Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
I would still be willing to bet on a modest Truss lead.
I refuse to believe that she wants to enter office and by December/January be the most unpopular PM of all time.
She has never held a view or political position for any longer than once it ceases to be politically advantageous to her.
There will be action on energy bills because simply put there has to be unless Truss wants to be irrecoverably holed below the waterline in a matter of weeks. Top tip: she doesn’t.
Of course there will be action. But it will be too little too late for a number of reasons: 1. The latest mental price cap is unveiled on Friday. Then we have a week and a half where the Tory party and the government refuse to engage on the subject. 2. Truss will cut taxes as the priority. We know this because her team are telling the Times. That it won't have been run through the OBR & Treasury because there isn't time 3. This tells us two things: that as it is quickly modelled the experts will point out how fucking insane borrowing to fund tax cuts for the well off is and then arguments will break out; and that if they haven't modelled the big priority they won't have modelled the thing she repeatedly and stridently tells us she won't do is 4. Truss appears to be an absolute believer in her beliefs. Brits are skivers. They don't deserve a handout. Only the earn more pay less tax carrot will force them to work. So when she keeps saying "no handouts" why do some of her supporters believe she is lying?
She may not want to become unpopular, but her wing of the Tory Party has dug itself a zealotry pit and shows no sign of wanting to extract itself. Its response to the various problems hasn't just been to deny reality, its been to sneer whilst doing so. Not a good look.
Indeed.
"When somebody tells you who they are, believe them."
Truss has told us who she is and what she wants to do. That events may overtake her and force her hand into offering further support is by the by.
Any further support is likely to be inadequate, off the hoof, and almost certainly aimed at supporting the wrong people through this crisis.
My guess for what will be announced:
- Pensioners will be given increased credits to stay warm using existing mechanisms (winter fuel payment). - Businesses will be offered loans wholly inadequate to preventing them going under. - Working people will be told, we've given you a tiny tax cut, what more do you people want? As they freeze. Followed by a hasty "loan" scheme that will, as with businesses, prove wholly inadequate. - Everyone else - good luck, you feckless, workshy bastards!
Only in the depths of the bleakest of midwinters, when the temperatures are below zero (and so are the Conservatives in the polls), will something adequate to assuage fuel poverty finally be done.
Nothing on the table even begins to address the problem. She might as well absolutely hose tens of billions at it and show Labour's little scheme up as pitiful, inadequate and ridiculous. She won't.
I think Foxy's suggestion downthread of a furlough scheme paid out to energy intensive industries over the winter period to reduce demand is a good start.
We probably need to nationalise (temporarily?) the power companies to hold prices down (cost to be picked up by the taxpayer over several years - we paid people furlough to sit in their gardens for a year so why not pay now?).
And, dare I say it, because the current situation is caused by there being greater demand for power than available supply, ration it over winter so everyone gets enough and nobody freezes - back to 70s style rolling blackouts.
Grim. But it's a plan - which is more than the Conservatives have got.
I'm wondering how energy intensive is defined though.
Manufacturing can be quite energy intensive, but then so too can hospitality. Considering Leon's other conversation, making a bruschetta probably doesn't entail too much energy consumption but I imagine keeping a pizza oven at high temperatures for hours at a time probably would.
A lot of small businesses will be looking at their costs and thinking they're quite energy intensive, even if others don't necessarily think the same of them.
To unite this thread with the other topic du jour, I increasingly I get the horrible feeling that this winter is going to look an awful lot like lockdown, with hospitality and other non essential businesses shut down (furloughed?) to save power. ( *edit: or gone bust due to astronomical bills)
At least this time people will be able to go out and mingle without the fear of plod arresting them for being more than five miles from their home or standing less than two metres apart.
But still, grim. There will be slim chance of a pint in your favourite pub or a meal out, put it that way.
SAGE advice was that the plod shouldn't be out arresting people for COVID regulation infringements.
This is reminding me of the different ways my parents pronounce 'scone' (unusually, the dividing line for that is right through the middle of Yorkshire).
Meanwhile, on scommessepolitiche.it Léon is frantically asking for guidance while in a tea room in Devon. "look, does scone rhyme with stone or gone? 'Cause I was always told by posho English friends it rhymed with stone, but the waiter here is rhyming it with gone"
we could have cards, and slavery eggs hidden by the slavery bunny, and everything
I did check to make sure it wasn't a journalistic misinterpretation of something similar to Armistice Day, but yes, the chap does say “If you think about just how important slavery was to Britain and how horrific it was, it should be a national memorial; there should be a day off".
Having some difficulty with that, too, though other states do have things like Veterans' Day in the US which is their Armistice Day but also a public holiday.
Why when you have got that you would print the other is anyone's guess, and who the fuck allows themself to be described as "a leading expert on race"?
Stunning statistic, mind that in 1833 40% of the entire UK budget was spent compensating slave owners. that's what I call an exit strategy.
I did, too. The more one looks, the more one sees - and that must have been a huge injection of liquidity when the same folk owned the same plantations and could still get fairly cheap labour for at least some of the products.
He doesn't even mention the reliance on slave-grown cotton for much of the UK textile industry, either, right into the 1860s.
Why are we praising Sweden when their own Government said they’d got it wrong?
For their honesty?
(All governments got it wrong - the smart ones are reviewing, trying to work out which bits were right and which were wrong and making plans for next time)
That will result in a return to office for the cleansed of all sins Boris Johnson. Oh joy, and should that come to pass he will get a landslide. New broom and all that.
I’m not so sure. He would have to remain an MP, and I can’t see him doing that. He can make oodles of real money putting the greasy pole behind him now.
I'll hold you to that.
Would you pay good money for more than one Peppa Pig speech?
We’ve got a reference point in Blair, how the money is made after Downing Street, and it’s not just the speeches where Boris can imagine yanks rolling in the aisles, kerching, it’s the business deals in luxury Mediterranean villas, kerching, ditto in Arabian palaces, Kerching, special advisor to HedgeCorp £xxx,xxx a year for 4 hours work, kerching. You think you know Boris so well he will remain in the game of politics now not chase this money?
As Dura_Ace suggested he can do both.
Make gazillions with the same Peppa Pig speech the world over AND keep the light on for his return to political greatness.
I am not sure why you have assumed I "think (you) I know Boris so well". I don't know Boris Johnson at all, I only surmise what I have seen of him on TV and from his writing, which isn't to my taste. I suspect we wouldn't have much in common and I would fulfil his university stereotype of what constituted a "pleb".
Entirely consistent with recent personal experience (the A&E wait, not the death). In my case 24h from accident to ward admission. After that they got their skates on, but it was a grim start.
An excellent and detailed analysis. And, sadly, a brilliant example of Brandolini's Law (the effort required to counter bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than that required to generate it).
The Telegraph came up with their crap in order to seed the idea that the excess deaths were due to lockdown. Didn't need any effort for Sarah Knapton to come up with it, and instantly publicised by the Usual Suspects (and added to the "we now know..." lines).
John Burn-Murdoch put huge amounts of effort in to deep dive what is happening and where the excess deaths are and concluded it's down to the healthcare system collapse, especially in A&E and ambulances. What are the odds it gets the attention it deserves? Versus the odds that it vanishes under the Telegraph's crap?
The healthcare system collapse now is due to lockdown though.
Had we not locked down, had we allowed Covid to take its course, then we'd have had extra fatalities then, sure, but we wouldn't have trashed the future or the NHS for the long-term by abolishing everything else leading to mammoth waiting lists etc.
People who would have died from Covid wouldn't be on any waiting lists now. People who survived, wouldn't be paying the price of lockdown.
No, it's not. It's got very little to do with that. As Burn-Murdoch analyses. It's got most to do with the soaring waits in A&E and ambulances post-July 2021. But you will never accept that, because you hated lockdown (Can't blame you there; I hated it too) and therefore have to insist that bad things that happen must have come from it.
And why did it soar post-July 2021 (the unlocking)? Surely not because people who had been complying by staying at home to protect the NHS finally sought treatment for what had been afflicting them for some time?
No. Because we still had thousands of people going to hospital for covid. Far less than earlier, but a sustained and consistent high rate of utilisation of beds.
When you're normally running at 85%+ utilisation, adding 10-15% on top consistently makes a big impact. It's also unlikely that these people would be phoning ambulances and getting categorised in the "emergency" category to seek treatment, isn't it? Few people would be waiting months during a heart attack in order to call for an ambulance.
No but people who could have been treated sooner for diseases like diabetes etc that are not urgently life-threatening but lead to cardiovascular etc demands later on if left untreated could have been seen sooner. Similar for cancer etc
1 - The excess deaths are not in the diabetes and cancer area, but across the board. 2 - Your apparent belief that if the NHS was more swamped with covid, we'd somehow have been able to treat more cancer patients alongside (and kept them more separate?) and that having far more NHS stuff off sick with covid would have helped capacity does seem rather optimistic.
If we hadn't had lockdown then the NHS wouldn't have been more swamped with Covid than it was.
It would have been more swamped at the peak, but then that peak would have entailed telling more people "we can't help you" and the peak would have been over sooner and then the downhill would have happened sooner. Exponential figures again.
Instead we "flattened the sombrero" with lockdown so that the NHS had nothing but Covid for two years, rather than 3 horrific months of Covid then it was done.
Head. Desk. If you'd only ever come up with actual facts and numbers supporting your position - well, you'd not bother trying it, anyway.
During the first wave, under 5% of the country had been exposed to covid. By the time of the second lockdown, about 9% By the third lockdown, about 12% (Source - ONS antibodies survey). That means we had LOADS of doubling left to do.
If you have a capacity of c. 100,000 and existing utilisation of 75,000, how many people do you fit in on top of that? Note as well that the closer you get to capacity, the harder it is, and in many hospitals you'll already be over capacity (above 90% and you're in serious trouble) As it was, we added a bit under 20,000 in the first wave. They called the second lockdown when they could see they were heading over 15,000 additions (in winter, when the existing utilisation is closer to 85,000+) In the third one, they added nearly 35,000, and yes, heavy triaging was going on and we'll be feeling the effects of that for a long time.
With your airy "Oh, it would have been more swamped" - we'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of extra beds needed.
If people need intensive care to stay alive, then removing that intensive care is pretty sure to result in them being dead. To a slightly lesser extent, hospitalisation itself. It's rare that people go to hospital for fun.
And the ones who most benefited from ICU and hospitalisation were the younger ones and those without serious conditions. Unsurprisingly.
Fair points, but why didn't Sweden's health system collapse as you outline?
Much lower population density and a much higher incidence of remote working prior to the pandemic. But even so they did terribly in comparison with their neighbours.
Killing their population. It ranks quite highly in some people's minds.
Oh and Sweden shut their secondary schools.
Sweden switched their secondary schools to distance learning for a few weeks, which while not ideal secondary schools at least distance learning is far more viable.
Sweden was AFAIK the only country in Europe not to shut its primary schools. For that alone, it did far better than every one of its neighbours.
How many children need to lose their education to justify one fewer excess death in your eyes? What is the QALY value of an excess death, and the QALY value of education in your eyes, or are you just religiously dogmatic about it?
Well given my son did miles better doing distance learning compared to being in school I am looking at this from both a practical and an ethical/moral point of view.
Now clearly you, as an advocate of contrived euthanasia have no interest in the ethical and moral questions but even your practical claims are not as black and white as you like to pretend.
I have never once advocated contrived euthanasia but I am certainly a lifelong advocate of voluntary euthanasia. People who wish to die absolutely should be treated with dignity and respect, but lets not mix it up with this serious conversation by using the term as a contrived insult.
How old is your son? Secondary or primary, if you don't mind me asking. From what I saw, secondary pupils were better able to cope than primary pupils were with distance learning which makes sense considering their relevant stages of development. Being with other children and adults is a critical part of development for young children and can't be entirely displaced onto a computer screen.
Sweden kept their primary schools open while other countries closed theirs. On that metric alone, Sweden undeniably had a superior pandemic to any of its neighbours.
You may prefer other metrics to that one, but that's just your choice. In a free society, we all get to make our own choices, and I value children and their education more highly than just keeping adults alive for longer.
Would you permanently abolish primary schools if it meant 1 year extra life expectancy for adults? I most certainly would not. Education is more important than mere life expectancy.
You were certainly happy in principle for oldies to catch covid and die just because you were satisfying your libertarian principles by going out and doing things when infected. That's not voluntary euthanasia, except on your part.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
we could have cards, and slavery eggs hidden by the slavery bunny, and everything
I did check to make sure it wasn't a journalistic misinterpretation of something similar to Armistice Day, but yes, the chap does say “If you think about just how important slavery was to Britain and how horrific it was, it should be a national memorial; there should be a day off".
Having some difficulty with that, too, though other states do have things like Veterans' Day in the US which is their Armistice Day but also a public holiday.
Why when you have got that you would print the other is anyone's guess, and who the fuck allows themself to be described as "a leading expert on race"?
Stunning statistic, mind that in 1833 40% of the entire UK budget was spent compensating slave owners. that's what I call an exit strategy.
Note he praises the Bank of England and Church of England for trying to come to terms with their past involvement in slavery centuries ago
Interesting analysis by @ShippersUnbound@thetimes on state of the Union. IMO what shld most alarm Unionists throughout UK is English indifference: 42% in 🏴 wld welcome or aren't bothered by 🏴 separation, goes up to 55% re Irish unification @YouGov
Yet only 1 in 7 English voters want Scotland to leave the UK and by a 17% margin English voters would be upset not pleased if Northern Ireland left the UK. Despite England still being the only home nation in the UK without its own parliament.
In any case unless the whole UK gets a vote on the Union in a referendum or England votes for the English Democrats and ultimately English independence, English voters get no say on the Union anyway
England does have its own Parliament. The one at Westminster. It is the old English Pmt with assorted others added and subtracted at various times. And until your very own glorious Party recently deleted the legislation for reasons which remain completely unclear, it had English votes for English laws.
The reason was completely clear: EVEL as implemented was bollocks, as a majority of MPs representing English constituencies couldn't implement something if there was a UK majority against it.
The idea that the Westminster parliament is an English parliament is risible.
Entirely consistent with recent personal experience (the A&E wait, not the death). In my case 24h from accident to ward admission. After that they got their skates on, but it was a grim start.
An excellent and detailed analysis. And, sadly, a brilliant example of Brandolini's Law (the effort required to counter bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than that required to generate it).
The Telegraph came up with their crap in order to seed the idea that the excess deaths were due to lockdown. Didn't need any effort for Sarah Knapton to come up with it, and instantly publicised by the Usual Suspects (and added to the "we now know..." lines).
John Burn-Murdoch put huge amounts of effort in to deep dive what is happening and where the excess deaths are and concluded it's down to the healthcare system collapse, especially in A&E and ambulances. What are the odds it gets the attention it deserves? Versus the odds that it vanishes under the Telegraph's crap?
The healthcare system collapse now is due to lockdown though.
Had we not locked down, had we allowed Covid to take its course, then we'd have had extra fatalities then, sure, but we wouldn't have trashed the future or the NHS for the long-term by abolishing everything else leading to mammoth waiting lists etc.
People who would have died from Covid wouldn't be on any waiting lists now. People who survived, wouldn't be paying the price of lockdown.
No, it's not. It's got very little to do with that. As Burn-Murdoch analyses. It's got most to do with the soaring waits in A&E and ambulances post-July 2021. But you will never accept that, because you hated lockdown (Can't blame you there; I hated it too) and therefore have to insist that bad things that happen must have come from it.
And why did it soar post-July 2021 (the unlocking)? Surely not because people who had been complying by staying at home to protect the NHS finally sought treatment for what had been afflicting them for some time?
No. Because we still had thousands of people going to hospital for covid. Far less than earlier, but a sustained and consistent high rate of utilisation of beds.
When you're normally running at 85%+ utilisation, adding 10-15% on top consistently makes a big impact. It's also unlikely that these people would be phoning ambulances and getting categorised in the "emergency" category to seek treatment, isn't it? Few people would be waiting months during a heart attack in order to call for an ambulance.
No but people who could have been treated sooner for diseases like diabetes etc that are not urgently life-threatening but lead to cardiovascular etc demands later on if left untreated could have been seen sooner. Similar for cancer etc
1 - The excess deaths are not in the diabetes and cancer area, but across the board. 2 - Your apparent belief that if the NHS was more swamped with covid, we'd somehow have been able to treat more cancer patients alongside (and kept them more separate?) and that having far more NHS stuff off sick with covid would have helped capacity does seem rather optimistic.
If we hadn't had lockdown then the NHS wouldn't have been more swamped with Covid than it was.
It would have been more swamped at the peak, but then that peak would have entailed telling more people "we can't help you" and the peak would have been over sooner and then the downhill would have happened sooner. Exponential figures again.
Instead we "flattened the sombrero" with lockdown so that the NHS had nothing but Covid for two years, rather than 3 horrific months of Covid then it was done.
Head. Desk. If you'd only ever come up with actual facts and numbers supporting your position - well, you'd not bother trying it, anyway.
During the first wave, under 5% of the country had been exposed to covid. By the time of the second lockdown, about 9% By the third lockdown, about 12% (Source - ONS antibodies survey). That means we had LOADS of doubling left to do.
If you have a capacity of c. 100,000 and existing utilisation of 75,000, how many people do you fit in on top of that? Note as well that the closer you get to capacity, the harder it is, and in many hospitals you'll already be over capacity (above 90% and you're in serious trouble) As it was, we added a bit under 20,000 in the first wave. They called the second lockdown when they could see they were heading over 15,000 additions (in winter, when the existing utilisation is closer to 85,000+) In the third one, they added nearly 35,000, and yes, heavy triaging was going on and we'll be feeling the effects of that for a long time.
