Paul Nuki @PaulNuki THREAD 1/10 I'm sorry to say it on New Year's Day, but I think there is a serious chance now that the UK government's omicron gamble is about to go tits up....
I imagine on top of the scandals, there are a hell of a lot of people who are pretty damn grumpy at the moment. Its winter, been told to get jabbed, been told to get boostered and yet everybody and their dog is getting COVID, which means everybody in their household isolating etc. Few people like the idea of being stuck in their house for 7-10 days.
Yes. And what people heard for the past year was our world beating vaccine programme was an end to COVID. Yet every bugger and their aunt has had it in the past 3 weeks, or has it now, or will have it in January. That has not passed unnoticed.
How many have had it and been seriously ill ending in hospital or death?
And how many have had it as a cough, cold or manflu? That we have every winter in normal circumstances anyway?
The vaccine making the virus another common cold is the vaccine working and time to abolish all restrictions that don't apply to any other common cold virus.
You're answering a point I haven't made again. I repeat. We have been told for a year that our world beating vaccines were an end to COVID. That's what everyone heard. Yet everyone has it. It is yet another lie from Boris.
What will No 10 do in response the apparent cratering collapse in polling?
I expect the NI rise to be ditched within weeks. Social care plans abandoned, as they appear to favour southern home owners. Action on energy costs: maybe drop VAT for a year or two? Reshuffle to bring in a couple of Red Wall 2019 MPs into Cabinet. Northern Powerhouse rail or whatever HS3 was called to be back being built again.
Any other ideas?
I would guess some sort of focussed levelling up initiative is on the cards.
iirg Gove's white paper on levelling up was kicked back into the long grass as it was vacuous long term waffle.
No idea but maybe they realised that it wasn't going to be easy to just change the entire structure of local government, introduce a new tier of elected mayors etc. Maybe other things are more important at the moment.
I imagine on top of the scandals, there are a hell of a lot of people who are pretty damn grumpy at the moment. Its winter, been told to get jabbed, been told to get boostered and yet everybody and their dog is getting COVID, which means everybody in their household isolating etc. Few people like the idea of being stuck in their house for 7-10 days.
Yes. And what people heard for the past year was our world beating vaccine programme was an end to COVID. Yet every bugger and their aunt has had it in the past 3 weeks, or has it now, or will have it in January. That has not passed unnoticed.
How many have had it and been seriously ill ending in hospital or death?
And how many have had it as a cough, cold or manflu? That we have every winter in normal circumstances anyway?
The vaccine making the virus another common cold is the vaccine working and time to abolish all restrictions that don't apply to any other common cold virus.
"Cholera is nothing to worry about because for some folk it's just a morning after a vindaloo."
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.
That becomes an ethical issue.
You are saying “I have spare capacity but I am not going to treat you. You may die as a result”
I will let @Foxy comment, but I suspect most doctors would struggle with that
A fair percentage of the unvaxxed are mentally ill, others just fearful of anything during pregnancy, others regret their choice immediately. It is not ethical to refuse them treatment. Decisions made for treatment are based on algorithms of who will most likely survive and make a good recovery.
Agreed - I’ve not seen any data that suggests unvaccinated have poorer treatment prognosis (although I haven’t looked). Have you?
No, though it wouldn't surprise me if being unvaxxed also emerged as an adverse prognostic factor. After all they do have less in the way of protective immunity.
Be challenging to hit statistical significance though in a real world study given the number of confounding factors
Yes, I think so, but the ICNARC reports may produce that data. The Nov 15th report does show that the unvaxxed on ICU are younger and fewer other risk factors, but haven't looked at how this affects outcomes yet.
THREAD 1/10 I'm sorry to say it on New Year's Day, but I think there is a serious chance now that the UK government's omicron gamble is about to go tits up....
TL;DR: it's not very cheerful. About the best thing he says is that there's no point in new restrictions. The surge is now in the post. The next two weeks are gonna be rough
Interesting that the Telegraph headline is calling it "Boris's gamble".
A bit harsh, given that (by all accounts) it was forced on him by Rishi, Liz, JRM etc. Responsibility without power and all that...
But also, if it wasn't leading to an NHS-Stepmom-Pornhub scenario, would BoJo be being set up as the scapegoat for what is to come?
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.
That becomes an ethical issue.
You are saying “I have spare capacity but I am not going to treat you. You may die as a result”
I will let @Foxy comment, but I suspect most doctors would struggle with that
A fair percentage of the unvaxxed are mentally ill, others just fearful of anything during pregnancy, others regret their choice immediately. It is not ethical to refuse them treatment. Decisions made for treatment are based on algorithms of who will most likely survive and make a good recovery.
Agreed - I’ve not seen any data that suggests unvaccinated have poorer treatment prognosis (although I haven’t looked). Have you?
No, though it wouldn't surprise me if being unvaxxed also emerged as an adverse prognostic factor. After all they do have less in the way of protective immunity.
I thought US data was showing that in this wave (which is the US is still an omicron/delta mix) the unvaxxed were 4x more likely to get symptomatic COVID, but 10x more likely to require hospitalization and 10x more likely to die than the vexed.
Yes, that is all true.
What I am mooting is that of two hypothetically equally sick patients with similar risk factors the unvaxxed one may also do worse.
Working purely from basic principles, I am not sure you can say that. If they are equally sick once the adaptive immune system has kicked in, their vaccine status is already baked in.
Possibly so, but that may not prove to be the case when all the numbers are in.
I imagine on top of the scandals, there are a hell of a lot of people who are pretty damn grumpy at the moment. Its winter, been told to get jabbed, been told to get boostered and yet everybody and their dog is getting COVID, which means everybody in their household isolating etc. Few people like the idea of being stuck in their house for 7-10 days.
Yes. And what people heard for the past year was our world beating vaccine programme was an end to COVID. Yet every bugger and their aunt has had it in the past 3 weeks, or has it now, or will have it in January. That has not passed unnoticed.
How many have had it and been seriously ill ending in hospital or death?
And how many have had it as a cough, cold or manflu? That we have every winter in normal circumstances anyway?
The vaccine making the virus another common cold is the vaccine working and time to abolish all restrictions that don't apply to any other common cold virus.
You're answering a point I haven't made again. I repeat. We have been told for a year that our world beating vaccines were an end to COVID. That's what everyone heard. Yet everyone has it. It is yet another lie from Boris.
Nobody ever said it was an end to Covid, but either way its not a lie. The Covid19 we had has gone, the common cold has replaced it.
Its time to accept that Covid19 is mostly just another common cold strain for the triple vaccinated. Yes that can be fatal to the extremely vulnerable and for everyone else it can be quite unpleasant for a few days at home but that's true of the original common cold strains too.
THREAD 1/10 I'm sorry to say it on New Year's Day, but I think there is a serious chance now that the UK government's omicron gamble is about to go tits up....
TL;DR: it's not very cheerful. About the best thing he says is that there's no point in new restrictions. The surge is now in the post. The next two weeks are gonna be rough
Interesting that the Telegraph headline is calling it "Boris's gamble".
A bit harsh, given that (by all accounts) it was forced on him by Rishi, Liz, JRM etc. Responsibility without power and all that...
But also, if it wasn't leading to an NHS-Stepmom-Pornhub scenario, would BoJo be being set up as the scapegoat for what is to come?
