V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
Well that can't be right. Everyone knows Boris fucked it up and killed granny, and everywhere else was better (am I doing this right, ed?)
Everyone clueful on here has known for a long term that the only figures that mattered would be excess deaths because all countries were measuring Covid differently to the extent that no true comparison was possible.
And hence it's only now when the truth may slowly come out as the only consistent dataset (excess deaths) appeared across Europe
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
That is almost exactly what I was expecting after the first wave passed. I'm fairly sure I commented as such on here at the time.
I see that NPIs didn't make much difference. All that singing "Happy Birthday" whilst you washed your hands or one-way paths through shops was a waste of time.
I shall snarf a copy of that for bashing idiots with in future.
I also note that their estimate globally is very close to the Economist one.
I have shocking news. I just listened to For Sec Liz Truss speak at the Atlantic Council - and she was measured, thoughtful, and purposeful, with some excellent messaging - "How we respond to this crisis will define our future". Avoided cheap digs at EU, or self-promotion. https://twitter.com/alexhallhall/status/1502033962922872840
That would be our new bleeding edge AI/robotics tech - developed in top secret over the last 5 years - now unleashed in this time of war and making its presence felt.
In my lifetime I can't remember a government who have had to deal with so much in their term of office.
No, it's been extremely eventful and no sign of that changing. "May we live in less interesting times" is how I feel about it.
Oh, for the days when the governments views on the appropriate level of taxation on a pasty was the big subject to get aerated about.
Now multiply that by a thousand if omicron goes to work in China. As it might already be doing.
“Mainland China reported over 1,000 new COVID-19 infections in dozens of cities, the highest daily count in about two years, with the Omicron variant forcing a northeastern city to go under lockdown and the financial hub Shanghai to close schools.”
I have shocking news. I just listened to For Sec Liz Truss speak at the Atlantic Council - and she was measured, thoughtful, and purposeful, with some excellent messaging - "How we respond to this crisis will define our future". Avoided cheap digs at EU, or self-promotion. https://twitter.com/alexhallhall/status/1502033962922872840
That would be our new bleeding edge AI/robotics tech - developed in top secret over the last 5 years - now unleashed in this time of war and making its presence felt.
In my lifetime I can't remember a government who have had to deal with so much in their term of office.
No, it's been extremely eventful and no sign of that changing. "May we live in less interesting times" is how I feel about it.
if only our biggest problem was AV or STV for local government at the district level.
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
Well that can't be right. Everyone knows Boris fucked it up and killed granny, and everywhere else was better (am I doing this right, ed?)
The study was published in the Lancet which as any fule kno is a discredited propaganda rag, at least when it publishes papers unfavourable to the government.
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
Incidentally, I'm expecting Russia to launch asymmetric attacks on us this year: think Salisbury or Litvinenko. They were doing it *before* the sanctions and Ukraine; why wouldn't they use the techniques now?
That's a cheery Friday afternoon thought for you...
I think they've probably lost confidence in themselves to do anything like this. They're too busy wondering how they can win in Ukraine.
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
That is almost exactly what I was expecting after the first wave passed. I'm fairly sure I commented as such on here at the time.
I see that NPIs didn't make much difference. All that singing "Happy Birthday" whilst you washed your hands or one-way paths through shops was a waste of time.
I shall snarf a copy of that for bashing idiots with in future.
I also note that their estimate globally is very close to the Economist one.
At the time we didn't know what the means of transmission was so it's not fair to look back retrospectively and say that's a crap idea.
Heck 2 years ago scientific theory said that heavier than air particles could not transmit a disease because that was what a misunderstand scientific report from the 1950s had made scientific fact.
FWIW the Cardiff Philharmonic decision makes sense. They're a bunch of amateurs who probably feel pretty uncomfortable performing bombastic Russian victory songs interspersed with cannons as Russia is conducting a military genocide a few hundred miles away.
They're not cancelling due to outside pressure, but rather due to personal discomfort.
Most of his music isn't of that type. The 1812 is an exception.
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
Well that can't be right. Everyone knows Boris fucked it up and killed granny, and everywhere else was better (am I doing this right, ed?)
The study was published in the Lancet which as any fule kno is a discredited propaganda rag, at least when it publishes papers unfavourable to the government.
The Lancet bombed its reputation with Wakefield. They defined him and his paper for a decade.....
