I think if everyone acted in the way St Bart advocated, covid prevalence would be permanently around 30% of the population or so. Perhaps higher. We'd all get more cases than Keir Starmer.
As opposed to the 10-14% prevalence it is now?
Oh well, if that happened, then our immune system would be very primed for the virus whenever we got it, wouldn't it? What exactly would be wrong with that?
We'd have more cases, but those cases would evolve to being the common cold not just as endemic as it.
We had Alpha and Delta that were both evolutions that were more infections and more virulent. Omicron is the first variant that decreased virulence while increasing infectivity.
It is entirely a matter of faith that it would become more like the common cold with mass infection.
I don't think mass infection will reduce virulence because of its evolution, I think mass infection will reduce virulence because our immune systems will be well-primed rather than naive to the virus when its encountered.
Its endemic, we need to live with it. Its not going to stop being endemic.
Rabies. HIV. Smallpox. Polio. Hepatitis.
All viruses that became endemic. Virulence not reduced to that of the common cold.
They are not virally endemic at high prevalence with people getting them repeatedly.
We have almost all (and possibly all) had Covid, possibly multiple times. We have not all had rabies.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Who is actually saying this? If you are ill, you should rest at home, whether it be covid, flu or a cold.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Who is actually saying this? If you are ill, you should rest at home, whether it be covid, flu or a cold.
This whole conversation is based on Bart saying someone with a positive Covid should not stay at home.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally.
People who are immunocompromised are more likely to catch the cold than Covid as the prevalence of it is higher, so yes you can treat it the same. They might get the cold, they might get Covid, but viruses exist and it is for the immunocompromised to determine how they want to treat their own health, not every other person on the planet to live as if they and everyone else were immunocompromised too.
Morning all. On covid, there will be no new restrictions, figures are moving to a weekly dump from tomorrow, SAGE doesnt meet any more over it, patients in intensive care/ventilation remain at a low end level compared to the entire pandemic and these waves will come and go for years. The media will grafually become less and less obsessive as people increasingly ignore the fluctuations of another endemic virus.
Or, ya know, we can go back to taping off paperbacks and compulsory masking up for the gauntlet of doom run from pub table to toilet and the weekly Sainsbury cough raffle.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Who is actually saying this? If you are ill, you should rest at home, whether it be covid, flu or a cold.
This whole conversation is based on Bart saying someone with a positive Covid should not stay at home.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Who is actually saying this? If you are ill, you should rest at home, whether it be covid, flu or a cold.
This whole conversation is based on Bart saying someone with a positive Covid should not stay at home.
"having a positive test for SARS-CoV-2" is not the same thing as "being ill".
I’m now sure I have covid. Suddenly got a headache and feeling tired. Thanks everyone
That's just the side effects of reading some HYUFD posts on Scottish Independence.
The weird thing is, in his relentless mule-headed way, @HYUFD is largely right about Sindyref. No UK Tory government will allow it, they will use the generation argument until it is exhausted (after a generation)
I doubt even a Labour govt would do it, tho they might be willing to compromise more
However @HYUFD’s talents for persuasion somewhat let him down when he expresses this
Nobody is here to persaude anybody about anything. Or if they are, they are wasting their fucking time. Come for the pedantry, stay for the piss taking. That's about it.
What about the betting? Do you bet?
Mainly on motorcycle racing which I know a lot about and the bookies don't expend much effort or research on leading to occasional spectacular value on odds. Pro cycling used to be similar but the bookies try much harder on that sport now. It seems to me that betting on F1/EPL is a mug's game as the punter is massively outgunned by the analytical and research firepower of the bookies.
I do sometimes bet on politics mainly when there is a screamingly good tip on here. The last four by elections have made a handsome contribution to my new TM EN 530.
A colleague of son came to work yesterday coughing. Denied that he had Covid. Then son heard from manager that colleague did indeed have Covid. Son now worried that he may have caught it and will pass it on to me.
I realise that we have to live with it. But I do think that if you have an infectious disease going to to work and passing it onto colleagues and customers etc is a bit off, no?
Respectfully, no, I wholeheartedly disagree.
There is no legal, or in my view ethical, reason not to go to work with any virus. If all it is, is a cough, then people have forever gone to work with coughs.
We need to start treating Covid like we do the common cold, which its almost as prevalent as. If your son's colleague had the common cold would you object to him being at work with a cough?
Well, judging from what Daughter and Husband are telling me it is nothing like the common cold but much worse.
If someone had a tubercular cough, we wouldn't want them at work, would we?
What Son was cross about was being lied to by his colleague. Plus being put at risk himself and putting me at risk.
I agree that its off to be lied to, that is wrong, unquestionably.
I do not agree that it is wrong to be at work when you have Covid though - and advice is just advice, not a requirement.
If people are too sick to work they shouldn't be working whether that's a common cold or covid, but if they're not too sick to work and its just an intermittent cough and they wash their hands etc after coughing then that's not a problem in my eyes - but you should be honest about it.
I see where you are coming from. For me though it means that I will likely have to restrict my activities in some way for good because I simply cannot afford to expose myself to infection. Fair enough: the world should not revolve around the vulnerable to the detriment of others.
But I do feel that people ought to think a bit harder about whether it makes sense to come into work when they are sick. The whole "I'm a hero by struggling in and spreading disease around the place" culture is very bad manners, quite unnecessary and potentially very harmful. A bit of consideration for others would not go amiss.
This sort of argument is why the government should be putting a lot more effort into improving ventilation and use of HEPA filters. It completely sidesteps the issues around mask-wearing and self-isolation, but protects everyone from all airborne infectious diseases.
There should be a plan to have these installed in every public and commercial premises in the country. It a should become a default part of building regulations in the same way as fire doors and exits.
The best thing most people have done to stop Covid is taking the vaccine, and that's something they've only had to do a few times, once for each dose. Interventions that don't rely on people continually making the responsible decision, but work automatically, are much more effective.
Much easier for the government to escape responsibility if we're arguing with each other about staying at home when ill.
If the govt don't do this perhaps time for CBI and TUC to work together and create an accreditation scheme for office based companies compromising:
Good ventilation and HEPA filters Regular pay when off sick Expectation employees wfh when infectious
I think this would benefit both employees and companies.
Insist on all meetings being outdoors with no sitting. That would eliminate many and shorten the rest considerably. Win-win: most meetings are a complete waste of time, a practical alternative to work.
Indeed most meetings are a complete waste of time, but only from the point of view of the Cyclefrees of this world (of which I am another).
From the other points of view meetings (even Zoom etc ones) exist for a number of reasons, all of them bad.
At the top is the awesome truth that there is a group of people who actually like pointless meetings, always turn up and find ways of making them longer.
Decades ago I was taken to one such while training by someone who wanted me to learn this existed. Every person present, and the entire existence of the meetings, had no genuine purpose whatever. This did not worry them at all. They preferred it that way. I have never forgotten the horrific vista this opened up.
I shall be missing one such meeting this very evening.
The layers of middle management, that seemingly exist purely to justify their own existence.
That a lot of senior management realised during the pandemic, are not a productive part of the company.
When I got to be able to control the length of meetings I always insisted that they took no more than one hour. In my experience any meeting any longer was unproductive.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Who is actually saying this? If you are ill, you should rest at home, whether it be covid, flu or a cold.
This whole conversation is based on Bart saying someone with a positive Covid should not stay at home.
Because positive Covid is not ill.
But positive covid is infectious. And the people to whom you spread it will not all have as mild a case. That's the point.
Morning all. On covid, there will be no new restrictions, figures are moving to a weekly dump from tomorrow, SAGE doesnt meet any more over it, patients in intensive care/ventilation remain at a low end level compared to the entire pandemic and these waves will come and go for years. The media will grafually become less and less obsessive as people increasingly ignore the fluctuations of another endemic virus.
Or, ya know, we can go back to taping off paperbacks and compulsory masking up for the gauntlet of doom run from pub table to toilet and the weekly Sainsbury cough raffle.
I think that analysis is very probably rational and correct – but you can see why some people are still fearful of restrictions and masking returning, given how easily the government folded back into them over the past few years.
I think if everyone acted in the way St Bart advocated, covid prevalence would be permanently around 30% of the population or so. Perhaps higher. We'd all get more cases than Keir Starmer.
As opposed to the 10-14% prevalence it is now?
Oh well, if that happened, then our immune system would be very primed for the virus whenever we got it, wouldn't it? What exactly would be wrong with that?
We'd have more cases, but those cases would evolve to being the common cold not just as endemic as it.
We had Alpha and Delta that were both evolutions that were more infections and more virulent. Omicron is the first variant that decreased virulence while increasing infectivity.
It is entirely a matter of faith that it would become more like the common cold with mass infection.
I don't think mass infection will reduce virulence because of its evolution, I think mass infection will reduce virulence because our immune systems will be well-primed rather than naive to the virus when its encountered.
Its endemic, we need to live with it. Its not going to stop being endemic.
Rabies. HIV. Smallpox. Polio. Hepatitis.
All viruses that became endemic. Virulence not reduced to that of the common cold.
They are not virally endemic at high prevalence with people getting them repeatedly.
We have almost all (and possibly all) had Covid, possibly multiple times. We have not all had rabies.
That really doesn't speak to Andy's point about virulence, though.
We really have very little idea about where this coronavirus will end up, in those terms. Its latest successful strain is both more able to escape immune control and more virulent than the one that preceded it. And it clearly still has a large amount of evolutionary space to explore given the new strains, and re-infections, that keep popping up.
It's entirely possible that it will end up as another analogue of the common cold - but it's also possible it doesn't.