There will be no more restrictions on the vaccinated allowed by any Tory PM any Tory leader who tries would lose a VONC
I imagine on top of the scandals, there are a hell of a lot of people who are pretty damn grumpy at the moment. Its winter, been told to get jabbed, been told to get boostered and yet everybody and their dog is getting COVID, which means everybody in their household isolating etc. Few people like the idea of being stuck in their house for 7-10 days.
Yes. And what people heard for the past year was our world beating vaccine programme was an end to COVID. Yet every bugger and their aunt has had it in the past 3 weeks, or has it now, or will have it in January. That has not passed unnoticed.
How many have had it and been seriously ill ending in hospital or death?
And how many have had it as a cough, cold or manflu? That we have every winter in normal circumstances anyway?
The vaccine making the virus another common cold is the vaccine working and time to abolish all restrictions that don't apply to any other common cold virus.
You're answering a point I haven't made again. I repeat. We have been told for a year that our world beating vaccines were an end to COVID. That's what everyone heard. Yet everyone has it. It is yet another lie from Boris.
Nobody ever said it was an end to Covid, but either way its not a lie. The Covid19 we had has gone, the common cold has replaced it.
Its time to accept that Covid19 is mostly just another common cold strain for the triple vaccinated. Yes that can be fatal to the extremely vulnerable and for everyone else it can be quite unpleasant for a few days at home but that's true of the original common cold strains too.
Again. You're answering a different point. I'm not saying anyone said as much. I'm claiming that was what was heard.
A twitter account highly critical of the CCP, so to be treated with caution.
But look at the kit these Chinese officials are wearing. It looks worse than anything in Wuhan
看他们穿的这身自带氧气的装备，就感觉西安又隐瞒了疫情， 出血热难道比武汉肺炎防护等级高吗？ 我就感觉大事不妙，这个国家隐瞒常有，李文亮已经没有 Translated from Chinese by Seeing the oxygen-carrying equipment they were wearing, they felt that Xi'an had concealed the epidemic again. Is the level of protection against hemorrhagic fever higher than that of Wuhan pneumonia? I feel that big things are not good, this country often hides things, Li Wenliang no longer
Is this video even from Xi'an? Right now it is cold and wintry in Xi'an, a northern city. This doesn't look wintry. But then they also look like they are on the moon, so who knows
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.
That becomes an ethical issue.
You are saying “I have spare capacity but I am not going to treat you. You may die as a result”
I will let @Foxy comment, but I suspect most doctors would struggle with that
A fair percentage of the unvaxxed are mentally ill, others just fearful of anything during pregnancy, others regret their choice immediately. It is not ethical to refuse them treatment. Decisions made for treatment are based on algorithms of who will most likely survive and make a good recovery.
Agreed - I’ve not seen any data that suggests unvaccinated have poorer treatment prognosis (although I haven’t looked). Have you?
No, though it wouldn't surprise me if being unvaxxed also emerged as an adverse prognostic factor. After all they do have less in the way of protective immunity.
Be challenging to hit statistical significance though in a real world study given the number of confounding factors
Why "challenging"? In a "real world" study, as per the recent Scottish one, there is no dearth of degrees of freedom given the number of cases.
Real world studies are a nightmare in their own right. Then you need to control for genetics, background health and a whole bunch of other stuff to prove statistically that vaccine status is a driver of outcomes
If you have data on those variables then there is no difficulty with statistical significance if there really is a relationship there. Your comment implied insufficient degrees of freedom, but in, effectively, a population level study that is hardly an issue.
Post Brexit this Government is rockin', set aside subsidies for British Farmers and mass immigration to counter employmrnt shortfalls. It's like we never left the EU. Except for the trade impedance with our nearest and most prolific trading partners.
I imagine on top of the scandals, there are a hell of a lot of people who are pretty damn grumpy at the moment. Its winter, been told to get jabbed, been told to get boostered and yet everybody and their dog is getting COVID, which means everybody in their household isolating etc. Few people like the idea of being stuck in their house for 7-10 days.
Yes. And what people heard for the past year was our world beating vaccine programme was an end to COVID. Yet every bugger and their aunt has had it in the past 3 weeks, or has it now, or will have it in January. That has not passed unnoticed.
How many have had it and been seriously ill ending in hospital or death?
And how many have had it as a cough, cold or manflu? That we have every winter in normal circumstances anyway?
The vaccine making the virus another common cold is the vaccine working and time to abolish all restrictions that don't apply to any other common cold virus.
You're answering a point I haven't made again. I repeat. We have been told for a year that our world beating vaccines were an end to COVID. That's what everyone heard. Yet everyone has it. It is yet another lie from Boris.
Nobody ever said it was an end to Covid, but either way its not a lie. The Covid19 we had has gone, the common cold has replaced it.
Its time to accept that Covid19 is mostly just another common cold strain for the triple vaccinated. Yes that can be fatal to the extremely vulnerable and for everyone else it can be quite unpleasant for a few days at home but that's true of the original common cold strains too.
Again. You're answering a different point. I'm not saying anyone said as much. I'm claiming that was what was heard.
Well if people heard something so unbelievable, despite Whitty and the PM etc saying that this wasn't going anywhere and we were all going to get it, then that's their own foolishness.
The introduction of restrictions with Plan B etc is something that should have gone away due to vaccines and should rapidly be reversed. The virus isn't going away though, its never going away. We should just be able to live with it as we live with every other endemic virus.
"Xi'an, what are you doing?!" An outpouring of anger and disbelief on Weibo this sleepless night as residents from a covid affected community, including seniors and small kids, were suddenly relocated to a bleak quarantine location without any supplies."
Omicron is the CCP's worst nightmare. Something they cannot control.
Yes. The CCP looks serenely secure and masterly, controlling Covid with an iron fist, blah blah
But all police states look totally secure, until they suddenly don't, and then they can fall quite quickly
That said I am unconvinced this will topple Xi. The Chinese have gotten rich quick and very many will still be grateful....
They do have a number of other things going on e.g. the collapse of giant real estate companies, which is the only avenue most Chinese people have to invest their money.
I am sure they are very concerned a number of stars might align.
It would be fecking ironic with knobs if the virus they almost certainly leaked by mistake from their own Frankenstein labs ends up ending the CCP.
I hope the Government are planning to take advantage of China’s difficulties, both commercially and politically. How about subsidies to build large chip factories, possibly in the red wall?
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.
That becomes an ethical issue.
You are saying “I have spare capacity but I am not going to treat you. You may die as a result”
I will let @Foxy comment, but I suspect most doctors would struggle with that
A fair percentage of the unvaxxed are mentally ill, others just fearful of anything during pregnancy, others regret their choice immediately. It is not ethical to refuse them treatment. Decisions made for treatment are based on algorithms of who will most likely survive and make a good recovery.
Agreed - I’ve not seen any data that suggests unvaccinated have poorer treatment prognosis (although I haven’t looked). Have you?
No, though it wouldn't surprise me if being unvaxxed also emerged as an adverse prognostic factor. After all they do have less in the way of protective immunity.
Be challenging to hit statistical significance though in a real world study given the number of confounding factors
Why "challenging"? In a "real world" study, as per the recent Scottish one, there is no dearth of degrees of freedom given the number of cases.