I would be interested to see a proper analysis of this paper.
ZAGREB, March 11 (Reuters) - A Soviet-era scouting drone flying across Hungary from Ukraine crashed near the Croatian capital of Zagreb, leaving a big hole in the ground, the Croatian government said on Friday.
My prediction is that Dnipro and Odessa are going to be taken by Russia in the next 72 hours. At which point there will be a mass overreaction in the media and on PB about how everyone was wrong and Russia is going to win the war, and Ukraine should just surrender and hand over territory. Then Ukraine will fight on and after a couple weeks it will be shown Russia doesn't really have control of the cities it has taken and there is no exit plan.
At what point will the Stop the War types demand an end to support for Ukraine, claiming that it is just pointlessly extending the suffering etc etc
If not now it must be imminent. Perhaps if the Russians take Odessa and Dnipro imminently as Aslan suspects.
I don't know why people think Odessa will fall soon. The Russians are still some way from the city and not advancing in that direction at the moment. there could be an amphibious operation, but as the Russian navy appears to have returned to port that does not look imminent. Amphibious operations are dangers and normally involve high initial casualties to the attacker, part of the advantage is the surprise element, they don't have that now, and reasonable costal obstacles including mines have been prepared. so I think unlikely.
(Reuters) - President Zelenskiy said on Friday Ukraine had reached a strategic turning point in its war with Russia.
"It is impossible to say how many days we still have to free Ukrainian land. But we can say we will do it. For we have already reached a strategic turning point"
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
Panic Buying dew to Covid/lockdown fears or war/global food shortages fears,
Or both?
Covid & lockdown. Because Omicron BA2
See Hong Kong for the possible short term future of China
One problem is their reliance on Sinovac (used a lot in HK) which, it turns out, offers almost no protection at all against omicron. So if you’ve just had two sinovac shots then you’re essentially unvaccinated.
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
So almost 2 years of lockdowns and other NPI were overall pretty ineffective, (with the possible exception of the initial 3 weeks to flatten the curve)
Threes a suppice!!!
chance that this will get meaning full coverage in the media, and seep in to the concise so that we don't make the same mistakes again, close to zero.
At the time we didn't know what the means of transmission was so it's not fair to look back retrospectively and say that's a crap idea.
Heck 2 years ago scientific theory said that heavier than air particles could not transmit a disease because that was what a misunderstand scientific report from the 1950s had made scientific fact.
That is not entirely right. There was contact tracing early on of an outbreak in South Korea, or it may have been Japan, that strongly suggested aerosol transmission, they had a great diagram of where people had been sitting when infected. Even to a layman it looked like the initial infected person at one end of the room and people downwind were infected. It wasn't the only case of a large outbreak where droplets really struggled as an explanation, just because of the sheer numbers. Of course people came up with all kinds of convoluted explanations about how droplets managed to spread the virus to so many people so quickly, rather than going "hold it, something is not right here".
It's pretty informative looking at the difference between Hong Kong and NZ.
Both zero covid states, both nownawash with Omicron.
Hong Kong stacking up the dead like firewood, NZ still barely touched (when I last looked).
The difference (of course) is vaccination. The headline figure for both territories is similar but dig down i to the demographics and Hong Kong is massively under on the 60+ age group.
I have shocking news. I just listened to For Sec Liz Truss speak at the Atlantic Council - and she was measured, thoughtful, and purposeful, with some excellent messaging - "How we respond to this crisis will define our future". Avoided cheap digs at EU, or self-promotion. https://twitter.com/alexhallhall/status/1502033962922872840
That would be our new bleeding edge AI/robotics tech - developed in top secret over the last 5 years - now unleashed in this time of war and making its presence felt.
In my lifetime I can't remember a government who have had to deal with so much in their term of office.
No, it's been extremely eventful and no sign of that changing. "May we live in less interesting times" is how I feel about it.
Oh, for the days when the governments views on the appropriate level of taxation on a pasty was the big subject to get aerated about.
My wife is an anesthesiologist (anaesthetist in UK-speak). Her motto is "Boring is good"
(Reuters) - President Zelenskiy said on Friday Ukraine had reached a strategic turning point in its war with Russia.