So it makes very good sense that at the same time as learning to live with it, we keep a fairly close watch on its prevalence and its development.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Who is actually saying this? If you are ill, you should rest at home, whether it be covid, flu or a cold.
This whole conversation is based on Bart saying someone with a positive Covid should not stay at home.
"having a positive test for SARS-CoV-2" is not the same thing as "being ill".
But having a positive LFT is pretty much the same thing as being infectious.
Morning all. On covid, there will be no new restrictions, figures are moving to a weekly dump from tomorrow, SAGE doesnt meet any more over it, patients in intensive care/ventilation remain at a low end level compared to the entire pandemic and these waves will come and go for years. The media will grafually become less and less obsessive as people increasingly ignore the fluctuations of another endemic virus.
Or, ya know, we can go back to taping off paperbacks and compulsory masking up for the gauntlet of doom run from pub table to toilet and the weekly Sainsbury cough raffle.
I think that analysis is very probably rational and correct – but you can see why some people are still fearful of restrictions and masking returning, given how easily the government folded back into them over the past few years.
Yes, i can see that. Masking is imo quite insidious as a 'compulsory' tool as there isn't the data to back it up as a first 'go to'. As a personal choice, whatever you like.
A colleague of son came to work yesterday coughing. Denied that he had Covid. Then son heard from manager that colleague did indeed have Covid. Son now worried that he may have caught it and will pass it on to me.
I realise that we have to live with it. But I do think that if you have an infectious disease going to to work and passing it onto colleagues and customers etc is a bit off, no?
Respectfully, no, I wholeheartedly disagree.
There is no legal, or in my view ethical, reason not to go to work with any virus. If all it is, is a cough, then people have forever gone to work with coughs.
We need to start treating Covid like we do the common cold, which its almost as prevalent as. If your son's colleague had the common cold would you object to him being at work with a cough?
Well, judging from what Daughter and Husband are telling me it is nothing like the common cold but much worse.
If someone had a tubercular cough, we wouldn't want them at work, would we?
What Son was cross about was being lied to by his colleague. Plus being put at risk himself and putting me at risk.
I agree that its off to be lied to, that is wrong, unquestionably.
I do not agree that it is wrong to be at work when you have Covid though - and advice is just advice, not a requirement.
If people are too sick to work they shouldn't be working whether that's a common cold or covid, but if they're not too sick to work and its just an intermittent cough and they wash their hands etc after coughing then that's not a problem in my eyes - but you should be honest about it.
I see where you are coming from. For me though it means that I will likely have to restrict my activities in some way for good because I simply cannot afford to expose myself to infection. Fair enough: the world should not revolve around the vulnerable to the detriment of others.
But I do feel that people ought to think a bit harder about whether it makes sense to come into work when they are sick. The whole "I'm a hero by struggling in and spreading disease around the place" culture is very bad manners, quite unnecessary and potentially very harmful. A bit of consideration for others would not go amiss.
This sort of argument is why the government should be putting a lot more effort into improving ventilation and use of HEPA filters. It completely sidesteps the issues around mask-wearing and self-isolation, but protects everyone from all airborne infectious diseases.
There should be a plan to have these installed in every public and commercial premises in the country. It a should become a default part of building regulations in the same way as fire doors and exits.
The best thing most people have done to stop Covid is taking the vaccine, and that's something they've only had to do a few times, once for each dose. Interventions that don't rely on people continually making the responsible decision, but work automatically, are much more effective.
Much easier for the government to escape responsibility if we're arguing with each other about staying at home when ill.
If the govt don't do this perhaps time for CBI and TUC to work together and create an accreditation scheme for office based companies compromising:
Good ventilation and HEPA filters Regular pay when off sick Expectation employees wfh when infectious
I think this would benefit both employees and companies.
Insist on all meetings being outdoors with no sitting. That would eliminate many and shorten the rest considerably. Win-win: most meetings are a complete waste of time, a practical alternative to work.
Indeed most meetings are a complete waste of time, but only from the point of view of the Cyclefrees of this world (of which I am another).
From the other points of view meetings (even Zoom etc ones) exist for a number of reasons, all of them bad.
At the top is the awesome truth that there is a group of people who actually like pointless meetings, always turn up and find ways of making them longer.
Decades ago I was taken to one such while training by someone who wanted me to learn this existed. Every person present, and the entire existence of the meetings, had no genuine purpose whatever. This did not worry them at all. They preferred it that way. I have never forgotten the horrific vista this opened up.
I shall be missing one such meeting this very evening.
Don't you miss the overtime? I knew someone who enthusiastically signed up for US-timed meetings so he could claim double bubble for wearing Airpods in the pub.
Not quite how my life works! Anyway even if paid treble it would be preferable to spend the time discussing such hot and political betting related matters as where to go in the UK to avoid the Daily Mail top 40 awful experiences and which works of Jerome K Jerome are worth reading, and why a museum in Walsall is given over to him. This took up more than was proper of yesterday evening.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Who is actually saying this? If you are ill, you should rest at home, whether it be covid, flu or a cold.
This whole conversation is based on Bart saying someone with a positive Covid should not stay at home.
Because positive Covid is not ill.
But positive covid is infectious. And the people to whom you spread it will not all have as mild a case. That's the point.
Asymptomatic positive HIV is also not ill.
And I don't give a fuck about infectious for Covid. Infections happen, get over it already.
HIV is not spread via breathing and as prevalent as Covid, nor is it something we're all vaccinated for and going to get many times in our lives. If it was, I wouldn't give a fuck about that spreading either.
A colleague of son came to work yesterday coughing. Denied that he had Covid. Then son heard from manager that colleague did indeed have Covid. Son now worried that he may have caught it and will pass it on to me.
I realise that we have to live with it. But I do think that if you have an infectious disease going to to work and passing it onto colleagues and customers etc is a bit off, no?
Respectfully, no, I wholeheartedly disagree.
There is no legal, or in my view ethical, reason not to go to work with any virus. If all it is, is a cough, then people have forever gone to work with coughs.
We need to start treating Covid like we do the common cold, which its almost as prevalent as. If your son's colleague had the common cold would you object to him being at work with a cough?
Well, judging from what Daughter and Husband are telling me it is nothing like the common cold but much worse.
If someone had a tubercular cough, we wouldn't want them at work, would we?
What Son was cross about was being lied to by his colleague. Plus being put at risk himself and putting me at risk.
I agree that its off to be lied to, that is wrong, unquestionably.
I do not agree that it is wrong to be at work when you have Covid though - and advice is just advice, not a requirement.
If people are too sick to work they shouldn't be working whether that's a common cold or covid, but if they're not too sick to work and its just an intermittent cough and they wash their hands etc after coughing then that's not a problem in my eyes - but you should be honest about it.
I see where you are coming from. For me though it means that I will likely have to restrict my activities in some way for good because I simply cannot afford to expose myself to infection. Fair enough: the world should not revolve around the vulnerable to the detriment of others.
But I do feel that people ought to think a bit harder about whether it makes sense to come into work when they are sick. The whole "I'm a hero by struggling in and spreading disease around the place" culture is very bad manners, quite unnecessary and potentially very harmful. A bit of consideration for others would not go amiss.
This sort of argument is why the government should be putting a lot more effort into improving ventilation and use of HEPA filters. It completely sidesteps the issues around mask-wearing and self-isolation, but protects everyone from all airborne infectious diseases.
There should be a plan to have these installed in every public and commercial premises in the country. It a should become a default part of building regulations in the same way as fire doors and exits.
The best thing most people have done to stop Covid is taking the vaccine, and that's something they've only had to do a few times, once for each dose. Interventions that don't rely on people continually making the responsible decision, but work automatically, are much more effective.
Much easier for the government to escape responsibility if we're arguing with each other about staying at home when ill.
If the govt don't do this perhaps time for CBI and TUC to work together and create an accreditation scheme for office based companies compromising:
Good ventilation and HEPA filters Regular pay when off sick Expectation employees wfh when infectious
I think this would benefit both employees and companies.
Insist on all meetings being outdoors with no sitting. That would eliminate many and shorten the rest considerably. Win-win: most meetings are a complete waste of time, a practical alternative to work.
Indeed most meetings are a complete waste of time, but only from the point of view of the Cyclefrees of this world (of which I am another).
From the other points of view meetings (even Zoom etc ones) exist for a number of reasons, all of them bad.
At the top is the awesome truth that there is a group of people who actually like pointless meetings, always turn up and find ways of making them longer.
Decades ago I was taken to one such while training by someone who wanted me to learn this existed. Every person present, and the entire existence of the meetings, had no genuine purpose whatever. This did not worry them at all. They preferred it that way. I have never forgotten the horrific vista this opened up.
I shall be missing one such meeting this very evening.
Don't you miss the overtime? I knew someone who enthusiastically signed up for US-timed meetings so he could claim double bubble for wearing Airpods in the pub.
Not quite how my life works! Anyway even if paid treble it would be preferable to spend the time discussing such hot and political betting related matters as where to go in the UK to avoid the Daily Mail top 40 awful experiences and which works of Jerome K Jerome are worth reading, and why a museum in Walsall is given over to him. This took up more than was proper of yesterday evening.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
I was quite struck by the recent interview on R4 with a large family pie manufacturer in Bolton. Complete inability to recruit for a shortfall of around 60 employees, and they sounded a fairly decent employer.
I don't think that 'well, just pay more' is going to be a solution across the whole economy. Certainly not in the near term, and it will significantly constrain growth.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Who is actually saying this? If you are ill, you should rest at home, whether it be covid, flu or a cold.