Real world studies are a nightmare in their own right. Then you need to control for genetics, background health and a whole bunch of other stuff to prove statistically that vaccine status is a driver of outcomes
Not my field at all, but isn't the whole idea of a randomized test that you don't have to control for all those other factors provided both the control and the test group a similarly structured?
It's similar to the immigration from India argument. What's said doesn't matter. Only what is heard. Particularly by folk who don't pay much attention. It is a fundamental of good messaging. And of course. The basic flaw in Brexit. Folk heard what they wanted. And remembered that bit.
I imagine on top of the scandals, there are a hell of a lot of people who are pretty damn grumpy at the moment. Its winter, been told to get jabbed, been told to get boostered and yet everybody and their dog is getting COVID, which means everybody in their household isolating etc. Few people like the idea of being stuck in their house for 7-10 days.
Yes. And what people heard for the past year was our world beating vaccine programme was an end to COVID. Yet every bugger and their aunt has had it in the past 3 weeks, or has it now, or will have it in January. That has not passed unnoticed.
How many have had it and been seriously ill ending in hospital or death?
And how many have had it as a cough, cold or manflu? That we have every winter in normal circumstances anyway?
The vaccine making the virus another common cold is the vaccine working and time to abolish all restrictions that don't apply to any other common cold virus.
You're answering a point I haven't made again. I repeat. We have been told for a year that our world beating vaccines were an end to COVID. That's what everyone heard. Yet everyone has it. It is yet another lie from Boris.
Nobody ever said it was an end to Covid, but either way its not a lie. The Covid19 we had has gone, the common cold has replaced it.
Its time to accept that Covid19 is mostly just another common cold strain for the triple vaccinated. Yes that can be fatal to the extremely vulnerable and for everyone else it can be quite unpleasant for a few days at home but that's true of the original common cold strains too.
Does 1 person in 60 get admitted to hospital when they have a common cold?
It's similar to the immigration from India argument. What's said doesn't matter. Only what is heard. Particularly by folk who don't pay much attention. It is a fundamental of good messaging.
And if we get through the next month with "Covid" being no worse than man flu for the vaccinated population then that will be proof positive that Covid19 has gone away and the virus that caused Covid19 now causes the cold instead.
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.
That becomes an ethical issue.
You are saying “I have spare capacity but I am not going to treat you. You may die as a result”
I will let @Foxy comment, but I suspect most doctors would struggle with that
A fair percentage of the unvaxxed are mentally ill, others just fearful of anything during pregnancy, others regret their choice immediately. It is not ethical to refuse them treatment. Decisions made for treatment are based on algorithms of who will most likely survive and make a good recovery.
Agreed - I’ve not seen any data that suggests unvaccinated have poorer treatment prognosis (although I haven’t looked). Have you?
No, though it wouldn't surprise me if being unvaxxed also emerged as an adverse prognostic factor. After all they do have less in the way of protective immunity.
Be challenging to hit statistical significance though in a real world study given the number of confounding factors
Why "challenging"? In a "real world" study, as per the recent Scottish one, there is no dearth of degrees of freedom given the number of cases.
Real world studies are a nightmare in their own right. Then you need to control for genetics, background health and a whole bunch of other stuff to prove statistically that vaccine status is a driver of outcomes
Not my field at all, but isn't the whole idea of a randomized test that you don't have to control for all those other factors provided both the control and the test group a similarly structured?
Yes, but this is an observational study, not an RCT, so subject to unrecognised confounding variables
I imagine on top of the scandals, there are a hell of a lot of people who are pretty damn grumpy at the moment. Its winter, been told to get jabbed, been told to get boostered and yet everybody and their dog is getting COVID, which means everybody in their household isolating etc. Few people like the idea of being stuck in their house for 7-10 days.
Yes. And what people heard for the past year was our world beating vaccine programme was an end to COVID. Yet every bugger and their aunt has had it in the past 3 weeks, or has it now, or will have it in January. That has not passed unnoticed.
But very, very few have died. Or even got unpleasantly ill.
That has not passed unnoticed.
Except by the dumb fucks who won't get jabbed.
Covid daths are not too worrysome a political collateral for Boris. The NHS falling over however would be bad news for him.
A twitter account highly critical of the CCP, so to be treated with caution.
But look at the kit these Chinese officials are wearing. It looks worse than anything in Wuhan
看他们穿的这身自带氧气的装备，就感觉西安又隐瞒了疫情， 出血热难道比武汉肺炎防护等级高吗？ 我就感觉大事不妙，这个国家隐瞒常有，李文亮已经没有 Translated from Chinese by Seeing the oxygen-carrying equipment they were wearing, they felt that Xi'an had concealed the epidemic again. Is the level of protection against hemorrhagic fever higher than that of Wuhan pneumonia? I feel that big things are not good, this country often hides things, Li Wenliang no longer
Is this video even from Xi'an? Right now it is cold and wintry in Xi'an, a northern city. This doesn't look wintry. But then they also look like they are on the moon, so who knows
Tree have leaves on......that doesn't seem likely in January.
I think there are good reasons why you wouldn't want hospital staff turning up to work while Covid positive, even if Covid itself is not directly a major concern, it is more likely to be so for people in hospital about to have surgery and receive general anaesthetic, or people generally who are sick enough to need to be in hospital for other reasons. So, excepting for the standalone Boris Wards for the Covid patients, I would still want hospital staff to stay away from work if Covid positive, but not unwell as such.
That doesn't apply to, say, distribution, or electricity generation, etc.
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.
That becomes an ethical issue.
You are saying “I have spare capacity but I am not going to treat you. You may die as a result”
I will let @Foxy comment, but I suspect most doctors would struggle with that
A fair percentage of the unvaxxed are mentally ill, others just fearful of anything during pregnancy, others regret their choice immediately. It is not ethical to refuse them treatment. Decisions made for treatment are based on algorithms of who will most likely survive and make a good recovery.
Agreed - I’ve not seen any data that suggests unvaccinated have poorer treatment prognosis (although I haven’t looked). Have you?
No, though it wouldn't surprise me if being unvaxxed also emerged as an adverse prognostic factor. After all they do have less in the way of protective immunity.
I thought US data was showing that in this wave (which is the US is still an omicron/delta mix) the unvaxxed were 4x more likely to get symptomatic COVID, but 10x more likely to require hospitalization and 10x more likely to die than the vexed.
Yes, that is all true.
What I am mooting is that of two hypothetically equally sick patients with similar risk factors the unvaxxed one may also do worse.
Working purely from basic principles, I am not sure you can say that. If they are equally sick once the adaptive immune system has kicked in, their vaccine status is already baked in.
Possibly so, but that may not prove to be the case when all the numbers are in.
Agreed. And timing might be an issue too - on what day relative to the adaptive immune system kicking in are they equally sick. The T-cell responses may not ramp up at the same rate - which could go either way for the prognosis.
"Xi'an, what are you doing?!" An outpouring of anger and disbelief on Weibo this sleepless night as residents from a covid affected community, including seniors and small kids, were suddenly relocated to a bleak quarantine location without any supplies."
Omicron is the CCP's worst nightmare. Something they cannot control.