With your airy "Oh, it would have been more swamped" - we'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of extra beds needed.
If people need intensive care to stay alive, then removing that intensive care is pretty sure to result in them being dead. To a slightly lesser extent, hospitalisation itself. It's rare that people go to hospital for fun.
And the ones who most benefited from ICU and hospitalisation were the younger ones and those without serious conditions. Unsurprisingly.
Fair points, but why didn't Sweden's health system collapse as you outline?
Much lower population density and a much higher incidence of remote working prior to the pandemic. But even so they did terribly in comparison with their neighbours.
Killing their population. It ranks quite highly in some people's minds.
Oh and Sweden shut their secondary schools.
Sweden switched their secondary schools to distance learning for a few weeks, which while not ideal secondary schools at least distance learning is far more viable.
Sweden was AFAIK the only country in Europe not to shut its primary schools. For that alone, it did far better than every one of its neighbours.
How many children need to lose their education to justify one fewer excess death in your eyes? What is the QALY value of an excess death, and the QALY value of education in your eyes, or are you just religiously dogmatic about it?
Well given my son did miles better doing distance learning compared to being in school I am looking at this from both a practical and an ethical/moral point of view.
Now clearly you, as an advocate of contrived euthanasia have no interest in the ethical and moral questions but even your practical claims are not as black and white as you like to pretend.
I have never once advocated contrived euthanasia but I am certainly a lifelong advocate of voluntary euthanasia. People who wish to die absolutely should be treated with dignity and respect, but lets not mix it up with this serious conversation by using the term as a contrived insult.
How old is your son? Secondary or primary, if you don't mind me asking. From what I saw, secondary pupils were better able to cope than primary pupils were with distance learning which makes sense considering their relevant stages of development. Being with other children and adults is a critical part of development for young children and can't be entirely displaced onto a computer screen.
Sweden kept their primary schools open while other countries closed theirs. On that metric alone, Sweden undeniably had a superior pandemic to any of its neighbours.
You may prefer other metrics to that one, but that's just your choice. In a free society, we all get to make our own choices, and I value children and their education more highly than just keeping adults alive for longer.
Would you permanently abolish primary schools if it meant 1 year extra life expectancy for adults? I most certainly would not. Education is more important than mere life expectancy.
No one has advocated that except you.
However the natural consequence of your beliefs is that there comes an age where we should not provide medical treatment for people merely on the principle that they are too old and therefore not worth the money. So where do you set that age limit? 60? Retirement age? 70? 80?
The logic of your argument setting old against young and deciding that one is worthless to society and therefore disposable is absolutely the contrived euthanasia that I accused you of.
That will result in a return to office for the cleansed of all sins Boris Johnson. Oh joy, and should that come to pass he will get a landslide. New broom and all that.
I’m not so sure. He would have to remain an MP, and I can’t see him doing that. He can make oodles of real money putting the greasy pole behind him now.
I'll hold you to that.
Would you pay good money for more than one Peppa Pig speech?
We’ve got a reference point in Blair, how the money is made after Downing Street, and it’s not just the speeches where Boris can imagine yanks rolling in the aisles, kerching, it’s the business deals in luxury Mediterranean villas, kerching, ditto in Arabian palaces, Kerching, special advisor to HedgeCorp £xxx,xxx a year for 4 hours work, kerching. You think you know Boris so well he will remain in the game of politics now not chase this money?
As Dura_Ace suggested he can do both.
Make gazillions with the same Peppa Pig speech the world over AND keep the light on for his return to political greatness.
I am not sure why you have assumed I "think (you) I know Boris so well". I don't know Boris Johnson at all, I only surmise what I have seen of him on TV and from his writing, which isn't to my taste. I suspect we wouldn't have much in common and I would fulfil his university stereotype of what constituted a "pleb".
Of course if he wants to do a Greensill he needs to get his skates on, only 2 years left with his mates in high office.
I would still be willing to bet on a modest Truss lead.
I refuse to believe that she wants to enter office and by December/January be the most unpopular PM of all time.
She has never held a view or political position for any longer than once it ceases to be politically advantageous to her.
There will be action on energy bills because simply put there has to be unless Truss wants to be irrecoverably holed below the waterline in a matter of weeks. Top tip: she doesn’t.
Of course there will be action. But it will be too little too late for a number of reasons: 1. The latest mental price cap is unveiled on Friday. Then we have a week and a half where the Tory party and the government refuse to engage on the subject. 2. Truss will cut taxes as the priority. We know this because her team are telling the Times. That it won't have been run through the OBR & Treasury because there isn't time 3. This tells us two things: that as it is quickly modelled the experts will point out how fucking insane borrowing to fund tax cuts for the well off is and then arguments will break out; and that if they haven't modelled the big priority they won't have modelled the thing she repeatedly and stridently tells us she won't do is 4. Truss appears to be an absolute believer in her beliefs. Brits are skivers. They don't deserve a handout. Only the earn more pay less tax carrot will force them to work. So when she keeps saying "no handouts" why do some of her supporters believe she is lying?
She may not want to become unpopular, but her wing of the Tory Party has dug itself a zealotry pit and shows no sign of wanting to extract itself. Its response to the various problems hasn't just been to deny reality, its been to sneer whilst doing so. Not a good look.
Indeed.
"When somebody tells you who they are, believe them."
Truss has told us who she is and what she wants to do. That events may overtake her and force her hand into offering further support is by the by.
Any further support is likely to be inadequate, off the hoof, and almost certainly aimed at supporting the wrong people through this crisis.
My guess for what will be announced:
- Pensioners will be given increased credits to stay warm using existing mechanisms (winter fuel payment). - Businesses will be offered loans wholly inadequate to preventing them going under. - Working people will be told, we've given you a tiny tax cut, what more do you people want? As they freeze. Followed by a hasty "loan" scheme that will, as with businesses, prove wholly inadequate. - Everyone else - good luck, you feckless, workshy bastards!
Only in the depths of the bleakest of midwinters, when the temperatures are below zero (and so are the Conservatives in the polls), will something adequate to assuage fuel poverty finally be done.
Nothing on the table even begins to address the problem. She might as well absolutely hose tens of billions at it and show Labour's little scheme up as pitiful, inadequate and ridiculous. She won't.
I think Foxy's suggestion downthread of a furlough scheme paid out to energy intensive industries over the winter period to reduce demand is a good start.
We probably need to nationalise (temporarily?) the power companies to hold prices down (cost to be picked up by the taxpayer over several years - we paid people furlough to sit in their gardens for a year so why not pay now?).
And, dare I say it, because the current situation is caused by there being greater demand for power than available supply, ration it over winter so everyone gets enough and nobody freezes - back to 70s style rolling blackouts.
Grim. But it's a plan - which is more than the Conservatives have got.
I'm wondering how energy intensive is defined though.
Manufacturing can be quite energy intensive, but then so too can hospitality. Considering Leon's other conversation, making a bruschetta probably doesn't entail too much energy consumption but I imagine keeping a pizza oven at high temperatures for hours at a time probably would.
A lot of small businesses will be looking at their costs and thinking they're quite energy intensive, even if others don't necessarily think the same of them.
To unite this thread with the other topic du jour, I increasingly I get the horrible feeling that this winter is going to look an awful lot like lockdown, with hospitality and other non essential businesses shut down (furloughed?) to save power. ( *edit: or gone bust due to astronomical bills)
At least this time people will be able to go out and mingle without the fear of plod arresting them for being more than five miles from their home or standing less than two metres apart.
But still, grim. There will be slim chance of a pint in your favourite pub or a meal out, put it that way.
SAGE advice was that the plod shouldn't be out arresting people for COVID regulation infringements.
That's interesting. The gov wasn't interested either. So all police over-reach?
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
Neighbours, schmeighbours. Sweden IIRC outperformed many, most if not all other countries, from memory. In particular wrt excess deaths:
Did it do worse than its immediate neighbours? Depends. It did better than Denmark (which has a very high population density) but worse than Norway (which has a comparatively tiny population density).
imo weighed the balances well and overall I have no doubt will experience fewer post-covid problems, undiagnosed illnesses, mental health issues.
And that's to say nothing of the freedom issue which you seem to dismiss, you of all people, as being of little or no import.
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
Hope it passes quickly Andy.
I have had it twice now, once when double jabbed and again when triple jabbed. It remains somewhat unpleasant but like you I am bloody glad I was able to avoid it until after being vaccinated.
Entirely consistent with recent personal experience (the A&E wait, not the death). In my case 24h from accident to ward admission. After that they got their skates on, but it was a grim start.
An excellent and detailed analysis. And, sadly, a brilliant example of Brandolini's Law (the effort required to counter bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than that required to generate it).
The Telegraph came up with their crap in order to seed the idea that the excess deaths were due to lockdown. Didn't need any effort for Sarah Knapton to come up with it, and instantly publicised by the Usual Suspects (and added to the "we now know..." lines).
John Burn-Murdoch put huge amounts of effort in to deep dive what is happening and where the excess deaths are and concluded it's down to the healthcare system collapse, especially in A&E and ambulances. What are the odds it gets the attention it deserves? Versus the odds that it vanishes under the Telegraph's crap?
The healthcare system collapse now is due to lockdown though.
Had we not locked down, had we allowed Covid to take its course, then we'd have had extra fatalities then, sure, but we wouldn't have trashed the future or the NHS for the long-term by abolishing everything else leading to mammoth waiting lists etc.
People who would have died from Covid wouldn't be on any waiting lists now. People who survived, wouldn't be paying the price of lockdown.
No, it's not. It's got very little to do with that. As Burn-Murdoch analyses. It's got most to do with the soaring waits in A&E and ambulances post-July 2021. But you will never accept that, because you hated lockdown (Can't blame you there; I hated it too) and therefore have to insist that bad things that happen must have come from it.
And why did it soar post-July 2021 (the unlocking)? Surely not because people who had been complying by staying at home to protect the NHS finally sought treatment for what had been afflicting them for some time?
No. Because we still had thousands of people going to hospital for covid. Far less than earlier, but a sustained and consistent high rate of utilisation of beds.
When you're normally running at 85%+ utilisation, adding 10-15% on top consistently makes a big impact. It's also unlikely that these people would be phoning ambulances and getting categorised in the "emergency" category to seek treatment, isn't it? Few people would be waiting months during a heart attack in order to call for an ambulance.
No but people who could have been treated sooner for diseases like diabetes etc that are not urgently life-threatening but lead to cardiovascular etc demands later on if left untreated could have been seen sooner. Similar for cancer etc
1 - The excess deaths are not in the diabetes and cancer area, but across the board. 2 - Your apparent belief that if the NHS was more swamped with covid, we'd somehow have been able to treat more cancer patients alongside (and kept them more separate?) and that having far more NHS stuff off sick with covid would have helped capacity does seem rather optimistic.
If we hadn't had lockdown then the NHS wouldn't have been more swamped with Covid than it was.
It would have been more swamped at the peak, but then that peak would have entailed telling more people "we can't help you" and the peak would have been over sooner and then the downhill would have happened sooner. Exponential figures again.
Instead we "flattened the sombrero" with lockdown so that the NHS had nothing but Covid for two years, rather than 3 horrific months of Covid then it was done.
Head. Desk. If you'd only ever come up with actual facts and numbers supporting your position - well, you'd not bother trying it, anyway.
During the first wave, under 5% of the country had been exposed to covid. By the time of the second lockdown, about 9% By the third lockdown, about 12% (Source - ONS antibodies survey). That means we had LOADS of doubling left to do.
If you have a capacity of c. 100,000 and existing utilisation of 75,000, how many people do you fit in on top of that? Note as well that the closer you get to capacity, the harder it is, and in many hospitals you'll already be over capacity (above 90% and you're in serious trouble) As it was, we added a bit under 20,000 in the first wave. They called the second lockdown when they could see they were heading over 15,000 additions (in winter, when the existing utilisation is closer to 85,000+) In the third one, they added nearly 35,000, and yes, heavy triaging was going on and we'll be feeling the effects of that for a long time.
With your airy "Oh, it would have been more swamped" - we'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of extra beds needed.
If people need intensive care to stay alive, then removing that intensive care is pretty sure to result in them being dead. To a slightly lesser extent, hospitalisation itself. It's rare that people go to hospital for fun.
And the ones who most benefited from ICU and hospitalisation were the younger ones and those without serious conditions. Unsurprisingly.
Fair points, but why didn't Sweden's health system collapse as you outline?
Much lower population density and a much higher incidence of remote working prior to the pandemic. But even so they did terribly in comparison with their neighbours.
Killing their population. It ranks quite highly in some people's minds.
Oh and Sweden shut their secondary schools.
Sweden switched their secondary schools to distance learning for a few weeks, which while not ideal secondary schools at least distance learning is far more viable.
Sweden was AFAIK the only country in Europe not to shut its primary schools. For that alone, it did far better than every one of its neighbours.
How many children need to lose their education to justify one fewer excess death in your eyes? What is the QALY value of an excess death, and the QALY value of education in your eyes, or are you just religiously dogmatic about it?
Well given my son did miles better doing distance learning compared to being in school I am looking at this from both a practical and an ethical/moral point of view.
Now clearly you, as an advocate of contrived euthanasia have no interest in the ethical and moral questions but even your practical claims are not as black and white as you like to pretend.
I have never once advocated contrived euthanasia but I am certainly a lifelong advocate of voluntary euthanasia. People who wish to die absolutely should be treated with dignity and respect, but lets not mix it up with this serious conversation by using the term as a contrived insult.
How old is your son? Secondary or primary, if you don't mind me asking. From what I saw, secondary pupils were better able to cope than primary pupils were with distance learning which makes sense considering their relevant stages of development. Being with other children and adults is a critical part of development for young children and can't be entirely displaced onto a computer screen.
Sweden kept their primary schools open while other countries closed theirs. On that metric alone, Sweden undeniably had a superior pandemic to any of its neighbours.
You may prefer other metrics to that one, but that's just your choice. In a free society, we all get to make our own choices, and I value children and their education more highly than just keeping adults alive for longer.
Would you permanently abolish primary schools if it meant 1 year extra life expectancy for adults? I most certainly would not. Education is more important than mere life expectancy.
No one has advocated that except you.
However the natural consequence of your beliefs is that there comes an age where we should not provide medical treatment for people merely on the principle that they are too old and therefore not worth the money. So where do you set that age limit? 60? Retirement age? 70? 80?
The logic of your argument setting old against young and deciding that one is worthless to society and therefore disposable is absolutely the contrived euthanasia that I accused you of.
And of course if Barty's policy is adopted, his Conservative Party are f*****. He's just euthanised the voter base.
Interesting analysis by @ShippersUnbound@thetimes on state of the Union. IMO what shld most alarm Unionists throughout UK is English indifference: 42% in 🏴 wld welcome or aren't bothered by 🏴 separation, goes up to 55% re Irish unification @YouGov
Yet only 1 in 7 English voters want Scotland to leave the UK and by a 17% margin English voters would be upset not pleased if Northern Ireland left the UK. Despite England still being the only home nation in the UK without its own parliament.
In any case unless the whole UK gets a vote on the Union in a referendum or England votes for the English Democrats and ultimately English independence, English voters get no say on the Union anyway
England does have its own Parliament. The one at Westminster. It is the old English Pmt with assorted others added and subtracted at various times. And until your very own glorious Party recently deleted the legislation for reasons which remain completely unclear, it had English votes for English laws.
The reason was completely clear: EVEL as implemented was bollocks, as a majority of MPs representing English constituencies couldn't implement something if there was a UK majority against it.
The idea that the Westminster parliament is an English parliament is risible.
Surely the whole point of EVEL was to remove the question of a UK majority by making sure the non-English MPs couldn't vote.
This was much touted by Mr Cameron as a solution to devolution's anomalies.
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
They did far, far better at protecting children's education than any one of their neighbours did.
If any of their neighbours did "better" then which neighbours harmed their kids education less than they did? Which neighbours had fewer primary school closures? Which had fewer secondary school days lost proportionately?
It's hugely ironic hearing you accusing me of knowing the value of nothing. What is the value of education in your eyes? What is the value of children's childhoods? Seemingly zero to you, only "death" matters and "life" is worthless.
1. Diseases will always kill us and if they don't then I have bad news about life in any case. 2. I can totally understand that the government, looking as we all did at those pictures from Italy of people dying in the corridors, had to do something and lockdowns was it. 3. The whole point of society is a balance. Tragically it is not to keep every Archie alive at the expense of others who would benefit from those resources.
Once the NHS was in no danger of "collapsing" as in real collapse, not the collapse that the Graun and the various health unions call every other week, then there should absolutely have been no more lockdowns.
There should have been compensation for pubs if they wanted to close and teachers if they wanted to stay home but no mandate.
Our freedoms are so precious and the great and good of PB dismiss them instantly and soil themselves at the first real test of freedom that we in the UK have had for 80 years. Doesn't bode well for the future.
Which is a greater threat to Freedom: a temporary measure in the face of a novel pandemic, or a sustained campaign by government to restrict political protest and dissent? Is the collapse of the Court system due to chronic neglect perhaps a more pernicious threat? Is the drive to ban freedom of speech under the guise of Fighting Wokery more problematic? Are restrictions on the right to strike actually more consequential? I think one can debate whether temporary lockdowns were really the "first real test of freedom that we in the UK have had for 80 years".
