Off thread already (sorry), there is a story in the Telegraph that the Six Nations might be played entirely in England. To me, that would be vastly preferable to empty stadia in Scotland and Wales (and Ireland and France?). And getting to Bristol, say, won't be massively more inconvenient for Welsh fans than getting to Cardiff. But I can't see the politics of it panning out. Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford would be furious.
I understand, from second-hand reports (i.e. my husband, who subscribes to the Torygraph sports pages,) that the WRU are thinking about decamping to the Emirates or the Tottenham Hotspur stadium. Who would blame them for seeking to evade these useless rules and rescue their finances if the opportunity presents itself? And yes, it'll make a total mockery of Drakeford's spectator ban, but what is his Government (or that in Scotland) going to do about it? Unless they reinstate Draconian "stay local" lockdown rules to prevent the spectators from travelling, and deploy the police to try to enforce them, then the answer is nothing.
The rugby authorities, in common with many other businesses and institutions in Scotland and Wales, have been shat upon by the devolved governments. Quite why they - let alone UK ministers - should give two hoots about their fury is quite beyond me.
This is a good example of what is wrong with ‘Muscular Unionism’. Just because the English can behave like arseholes doesn’t mean they have to. It’s like the whole nation has caught Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Why is the English setting their own rules for stadia in England behaving “like arseholes”?
It's a bit aggressive, trying to 'steal' the games from Murrayfield. Could backfire - timing is everything, particularly of Sturgeon is overly hesitant on opening stuff up.
Not sure how football v rugby fans compare. Rugby slightly more SNP?
It’s the Six Nations organisers exploring their options, not the “English” government.
It's not even that - it's the Welsh and Scottish Rugby boards looking at £20m+ and asking - how can we get / keep that money - because with England fully open, Boris isn't going to pay the incoming bills.
Would be nice to see Wales playing in London / Liverpool with Scotland in Manchester / Newcastle.
A brilliant piece of investigative reporting into planning fandangos on Teesside. Local Tories up in arms about housing proposal, but their mate the mayor is silent. Then you look at who his donors are...
Planning inspectorate grants permission for houses.
Sorry but any sane person would do the same as what is done has been done and clearly Stockton don’t have decent planners*
* this is a given, when the top rate for a public sector planner is £40,000 anyone good moves to the private sector quickly.
Point is that people don't want them. Tory voters. Tory MP. Despite me being told the opposite. Nor does having a local plan and shitloads of houses being built protect you from being overridden by the same planning inspector. Despite being told "if you had a local plan you can stop these developments".
I did enjoy the dig into who the mayor's donors are. This is twice now he has trampled on a local Tory MP - the previous mega coalition of Tories all firing on the same front down there is collapsing fast.
The Mayor and Combined Authority do not replace, nor can they overrule, local councils.
And planning especially development control is the responsibility of the local council...
Anything else you would like to say without checking basic facts?
I await evidence to contradict the above or an apology...
According to the Mayor's powers screengrabbed in the report he DOES have some input though. In law nobody can overrule the planning inspector so its not like the council have that power either, or even the SofS. So you've put up a straw man.
Vickers and the local Tories Do Not Want houses going up everywhere. Have successfully campaigned on this for years. Blaming the Labour council has been rich pickings but as there is now a local plan they can't do that any more.
So having been voted in on a platform of stopping such things, Vickers and his former council colleagues wanted support from Houchen. Who despite having the ability to intervene as another powerful voice against this chose not to. With donations from the developers on the public record.
Houchen has done quite a bit of this recently. He absolutely shish-kebabbed Jacob Young in Redcar who can campaigned to save the Dorman Long tower which Houchen promptly demolished without even consulting him.
OK. Let's stop this self-serving horse shit that the course of Omicron was utterly uninfluencable by restrictions except the most Draconian, so why bother. Yes, light measures wouldn't have taken Rt below 1, but achieving a slowing from 1.7 to 1.5 would have been worth it to flatten the curve a little, to reduce the peak. I fully accepted the Delta thinking, poorly explained, that it was about flow control rather than prevention, but HMG threw flow control out of the window as well for political weakness and expediency.
I don't exactly agree with the Scottish measures either, but it should be noted that the Central Belt was ready to explode at the same point as London and they have successfully delayed and likely lowered a massive peak. (Wale's late measures, not so much yet).
So, is it too late now or is that also self-serving horse shit? I don't think we have much influence on the peak at this stage, but is a degree of suppression and of re-establishing flow control beyond the peak worth it, is helping NHS recovery worth it? If the measures can be found, then, yes.
So what is the problem. Not cases, not deaths this time, but hospital capacity, both from bed occupation and staff absence. And let's be clear the bed occupation is still 'for COVID' - the proportion of 'fors' may have dropped (75->65%) but this is not a withdemic - that is another bit of self-serving bolleaux.
London looks beyond peak, but any kick on in New Year, a single doubling - likely outer London led - looks NHS fatal at this stage and is certainly not beyond the realms.
So let's start slowing the right things. I'm not on the pub closing page, here, I'm still on the restricting the unvaccinated in a proportionate way for their own health and for health provision for all:
- Ban unvaccinated and never registered positive over 18s from pubs, sit down restaurants, entertainment venues, from close contact personal care and from household mixing except for care giving. - Ban not boosted (or double vaccinated plus infected) over 60s in the same way. - Too late to set up Vaxports as the central gatekeeper of this or business to enforce. Compliance is an individual responsibility, and 7 days at a police station to prove status would do, as per driving. - Strongly advise critical workers to follow the same guidelines as the unvaccinated wherever possible. - Strong message to all other to prioritise the contacts most important to them, whatever those are - properly government led, not Whitty as a lone voice. - Testing and earlier returns for critical workers (as soon as negative) - For the unvaccinated, non clinically urgent hospital attendances should be delayed, where there is a clear clinical benefit to the unvaccinated avoiding Omicronny settings.
A lot of Omicron will still find these people in more roundabout ways, but every person who catches it in February rather than January is a win and this should start to make a difference quickly if done.
And how do you propose to do all this 'banning' ?
People are now doing what they want when they want.
Off thread already (sorry), there is a story in the Telegraph that the Six Nations might be played entirely in England. To me, that would be vastly preferable to empty stadia in Scotland and Wales (and Ireland and France?). And getting to Bristol, say, won't be massively more inconvenient for Welsh fans than getting to Cardiff. But I can't see the politics of it panning out. Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford would be furious.
I understand, from second-hand reports (i.e. my husband, who subscribes to the Torygraph sports pages,) that the WRU are thinking about decamping to the Emirates or the Tottenham Hotspur stadium. Who would blame them for seeking to evade these useless rules and rescue their finances if the opportunity presents itself? And yes, it'll make a total mockery of Drakeford's spectator ban, but what is his Government (or that in Scotland) going to do about it? Unless they reinstate Draconian "stay local" lockdown rules to prevent the spectators from travelling, and deploy the police to try to enforce them, then the answer is nothing.
The rugby authorities, in common with many other businesses and institutions in Scotland and Wales, have been shat upon by the devolved governments. Quite why they - let alone UK ministers - should give two hoots about their fury is quite beyond me.
This is a good example of what is wrong with ‘Muscular Unionism’. Just because the English can behave like arseholes doesn’t mean they have to. It’s like the whole nation has caught Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Why is the English setting their own rules for stadia in England behaving “like arseholes”?
It's a bit aggressive, trying to 'steal' the games from Murrayfield. Could backfire - timing is everything, particularly of Sturgeon is overly hesitant on opening stuff up.
Not sure how football v rugby fans compare. Rugby slightly more SNP?
It’s the Six Nations organisers exploring their options, not the “English” government.
Who cares. That is what Sturgeon will portray it as: "Irresponsible English taking advantage of sensible Scots rules to sow division" etc etc
Which would be rather amusing, given that it’s her government’s restrictions causing the problem for the 6N.
We all too easily forget, that being able to go where we like and do what we like, should be the default state. The restrictions are exceptional, and should need to be continually justified by those advocating for them.
I agree with you, of course.
But up here people would side with the cautious, sensible Sturgeon. They far outnumber us
A nurse friend who works in a high dependency ward at a major London teaching hospital tells me that they are no longer putting vaccination status on the bedside notes as the staff get so annoyed at the (very) high numbers of the unvaccinated they are dealing with
Darwinism in action.
If this carries on it must in the end affect demographics? The types of people who refuse to be vaccinated must surely take a statistical hit in their weighting? Political ramifications?
When I was in hospital I had a red band on detailing my allergy to a popular painkiller.
I think a rather effective way to highlight the risks of being unvaccinated would be to have a similar one for non-COVID, non-vaxxed patients. You could pass it off as "just trying to keep you safe while you are in here".
A brilliant piece of investigative reporting into planning fandangos on Teesside. Local Tories up in arms about housing proposal, but their mate the mayor is silent. Then you look at who his donors are...
Planning inspectorate grants permission for houses.
Sorry but any sane person would do the same as what is done has been done and clearly Stockton don’t have decent planners*
* this is a given, when the top rate for a public sector planner is £40,000 anyone good moves to the private sector quickly.
Point is that people don't want them. Tory voters. Tory MP. Despite me being told the opposite. Nor does having a local plan and shitloads of houses being built protect you from being overridden by the same planning inspector. Despite being told "if you had a local plan you can stop these developments".
I did enjoy the dig into who the mayor's donors are. This is twice now he has trampled on a local Tory MP - the previous mega coalition of Tories all firing on the same front down there is collapsing fast.
The Mayor and Combined Authority do not replace, nor can they overrule, local councils.
And planning especially development control is the responsibility of the local council...
Anything else you would like to say without checking basic facts?
I await evidence to contradict the above or an apology...
According to the Mayor's powers screengrabbed in the report he DOES have some input though. In law nobody can overrule the planning inspector so its not like the council have that power either, or even the SofS. So you've put up a straw man.
Vickers and the local Tories Do Not Want houses going up everywhere. Have successfully campaigned on this for years. Blaming the Labour council has been rich pickings but as there is now a local plan they can't do that any more.
So having been voted in on a platform of stopping such things, Vickers and his former council colleagues wanted support from Houchen. Who despite having the ability to intervene as another powerful voice against this chose not to. With donations from the developers on the public record.
Houchen has done quite a bit of this recently. He absolutely shish-kebabbed Jacob Young in Redcar who can campaigned to save the Dorman Long tower which Houchen promptly demolished without even consulting him.
Houchen's economic plan says better housing - this scheme offered that housing.
As for Dorman Long - Jacob Young created a £2m problem without the finance to back it up. I suspect the people of Redcar would prefer a cinema to a unusable bit of historic industrial heritage that blocked the entire regeneration scheme.