Yes. The CCP looks serenely secure and masterly, controlling Covid with an iron fist, blah blah
But all police states look totally secure, until they suddenly don't, and then they can fall quite quickly
That said I am unconvinced this will topple Xi. The Chinese have gotten rich quick and very many will still be grateful....
They do have a number of other things going on e.g. the collapse of giant real estate companies, which is the only avenue most Chinese people have to invest their money.
I am sure they are very concerned a number of stars might align.
It would be fecking ironic with knobs if the virus they almost certainly leaked by mistake from their own Frankenstein labs ends up ending the CCP.
I hope the Government are planning to take advantage of China’s difficulties, both commercially and politically. How about subsidies to build large chip factories, possibly in the red wall?
They should have been doing this as soon as they decided the Chinese were too big a strategic risk to use Huawei in the 5G network, or they had another opportunity to realise that when there were so many issues sourcing PPE from China in spring 2020. I hope they don't fail, yet again, to take steps that have long since seemed to be blindingly obvious.
Just catching up to find my hopes for 2022 have already been cast into oblivion. I had hoped that 2022 would be the year that people stopped banging on about Brexit. Not a chance, evidently. Amazing.
Though I do suspect that banging on about Europe/Brexit has now become more harmful to the Tories than the opposition. It'd be hilarious if Brexit/immigration led to disastrous Tory divisions yet again. And it might, if/when Covid goes off the boil.
If 115,000 NHS staff are off because of Covid then I very much hope the death rate won't increase substantially over the next week or two or three.
That figure alone shows why all HCW should be wearing FFP3, and visiting needs to be quite restricted too to prevent hospital transmission. Preventing spread in hospital is essential to keep the gears turning.
"Living with Covid" doesn't mean ignoring it, it requires sensible snd proportionate mitigations that minimally impact on freedom and society.
The weird flu-y outbreak in Xian which has only infected about 150 people a day, yet has sent the Chinese into a headspin and made them grimly lockdown 13 million people with special apartment welding kits and personnel who looked dressed for a landing on the sun might NOT be horrible hemmorhagic fever, a disease caught from mice in the viral family of Ebola
No, instead it might be a new variant of Covid which simply has the same effect as hemmorhagic fever but is much more infectious. So that's alright then!
“My personal guess is that hemorrhagic fever can’t be so transmissible. I’m afraid a new variant of Wuhan virus has emerged, and after getting infected, the illness resembles hemorrhagic fever,” the tweet reads.
As of 2:00 a.m. on Dec. 20, the topic of “multiple cases of hemorrhagic fever in Xi’an” on Weibo has attracted 280 million people and 4,483 discussions."
From my conversations, the overwhelming attitude is that people aren't very sick because omicron is "mild". Not because the vaccines work. In fact. A great number have decided they don't.
If 115,000 NHS staff are off because of Covid then I very much hope the death rate won't increase substantially over the next week or two or three.
Have they invented any tests yet that can differentiate between Omicron and other variants?
Yes, but sequencing takes time and is only done on a sample of PCR tests, hence why the government's published data is always out of date and incomplete, at least mid wave.
From my conversations, the overwhelming attitude is that people aren't very sick because omicron is "mild". Not because the vaccines work. In fact. A great number have decided they don't.
A twitter account highly critical of the CCP, so to be treated with caution.
But look at the kit these Chinese officials are wearing. It looks worse than anything in Wuhan
看他们穿的这身自带氧气的装备，就感觉西安又隐瞒了疫情， 出血热难道比武汉肺炎防护等级高吗？ 我就感觉大事不妙，这个国家隐瞒常有，李文亮已经没有 Translated from Chinese by Seeing the oxygen-carrying equipment they were wearing, they felt that Xi'an had concealed the epidemic again. Is the level of protection against hemorrhagic fever higher than that of Wuhan pneumonia? I feel that big things are not good, this country often hides things, Li Wenliang no longer
Is this video even from Xi'an? Right now it is cold and wintry in Xi'an, a northern city. This doesn't look wintry. But then they also look like they are on the moon, so who knows
Tree have leaves on......that doesn't seem likely in January.
Yep. Tho maybe an evergreen?
FWIW the same photos are used across multiple accounts, all saying these are real images of Xi'an, but in the tidal wave of misinfo that spills out of China, from the Party AND its opponents, who the F can say
However there IS enough hard evidence, some of it from official Chinese sources reluctantly admitting the truth, that something quite nasty and quite scary is potentially unfolding in Xi'an. I wonder if the authorities really know what it is, themselves, yet. A new variant? Delta? Omicron?
If 115,000 NHS staff are off because of Covid then I very much hope the death rate won't increase substantially over the next week or two or three.
That figure alone shows why all HCW should be wearing FFP3, and visiting needs to be quite restricted too to prevent hospital transmission. Preventing spread in hospital is essential to keep the gears turning.
"Living with Covid" doesn't mean ignoring it, it requires sensible snd proportionate mitigations that minimally impact on freedom and society.
What will No 10 do in response the apparent cratering collapse in polling?
I expect the NI rise to be ditched within weeks. Social care plans abandoned, as they appear to favour southern home owners. Action on energy costs: maybe drop VAT for a year or two? Reshuffle to bring in a couple of Red Wall 2019 MPs into Cabinet. Northern Powerhouse rail or whatever HS3 was called to be back being built again.
Any other ideas?
Sack Boris.....
Proportional Property Tax, which gives Red Wallers several hundred a year off local taxes, and Southern NIMBYs the abolition of Stamp Duty.
A twitter account highly critical of the CCP, so to be treated with caution.
But look at the kit these Chinese officials are wearing. It looks worse than anything in Wuhan
看他们穿的这身自带氧气的装备，就感觉西安又隐瞒了疫情， 出血热难道比武汉肺炎防护等级高吗？ 我就感觉大事不妙，这个国家隐瞒常有，李文亮已经没有 Translated from Chinese by Seeing the oxygen-carrying equipment they were wearing, they felt that Xi'an had concealed the epidemic again. Is the level of protection against hemorrhagic fever higher than that of Wuhan pneumonia? I feel that big things are not good, this country often hides things, Li Wenliang no longer
Is this video even from Xi'an? Right now it is cold and wintry in Xi'an, a northern city. This doesn't look wintry. But then they also look like they are on the moon, so who knows
Tree have leaves on......that doesn't seem likely in January.
Yep. Tho maybe an evergreen?
FWIW the same photos are used across multiple accounts, all saying these are real images of Xi'an, but in the tidal wave of misinfo that spills out of China, from the Party AND its opponents, who the F can say
However there IS enough hard evidence, some of it from official Chinese sources reluctantly admitting the truth, that something quite nasty and quite scary is potentially unfolding in Xi'an. I wonder if the authorities really know what it is, themselves, yet. A new variant? Delta? Omicron?
Occams razor says Omicron plus no natural immunity plus little protection from vaccines plus 13 million people packed in.
A twitter account highly critical of the CCP, so to be treated with caution.
But look at the kit these Chinese officials are wearing. It looks worse than anything in Wuhan
看他们穿的这身自带氧气的装备，就感觉西安又隐瞒了疫情， 出血热难道比武汉肺炎防护等级高吗？ 我就感觉大事不妙，这个国家隐瞒常有，李文亮已经没有 Translated from Chinese by Seeing the oxygen-carrying equipment they were wearing, they felt that Xi'an had concealed the epidemic again. Is the level of protection against hemorrhagic fever higher than that of Wuhan pneumonia? I feel that big things are not good, this country often hides things, Li Wenliang no longer
Is this video even from Xi'an? Right now it is cold and wintry in Xi'an, a northern city. This doesn't look wintry. But then they also look like they are on the moon, so who knows
Tree have leaves on......that doesn't seem likely in January.