"It is impossible to say how many days we still have to free Ukrainian land. But we can say we will do it. For we have already reached a strategic turning point"
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
That is almost exactly what I was expecting after the first wave passed. I'm fairly sure I commented as such on here at the time.
I see that NPIs didn't make much difference. All that singing "Happy Birthday" whilst you washed your hands or one-way paths through shops was a waste of time.
Won't stop the usual suspects trotting out the same tired old memes of how many unnecessary deaths Boris has overseen.
ZAGREB, March 11 (Reuters) - A Soviet-era scouting drone flying across Hungary from Ukraine crashed near the Croatian capital of Zagreb, leaving a big hole in the ground, the Croatian government said on Friday.
If I was going to guess/put my conspiracy hat on, I would say it was Russian 'Fuls-Flag' operation from Russian forces based in Transnistria. But I have nothing to support that.
ZAGREB, March 11 (Reuters) - A Soviet-era scouting drone flying across Hungary from Ukraine crashed near the Croatian capital of Zagreb, leaving a big hole in the ground, the Croatian government said on Friday.
Be interesting to hear the full story. Flown from Belarus over Ukraine for intelligence, lost the signal, the drone flew until it ran out of fuel?
ZAGREB, March 11 (Reuters) - A Soviet-era scouting drone flying across Hungary from Ukraine crashed near the Croatian capital of Zagreb, leaving a big hole in the ground, the Croatian government said on Friday.
ZAGREB, March 11 (Reuters) - A Soviet-era scouting drone flying across Hungary from Ukraine crashed near the Croatian capital of Zagreb, leaving a big hole in the ground, the Croatian government said on Friday.
Be interesting to hear the full story. Flown from Belarus over Ukraine for intelligence, lost the signal, the drone flew until it ran out of fuel?
The other theory is that Russia is using these ancient drones as air defence decoys.
Only question is what the Belarussian troops who don't want to be there will do. Lay down their arms or jump sides?
Rape and looting spree to make the trip worthwhile. Whatever happens now Ukraine is finished as a viable state; possibly forever.
I am not so sure. It looks to me that Ukraine is developing an ever stronger national consciousness. There will be a lot of international support for rebuilding it, and liberating the rest.
Of course we ignore that Ukranian oligarchs are no angels either.
It's not in the west's interests to have a decisive victory one way or the other. They'd prefer for this to drag on for years bleeding Russia out gradually rather than risk upending the whole chessboard.
The US, UK, etc also have to carefully calibrate the amount and type of weapons they put in to Ukraine as at least some of them are going to end being sold on the black market or in Russian hands. As a complete Javelin plus CLU already have.
With what are these Russians hands going to buy this kit - rubles?
Duh? The Russians capture a weapon and sell it on to the black market for dollars.
As I've mentioned before, the Russians have a $130bn reserve of physical gold.
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
5. There is no clear relationship between levels of excess mortality and different levels of restrictions/ NPIs across Western Europe or indeed the whole of Europe.
Months and months of lockdown shown to be pointless.
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
Panic Buying dew to Covid/lockdown fears or war/global food shortages fears,
Or both?
Covid & lockdown. Because Omicron BA2
See Hong Kong for the possible short term future of China
One problem is their reliance on Sinovac (used a lot in HK) which, it turns out, offers almost no protection at all against omicron. So if you’ve just had two sinovac shots then you’re essentially unvaccinated.
One fascinating (if morbid) comparisons at the moment is to look at New Zeeland compared to Hong Kong, for both this is there first big wave. and are recording similar numbers of COVID cases, (slightly more in HK than NZ but HK doing a bit more testing) and both are vaccinated to a high degree a bit more in NZ but not a lot 1.85 Doses per person against 2.11 but over the last week the death rate in HK is roughly 50 times that of NZ 5 per million v 235
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
That is almost exactly what I was expecting after the first wave passed. I'm fairly sure I commented as such on here at the time.
I see that NPIs didn't make much difference. All that singing "Happy Birthday" whilst you washed your hands or one-way paths through shops was a waste of time.
I shall snarf a copy of that for bashing idiots with in future.
I also note that their estimate globally is very close to the Economist one.
In Spain we had daily disinfections of the streets and bus stops - utterly pointless but everyone was clapping and cheering their local council on FB for keeping them safe.. as the figures for cases, hospitals and deaths grew steadily.