I may not agree with Ben 100% but at least I can see what he is doing and he does seem to listen to arguments once he knows you actually have a clue on what you are talking about.
A nurse friend who works in a high dependency ward at a major London teaching hospital tells me that they are no longer putting vaccination status on the bedside notes as the staff get so annoyed at the (very) high numbers of the unvaccinated they are dealing with
Darwinism in action.
If this carries on it must in the end affect demographics? The types of people who refuse to be vaccinated must surely take a statistical hit in their weighting? Political ramifications?
OK. Let's stop this self-serving horse shit that the course of Omicron was utterly uninfluencable by restrictions except the most Draconian, so why bother. Yes, light measures wouldn't have taken Rt below 1, but achieving a slowing from 1.7 to 1.5 would have been worth it to flatten the curve a little, to reduce the peak. I fully accepted the Delta thinking, poorly explained, that it was about flow control rather than prevention, but HMG threw flow control out of the window as well for political weakness and expediency.
I don't exactly agree with the Scottish measures either, but it should be noted that the Central Belt was ready to explode at the same point as London and they have successfully delayed and likely lowered a massive peak. (Wale's late measures, not so much yet).
So, is it too late now or is that also self-serving horse shit? I don't think we have much influence on the peak at this stage, but is a degree of suppression and of re-establishing flow control beyond the peak worth it, is helping NHS recovery worth it? If the measures can be found, then, yes.
So what is the problem. Not cases, not deaths this time, but hospital capacity, both from bed occupation and staff absence. And let's be clear the bed occupation is still 'for COVID' - the proportion of 'fors' may have dropped (75->65%) but this is not a withdemic - that is another bit of self-serving bolleaux.
London looks beyond peak, but any kick on in New Year, a single doubling - likely outer London led - looks NHS fatal at this stage and is certainly not beyond the realms.
So let's start slowing the right things. I'm not on the pub closing page, here, I'm still on the restricting the unvaccinated in a proportionate way for their own health and for health provision for all:
- Ban unvaccinated and never registered positive over 18s from pubs, sit down restaurants, entertainment venues, from close contact personal care and from household mixing except for care giving. - Ban not boosted (or double vaccinated plus infected) over 60s in the same way. - Too late to set up Vaxports as the central gatekeeper of this or business to enforce. Compliance is an individual responsibility, and 7 days at a police station to prove status would do, as per driving. - Strongly advise critical workers to follow the same guidelines as the unvaccinated wherever possible. - Strong message to all other to prioritise the contacts most important to them, whatever those are - properly government led, not Whitty as a lone voice. - Testing and earlier returns for critical workers (as soon as negative) - For the unvaccinated, non clinically urgent hospital attendances should be delayed, where there is a clear clinical benefit to the unvaccinated avoiding Omicronny settings.
A lot of Omicron will still find these people in more roundabout ways, but every person who catches it in February rather than January is a win and this should start to make a difference quickly if done.
And how do you propose to do all this 'banning' ?
People are now doing what they want when they want.
Proportionate and temporary legal restriction on the unvaxxed - some adherance. some non compliance got away with, some people fined. Its all good.
For the rest it would just be advice and upping the clarity of HMGs communication game.
Dave is clearly going to tremendously enjoy the denouement.
Yet Boris won more Scottish MPs than Cameron ever did and on the latest Scottish subsample of the latest poll the Scottish Conservatives are even back up to 28%
Ho ho.
In the latest full-sample, correctly weighed Scottish poll the Conservatives are on 17%:
That was taken well before the Redfield poll, before no new restrictions in England but restrictions in Scotland over Christmas and New Year and is now out of date
It is time to release the Govester. What has he come up with?
Not a lot as far as levelling up is concerned, which is. possibly as a result, the second worst score in the table. Though I don't think for a moment it's all Mr Gove's fault.
BTW there's no question for "keeping the UK together", I see.
Its website, however, still tells us (5/1/22) in Australia (amongst other places) 'The virus is the past: the only question is, how quickly do we want to join the future?'
ISTM that "kids" is vaguely pejorative; horrid/horrible I would see more as a class indicator, likewise pudding and dessert; and movie is just going with the times as most people consume films on US streaming services and those films in any case are usually US-made.
I see kids more as informal than pejorative. But if OKC sees it as pejorative I can see why. Horrid feels horribly Enid Blyton and twee. (I have actually read a good argument that horrid is the least horrible of the four horrible words, which, getting more horrible, are horrid, horrible, horrendous and horrific. So perhaps has a use as 'horrible, but not that horrible'.) Movie is just not as good a word as film. I have also seen an argument that movie denotes a certain sort of film - big Hollywood blockbuster - whereas film is its more thoughtful or arty counterpart. Again, I could get on board with that. But movie seems to just be used for all films nowadays. Sigh. And dessert just sounds to me like an affectation. Though I have an Irish friend who finds the word pudding hilarious - hears it as very English and therefore very posh, which is kind of the reverse of how I hear it.
On topic, what does the poll tell us about the voting public's likely reaction to alternative leaders?
Given the economy and Brexit are the 2 highest scoring variables after vaccination, that's reasonable news for Sunak and Truss.
That said, the Brexit positive vote is reasonable but the negative vote is very high compared with a few other topics, and that probably reflects the partisan nature of the issue. The 33% is probably the absolute core Tory vote. I would say the NHS rating is also fairly unshakeably low throughout time, so that may not swing things much.
The floaters are going to be more influenced I'd have thought by the economy (losses here potentially to the Lib Dems), crime and immigration (these 2 point to possible losses to REFUK or abstention), tax and spend and levelling up (losses to Labour). Of these, surely levelling up and immigration are the two big flashing lights: they spell Redwall disillusionment to me.
OK. Let's stop this self-serving horse shit that the course of Omicron was utterly uninfluencable by restrictions except the most Draconian, so why bother. Yes, light measures wouldn't have taken Rt below 1, but achieving a slowing from 1.7 to 1.5 would have been worth it to flatten the curve a little, to reduce the peak. I fully accepted the Delta thinking, poorly explained, that it was about flow control rather than prevention, but HMG threw flow control out of the window as well for political weakness and expediency.
I don't exactly agree with the Scottish measures either, but it should be noted that the Central Belt was ready to explode at the same point as London and they have successfully delayed and likely lowered a massive peak. (Wale's late measures, not so much yet).
So, is it too late now or is that also self-serving horse shit? I don't think we have much influence on the peak at this stage, but is a degree of suppression and of re-establishing flow control beyond the peak worth it, is helping NHS recovery worth it? If the measures can be found, then, yes.
So what is the problem. Not cases, not deaths this time, but hospital capacity, both from bed occupation and staff absence. And let's be clear the bed occupation is still 'for COVID' - the proportion of 'fors' may have dropped (75->65%) but this is not a withdemic - that is another bit of self-serving bolleaux.
London looks beyond peak, but any kick on in New Year, a single doubling - likely outer London led - looks NHS fatal at this stage and is certainly not beyond the realms.
So let's start slowing the right things. I'm not on the pub closing page, here, I'm still on the restricting the unvaccinated in a proportionate way for their own health and for health provision for all:
- Ban unvaccinated and never registered positive over 18s from pubs, sit down restaurants, entertainment venues, from close contact personal care and from household mixing except for care giving. - Ban not boosted (or double vaccinated plus infected) over 60s in the same way. - Too late to set up Vaxports as the central gatekeeper of this or business to enforce. Compliance is an individual responsibility, and 7 days at a police station to prove status would do, as per driving. - Strongly advise critical workers to follow the same guidelines as the unvaccinated wherever possible. - Strong message to all other to prioritise the contacts most important to them, whatever those are - properly government led, not Whitty as a lone voice. - Testing and earlier returns for critical workers (as soon as negative) - For the unvaccinated, non clinically urgent hospital attendances should be delayed, where there is a clear clinical benefit to the unvaccinated avoiding Omicronny settings.
A lot of Omicron will still find these people in more roundabout ways, but every person who catches it in February rather than January is a win and this should start to make a difference quickly if done.
And how do you propose to do all this 'banning' ?
People are now doing what they want when they want.
Proportionate and temporary legal restriction on the unvaxxed - some adherance. some non compliance got away with, some people fined. Its all good.
For the rest it would just be advice and upping the clarity of HMGs communication game.
Its not going to work in the real world.
Do you think the government saying "please, please, please, please get vaccinated" is going to have a different effect to the government saying "please, please, please get vaccinated" ?
As to restrictions on the anti-vaxxers, they needed to be brought in months ago.
But for some reason the establishment is happy to pander to anti-vaxxers.
And there's not enough of them left who haven't been infected now to make restrictions worthwhile.
ISTM that "kids" is vaguely pejorative; horrid/horrible I would see more as a class indicator, likewise pudding and dessert; and movie is just going with the times as most people consume films on US streaming services and those films in any case are usually US-made.
I see kids more as informal than pejorative. But if OKC sees it as pejorative I can see why. Horrid feels horribly Enid Blyton and twee. (I have actually read a good argument that horrid is the least horrible of the four horrible words, which, getting more horrible, are horrid, horrible, horrendous and horrific. So perhaps has a use as 'horrible, but not that horrible'.) Movie is just not as good a word as film. I have also seen an argument that movie denotes a certain sort of film - big Hollywood blockbuster - whereas film is its more thoughtful or arty counterpart. Again, I could get on board with that. But movie seems to just be used for all films nowadays. Sigh. And dessert just sounds to me like an affectation. Though I have an Irish friend who finds the word pudding hilarious - hears it as very English and therefore very posh, which is kind of the reverse of how I hear it.
Never really had an issue with the horri family. Technically, what is horrible or horrendous is what makes you bristle, and horrid is the state you are consequently in on seeing something horrible.
But LFTs won't be recorded unless one writes/calls in. UNlike PCRs.
"Writes in" - do you mean takes the minute or so to register it on the website ?
Quite. But it's a further step and not everyone will bother. Or even have web access.
It's far less onerous than heading out to a PCR.
Also you need web access to book a PCR (Or you can phone in extremis) - so I don't see the validity of that argument. It's not about lowering the figures, it's about getting a more accurate and quicker data set.
I guess I'm just struggling to see how people who would have gone to the effort of getting a PCR would not register an LFT. Anyway even if they don't bother to register it quite a few of those will isolate properly, and the ones who won't isolate properly would never have got a PCR test in the first place.
OK. Let's stop this self-serving horse shit that the course of Omicron was utterly uninfluencable by restrictions except the most Draconian, so why bother. Yes, light measures wouldn't have taken Rt below 1, but achieving a slowing from 1.7 to 1.5 would have been worth it to flatten the curve a little, to reduce the peak. I fully accepted the Delta thinking, poorly explained, that it was about flow control rather than prevention, but HMG threw flow control out of the window as well for political weakness and expediency.