But, sure, lockdowns should be avoided. The way to avoid lockdowns is with better public health measures. We can look at a country like Japan that never had a national lockdown and had far fewer COVID cases. A better Test & Trace system, with more support for people self-isolating, would have been a huge help in the UK. A better funded primary health care system would have helped.
This ain't rocket science. If you don't want lockdowns, do public health better.
Can you give an example of a woke leftwing person who has been silenced? lost their job? Been visited by up to seven police officers for a retweet? been chucked off twitter?
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
Entirely consistent with recent personal experience (the A&E wait, not the death). In my case 24h from accident to ward admission. After that they got their skates on, but it was a grim start.
An excellent and detailed analysis. And, sadly, a brilliant example of Brandolini's Law (the effort required to counter bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than that required to generate it).
The Telegraph came up with their crap in order to seed the idea that the excess deaths were due to lockdown. Didn't need any effort for Sarah Knapton to come up with it, and instantly publicised by the Usual Suspects (and added to the "we now know..." lines).
John Burn-Murdoch put huge amounts of effort in to deep dive what is happening and where the excess deaths are and concluded it's down to the healthcare system collapse, especially in A&E and ambulances. What are the odds it gets the attention it deserves? Versus the odds that it vanishes under the Telegraph's crap?
The healthcare system collapse now is due to lockdown though.
Had we not locked down, had we allowed Covid to take its course, then we'd have had extra fatalities then, sure, but we wouldn't have trashed the future or the NHS for the long-term by abolishing everything else leading to mammoth waiting lists etc.
People who would have died from Covid wouldn't be on any waiting lists now. People who survived, wouldn't be paying the price of lockdown.
No, it's not. It's got very little to do with that. As Burn-Murdoch analyses. It's got most to do with the soaring waits in A&E and ambulances post-July 2021. But you will never accept that, because you hated lockdown (Can't blame you there; I hated it too) and therefore have to insist that bad things that happen must have come from it.
And why did it soar post-July 2021 (the unlocking)? Surely not because people who had been complying by staying at home to protect the NHS finally sought treatment for what had been afflicting them for some time?
No. Because we still had thousands of people going to hospital for covid. Far less than earlier, but a sustained and consistent high rate of utilisation of beds.
When you're normally running at 85%+ utilisation, adding 10-15% on top consistently makes a big impact. It's also unlikely that these people would be phoning ambulances and getting categorised in the "emergency" category to seek treatment, isn't it? Few people would be waiting months during a heart attack in order to call for an ambulance.
No but people who could have been treated sooner for diseases like diabetes etc that are not urgently life-threatening but lead to cardiovascular etc demands later on if left untreated could have been seen sooner. Similar for cancer etc
1 - The excess deaths are not in the diabetes and cancer area, but across the board. 2 - Your apparent belief that if the NHS was more swamped with covid, we'd somehow have been able to treat more cancer patients alongside (and kept them more separate?) and that having far more NHS stuff off sick with covid would have helped capacity does seem rather optimistic.
If we hadn't had lockdown then the NHS wouldn't have been more swamped with Covid than it was.
It would have been more swamped at the peak, but then that peak would have entailed telling more people "we can't help you" and the peak would have been over sooner and then the downhill would have happened sooner. Exponential figures again.
Instead we "flattened the sombrero" with lockdown so that the NHS had nothing but Covid for two years, rather than 3 horrific months of Covid then it was done.
Head. Desk. If you'd only ever come up with actual facts and numbers supporting your position - well, you'd not bother trying it, anyway.
During the first wave, under 5% of the country had been exposed to covid. By the time of the second lockdown, about 9% By the third lockdown, about 12% (Source - ONS antibodies survey). That means we had LOADS of doubling left to do.
If you have a capacity of c. 100,000 and existing utilisation of 75,000, how many people do you fit in on top of that? Note as well that the closer you get to capacity, the harder it is, and in many hospitals you'll already be over capacity (above 90% and you're in serious trouble) As it was, we added a bit under 20,000 in the first wave. They called the second lockdown when they could see they were heading over 15,000 additions (in winter, when the existing utilisation is closer to 85,000+) In the third one, they added nearly 35,000, and yes, heavy triaging was going on and we'll be feeling the effects of that for a long time.
With your airy "Oh, it would have been more swamped" - we'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of extra beds needed.
If people need intensive care to stay alive, then removing that intensive care is pretty sure to result in them being dead. To a slightly lesser extent, hospitalisation itself. It's rare that people go to hospital for fun.
And the ones who most benefited from ICU and hospitalisation were the younger ones and those without serious conditions. Unsurprisingly.
Fair points, but why didn't Sweden's health system collapse as you outline?
Much lower population density and a much higher incidence of remote working prior to the pandemic. But even so they did terribly in comparison with their neighbours.
Killing their population. It ranks quite highly in some people's minds.
Oh and Sweden shut their secondary schools.
Sweden switched their secondary schools to distance learning for a few weeks, which while not ideal secondary schools at least distance learning is far more viable.
Sweden was AFAIK the only country in Europe not to shut its primary schools. For that alone, it did far better than every one of its neighbours.
How many children need to lose their education to justify one fewer excess death in your eyes? What is the QALY value of an excess death, and the QALY value of education in your eyes, or are you just religiously dogmatic about it?
Well given my son did miles better doing distance learning compared to being in school I am looking at this from both a practical and an ethical/moral point of view.
Now clearly you, as an advocate of contrived euthanasia have no interest in the ethical and moral questions but even your practical claims are not as black and white as you like to pretend.
I have never once advocated contrived euthanasia but I am certainly a lifelong advocate of voluntary euthanasia. People who wish to die absolutely should be treated with dignity and respect, but lets not mix it up with this serious conversation by using the term as a contrived insult.
How old is your son? Secondary or primary, if you don't mind me asking. From what I saw, secondary pupils were better able to cope than primary pupils were with distance learning which makes sense considering their relevant stages of development. Being with other children and adults is a critical part of development for young children and can't be entirely displaced onto a computer screen.
Sweden kept their primary schools open while other countries closed theirs. On that metric alone, Sweden undeniably had a superior pandemic to any of its neighbours.
You may prefer other metrics to that one, but that's just your choice. In a free society, we all get to make our own choices, and I value children and their education more highly than just keeping adults alive for longer.
Would you permanently abolish primary schools if it meant 1 year extra life expectancy for adults? I most certainly would not. Education is more important than mere life expectancy.
No one has advocated that except you.
However the natural consequence of your beliefs is that there comes an age where we should not provide medical treatment for people merely on the principle that they are too old and therefore not worth the money. So where do you set that age limit? 60? Retirement age? 70? 80?
The logic of your argument setting old against young and deciding that one is worthless to society and therefore disposable is absolutely the contrived euthanasia that I accused you of.
And of course if Barty's policy is adopted, his Conservative Party are f*****. He's just euthanised the voter base.
Can you imagine the reaction? It'd be like Mrs May's dementia tax, only much, much worse.
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
Hope it passes quickly Andy.
I have had it twice now, once when double jabbed and again when triple jabbed. It remains somewhat unpleasant but like you I am bloody glad I was able to avoid it until after being vaccinated.
I felt a lot worse when I had it for the second time after being triple-jabbed then when I had it the first time when just double AZ jabbed. Had most of a day in bed feeling awful. Hope you get better soon.
That will result in a return to office for the cleansed of all sins Boris Johnson. Oh joy, and should that come to pass he will get a landslide. New broom and all that.
I’m not so sure. He would have to remain an MP, and I can’t see him doing that. He can make oodles of real money putting the greasy pole behind him now.
I'll hold you to that.
Would you pay good money for more than one Peppa Pig speech?
We’ve got a reference point in Blair, how the money is made after Downing Street, and it’s not just the speeches where Boris can imagine yanks rolling in the aisles, kerching, it’s the business deals in luxury Mediterranean villas, kerching, ditto in Arabian palaces, Kerching, special advisor to HedgeCorp £xxx,xxx a year for 4 hours work, kerching. You think you know Boris so well he will remain in the game of politics now not chase this money?
As Dura_Ace suggested he can do both.
Make gazillions with the same Peppa Pig speech the world over AND keep the light on for his return to political greatness.
I am not sure why you have assumed I "think (you) I know Boris so well". I don't know Boris Johnson at all, I only surmise what I have seen of him on TV and from his writing, which isn't to my taste. I suspect we wouldn't have much in common and I would fulfil his university stereotype of what constituted a "pleb".
You are on prickly form Pete 🙂 sure we all know him as someone interested in easy money.
Was Boris ever really interested in politics and being a politician, or was the interest just Boris “in” politics?
If it happened Keir Starmer's strategy would be vindicated and he would be the best Labour performer in many years, particularly in one election cycle. To come from 200 seats to a majority is very rare indeed
Smarkets reckons it as a 22% chance - well within the range of the possible, and nearly as likely as a Tory majority. I think this is wrong, and that Lab majority is a 5-10% chance.
Entirely consistent with recent personal experience (the A&E wait, not the death). In my case 24h from accident to ward admission. After that they got their skates on, but it was a grim start.
An excellent and detailed analysis. And, sadly, a brilliant example of Brandolini's Law (the effort required to counter bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than that required to generate it).
The Telegraph came up with their crap in order to seed the idea that the excess deaths were due to lockdown. Didn't need any effort for Sarah Knapton to come up with it, and instantly publicised by the Usual Suspects (and added to the "we now know..." lines).
John Burn-Murdoch put huge amounts of effort in to deep dive what is happening and where the excess deaths are and concluded it's down to the healthcare system collapse, especially in A&E and ambulances. What are the odds it gets the attention it deserves? Versus the odds that it vanishes under the Telegraph's crap?
The healthcare system collapse now is due to lockdown though.
Had we not locked down, had we allowed Covid to take its course, then we'd have had extra fatalities then, sure, but we wouldn't have trashed the future or the NHS for the long-term by abolishing everything else leading to mammoth waiting lists etc.
People who would have died from Covid wouldn't be on any waiting lists now. People who survived, wouldn't be paying the price of lockdown.
No, it's not. It's got very little to do with that. As Burn-Murdoch analyses. It's got most to do with the soaring waits in A&E and ambulances post-July 2021. But you will never accept that, because you hated lockdown (Can't blame you there; I hated it too) and therefore have to insist that bad things that happen must have come from it.
And why did it soar post-July 2021 (the unlocking)? Surely not because people who had been complying by staying at home to protect the NHS finally sought treatment for what had been afflicting them for some time?
No. Because we still had thousands of people going to hospital for covid. Far less than earlier, but a sustained and consistent high rate of utilisation of beds.
When you're normally running at 85%+ utilisation, adding 10-15% on top consistently makes a big impact. It's also unlikely that these people would be phoning ambulances and getting categorised in the "emergency" category to seek treatment, isn't it? Few people would be waiting months during a heart attack in order to call for an ambulance.
No but people who could have been treated sooner for diseases like diabetes etc that are not urgently life-threatening but lead to cardiovascular etc demands later on if left untreated could have been seen sooner. Similar for cancer etc
1 - The excess deaths are not in the diabetes and cancer area, but across the board. 2 - Your apparent belief that if the NHS was more swamped with covid, we'd somehow have been able to treat more cancer patients alongside (and kept them more separate?) and that having far more NHS stuff off sick with covid would have helped capacity does seem rather optimistic.
If we hadn't had lockdown then the NHS wouldn't have been more swamped with Covid than it was.
It would have been more swamped at the peak, but then that peak would have entailed telling more people "we can't help you" and the peak would have been over sooner and then the downhill would have happened sooner. Exponential figures again.
Instead we "flattened the sombrero" with lockdown so that the NHS had nothing but Covid for two years, rather than 3 horrific months of Covid then it was done.
Head. Desk. If you'd only ever come up with actual facts and numbers supporting your position - well, you'd not bother trying it, anyway.
During the first wave, under 5% of the country had been exposed to covid. By the time of the second lockdown, about 9% By the third lockdown, about 12% (Source - ONS antibodies survey). That means we had LOADS of doubling left to do.
If you have a capacity of c. 100,000 and existing utilisation of 75,000, how many people do you fit in on top of that? Note as well that the closer you get to capacity, the harder it is, and in many hospitals you'll already be over capacity (above 90% and you're in serious trouble) As it was, we added a bit under 20,000 in the first wave. They called the second lockdown when they could see they were heading over 15,000 additions (in winter, when the existing utilisation is closer to 85,000+) In the third one, they added nearly 35,000, and yes, heavy triaging was going on and we'll be feeling the effects of that for a long time.
With your airy "Oh, it would have been more swamped" - we'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of extra beds needed.
If people need intensive care to stay alive, then removing that intensive care is pretty sure to result in them being dead. To a slightly lesser extent, hospitalisation itself. It's rare that people go to hospital for fun.
And the ones who most benefited from ICU and hospitalisation were the younger ones and those without serious conditions. Unsurprisingly.
Fair points, but why didn't Sweden's health system collapse as you outline?
Much lower population density and a much higher incidence of remote working prior to the pandemic. But even so they did terribly in comparison with their neighbours.
Killing their population. It ranks quite highly in some people's minds.
Oh and Sweden shut their secondary schools.
Sweden switched their secondary schools to distance learning for a few weeks, which while not ideal secondary schools at least distance learning is far more viable.
Sweden was AFAIK the only country in Europe not to shut its primary schools. For that alone, it did far better than every one of its neighbours.
How many children need to lose their education to justify one fewer excess death in your eyes? What is the QALY value of an excess death, and the QALY value of education in your eyes, or are you just religiously dogmatic about it?
Well given my son did miles better doing distance learning compared to being in school I am looking at this from both a practical and an ethical/moral point of view.
Now clearly you, as an advocate of contrived euthanasia have no interest in the ethical and moral questions but even your practical claims are not as black and white as you like to pretend.
I have never once advocated contrived euthanasia but I am certainly a lifelong advocate of voluntary euthanasia. People who wish to die absolutely should be treated with dignity and respect, but lets not mix it up with this serious conversation by using the term as a contrived insult.
How old is your son? Secondary or primary, if you don't mind me asking. From what I saw, secondary pupils were better able to cope than primary pupils were with distance learning which makes sense considering their relevant stages of development. Being with other children and adults is a critical part of development for young children and can't be entirely displaced onto a computer screen.
Sweden kept their primary schools open while other countries closed theirs. On that metric alone, Sweden undeniably had a superior pandemic to any of its neighbours.
You may prefer other metrics to that one, but that's just your choice. In a free society, we all get to make our own choices, and I value children and their education more highly than just keeping adults alive for longer.
Would you permanently abolish primary schools if it meant 1 year extra life expectancy for adults? I most certainly would not. Education is more important than mere life expectancy.
No one has advocated that except you.
However the natural consequence of your beliefs is that there comes an age where we should not provide medical treatment for people merely on the principle that they are too old and therefore not worth the money. So where do you set that age limit? 60? Retirement age? 70? 80?
The logic of your argument setting old against young and deciding that one is worthless to society and therefore disposable is absolutely the contrived euthanasia that I accused you of.
And of course if Barty's policy is adopted, his Conservative Party are f*****. He's just euthanised the voter base.
So, align voting more closely with copyright law. 50 years after death, and I don't see a little thing like being euthanased, discouraging them from ticking the tory box posthumously.
we could have cards, and slavery eggs hidden by the slavery bunny, and everything
I did check to make sure it wasn't a journalistic misinterpretation of something similar to Armistice Day, but yes, the chap does say “If you think about just how important slavery was to Britain and how horrific it was, it should be a national memorial; there should be a day off".
Having some difficulty with that, too, though other states do have things like Veterans' Day in the US which is their Armistice Day but also a public holiday.
Why when you have got that you would print the other is anyone's guess, and who the fuck allows themself to be described as "a leading expert on race"?
Stunning statistic, mind that in 1833 40% of the entire UK budget was spent compensating slave owners. that's what I call an exit strategy.
Note he praises the Bank of England and Church of England for trying to come to terms with their past involvement in slavery centuries ago
1. Diseases will always kill us and if they don't then I have bad news about life in any case. 2. I can totally understand that the government, looking as we all did at those pictures from Italy of people dying in the corridors, had to do something and lockdowns was it. 3. The whole point of society is a balance. Tragically it is not to keep every Archie alive at the expense of others who would benefit from those resources.
Once the NHS was in no danger of "collapsing" as in real collapse, not the collapse that the Graun and the various health unions call every other week, then there should absolutely have been no more lockdowns.
There should have been compensation for pubs if they wanted to close and teachers if they wanted to stay home but no mandate.
Our freedoms are so precious and the great and good of PB dismiss them instantly and soil themselves at the first real test of freedom that we in the UK have had for 80 years. Doesn't bode well for the future.
Which is a greater threat to Freedom: a temporary measure in the face of a novel pandemic, or a sustained campaign by government to restrict political protest and dissent? Is the collapse of the Court system due to chronic neglect perhaps a more pernicious threat? Is the drive to ban freedom of speech under the guise of Fighting Wokery more problematic? Are restrictions on the right to strike actually more consequential? I think one can debate whether temporary lockdowns were really the "first real test of freedom that we in the UK have had for 80 years".
But, sure, lockdowns should be avoided. The way to avoid lockdowns is with better public health measures. We can look at a country like Japan that never had a national lockdown and had far fewer COVID cases. A better Test & Trace system, with more support for people self-isolating, would have been a huge help in the UK. A better funded primary health care system would have helped.