This whole conversation is based on Bart saying someone with a positive Covid should not stay at home.
"having a positive test for SARS-CoV-2" is not the same thing as "being ill".
But having a positive LFT is pretty much the same thing as being infectious.
Being infectious isn't the same as being ill, either.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
Struggling to recruit *for the wages being offered*.
Supply and demand. Ask Sir Stuart Rose.
Indeed.
Also, UK businesses have mostly given up on training and proper upskilling. Every business wants skilled staff, without the cost, faff and risk of training them.
A colleague of son came to work yesterday coughing. Denied that he had Covid. Then son heard from manager that colleague did indeed have Covid. Son now worried that he may have caught it and will pass it on to me.
I realise that we have to live with it. But I do think that if you have an infectious disease going to to work and passing it onto colleagues and customers etc is a bit off, no?
Respectfully, no, I wholeheartedly disagree.
There is no legal, or in my view ethical, reason not to go to work with any virus. If all it is, is a cough, then people have forever gone to work with coughs.
We need to start treating Covid like we do the common cold, which its almost as prevalent as. If your son's colleague had the common cold would you object to him being at work with a cough?
Well, judging from what Daughter and Husband are telling me it is nothing like the common cold but much worse.
If someone had a tubercular cough, we wouldn't want them at work, would we?
What Son was cross about was being lied to by his colleague. Plus being put at risk himself and putting me at risk.
I agree that its off to be lied to, that is wrong, unquestionably.
I do not agree that it is wrong to be at work when you have Covid though - and advice is just advice, not a requirement.
If people are too sick to work they shouldn't be working whether that's a common cold or covid, but if they're not too sick to work and its just an intermittent cough and they wash their hands etc after coughing then that's not a problem in my eyes - but you should be honest about it.
I see where you are coming from. For me though it means that I will likely have to restrict my activities in some way for good because I simply cannot afford to expose myself to infection. Fair enough: the world should not revolve around the vulnerable to the detriment of others.
But I do feel that people ought to think a bit harder about whether it makes sense to come into work when they are sick. The whole "I'm a hero by struggling in and spreading disease around the place" culture is very bad manners, quite unnecessary and potentially very harmful. A bit of consideration for others would not go amiss.
This sort of argument is why the government should be putting a lot more effort into improving ventilation and use of HEPA filters. It completely sidesteps the issues around mask-wearing and self-isolation, but protects everyone from all airborne infectious diseases.
There should be a plan to have these installed in every public and commercial premises in the country. It a should become a default part of building regulations in the same way as fire doors and exits.
The best thing most people have done to stop Covid is taking the vaccine, and that's something they've only had to do a few times, once for each dose. Interventions that don't rely on people continually making the responsible decision, but work automatically, are much more effective.
Much easier for the government to escape responsibility if we're arguing with each other about staying at home when ill.
If the govt don't do this perhaps time for CBI and TUC to work together and create an accreditation scheme for office based companies compromising:
Good ventilation and HEPA filters Regular pay when off sick Expectation employees wfh when infectious
I think this would benefit both employees and companies.
Insist on all meetings being outdoors with no sitting. That would eliminate many and shorten the rest considerably. Win-win: most meetings are a complete waste of time, a practical alternative to work.
Indeed most meetings are a complete waste of time, but only from the point of view of the Cyclefrees of this world (of which I am another).
From the other points of view meetings (even Zoom etc ones) exist for a number of reasons, all of them bad.
At the top is the awesome truth that there is a group of people who actually like pointless meetings, always turn up and find ways of making them longer.
Decades ago I was taken to one such while training by someone who wanted me to learn this existed. Every person present, and the entire existence of the meetings, had no genuine purpose whatever. This did not worry them at all. They preferred it that way. I have never forgotten the horrific vista this opened up.
I shall be missing one such meeting this very evening.
The layers of middle management, that seemingly exist purely to justify their own existence.
That a lot of senior management realised during the pandemic, are not a productive part of the company.
When I got to be able to control the length of meetings I always insisted that they took no more than one hour. In my experience any meeting any longer was unproductive.
The principles of the late great David Graeber's 'Bullshit jobs' are, mutatis mutandis applicable to all human situations. You needn't read the book if you just reflect on this summary from Wiki:
"The author contends that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and, as he describes, five types of entirely pointless jobs:
flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants, store greeters, makers of websites whose sites neglect ease of use and speed for looks;
goons, who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer, e.g., lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists, community managers;
duct tapers, who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently, e.g., programmers repairing bloated code, airline desk staff who calm passengers whose bags do not arrive;
box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers, quality service managers;
taskmasters, who create extra work for those who do not need it, e.g., middle management, leadership professionals."
The euro is headed for its worst quarter against the US dollar since the global financial crisis, as the EU’s economic outlook turns increasingly dire
The pound is flatlining against the Euro. Only an economically illiterate ignoramus would be looking at UK/US cable in isolation.
Due to the global economic situation the USD is appreciating against all other currencies. GBP/EUR/AUD/CAD/JPY it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference the USD is appreciating against them all - and we know why too.
Anyone rational might think it rather has something to do with commodities measured in USD suddenly becoming twice as expensive due to the Ukraine war, but no doubt for Scott its something else.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
Struggling to recruit *for the wages being offered*.
Supply and demand. Ask Sir Stuart Rose.
Indeed.
Also, UK businesses have mostly given up on training and proper upskilling. Every business wants skilled staff, without the cost, faff and risk of training them.
They’re reaping what they sowed.
Even now, precious few of them understand transferable skills.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
Struggling to recruit *for the wages being offered*.
Supply and demand. Ask Sir Stuart Rose.
It's not just wages.
'Flexible' contracts that only bend one way. Bipolar shift scheduling seemingly designed to disrupt your entire week and weekend. Vindictive lower management with powers to disrupt that holiday you've been trying to book months in advance. No extra pay for bank holidays/weekends. Remember the four day Jubilee, yeah no one working low end retail was paid any extra.
Why work in the service sector if you've any other option?
covid LFT test positivity now above 10%. 14 in London
12% of the medical staff in my dept are off with it this week. Leicester schools break up on the 8th July, so will hit at peak holiday time here. Quite a lot of admissions too with respiratory symptoms.
Yeh gads. Will this ever end?
QTWAIN.
Shirkers with a line on a test but who aren't actually sick should get themselves into work. And stop being hypochondriacs taking tests in the first place.
I'm not for any legal restrictions, but wanting medical staff who knowingly have covid to head into hospitals is just daft. Would you want them in with the flu ? +ve test = wfh in our office, and we're all back in.
If they're fit and able to work, and the only reason you know they have the flu is due to a line on the test? Yes I would.
Abolish all Covid testing, unless its necessary for some reason for critical diagnostic purposes. Operate on symptoms only. If people are too sick to work then they shouldn't be working, whether that be due to Covid/Flu/Common Cold or A.N.Other bug. If people are carrying a virus that is widespread in the community anyway but are fit and able to work, then get to work.
Even if the evidence was that they were infectious?
As a business owner, if someone comes in and gets their colleagues sick, and I then lose five days of peoples' work rather than one, I would be absolutely furious.
Dr. Foxy, the last time we had a non-Conservative PM both the top jobs were held by Scots. Nobody cared that this was the case, nor that we had Scottish Chancellors for 13 years. Because they're all British.
It's tomfoolery to create a geographically restricted party and then claim the right to dictate terms to the central government.
The SNP asking for a referendum every other day does not make it a justified request or something they should be guaranteed. For people who bang on about the will of the Scottish people they might want to try respecting the decision that was made in 2014 (I do have some sympathy with the view the situation has changed, however the 2014 bid was to leave the UK *and* EU at the same time. Current SNP claims regarding England, Wales, and Northern Ireland voluntarily funding Scottish pensions post-separation and backing up the Scottish financial sector are absolutely crackers).
Of the four citations in that wikipedia entry about the actual use of the phrase, one media article is a Scottish journalist describing the phenomenon (rather than being an actual example of it), Boris's article doesn't use it at all, and the two parliamentary references to the term are furnished by the Duke of Montrose and Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish.
Usage has even reached the House of Lords? What more evidence do you need?
The euro is headed for its worst quarter against the US dollar since the global financial crisis, as the EU’s economic outlook turns increasingly dire
The pound is flatlining against the Euro. Only an economically illiterate ignoramus would be looking at UK/US cable in isolation.
Due to the global economic situation the USD is appreciating against all other currencies. GBP/EUR/AUD/CAD/JPY it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference the USD is appreciating against them all - and we know why too.
Anyone rational might think it rather has something to do with commodities measured in USD suddenly becoming twice as expensive due to the Ukraine war, but no doubt for Scott its something else.
Its also because USD is the world reserve currency and in times of global economic uncertainty / downturn everybody flocks to it as they don't want to be left holding their local currency that becomes as volatile as bitcoin.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
Struggling to recruit *for the wages being offered*.
Supply and demand. Ask Sir Stuart Rose.
Indeed.
Also, UK businesses have mostly given up on training and proper upskilling. Every business wants skilled staff, without the cost, faff and risk of training them.
They’re reaping what they sowed.
Even now, precious few of them understand transferable skills.
Indeed. Saw a job in the Post Office window for counter staff. Must be Post Office trained and experienced. Where do they hope to recruit from except another Post Office?
covid LFT test positivity now above 10%. 14 in London
12% of the medical staff in my dept are off with it this week. Leicester schools break up on the 8th July, so will hit at peak holiday time here. Quite a lot of admissions too with respiratory symptoms.
Yeh gads. Will this ever end?
QTWAIN.