I don't exactly agree with the Scottish measures either, but it should be noted that the Central Belt was ready to explode at the same point as London and they have successfully delayed and likely lowered a massive peak. (Wale's late measures, not so much yet).
So, is it too late now or is that also self-serving horse shit? I don't think we have much influence on the peak at this stage, but is a degree of suppression and of re-establishing flow control beyond the peak worth it, is helping NHS recovery worth it? If the measures can be found, then, yes.
So what is the problem. Not cases, not deaths this time, but hospital capacity, both from bed occupation and staff absence. And let's be clear the bed occupation is still 'for COVID' - the proportion of 'fors' may have dropped (75->65%) but this is not a withdemic - that is another bit of self-serving bolleaux.
London looks beyond peak, but any kick on in New Year, a single doubling - likely outer London led - looks NHS fatal at this stage and is certainly not beyond the realms.
So let's start slowing the right things. I'm not on the pub closing page, here, I'm still on the restricting the unvaccinated in a proportionate way for their own health and for health provision for all:
- Ban unvaccinated and never registered positive over 18s from pubs, sit down restaurants, entertainment venues, from close contact personal care and from household mixing except for care giving. - Ban not boosted (or double vaccinated plus infected) over 60s in the same way. - Too late to set up Vaxports as the central gatekeeper of this or business to enforce. Compliance is an individual responsibility, and 7 days at a police station to prove status would do, as per driving. - Strongly advise critical workers to follow the same guidelines as the unvaccinated wherever possible. - Strong message to all other to prioritise the contacts most important to them, whatever those are - properly government led, not Whitty as a lone voice. - Testing and earlier returns for critical workers (as soon as negative) - For the unvaccinated, non clinically urgent hospital attendances should be delayed, where there is a clear clinical benefit to the unvaccinated avoiding Omicronny settings.
A lot of Omicron will still find these people in more roundabout ways, but every person who catches it in February rather than January is a win and this should start to make a difference quickly if done.
Compliance has clearly declined among the vaccinated+boosted, but I think Macron and you are correct that patience with the unvaccinated (in the absence of medical reasons) is wearing thin.
FWIW everyone that I know (not all of them older generation) has reverted to cancelling social engagements, getting shopping delivered, etc. They varied over Christmas, with some cancelling and some deciding to take what they saw as a risk, but self-lockdown is now a thing again. The reports here of places being rammed in London shows that's not universal, and I wonder if there's a city/town difference, with people in London feeling more fatalistic about probably catching it anyway.
Dave is clearly going to tremendously enjoy the denouement.
Yet Boris won more Scottish MPs than Cameron ever did and on the latest Scottish subsample of the latest poll the Scottish Conservatives are even back up to 28%
Ho ho.
In the latest full-sample, correctly weighed Scottish poll the Conservatives are on 17%:
That was taken well before the Redfield poll, before no new restrictions in England but restrictions in Scotland over Christmas and New Year and is now out of date
That’s why I love you FUDHY: you’re a true believer.
We know that Omicron cases include many more reinfections than previous variants., 10-15% of cases are reinfections. These are not included in the reported numbers in the UK, except in Wales which does include them. How do other countries address this issue?
Totally O/T I wonder what New Zealand's plan is for the future because the moment that they open up travel Omicron will come big time and then will they lockdown?. Will they stay isolated for ever?
LFTs don't have to be recorded centrally, so of course many cases will never appear on government or any stats. .
LFTs have really changed the game. To me it would make sense for all community testing to be LFT home tests, and PCRs to be reserved for hospital admissions. The marginal benefit of all those PCRs for people with non-severe symptoms in the community seems pretty limited, given the massive cost we keep hearing about.
Had this been policy by autumn 2020, as I argued at the time, we'd have saved perhaps £20bn, and almost certainly have been better at suppressing waves of infection. A large proportion of the enormous quantity of slow and expensive PCR tests, and the track & trace effort, were a waste of time.
The entire track and trace effort was a waste of money - PCRs are a different matter and until Omicron it made sense to see what people actually had
We could have done that with about 10% of the tests we actually used. You're correct that PCR is a diagnostic tool - but as an infection control tool it's vastly inferior to LFTs.
Plenty of people that I meet have had negative LFT but positive PCR and to a degree vice versa. I think a confirmatory PCR is probably wise.
Perhaps for critical staff (healthcare etc) - but for mass testing, it's a waste of time and money.
(and re vice versa, the rate of false positives is very low indeed.)
Totally O/T I wonder what New Zealand's plan is for the future because the moment that they open up travel Omicron will come big time and then will they lockdown?. Will they stay isolated for ever?
They are miles behind with the booster, which you really need in an immune naive population. Complacency.
It is time to release the Govester. What has he come up with?
Some good plans for ‘levelling-up’ that don’t involve huge amounts of taxpayer cash?
There's no such thing is there? May had to bribe Nissan just to stay in Sunderland.
Were I looking to invest up North once I saw HS2 and NPR disappearing I would have been looking elsewhere.
If a fully financed scheme is drop after 15 years of development with full cross party support why would you trust anything you were told. The firms that remain interested will be the movers, those happy to abuse the tax credits / benefits and move on to the next subsidy as soon as it's possible to do so.
OK. Let's stop this self-serving horse shit that the course of Omicron was utterly uninfluencable by restrictions except the most Draconian, so why bother. Yes, light measures wouldn't have taken Rt below 1, but achieving a slowing from 1.7 to 1.5 would have been worth it to flatten the curve a little, to reduce the peak. I fully accepted the Delta thinking, poorly explained, that it was about flow control rather than prevention, but HMG threw flow control out of the window as well for political weakness and expediency.
I don't exactly agree with the Scottish measures either, but it should be noted that the Central Belt was ready to explode at the same point as London and they have successfully delayed and likely lowered a massive peak. (Wale's late measures, not so much yet).
So, is it too late now or is that also self-serving horse shit? I don't think we have much influence on the peak at this stage, but is a degree of suppression and of re-establishing flow control beyond the peak worth it, is helping NHS recovery worth it? If the measures can be found, then, yes.
So what is the problem. Not cases, not deaths this time, but hospital capacity, both from bed occupation and staff absence. And let's be clear the bed occupation is still 'for COVID' - the proportion of 'fors' may have dropped (75->65%) but this is not a withdemic - that is another bit of self-serving bolleaux.
London looks beyond peak, but any kick on in New Year, a single doubling - likely outer London led - looks NHS fatal at this stage and is certainly not beyond the realms.
So let's start slowing the right things. I'm not on the pub closing page, here, I'm still on the restricting the unvaccinated in a proportionate way for their own health and for health provision for all:
- Ban unvaccinated and never registered positive over 18s from pubs, sit down restaurants, entertainment venues, from close contact personal care and from household mixing except for care giving. - Ban not boosted (or double vaccinated plus infected) over 60s in the same way. - Too late to set up Vaxports as the central gatekeeper of this or business to enforce. Compliance is an individual responsibility, and 7 days at a police station to prove status would do, as per driving. - Strongly advise critical workers to follow the same guidelines as the unvaccinated wherever possible. - Strong message to all other to prioritise the contacts most important to them, whatever those are - properly government led, not Whitty as a lone voice. - Testing and earlier returns for critical workers (as soon as negative) - For the unvaccinated, non clinically urgent hospital attendances should be delayed, where there is a clear clinical benefit to the unvaccinated avoiding Omicronny settings.
A lot of Omicron will still find these people in more roundabout ways, but every person who catches it in February rather than January is a win and this should start to make a difference quickly if done.
And how do you propose to do all this 'banning' ?
People are now doing what they want when they want.
Proportionate and temporary legal restriction on the unvaxxed - some adherance. some non compliance got away with, some people fined. Its all good.
For the rest it would just be advice and upping the clarity of HMGs communication game.
Its not going to work in the real world.
Do you think the government saying "please, please, please, please get vaccinated" is going to have a different effect to the government saying "please, please, please get vaccinated" ?
As to restrictions on the anti-vaxxers, they needed to be brought in months ago.
But for some reason the establishment is happy to pander to anti-vaxxers.
And there's not enough of them left who haven't been infected now to make restrictions worthwhile.
The proportion of unvaccinated in hospital says there are enough around to make it worthwhile.
And, yes, I advocated pretty much this in late November which would have been far better (much before would have been punitive). Too late? Not to help NHS recovery after peak, perhaps not to suppress peak for Newcastle.
And, finally, I'm not primarily bothered about driving the Vax rates here. Just protecting the health system from the unvaxxed flood.
Off thread already (sorry), there is a story in the Telegraph that the Six Nations might be played entirely in England. To me, that would be vastly preferable to empty stadia in Scotland and Wales (and Ireland and France?). And getting to Bristol, say, won't be massively more inconvenient for Welsh fans than getting to Cardiff. But I can't see the politics of it panning out. Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford would be furious.
I understand, from second-hand reports (i.e. my husband, who subscribes to the Torygraph sports pages,) that the WRU are thinking about decamping to the Emirates or the Tottenham Hotspur stadium. Who would blame them for seeking to evade these useless rules and rescue their finances if the opportunity presents itself? And yes, it'll make a total mockery of Drakeford's spectator ban, but what is his Government (or that in Scotland) going to do about it? Unless they reinstate Draconian "stay local" lockdown rules to prevent the spectators from travelling, and deploy the police to try to enforce them, then the answer is nothing.
The rugby authorities, in common with many other businesses and institutions in Scotland and Wales, have been shat upon by the devolved governments. Quite why they - let alone UK ministers - should give two hoots about their fury is quite beyond me.
This is a good example of what is wrong with ‘Muscular Unionism’. Just because the English can behave like arseholes doesn’t mean they have to. It’s like the whole nation has caught Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Why is the English setting their own rules for stadia in England behaving “like arseholes”?
It's a bit aggressive, trying to 'steal' the games from Murrayfield. Could backfire - timing is everything, particularly of Sturgeon is overly hesitant on opening stuff up.
Not sure how football v rugby fans compare. Rugby slightly more SNP?
Wouldn’t think so unless you’re using the Ibrox home crowd as a comparator.
But LFTs won't be recorded unless one writes/calls in. UNlike PCRs.
Just did it online. 2 minutes, and if you have NHS log in even faster.
Anecdotally I know of people who have had positive LFTs and neither recorded it nor got a PCR. They isolated themselves for the period required and checked with a LFT at the end. As a very numerical person I hate this as it prevents us getting a true picture of what is going on with Covid. Even more so as I can log a result in a minute and don't see why everyone else can't do the same.