Yep. Tho maybe an evergreen?
FWIW the same photos are used across multiple accounts, all saying these are real images of Xi'an, but in the tidal wave of misinfo that spills out of China, from the Party AND its opponents, who the F can say
However there IS enough hard evidence, some of it from official Chinese sources reluctantly admitting the truth, that something quite nasty and quite scary is potentially unfolding in Xi'an. I wonder if the authorities really know what it is, themselves, yet. A new variant? Delta? Omicron?
The one thing we have to hope is its not some entirely unconnected Covid22 they've just unleashed Wuhan style and which our vaccines won't be at all related to affecting.
Just catching up to find my hopes for 2022 have already been cast into oblivion. I had hoped that 2022 would be the year that people stopped banging on about Brexit. Not a chance, evidently. Amazing.
Though I do suspect that banging on about Europe/Brexit has now become more harmful to the Tories than the opposition. It'd be hilarious if Brexit/immigration led to disastrous Tory divisions yet again. And it might, if/when Covid goes off the boil.
Agree with you on that one. We require things to happen.
From my conversations, the overwhelming attitude is that people aren't very sick because omicron is "mild". Not because the vaccines work. In fact. A great number have decided they don't.
If you say to people the way out of this is to get vaccinated and it turns out that if people are vaccinated we still get locked down then you should expect some scepticism.
A twitter account highly critical of the CCP, so to be treated with caution.
But look at the kit these Chinese officials are wearing. It looks worse than anything in Wuhan
看他们穿的这身自带氧气的装备，就感觉西安又隐瞒了疫情， 出血热难道比武汉肺炎防护等级高吗？ 我就感觉大事不妙，这个国家隐瞒常有，李文亮已经没有 Translated from Chinese by Seeing the oxygen-carrying equipment they were wearing, they felt that Xi'an had concealed the epidemic again. Is the level of protection against hemorrhagic fever higher than that of Wuhan pneumonia? I feel that big things are not good, this country often hides things, Li Wenliang no longer
Is this video even from Xi'an? Right now it is cold and wintry in Xi'an, a northern city. This doesn't look wintry. But then they also look like they are on the moon, so who knows
Tree have leaves on......that doesn't seem likely in January.
Yep. Tho maybe an evergreen?
FWIW the same photos are used across multiple accounts, all saying these are real images of Xi'an, but in the tidal wave of misinfo that spills out of China, from the Party AND its opponents, who the F can say
However there IS enough hard evidence, some of it from official Chinese sources reluctantly admitting the truth, that something quite nasty and quite scary is potentially unfolding in Xi'an. I wonder if the authorities really know what it is, themselves, yet. A new variant? Delta? Omicron?
Occams razor says Omicron plus no natural immunity plus little protection from vaccines plus 13 million people packed in.
From my conversations, the overwhelming attitude is that people aren't very sick because omicron is "mild". Not because the vaccines work. In fact. A great number have decided they don't.
If you say to people the way out of this is to get vaccinated and it turns out that if people are vaccinated we still get locked down then you should expect some scepticism.
That's a very good point and why its utterly unacceptable under any circumstances to have post-vaccination lockdowns. 👍
From my conversations, the overwhelming attitude is that people aren't very sick because omicron is "mild". Not because the vaccines work. In fact. A great number have decided they don't.
Mrs PtP currently laid up with it. She describes it as 'Worse than a cold but not as bad as the flu'. She has had both jabs but not the booster which I suspect would have saved her from the infection, but she's not too bad and recovering nicely.
The media are going to be in full 'lock us down now' mode by Monday.
Monday.....are they going to be taking tomorrow off? I fully expect the usual suspects from SAGE and iSAGE speaking in a person capacity tomorrow.
Indeed. "Speaking in a personal capacity" has now joined "Rail bus replacement service" as dread words of the english language.
At least they're doing it up front. Which is more than you can say about much political news. For instance this stuff about Patel vs Truss. Which is about as convincing as the idea they're doing their fight in a mud bath.*
If 115,000 NHS staff are off because of Covid then I very much hope the death rate won't increase substantially over the next week or two or three.
That figure alone shows why all HCW should be wearing FFP3, and visiting needs to be quite restricted too to prevent hospital transmission. Preventing spread in hospital is essential to keep the gears turning.
"Living with Covid" doesn't mean ignoring it, it requires sensible snd proportionate mitigations that minimally impact on freedom and society.
So have they got Covid?
I don't know them all! In my Trust at present there are about 5% on sickness absence for non covid, and a similar number for covid.
My Trust has a reserved PCR testing site for staff, so tests can be available and turned around quickly.
From my conversations, the overwhelming attitude is that people aren't very sick because omicron is "mild". Not because the vaccines work. In fact. A great number have decided they don't.
If people think that, they're f***ing stupid.
You aren't that silly, are you?
I'm not saying they aren't. Most of my conversations are with the very poorly educated and totally uninterested. Unlike the majority on here, who seem to hang in different circles. I'm trying to put across what people have heard, remembered and what they are saying now. That's all. "How can I be positive when I've been vaccinated? What was the point? Not doing it again, they don't work. Boris lied." It isn't pointing to a government bounce that's for sure.
The problem for the Tories is that they've basically killed their chances of gaining any serious level of support among people who are generally socially liberal, working age, but not overly left-wing, who were open to voting Tory when judged it best for their wallet. If you're 30-40, don't own a home (or even if you do but are financially insecure), don't think Brexit is a good idea, and basically want to be left alone to get on with life without endless culture wars, why on Earth would you consider voting Tory? Those people were key for Cameron. Boris replaced them with leavers who have no particular loyalty to conservatism itself, but whose relationship is entirely based on whether they receive the promises made about Brexit. Fail, whether it's your own, Brexit's fault, or not, and you're in big trouble. It was masked in 2019 by the fact Corbyn was so toxic to anyone not heavily on the left, but has gradually unravelled over the past couple of years.
It's kind of a mirror image of the collapse of New Labour and losing people who should have been sympathetic to its goals, getting away with it for a while because its transactional vote held up, but then collapsing once those people decided they wouldn't deliver for them anymore. The formula worked as long as you were able to pinch certain voters who don't have much love for your general politics but who you promise certain things, but collapses in on itself when you can no longer make promises they believe, as under the radar you've just made your pool of voters more shallow.
From my conversations, the overwhelming attitude is that people aren't very sick because omicron is "mild". Not because the vaccines work. In fact. A great number have decided they don't.
If you say to people the way out of this is to get vaccinated and it turns out that if people are vaccinated we still get locked down then you should expect some scepticism.
That's a very good point and why its utterly unacceptable under any circumstances to have post-vaccination lockdowns. 👍
There might be a few other minor factors in the matter. Like the fact that if vaccinations really didn't work then you do need lockdowns.
From my conversations, the overwhelming attitude is that people aren't very sick because omicron is "mild". Not because the vaccines work. In fact. A great number have decided they don't.