This ain't rocket science. If you don't want lockdowns, do public health better.
Thanks for the diversions around the highways and byways of your political beliefs.
I'm glad you finally came down on the side of being anti-lockdown.
I of course agree that public health should be "done better" but we get what we vote for and we aren't prepared to pay more for public health. Nor, indeed, which is a shame, to reform it, which it badly needs. So I suppose we get lockdowns as the shortcut in lieu of a better public health system.
But I still don't think it worth it vs the restriction on our freedoms. I fully accept, however, that much/most of the public did and that just about all of PB thinks it is.
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
Neighbours, schmeighbours. Sweden IIRC outperformed many, most if not all other countries, from memory. In particular wrt excess deaths:
Did it do worse than its immediate neighbours? Depends. It did better than Denmark (which has a very high population density) but worse than Norway (which has a comparatively tiny population density).
imo weighed the balances well and overall I have no doubt will experience fewer post-covid problems, undiagnosed illnesses, mental health issues.
And that's to say nothing of the freedom issue which you seem to dismiss, you of all people, as being of little or no import.
It did worse than Denmark.
Deaths per 1 million population
(UK 2,724) For reference Sweden 1,920 Denmark 1,177 Finland 983 Norway 706.
Freedom is indeed important. But the temporary (and honestly very slight) limits on freedom we suffered were really as nothing compared to the rather more serious curtailment of freedom that results from being dead.
That will result in a return to office for the cleansed of all sins Boris Johnson. Oh joy, and should that come to pass he will get a landslide. New broom and all that.
I’m not so sure. He would have to remain an MP, and I can’t see him doing that. He can make oodles of real money putting the greasy pole behind him now.
I'll hold you to that.
Would you pay good money for more than one Peppa Pig speech?
We’ve got a reference point in Blair, how the money is made after Downing Street, and it’s not just the speeches where Boris can imagine yanks rolling in the aisles, kerching, it’s the business deals in luxury Mediterranean villas, kerching, ditto in Arabian palaces, Kerching, special advisor to HedgeCorp £xxx,xxx a year for 4 hours work, kerching. You think you know Boris so well he will remain in the game of politics now not chase this money?
As Dura_Ace suggested he can do both.
Make gazillions with the same Peppa Pig speech the world over AND keep the light on for his return to political greatness.
I am not sure why you have assumed I "think (you) I know Boris so well". I don't know Boris Johnson at all, I only surmise what I have seen of him on TV and from his writing, which isn't to my taste. I suspect we wouldn't have much in common and I would fulfil his university stereotype of what constituted a "pleb".
Of course if he wants to do a Greensill he needs to get his skates on, only 2 years left with his mates in high office.
But he can fill his boots whilst a backbench MP and ride back into town as the saviour of the nation, winning a landslide after two years of the hopeless Truss. Less easy to execute if he's Crown Steward and Bailiff for the Chiltern Hundreds.
Entirely consistent with recent personal experience (the A&E wait, not the death). In my case 24h from accident to ward admission. After that they got their skates on, but it was a grim start.
An excellent and detailed analysis. And, sadly, a brilliant example of Brandolini's Law (the effort required to counter bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than that required to generate it).
The Telegraph came up with their crap in order to seed the idea that the excess deaths were due to lockdown. Didn't need any effort for Sarah Knapton to come up with it, and instantly publicised by the Usual Suspects (and added to the "we now know..." lines).
John Burn-Murdoch put huge amounts of effort in to deep dive what is happening and where the excess deaths are and concluded it's down to the healthcare system collapse, especially in A&E and ambulances. What are the odds it gets the attention it deserves? Versus the odds that it vanishes under the Telegraph's crap?
The healthcare system collapse now is due to lockdown though.
Had we not locked down, had we allowed Covid to take its course, then we'd have had extra fatalities then, sure, but we wouldn't have trashed the future or the NHS for the long-term by abolishing everything else leading to mammoth waiting lists etc.
People who would have died from Covid wouldn't be on any waiting lists now. People who survived, wouldn't be paying the price of lockdown.
No, it's not. It's got very little to do with that. As Burn-Murdoch analyses. It's got most to do with the soaring waits in A&E and ambulances post-July 2021. But you will never accept that, because you hated lockdown (Can't blame you there; I hated it too) and therefore have to insist that bad things that happen must have come from it.
And why did it soar post-July 2021 (the unlocking)? Surely not because people who had been complying by staying at home to protect the NHS finally sought treatment for what had been afflicting them for some time?
No. Because we still had thousands of people going to hospital for covid. Far less than earlier, but a sustained and consistent high rate of utilisation of beds.
When you're normally running at 85%+ utilisation, adding 10-15% on top consistently makes a big impact. It's also unlikely that these people would be phoning ambulances and getting categorised in the "emergency" category to seek treatment, isn't it? Few people would be waiting months during a heart attack in order to call for an ambulance.
No but people who could have been treated sooner for diseases like diabetes etc that are not urgently life-threatening but lead to cardiovascular etc demands later on if left untreated could have been seen sooner. Similar for cancer etc
1 - The excess deaths are not in the diabetes and cancer area, but across the board. 2 - Your apparent belief that if the NHS was more swamped with covid, we'd somehow have been able to treat more cancer patients alongside (and kept them more separate?) and that having far more NHS stuff off sick with covid would have helped capacity does seem rather optimistic.
If we hadn't had lockdown then the NHS wouldn't have been more swamped with Covid than it was.
It would have been more swamped at the peak, but then that peak would have entailed telling more people "we can't help you" and the peak would have been over sooner and then the downhill would have happened sooner. Exponential figures again.
Instead we "flattened the sombrero" with lockdown so that the NHS had nothing but Covid for two years, rather than 3 horrific months of Covid then it was done.
Head. Desk. If you'd only ever come up with actual facts and numbers supporting your position - well, you'd not bother trying it, anyway.
During the first wave, under 5% of the country had been exposed to covid. By the time of the second lockdown, about 9% By the third lockdown, about 12% (Source - ONS antibodies survey). That means we had LOADS of doubling left to do.
If you have a capacity of c. 100,000 and existing utilisation of 75,000, how many people do you fit in on top of that? Note as well that the closer you get to capacity, the harder it is, and in many hospitals you'll already be over capacity (above 90% and you're in serious trouble) As it was, we added a bit under 20,000 in the first wave. They called the second lockdown when they could see they were heading over 15,000 additions (in winter, when the existing utilisation is closer to 85,000+) In the third one, they added nearly 35,000, and yes, heavy triaging was going on and we'll be feeling the effects of that for a long time.
With your airy "Oh, it would have been more swamped" - we'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of extra beds needed.
If people need intensive care to stay alive, then removing that intensive care is pretty sure to result in them being dead. To a slightly lesser extent, hospitalisation itself. It's rare that people go to hospital for fun.
And the ones who most benefited from ICU and hospitalisation were the younger ones and those without serious conditions. Unsurprisingly.
Fair points, but why didn't Sweden's health system collapse as you outline?
Much lower population density and a much higher incidence of remote working prior to the pandemic. But even so they did terribly in comparison with their neighbours.
Killing their population. It ranks quite highly in some people's minds.
Oh and Sweden shut their secondary schools.
Sweden switched their secondary schools to distance learning for a few weeks, which while not ideal secondary schools at least distance learning is far more viable.
Sweden was AFAIK the only country in Europe not to shut its primary schools. For that alone, it did far better than every one of its neighbours.
How many children need to lose their education to justify one fewer excess death in your eyes? What is the QALY value of an excess death, and the QALY value of education in your eyes, or are you just religiously dogmatic about it?
Well given my son did miles better doing distance learning compared to being in school I am looking at this from both a practical and an ethical/moral point of view.
Now clearly you, as an advocate of contrived euthanasia have no interest in the ethical and moral questions but even your practical claims are not as black and white as you like to pretend.
I have never once advocated contrived euthanasia but I am certainly a lifelong advocate of voluntary euthanasia. People who wish to die absolutely should be treated with dignity and respect, but lets not mix it up with this serious conversation by using the term as a contrived insult.
How old is your son? Secondary or primary, if you don't mind me asking. From what I saw, secondary pupils were better able to cope than primary pupils were with distance learning which makes sense considering their relevant stages of development. Being with other children and adults is a critical part of development for young children and can't be entirely displaced onto a computer screen.
Sweden kept their primary schools open while other countries closed theirs. On that metric alone, Sweden undeniably had a superior pandemic to any of its neighbours.
You may prefer other metrics to that one, but that's just your choice. In a free society, we all get to make our own choices, and I value children and their education more highly than just keeping adults alive for longer.
Would you permanently abolish primary schools if it meant 1 year extra life expectancy for adults? I most certainly would not. Education is more important than mere life expectancy.
You were certainly happy in principle for oldies to catch covid and die just because you were satisfying your libertarian principles by going out and doing things when infected. That's not voluntary euthanasia, except on your part.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I listened to a Boris fan on the radio the other day. I don't understand how he induces such a huge level of sycophancy in a significant minority of the population. It was a lady of a certain age phoning in, mind....
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
They did far, far better at protecting children's education than any one of their neighbours did.
If any of their neighbours did "better" then which neighbours harmed their kids education less than they did? Which neighbours had fewer primary school closures? Which had fewer secondary school days lost proportionately?
It's hugely ironic hearing you accusing me of knowing the value of nothing. What is the value of education in your eyes? What is the value of children's childhoods? Seemingly zero to you, only "death" matters and "life" is worthless.
You have no way of knowing or measuring that beyond your own beliefs.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I don't think it's a valid hypothetical. The question is whether you would go to a public place which an immunocompromised person, unbeknown to you, might have taken the risk of visiting.
That will result in a return to office for the cleansed of all sins Boris Johnson. Oh joy, and should that come to pass he will get a landslide. New broom and all that.
I’m not so sure. He would have to remain an MP, and I can’t see him doing that. He can make oodles of real money putting the greasy pole behind him now.
I'll hold you to that.
Would you pay good money for more than one Peppa Pig speech?
We’ve got a reference point in Blair, how the money is made after Downing Street, and it’s not just the speeches where Boris can imagine yanks rolling in the aisles, kerching, it’s the business deals in luxury Mediterranean villas, kerching, ditto in Arabian palaces, Kerching, special advisor to HedgeCorp £xxx,xxx a year for 4 hours work, kerching. You think you know Boris so well he will remain in the game of politics now not chase this money?
As Dura_Ace suggested he can do both.
Make gazillions with the same Peppa Pig speech the world over AND keep the light on for his return to political greatness.
I am not sure why you have assumed I "think (you) I know Boris so well". I don't know Boris Johnson at all, I only surmise what I have seen of him on TV and from his writing, which isn't to my taste. I suspect we wouldn't have much in common and I would fulfil his university stereotype of what constituted a "pleb".
Of course if he wants to do a Greensill he needs to get his skates on, only 2 years left with his mates in high office.
But he can fill his boots whilst a backbench MP and ride back into town as the saviour of the nation, winning a landslide after two years of the hopeless Truss. Less easy to execute if he's Crown Steward and Bailiff for the Chiltern Hundreds.
Assuming the committee on privileges doesn't do for him.
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
I'm not sure that makes sense. The vast majority of people here slavishly followed the impositions, though maybe you all the way over there didn't realise that.
I would still be willing to bet on a modest Truss lead.
I refuse to believe that she wants to enter office and by December/January be the most unpopular PM of all time.
She has never held a view or political position for any longer than once it ceases to be politically advantageous to her.
There will be action on energy bills because simply put there has to be unless Truss wants to be irrecoverably holed below the waterline in a matter of weeks. Top tip: she doesn’t.
Of course there will be action. But it will be too little too late for a number of reasons: 1. The latest mental price cap is unveiled on Friday. Then we have a week and a half where the Tory party and the government refuse to engage on the subject. 2. Truss will cut taxes as the priority. We know this because her team are telling the Times. That it won't have been run through the OBR & Treasury because there isn't time 3. This tells us two things: that as it is quickly modelled the experts will point out how fucking insane borrowing to fund tax cuts for the well off is and then arguments will break out; and that if they haven't modelled the big priority they won't have modelled the thing she repeatedly and stridently tells us she won't do is 4. Truss appears to be an absolute believer in her beliefs. Brits are skivers. They don't deserve a handout. Only the earn more pay less tax carrot will force them to work. So when she keeps saying "no handouts" why do some of her supporters believe she is lying?
She may not want to become unpopular, but her wing of the Tory Party has dug itself a zealotry pit and shows no sign of wanting to extract itself. Its response to the various problems hasn't just been to deny reality, its been to sneer whilst doing so. Not a good look.
Indeed.
"When somebody tells you who they are, believe them."
Truss has told us who she is and what she wants to do. That events may overtake her and force her hand into offering further support is by the by.
Any further support is likely to be inadequate, off the hoof, and almost certainly aimed at supporting the wrong people through this crisis.
My guess for what will be announced:
- Pensioners will be given increased credits to stay warm using existing mechanisms (winter fuel payment). - Businesses will be offered loans wholly inadequate to preventing them going under. - Working people will be told, we've given you a tiny tax cut, what more do you people want? As they freeze. Followed by a hasty "loan" scheme that will, as with businesses, prove wholly inadequate. - Everyone else - good luck, you feckless, workshy bastards!
Only in the depths of the bleakest of midwinters, when the temperatures are below zero (and so are the Conservatives in the polls), will something adequate to assuage fuel poverty finally be done.
Nothing on the table even begins to address the problem. She might as well absolutely hose tens of billions at it and show Labour's little scheme up as pitiful, inadequate and ridiculous. She won't.
I think Foxy's suggestion downthread of a furlough scheme paid out to energy intensive industries over the winter period to reduce demand is a good start.
We probably need to nationalise (temporarily?) the power companies to hold prices down (cost to be picked up by the taxpayer over several years - we paid people furlough to sit in their gardens for a year so why not pay now?).
And, dare I say it, because the current situation is caused by there being greater demand for power than available supply, ration it over winter so everyone gets enough and nobody freezes - back to 70s style rolling blackouts.
Grim. But it's a plan - which is more than the Conservatives have got.
I'm wondering how energy intensive is defined though.
Manufacturing can be quite energy intensive, but then so too can hospitality. Considering Leon's other conversation, making a bruschetta probably doesn't entail too much energy consumption but I imagine keeping a pizza oven at high temperatures for hours at a time probably would.
A lot of small businesses will be looking at their costs and thinking they're quite energy intensive, even if others don't necessarily think the same of them.
To unite this thread with the other topic du jour, I increasingly I get the horrible feeling that this winter is going to look an awful lot like lockdown, with hospitality and other non essential businesses shut down (furloughed?) to save power. ( *edit: or gone bust due to astronomical bills)
At least this time people will be able to go out and mingle without the fear of plod arresting them for being more than five miles from their home or standing less than two metres apart.
But still, grim. There will be slim chance of a pint in your favourite pub or a meal out, put it that way.
SAGE advice was that the plod shouldn't be out arresting people for COVID regulation infringements.
That's interesting. The gov wasn't interested either. So all police over-reach?
Some of it, perhaps. I think some in Government had an instinctive response that the way to achieve anything is with the stick, not the carrot.
Extraordinarily interesting and intelligent (as in, agrees exactly with every point I have been making) piece
"This culture war has become a mechanism of distraction that prevents us from discussing the painful legacies of Britain’s colonial past, and examining how this history has entrenched social inequalities in the present day. Instead of intelligent and compassionate conversation about history, there has been a hardening of positions on all sides.
The conversation shouldn’t be about deciding whether the British empire was “good” or “bad”. The purpose of slavery was to build wealth for Britain by any means necessary, through subjugation, division and coercion. "
That pretty much takes a position on whether the British empire was good or bad, though, doesn't it?
we could have cards, and slavery eggs hidden by the slavery bunny, and everything
I did check to make sure it wasn't a journalistic misinterpretation of something similar to Armistice Day, but yes, the chap does say “If you think about just how important slavery was to Britain and how horrific it was, it should be a national memorial; there should be a day off".
Having some difficulty with that, too, though other states do have things like Veterans' Day in the US which is their Armistice Day but also a public holiday.
Why when you have got that you would print the other is anyone's guess, and who the fuck allows themself to be described as "a leading expert on race"?
Stunning statistic, mind that in 1833 40% of the entire UK budget was spent compensating slave owners. that's what I call an exit strategy.
The thing is the UK state almost entirely expected their citizens to fend for themselves at the time, or rely on charity. the government's budget must have been tiny.
There were of course many wealthy Victorian philanthropists. But then again, they paid little or no tax.
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
What is the latest with the fourth jab?
I think the elderly and vulnerable are being offered a fifth dose, which will be the Moderna tweaked for Omicron, but no more doses for the under-50s.
It will be interesting to see if the vaccine will be available privately for youngsters who want to pay, as with the flu vaccine. I'd pay for a fourth dose if given the opportunity.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I don't think it's a valid hypothetical. The question is whether you would go to a public place which an immunocompromised person, unbeknown to you, might have taken the risk of visiting.
It's a really simple yes or no question.
I am totally amazed at the number of people who avoid answering the question, or try to turn it into another question.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing it out there, they are worried about the implications of answering yes or no.
I listened to a Boris fan on the radio the other day. I don't understand how he induces such a huge level of sycophancy in a significant minority of the population. It was a lady of a certain age phoning in, mind....