I personally think that we are at the stage in the pandemic where we can just switch to LFTs without PCRs. It would be great if there were some form of incentive to do so but I am not sure what it would be without encouraging people to falsely report positive LFTs!
ISTM that "kids" is vaguely pejorative; horrid/horrible I would see more as a class indicator, likewise pudding and dessert; and movie is just going with the times as most people consume films on US streaming services and those films in any case are usually US-made.
I see kids more as informal than pejorative. But if OKC sees it as pejorative I can see why. Horrid feels horribly Enid Blyton and twee. (I have actually read a good argument that horrid is the least horrible of the four horrible words, which, getting more horrible, are horrid, horrible, horrendous and horrific. So perhaps has a use as 'horrible, but not that horrible'.) Movie is just not as good a word as film. I have also seen an argument that movie denotes a certain sort of film - big Hollywood blockbuster - whereas film is its more thoughtful or arty counterpart. Again, I could get on board with that. But movie seems to just be used for all films nowadays. Sigh. And dessert just sounds to me like an affectation. Though I have an Irish friend who finds the word pudding hilarious - hears it as very English and therefore very posh, which is kind of the reverse of how I hear it.
I think the problem with 'film' is that it means many different things. It can be used as a noun (a thin film) or a verb (I'm filming the action, or to cover something with a layer). Whereas 'movie' just refers to the recorded film.
Movie is not a nice word IMO, but it refers much better to its subject than 'film'.
We know that Omicron cases include many more reinfections than previous variants., 10-15% of cases are reinfections. These are not included in the reported numbers in the UK, except in Wales which does include them. How do other countries address this issue?
Any idea WHY we are not counting them? Seems odd, especially now that they are more common.
Because of the way the infections are registered to NHS numbers. We count new NHS numbers with a positive test result against them. Reinfections won't change that flag so they don't get counted. Aiui it's a fairly big technical challenge to count reinfections programmatically.
Dave is clearly going to tremendously enjoy the denouement.
Yet Boris won more Scottish MPs than Cameron ever did and on the latest Scottish subsample of the latest poll the Scottish Conservatives are even back up to 28%
Ho ho.
In the latest full-sample, correctly weighed Scottish poll the Conservatives are on 17%:
That was taken well before the Redfield poll, before no new restrictions in England but restrictions in Scotland over Christmas and New Year and is now out of date
ISTM that "kids" is vaguely pejorative; horrid/horrible I would see more as a class indicator, likewise pudding and dessert; and movie is just going with the times as most people consume films on US streaming services and those films in any case are usually US-made.
I see kids more as informal than pejorative. But if OKC sees it as pejorative I can see why. Horrid feels horribly Enid Blyton and twee. (I have actually read a good argument that horrid is the least horrible of the four horrible words, which, getting more horrible, are horrid, horrible, horrendous and horrific. So perhaps has a use as 'horrible, but not that horrible'.) Movie is just not as good a word as film. I have also seen an argument that movie denotes a certain sort of film - big Hollywood blockbuster - whereas film is its more thoughtful or arty counterpart. Again, I could get on board with that. But movie seems to just be used for all films nowadays. Sigh. And dessert just sounds to me like an affectation. Though I have an Irish friend who finds the word pudding hilarious - hears it as very English and therefore very posh, which is kind of the reverse of how I hear it.
I didn't say that I found 'kids' pejorative, even vaguely. Mrs C & I just don't like the way it's now very widely used instead of 'children'. Horrid, does feel a bit twee, I agree; don't use it often. Movie vs film? Agree with Mr(?) Cookie. And I've never found a word for the penultimate course at a meal (before the cheese) that was invariably satisfactory. Pudding, dessert, sweet, afters; probably not the last but otherwise, all seem acceptable to me.
Off thread already (sorry), there is a story in the Telegraph that the Six Nations might be played entirely in England. To me, that would be vastly preferable to empty stadia in Scotland and Wales (and Ireland and France?). And getting to Bristol, say, won't be massively more inconvenient for Welsh fans than getting to Cardiff. But I can't see the politics of it panning out. Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford would be furious.
Well, if Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France (not sure about Italy) are all banning crowds from stadia, and England are offering the organisers full houses of paying spectators, then the organisers are going to take the money.
6N tickets are gold dust at the best of times, they’ll have no problem selling out every venue they can find, even at short notice.
Yes, the politics of it will be awful in the other nations.
Although it also allows Sturgeon and Drakeford an easy hit at explaining differential infection rates (“stupid English”)
Yes, the ‘stupid English’ are free to go about their business, go to nightclubs and rugby matches, without their healthcare system becoming overwhelmed by the nasty virus that’s going round.
It increasingly looks like this new variant can’t be stopped outside the Chinese version of a lockdown, it’s unlikely that banning outdoor crowds is going to do much about it. I imagine that the famously sanguine Scottish football crowds will shortly take to the streets on match days, if there continues to be a difference between Scotland and England in how such crowds are treated.
It is the winter shutdown in Scotland, they are not playing any football in the top league, the rest can play if they wish with reduced spectator numbers. You trying to imitate Goebbel's.
It is time to release the Govester. What has he come up with?
Some good plans for ‘levelling-up’ that don’t involve huge amounts of taxpayer cash?
There's no such thing is there? May had to bribe Nissan just to stay in Sunderland.
Differential corporate and income tax rates have worked in many other countries and should really be tried here. Either as central government edict, or through devolution of tax powers. The latter would mean regional administrations having to manage spending and balance the budget, but in the absence of tax revenue there could still be central government block grants.
The corollary would be higher tax rates in London and the more economically active areas of the South East like the Thames Valley. It's how tax works in the US and I have seen the effect it has on investment.
What tax policy does which grants don't is to capture investment passively. It nudges businesses to change behaviour, without the government having to pick winners and spend time scrutinising grant applications. It means there's less risk of missing the next unicorn.
I advise multinationals on how and where to put activities for a living. I can tell you straight off that a 15% CT rate for, say, the NE or South Yorks or Cornwall or East Kent and a 28% rate for London and the Heathrow corridor would drive major behavioural change, without impoverishing London. With the global minimum tax coming in there will be virtually no competition from tax havens and ultra-low tax locations for big business anymore. They will concentrate on HNWIs and SMEs.
OK. Let's stop this self-serving horse shit that the course of Omicron was utterly uninfluencable by restrictions except the most Draconian, so why bother. Yes, light measures wouldn't have taken Rt below 1, but achieving a slowing from 1.7 to 1.5 would have been worth it to flatten the curve a little, to reduce the peak. I fully accepted the Delta thinking, poorly explained, that it was about flow control rather than prevention, but HMG threw flow control out of the window as well for political weakness and expediency.
I don't exactly agree with the Scottish measures either, but it should be noted that the Central Belt was ready to explode at the same point as London and they have successfully delayed and likely lowered a massive peak. (Wale's late measures, not so much yet).
So, is it too late now or is that also self-serving horse shit? I don't think we have much influence on the peak at this stage, but is a degree of suppression and of re-establishing flow control beyond the peak worth it, is helping NHS recovery worth it? If the measures can be found, then, yes.
So what is the problem. Not cases, not deaths this time, but hospital capacity, both from bed occupation and staff absence. And let's be clear the bed occupation is still 'for COVID' - the proportion of 'fors' may have dropped (75->65%) but this is not a withdemic - that is another bit of self-serving bolleaux.
London looks beyond peak, but any kick on in New Year, a single doubling - likely outer London led - looks NHS fatal at this stage and is certainly not beyond the realms.
So let's start slowing the right things. I'm not on the pub closing page, here, I'm still on the restricting the unvaccinated in a proportionate way for their own health and for health provision for all:
- Ban unvaccinated and never registered positive over 18s from pubs, sit down restaurants, entertainment venues, from close contact personal care and from household mixing except for care giving. - Ban not boosted (or double vaccinated plus infected) over 60s in the same way. - Too late to set up Vaxports as the central gatekeeper of this or business to enforce. Compliance is an individual responsibility, and 7 days at a police station to prove status would do, as per driving. - Strongly advise critical workers to follow the same guidelines as the unvaccinated wherever possible. - Strong message to all other to prioritise the contacts most important to them, whatever those are - properly government led, not Whitty as a lone voice. - Testing and earlier returns for critical workers (as soon as negative) - For the unvaccinated, non clinically urgent hospital attendances should be delayed, where there is a clear clinical benefit to the unvaccinated avoiding Omicronny settings.
A lot of Omicron will still find these people in more roundabout ways, but every person who catches it in February rather than January is a win and this should start to make a difference quickly if done.
And how do you propose to do all this 'banning' ?
People are now doing what they want when they want.
Proportionate and temporary legal restriction on the unvaxxed - some adherance. some non compliance got away with, some people fined. Its all good.
For the rest it would just be advice and upping the clarity of HMGs communication game.
Its not going to work in the real world.
Do you think the government saying "please, please, please, please get vaccinated" is going to have a different effect to the government saying "please, please, please get vaccinated" ?
As to restrictions on the anti-vaxxers, they needed to be brought in months ago.
But for some reason the establishment is happy to pander to anti-vaxxers.
And there's not enough of them left who haven't been infected now to make restrictions worthwhile.
The proportion of unvaccinated in hospital says there are enough around to make it worthwhile.
And, yes, I advocated pretty much this in late November which would have been far better (much before would have been punitive). Too late? Not to help NHS recovery after peak, perhaps not to suppress peak for Newcastle.
And, finally, I'm not primarily bothered about driving the Vax rates here. Just protecting the health system from the unvaxxed flood.
Its too late.
The unvaccinated will be infected, if they haven't been already, and a certain number will be hospitalised.
The pandering to the anti-vaxxers has been one of the mysteries of the last six months.
We know that Omicron cases include many more reinfections than previous variants., 10-15% of cases are reinfections. These are not included in the reported numbers in the UK, except in Wales which does include them. How do other countries address this issue?
Any idea WHY we are not counting them? Seems odd, especially now that they are more common.
Because of the way the infections are registered to NHS numbers. We count new NHS numbers with a positive test result against them. Reinfections won't change that flag so they don't get counted. Aiui it's a fairly big technical challenge to count reinfections programmatically.
Good god, in 2022 we can't solve that challenge? How hard can it be?
Dave is clearly going to tremendously enjoy the denouement.
Yet Boris won more Scottish MPs than Cameron ever did and on the latest Scottish subsample of the latest poll the Scottish Conservatives are even back up to 28%
Ho ho.
In the latest full-sample, correctly weighed Scottish poll the Conservatives are on 17%:
That was taken well before the Redfield poll, before no new restrictions in England but restrictions in Scotland over Christmas and New Year and is now out of date
That’s why I love you FUDHY: you’re a true believer.
