxxed covid vs another allowing you to make a choice
My wild guess looking at these videos is: Omicron. They've got a population with very little natural immunity, they know their vaccines are iffy (and 2 isn't enough) they know Omicron infects EVERYONE very soon, and they known there will be lots and lots of patients, even if fewer die than with Delta
But we shall see. Such a bleak echo of 2020
They have been found that they don't offer much protection, especially in older people and they wane really fast (and this was against common old school COVID). They aren't going to do jack against Omicron.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02796-w
Chile gave people one of these, found it didn't really work and now I believe everybody has had up to 4 jabs i.e. at least 2 Pfizer.
At the end of the day it is still Her Majesty's government Boris leads
There was none of this by businesses in the 2020 or early 2021 lockdowns. The law has fallen into disrepute and people are learning that they have the right to choose which laws they follow and which they don't. These are not helpful lessons.
It was designed personally by the king who had strong views on what made a ship look pretty (eg the V shape rather than a rounded berth) but he wasn’t a shipwright…
What isn't reasonable is saying that any number of deaths is worth an individual's freedom.
I'm also not calling for a lockdown at the moment; just that lockdowns should remain in the toolbox.
So please don't misrepresent me.
Ignoring the age difference. If a 17 or 18 year old lad had had sex with her after meeting her at a London nightclub would we consider it reasonable that they should be subject to prosecution for something that is not a crime in this country?
Indeed the indications were there in the pre Christmas sub samples
There are lots of small measures that can have a decent sized impact - like mask wearing on public transport (given that is the one time people are likely to be mixing with large numbers of other people of various ages in a cramped and poorly ventilated space). That's a government restriction that doesn't seem totally unwarranted in the current environment. Now, will it make a massive difference? No. But it might mean that five people in a tube carriage get infected, not 40. And that means the pressure on hospitals is spread over a slightly longer period, and therefore they can cope.
I don't think that's an unreasonable restriction. It's not banning indoor socialising or seeing your friends or closing businesses down. It's a recognition that some situations are inherently high risk and that we might want to put some mitigation measures in place.
As far as I am concerned it looks anti British bias and especially anti British royal family bias
Watch the Netherlands.