'And now joining us on the line is Nadine from Mid-Bedfordshire'
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
You're assuming that the only thing that mattered was the number of Official Covid Deaths.
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
Neighbours, schmeighbours. Sweden IIRC outperformed many, most if not all other countries, from memory. In particular wrt excess deaths:
Did it do worse than its immediate neighbours? Depends. It did better than Denmark (which has a very high population density) but worse than Norway (which has a comparatively tiny population density).
imo weighed the balances well and overall I have no doubt will experience fewer post-covid problems, undiagnosed illnesses, mental health issues.
And that's to say nothing of the freedom issue which you seem to dismiss, you of all people, as being of little or no import.
It did worse than Denmark.
Deaths per 1 million population
(UK 2,724) For reference Sweden 1,920 Denmark 1,177 Finland 983 Norway 706.
Freedom is indeed important. But the temporary (and honestly very slight) limits on freedom we suffered were really as nothing compared to the rather more serious curtailment of freedom that results from being dead.
I would vigorously dispute your contention that the restrictions and effects on our mental health were very slight. On PB alone we have had a non-trivial proportion of posters admit to quite serious covid-related mental health issues.
Of course not all of them were able to take a stroll around their orchards in moments of stress which might help to explain your views.
And also that Lancet paper I linked to shows excess deaths from 1 Jan 2020 to 31 Dec 2021.
UK: 126.8 Denmark 94.1 Sweden 91.2 Norway 7.2 (!) Finland 80.8
1. Diseases will always kill us and if they don't then I have bad news about life in any case. 2. I can totally understand that the government, looking as we all did at those pictures from Italy of people dying in the corridors, had to do something and lockdowns was it. 3. The whole point of society is a balance. Tragically it is not to keep every Archie alive at the expense of others who would benefit from those resources.
Once the NHS was in no danger of "collapsing" as in real collapse, not the collapse that the Graun and the various health unions call every other week, then there should absolutely have been no more lockdowns.
There should have been compensation for pubs if they wanted to close and teachers if they wanted to stay home but no mandate.
Our freedoms are so precious and the great and good of PB dismiss them instantly and soil themselves at the first real test of freedom that we in the UK have had for 80 years. Doesn't bode well for the future.
Which is a greater threat to Freedom: a temporary measure in the face of a novel pandemic, or a sustained campaign by government to restrict political protest and dissent? Is the collapse of the Court system due to chronic neglect perhaps a more pernicious threat? Is the drive to ban freedom of speech under the guise of Fighting Wokery more problematic? Are restrictions on the right to strike actually more consequential? I think one can debate whether temporary lockdowns were really the "first real test of freedom that we in the UK have had for 80 years".
But, sure, lockdowns should be avoided. The way to avoid lockdowns is with better public health measures. We can look at a country like Japan that never had a national lockdown and had far fewer COVID cases. A better Test & Trace system, with more support for people self-isolating, would have been a huge help in the UK. A better funded primary health care system would have helped.
This ain't rocket science. If you don't want lockdowns, do public health better.
No, it isn't rocket science. If you don't want lockdowns, don't implement lockdowns.
Entirely consistent with recent personal experience (the A&E wait, not the death). In my case 24h from accident to ward admission. After that they got their skates on, but it was a grim start.
An excellent and detailed analysis. And, sadly, a brilliant example of Brandolini's Law (the effort required to counter bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than that required to generate it).
The Telegraph came up with their crap in order to seed the idea that the excess deaths were due to lockdown. Didn't need any effort for Sarah Knapton to come up with it, and instantly publicised by the Usual Suspects (and added to the "we now know..." lines).
John Burn-Murdoch put huge amounts of effort in to deep dive what is happening and where the excess deaths are and concluded it's down to the healthcare system collapse, especially in A&E and ambulances. What are the odds it gets the attention it deserves? Versus the odds that it vanishes under the Telegraph's crap?
The healthcare system collapse now is due to lockdown though.
Had we not locked down, had we allowed Covid to take its course, then we'd have had extra fatalities then, sure, but we wouldn't have trashed the future or the NHS for the long-term by abolishing everything else leading to mammoth waiting lists etc.
People who would have died from Covid wouldn't be on any waiting lists now. People who survived, wouldn't be paying the price of lockdown.
No, it's not. It's got very little to do with that. As Burn-Murdoch analyses. It's got most to do with the soaring waits in A&E and ambulances post-July 2021. But you will never accept that, because you hated lockdown (Can't blame you there; I hated it too) and therefore have to insist that bad things that happen must have come from it.
And why did it soar post-July 2021 (the unlocking)? Surely not because people who had been complying by staying at home to protect the NHS finally sought treatment for what had been afflicting them for some time?
No. Because we still had thousands of people going to hospital for covid. Far less than earlier, but a sustained and consistent high rate of utilisation of beds.
When you're normally running at 85%+ utilisation, adding 10-15% on top consistently makes a big impact. It's also unlikely that these people would be phoning ambulances and getting categorised in the "emergency" category to seek treatment, isn't it? Few people would be waiting months during a heart attack in order to call for an ambulance.
No but people who could have been treated sooner for diseases like diabetes etc that are not urgently life-threatening but lead to cardiovascular etc demands later on if left untreated could have been seen sooner. Similar for cancer etc
1 - The excess deaths are not in the diabetes and cancer area, but across the board. 2 - Your apparent belief that if the NHS was more swamped with covid, we'd somehow have been able to treat more cancer patients alongside (and kept them more separate?) and that having far more NHS stuff off sick with covid would have helped capacity does seem rather optimistic.
If we hadn't had lockdown then the NHS wouldn't have been more swamped with Covid than it was.
It would have been more swamped at the peak, but then that peak would have entailed telling more people "we can't help you" and the peak would have been over sooner and then the downhill would have happened sooner. Exponential figures again.
Instead we "flattened the sombrero" with lockdown so that the NHS had nothing but Covid for two years, rather than 3 horrific months of Covid then it was done.
Head. Desk. If you'd only ever come up with actual facts and numbers supporting your position - well, you'd not bother trying it, anyway.
During the first wave, under 5% of the country had been exposed to covid. By the time of the second lockdown, about 9% By the third lockdown, about 12% (Source - ONS antibodies survey). That means we had LOADS of doubling left to do.
If you have a capacity of c. 100,000 and existing utilisation of 75,000, how many people do you fit in on top of that? Note as well that the closer you get to capacity, the harder it is, and in many hospitals you'll already be over capacity (above 90% and you're in serious trouble) As it was, we added a bit under 20,000 in the first wave. They called the second lockdown when they could see they were heading over 15,000 additions (in winter, when the existing utilisation is closer to 85,000+) In the third one, they added nearly 35,000, and yes, heavy triaging was going on and we'll be feeling the effects of that for a long time.
With your airy "Oh, it would have been more swamped" - we'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of extra beds needed.
If people need intensive care to stay alive, then removing that intensive care is pretty sure to result in them being dead. To a slightly lesser extent, hospitalisation itself. It's rare that people go to hospital for fun.
And the ones who most benefited from ICU and hospitalisation were the younger ones and those without serious conditions. Unsurprisingly.
Fair points, but why didn't Sweden's health system collapse as you outline?
Much lower population density and a much higher incidence of remote working prior to the pandemic. But even so they did terribly in comparison with their neighbours.
Killing their population. It ranks quite highly in some people's minds.
Oh and Sweden shut their secondary schools.
Sweden switched their secondary schools to distance learning for a few weeks, which while not ideal secondary schools at least distance learning is far more viable.
Sweden was AFAIK the only country in Europe not to shut its primary schools. For that alone, it did far better than every one of its neighbours.
How many children need to lose their education to justify one fewer excess death in your eyes? What is the QALY value of an excess death, and the QALY value of education in your eyes, or are you just religiously dogmatic about it?
Well given my son did miles better doing distance learning compared to being in school I am looking at this from both a practical and an ethical/moral point of view.
Now clearly you, as an advocate of contrived euthanasia have no interest in the ethical and moral questions but even your practical claims are not as black and white as you like to pretend.
I have never once advocated contrived euthanasia but I am certainly a lifelong advocate of voluntary euthanasia. People who wish to die absolutely should be treated with dignity and respect, but lets not mix it up with this serious conversation by using the term as a contrived insult.
How old is your son? Secondary or primary, if you don't mind me asking. From what I saw, secondary pupils were better able to cope than primary pupils were with distance learning which makes sense considering their relevant stages of development. Being with other children and adults is a critical part of development for young children and can't be entirely displaced onto a computer screen.
Sweden kept their primary schools open while other countries closed theirs. On that metric alone, Sweden undeniably had a superior pandemic to any of its neighbours.
You may prefer other metrics to that one, but that's just your choice. In a free society, we all get to make our own choices, and I value children and their education more highly than just keeping adults alive for longer.
Would you permanently abolish primary schools if it meant 1 year extra life expectancy for adults? I most certainly would not. Education is more important than mere life expectancy.
You were certainly happy in principle for oldies to catch covid and die just because you were satisfying your libertarian principles by going out and doing things when infected. That's not voluntary euthanasia, except on your part.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I did answer last time and will answer again. If I knew that I would inform them I'm positive and let them make any informed decisions they want to make.
This came up recently in my extended family. My granddad's sister died and her son tested positive immediately before the funeral. He informed everyone invited to the funeral that he was positive and would be attending his mother's funeral, so they could make an informed decision as to whether they wanted to attend or not.
My granddad and his wife chose not to attend as a result. That is their choice. He was annoyed that he "couldn't" attend his sisters funeral and thought that her son should have chosen not to go to go, but respectfully I completely agreed with her son. Yes there are many immunocompromised people at funerals in general, like my granddad (92) but it's their choice whether to attend or not. No reason her son should miss his own mother's funeral just because he's positive.
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
Sorry to hear that. Get well soon. Another down. Both myself and my wife have missed it so far (as far as we know). I have no idea how. During Covid I travelled abroad quite a bit and had two bouts in hospital (broken legs and paralysed vocal cord). I have been to concerts and other events. Nothing. Off to a wedding in Spain shortly so there is another opportunity and have something or other lined up everyday before that, so fingers crossed.
That will result in a return to office for the cleansed of all sins Boris Johnson. Oh joy, and should that come to pass he will get a landslide. New broom and all that.
I’m not so sure. He would have to remain an MP, and I can’t see him doing that. He can make oodles of real money putting the greasy pole behind him now.
I'll hold you to that.
Would you pay good money for more than one Peppa Pig speech?
We’ve got a reference point in Blair, how the money is made after Downing Street, and it’s not just the speeches where Boris can imagine yanks rolling in the aisles, kerching, it’s the business deals in luxury Mediterranean villas, kerching, ditto in Arabian palaces, Kerching, special advisor to HedgeCorp £xxx,xxx a year for 4 hours work, kerching. You think you know Boris so well he will remain in the game of politics now not chase this money?
As Dura_Ace suggested he can do both.
Make gazillions with the same Peppa Pig speech the world over AND keep the light on for his return to political greatness.
I am not sure why you have assumed I "think (you) I know Boris so well". I don't know Boris Johnson at all, I only surmise what I have seen of him on TV and from his writing, which isn't to my taste. I suspect we wouldn't have much in common and I would fulfil his university stereotype of what constituted a "pleb".
You are on prickly form Pete 🙂 sure we all know him as someone interested in easy money.
Was Boris ever really interested in politics and being a politician, or was the interest just Boris “in” politics?
And I suspect Ms Rabbit he still is.
Churchill managed as PM twice, and if you read Johnson's book "Monty: His Part in My Victory", oh sorry wrong author, I mean the similarly comedic "The Churchill Factor" you will understand where Johnson's ambitions lie.
I doubt Johnson is particularly money minded. Currency is for plebs. If he runs out of cash there is always someone there to pick up the tab. Yes a wedge here and there would be nice, but surpassing Churchill as Britain's greatest modern Prime Minister is the prize I suspect.
P.S. Yes, and I am a bit snippy. Lots of utter nonsense from certain posters on here today. Time to do some work!
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I don't think it's a valid hypothetical. The question is whether you would go to a public place which an immunocompromised person, unbeknown to you, might have taken the risk of visiting.
It's a really simple yes or no question.
I am totally amazed at the number of people who avoid answering the question, or try to turn it into another question.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing it out there, they are worried about the implications of answering yes or no.
I was also struck by how I was poohpoohed when I said I'd never go and visit someone or go to a party if I knew I had some bug - and that was in the days before covid.
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
I don't really see the point in redoing it.
For me, Covid was a heap of missed opportunities with a small scattering of un-missed ones. Opportunity to introduce travel restrictions to and from China. Opportunity to introduce border restrictions. Opportunity to introduce meaningful border restrictions when we did so. Opportunity to introduce limited face covering use early on when it was clear common sense that aerosol was spreading the disease. Opportunity to encourage a healthier diet and lifestyle to increase covid robustness and speed recovery, with a vast unused repository of blood test data from hospitalised sufferers sitting unused. I mean I could continue but what would be the point - it's in the past.
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
That will result in a return to office for the cleansed of all sins Boris Johnson. Oh joy, and should that come to pass he will get a landslide. New broom and all that.
I’m not so sure. He would have to remain an MP, and I can’t see him doing that. He can make oodles of real money putting the greasy pole behind him now.
I'll hold you to that.
Would you pay good money for more than one Peppa Pig speech?
We’ve got a reference point in Blair, how the money is made after Downing Street, and it’s not just the speeches where Boris can imagine yanks rolling in the aisles, kerching, it’s the business deals in luxury Mediterranean villas, kerching, ditto in Arabian palaces, Kerching, special advisor to HedgeCorp £xxx,xxx a year for 4 hours work, kerching. You think you know Boris so well he will remain in the game of politics now not chase this money?
As Dura_Ace suggested he can do both.
Make gazillions with the same Peppa Pig speech the world over AND keep the light on for his return to political greatness.
I am not sure why you have assumed I "think (you) I know Boris so well". I don't know Boris Johnson at all, I only surmise what I have seen of him on TV and from his writing, which isn't to my taste. I suspect we wouldn't have much in common and I would fulfil his university stereotype of what constituted a "pleb".
Of course if he wants to do a Greensill he needs to get his skates on, only 2 years left with his mates in high office.
But he can fill his boots whilst a backbench MP and ride back into town as the saviour of the nation, winning a landslide after two years of the hopeless Truss. Less easy to execute if he's Crown Steward and Bailiff for the Chiltern Hundreds.
Assuming the committee on privileges doesn't do for him.
I'm surprised and disappointed to hear you say that. It was a disgrace. And, to my mind, illegal.
Defining "lockdown" as -
A period where distancing between people was enforced via stay at home order plus WFH plus closure of shops and hospitality. Objective - stop Covid overwhelming the NHS and running riot in the community.
This was necessary and it did work.
What we can certainly debate is stuff like -
Did it start too late? Did it go on too long? Was the balance right between law and guidance? Were the rules too complex and intrusive? Should schools have been kept open? Was the care home regime inhumane? Etc
But let us not pretend there was a viable big picture alternative to what we did, ie an option to just "trust the people" and the government do nothing. We had to enforce distancing to hamper the spread of the bug at critical times - this was Lockdown and it *was* necessary. I can't see how anybody can argue otherwise without retrospectively changing the facts of the pandemic.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I don't think it's a valid hypothetical. The question is whether you would go to a public place which an immunocompromised person, unbeknown to you, might have taken the risk of visiting.
It's a really simple yes or no question.
I am totally amazed at the number of people who avoid answering the question, or try to turn it into another question.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing it out there, they are worried about the implications of answering yes or no.
This is a silly question. If I had a cold or the shits I would avoid going to see a friend who was for example undergoing chemo. The same if I knew I had covid. I wouldn’t stop going out in public with any of them if I felt well enough.
Interesting analysis by @ShippersUnbound@thetimes on state of the Union. IMO what shld most alarm Unionists throughout UK is English indifference: 42% in 🏴 wld welcome or aren't bothered by 🏴 separation, goes up to 55% re Irish unification @YouGov
Yet only 1 in 7 English voters want Scotland to leave the UK and by a 17% margin English voters would be upset not pleased if Northern Ireland left the UK. Despite England still being the only home nation in the UK without its own parliament.
In any case unless the whole UK gets a vote on the Union in a referendum or England votes for the English Democrats and ultimately English independence, English voters get no say on the Union anyway
England does have its own Parliament. The one at Westminster. It is the old English Pmt with assorted others added and subtracted at various times. And until your very own glorious Party recently deleted the legislation for reasons which remain completely unclear, it had English votes for English laws.
The reason was completely clear: EVEL as implemented was bollocks, as a majority of MPs representing English constituencies couldn't implement something if there was a UK majority against it.
The idea that the Westminster parliament is an English parliament is risible.
Surely the whole point of EVEL was to remove the question of a UK majority by making sure the non-English MPs couldn't vote.
This was much touted by Mr Cameron as a solution to devolution's anomalies.
If there is a Labour minority government at the next election propped up by the SNP, Starmer could well offer the SNP indyref2 in return for voting on English laws if the Tories still have most seats in England but no majority in the UK
Entirely consistent with recent personal experience (the A&E wait, not the death). In my case 24h from accident to ward admission. After that they got their skates on, but it was a grim start.
An excellent and detailed analysis. And, sadly, a brilliant example of Brandolini's Law (the effort required to counter bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than that required to generate it).
The Telegraph came up with their crap in order to seed the idea that the excess deaths were due to lockdown. Didn't need any effort for Sarah Knapton to come up with it, and instantly publicised by the Usual Suspects (and added to the "we now know..." lines).