Shirkers with a line on a test but who aren't actually sick should get themselves into work. And stop being hypochondriacs taking tests in the first place.
I'm not for any legal restrictions, but wanting medical staff who knowingly have covid to head into hospitals is just daft. Would you want them in with the flu ? +ve test = wfh in our office, and we're all back in.
If they're fit and able to work, and the only reason you know they have the flu is due to a line on the test? Yes I would.
Abolish all Covid testing, unless its necessary for some reason for critical diagnostic purposes. Operate on symptoms only. If people are too sick to work then they shouldn't be working, whether that be due to Covid/Flu/Common Cold or A.N.Other bug. If people are carrying a virus that is widespread in the community anyway but are fit and able to work, then get to work.
Even if the evidence was that they were infectious?
As a business owner, if someone comes in and gets their colleagues sick, and I think lose five days of peoples' work rather than one, I would be absolutely furious.
Yes, absolutely, even if the evidence was that they are infectious.
Your claim about losing colleagues is a fallacy since its acting as if, ceteris paribus, the infected individuals would have dodged the infection were it not for their perfectly healthy but infectious colleague coming into work.
Except that's not the case, the virus is widespread in the community and is spreading either way. Whether your employees get infected by their healthy colleague, or by someone else, what difference does it make?
Anyone who is sick shouldn't be in, but anyone who is healthy and not sick should be able to be, even if they are infectious, yes.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
Struggling to recruit *for the wages being offered*.
Supply and demand. Ask Sir Stuart Rose.
Indeed.
Also, UK businesses have mostly given up on training and proper upskilling. Every business wants skilled staff, without the cost, faff and risk of training them.
They’re reaping what they sowed.
Perhaps - though the example I gave above was of a company more than happy to train new employees.
A colleague of son came to work yesterday coughing. Denied that he had Covid. Then son heard from manager that colleague did indeed have Covid. Son now worried that he may have caught it and will pass it on to me.
I realise that we have to live with it. But I do think that if you have an infectious disease going to to work and passing it onto colleagues and customers etc is a bit off, no?
Respectfully, no, I wholeheartedly disagree.
There is no legal, or in my view ethical, reason not to go to work with any virus. If all it is, is a cough, then people have forever gone to work with coughs.
We need to start treating Covid like we do the common cold, which its almost as prevalent as. If your son's colleague had the common cold would you object to him being at work with a cough?
Well, judging from what Daughter and Husband are telling me it is nothing like the common cold but much worse.
If someone had a tubercular cough, we wouldn't want them at work, would we?
What Son was cross about was being lied to by his colleague. Plus being put at risk himself and putting me at risk.
BA5 seems to be a bit nastier than earlier omicron variants. I hope they both get through soon.
As ever on covid we have extreme views on either side. It is clearly more dangerous than 'just a cold'. However it is also less dangerous than flu (certainly among our vaccinated public). The difference is the sheer number of people who are infected at the moment. We would not expect to see on in 40 people in the country with flu at any one time.
There is balance to be struck. I think healthcare going back to masks for all for the next period of time is sensible, and not really a hardship for the public (more so for the medics). I think serious thought needs to be had about boosters. I know there is an autumn campaign coming for those who normally get the flu shot, but I wonder that it ought to be widened? I'm not sure either way. Most in the country will have had a bought of omicron (various flavours) so that in itself will provide some assistance, even if its not the greatest at provoking antibodies to fight future infection.
I have a suspicion that those who oppose the return of masks in clinical settings and complain about testing are secretly worried about new lockdown style restrictions. I simply don't think that is on the cards. Can't afford it as a country for one reason.
We couldn't afford the first three either.
Debatable for sure. We had little choice in March 2020.
A colleague of son came to work yesterday coughing. Denied that he had Covid. Then son heard from manager that colleague did indeed have Covid. Son now worried that he may have caught it and will pass it on to me.
I realise that we have to live with it. But I do think that if you have an infectious disease going to to work and passing it onto colleagues and customers etc is a bit off, no?
Respectfully, no, I wholeheartedly disagree.
There is no legal, or in my view ethical, reason not to go to work with any virus. If all it is, is a cough, then people have forever gone to work with coughs.
We need to start treating Covid like we do the common cold, which its almost as prevalent as. If your son's colleague had the common cold would you object to him being at work with a cough?
Well, judging from what Daughter and Husband are telling me it is nothing like the common cold but much worse.
If someone had a tubercular cough, we wouldn't want them at work, would we?
What Son was cross about was being lied to by his colleague. Plus being put at risk himself and putting me at risk.
BA5 seems to be a bit nastier than earlier omicron variants. I hope they both get through soon.
As ever on covid we have extreme views on either side. It is clearly more dangerous than 'just a cold'. However it is also less dangerous than flu (certainly among our vaccinated public). The difference is the sheer number of people who are infected at the moment. We would not expect to see on in 40 people in the country with flu at any one time.
There is balance to be struck. I think healthcare going back to masks for all for the next period of time is sensible, and not really a hardship for the public (more so for the medics). I think serious thought needs to be had about boosters. I know there is an autumn campaign coming for those who normally get the flu shot, but I wonder that it ought to be widened? I'm not sure either way. Most in the country will have had a bought of omicron (various flavours) so that in itself will provide some assistance, even if its not the greatest at provoking antibodies to fight future infection.
I have a suspicion that those who oppose the return of masks in clinical settings and complain about testing are secretly worried about new lockdown style restrictions. I simply don't think that is on the cards. Can't afford it as a country for one reason.
We couldn't afford the first three either.
Debatable for sure. We had little choice in March 2020.
In hindsight, we did, and we made the wrong choice.
With regret, Sweden called this right, and we did not. 👎
How the bloody hell can Lab only be 3 points ahead....
Again my question - where do we end up if there is the same sort of swing from Conservatives to Labour that Ed Miliband achieved in 2015 & A 1997 type result in the Lib Dem targets.
How the bloody hell can Lab only be 3 points ahead....
Firstly because it is within the MoE of Labour having consistently about a 5 or 6 point lead, and polling 39%.
Secondly because the political observer's job is to fit their thoughts around reality, and not reality's job to fit itself around the thoughts of the observer. (A sort of version of the Gambler's Fallacy).
Thirdly because the Tories are unpopular but Labour is not popular.
Fourthly because though there is a 45+% chance that the Tories win lose the next election, there is almost zero chance that Labour will outright win it.
How the bloody hell can Lab only be 3 points ahead....
Again my question - where do we end up if there is the same sort of swing from Conservatives to Labour that Ed Miliband achieved in 2015 & A 1997 type result in the Lib Dem targets.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
There is a problem with healthcare - if living with it genuinely means more NHS staff off sick more often, and more patients with covid needing care. @Foxy suggested a 10% increase in capacity may be needed, and he may be right. Certainly the days of squeezing bed efficiency to the limit need to be gone. However - we also need to sort discharge of clinically well geriatric patients. Its no good for them to be stuck in hospital, and no good for the country.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Who is actually saying this? If you are ill, you should rest at home, whether it be covid, flu or a cold.
This whole conversation is based on Bart saying someone with a positive Covid should not stay at home.
Because positive Covid is not ill.
But positive covid is infectious. And the people to whom you spread it will not all have as mild a case. That's the point.
Asymptomatic positive HIV is also not ill.
And I don't give a fuck about infectious for Covid. Infections happen, get over it already.
HIV is not spread via breathing and as prevalent as Covid, nor is it something we're all vaccinated for and going to get many times in our lives. If it was, I wouldn't give a fuck about that spreading either.
I think if everyone acted in the way St Bart advocated, covid prevalence would be permanently around 30% of the population or so. Perhaps higher. We'd all get more cases than Keir Starmer.
As opposed to the 10-14% prevalence it is now?
Oh well, if that happened, then our immune system would be very primed for the virus whenever we got it, wouldn't it? What exactly would be wrong with that?
We'd have more cases, but those cases would evolve to being the common cold not just as endemic as it.
We had Alpha and Delta that were both evolutions that were more infections and more virulent. Omicron is the first variant that decreased virulence while increasing infectivity.
It is entirely a matter of faith that it would become more like the common cold with mass infection.
I don't think mass infection will reduce virulence because of its evolution, I think mass infection will reduce virulence because our immune systems will be well-primed rather than naive to the virus when its encountered.
Its endemic, we need to live with it. Its not going to stop being endemic.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally.
People who are immunocompromised are more likely to catch the cold than Covid as the prevalence of it is higher, so yes you can treat it the same. They might get the cold, they might get Covid, but viruses exist and it is for the immunocompromised to determine how they want to treat their own health, not every other person on the planet to live as if they and everyone else were immunocompromised too.
"Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally."
I've a lot of time for you in general and many times have agreed with you on covid, but you've jumped the shark on this one. If you know you have covid, even assymptomatically, its the right thing to do to avoid contact with others. It just is.
We can't eliminate covid. The chinese ensured that in late 2019 and early 2020 when they deliberately covered up and let flights spread the disease world wide. But you can still practice basic disease control to reduce the disease burden. Its not normal to have so many people with one disease at the same time. We all hope this state doesn't continue forever. Happily most of normal life is back - such as Glastonbury, full crowds at sport and so on. But taking simple measures to protect others when you know you are a potential risk is so simple I can't believe you would argue against it.
A colleague of son came to work yesterday coughing. Denied that he had Covid. Then son heard from manager that colleague did indeed have Covid. Son now worried that he may have caught it and will pass it on to me.
I realise that we have to live with it. But I do think that if you have an infectious disease going to to work and passing it onto colleagues and customers etc is a bit off, no?