Though even 17% would still be higher than the just 15% the SCons got under Cameron in 2015 and the 16% they got in 2010
It is time to release the Govester. What has he come up with?
Some good plans for ‘levelling-up’ that don’t involve huge amounts of taxpayer cash?
Well that would be good. He is the ideas man of the government to an almost depressing extent. He needs a package that substantially moves the current view of levelling up.
Off thread already (sorry), there is a story in the Telegraph that the Six Nations might be played entirely in England. To me, that would be vastly preferable to empty stadia in Scotland and Wales (and Ireland and France?). And getting to Bristol, say, won't be massively more inconvenient for Welsh fans than getting to Cardiff. But I can't see the politics of it panning out. Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford would be furious.
Well, if Scotland, Wales, Ireland and France (not sure about Italy) are all banning crowds from stadia, and England are offering the organisers full houses of paying spectators, then the organisers are going to take the money.
6N tickets are gold dust at the best of times, they’ll have no problem selling out every venue they can find, even at short notice.
Yes, the politics of it will be awful in the other nations.
Although it also allows Sturgeon and Drakeford an easy hit at explaining differential infection rates (“stupid English”)
Yes, the ‘stupid English’ are free to go about their business, go to nightclubs and rugby matches, without their healthcare system becoming overwhelmed by the nasty virus that’s going round.
It increasingly looks like this new variant can’t be stopped outside the Chinese version of a lockdown, it’s unlikely that banning outdoor crowds is going to do much about it. I imagine that the famously sanguine Scottish football crowds will shortly take to the streets on match days, if there continues to be a difference between Scotland and England in how such crowds are treated.
It is the winter shutdown in Scotland, they are not playing any football in the top league, the rest can play if they wish with reduced spectator numbers. You trying to imitate Goebbel's.
C’mon Malc, Sandy has deep insight into how the fans of Celtic United are feeling.
OK. Let's stop this self-serving horse shit that the course of Omicron was utterly uninfluencable by restrictions except the most Draconian, so why bother. Yes, light measures wouldn't have taken Rt below 1, but achieving a slowing from 1.7 to 1.5 would have been worth it to flatten the curve a little, to reduce the peak. I fully accepted the Delta thinking, poorly explained, that it was about flow control rather than prevention, but HMG threw flow control out of the window as well for political weakness and expediency.
I don't exactly agree with the Scottish measures either, but it should be noted that the Central Belt was ready to explode at the same point as London and they have successfully delayed and likely lowered a massive peak. (Wale's late measures, not so much yet).
So, is it too late now or is that also self-serving horse shit? I don't think we have much influence on the peak at this stage, but is a degree of suppression and of re-establishing flow control beyond the peak worth it, is helping NHS recovery worth it? If the measures can be found, then, yes.
So what is the problem. Not cases, not deaths this time, but hospital capacity, both from bed occupation and staff absence. And let's be clear the bed occupation is still 'for COVID' - the proportion of 'fors' may have dropped (75->65%) but this is not a withdemic - that is another bit of self-serving bolleaux.
London looks beyond peak, but any kick on in New Year, a single doubling - likely outer London led - looks NHS fatal at this stage and is certainly not beyond the realms.
So let's start slowing the right things. I'm not on the pub closing page, here, I'm still on the restricting the unvaccinated in a proportionate way for their own health and for health provision for all:
- Ban unvaccinated and never registered positive over 18s from pubs, sit down restaurants, entertainment venues, from close contact personal care and from household mixing except for care giving. - Ban not boosted (or double vaccinated plus infected) over 60s in the same way. - Too late to set up Vaxports as the central gatekeeper of this or business to enforce. Compliance is an individual responsibility, and 7 days at a police station to prove status would do, as per driving. - Strongly advise critical workers to follow the same guidelines as the unvaccinated wherever possible. - Strong message to all other to prioritise the contacts most important to them, whatever those are - properly government led, not Whitty as a lone voice. - Testing and earlier returns for critical workers (as soon as negative) - For the unvaccinated, non clinically urgent hospital attendances should be delayed, where there is a clear clinical benefit to the unvaccinated avoiding Omicronny settings.
A lot of Omicron will still find these people in more roundabout ways, but every person who catches it in February rather than January is a win and this should start to make a difference quickly if done.
It's a fair challenge. I do think a fair bit of growth is now locked in, but you're right that we could surely do something to flatten the peak. My suspicion is that the unvaccinated will only be a small part of the problem, plenty of vaccinated people are getting infected.
Paxlovid could be a really big help, but it's unclear to me how it will be deployed. We don't really want oldies with symptoms having to go to the chemist. Really hope someone in govt has a good plan for this. They say it cuts hospitalisation by nearly 90%... so a complete game changer if effectively used (and another reason why buying more time would be valuable).
OK. Let's stop this self-serving horse shit that the course of Omicron was utterly uninfluencable by restrictions except the most Draconian, so why bother. Yes, light measures wouldn't have taken Rt below 1, but achieving a slowing from 1.7 to 1.5 would have been worth it to flatten the curve a little, to reduce the peak. I fully accepted the Delta thinking, poorly explained, that it was about flow control rather than prevention, but HMG threw flow control out of the window as well for political weakness and expediency.
I don't exactly agree with the Scottish measures either, but it should be noted that the Central Belt was ready to explode at the same point as London and they have successfully delayed and likely lowered a massive peak. (Wale's late measures, not so much yet).
So, is it too late now or is that also self-serving horse shit? I don't think we have much influence on the peak at this stage, but is a degree of suppression and of re-establishing flow control beyond the peak worth it, is helping NHS recovery worth it? If the measures can be found, then, yes.
So what is the problem. Not cases, not deaths this time, but hospital capacity, both from bed occupation and staff absence. And let's be clear the bed occupation is still 'for COVID' - the proportion of 'fors' may have dropped (75->65%) but this is not a withdemic - that is another bit of self-serving bolleaux.
London looks beyond peak, but any kick on in New Year, a single doubling - likely outer London led - looks NHS fatal at this stage and is certainly not beyond the realms.
So let's start slowing the right things. I'm not on the pub closing page, here, I'm still on the restricting the unvaccinated in a proportionate way for their own health and for health provision for all:
- Ban unvaccinated and never registered positive over 18s from pubs, sit down restaurants, entertainment venues, from close contact personal care and from household mixing except for care giving. - Ban not boosted (or double vaccinated plus infected) over 60s in the same way. - Too late to set up Vaxports as the central gatekeeper of this or business to enforce. Compliance is an individual responsibility, and 7 days at a police station to prove status would do, as per driving. - Strongly advise critical workers to follow the same guidelines as the unvaccinated wherever possible. - Strong message to all other to prioritise the contacts most important to them, whatever those are - properly government led, not Whitty as a lone voice. - Testing and earlier returns for critical workers (as soon as negative) - For the unvaccinated, non clinically urgent hospital attendances should be delayed, where there is a clear clinical benefit to the unvaccinated avoiding Omicronny settings.
A lot of Omicron will still find these people in more roundabout ways, but every person who catches it in February rather than January is a win and this should start to make a difference quickly if done.
Compliance has clearly declined among the vaccinated+boosted, but I think Macron and you are correct that patience with the unvaccinated (in the absence of medical reasons) is wearing thin.
FWIW everyone that I know (not all of them older generation) has reverted to cancelling social engagements, getting shopping delivered, etc. They varied over Christmas, with some cancelling and some deciding to take what they saw as a risk, but self-lockdown is now a thing again. The reports here of places being rammed in London shows that's not universal, and I wonder if there's a city/town difference, with people in London feeling more fatalistic about probably catching it anyway.
No thought of trying to piss the unvaccinated of in this, we just need to do enough to.protect health provision from them, and I'd be clear these are necessary steps and a choice balanced to affect fewer people than locking down everyone. I'm not into wanton othering here.
Everyone will get it eventually, and some of the unvaxxed will still need hospital. Just not all at the same time, thank you very much, so let's get at least try to get Omicron through more of the better immune first.
We know that Omicron cases include many more reinfections than previous variants., 10-15% of cases are reinfections. These are not included in the reported numbers in the UK, except in Wales which does include them. How do other countries address this issue?
Any idea WHY we are not counting them? Seems odd, especially now that they are more common.
Because of the way the infections are registered to NHS numbers. We count new NHS numbers with a positive test result against them. Reinfections won't change that flag so they don't get counted. Aiui it's a fairly big technical challenge to count reinfections programmatically.
Good god, in 2022 we can't solve that challenge? How hard can it be?
Thanks for confirming that you aren't a programmer.
Oh and that is the cost for a single system, you need to make a similar change in every other production (and non production) system that accesses that field - I call it an endless merry-go-round task.
Note for future pandemics when adding a field use an integer rather than boolean....
They are all junk apart from the Z3 (which shares its underpinnings with the E36 and is therefore awesome) and maybe the W210 as long as it has the M119 motor.
LFTs don't have to be recorded centrally, so of course many cases will never appear on government or any stats. .
LFTs have really changed the game. To me it would make sense for all community testing to be LFT home tests, and PCRs to be reserved for hospital admissions. The marginal benefit of all those PCRs for people with non-severe symptoms in the community seems pretty limited, given the massive cost we keep hearing about.
OK. Let's stop this self-serving horse shit that the course of Omicron was utterly uninfluencable by restrictions except the most Draconian, so why bother. Yes, light measures wouldn't have taken Rt below 1, but achieving a slowing from 1.7 to 1.5 would have been worth it to flatten the curve a little, to reduce the peak. I fully accepted the Delta thinking, poorly explained, that it was about flow control rather than prevention, but HMG threw flow control out of the window as well for political weakness and expediency.
I don't exactly agree with the Scottish measures either, but it should be noted that the Central Belt was ready to explode at the same point as London and they have successfully delayed and likely lowered a massive peak. (Wale's late measures, not so much yet).
So, is it too late now or is that also self-serving horse shit? I don't think we have much influence on the peak at this stage, but is a degree of suppression and of re-establishing flow control beyond the peak worth it, is helping NHS recovery worth it? If the measures can be found, then, yes.
So what is the problem. Not cases, not deaths this time, but hospital capacity, both from bed occupation and staff absence. And let's be clear the bed occupation is still 'for COVID' - the proportion of 'fors' may have dropped (75->65%) but this is not a withdemic - that is another bit of self-serving bolleaux.
London looks beyond peak, but any kick on in New Year, a single doubling - likely outer London led - looks NHS fatal at this stage and is certainly not beyond the realms.