John Burn-Murdoch put huge amounts of effort in to deep dive what is happening and where the excess deaths are and concluded it's down to the healthcare system collapse, especially in A&E and ambulances. What are the odds it gets the attention it deserves? Versus the odds that it vanishes under the Telegraph's crap?
The healthcare system collapse now is due to lockdown though.
Had we not locked down, had we allowed Covid to take its course, then we'd have had extra fatalities then, sure, but we wouldn't have trashed the future or the NHS for the long-term by abolishing everything else leading to mammoth waiting lists etc.
People who would have died from Covid wouldn't be on any waiting lists now. People who survived, wouldn't be paying the price of lockdown.
No, it's not. It's got very little to do with that. As Burn-Murdoch analyses. It's got most to do with the soaring waits in A&E and ambulances post-July 2021. But you will never accept that, because you hated lockdown (Can't blame you there; I hated it too) and therefore have to insist that bad things that happen must have come from it.
And why did it soar post-July 2021 (the unlocking)? Surely not because people who had been complying by staying at home to protect the NHS finally sought treatment for what had been afflicting them for some time?
No. Because we still had thousands of people going to hospital for covid. Far less than earlier, but a sustained and consistent high rate of utilisation of beds.
When you're normally running at 85%+ utilisation, adding 10-15% on top consistently makes a big impact. It's also unlikely that these people would be phoning ambulances and getting categorised in the "emergency" category to seek treatment, isn't it? Few people would be waiting months during a heart attack in order to call for an ambulance.
No but people who could have been treated sooner for diseases like diabetes etc that are not urgently life-threatening but lead to cardiovascular etc demands later on if left untreated could have been seen sooner. Similar for cancer etc
1 - The excess deaths are not in the diabetes and cancer area, but across the board. 2 - Your apparent belief that if the NHS was more swamped with covid, we'd somehow have been able to treat more cancer patients alongside (and kept them more separate?) and that having far more NHS stuff off sick with covid would have helped capacity does seem rather optimistic.
If we hadn't had lockdown then the NHS wouldn't have been more swamped with Covid than it was.
It would have been more swamped at the peak, but then that peak would have entailed telling more people "we can't help you" and the peak would have been over sooner and then the downhill would have happened sooner. Exponential figures again.
Instead we "flattened the sombrero" with lockdown so that the NHS had nothing but Covid for two years, rather than 3 horrific months of Covid then it was done.
Head. Desk. If you'd only ever come up with actual facts and numbers supporting your position - well, you'd not bother trying it, anyway.
During the first wave, under 5% of the country had been exposed to covid. By the time of the second lockdown, about 9% By the third lockdown, about 12% (Source - ONS antibodies survey). That means we had LOADS of doubling left to do.
If you have a capacity of c. 100,000 and existing utilisation of 75,000, how many people do you fit in on top of that? Note as well that the closer you get to capacity, the harder it is, and in many hospitals you'll already be over capacity (above 90% and you're in serious trouble) As it was, we added a bit under 20,000 in the first wave. They called the second lockdown when they could see they were heading over 15,000 additions (in winter, when the existing utilisation is closer to 85,000+) In the third one, they added nearly 35,000, and yes, heavy triaging was going on and we'll be feeling the effects of that for a long time.
With your airy "Oh, it would have been more swamped" - we'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of extra beds needed.
If people need intensive care to stay alive, then removing that intensive care is pretty sure to result in them being dead. To a slightly lesser extent, hospitalisation itself. It's rare that people go to hospital for fun.
And the ones who most benefited from ICU and hospitalisation were the younger ones and those without serious conditions. Unsurprisingly.
Fair points, but why didn't Sweden's health system collapse as you outline?
Much lower population density and a much higher incidence of remote working prior to the pandemic. But even so they did terribly in comparison with their neighbours.
Killing their population. It ranks quite highly in some people's minds.
Oh and Sweden shut their secondary schools.
Sweden switched their secondary schools to distance learning for a few weeks, which while not ideal secondary schools at least distance learning is far more viable.
Sweden was AFAIK the only country in Europe not to shut its primary schools. For that alone, it did far better than every one of its neighbours.
How many children need to lose their education to justify one fewer excess death in your eyes? What is the QALY value of an excess death, and the QALY value of education in your eyes, or are you just religiously dogmatic about it?
Well given my son did miles better doing distance learning compared to being in school I am looking at this from both a practical and an ethical/moral point of view.
Now clearly you, as an advocate of contrived euthanasia have no interest in the ethical and moral questions but even your practical claims are not as black and white as you like to pretend.
I have never once advocated contrived euthanasia but I am certainly a lifelong advocate of voluntary euthanasia. People who wish to die absolutely should be treated with dignity and respect, but lets not mix it up with this serious conversation by using the term as a contrived insult.
How old is your son? Secondary or primary, if you don't mind me asking. From what I saw, secondary pupils were better able to cope than primary pupils were with distance learning which makes sense considering their relevant stages of development. Being with other children and adults is a critical part of development for young children and can't be entirely displaced onto a computer screen.
Sweden kept their primary schools open while other countries closed theirs. On that metric alone, Sweden undeniably had a superior pandemic to any of its neighbours.
You may prefer other metrics to that one, but that's just your choice. In a free society, we all get to make our own choices, and I value children and their education more highly than just keeping adults alive for longer.
Would you permanently abolish primary schools if it meant 1 year extra life expectancy for adults? I most certainly would not. Education is more important than mere life expectancy.
You were certainly happy in principle for oldies to catch covid and die just because you were satisfying your libertarian principles by going out and doing things when infected. That's not voluntary euthanasia, except on your part.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I did answer last time and will answer again. If I knew that I would inform them I'm positive and let them make any informed decisions they want to make.
This came up recently in my extended family. My granddad's sister died and her son tested positive immediately before the funeral. He informed everyone invited to the funeral that he was positive and would be attending his mother's funeral, so they could make an informed decision as to whether they wanted to attend or not.
My granddad and his wife chose not to attend as a result. That is their choice. He was annoyed that he "couldn't" attend his sisters funeral and thought that her son should have chosen not to go to go, but respectfully I completely agreed with her son. Yes there are many immunocompromised people at funerals in general, like my granddad (92) but it's their choice whether to attend or not. No reason her son should miss his own mother's funeral just because he's positive.
Last time I asked you said you wouldn't take a test.
And that you wouldn't visit if you were symptomatic.
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
I'm not sure that makes sense. The vast majority of people here slavishly followed the impositions, though maybe you all the way over there didn't realise that.
"Slavishly."
Are you Johnny Strabler?
You are in any case missing the point which is that Swedes follow advice, Brits need laws. Just the way it is.
I'm surprised and disappointed to hear you say that. It was a disgrace. And, to my mind, illegal.
Defining "lockdown" as -
A period where distancing between people was enforced via stay at home order plus WFH plus closure of shops and hospitality. Objective - stop Covid overwhelming the NHS and running riot in the community.
This was necessary and it did work.
What we can certainly debate is stuff like -
Did it start too late? Did it go on too long? Was the balance right between law and guidance? Were the rules too complex and intrusive? Should schools have been kept open? Was the care home regime inhumane? Etc
But let us not pretend there was a viable big picture alternative to what we did, ie an option to just "trust the people" and the government do nothing. We had to enforce distancing to hamper the spread of the bug at critical times - this was Lockdown and it *was* necessary. I can't see how anybody can argue otherwise without retrospectively changing the facts of the pandemic.
Another old bloke, retired even, in a charming big house can't understand why everyone is making such a fuss about lockdowns.
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
Neighbours, schmeighbours. Sweden IIRC outperformed many, most if not all other countries, from memory. In particular wrt excess deaths:
Did it do worse than its immediate neighbours? Depends. It did better than Denmark (which has a very high population density) but worse than Norway (which has a comparatively tiny population density).
imo weighed the balances well and overall I have no doubt will experience fewer post-covid problems, undiagnosed illnesses, mental health issues.
And that's to say nothing of the freedom issue which you seem to dismiss, you of all people, as being of little or no import.
It did worse than Denmark.
Deaths per 1 million population
(UK 2,724) For reference Sweden 1,920 Denmark 1,177 Finland 983 Norway 706.
Freedom is indeed important. But the temporary (and honestly very slight) limits on freedom we suffered were really as nothing compared to the rather more serious curtailment of freedom that results from being dead.
The premise you put forth of a choice between lockdown and death is utterly spurious.
Evidence mounts every month that lockdowns actually caused the deaths of people who were at no risk from covid whatever, so much so even the Telegraph admitted the other day the cure may have been more deadly than the disease.
Interesting analysis by @ShippersUnbound@thetimes on state of the Union. IMO what shld most alarm Unionists throughout UK is English indifference: 42% in 🏴 wld welcome or aren't bothered by 🏴 separation, goes up to 55% re Irish unification @YouGov
Yet only 1 in 7 English voters want Scotland to leave the UK and by a 17% margin English voters would be upset not pleased if Northern Ireland left the UK. Despite England still being the only home nation in the UK without its own parliament.
In any case unless the whole UK gets a vote on the Union in a referendum or England votes for the English Democrats and ultimately English independence, English voters get no say on the Union anyway
England does have its own Parliament. The one at Westminster. It is the old English Pmt with assorted others added and subtracted at various times. And until your very own glorious Party recently deleted the legislation for reasons which remain completely unclear, it had English votes for English laws.
The reason was completely clear: EVEL as implemented was bollocks, as a majority of MPs representing English constituencies couldn't implement something if there was a UK majority against it.
The idea that the Westminster parliament is an English parliament is risible.
Surely the whole point of EVEL was to remove the question of a UK majority by making sure the non-English MPs couldn't vote.
This was much touted by Mr Cameron as a solution to devolution's anomalies.
If there is a Labour minority government at the next election propped up by the SNP, Starmer could well offer the SNP indyref2 in return for voting on English laws if the Tories still have most seats in England but no majority in the UK
Like everyone else, you're missing what would happen before then. The situation would be too chaotic to get that far.
And the deletion of EVEL means that that isn't even an offer, not least because the SNP don't vote on English laws*.
*Except in aberrant cases, which EVEL eliminates - or would if the Tories hadn't cancelled it to give themselves the kind of girevance you are so assiduously repeating.
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
What is the latest with the fourth jab?
From September, targeted for (effectively) JCVI categories 1-9 and a bivalent booster with specific Omicron-targeting is available. As it turns out, MrsC and myself are eligible because The Lad is eligible and we're his carers. We'll be getting it, but I will wait to make sure that those in greater need get their opportunity first (we're certainly not turning it down, but I'd feel bad if we jumped the queue in front of those who are older and more vulnerable).
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
Neighbours, schmeighbours. Sweden IIRC outperformed many, most if not all other countries, from memory. In particular wrt excess deaths:
Did it do worse than its immediate neighbours? Depends. It did better than Denmark (which has a very high population density) but worse than Norway (which has a comparatively tiny population density).
imo weighed the balances well and overall I have no doubt will experience fewer post-covid problems, undiagnosed illnesses, mental health issues.
And that's to say nothing of the freedom issue which you seem to dismiss, you of all people, as being of little or no import.
It did worse than Denmark.
Deaths per 1 million population
(UK 2,724) For reference Sweden 1,920 Denmark 1,177 Finland 983 Norway 706.
Freedom is indeed important. But the temporary (and honestly very slight) limits on freedom we suffered were really as nothing compared to the rather more serious curtailment of freedom that results from being dead.
Personally I would have trodden a more idealistic path.
Rather than make it illegal for people to visit each other's houses I would have made that very strong public health advice. I would have been aiming for the same effect, but I think the emphasis on what was legal throughout the pandemic was not helpful, as it encouraged people to focus on the minutiae of the rules, rather than on the spirit - prior to vaccination mixing between households indoors would lead to spread of the virus and should be reduced as much as possible.
I find it odd that every single opponent of lockdown seems to always come down to minimising the need to reduce indoor mixing to reduce the spread of the virus, by minimising the risk posed by the virus, rather than addressing the question of law versus advice.
Re your bet OGH: I know it is normal for a bounce with a new leader because they are new and they haven't had any disasters as a new leader yet (which will obviously happen no matter who you are). But couldn't all the Blue on Blue stuff be the issue here that stops a bounce. Truss (or Sunak) could do with a period where there aren't any attacks or nonsense announcements from within the Blue team. It then might happen.
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
JCVI advises that for the 2022 autumn booster programme, the following groups should be offered a COVID-19 booster vaccine:
residents in a care home for older adults and staff working in care homes for older adults frontline health and social care workers all adults aged 50 years and over persons aged 5 to 49 years in a clinical risk group, as set out in the Green Book, chapter 14a, tables 3 and 4 persons aged 5 to 49 years who are household contacts of people with immunosuppression persons aged 16 to 49 years who are carers, as set out in the Green Book, chapter 14a, table 3
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I don't think it's a valid hypothetical. The question is whether you would go to a public place which an immunocompromised person, unbeknown to you, might have taken the risk of visiting.
It's a really simple yes or no question.
I am totally amazed at the number of people who avoid answering the question, or try to turn it into another question.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing it out there, they are worried about the implications of answering yes or no.
This is a silly question. If I had a cold or the shits I would avoid going to see a friend who was for example undergoing chemo. The same if I knew I had covid. I wouldn’t stop going out in public with any of them if I felt well enough.
If i feel ill i stay in until i feel better. I can't grasp the circumstances where i would test myself for a disease if i felt fine. Its rabid hypochondria.
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
Neighbours, schmeighbours. Sweden IIRC outperformed many, most if not all other countries, from memory. In particular wrt excess deaths:
Did it do worse than its immediate neighbours? Depends. It did better than Denmark (which has a very high population density) but worse than Norway (which has a comparatively tiny population density).
imo weighed the balances well and overall I have no doubt will experience fewer post-covid problems, undiagnosed illnesses, mental health issues.
And that's to say nothing of the freedom issue which you seem to dismiss, you of all people, as being of little or no import.
It did worse than Denmark.
Deaths per 1 million population
(UK 2,724) For reference Sweden 1,920 Denmark 1,177 Finland 983 Norway 706.
Freedom is indeed important. But the temporary (and honestly very slight) limits on freedom we suffered were really as nothing compared to the rather more serious curtailment of freedom that results from being dead.
Personally I would have trodden a more idealistic path.
Rather than make it illegal for people to visit each other's houses I would have made that very strong public health advice. I would have been aiming for the same effect, but I think the emphasis on what was legal throughout the pandemic was not helpful, as it encouraged people to focus on the minutiae of the rules, rather than on the spirit - prior to vaccination mixing between households indoors would lead to spread of the virus and should be reduced as much as possible.
I find it odd that every single opponent of lockdown seems to always come down to minimising the need to reduce indoor mixing to reduce the spread of the virus, by minimising the risk posed by the virus, rather than addressing the question of law versus advice.
I think that is a good point. Make it all advice and, critically, compensate people for not being able to or wanting to go to work (was @rcs1000's reason put forward as to why there had to be a legal mandate).
Then let people do what they want. Once the health service is not going to collapse.
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
I'm not sure that makes sense. The vast majority of people here slavishly followed the impositions, though maybe you all the way over there didn't realise that.
"Slavishly."
Are you Johnny Strabler?
You are in any case missing the point which is that Swedes follow advice, Brits need laws. Just the way it is.
If that's the case, why does the mobility data show travel dropping off a cliff before lockdown?
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
Neighbours, schmeighbours. Sweden IIRC outperformed many, most if not all other countries, from memory. In particular wrt excess deaths:
Did it do worse than its immediate neighbours? Depends. It did better than Denmark (which has a very high population density) but worse than Norway (which has a comparatively tiny population density).
imo weighed the balances well and overall I have no doubt will experience fewer post-covid problems, undiagnosed illnesses, mental health issues.
And that's to say nothing of the freedom issue which you seem to dismiss, you of all people, as being of little or no import.
It did worse than Denmark.
Deaths per 1 million population
(UK 2,724) For reference Sweden 1,920 Denmark 1,177 Finland 983 Norway 706.
Freedom is indeed important. But the temporary (and honestly very slight) limits on freedom we suffered were really as nothing compared to the rather more serious curtailment of freedom that results from being dead.
The premise you put forth of a choice between lockdown and death is utterly spurious.
Evidence mounts every month that lockdowns actually caused the deaths of people who were at no risk from covid whatever, so much so even the Telegraph admitted the other day the cure may have been more deadly than the disease.
Entirely consistent with recent personal experience (the A&E wait, not the death). In my case 24h from accident to ward admission. After that they got their skates on, but it was a grim start.
An excellent and detailed analysis. And, sadly, a brilliant example of Brandolini's Law (the effort required to counter bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than that required to generate it).
The Telegraph came up with their crap in order to seed the idea that the excess deaths were due to lockdown. Didn't need any effort for Sarah Knapton to come up with it, and instantly publicised by the Usual Suspects (and added to the "we now know..." lines).
John Burn-Murdoch put huge amounts of effort in to deep dive what is happening and where the excess deaths are and concluded it's down to the healthcare system collapse, especially in A&E and ambulances. What are the odds it gets the attention it deserves? Versus the odds that it vanishes under the Telegraph's crap?
The healthcare system collapse now is due to lockdown though.
Had we not locked down, had we allowed Covid to take its course, then we'd have had extra fatalities then, sure, but we wouldn't have trashed the future or the NHS for the long-term by abolishing everything else leading to mammoth waiting lists etc.