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
It needs to be local. The point of community sponsorship is that the family is welcomed into and supported by the local community. We are part of a volunteer group who have fundraised and applied via the Home Office to welcome a family, there is huge support locally, the only difficulty is finding affordable accommodation, ie a landlord willing to forego most of the rental yield on their property. My wife and I have decided that we may have to be those landlords. We are lucky to be in a financial position to do that. But the ethics of the situation certainly aren't clear-cut, a reason why we have steered clear of becoming buy to let landlords up to now.
It sounds great. And I don't think you should have ethical qualms even if later you become a straightforward BTL landlord. MaxPB will disapprove, but there is a real need for rental homes with decent landlords.
It is not just Max, most people under 40 will disagree with encouraging more BTL.
The problem with the whole "BTL is evil" thing is that it is missing the point. The BTL aren't stealing the housing and shipping it to China or Russia. The problem is that there aren't enough properties for the number of people in the country.
I tried explaining the housing shortage to relatives from Peru - it took a lot of convincing before they would believe me on the policies here.
That assumes renting and buying give similar experiences. They don't. Especially with the UK laws, although many of them have improved a touch over the last decade.
It is not just a question of number of homes, but a question of who owns them as well.
Who owns them only matters if the quantity of homes is fixed.
Unfix the quantity and let people build as many homes as people want to buy and who owns them ceases to matter. Any bad landlords would find themselves owning unoccupied houses that they're forced to pay taxes on because they can't find tenants - while people who want their own homes would be able to just go to the market and get one.
Halting construction gives power to bad landlords because their homes are still "needed" rather than being able to be circumvented and empty.
If people know they are in a home for the next 10-20 years they can act very differently to if they know their contract is for 6 months.
Yes that's completely true but you're missing the point.
The only reason people find it hard to own a home is because planning is so difficult. Liberate the planning system and people would be able to get their own home - if a BTL landlord owns a home that's not a problem, since you can just get a different home nearby.
That way the only people renting are those who want to rent, rather than those who have to because they can't get an alternative.
It is the block on getting the different homes built that causes the problem.
That is utter bollocks. There are still hundreds of thousands of plots with planning permission that the developers are not building on. The problem is not the planning system.
As of 2020 developers were sitting on 440,000 plots with planning permission and an additional 480,000 without specific permission but which are already designated in local plans so will get permission. They claim this is because they need to have a stock for future development - the normal range being 5-10 years worth of land. But if the houses are needed now then they should be developed now and if the current owners don't have the capacity or are unwilling to develop them then they should be forced to sell them to someone who will, not sit on them for a decade whilst the housing crisis gets worse.
Stop blaming planning permission for failures by the developers.
^^^ This is a real problem. We recently gave outline planning permission for a site with over 4,000 new homes. The developer informed us they'd be building out over 20 years. Due to "market forces."
That is, if they built out faster, they wouldn't be able to charge as much as prices would fall.
The problem about the supply and demand equation is that the developers know about it too and they aren't dumb.
If we abolished planning permission, this would be irrelevant, as short of buying up all the land in the country, it would be impossible for the developers to throttle the supply of housing like this.
There are lots of problems with binning off planning permission, but it would undoubtedly solve the problem of excessive house prices (and probably quite quickly too).
It's also pretty much impossible to solve the problem of excessive house prices except by increasing supply. Mucking around trying to soak BTL landlords will change very little in the medium term.
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
5. There is no clear relationship between levels of excess mortality and different levels of restrictions/ NPIs across Western Europe or indeed the whole of Europe.
Months and months of lockdown shown to be pointless.
But in a complex adaptive system, you can't even reach that conclusion.
Two states in exactly the same starting position (as near as can be measured) implementing the exact same measures (as near as can be measured) will have different - potentially vastly different - outcomes. That does not mean to say that the measures themselves were useless, just that the sensitivity to initial conditions has a greater impact on outcomes than the measures.
Take two wooded areas of the same size and climatic conditions, and the same amount of fuel in the system. We know that for each system, removing dead undergrowth reduces the prospect of a massive wildfire resulting from a lightning strike. But, if we remove the dead wood and scrub from one wood and not the other, we still cannot predict which of the two will produce a wildfire if both are struck with lightning. If the untended wood has no fire and the tended wood does, it still does not mean that the measures taken to remove fuel from the tended wood was wrong or useless.