So let's start slowing the right things. I'm not on the pub closing page, here, I'm still on the restricting the unvaccinated in a proportionate way for their own health and for health provision for all:
- Ban unvaccinated and never registered positive over 18s from pubs, sit down restaurants, entertainment venues, from close contact personal care and from household mixing except for care giving. - Ban not boosted (or double vaccinated plus infected) over 60s in the same way. - Too late to set up Vaxports as the central gatekeeper of this or business to enforce. Compliance is an individual responsibility, and 7 days at a police station to prove status would do, as per driving. - Strongly advise critical workers to follow the same guidelines as the unvaccinated wherever possible. - Strong message to all other to prioritise the contacts most important to them, whatever those are - properly government led, not Whitty as a lone voice. - Testing and earlier returns for critical workers (as soon as negative) - For the unvaccinated, non clinically urgent hospital attendances should be delayed, where there is a clear clinical benefit to the unvaccinated avoiding Omicronny settings.
A lot of Omicron will still find these people in more roundabout ways, but every person who catches it in February rather than January is a win and this should start to make a difference quickly if done.
Compliance has clearly declined among the vaccinated+boosted, but I think Macron and you are correct that patience with the unvaccinated (in the absence of medical reasons) is wearing thin.
FWIW everyone that I know (not all of them older generation) has reverted to cancelling social engagements, getting shopping delivered, etc. They varied over Christmas, with some cancelling and some deciding to take what they saw as a risk, but self-lockdown is now a thing again. The reports here of places being rammed in London shows that's not universal, and I wonder if there's a city/town difference, with people in London feeling more fatalistic about probably catching it anyway.
Do these people plan on restricting themselves forever ?
Do they think that covid is something to be avoided at all costs ? If so why ?
Do they think that covid is going to disappear ?
How about those who have already been infected - do they view covid and restrictions differently from those who haven't been infected ?
Do those people restricting themselves realise there's a significant chance they've already been infected without realising it ?
Now perhaps there's a different mentality in the waitrose belt but everyone I know has been leading a normal life since they were vaccinated.
On topic, I would expect govt handling of economy to get worse over 2022 with big energy bill rises and inflation. There's also the B-word in the background.
OK. Let's stop this self-serving horse shit that the course of Omicron was utterly uninfluencable by restrictions except the most Draconian, so why bother. Yes, light measures wouldn't have taken Rt below 1, but achieving a slowing from 1.7 to 1.5 would have been worth it to flatten the curve a little, to reduce the peak. I fully accepted the Delta thinking, poorly explained, that it was about flow control rather than prevention, but HMG threw flow control out of the window as well for political weakness and expediency.
I don't exactly agree with the Scottish measures either, but it should be noted that the Central Belt was ready to explode at the same point as London and they have successfully delayed and likely lowered a massive peak. (Wale's late measures, not so much yet).
So, is it too late now or is that also self-serving horse shit? I don't think we have much influence on the peak at this stage, but is a degree of suppression and of re-establishing flow control beyond the peak worth it, is helping NHS recovery worth it? If the measures can be found, then, yes.
So what is the problem. Not cases, not deaths this time, but hospital capacity, both from bed occupation and staff absence. And let's be clear the bed occupation is still 'for COVID' - the proportion of 'fors' may have dropped (75->65%) but this is not a withdemic - that is another bit of self-serving bolleaux.
London looks beyond peak, but any kick on in New Year, a single doubling - likely outer London led - looks NHS fatal at this stage and is certainly not beyond the realms.
So let's start slowing the right things. I'm not on the pub closing page, here, I'm still on the restricting the unvaccinated in a proportionate way for their own health and for health provision for all:
- Ban unvaccinated and never registered positive over 18s from pubs, sit down restaurants, entertainment venues, from close contact personal care and from household mixing except for care giving. - Ban not boosted (or double vaccinated plus infected) over 60s in the same way. - Too late to set up Vaxports as the central gatekeeper of this or business to enforce. Compliance is an individual responsibility, and 7 days at a police station to prove status would do, as per driving. - Strongly advise critical workers to follow the same guidelines as the unvaccinated wherever possible. - Strong message to all other to prioritise the contacts most important to them, whatever those are - properly government led, not Whitty as a lone voice. - Testing and earlier returns for critical workers (as soon as negative) - For the unvaccinated, non clinically urgent hospital attendances should be delayed, where there is a clear clinical benefit to the unvaccinated avoiding Omicronny settings.
A lot of Omicron will still find these people in more roundabout ways, but every person who catches it in February rather than January is a win and this should start to make a difference quickly if done.
It's a fair challenge. I do think a fair bit of growth is now locked in, but you're right that we could surely do something to flatten the peak. My suspicion is that the unvaccinated will only be a small part of the problem, plenty of vaccinated people are getting infected.
Paxlovid could be a really big help, but it's unclear to me how it will be deployed. We don't really want oldies with symptoms having to go to the chemist. Really hope someone in govt has a good plan for this. They say it cuts hospitalisation by nearly 90%... so a complete game changer if effectively used (and another reason why buying more time would be valuable).
What's interesting about these sorts of debates is the paradigm shift in thinking. There is no way pre-2020 that anyone would be arguing for restrictions on public restrictions like closing hospitality, or banning certain people from certain venues on the basis of vaccination, in order to relieve severe pressure on the NHS. The lockdowns of 2020 starting in Wuhan and then Italy changed all that.
I understand it, though it makes me uncomfortable. It made sense pre-vaccines. Not now.
They are all junk apart from the Z3 (which shares its underpinnings with the E36 and is therefore awesome) and maybe the W210 as long as it has the M119 motor.
It's the lawlessness that might do it for this government.
I've had three motor scooters stolen in the last 14 months. The second was filmed on two separate CCTV cameras. The police were inaccessible on all three occasions. The only way of contacting them is online or dialling 999 which mustn't be used other than in an emergency "or you could be putting someone's life at risk" .
Having done a little detective work online it appears these thefts have reached epidemic proportions. The common thread is we don't have a functioning police force.
Totally O/T I wonder what New Zealand's plan is for the future because the moment that they open up travel Omicron will come big time and then will they lockdown?. Will they stay isolated for ever?
They are miles behind with the booster, which you really need in an immune naive population. Complacency.
Their tourist industry must be in tatters now, but the moment they open up for travel Omicron will spread incredibly quickly.
Excellent. As you might expect, my particular favourite:
"LAND ROVER DISCOVERY: Went fox-hunting on New Year’s Day calling it “a public service”. Yelled “you want to see what a fox does to a coup of chickens!” at protestors and considered it a real checkmate."
We know that Omicron cases include many more reinfections than previous variants., 10-15% of cases are reinfections. These are not included in the reported numbers in the UK, except in Wales which does include them. How do other countries address this issue?
Any idea WHY we are not counting them? Seems odd, especially now that they are more common.
Because of the way the infections are registered to NHS numbers. We count new NHS numbers with a positive test result against them. Reinfections won't change that flag so they don't get counted. Aiui it's a fairly big technical challenge to count reinfections programmatically.
Good god, in 2022 we can't solve that challenge? How hard can it be?
Thanks for confirming that you aren't a programmer.
Oh and that is the cost for a single system, you need to make a similar change in every other production (and non production) system that accesses that field - I call it an endless merry-go-round task.
Note for future pandemics when adding a field use an integer rather than boolean....
That chart should be on the desk of everyone responsible for ‘Agile’ software development!
The new non-requirements for a follow-up PCR would have meant that my wife wouldn't have been given the all-clear from her Boxing Day PCR and would have been self-isolating until the New Year following her Christmas Day positive LFT.
So there are swings and roundabouts associated with this change of approach.
We know that Omicron cases include many more reinfections than previous variants., 10-15% of cases are reinfections. These are not included in the reported numbers in the UK, except in Wales which does include them. How do other countries address this issue?
Any idea WHY we are not counting them? Seems odd, especially now that they are more common.
Because of the way the infections are registered to NHS numbers. We count new NHS numbers with a positive test result against them. Reinfections won't change that flag so they don't get counted. Aiui it's a fairly big technical challenge to count reinfections programmatically.
Good god, in 2022 we can't solve that challenge? How hard can it be?
Thanks for confirming that you aren't a programmer.
Oh and that is the cost for a single system, you need to make a similar change in every other production (and non production) system that accesses that field - I call it an endless merry-go-round task.
Note for future pandemics when adding a field use an integer rather than boolean....
or double / DOUBLE / float for the added uncertainty and LOLs.
It's the lawlessness that might do it for this government.
I've had three motor scooters stolen in the last 14 months. The second was filmed on two separate CCTV cameras. The police were inaccessible on all three occasions. The only way of contacting them is online or dialling 999 which mustn't be used other than in an emergency "or you could be putting someone's life at risk" .
Having done a little detective work online it appears these thefts have reached epidemic proportions. The common thread is we don't have a functioning police force.
That's part of the charm of living in a big city Roger.
In all seriousness though, that sucks, but you have two ways of dealing with it. One is the 'law and order' route which rather unfashionable, and the other one is dealing with underlying 'social issues' which people don't have too much faith in directly.
It is time to release the Govester. What has he come up with?
Some good plans for ‘levelling-up’ that don’t involve huge amounts of taxpayer cash?
Well that would be good. He is the ideas man of the government to an almost depressing extent. He needs a package that substantially moves the current view of levelling up.
If that dipstick is your ideas man then you should have your bags packed and removal van booked.
It's the lawlessness that might do it for this government.
I've had three motor scooters stolen in the last 14 months. The second was filmed on two separate CCTV cameras. The police were inaccessible on all three occasions. The only way of contacting them is online or dialling 999 which mustn't be used other than in an emergency "or you could be putting someone's life at risk" .
Having done a little detective work online it appears these thefts have reached epidemic proportions. The common thread is we don't have a functioning police force.
Welcome to the world of de-prioritised crime.
A farmer I knew never could get the police interested in the steady stream of thefts over the years.
When he started putting a roof on an ancient stone walled building (a farm cottage that hadn't been lived in since year X and was just the walls and grass) to create a secure store for some equipment, the planning officers and police were out in force. Within hours of the day he started work.
Off thread already (sorry), there is a story in the Telegraph that the Six Nations might be played entirely in England. To me, that would be vastly preferable to empty stadia in Scotland and Wales (and Ireland and France?). And getting to Bristol, say, won't be massively more inconvenient for Welsh fans than getting to Cardiff. But I can't see the politics of it panning out. Nicola Sturgeon and Mark Drakeford would be furious.
I understand, from second-hand reports (i.e. my husband, who subscribes to the Torygraph sports pages,) that the WRU are thinking about decamping to the Emirates or the Tottenham Hotspur stadium. Who would blame them for seeking to evade these useless rules and rescue their finances if the opportunity presents itself? And yes, it'll make a total mockery of Drakeford's spectator ban, but what is his Government (or that in Scotland) going to do about it? Unless they reinstate Draconian "stay local" lockdown rules to prevent the spectators from travelling, and deploy the police to try to enforce them, then the answer is nothing.