Respectfully, no, I wholeheartedly disagree.
There is no legal, or in my view ethical, reason not to go to work with any virus. If all it is, is a cough, then people have forever gone to work with coughs.
We need to start treating Covid like we do the common cold, which its almost as prevalent as. If your son's colleague had the common cold would you object to him being at work with a cough?
It is not the common cold.
It is endemic like the common cold or flu. It will be forever more.
You work - from time-to-time - on off-shore oil rigs. The day rates on those are astronomical. If you have a Covid outbreak, and a quarter of the people on the rig are unable to work then the cost would be enormous. I would absolutely insist (and assume that operators do) on all employees passing a lateral flow Covid test before coming on board.
Covid is highly contagious, and - while not particularly likely to kill you any more - can easily incapacitate you for three or four days.
Now, if you're a postman, and you test negative but feel fine, then knock yourself out and go to work. But if you are in a confined area with a lot of people you might make sick, then I'd rather you stayed home.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
How the bloody hell can Lab only be 3 points ahead....
Again my question - where do we end up if there is the same sort of swing from Conservatives to Labour that Ed Miliband achieved in 2015 & A 1997 type result in the Lib Dem targets.
How the bloody hell can Lab only be 3 points ahead....
Again my question - where do we end up if there is the same sort of swing from Conservatives to Labour that Ed Miliband achieved in 2015 & A 1997 type result in the Lib Dem targets.
Those two variables aren't discrete. A 1997 swing to the LD's in target seats, resulting in an EdM swing nationwide, would see a Lab to Con swing in the seats they are contesting. Therefore, you may get not much change in the majority.
On a personal note I am starting to struggle with depression again because the cost of living is making it impossible to afford to go out and do things other than work. I’m feeling very isolated.
That’s grim. Sympathies. Can you really not afford to go out and have a pint or two?
What about free things?
The cursed British weather does not help. So much stuff is free and lovely here in Montenegro. You can walk to a beach and dive in the sea; cost: zero.
I appreciate that doesn’t help, but maybe try and think of your local equivalent
No shortage of great beaches near @Gallowgate, though of course it'll cost him in fuel to get to them. For a practical suggestion - Hauxley nature reserve was free entry and worth every penny iirc.
And make sure you at least have a decent walk round the park or along the Tyne or something every day. It does help. As does cooking a decent meal, however basic.
Anmyway off now to take my own advice and have the daily walk.
I always find that my mood improves during periods of my life where I run. As advice, it's almost so flippant as to be offensive to those who are suffering with depression. Additionally, the idea of running around with minimal distraction, inside your own head at such times, feels like torture. Further, I told myself at such times, running doesn't do anything to fix the problem that has caused the situational depression, so what's the point.
The reality is, that it helped. Whether it's just endorphins, whether it's my blood pressure lowering, or whether it gave me the space and time to honestly appraise my problems, I don't know. For me it anchors me in the present. Whatever is happening isn't happening then and there. While I don't think it solved my problems, it did help me cope with them.
That's a nice point. It occurred to me on my walk (!) that it might have seemed flippant advice to Gallowgate - but it's not: just making sure of a walk, and something that isn't straight out of a tin, helps me a lot (partly because of the practical side of cooking, however simple it is).
[edit] so these need to be ticked off the checklist, even if he is probably doing them already!
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
A colleague of son came to work yesterday coughing. Denied that he had Covid. Then son heard from manager that colleague did indeed have Covid. Son now worried that he may have caught it and will pass it on to me.
I realise that we have to live with it. But I do think that if you have an infectious disease going to to work and passing it onto colleagues and customers etc is a bit off, no?
Respectfully, no, I wholeheartedly disagree.
There is no legal, or in my view ethical, reason not to go to work with any virus. If all it is, is a cough, then people have forever gone to work with coughs.
We need to start treating Covid like we do the common cold, which its almost as prevalent as. If your son's colleague had the common cold would you object to him being at work with a cough?
It is not the common cold.
It is endemic like the common cold or flu. It will be forever more.
You work - from time-to-time - on off-shore oil rigs. The day rates on those are astronomical. If you have a Covid outbreak, and a quarter of the people on the rig are unable to work then the cost would be enormous. I would absolutely insist (and assume that operators do) on all employees passing a lateral flow Covid test before coming on board.
Covid is highly contagious, and - while not particularly likely to kill you any more - can easily incapacitate you for three or four days.
Now, if you're a postman, and you test negative but feel fine, then knock yourself out and go to work. But if you are in a confined area with a lot of people you might make sick, then I'd rather you stayed home.
We maintained a strict quarantine on the rigs throughout the epidemic. Testing for a week prior to people going out, daily testing for everyone offshore, isolation helicopters to evacuate those infected. That worked extremely well.
We have now abandoned all the controls since 1st June and it is still working extremely well. If someone develops symptoms and is unable to work they are evacuated. If they are still able to work they carry on. We are seeing no impact at all on operations from following this new policy. In spite of having people offshore with covid.
This is following the recommendations from the authorities.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
Struggling to recruit *for the wages being offered*.
Supply and demand. Ask Sir Stuart Rose.
Indeed.
Also, UK businesses have mostly given up on training and proper upskilling. Every business wants skilled staff, without the cost, faff and risk of training them.
They’re reaping what they sowed.
There is slightly more to this than Brexit.
In the year of the Referendum the UK population was 65,648,000. By the end of this year it is expected to be 67,440,000.
It is not the case that some mysterious depopulation is taking place, either due to Brexit or any other reason.
In the light of those figures the lack of employees feels a bit inexplicable.
I don't think they are all on benefits, and the state pension age has risen in recent years.
Don't want to get into a Luckyguy* style wrangle about truth during wartime, but the numbers here seem qute surprising. *and tbf to him, this seems closer to his view of what probably happened in terms of deaths.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally.
People who are immunocompromised are more likely to catch the cold than Covid as the prevalence of it is higher, so yes you can treat it the same. They might get the cold, they might get Covid, but viruses exist and it is for the immunocompromised to determine how they want to treat their own health, not every other person on the planet to live as if they and everyone else were immunocompromised too.
"Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally."
I've a lot of time for you in general and many times have agreed with you on covid, but you've jumped the shark on this one. If you know you have covid, even assymptomatically, its the right thing to do to avoid contact with others. It just is.
We can't eliminate covid. The chinese ensured that in late 2019 and early 2020 when they deliberately covered up and let flights spread the disease world wide. But you can still practice basic disease control to reduce the disease burden. Its not normal to have so many people with one disease at the same time. We all hope this state doesn't continue forever. Happily most of normal life is back - such as Glastonbury, full crowds at sport and so on. But taking simple measures to protect others when you know you are a potential risk is so simple I can't believe you would argue against it.
BiB: Yes it is. It is absolutely normal and standard to have so many airborne viruses like common cold at the same time.
Yes, I know, COVID isn't the common cold, but it's like it and yes that disease absolutely is normal.
A colleague of son came to work yesterday coughing. Denied that he had Covid. Then son heard from manager that colleague did indeed have Covid. Son now worried that he may have caught it and will pass it on to me.
I realise that we have to live with it. But I do think that if you have an infectious disease going to to work and passing it onto colleagues and customers etc is a bit off, no?
Respectfully, no, I wholeheartedly disagree.
There is no legal, or in my view ethical, reason not to go to work with any virus. If all it is, is a cough, then people have forever gone to work with coughs.
We need to start treating Covid like we do the common cold, which its almost as prevalent as. If your son's colleague had the common cold would you object to him being at work with a cough?
It is not the common cold.
It is endemic like the common cold or flu. It will be forever more.
You work - from time-to-time - on off-shore oil rigs. The day rates on those are astronomical. If you have a Covid outbreak, and a quarter of the people on the rig are unable to work then the cost would be enormous. I would absolutely insist (and assume that operators do) on all employees passing a lateral flow Covid test before coming on board.
Covid is highly contagious, and - while not particularly likely to kill you any more - can easily incapacitate you for three or four days.
Now, if you're a postman, and you test negative but feel fine, then knock yourself out and go to work. But if you are in a confined area with a lot of people you might make sick, then I'd rather you stayed home.
My postie, obviously not feeling 100% this morning, distanced herself a little more to drop a small parcel off, and said as much.
That was fine. Horses for courses. But with home working having become more a thing, and with COVID a bit more serious, the new normal balance ought to have tipped a little.
I'd have happily gone into work with a bit of a cold 3 years ago despite already doing the odd day from home. I'd only mucus troop now if and for the duration it was essential to do so and would be more aware of distance, ventilation and the like.
Where's the floor on Wrong DeSantis POTUS price. 4.3 ?! - seriously, seriously crazy for someone who isn't even leading the polling more than two years out within their own party. On the US version of betfair (Predictit) he's at an even more comical 2-1.
It's also quite possible (at least a 25% chance) that he loses the Florida Governor's race in November, in what will otherwise be an excellent year for Republicans.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally.
People who are immunocompromised are more likely to catch the cold than Covid as the prevalence of it is higher, so yes you can treat it the same. They might get the cold, they might get Covid, but viruses exist and it is for the immunocompromised to determine how they want to treat their own health, not every other person on the planet to live as if they and everyone else were immunocompromised too.
"Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally."
I've a lot of time for you in general and many times have agreed with you on covid, but you've jumped the shark on this one. If you know you have covid, even assymptomatically, its the right thing to do to avoid contact with others. It just is.