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
That is almost exactly what I was expecting after the first wave passed. I'm fairly sure I commented as such on here at the time.
I see that NPIs didn't make much difference. All that singing "Happy Birthday" whilst you washed your hands or one-way paths through shops was a waste of time.
Won't stop the usual suspects trotting out the same tired old memes of how many unnecessary deaths Boris has overseen.
The clueless buffoon won’t have saved any lives; if despite his incompetence and indolence, more haven’t died, then we can only be relieved.
V. important paper published in the Lancet - the first peer-reviewed global estimates of excess deaths (the most reliable way to compare Covid deaths) over first 2 years of pandemic with findings that will surprise many & correct five widespread misconceptions / assumptions: 1/9
1. Far from the UK having the worst death rate in Europe (or even Western Europe) as many still think, it is actually 29th in Europe & 9th in Western Europe - below the Western European average & at the same level as France & Germany (no statistically significant difference)....
3. England hasn't had a higher death rate than other home nations: all are basically the same level with no statistically significant difference:
Well that can't be right. Everyone knows Boris fucked it up and killed granny, and everywhere else was better (am I doing this right, ed?)
The study was published in the Lancet which as any fule kno is a discredited propaganda rag, at least when it publishes papers unfavourable to the government.
The Lancet bombed its reputation with Wakefield. They defined him and his paper for a decade.....
I would be interested to see a proper analysis of this paper.
There are various challenges with these sorts of data, so it's difficult to give a definitive answer. But a valuable paper to have out.
I'm not convinced the Twitter thread's conclusion holds up. If we move from the top of the table for deaths to the middle of the table... well, it remains the case that some places did a lot better than us. Japan, in many ways a good comparator for the UK as another high income island nation, had many fewer deaths, and they also did it without any lockdowns.
I don't think we as a nation should be patting ourselves on our collective backs for being middle of the table. We get better by asking "what did Ireland, and Norway, and South Korea etc. do right that we didn't do?" We don't get better by saying, "oh well, Italy did worse than we thought". Equally, we shouldn't be beating ourselves up: we clearly did better than some places.
I think there's a consensus that, in retrospect, we went into first lockdown late, but we were early when it came to vaccinations. Some countries are the other way around: better control in the early months, but slower and lower vaccine uptake more recently. So, you want to follow this up with a more nuanced analysis. What things did we do well, what things did we do badly.
The comparisons between the four nations are interesting. There's not much difference there. There were different policies in place, but they weren't that different. There's also the question of whether different policies led to different behaviour. People weren't up on the detailed rules: I think there's an interesting question of whether behaviour in the four nations are more alike than the policies.
Sky reporting Chelsea fans continued chanting Abramovich name at the match last night
Astonishing deaf ears
Some are still out to lynch Bryant too. Fortunately they don't know where to find the Rhonnda.
Did Chris Bryant know where to find the Rhondda before he became the MP?
Private school in Cheltenham, Oxbridge, Oxford University Conservative Association .... I dislike people being parachuted into constituencies with which they have little or zero connection.
it is less of a problem for Labour as it once was because they no longer have many safe seats. The notion of Llanelli as a potential Labour/ Con marginal as touted on here last year confirms that.
Anyway, Perhaps you may be able to help the Chelsea glitterati with their directions.
Llanelli is where my cousin lives, on a grim drug-addled council estate.
It is a sad town that has fallen on hard & desperate times.
A million miles away from Chelsea and glitter.
I knew Llanelli when a donkey in a red rosette could be elected MP. In the cases of Jim Griffiths and Denzil Davies that is indeed what happened.
Comments
And hence it's only now when the truth may slowly come out as the only consistent dataset (excess deaths) appeared across Europe
I see that NPIs didn't make much difference. All that singing "Happy Birthday" whilst you washed your hands or one-way paths through shops was a waste of time.
I shall snarf a copy of that for bashing idiots with in future.
I also note that their estimate globally is very close to the Economist one.
“Mainland China reported over 1,000 new COVID-19 infections in dozens of cities, the highest daily count in about two years, with the Omicron variant forcing a northeastern city to go under lockdown and the financial hub Shanghai to close schools.”
https://twitter.com/reuters_health/status/1502264336911376387?s=21
O and maybe potholes
Now that's breaking moos
Beijing's spies compromised government computer networks in six US states by exploiting, among other flaws, a vulnerability in a cattle-counting system...
https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/09/china_apt41_mandiant_usaherds/
Keep safe!