The rugby authorities, in common with many other businesses and institutions in Scotland and Wales, have been shat upon by the devolved governments. Quite why they - let alone UK ministers - should give two hoots about their fury is quite beyond me.
This is a good example of what is wrong with ‘Muscular Unionism’. Just because the English can behave like arseholes doesn’t mean they have to. It’s like the whole nation has caught Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Why is the English setting their own rules for stadia in England behaving “like arseholes”?
It's a bit aggressive, trying to 'steal' the games from Murrayfield. Could backfire - timing is everything, particularly of Sturgeon is overly hesitant on opening stuff up.
Not sure how football v rugby fans compare. Rugby slightly more SNP?
It’s offering an alternative that will allow fans to attend and the sport to make more money. Of course if Scotland and Wales want to allow spectators to attend then they should go ahead at scurry t sites
They are all junk apart from the Z3 (which shares its underpinnings with the E36 and is therefore awesome) and maybe the W210 as long as it has the M119 motor.
V8 E-Class wagons are always cool.
The best E Klasse was the W124 500E which was developed by Porsche and actually assembled in the Porsche factory at Zuffenhausen.
If yours has the 5.5 M113 do the oil pickup and pump mods before it decides to do them for you. See XF Motorsports on YouTube. He is the M113 god.
We know that Omicron cases include many more reinfections than previous variants., 10-15% of cases are reinfections. These are not included in the reported numbers in the UK, except in Wales which does include them. How do other countries address this issue?
Any idea WHY we are not counting them? Seems odd, especially now that they are more common.
Because of the way the infections are registered to NHS numbers. We count new NHS numbers with a positive test result against them. Reinfections won't change that flag so they don't get counted. Aiui it's a fairly big technical challenge to count reinfections programmatically.
Good god, in 2022 we can't solve that challenge? How hard can it be?
Thanks for confirming that you aren't a programmer.
Oh and that is the cost for a single system, you need to make a similar change in every other production (and non production) system that accesses that field - I call it an endless merry-go-round task.
Note for future pandemics when adding a field use an integer rather than boolean....
Yep - I am absolutely NOT a programmer, and never claimed to be. I just find it fascinating that this information is that hard.
I posted something on similar lines on the previous thread in the early hours (thanks to an insomniac pre-schooler) but Australia has major issues with testing. We take for granted how the UK has massively scaled out testing capabilities.
Some of their issues: - Major shortage of LFTs (they call them Rapid Antigen Tests, RATs) - Some locations are breaking open packs of LFTs and selling them for as much as A$25 each - Major queues lasting many hours at PCR testing locations - PCR results taking many days to get back
Much more should be made of the huge success the UK testing programme has been over the last 18 months. The first few months of the pandemic were tricky whilst the infrastructure was built and supplies obtained but since then it has been phenomenally good!
Excellent. As you might expect, my particular favourite:
"LAND ROVER DISCOVERY: Went fox-hunting on New Year’s Day calling it “a public service”. Yelled “you want to see what a fox does to a coup of chickens!” at protestors and considered it a real checkmate."
Only let down by her too-obvious partisanship leaving out any remotely Corbynite or blue heart vehicles. There were plenty of 90s cars that would have fitted the bill and spent early January moaning about Blair's knighthood, "Sir Keith", or the government exercising mass child murder by opening schools. I'd have opted for a Seat Ibiza for a young Corbynista, a Volvo 340 for a blue-heart temperance campaigner, and a mid-sized Peugeot for a wizened old socialist.
Excellent. As you might expect, my particular favourite:
"LAND ROVER DISCOVERY: Went fox-hunting on New Year’s Day calling it “a public service”. Yelled “you want to see what a fox does to a coup of chickens!” at protestors and considered it a real checkmate."
I wonder what Johnson's ratings would be now if Covid had not occurred? I think they'd be in the toilet. Covid has provided his USP (vaccines) and also cover for the utter shambles of how he Brexited. Lucky lucky Johnson. Again.
It's the lawlessness that might do it for this government.
I've had three motor scooters stolen in the last 14 months. The second was filmed on two separate CCTV cameras. The police were inaccessible on all three occasions. The only way of contacting them is online or dialling 999 which mustn't be used other than in an emergency "or you could be putting someone's life at risk" .
Having done a little detective work online it appears these thefts have reached epidemic proportions. The common thread is we don't have a functioning police force.
That's part of the charm of living in a big city Roger.
In all seriousness though, that sucks, but you have two ways of dealing with it. One is the 'law and order' route which rather unfashionable, and the other one is dealing with underlying 'social issues' which people don't have too much faith in directly.
The fashionable view is that "minor" crime shouldn't be prosecuted because the "minor" criminals are themselves victims.
The detailed crime maps show why that view is..... interesting... Look for the strange "holes" where no minor crimes are reported.....
We know that Omicron cases include many more reinfections than previous variants., 10-15% of cases are reinfections. These are not included in the reported numbers in the UK, except in Wales which does include them. How do other countries address this issue?
Any idea WHY we are not counting them? Seems odd, especially now that they are more common.
Because of the way the infections are registered to NHS numbers. We count new NHS numbers with a positive test result against them. Reinfections won't change that flag so they don't get counted. Aiui it's a fairly big technical challenge to count reinfections programmatically.
Good god, in 2022 we can't solve that challenge? How hard can it be?
Thanks for confirming that you aren't a programmer.
Oh and that is the cost for a single system, you need to make a similar change in every other production (and non production) system that accesses that field - I call it an endless merry-go-round task.
Note for future pandemics when adding a field use an integer rather than boolean....
That chart should be on the desk of everyone responsible for ‘Agile’ software development!
I haven't even covered the worst bit - timing the change means that you can't simply modify the field, you would need to run them in parallel and then repeat the project to remove the old (now deprecated) field as part of a future release.
That Red bar shouldn't be sat at over 30x a more accurate version is 60x, And that's for a single system you then need to do the same for every system that directly talks to the primary system and quite probably every system that talks to those secondary systems.
I should highlight that I love agile and low code / no code solutions. But they need to be utterly self contained otherwise it's a complete world of pain...
OK. Let's stop this self-serving horse shit that the course of Omicron was utterly uninfluencable by restrictions except the most Draconian, so why bother. Yes, light measures wouldn't have taken Rt below 1, but achieving a slowing from 1.7 to 1.5 would have been worth it to flatten the curve a little, to reduce the peak. I fully accepted the Delta thinking, poorly explained, that it was about flow control rather than prevention, but HMG threw flow control out of the window as well for political weakness and expediency.
I don't exactly agree with the Scottish measures either, but it should be noted that the Central Belt was ready to explode at the same point as London and they have successfully delayed and likely lowered a massive peak. (Wale's late measures, not so much yet).
So, is it too late now or is that also self-serving horse shit? I don't think we have much influence on the peak at this stage, but is a degree of suppression and of re-establishing flow control beyond the peak worth it, is helping NHS recovery worth it? If the measures can be found, then, yes.
So what is the problem. Not cases, not deaths this time, but hospital capacity, both from bed occupation and staff absence. And let's be clear the bed occupation is still 'for COVID' - the proportion of 'fors' may have dropped (75->65%) but this is not a withdemic - that is another bit of self-serving bolleaux.
London looks beyond peak, but any kick on in New Year, a single doubling - likely outer London led - looks NHS fatal at this stage and is certainly not beyond the realms.
So let's start slowing the right things. I'm not on the pub closing page, here, I'm still on the restricting the unvaccinated in a proportionate way for their own health and for health provision for all:
- Ban unvaccinated and never registered positive over 18s from pubs, sit down restaurants, entertainment venues, from close contact personal care and from household mixing except for care giving. - Ban not boosted (or double vaccinated plus infected) over 60s in the same way. - Too late to set up Vaxports as the central gatekeeper of this or business to enforce. Compliance is an individual responsibility, and 7 days at a police station to prove status would do, as per driving. - Strongly advise critical workers to follow the same guidelines as the unvaccinated wherever possible. - Strong message to all other to prioritise the contacts most important to them, whatever those are - properly government led, not Whitty as a lone voice. - Testing and earlier returns for critical workers (as soon as negative) - For the unvaccinated, non clinically urgent hospital attendances should be delayed, where there is a clear clinical benefit to the unvaccinated avoiding Omicronny settings.
A lot of Omicron will still find these people in more roundabout ways, but every person who catches it in February rather than January is a win and this should start to make a difference quickly if done.
It's a fair challenge. I do think a fair bit of growth is now locked in, but you're right that we could surely do something to flatten the peak. My suspicion is that the unvaccinated will only be a small part of the problem, plenty of vaccinated people are getting infected.
Paxlovid could be a really big help, but it's unclear to me how it will be deployed. We don't really want oldies with symptoms having to go to the chemist. Really hope someone in govt has a good plan for this. They say it cuts hospitalisation by nearly 90%... so a complete game changer if effectively used (and another reason why buying more time would be valuable).
What's interesting about these sorts of debates is the paradigm shift in thinking. There is no way pre-2020 that anyone would be arguing for restrictions on public restrictions like closing hospitality, or banning certain people from certain venues on the basis of vaccination, in order to relieve severe pressure on the NHS. The lockdowns of 2020 starting in Wuhan and then Italy changed all that.
I understand it, though it makes me uncomfortable. It made sense pre-vaccines. Not now.
I think it has changed people's thinking and personally has definitely deepened understanding on how health system is connected. When one of my parents had a heart attack in Summer 2020 and nearly didn't make it, it felt clear that they got great care in part because hospitals were not overwhelmed at that time and the operating theatre was able to do the emergency surgery needed.
I hope and expect we are going to see a big rethink of people's priorities on the NHS. It feels obvious we have focused too much on efficiency and not on having spare capacity. The long-term workforce planning seems dire. People want to get involved, increases in applications to medicine, nursing etc. So let's increase places, at the start of the pipeline and all the way along. Oh and yeah, can we fix that stupid pension problem that penalizes work!
We need to draw the link between proper NHS funding & not having to shut down activities when we get hit by a surge. Covid isn't going away - it will be a big pressure on the health system for a long, long time.
Comments
Would be nice to see Wales playing in London / Liverpool with Scotland in Manchester / Newcastle.
Vickers and the local Tories Do Not Want houses going up everywhere. Have successfully campaigned on this for years. Blaming the Labour council has been rich pickings but as there is now a local plan they can't do that any more.
So having been voted in on a platform of stopping such things, Vickers and his former council colleagues wanted support from Houchen. Who despite having the ability to intervene as another powerful voice against this chose not to. With donations from the developers on the public record.