We can't eliminate covid. The chinese ensured that in late 2019 and early 2020 when they deliberately covered up and let flights spread the disease world wide. But you can still practice basic disease control to reduce the disease burden. Its not normal to have so many people with one disease at the same time. We all hope this state doesn't continue forever. Happily most of normal life is back - such as Glastonbury, full crowds at sport and so on. But taking simple measures to protect others when you know you are a potential risk is so simple I can't believe you would argue against it.
BiB: Yes it is. It is absolutely normal and standard to have so many airborne viruses like common cold at the same time.
Yes, I know, COVID isn't the common cold, but it's like it and yes that disease absolutely is normal.
Typhoid is like the morning after a madras. Aye right.
When attending your blood test appointment please ensure you bring a paper version of your blood test form (provided by your GP) otherwise your appointment may be cancelled on the day.
My GP texted me a web link from where I can download the form, print it, and take it along to the pin-stickers. Why not send them the form electronically? And if full integration would take a billion-pound IT contract with an American Big Tech firm, just send the same link they sent me; if a hard copy really is needed, they are far more likely to have a printer than any random patient.
That illustrates the problem with government and management generally. They let the perfect be the enemy of the good so we are stuck with the barely adequate and often damn inconvenient.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally.
People who are immunocompromised are more likely to catch the cold than Covid as the prevalence of it is higher, so yes you can treat it the same. They might get the cold, they might get Covid, but viruses exist and it is for the immunocompromised to determine how they want to treat their own health, not every other person on the planet to live as if they and everyone else were immunocompromised too.
"Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally."
I've a lot of time for you in general and many times have agreed with you on covid, but you've jumped the shark on this one. If you know you have covid, even assymptomatically, its the right thing to do to avoid contact with others. It just is.
We can't eliminate covid. The chinese ensured that in late 2019 and early 2020 when they deliberately covered up and let flights spread the disease world wide. But you can still practice basic disease control to reduce the disease burden. Its not normal to have so many people with one disease at the same time. We all hope this state doesn't continue forever. Happily most of normal life is back - such as Glastonbury, full crowds at sport and so on. But taking simple measures to protect others when you know you are a potential risk is so simple I can't believe you would argue against it.
BiB: Yes it is. It is absolutely normal and standard to have so many airborne viruses like common cold at the same time.
Yes, I know, COVID isn't the common cold, but it's like it and yes that disease absolutely is normal.
" COVID isn't the common cold, but it's like it and yes that disease absolutely is normal."
This is your error. Its so far away from being like the common cold to be untrue.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
Struggling to recruit *for the wages being offered*.
Supply and demand. Ask Sir Stuart Rose.
Indeed.
Also, UK businesses have mostly given up on training and proper upskilling. Every business wants skilled staff, without the cost, faff and risk of training them.
They’re reaping what they sowed.
There is slightly more to this than Brexit.
In the year of the Referendum the UK population was 65,648,000. By the end of this year it is expected to be 67,440,000.
It is not the case that some mysterious depopulation is taking place, either due to Brexit or any other reason.
In the light of those figures the lack of employees feels a bit inexplicable.
I don't think they are all on benefits, and the state pension age has risen in recent years.
??
For every person that turns up, more services are needed. For an extra 2m population, business need more staff and some businesses will not find the staff they need in those 2m arrivals, particularly if that 2m comes from areas where cultures discourage women and girls from working.
Or it could be that the 2m increase are all babies who will not be working for at least a decade unless JRM becomes PM and match selling, chimney sweeping and mining become necessary for kids to help families make ends meet.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally.
People who are immunocompromised are more likely to catch the cold than Covid as the prevalence of it is higher, so yes you can treat it the same. They might get the cold, they might get Covid, but viruses exist and it is for the immunocompromised to determine how they want to treat their own health, not every other person on the planet to live as if they and everyone else were immunocompromised too.
"Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally."
I've a lot of time for you in general and many times have agreed with you on covid, but you've jumped the shark on this one. If you know you have covid, even assymptomatically, its the right thing to do to avoid contact with others. It just is.
We can't eliminate covid. The chinese ensured that in late 2019 and early 2020 when they deliberately covered up and let flights spread the disease world wide. But you can still practice basic disease control to reduce the disease burden. Its not normal to have so many people with one disease at the same time. We all hope this state doesn't continue forever. Happily most of normal life is back - such as Glastonbury, full crowds at sport and so on. But taking simple measures to protect others when you know you are a potential risk is so simple I can't believe you would argue against it.
BiB: Yes it is. It is absolutely normal and standard to have so many airborne viruses like common cold at the same time.
Yes, I know, COVID isn't the common cold, but it's like it and yes that disease absolutely is normal.
The common cold is now something our bodies fully understand how to handle so we get the sniffles for a couple of days but there is little (0.01% say) chance that if we spread a cold round it will kill people.
That ain't the case with COVID at the moment - your it's just like a cold response doesn't tally with the fact that Covid can kill people...
Exclusive: Boris Johnson faces ‘kangaroo court’ over inquiry into partygate ‘lies’, No 10 fears
Perhaps he would prefer a judge led enquiry ?
Straight of the Trump playbook.
Persuade your wavering supporters that is all an elite plot to take down their hero.
It will be just a blessed relief when Boris is gone. The damage this man is doing to the psychology of the country is immense.
Depends who replaces him, mind.
Actually anyone would be an improvement. The weird and terrifying thing about Boris is the personality cult he's been able to build around himself over the decades. I don't think any of his successors will be able to emulate that. I don't quite know how he's done it. There are many aspects to the Boris phenomenon, but being a former right-wing journalist and being part of that club has probably helped massively.
In the year of the Referendum the UK population was 65,648,000. By the end of this year it is expected to be 67,440,000.
It is not the case that some mysterious depopulation is taking place, either due to Brexit or any other reason.
In the light of those figures the lack of employees feels a bit inexplicable.
I don't think they are all on benefits, and the state pension age has risen in recent years.
??
In 2014 about 27 million were payrolled, and now it's 29.6 million. So employment has gone up at least in line with population, we have also recovered in employment terms from the pandemic. I expect that most of the recruitment problems are with low-paid and poor conditions employment, where employers let a lot of people go in 2020, and those people now do not wish to return to such jobs.
What you could say is that given a larger supply of labour the UK economy could expand further still, at the cost of a downward pressure on wages. Whether you think that's a good or bad thing will likely depend on where you sit on the employment pyramid. Bosses think it's bad, workers are likely to be relatively more happy with the state of affairs.
I think if we didn't have the spike in commodity prices the UK economy would be doing really quite well at the moment.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
Struggling to recruit *for the wages being offered*.
Supply and demand. Ask Sir Stuart Rose.
Indeed.
Also, UK businesses have mostly given up on training and proper upskilling. Every business wants skilled staff, without the cost, faff and risk of training them.
They’re reaping what they sowed.
There is slightly more to this than Brexit.
In the year of the Referendum the UK population was 65,648,000. By the end of this year it is expected to be 67,440,000.
It is not the case that some mysterious depopulation is taking place, either due to Brexit or any other reason.
In the light of those figures the lack of employees feels a bit inexplicable.
I don't think they are all on benefits, and the state pension age has risen in recent years.
??
Anecdotally it's a heck of lot of early retirement and short time working from those in their fifties. Plus, of course, the percentage of over 65's has risen significantly.
Would you take part in a referendum held without a Section 30 order?
Would 67% Would not 17%
Whoops!! Douglas Ross needs a wee rethink.
If a third of Scots don't vote in a Scottish indyref2 after the UK government tells them to boycott it that would be well down on 2014.
53% of Scots oppose an indyref2 too and of course the UK government would correctly ignore the result and refuse to make any change whatsoever to the Union after it
Where did the 1/3 come from? And below what percentage of the total electorate voting does it take for a result to be invalid?
The fact only 67% say they would vote even before the UK government tells Scots to boycott it (and No is still on 51%). This government would of course refuse to grant a s30 so the result would be invalid whatever the turnout.
However there is also now a strong chance Boris will call a UK general election either in the autumn or next Spring on a ticket of stopping a weakening of Brexit and indyref2 with a coalition of chaos of Labour, the LDs and SNP ie before October 2023
Good morning
The idea Boris is about to cut and run taking the conservative party to oblivion in one of the most ridiculous acts of self immolution is weird beyond belief, let alone him being actually able to do it without the support of his party
There is no good reason to have a GE before late 2023 at the earliest.
The Government has a majority of about 75 and the voters want it to sort out CPI. An early election would not be appreciated by the electorate!
(And by late 2023 presumably the new boundaries will be in place?)
The new boundaries are expected to be in place in time for an autumn 2023 election. It's possible that Sturgeon's IndyRef2 date will end up being the next GE date.
Would you take part in a referendum held without a Section 30 order?
Would 67% Would not 17%
Whoops!! Douglas Ross needs a wee rethink.
If a third of Scots don't vote in a Scottish indyref2 after the UK government tells them to boycott it that would be well down on 2014.
53% of Scots oppose an indyref2 too and of course the UK government would correctly ignore the result and refuse to make any change whatsoever to the Union after it
Where did the 1/3 come from? And below what percentage of the total electorate voting does it take for a result to be invalid?
The fact only 67% say they would vote even before the UK government tells Scots to boycott it (and No is still on 51%). This government would of course refuse to grant a s30 so the result would be invalid whatever the turnout.
However there is also now a strong chance Boris will call a UK general election either in the autumn or next Spring on a ticket of stopping a weakening of Brexit and indyref2 with a coalition of chaos of Labour, the LDs and SNP ie before October 2023
Good morning
The idea Boris is about to cut and run taking the conservative party to oblivion in one of the most ridiculous acts of self immolution is weird beyond belief, let alone him being actually able to do it without the support of his party
There is no good reason to have a GE before late 2023 at the earliest.