Heck 2 years ago scientific theory said that heavier than air particles could not transmit a disease because that was what a misunderstand scientific report from the 1950s had made scientific fact.
I would be interested to see a proper analysis of this paper.
ZAGREB, March 11 (Reuters) - A Soviet-era scouting drone flying across Hungary from Ukraine crashed near the Croatian capital of Zagreb, leaving a big hole in the ground, the Croatian government said on Friday.
"It is impossible to say how many days we still have to free Ukrainian land. But we can say we will do it. For we have already reached a strategic turning point"
https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status/1502270702489112576
We were all saved up here by Nicola's facemask mandate and scowly demeanour, while the corpses mounted up in Little Snoring.
Or both?
See Hong Kong for the possible short term future of China
One problem is their reliance on Sinovac (used a lot in HK) which, it turns out, offers almost no protection at all against omicron. So if you’ve just had two sinovac shots then you’re essentially unvaccinated.
Threes a suppice!!!
chance that this will get meaning full coverage in the media, and seep in to the concise so that we don't make the same mistakes again, close to zero.
Both zero covid states, both nownawash with Omicron.
Hong Kong stacking up the dead like firewood, NZ still barely touched (when I last looked).
The difference (of course) is vaccination. The headline figure for both territories is similar but dig down i to the demographics and Hong Kong is massively under on the 60+ age group.
Be interesting to hear the full story. Flown from Belarus over Ukraine for intelligence, lost the signal, the drone flew until it ran out of fuel?
The implications of this are enormous.
Instagram is the most popular social network in Russia by far and is crucial to small businesses – from beauty blogging to coffee shops.
WhatsApp has 77m users in Russia, nearly double what Telegram has. And most Russians don't have VPNs.
https://twitter.com/maxseddon/status/1502264340988235786
at least one, launched to spy on China, ended up in Russia.
A Snark test missile ended up in Brazil.
Unmanned aerial vehicles have a long, proud history of ending up in the wrong country.
Months and months of lockdown shown to be pointless.
There are lots of problems with binning off planning permission, but it would undoubtedly solve the problem of excessive house prices (and probably quite quickly too).
It's also pretty much impossible to solve the problem of excessive house prices except by increasing supply. Mucking around trying to soak BTL landlords will change very little in the medium term.
Two states in exactly the same starting position (as near as can be measured) implementing the exact same measures (as near as can be measured) will have different - potentially vastly different - outcomes. That does not mean to say that the measures themselves were useless, just that the sensitivity to initial conditions has a greater impact on outcomes than the measures.
Take two wooded areas of the same size and climatic conditions, and the same amount of fuel in the system. We know that for each system, removing dead undergrowth reduces the prospect of a massive wildfire resulting from a lightning strike. But, if we remove the dead wood and scrub from one wood and not the other, we still cannot predict which of the two will produce a wildfire if both are struck with lightning. If the untended wood has no fire and the tended wood does, it still does not mean that the measures taken to remove fuel from the tended wood was wrong or useless.
I'm not convinced the Twitter thread's conclusion holds up. If we move from the top of the table for deaths to the middle of the table... well, it remains the case that some places did a lot better than us. Japan, in many ways a good comparator for the UK as another high income island nation, had many fewer deaths, and they also did it without any lockdowns.
I don't think we as a nation should be patting ourselves on our collective backs for being middle of the table. We get better by asking "what did Ireland, and Norway, and South Korea etc. do right that we didn't do?" We don't get better by saying, "oh well, Italy did worse than we thought". Equally, we shouldn't be beating ourselves up: we clearly did better than some places.
I think there's a consensus that, in retrospect, we went into first lockdown late, but we were early when it came to vaccinations. Some countries are the other way around: better control in the early months, but slower and lower vaccine uptake more recently. So, you want to follow this up with a more nuanced analysis. What things did we do well, what things did we do badly.
The comparisons between the four nations are interesting. There's not much difference there. There were different policies in place, but they weren't that different. There's also the question of whether different policies led to different behaviour. People weren't up on the detailed rules: I think there's an interesting question of whether behaviour in the four nations are more alike than the policies.