Houchen has done quite a bit of this recently. He absolutely shish-kebabbed Jacob Young in Redcar who can campaigned to save the Dorman Long tower which Houchen promptly demolished without even consulting him.
People are now doing what they want when they want.
But up here people would side with the cautious, sensible Sturgeon. They far outnumber us
As for Dorman Long - Jacob Young created a £2m problem without the finance to back it up. I suspect the people of Redcar would prefer a cinema to a unusable bit of historic industrial heritage that blocked the entire regeneration scheme.
I may not agree with Ben 100% but at least I can see what he is doing and he does seem to listen to arguments once he knows you actually have a clue on what you are talking about.
Positive lfts will be recorded. It makes perfect sense not to require PCR "confirmation" for a +ve lft,
Chance of
True positive LFT -> False Negative PCR >
False Positive LFT -> True Negative PCR
With current prevalence I think.
For the rest it would just be advice and upping the clarity of HMGs communication game.
https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-around-a-million-people-isolating-due-to-coronavirus-in-uk-as-testing-rules-set-to-be-relaxed-12509316
LFTs don't have to be recorded centrally, so of course many cases will never appear on government or any stats. .
It is time to release the Govester. What has he come up with?
BTW there's no question for "keeping the UK together", I see.
Its website, however, still tells us (5/1/22) in Australia (amongst other places) 'The virus is the past: the only question is, how quickly do we want to join the future?'
https://twitter.com/JobbingLeftieH/status/1478650125484494848?s=20
Horrid feels horribly Enid Blyton and twee. (I have actually read a good argument that horrid is the least horrible of the four horrible words, which, getting more horrible, are horrid, horrible, horrendous and horrific. So perhaps has a use as 'horrible, but not that horrible'.)
Movie is just not as good a word as film. I have also seen an argument that movie denotes a certain sort of film - big Hollywood blockbuster - whereas film is its more thoughtful or arty counterpart. Again, I could get on board with that. But movie seems to just be used for all films nowadays. Sigh.
And dessert just sounds to me like an affectation. Though I have an Irish friend who finds the word pudding hilarious - hears it as very English and therefore very posh, which is kind of the reverse of how I hear it.
Given the economy and Brexit are the 2 highest scoring variables after vaccination, that's reasonable news for Sunak and Truss.
That said, the Brexit positive vote is reasonable but the negative vote is very high compared with a few other topics, and that probably reflects the partisan nature of the issue. The 33% is probably the absolute core Tory vote. I would say the NHS rating is also fairly unshakeably low throughout time, so that may not swing things much.
The floaters are going to be more influenced I'd have thought by the economy (losses here potentially to the Lib Dems), crime and immigration (these 2 point to possible losses to REFUK or abstention), tax and spend and levelling up (losses to Labour). Of these, surely levelling up and immigration are the two big flashing lights: they spell Redwall disillusionment to me.
Do you think the government saying "please, please, please, please get vaccinated" is going to have a different effect to the government saying "please, please, please get vaccinated" ?
As to restrictions on the anti-vaxxers, they needed to be brought in months ago.
But for some reason the establishment is happy to pander to anti-vaxxers.
And there's not enough of them left who haven't been infected now to make restrictions worthwhile.
Cf suck and suckle: babies suck, mothers suckle.
Also you need web access to book a PCR (Or you can phone in extremis) - so I don't see the validity of that argument. It's not about lowering the figures, it's about getting a more accurate and quicker data set.
I guess I'm just struggling to see how people who would have gone to the effort of getting a PCR would not register an LFT.
Anyway even if they don't bother to register it quite a few of those will isolate properly, and the ones who won't isolate properly would never have got a PCR test in the first place.
Compliance has clearly declined among the vaccinated+boosted, but I think Macron and you are correct that patience with the unvaccinated (in the absence of medical reasons) is wearing thin.
FWIW everyone that I know (not all of them older generation) has reverted to cancelling social engagements, getting shopping delivered, etc. They varied over Christmas, with some cancelling and some deciding to take what they saw as a risk, but self-lockdown is now a thing again. The reports here of places being rammed in London shows that's not universal, and I wonder if there's a city/town difference, with people in London feeling more fatalistic about probably catching it anyway.
(and re vice versa, the rate of false positives is very low indeed.)
If a fully financed scheme is drop after 15 years of development with full cross party support why would you trust anything you were told. The firms that remain interested will be the movers, those happy to abuse the tax credits / benefits and move on to the next subsidy as soon as it's possible to do so.
And, yes, I advocated pretty much this in late November which would have been far better (much before would have been punitive). Too late? Not to help NHS recovery after peak, perhaps not to suppress peak for Newcastle.
And, finally, I'm not primarily bothered about driving the Vax rates here. Just protecting the health system from the unvaxxed flood.
I personally think that we are at the stage in the pandemic where we can just switch to LFTs without PCRs. It would be great if there were some form of incentive to do so but I am not sure what it would be without encouraging people to falsely report positive LFTs!
Movie is not a nice word IMO, but it refers much better to its subject than 'film'.
Horrid, does feel a bit twee, I agree; don't use it often.
Movie vs film? Agree with Mr(?) Cookie.
And I've never found a word for the penultimate course at a meal (before the cheese) that was invariably satisfactory. Pudding, dessert, sweet, afters; probably not the last but otherwise, all seem acceptable to me.
The corollary would be higher tax rates in London and the more economically active areas of the South East like the Thames Valley. It's how tax works in the US and I have seen the effect it has on investment.
What tax policy does which grants don't is to capture investment passively. It nudges businesses to change behaviour, without the government having to pick winners and spend time scrutinising grant applications. It means there's less risk of missing the next unicorn.
I advise multinationals on how and where to put activities for a living. I can tell you straight off that a 15% CT rate for, say, the NE or South Yorks or Cornwall or East Kent and a 28% rate for London and the Heathrow corridor would drive major behavioural change, without impoverishing London. With the global minimum tax coming in there will be virtually no competition from tax havens and ultra-low tax locations for big business anymore. They will concentrate on HNWIs and SMEs.
https://twitter.com/soozuk/status/1478317802469666817?s=21
The unvaccinated will be infected, if they haven't been already, and a certain number will be hospitalised.
The pandering to the anti-vaxxers has been one of the mysteries of the last six months.
Paxlovid could be a really big help, but it's unclear to me how it will be deployed. We don't really want oldies with symptoms having to go to the chemist. Really hope someone in govt has a good plan for this. They say it cuts hospitalisation by nearly 90%... so a complete game changer if effectively used (and another reason why buying more time would be valuable).
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/oral-covid-19-antiviral-paxlovid-approved-by-uk-regulator
Everyone will get it eventually, and some of the unvaxxed will still need hospital. Just not all at the same time, thank you very much, so let's get at least try to get Omicron through more of the better immune first.
This article highlights the issue https://deepsource.io/blog/exponential-cost-of-fixing-bugs/ (no recommendation, it came top in google and has a nice chart) but this chart may be enough.
Oh and that is the cost for a single system, you need to make a similar change in every other production (and non production) system that accesses that field - I call it an endless merry-go-round task.
Note for future pandemics when adding a field use an integer rather than boolean....
Do they think that covid is something to be avoided at all costs ? If so why ?
Do they think that covid is going to disappear ?
How about those who have already been infected - do they view covid and restrictions differently from those who haven't been infected ?
Do those people restricting themselves realise there's a significant chance they've already been infected without realising it ?
Now perhaps there's a different mentality in the waitrose belt but everyone I know has been leading a normal life since they were vaccinated.
https://twitter.com/jdportes/status/1478092960864612352/photo/1
But also interesting to see some praise from Jonathan Portes for govt over increase in skilled migration from outside the EU, particularly Hong Kong.
Might take the E-Class but would change the wheels.
I understand it, though it makes me uncomfortable. It made sense pre-vaccines. Not now.
I've had three motor scooters stolen in the last 14 months. The second was filmed on two separate CCTV cameras. The police were inaccessible on all three occasions. The only way of contacting them is online or dialling 999 which mustn't be used other than in an emergency "or you could be putting someone's life at risk" .
Having done a little detective work online it appears these thefts have reached epidemic proportions. The common thread is we don't have a functioning police force.
"LAND ROVER DISCOVERY: Went fox-hunting on New Year’s Day calling it “a public service”. Yelled “you want to see what a fox does to a coup of chickens!” at protestors and considered it a real checkmate."
So there are swings and roundabouts associated with this change of approach.
In all seriousness though, that sucks, but you have two ways of dealing with it. One is the 'law and order' route which rather unfashionable, and the other one is dealing with underlying 'social issues' which people don't have too much faith in directly.
A farmer I knew never could get the police interested in the steady stream of thefts over the years.
When he started putting a roof on an ancient stone walled building (a farm cottage that hadn't been lived in since year X and was just the walls and grass) to create a secure store for some equipment, the planning officers and police were out in force. Within hours of the day he started work.
Starmer positive for covid
If yours has the 5.5 M113 do the oil pickup and pump mods before it decides to do them for you. See XF Motorsports on YouTube. He is the M113 god.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-01-05/covid-testing-pcr-delays-rat-test-supply-issues/100738982
Some of their issues:
- Major shortage of LFTs (they call them Rapid Antigen Tests, RATs)
- Some locations are breaking open packs of LFTs and selling them for as much as A$25 each
- Major queues lasting many hours at PCR testing locations
- PCR results taking many days to get back
Much more should be made of the huge success the UK testing programme has been over the last 18 months. The first few months of the pandemic were tricky whilst the infrastructure was built and supplies obtained but since then it has been phenomenally good!
https://twitter.com/SkyNewsBreak/status/1478666221889409026
The detailed crime maps show why that view is..... interesting... Look for the strange "holes" where no minor crimes are reported.....
https://twitter.com/ionewells/status/1478666254886088704
That Red bar shouldn't be sat at over 30x a more accurate version is 60x, And that's for a single system you then need to do the same for every system that directly talks to the primary system and quite probably every system that talks to those secondary systems.
I should highlight that I love agile and low code / no code solutions. But they need to be utterly self contained otherwise it's a complete world of pain...
Starmer also tested positive in October:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/27/keir-starmer-tests-positive-for-covid
I hope and expect we are going to see a big rethink of people's priorities on the NHS. It feels obvious we have focused too much on efficiency and not on having spare capacity. The long-term workforce planning seems dire. People want to get involved, increases in applications to medicine, nursing etc. So let's increase places, at the start of the pipeline and all the way along. Oh and yeah, can we fix that stupid pension problem that penalizes work!
We need to draw the link between proper NHS funding & not having to shut down activities when we get hit by a surge. Covid isn't going away - it will be a big pressure on the health system for a long, long time.