The Government has a majority of about 75 and the voters want it to sort out CPI. An early election would not be appreciated by the electorate!
(And by late 2023 presumably the new boundaries will be in place?)
The new boundaries are expected to be in place in time for an autumn 2023 election. It's possible that Sturgeon's IndyRef2 date will end up being the next GE date.
Record-breaking turnout?
Nothing like seeing Conservative on your ballot paper to concentrate the mind on other democratic duties.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
Combination of people retiring early after the lockdowns, people shifting between industries during lockdowns and finding new work they liked better.
Case in point - ex of a friend of the family worked in airport catering. Mostly making meals for the airlines to serve onboard. His company had been turned into minimum wage only, layer by layer, until finally, even in his relatively senior position (shift manager), they started chopping his wages each year…. So he left during COVID. Now they are screaming for him to come back. To a hard job, long hours and less money than he is on now.
If only there was a huge talent pool on out doorstep we could tap into... “Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
Struggling to recruit *for the wages being offered*.
Supply and demand. Ask Sir Stuart Rose.
Indeed.
Also, UK businesses have mostly given up on training and proper upskilling. Every business wants skilled staff, without the cost, faff and risk of training them.
They’re reaping what they sowed.
There is slightly more to this than Brexit.
In the year of the Referendum the UK population was 65,648,000. By the end of this year it is expected to be 67,440,000.
It is not the case that some mysterious depopulation is taking place, either due to Brexit or any other reason.
In the light of those figures the lack of employees feels a bit inexplicable.
I don't think they are all on benefits, and the state pension age has risen in recent years.
??
For every person that turns up, more services are needed. For an extra 2m population, business need more staff and some businesses will not find the staff they need in those 2m arrivals, particularly if that 2m comes from areas where cultures discourage women and girls from working.
Or it could be that the 2m increase are all babies who will not be working for at least a decade unless JRM becomes PM and match selling, chimney sweeping and mining become necessary for kids to help families make ends meet.
Raw numbers are not overly helpful
England & Wales / 2011 / 2021 / Change 2011 to 2021 School & Education (0-19) / 13,430,523 / 13,747,200 / 316,677 Working (20 - 64) / 33,422,316 / 34,786,900 / 1,364,584 Retired (65-90+) / 9,223,073 / 11,063,400 / 1,840,327
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Who is actually saying this? If you are ill, you should rest at home, whether it be covid, flu or a cold.
This whole conversation is based on Bart saying someone with a positive Covid should not stay at home.
"having a positive test for SARS-CoV-2" is not the same thing as "being ill".
It doesn't matter if you are "ill" it matters if you are infectious. A positive LFD means you are almost certainly infectious.
I don't give a shit if you have symptoms, you feeling unwell doesn't affect me in the slightest - I give a shit if you are knowingly spreading a virus.
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally.
People who are immunocompromised are more likely to catch the cold than Covid as the prevalence of it is higher, so yes you can treat it the same. They might get the cold, they might get Covid, but viruses exist and it is for the immunocompromised to determine how they want to treat their own health, not every other person on the planet to live as if they and everyone else were immunocompromised too.
"Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally."
I've a lot of time for you in general and many times have agreed with you on covid, but you've jumped the shark on this one. If you know you have covid, even assymptomatically, its the right thing to do to avoid contact with others. It just is.
We can't eliminate covid. The chinese ensured that in late 2019 and early 2020 when they deliberately covered up and let flights spread the disease world wide. But you can still practice basic disease control to reduce the disease burden. Its not normal to have so many people with one disease at the same time. We all hope this state doesn't continue forever. Happily most of normal life is back - such as Glastonbury, full crowds at sport and so on. But taking simple measures to protect others when you know you are a potential risk is so simple I can't believe you would argue against it.
BiB: Yes it is. It is absolutely normal and standard to have so many airborne viruses like common cold at the same time.
Yes, I know, COVID isn't the common cold, but it's like it and yes that disease absolutely is normal.
The common cold is now something our bodies fully understand how to handle so we get the sniffles for a couple of days but there is little (0.01% say) chance that if we spread a cold round it will kill people.
That ain't the case with COVID at the moment - your it's just like a cold response doesn't tally with the fact that Covid can kill people...
R Rate of Flu during the 1918 global pandemic: About 1.8 at most R Rate of Omicron: Greater than 10.
No idea if that is true or not, but assuming it is... so what? What do you propose we 'do' about it?
In the real world, people are getting on with their lives. Waves of covid and flu come and go. They will presumably do so forever.
What exactly can or indeed should be 'done' about any of this, beyond annual boosters?
If you are person who couldn't have the covid vaccine then the comparison is: If you come in contact with someone with flu you probably won't get flu If you come in contact with someone with covid you will probably get covid.
This is all predicated on "Should people who knowingly have covid and are infectious just head on out into the world and spread it about like a selfish fuckwit"
And the answer from some is "flu/colds exists so people should spread covid about like a selfish fuckwit"
My point is that Covid is vastly more infectious that other diseases so the blithe assumption that you can treat it like the spread of flu/cold is wrong.
Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally.
People who are immunocompromised are more likely to catch the cold than Covid as the prevalence of it is higher, so yes you can treat it the same. They might get the cold, they might get Covid, but viruses exist and it is for the immunocompromised to determine how they want to treat their own health, not every other person on the planet to live as if they and everyone else were immunocompromised too.
"Yes people should spread it about, and doing so is not being a selfish fuckwit but just acting rationally."
I've a lot of time for you in general and many times have agreed with you on covid, but you've jumped the shark on this one. If you know you have covid, even assymptomatically, its the right thing to do to avoid contact with others. It just is.
We can't eliminate covid. The chinese ensured that in late 2019 and early 2020 when they deliberately covered up and let flights spread the disease world wide. But you can still practice basic disease control to reduce the disease burden. Its not normal to have so many people with one disease at the same time. We all hope this state doesn't continue forever. Happily most of normal life is back - such as Glastonbury, full crowds at sport and so on. But taking simple measures to protect others when you know you are a potential risk is so simple I can't believe you would argue against it.
BiB: Yes it is. It is absolutely normal and standard to have so many airborne viruses like common cold at the same time.
Yes, I know, COVID isn't the common cold, but it's like it and yes that disease absolutely is normal.
" COVID isn't the common cold, but it's like it and yes that disease absolutely is normal."
This is your error. Its so far away from being like the common cold to be untrue.
Indeed. For a start, we don't have a vaccine for the common cold...
Would you take part in a referendum held without a Section 30 order?
Would 67% Would not 17%
Whoops!! Douglas Ross needs a wee rethink.
If a third of Scots don't vote in a Scottish indyref2 after the UK government tells them to boycott it that would be well down on 2014.
53% of Scots oppose an indyref2 too and of course the UK government would correctly ignore the result and refuse to make any change whatsoever to the Union after it
Where did the 1/3 come from? And below what percentage of the total electorate voting does it take for a result to be invalid?
The fact only 67% say they would vote even before the UK government tells Scots to boycott it (and No is still on 51%). This government would of course refuse to grant a s30 so the result would be invalid whatever the turnout.
However there is also now a strong chance Boris will call a UK general election either in the autumn or next Spring on a ticket of stopping a weakening of Brexit and indyref2 with a coalition of chaos of Labour, the LDs and SNP ie before October 2023
You missed the question. I am not necessarily disagreeing with you. My question was where did the 1/3 come from and what turnout is acceptable?
No turnout is acceptable as the Union is reserved to Westminster and the UK government would ignore the result whatever the turnout
I'm confused. Why did you make the turnout the plank of your argument then in both posts. And you haven't said where the 1/3 came from?
You put a valid arguement forward. You have just trashed your own argument and still haven't said where the 1/3 came from.
By doing this you lose support from people like me who are open minded on the issue.
Comments
We have almost all (and possibly all) had Covid, possibly multiple times. We have not all had rabies.
Two birds, one stone…
People who are immunocompromised are more likely to catch the cold than Covid as the prevalence of it is higher, so yes you can treat it the same. They might get the cold, they might get Covid, but viruses exist and it is for the immunocompromised to determine how they want to treat their own health, not every other person on the planet to live as if they and everyone else were immunocompromised too.
On covid, there will be no new restrictions, figures are moving to a weekly dump from tomorrow, SAGE doesnt meet any more over it, patients in intensive care/ventilation remain at a low end level compared to the entire pandemic and these waves will come and go for years. The media will grafually become less and less obsessive as people increasingly ignore the fluctuations of another endemic virus.
Or, ya know, we can go back to taping off paperbacks and compulsory masking up for the gauntlet of doom run from pub table to toilet and the weekly Sainsbury cough raffle.
Con: 33% (-1 from 22-23 June)
Lab: 36% (-3)
Lib Dem: 13% (+4)
Green: 6% (-2)
Reform UK: 3% (-1)
SNP: 5% (+1)
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/06/30/voting-intention-con-33-lab-36-28-29-june https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1542453274846138369/photo/1
Boris Johnson: 27% (-1 from 22-23 June)
Keir Starmer: 33% (n/c)
Not sure: 37% (+3)
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2022/06/30/voting-intention-con-33-lab-36-28-29-june https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1542453279254274049/photo/1
I do sometimes bet on politics mainly when there is a screamingly good tip on here. The last four by elections have made a handsome contribution to my new TM EN 530.
“Hotels turning guests away through lack of staff, restaurants limiting opening times because can’t find a chef. Just when trying to recover from pandemic, being held back..right across economy, 78% firms tell us theyre struggling to recruit.