Mrs PtP currently laid up with it. She describes it as 'Worse than a cold but not as bad as the flu'. She has had both jabs but not the booster which I suspect would have saved her from the infection, but she's not too bad and recovering nicely.
Good to here she is recovering,
Do you mind me asking why she did not get the booster?
If 115,000 NHS staff are off because of Covid then I very much hope the death rate won't increase substantially over the next week or two or three.
That figure alone shows why all HCW should be wearing FFP3, and visiting needs to be quite restricted too to prevent hospital transmission. Preventing spread in hospital is essential to keep the gears turning.
"Living with Covid" doesn't mean ignoring it, it requires sensible snd proportionate mitigations that minimally impact on freedom and society.
So have they got Covid?
I don't know them all! In my Trust at present there are about 5% on sickness absence for non covid, and a similar number for covid.
My Trust has a reserved PCR testing site for staff, so tests can be available and turned around quickly.
I hope everyone gets better and is back at work very soon.
No Patel is leading Tory opposition in Cabinet to this, Truss is pushing it, the Cabinet is divided on it
Please provide your link to the cabinet divide
Read the article, not difficult
The article says Patel is opposed to it but does not say anyone else is
Indeed the article says Ministers are said to be in agreement that a 'generous offer' on visas could be the price of the deal
Maybe you should re-read the article
There would be civil war in the Tory party if open door immigration from India is agreed
If the only thing that matters to politicians is winning the next election instead of concentrating on dealing with a deadly pandemic perhaps we should consider a moretoreum on General Elections for a significant number of years.
I don't want myself or my family sacrificed because a daft and dangerous policy optimises Boris Johnson's hopes of a majority in 2024.
"Xi'an, what are you doing?!" An outpouring of anger and disbelief on Weibo this sleepless night as residents from a covid affected community, including seniors and small kids, were suddenly relocated to a bleak quarantine location without any supplies."
Omicron is the CCP's worst nightmare. Something they cannot control.
Yes. The CCP looks serenely secure and masterly, controlling Covid with an iron fist, blah blah
But all police states look totally secure, until they suddenly don't, and then they can fall quite quickly
That said I am unconvinced this will topple Xi. The Chinese have gotten rich quick and very many will still be grateful....
They do have a number of other things going on e.g. the collapse of giant real estate companies, which is the only avenue most Chinese people have to invest their money.
I am sure they are very concerned a number of stars might align.
It would be fecking ironic with knobs if the virus they almost certainly leaked by mistake from their own Frankenstein labs ends up ending the CCP.
I hope the Government are planning to take advantage of China’s difficulties, both commercially and politically. How about subsidies to build large chip factories, possibly in the red wall?
Case rates in the Netherlands, Italy and the UK - source: ourworldindata.org/covid-cases
Netherlands
Peak cases this Autumn: 1,309 per million (28 November) Case rate when full lockdown came into force: 829 per million (19 December) Case rate at post-lockdown minimum: 702 per million (28 December) Latest case rate: 770 per million (31 December)
Italy
Cases on November 28th: 194 per million Cases on December 31st: 1,321 per million
UK
Cases on November 28th: 635 per million Cases on December 31st: 2,200 per million
Possible conclusion: Italy's broad range of restrictions, including widespread use of masking and vaxports, may well have suppressed Delta but seems to be of no avail against Omicron - the UK case rate approximately equalled the current Italian case rate only nine days beforehand, and the trajectory of Italian cases appears to be steeper. Ergo tighter restrictions short of lockdown don't appear to be working for them anymore and are not, presumably, any more likely to work for us.
The Dutch case rate was already in decline before lockdown, but the rate of decline slowed after the lockdown started, bottomed out earlier in the week, and rates have since started to rise again and are approaching the level that they were at when the country went into its hard lockdown before Christmas. It's too early to conclude how effective the lockdown is going to be, but the situation does not look all that encouraging at the moment. It may turn out that cancelling the festivities and putting everyone under house arrest again has bought them some time, but that the Omicron variant will ultimately breach their defences and may well already have started to do so. I think we'll be more confident of the actual trend in another week or so.
The Dutch case trend is, incidentally, quite unlike that seen in the UK during the Kent variant disaster at the beginning of 2021. The Prime Minister announced a national lockdown on January 4th, cases actually rose for another six days, but thereafter the decline in case rate for the rest of the Winter was continuous (a tiny one day blip on February 22nd excepted.) At no point during lockdown did the cases start to trend back upwards again.
Dutch Omicron surveillance figures based on PCR testing from three different laboratories are published online and complete to Boxing Day. The three labs indicated Omicron prevalence in the community at 43.2%, 43.1% and 64.5%, though in practice the 43% figure is likely more accurate as the higher figure is based on a low sample number. Omicron is almost certainly now the dominant variant in the Netherlands.
From my conversations, the overwhelming attitude is that people aren't very sick because omicron is "mild". Not because the vaccines work. In fact. A great number have decided they don't.
If people think that, they're f***ing stupid.
You aren't that silly, are you?
I'm not saying they aren't. Most of my conversations are with the very poorly educated and totally uninterested. Unlike the majority on here, who seem to hang in different circles. I'm trying to put across what people have heard, remembered and what they are saying now. That's all. It isn't pointing to a government bounce that's for sure.
Have any of the crowd you're speaking to noticed the difference between England and Scotland/Wales when it comes to restrictions?
Has anyone noticed yet they can go to the pub while people in Wales and Scotland can't?
Given I have so much family and friends in the Merseyside/Cheshire/North Wales region I have to say that's been very noticeable in my circle. There's been a lot of jokes about it on Facebook. I've seen the An Englishman, an Englishman and an Englishman went to a bar joke multiple times now which has got a lot of likes and laughing emojis in response.
I've yet to see anyone regretting that England is not following Wales and Scotland into harder lockdowns. I have seen Welsh relatives annoyed that they are under restrictions the English aren't.
The differential of England not being restricted while other nations are is the foundation from which I'm expecting (and betting on) a Tory bounce to be predicated upon. But that does require people to notice the difference.
No Patel is leading Tory opposition in Cabinet to this, Truss is pushing it, the Cabinet is divided on it
Please provide your link to the cabinet divide
Read the article, not difficult
The article says Patel is opposed to it but does not say anyone else is
Indeed the article says Ministers are said to be in agreement that a 'generous offer' on visas could be the price of the deal
Maybe you should re-read the article
There would be civil war in the Tory party if open door immigration from India is agreed
If the only thing that matters to politicians is winning the next election instead of concentrating on dealing with a deadly pandemic perhaps we should consider a moretoreum on General Elections for a significant number of years.
I don't want myself or my family sacrificed because a daft and dangerous policy optimises Boris Johnson's hopes of a majority in 2024.
Governments deliver what their voters want, that is what they are elected for
A twitter account highly critical of the CCP, so to be treated with caution.
But look at the kit these Chinese officials are wearing. It looks worse than anything in Wuhan
看他们穿的这身自带氧气的装备，就感觉西安又隐瞒了疫情， 出血热难道比武汉肺炎防护等级高吗？ 我就感觉大事不妙，这个国家隐瞒常有，李文亮已经没有 Translated from Chinese by Seeing the oxygen-carrying equipment they were wearing, they felt that Xi'an had concealed the epidemic again. Is the level of protection against hemorrhagic fever higher than that of Wuhan pneumonia? I feel that big things are not good, this country often hides things, Li Wenliang no longer
Is this video even from Xi'an? Right now it is cold and wintry in Xi'an, a northern city. This doesn't look wintry. But then they also look like they are on the moon, so who knows
Tree have leaves on......that doesn't seem likely in January.