People who would have died from Covid wouldn't be on any waiting lists now. People who survived, wouldn't be paying the price of lockdown.
No, it's not. It's got very little to do with that. As Burn-Murdoch analyses. It's got most to do with the soaring waits in A&E and ambulances post-July 2021. But you will never accept that, because you hated lockdown (Can't blame you there; I hated it too) and therefore have to insist that bad things that happen must have come from it.
And why did it soar post-July 2021 (the unlocking)? Surely not because people who had been complying by staying at home to protect the NHS finally sought treatment for what had been afflicting them for some time?
No. Because we still had thousands of people going to hospital for covid. Far less than earlier, but a sustained and consistent high rate of utilisation of beds.
When you're normally running at 85%+ utilisation, adding 10-15% on top consistently makes a big impact. It's also unlikely that these people would be phoning ambulances and getting categorised in the "emergency" category to seek treatment, isn't it? Few people would be waiting months during a heart attack in order to call for an ambulance.
No but people who could have been treated sooner for diseases like diabetes etc that are not urgently life-threatening but lead to cardiovascular etc demands later on if left untreated could have been seen sooner. Similar for cancer etc
1 - The excess deaths are not in the diabetes and cancer area, but across the board. 2 - Your apparent belief that if the NHS was more swamped with covid, we'd somehow have been able to treat more cancer patients alongside (and kept them more separate?) and that having far more NHS stuff off sick with covid would have helped capacity does seem rather optimistic.
If we hadn't had lockdown then the NHS wouldn't have been more swamped with Covid than it was.
It would have been more swamped at the peak, but then that peak would have entailed telling more people "we can't help you" and the peak would have been over sooner and then the downhill would have happened sooner. Exponential figures again.
Instead we "flattened the sombrero" with lockdown so that the NHS had nothing but Covid for two years, rather than 3 horrific months of Covid then it was done.
Head. Desk. If you'd only ever come up with actual facts and numbers supporting your position - well, you'd not bother trying it, anyway.
During the first wave, under 5% of the country had been exposed to covid. By the time of the second lockdown, about 9% By the third lockdown, about 12% (Source - ONS antibodies survey). That means we had LOADS of doubling left to do.
If you have a capacity of c. 100,000 and existing utilisation of 75,000, how many people do you fit in on top of that? Note as well that the closer you get to capacity, the harder it is, and in many hospitals you'll already be over capacity (above 90% and you're in serious trouble) As it was, we added a bit under 20,000 in the first wave. They called the second lockdown when they could see they were heading over 15,000 additions (in winter, when the existing utilisation is closer to 85,000+) In the third one, they added nearly 35,000, and yes, heavy triaging was going on and we'll be feeling the effects of that for a long time.
With your airy "Oh, it would have been more swamped" - we'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of extra beds needed.
If people need intensive care to stay alive, then removing that intensive care is pretty sure to result in them being dead. To a slightly lesser extent, hospitalisation itself. It's rare that people go to hospital for fun.
And the ones who most benefited from ICU and hospitalisation were the younger ones and those without serious conditions. Unsurprisingly.
Fair points, but why didn't Sweden's health system collapse as you outline?
Much lower population density and a much higher incidence of remote working prior to the pandemic. But even so they did terribly in comparison with their neighbours.
Killing their population. It ranks quite highly in some people's minds.
Oh and Sweden shut their secondary schools.
Sweden switched their secondary schools to distance learning for a few weeks, which while not ideal secondary schools at least distance learning is far more viable.
Sweden was AFAIK the only country in Europe not to shut its primary schools. For that alone, it did far better than every one of its neighbours.
How many children need to lose their education to justify one fewer excess death in your eyes? What is the QALY value of an excess death, and the QALY value of education in your eyes, or are you just religiously dogmatic about it?
Well given my son did miles better doing distance learning compared to being in school I am looking at this from both a practical and an ethical/moral point of view.
Now clearly you, as an advocate of contrived euthanasia have no interest in the ethical and moral questions but even your practical claims are not as black and white as you like to pretend.
I have never once advocated contrived euthanasia but I am certainly a lifelong advocate of voluntary euthanasia. People who wish to die absolutely should be treated with dignity and respect, but lets not mix it up with this serious conversation by using the term as a contrived insult.
How old is your son? Secondary or primary, if you don't mind me asking. From what I saw, secondary pupils were better able to cope than primary pupils were with distance learning which makes sense considering their relevant stages of development. Being with other children and adults is a critical part of development for young children and can't be entirely displaced onto a computer screen.
Sweden kept their primary schools open while other countries closed theirs. On that metric alone, Sweden undeniably had a superior pandemic to any of its neighbours.
You may prefer other metrics to that one, but that's just your choice. In a free society, we all get to make our own choices, and I value children and their education more highly than just keeping adults alive for longer.
Would you permanently abolish primary schools if it meant 1 year extra life expectancy for adults? I most certainly would not. Education is more important than mere life expectancy.
You were certainly happy in principle for oldies to catch covid and die just because you were satisfying your libertarian principles by going out and doing things when infected. That's not voluntary euthanasia, except on your part.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I did answer last time and will answer again. If I knew that I would inform them I'm positive and let them make any informed decisions they want to make.
This came up recently in my extended family. My granddad's sister died and her son tested positive immediately before the funeral. He informed everyone invited to the funeral that he was positive and would be attending his mother's funeral, so they could make an informed decision as to whether they wanted to attend or not.
My granddad and his wife chose not to attend as a result. That is their choice. He was annoyed that he "couldn't" attend his sisters funeral and thought that her son should have chosen not to go to go, but respectfully I completely agreed with her son. Yes there are many immunocompromised people at funerals in general, like my granddad (92) but it's their choice whether to attend or not. No reason her son should miss his own mother's funeral just because he's positive.
Last time I asked you said you wouldn't take a test.
And that you wouldn't visit if you were symptomatic.
That is an answer. But yes I don't test anymore so it's moot, so that answer is more appropriate. But if for some reason I had to test and it came back positive then yes I would still live my life as per normal. If I was visiting someone immunocompromised I would inform them and let them decide. If they didn't want the visit, that's their choice, if they still wanted it I'd be prepared to visit them.
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
What is the latest with the fourth jab?
I think the elderly and vulnerable are being offered a fifth dose, which will be the Moderna tweaked for Omicron, but no more doses for the under-50s.
It will be interesting to see if the vaccine will be available privately for youngsters who want to pay, as with the flu vaccine. I'd pay for a fourth dose if given the opportunity.
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
Sorry to hear that. Get well soon. Another down. Both myself and my wife have missed it so far (as far as we know). I have no idea how. During Covid I travelled abroad quite a bit and had two bouts in hospital (broken legs and paralysed vocal cord). I have been to concerts and other events. Nothing. Off to a wedding in Spain shortly so there is another opportunity and have something or other lined up everyday before that, so fingers crossed.
I'm a bit bewildered that we dodged it so long as we did. Eldest Daughter caught Omicron from work in December last year, but as she has her own place, she managed to avoid passing it on to us.
Middle Child and The Lad are still uninfected (so far). And we can be pretty sure that that's not us being unaware of it with regards to The Lad, as he was testing every day for school for quite a long time.
Then again, Middle Child has been effectively self-isolating for years (we see her emerge from her room briefly for food), and any bug that bites The Lad simply dies.
Plus he got jabbed, double-jabbed, and boosted first of all of us (he's severely autistic, so counts as Category 6)
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
Neighbours, schmeighbours. Sweden IIRC outperformed many, most if not all other countries, from memory. In particular wrt excess deaths:
Did it do worse than its immediate neighbours? Depends. It did better than Denmark (which has a very high population density) but worse than Norway (which has a comparatively tiny population density).
imo weighed the balances well and overall I have no doubt will experience fewer post-covid problems, undiagnosed illnesses, mental health issues.
And that's to say nothing of the freedom issue which you seem to dismiss, you of all people, as being of little or no import.
It did worse than Denmark.
Deaths per 1 million population
(UK 2,724) For reference Sweden 1,920 Denmark 1,177 Finland 983 Norway 706.
Freedom is indeed important. But the temporary (and honestly very slight) limits on freedom we suffered were really as nothing compared to the rather more serious curtailment of freedom that results from being dead.
The premise you put forth of a choice between lockdown and death is utterly spurious.
Evidence mounts every month that lockdowns actually caused the deaths of people who were at no risk from covid whatever, so much so even the Telegraph admitted the other day the cure may have been more deadly than the disease.
"Even the Telegraph admitted..."
In an article that sparked all of this because it was a pile of crap and based on "We don't like lockdowns so the excess deaths must have been lockdowns."
Whilst a far better analysis with far more work came up with the actual answer.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I don't think it's a valid hypothetical. The question is whether you would go to a public place which an immunocompromised person, unbeknown to you, might have taken the risk of visiting.
It's a really simple yes or no question.
I am totally amazed at the number of people who avoid answering the question, or try to turn it into another question.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing it out there, they are worried about the implications of answering yes or no.
This is a silly question. If I had a cold or the shits I would avoid going to see a friend who was for example undergoing chemo. The same if I knew I had covid. I wouldn’t stop going out in public with any of them if I felt well enough.
If i feel ill i stay in until i feel better. I can't grasp the circumstances where i would test myself for a disease if i felt fine. Its rabid hypochondria.
Indeed. I actually find it odd that anyone tests for covid now even if they have symptoms. Who cares what your manflu is called?
Entirely consistent with recent personal experience (the A&E wait, not the death). In my case 24h from accident to ward admission. After that they got their skates on, but it was a grim start.
An excellent and detailed analysis. And, sadly, a brilliant example of Brandolini's Law (the effort required to counter bullshit is orders of magnitude greater than that required to generate it).
The Telegraph came up with their crap in order to seed the idea that the excess deaths were due to lockdown. Didn't need any effort for Sarah Knapton to come up with it, and instantly publicised by the Usual Suspects (and added to the "we now know..." lines).
John Burn-Murdoch put huge amounts of effort in to deep dive what is happening and where the excess deaths are and concluded it's down to the healthcare system collapse, especially in A&E and ambulances. What are the odds it gets the attention it deserves? Versus the odds that it vanishes under the Telegraph's crap?
The healthcare system collapse now is due to lockdown though.
Had we not locked down, had we allowed Covid to take its course, then we'd have had extra fatalities then, sure, but we wouldn't have trashed the future or the NHS for the long-term by abolishing everything else leading to mammoth waiting lists etc.
People who would have died from Covid wouldn't be on any waiting lists now. People who survived, wouldn't be paying the price of lockdown.
No, it's not. It's got very little to do with that. As Burn-Murdoch analyses. It's got most to do with the soaring waits in A&E and ambulances post-July 2021. But you will never accept that, because you hated lockdown (Can't blame you there; I hated it too) and therefore have to insist that bad things that happen must have come from it.
And why did it soar post-July 2021 (the unlocking)? Surely not because people who had been complying by staying at home to protect the NHS finally sought treatment for what had been afflicting them for some time?
No. Because we still had thousands of people going to hospital for covid. Far less than earlier, but a sustained and consistent high rate of utilisation of beds.
When you're normally running at 85%+ utilisation, adding 10-15% on top consistently makes a big impact. It's also unlikely that these people would be phoning ambulances and getting categorised in the "emergency" category to seek treatment, isn't it? Few people would be waiting months during a heart attack in order to call for an ambulance.
No but people who could have been treated sooner for diseases like diabetes etc that are not urgently life-threatening but lead to cardiovascular etc demands later on if left untreated could have been seen sooner. Similar for cancer etc
1 - The excess deaths are not in the diabetes and cancer area, but across the board. 2 - Your apparent belief that if the NHS was more swamped with covid, we'd somehow have been able to treat more cancer patients alongside (and kept them more separate?) and that having far more NHS stuff off sick with covid would have helped capacity does seem rather optimistic.
If we hadn't had lockdown then the NHS wouldn't have been more swamped with Covid than it was.
It would have been more swamped at the peak, but then that peak would have entailed telling more people "we can't help you" and the peak would have been over sooner and then the downhill would have happened sooner. Exponential figures again.
Instead we "flattened the sombrero" with lockdown so that the NHS had nothing but Covid for two years, rather than 3 horrific months of Covid then it was done.
Head. Desk. If you'd only ever come up with actual facts and numbers supporting your position - well, you'd not bother trying it, anyway.
During the first wave, under 5% of the country had been exposed to covid. By the time of the second lockdown, about 9% By the third lockdown, about 12% (Source - ONS antibodies survey). That means we had LOADS of doubling left to do.
If you have a capacity of c. 100,000 and existing utilisation of 75,000, how many people do you fit in on top of that? Note as well that the closer you get to capacity, the harder it is, and in many hospitals you'll already be over capacity (above 90% and you're in serious trouble) As it was, we added a bit under 20,000 in the first wave. They called the second lockdown when they could see they were heading over 15,000 additions (in winter, when the existing utilisation is closer to 85,000+) In the third one, they added nearly 35,000, and yes, heavy triaging was going on and we'll be feeling the effects of that for a long time.
With your airy "Oh, it would have been more swamped" - we'd be looking at hundreds of thousands of extra beds needed.
If people need intensive care to stay alive, then removing that intensive care is pretty sure to result in them being dead. To a slightly lesser extent, hospitalisation itself. It's rare that people go to hospital for fun.
And the ones who most benefited from ICU and hospitalisation were the younger ones and those without serious conditions. Unsurprisingly.
Fair points, but why didn't Sweden's health system collapse as you outline?
Much lower population density and a much higher incidence of remote working prior to the pandemic. But even so they did terribly in comparison with their neighbours.
Killing their population. It ranks quite highly in some people's minds.
Oh and Sweden shut their secondary schools.
Sweden switched their secondary schools to distance learning for a few weeks, which while not ideal secondary schools at least distance learning is far more viable.
Sweden was AFAIK the only country in Europe not to shut its primary schools. For that alone, it did far better than every one of its neighbours.
How many children need to lose their education to justify one fewer excess death in your eyes? What is the QALY value of an excess death, and the QALY value of education in your eyes, or are you just religiously dogmatic about it?
Well given my son did miles better doing distance learning compared to being in school I am looking at this from both a practical and an ethical/moral point of view.
Now clearly you, as an advocate of contrived euthanasia have no interest in the ethical and moral questions but even your practical claims are not as black and white as you like to pretend.
I have never once advocated contrived euthanasia but I am certainly a lifelong advocate of voluntary euthanasia. People who wish to die absolutely should be treated with dignity and respect, but lets not mix it up with this serious conversation by using the term as a contrived insult.
How old is your son? Secondary or primary, if you don't mind me asking. From what I saw, secondary pupils were better able to cope than primary pupils were with distance learning which makes sense considering their relevant stages of development. Being with other children and adults is a critical part of development for young children and can't be entirely displaced onto a computer screen.
Sweden kept their primary schools open while other countries closed theirs. On that metric alone, Sweden undeniably had a superior pandemic to any of its neighbours.
You may prefer other metrics to that one, but that's just your choice. In a free society, we all get to make our own choices, and I value children and their education more highly than just keeping adults alive for longer.
Would you permanently abolish primary schools if it meant 1 year extra life expectancy for adults? I most certainly would not. Education is more important than mere life expectancy.
You were certainly happy in principle for oldies to catch covid and die just because you were satisfying your libertarian principles by going out and doing things when infected. That's not voluntary euthanasia, except on your part.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I did answer last time and will answer again. If I knew that I would inform them I'm positive and let them make any informed decisions they want to make.
This came up recently in my extended family. My granddad's sister died and her son tested positive immediately before the funeral. He informed everyone invited to the funeral that he was positive and would be attending his mother's funeral, so they could make an informed decision as to whether they wanted to attend or not.
My granddad and his wife chose not to attend as a result. That is their choice. He was annoyed that he "couldn't" attend his sisters funeral and thought that her son should have chosen not to go to go, but respectfully I completely agreed with her son. Yes there are many immunocompromised people at funerals in general, like my granddad (92) but it's their choice whether to attend or not. No reason her son should miss his own mother's funeral just because he's positive.
we could have cards, and slavery eggs hidden by the slavery bunny, and everything
I did check to make sure it wasn't a journalistic misinterpretation of something similar to Armistice Day, but yes, the chap does say “If you think about just how important slavery was to Britain and how horrific it was, it should be a national memorial; there should be a day off".
Having some difficulty with that, too, though other states do have things like Veterans' Day in the US which is their Armistice Day but also a public holiday.
Why when you have got that you would print the other is anyone's guess, and who the fuck allows themself to be described as "a leading expert on race"?
Stunning statistic, mind that in 1833 40% of the entire UK budget was spent compensating slave owners. that's what I call an exit strategy.
The thing is the UK state almost entirely expected their citizens to fend for themselves at the time, or rely on charity. the government's budget must have been tiny.
There were of course many wealthy Victorian philanthropists. But then again, they paid little or no tax.
By my name I think the state is overbloated and interfering and , whilst I dont advocate quite going back to 1833 in terms of government laiissez faire I do wish the fact that Britain ran a global empire back then on a fraction of the civil servants it employs now (even just taking the Foreign Office) with obviously a lot less communication and transport technology was brought up more when people shout we cannot possibly "squeeze" the headcount of civil servants more
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I don't think it's a valid hypothetical. The question is whether you would go to a public place which an immunocompromised person, unbeknown to you, might have taken the risk of visiting.
It's a really simple yes or no question.