@britishchambers DG tells Govt
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1542453763935715329
That's the point.
Asymptomatic positive HIV is also not ill.
We really have very little idea about where this coronavirus will end up, in those terms. Its latest successful strain is both more able to escape immune control and more virulent than the one that preceded it. And it clearly still has a large amount of evolutionary space to explore given the new strains, and re-infections, that keep popping up.
It's entirely possible that it will end up as another analogue of the common cold - but it's also possible it doesn't.
So it makes very good sense that at the same time as learning to live with it, we keep a fairly close watch on its prevalence and its development.
Supply and demand. Ask Sir Stuart Rose.
The key point is that people seem to making their minds up on Brexit - just a third now have no opinion.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/almost-half-britons-say-brexit-has-made-their-daily-life-worse-1-3-say-it-has-made-little https://twitter.com/mwclemence/status/1542440894053470208/photo/1
https://www.ft.com/content/fc3d94f1-9c6c-4f5e-8536-9db90ff221cc
Redfield 8
ComRes 7
Survation 7
MORI 6
Techne 6
Opinium 3
YouGov 3
Kantar 2
HIV is not spread via breathing and as prevalent as Covid, nor is it something we're all vaccinated for and going to get many times in our lives. If it was, I wouldn't give a fuck about that spreading either.
Moving on...
I don't think that 'well, just pay more' is going to be a solution across the whole economy. Certainly not in the near term, and it will significantly constrain growth.
Also, UK businesses have mostly given up on training and proper upskilling. Every business wants skilled staff, without the cost, faff and risk of training them.
They’re reaping what they sowed.
"The author contends that more than half of societal work is pointless, both large parts of some jobs and, as he describes, five types of entirely pointless jobs:
flunkies, who serve to make their superiors feel important, e.g., receptionists, administrative assistants, door attendants, store greeters, makers of websites whose sites neglect ease of use and speed for looks;
goons, who act to harm or deceive others on behalf of their employer, e.g., lobbyists, corporate lawyers, telemarketers, public relations specialists, community managers;
duct tapers, who temporarily fix problems that could be fixed permanently, e.g., programmers repairing bloated code, airline desk staff who calm passengers whose bags do not arrive;
box tickers, who create the appearance that something useful is being done when it is not, e.g., survey administrators, in-house magazine journalists, corporate compliance officers, quality service managers;
taskmasters, who create extra work for those who do not need it, e.g., middle management, leadership professionals."
Due to the global economic situation the USD is appreciating against all other currencies. GBP/EUR/AUD/CAD/JPY it doesn't make the slightest bit of difference the USD is appreciating against them all - and we know why too.
Anyone rational might think it rather has something to do with commodities measured in USD suddenly becoming twice as expensive due to the Ukraine war, but no doubt for Scott its something else.
'Flexible' contracts that only bend one way. Bipolar shift scheduling seemingly designed to disrupt your entire week and weekend. Vindictive lower management with powers to disrupt that holiday you've been trying to book months in advance. No extra pay for bank holidays/weekends. Remember the four day Jubilee, yeah no one working low end retail was paid any extra.
Why work in the service sector if you've any other option?
As a business owner, if someone comes in and gets their colleagues sick, and I then lose five days of peoples' work rather than one, I would be absolutely furious.
https://twitter.com/christopherhope/status/1542267093558640640
** Our Daily Telegraph splash tomorrow **
Exclusive: Boris Johnson faces ‘kangaroo court’ over inquiry into partygate ‘lies’, No 10 fears
Perhaps he would prefer a judge led enquiry ?
Must be Post Office trained and experienced.
Where do they hope to recruit from except another Post Office?
Your claim about losing colleagues is a fallacy since its acting as if, ceteris paribus, the infected individuals would have dodged the infection were it not for their perfectly healthy but infectious colleague coming into work.
Except that's not the case, the virus is widespread in the community and is spreading either way. Whether your employees get infected by their healthy colleague, or by someone else, what difference does it make?
Anyone who is sick shouldn't be in, but anyone who is healthy and not sick should be able to be, even if they are infectious, yes.
With regret, Sweden called this right, and we did not. 👎
A 1997 type result in the Lib Dem targets.
Secondly because the political observer's job is to fit their thoughts around reality, and not reality's job to fit itself around the thoughts of the observer. (A sort of version of the Gambler's Fallacy).
Thirdly because the Tories are unpopular but Labour is not popular.
Fourthly because though there is a 45+% chance that the Tories win lose the next election, there is almost zero chance that Labour will outright win it.
However - we also need to sort discharge of clinically well geriatric patients. Its no good for them to be stuck in hospital, and no good for the country.
Persuade your wavering supporters that is all an elite plot to take down their hero.
I've a lot of time for you in general and many times have agreed with you on covid, but you've jumped the shark on this one. If you know you have covid, even assymptomatically, its the right thing to do to avoid contact with others. It just is.
We can't eliminate covid. The chinese ensured that in late 2019 and early 2020 when they deliberately covered up and let flights spread the disease world wide. But you can still practice basic disease control to reduce the disease burden. Its not normal to have so many people with one disease at the same time. We all hope this state doesn't continue forever. Happily most of normal life is back - such as Glastonbury, full crowds at sport and so on. But taking simple measures to protect others when you know you are a potential risk is so simple I can't believe you would argue against it.
Covid is highly contagious, and - while not particularly likely to kill you any more - can easily incapacitate you for three or four days.
Now, if you're a postman, and you test negative but feel fine, then knock yourself out and go to work. But if you are in a confined area with a lot of people you might make sick, then I'd rather you stayed home.
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/themen/berliner-und-pfannkuchen/gastarbeiter-fuer-die-flughaefen-es-werden-menschen-aus-der-tuerkei-kommen-die-ihre-hoffnungen-mitbringen/28465688.html
The Sir Beer MacKorma gov't.
Perfect Spurs player....massively overpriced for their talent and only plays well every 5th game.
A 1997 swing to the LD's in target seats, resulting in an EdM swing nationwide, would see a Lab to Con swing in the seats they are contesting.
Therefore, you may get not much change in the majority.
[edit] so these need to be ticked off the checklist, even if he is probably doing them already!
We have now abandoned all the controls since 1st June and it is still working extremely well. If someone develops symptoms and is unable to work they are evacuated. If they are still able to work they carry on. We are seeing no impact at all on operations from following this new policy. In spite of having people offshore with covid.
This is following the recommendations from the authorities.
In the year of the Referendum the UK population was 65,648,000.
By the end of this year it is expected to be 67,440,000.
It is not the case that some mysterious depopulation is taking place, either due to Brexit or any other reason.
In the light of those figures the lack of employees feels a bit inexplicable.
I don't think they are all on benefits, and the state pension age has risen in recent years.
??
*and tbf to him, this seems closer to his view of what probably happened in terms of deaths.
Yes, I know, COVID isn't the common cold, but it's like it and yes that disease absolutely is normal.
That was fine. Horses for courses. But with home working having become more a thing, and with COVID a bit more serious, the new normal balance ought to have tipped a little.
I'd have happily gone into work with a bit of a cold 3 years ago despite already doing the odd day from home. I'd only mucus troop now if and for the duration it was essential to do so and would be more aware of distance, ventilation and the like.
https://twitter.com/GMB/status/1542402024331005954
That would not set him up for a Presidential run.
When attending your blood test appointment please ensure you bring a paper version of your blood test form (provided by your GP) otherwise your appointment may be cancelled on the day.
My GP texted me a web link from where I can download the form, print it, and take it along to the pin-stickers. Why not send them the form electronically? And if full integration would take a billion-pound IT contract with an American Big Tech firm, just send the same link they sent me; if a hard copy really is needed, they are far more likely to have a printer than any random patient.
That illustrates the problem with government and management generally. They let the perfect be the enemy of the good so we are stuck with the barely adequate and often damn inconvenient.
This is your error. Its so far away from being like the common cold to be untrue.
Or it could be that the 2m increase are all babies who will not be working for at least a decade unless JRM becomes PM and match selling, chimney sweeping and mining become necessary for kids to help families make ends meet.
Raw numbers are not overly helpful
That ain't the case with COVID at the moment - your it's just like a cold response doesn't tally with the fact that Covid can kill people...
What you could say is that given a larger supply of labour the UK economy could expand further still, at the cost of a downward pressure on wages. Whether you think that's a good or bad thing will likely depend on where you sit on the employment pyramid. Bosses think it's bad, workers are likely to be relatively more happy with the state of affairs.
I think if we didn't have the spike in commodity prices the UK economy would be doing really quite well at the moment.
"the UK’s current account deficit was 8.3 per cent of gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2022"
I have a horrible feeling that might be an all time record.
Plus, of course, the percentage of over 65's has risen significantly.
Combination of people retiring early after the lockdowns, people shifting between industries during lockdowns and finding new work they liked better.
Case in point - ex of a friend of the family worked in airport catering. Mostly making meals for the airlines to serve onboard. His company had been turned into minimum wage only, layer by layer, until finally, even in his relatively senior position (shift manager), they started chopping his wages each year…. So he left during COVID. Now they are screaming for him to come back. To a hard job, long hours and less money than he is on now.
Funny old world.
School & Education (0-19) / 13,430,523 / 13,747,200 / 316,677
Working (20 - 64) / 33,422,316 / 34,786,900 / 1,364,584
Retired (65-90+) / 9,223,073 / 11,063,400 / 1,840,327
Now, no one seems to give a hoot.
I don't give a shit if you have symptoms, you feeling unwell doesn't affect me in the slightest - I give a shit if you are knowingly spreading a virus.
Driving can kill people.