Yep. Tho maybe an evergreen?
FWIW the same photos are used across multiple accounts, all saying these are real images of Xi'an, but in the tidal wave of misinfo that spills out of China, from the Party AND its opponents, who the F can say
However there IS enough hard evidence, some of it from official Chinese sources reluctantly admitting the truth, that something quite nasty and quite scary is potentially unfolding in Xi'an. I wonder if the authorities really know what it is, themselves, yet. A new variant? Delta? Omicron?
The one thing we have to hope is its not some entirely unconnected Covid22 they've just unleashed Wuhan style and which our vaccines won't be at all related to affecting.
The best guess at the moment is Omicron, which was bound to reach China eventually, it is so infectious
That would actually be far preferable to the idea, mooted by some, that the Xi'an Bug is a new Covid variant which resembles V H Fever in outcome but with the airborne infectiousness of Omicron. That is something close to a true doomsday scenario.
But it is unlikely, I think- as we would already be seeing multiple corpses and deaths and the panic would be off the scale
How many cities in China have more than 10 million people? Until 2 weeks ago I had never even heard of Xian Ciry.
People in Xian have probably never heard of Hartlepool.
Then again Hartlepool is not hosting the next winter Olympics.
I didn't know Hartlepool was a mega city with many million residents. I think i can name most mega cities else where in the world, but there are significant number in China that are totally invisible to most westeners.
No more restrictions for the vaccinated and no open border immigration are
Of course they are
Boris has been found out big time, and for one who is throwing polls at everyone quote me any positive from the mail on sunday
Even Ed Miliband and Neil Kinnock had bigger leads midterm than just 5%
I genuinely feel sorry for you and your inability to see that which is staring you in the face
As opposed to your desire for open door immigration from India like Truss which really would put the Tories over 10% behind
It’s your inadequate leader that has put the Tories so far behind.
They are only 5% behind tonight, not 10% behind
16% in red wall and 100 seats gone
I doubt those mps are as complacent or in denial as you are
A hung parliament at most, unlike the electoral annihilation the Tories would face from the open door immigration from India you want
Open door immigration are your twisted words, not mine nor the attitude of the Ministers in the article you referred to
The right to live and work in the UK for all Indians for at least 3 years would be on the table, regardless of skills needed or not.
That is not in the article at all.
It absolutely is
I'm pressing the bullshit button on that one.
Please quote where it says "The right to live and work in the UK for all Indians for at least 3 years would be on the table, regardless of skills needed or not." Bullshit.
The weird flu-y outbreak in Xian which has only infected about 150 people a day, yet has sent the Chinese into a headspin and made them grimly lockdown 13 million people with special apartment welding kits and personnel who looked dressed for a landing on the sun might NOT be horrible hemmorhagic fever, a disease caught from mice in the viral family of Ebola
No, instead it might be a new variant of Covid which simply has the same effect as hemmorhagic fever but is much more infectious. So that's alright then!
“My personal guess is that hemorrhagic fever can’t be so transmissible. I’m afraid a new variant of Wuhan virus has emerged, and after getting infected, the illness resembles hemorrhagic fever,” the tweet reads.
As of 2:00 a.m. on Dec. 20, the topic of “multiple cases of hemorrhagic fever in Xi’an” on Weibo has attracted 280 million people and 4,483 discussions."
From my conversations, the overwhelming attitude is that people aren't very sick because omicron is "mild". Not because the vaccines work. In fact. A great number have decided they don't.
If you say to people the way out of this is to get vaccinated and it turns out that if people are vaccinated we still get locked down then you should expect some scepticism.
That's a very good point and why its utterly unacceptable under any circumstances to have post-vaccination lockdowns. 👍
Very disappointing piece in The Times today seeking to rebut anti-vaxxers in the form of a Q&A. But the "questions" were all fatuous and not addressing key concerns.
No more restrictions for the vaccinated and no open border immigration are
Of course they are
Boris has been found out big time, and for one who is throwing polls at everyone quote me any positive from the mail on sunday
Even Ed Miliband and Neil Kinnock had bigger leads midterm than just 5%
I genuinely feel sorry for you and your inability to see that which is staring you in the face
As opposed to your desire for open door immigration from India like Truss which really would put the Tories over 10% behind
It’s your inadequate leader that has put the Tories so far behind.
They are only 5% behind tonight, not 10% behind
16% in red wall and 100 seats gone
I doubt those mps are as complacent or in denial as you are
A hung parliament at most, unlike the electoral annihilation the Tories would face from the open door immigration from India you want
Open door immigration are your twisted words, not mine nor the attitude of the Ministers in the article you referred to
The right to live and work in the UK for all Indians for at least 3 years would be on the table, regardless of skills needed or not.
That is not in the article at all.
It absolutely is
I'm pressing the bullshit button on that one.
Please quote where it says "The right to live and work in the UK for all Indians for at least 3 years would be on the table, regardless of skills needed or not." Bullshit.
Young Indians would be given the right to live and work in the UK for up to 3 years, regardless of skills. I could deal with Indian graduates from UK universities getting extended Visas but that goes too far
Yes, but I didn't know there was a mega city in that region. I am sure loads of people have heard of Stone Henge but no idea about any of the towns / cities in the vicinity.
Comments
I repeat. We have been told for a year that our world beating vaccines were an end to COVID. That's what everyone heard.
Yet everyone has it.
It is yet another lie from Boris.
(Most likely triple jabbed) 20-50 yr olds all wearing masks and furiously scrubbing down shopping trolleys.
A bit harsh, given that (by all accounts) it was forced on him by Rishi, Liz, JRM etc. Responsibility without power and all that...
But also, if it wasn't leading to an NHS-Stepmom-Pornhub scenario, would BoJo be being set up as the scapegoat for what is to come?
Ministers preparing for extreme staff shortages across the public sector
Public sector leaders told to prepare for worse case scenario of *25%* absence rate https://twitter.com/bbchelena/status/1477405147517095938
Indeed the article says Ministers are said to be in agreement that a 'generous offer' on visas could be the price of the deal
Maybe you should re-read the article
Its time to accept that Covid19 is mostly just another common cold strain for the triple vaccinated. Yes that can be fatal to the extremely vulnerable and for everyone else it can be quite unpleasant for a few days at home but that's true of the original common cold strains too.
I'm not saying anyone said as much.
I'm claiming that was what was heard.
But look at the kit these Chinese officials are wearing. It looks worse than anything in Wuhan
看他们穿的这身自带氧气的装备，就感觉西安又隐瞒了疫情， 出血热难道比武汉肺炎防护等级高吗？
我就感觉大事不妙，这个国家隐瞒常有，李文亮已经没有
Translated from Chinese by
Seeing the oxygen-carrying equipment they were wearing, they felt that Xi'an had concealed the epidemic again. Is the level of protection against hemorrhagic fever higher than that of Wuhan pneumonia?
I feel that big things are not good, this country often hides things, Li Wenliang no longer
https://twitter.com/TuCaoFakeNews/status/1477132717447790596?s=20
Is this video even from Xi'an? Right now it is cold and wintry in Xi'an, a northern city. This doesn't look wintry. But then they also look like they are on the moon, so who knows
The introduction of restrictions with Plan B etc is something that should have gone away due to vaccines and should rapidly be reversed. The virus isn't going away though, its never going away. We should just be able to live with it as we live with every other endemic virus.
You need to read the article again before spreading fake news
What's said doesn't matter.
Only what is heard. Particularly by folk who don't pay much attention.
It is a fundamental of good messaging.
And of course. The basic flaw in Brexit. Folk heard what they wanted. And remembered that bit.
It really is fake news and he should know better
That doesn't apply to, say, distribution, or electricity generation, etc.
There would be hell to pay from Tory backbenchers, members and voters if this went through too. It would be civil war in the party
I doubt those mps are as complacent or in denial as you are
Though I do suspect that banging on about Europe/Brexit has now become more harmful to the Tories than the opposition. It'd be hilarious if Brexit/immigration led to disastrous Tory divisions yet again. And it might, if/when Covid goes off the boil.
"Living with Covid" doesn't mean ignoring it, it requires sensible snd proportionate mitigations that minimally impact on freedom and society.
The weird flu-y outbreak in Xian which has only infected about 150 people a day, yet has sent the Chinese into a headspin and made them grimly lockdown 13 million people with special apartment welding kits and personnel who looked dressed for a landing on the sun might NOT be horrible hemmorhagic fever, a disease caught from mice in the viral family of Ebola
No, instead it might be a new variant of Covid which simply has the same effect as hemmorhagic fever but is much more infectious. So that's alright then!
“My personal guess is that hemorrhagic fever can’t be so transmissible. I’m afraid a new variant of Wuhan virus has emerged, and after getting infected, the illness resembles hemorrhagic fever,” the tweet reads.
As of 2:00 a.m. on Dec. 20, the topic of “multiple cases of hemorrhagic fever in Xi’an” on Weibo has attracted 280 million people and 4,483 discussions."
https://www.visiontimes.com/2021/12/20/outbreak-of-plague-in-northern-china-people-suffering-with-viral-hemorrhagic-fevers.html
NB: I am wary of that source, too. But there are no reliably GOOD sources
Excellent, bring it on.
The only person who's suggesting free movement with India is HYUFD as his own personal Quixotic windmill to tilt at.
You aren't that silly, are you?
FWIW the same photos are used across multiple accounts, all saying these are real images of Xi'an, but in the tidal wave of misinfo that spills out of China, from the Party AND its opponents, who the F can say
However there IS enough hard evidence, some of it from official Chinese sources reluctantly admitting the truth, that something quite nasty and quite scary is potentially unfolding in Xi'an. I wonder if the authorities really know what it is, themselves, yet. A new variant? Delta? Omicron?
*Which is not at all convincing.
My Trust has a reserved PCR testing site for staff, so tests can be available and turned around quickly.
Most of my conversations are with the very poorly educated and totally uninterested. Unlike the majority on here, who seem to hang in different circles.
I'm trying to put across what people have heard, remembered and what they are saying now.
That's all.
"How can I be positive when I've been vaccinated? What was the point? Not doing it again, they don't work. Boris lied."
It isn't pointing to a government bounce that's for sure.
It's kind of a mirror image of the collapse of New Labour and losing people who should have been sympathetic to its goals, getting away with it for a while because its transactional vote held up, but then collapsing once those people decided they wouldn't deliver for them anymore. The formula worked as long as you were able to pinch certain voters who don't have much love for your general politics but who you promise certain things, but collapses in on itself when you can no longer make promises they believe, as under the radar you've just made your pool of voters more shallow.
Do you mind me asking why she did not get the booster?
Then again Hartlepool is not hosting the next winter Olympics.
I don't want myself or my family sacrificed because a daft and dangerous policy optimises Boris Johnson's hopes of a majority in 2024.
;-)
Netherlands
Peak cases this Autumn: 1,309 per million (28 November)
Case rate when full lockdown came into force: 829 per million (19 December)
Case rate at post-lockdown minimum: 702 per million (28 December)
Latest case rate: 770 per million (31 December)
Italy
Cases on November 28th: 194 per million
Cases on December 31st: 1,321 per million
UK
Cases on November 28th: 635 per million
Cases on December 31st: 2,200 per million
Possible conclusion: Italy's broad range of restrictions, including widespread use of masking and vaxports, may well have suppressed Delta but seems to be of no avail against Omicron - the UK case rate approximately equalled the current Italian case rate only nine days beforehand, and the trajectory of Italian cases appears to be steeper. Ergo tighter restrictions short of lockdown don't appear to be working for them anymore and are not, presumably, any more likely to work for us.
The Dutch case rate was already in decline before lockdown, but the rate of decline slowed after the lockdown started, bottomed out earlier in the week, and rates have since started to rise again and are approaching the level that they were at when the country went into its hard lockdown before Christmas. It's too early to conclude how effective the lockdown is going to be, but the situation does not look all that encouraging at the moment. It may turn out that cancelling the festivities and putting everyone under house arrest again has bought them some time, but that the Omicron variant will ultimately breach their defences and may well already have started to do so. I think we'll be more confident of the actual trend in another week or so.
The Dutch case trend is, incidentally, quite unlike that seen in the UK during the Kent variant disaster at the beginning of 2021. The Prime Minister announced a national lockdown on January 4th, cases actually rose for another six days, but thereafter the decline in case rate for the rest of the Winter was continuous (a tiny one day blip on February 22nd excepted.) At no point during lockdown did the cases start to trend back upwards again.
Dutch Omicron surveillance figures based on PCR testing from three different laboratories are published online and complete to Boxing Day. The three labs indicated Omicron prevalence in the community at 43.2%, 43.1% and 64.5%, though in practice the 43% figure is likely more accurate as the higher figure is based on a low sample number. Omicron is almost certainly now the dominant variant in the Netherlands.
source: https://www.rivm.nl/en/coronavirus-covid-19/virus/variants/omicron
Has anyone noticed yet they can go to the pub while people in Wales and Scotland can't?
Given I have so much family and friends in the Merseyside/Cheshire/North Wales region I have to say that's been very noticeable in my circle. There's been a lot of jokes about it on Facebook. I've seen the An Englishman, an Englishman and an Englishman went to a bar joke multiple times now which has got a lot of likes and laughing emojis in response.
I've yet to see anyone regretting that England is not following Wales and Scotland into harder lockdowns. I have seen Welsh relatives annoyed that they are under restrictions the English aren't.
The differential of England not being restricted while other nations are is the foundation from which I'm expecting (and betting on) a Tory bounce to be predicated upon. But that does require people to notice the difference.
That would actually be far preferable to the idea, mooted by some, that the Xi'an Bug is a new Covid variant which resembles V H Fever in outcome but with the airborne infectiousness of Omicron. That is something close to a true doomsday scenario.
But it is unlikely, I think- as we would already be seeing multiple corpses and deaths and the panic would be off the scale
Please quote where it says "The right to live and work in the UK for all Indians for at least 3 years would be on the table, regardless of skills needed or not." Bullshit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army