I am totally amazed at the number of people who avoid answering the question, or try to turn it into another question.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing it out there, they are worried about the implications of answering yes or no.
This is a silly question. If I had a cold or the shits I would avoid going to see a friend who was for example undergoing chemo. The same if I knew I had covid. I wouldn’t stop going out in public with any of them if I felt well enough.
If i feel ill i stay in until i feel better. I can't grasp the circumstances where i would test myself for a disease if i felt fine. Its rabid hypochondria.
So you wouldn't bother with cervical cancer screening, or breast cancer screening, or bowel cancer screening?
Re your bet OGH: I know it is normal for a bounce with a new leader because they are new and they haven't had any disasters as a new leader yet (which will obviously happen no matter who you are). But couldn't all the Blue on Blue stuff be the issue here that stops a bounce. Truss (or Sunak) could do with a period where there aren't any attacks or nonsense announcements from within the Blue team. It then might happen.
The bounce is always a slow moving progression. OGH has made a mistake in going for September, the last 3 mid term changes have taken at least a month for the bounce to embed fully (theres a smallish bump to start if off for sure) and up to 3 months to really accelerate and either reverse (Brown), stabilise (May) or election (Johnson) Blue on blue will end for a bit Sept 5th so may kickstart a recovery in polling and then a bump to bounce, depending on CoL response or failure
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
Neighbours, schmeighbours. Sweden IIRC outperformed many, most if not all other countries, from memory. In particular wrt excess deaths:
Did it do worse than its immediate neighbours? Depends. It did better than Denmark (which has a very high population density) but worse than Norway (which has a comparatively tiny population density).
imo weighed the balances well and overall I have no doubt will experience fewer post-covid problems, undiagnosed illnesses, mental health issues.
And that's to say nothing of the freedom issue which you seem to dismiss, you of all people, as being of little or no import.
It did worse than Denmark.
Deaths per 1 million population
(UK 2,724) For reference Sweden 1,920 Denmark 1,177 Finland 983 Norway 706.
Freedom is indeed important. But the temporary (and honestly very slight) limits on freedom we suffered were really as nothing compared to the rather more serious curtailment of freedom that results from being dead.
Personally I would have trodden a more idealistic path.
Rather than make it illegal for people to visit each other's houses I would have made that very strong public health advice. I would have been aiming for the same effect, but I think the emphasis on what was legal throughout the pandemic was not helpful, as it encouraged people to focus on the minutiae of the rules, rather than on the spirit - prior to vaccination mixing between households indoors would lead to spread of the virus and should be reduced as much as possible.
I find it odd that every single opponent of lockdown seems to always come down to minimising the need to reduce indoor mixing to reduce the spread of the virus, by minimising the risk posed by the virus, rather than addressing the question of law versus advice.
I have a lot of sympathy for that but I would add that the prevalence of people with the same 'fuck the old' attitude that Bart displays would have made that problematic. His extremist views are not unique by any means and there were plenty of people claiming during lockdown that they should be allowed to do what they wanted and would not self isolate etc because they just didn't care if older people died.
Not sure how you deal with that under your scenario short of allowing the elderly and more vulnerable to carry guns and shoot any Bart clones that came near them. A policy I think I would have had some sympathy with.
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
They did far, far better at protecting children's education than any one of their neighbours did.
If any of their neighbours did "better" then which neighbours harmed their kids education less than they did? Which neighbours had fewer primary school closures? Which had fewer secondary school days lost proportionately?
It's hugely ironic hearing you accusing me of knowing the value of nothing. What is the value of education in your eyes? What is the value of children's childhoods? Seemingly zero to you, only "death" matters and "life" is worthless.
You have no way of knowing or measuring that beyond your own beliefs.
I do have a way of knowing or measuring that, we can measure the days lost to education in the relevant countries. Sweden did better on that.
Yet you still peddle the myth that Sweden did worse than Denmark. Despite the fact it measurably did better than Denmark on that metric.
That is knowing the value of nothing. Unless you assign a value to education, you are deeming education and everything else worthless in the face of COVID death tables.
I would rather take a more rounded overview than just league tables of COVID fatalities and I value education highly. Higher than you it seems.
Back when energy was affordable I noted plenty of "green energy" tariffs being marketed. I never understood how that actually worked as everyone receives the same mix of generation at the time of instantaneous supply. Seems those same people on 'green tariffs' are now pretty pissed off to learn that those plans were in fact linked to the price of wholesale gas, just like everyone else's bills.
That has to be a good case under trades descriptions, surely? IIRC, the ‘green’ tarrifs were more expensive until a few months ago.
I'm surprised and disappointed to hear you say that. It was a disgrace. And, to my mind, illegal.
Defining "lockdown" as -
A period where distancing between people was enforced via stay at home order plus WFH plus closure of shops and hospitality. Objective - stop Covid overwhelming the NHS and running riot in the community.
This was necessary and it did work.
What we can certainly debate is stuff like -
Did it start too late? Did it go on too long? Was the balance right between law and guidance? Were the rules too complex and intrusive? Should schools have been kept open? Was the care home regime inhumane? Etc
But let us not pretend there was a viable big picture alternative to what we did, ie an option to just "trust the people" and the government do nothing. We had to enforce distancing to hamper the spread of the bug at critical times - this was Lockdown and it *was* necessary. I can't see how anybody can argue otherwise without retrospectively changing the facts of the pandemic.
Can we also debate the question, what about the people our restrictions, as opposed to the virus, are going to kill?
Because its demonstrably true now, that lockdowns kill people who would have survived covid.
There is, as it happens, an opportunity to reduce any need for restrictions or (God forbid) lockdowns ever again for covid or any respiratory diseases.
There's a growing body of evidence that installing HEPA filters and/or far-UV treatment might effectively turn indoor environments into the same as outdoor ones.
We're (continually) missing the opportunity to trial this in order to work out a genuine cost-benefit calculation.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I don't think it's a valid hypothetical. The question is whether you would go to a public place which an immunocompromised person, unbeknown to you, might have taken the risk of visiting.
It's a really simple yes or no question.
I am totally amazed at the number of people who avoid answering the question, or try to turn it into another question.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing it out there, they are worried about the implications of answering yes or no.
This is a silly question. If I had a cold or the shits I would avoid going to see a friend who was for example undergoing chemo. The same if I knew I had covid. I wouldn’t stop going out in public with any of them if I felt well enough.
If i feel ill i stay in until i feel better. I can't grasp the circumstances where i would test myself for a disease if i felt fine. Its rabid hypochondria.
So you wouldn't bother with cervical cancer screening, or breast cancer screening, or bowel cancer screening?
They are 'life moment' tests for life threatening cancers. What on earth would be the point of a 'youre 50 now, you should have a one off screening for a respiratory bug'? Edit - but to clarify. Why when feeling fine would i test myself for a minor respiratory bug? I dont test myself for the flu.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I don't think it's a valid hypothetical. The question is whether you would go to a public place which an immunocompromised person, unbeknown to you, might have taken the risk of visiting.
It's a really simple yes or no question.
I am totally amazed at the number of people who avoid answering the question, or try to turn it into another question.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing it out there, they are worried about the implications of answering yes or no.
This is a silly question. If I had a cold or the shits I would avoid going to see a friend who was for example undergoing chemo. The same if I knew I had covid. I wouldn’t stop going out in public with any of them if I felt well enough.
If i feel ill i stay in until i feel better. I can't grasp the circumstances where i would test myself for a disease if i felt fine. Its rabid hypochondria.
Non-rabid hypochondria, presumably.
I have been non-dead for the past eight odd years, because of having been tested for a disease when I felt fine. I would also think it merely good manners to test myself for a communicable disease before going to see someone at high risk of dying of it.
So that's self-interest and morality, right there. Want any more?
Being outside this with our own generation could have been a huge Brexit benefit. We'd have probably been saving money within the scheme as it is - though the high (But not as high) prices would have been blamed on the EU.
Interesting analysis by @ShippersUnbound@thetimes on state of the Union. IMO what shld most alarm Unionists throughout UK is English indifference: 42% in 🏴 wld welcome or aren't bothered by 🏴 separation, goes up to 55% re Irish unification @YouGov
Yet only 1 in 7 English voters want Scotland to leave the UK and by a 17% margin English voters would be upset not pleased if Northern Ireland left the UK. Despite England still being the only home nation in the UK without its own parliament.
In any case unless the whole UK gets a vote on the Union in a referendum or England votes for the English Democrats and ultimately English independence, English voters get no say on the Union anyway
England does have its own Parliament. The one at Westminster. It is the old English Pmt with assorted others added and subtracted at various times. And until your very own glorious Party recently deleted the legislation for reasons which remain completely unclear, it had English votes for English laws.
The reason was completely clear: EVEL as implemented was bollocks, as a majority of MPs representing English constituencies couldn't implement something if there was a UK majority against it.
The idea that the Westminster parliament is an English parliament is risible.
Surely the whole point of EVEL was to remove the question of a UK majority by making sure the non-English MPs couldn't vote.
This was much touted by Mr Cameron as a solution to devolution's anomalies.
If there is a Labour minority government at the next election propped up by the SNP, Starmer could well offer the SNP indyref2 in return for voting on English laws if the Tories still have most seats in England but no majority in the UK
Like everyone else, you're missing what would happen before then. The situation would be too chaotic to get that far.
And the deletion of EVEL means that that isn't even an offer, not least because the SNP don't vote on English laws*.
*Except in aberrant cases, which EVEL eliminates - or would if the Tories hadn't cancelled it to give themselves the kind of girevance you are so assiduously repeating.
No it wouldn't, Starmer just does a written deal with the SNP for indyref2 in return for SNP votes on English laws as May did a deal with the DUP in 2017. Starmer then enters No 10 to lead a minority government propped up by the SNP for a majority in a hung parliament.
The SNP would vote on English laws in return for indyref2, guaranteed
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
Neighbours, schmeighbours. Sweden IIRC outperformed many, most if not all other countries, from memory. In particular wrt excess deaths:
Did it do worse than its immediate neighbours? Depends. It did better than Denmark (which has a very high population density) but worse than Norway (which has a comparatively tiny population density).
imo weighed the balances well and overall I have no doubt will experience fewer post-covid problems, undiagnosed illnesses, mental health issues.
And that's to say nothing of the freedom issue which you seem to dismiss, you of all people, as being of little or no import.
It did worse than Denmark.
Deaths per 1 million population
(UK 2,724) For reference Sweden 1,920 Denmark 1,177 Finland 983 Norway 706.
Freedom is indeed important. But the temporary (and honestly very slight) limits on freedom we suffered were really as nothing compared to the rather more serious curtailment of freedom that results from being dead.
The premise you put forth of a choice between lockdown and death is utterly spurious.
Evidence mounts every month that lockdowns actually caused the deaths of people who were at no risk from covid whatever, so much so even the Telegraph admitted the other day the cure may have been more deadly than the disease.
"Even the Telegraph admitted..."
In an article that sparked all of this because it was a pile of crap and based on "We don't like lockdowns so the excess deaths must have been lockdowns."
Whilst a far better analysis with far more work came up with the actual answer.
Bringing up the other side of the ledger really is uncomfortable for you, isn't it Andy?
Lockdowns kill people who would have survived covid. Suicides, missed medical diagnoses, upsurges in obesity due to inactivity, poverty caused by incurring crushing debt paying people to do nothing. Many more have their life chances ruined.
Extraordinarily interesting and intelligent (as in, agrees exactly with every point I have been making) piece
"This culture war has become a mechanism of distraction that prevents us from discussing the painful legacies of Britain’s colonial past, and examining how this history has entrenched social inequalities in the present day. Instead of intelligent and compassionate conversation about history, there has been a hardening of positions on all sides.
The conversation shouldn’t be about deciding whether the British empire was “good” or “bad”. The purpose of slavery was to build wealth for Britain by any means necessary, through subjugation, division and coercion. "
That pretty much takes a position on whether the British empire was good or bad, though, doesn't it?
If not the electorate will give her a thrashing, which the Tories will not enjoy but according to Leon she probably will.
Leon is an eccentric right wing loon who ironically lives here in London where Tories (and Brexiteers) are despised.
..and of late seems to have spent an awful lot of time spending his Euros in the European Union. Brexit isn't so bad if one spends one's life pretending it never happened.
…. Which is a load of bollocks. I did 3 months continuous travel this spring. 10 days of it was in the EU
Ooh, touched a nerve. Sorry.
No nerve. Just wrong. I am a stickler for accuracy
Either way you were still not here to take in the joys of post Brexit Blighty. Hats off to you, I wish I were elsewhere too.
The Giardino Bardini, 3 seconds ago
I love the EU. I’m glad we’re right next to it but not ruled by it
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
On the schools point, it was only children 15+ who were, relatively briefly, prohibited from attending school physically. Children suffered *much* less than in the rest of Europe. That we favour our young over our old is one of the greatest triumphs, and the greatest tragedies, of modern Swedish society.
You didn't do better. Compared to your neighbours you did far worse. Now extremists like Bart - typical of those who know the price of everything and the value of nothing - seem to think this was a price worth paying but most reasonable people would disagree with him.
They did far, far better at protecting children's education than any one of their neighbours did.
If any of their neighbours did "better" then which neighbours harmed their kids education less than they did? Which neighbours had fewer primary school closures? Which had fewer secondary school days lost proportionately?
It's hugely ironic hearing you accusing me of knowing the value of nothing. What is the value of education in your eyes? What is the value of children's childhoods? Seemingly zero to you, only "death" matters and "life" is worthless.
You have no way of knowing or measuring that beyond your own beliefs.
I do have a way of knowing or measuring that, we can measure the days lost to education in the relevant countries. Sweden did better on that.
Yet you still peddle the myth that Sweden did worse than Denmark. Despite the fact it measurably did better than Denmark on that metric.
That is knowing the value of nothing. Unless you assign a value to education, you are deeming education and everything else worthless in the face of COVID death tables.
I would rather take a more rounded overview than just league tables of COVID fatalities and I value education highly. Higher than you it seems.
It is difficult to assign values to such things, but that shouldn't stop us. I concur that we should consider the cost, however defined, of disruption to education. That all said, it is apparent that you see a greater cost to education disruption than many (you appear to presume that any online education was basically worthless) and a lower cost to dying than many. The argument over metrics is a tangent.
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
What is the latest with the fourth jab?
From September, targeted for (effectively) JCVI categories 1-9 and a bivalent booster with specific Omicron-targeting is available. As it turns out, MrsC and myself are eligible because The Lad is eligible and we're his carers. We'll be getting it, but I will wait to make sure that those in greater need get their opportunity first (we're certainly not turning it down, but I'd feel bad if we jumped the queue in front of those who are older and more vulnerable).
The Scottish eligibility website is fucked up and if you are in category 3 (eligible due to risk factor) it tells you you aren't eligible.
That caused me a good deal of consternation until I worked out the website was wrong.
The key reason Sweden did better during the pandemic is little to do with population density or that we are incorrigibly anti-social.
It is to to with the independence of government agencies and the innate respect that most of the population has for the state, regional and local governments and other public agencies.
I'm not sure that makes sense. The vast majority of people here slavishly followed the impositions, though maybe you all the way over there didn't realise that.
"Slavishly."
Are you Johnny Strabler?
You are in any case missing the point which is that Swedes follow advice, Brits need laws. Just the way it is.
If that's the case, why does the mobility data show travel dropping off a cliff before lockdown?
They fell. They fell by at least as much again, on lockdown.
That's not true. Not just because libertarianism but because going out while infected, but because vaccines have been rolled out.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
So just checking, as you never answered last time I asked.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
I don't think it's a valid hypothetical. The question is whether you would go to a public place which an immunocompromised person, unbeknown to you, might have taken the risk of visiting.
It's a really simple yes or no question.
I am totally amazed at the number of people who avoid answering the question, or try to turn it into another question.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing it out there, they are worried about the implications of answering yes or no.
This is a silly question. If I had a cold or the shits I would avoid going to see a friend who was for example undergoing chemo. The same if I knew I had covid. I wouldn’t stop going out in public with any of them if I felt well enough.
If i feel ill i stay in until i feel better. I can't grasp the circumstances where i would test myself for a disease if i felt fine. Its rabid hypochondria.
Non-rabid hypochondria, presumably.
I have been non-dead for the past eight odd years, because of having been tested for a disease when I felt fine. I would also think it merely good manners to test myself for a communicable disease before going to see someone at high risk of dying of it.
So that's self-interest and morality, right there. Want any more?
Do you test for flu before you visit someone? Or any number of other communicable diseases that can be carried asymptomatically?
Comments
Fortunately, I'm triple-jabbed and feeling okay-ish. Sunday night was unpleasant with the aches and pains all through my body, plus headache and nausea, but it lightened up through Monday and today I'm just a bit tired, a little achy, and with a sore throat and cough.
Very grateful I didn't get it until fully protected.
Plus you need the time for engineering works - heck that's even true on roads remembering my journey home from Newcastle last night (via Heworth)..
He doesn't even mention the reliance on slave-grown cotton for much of the UK textile industry, either, right into the 1860s.
(All governments got it wrong - the smart ones are reviewing, trying to work out which bits were right and which were wrong and making plans for next time)
Make gazillions with the same Peppa Pig speech the world over AND keep the light on for his return to political greatness.
I am not sure why you have assumed I "think (you) I know Boris so well". I don't know Boris Johnson at all, I only surmise what I have seen of him on TV and from his writing, which isn't to my taste. I suspect we wouldn't have much in common and I would fulfil his university stereotype of what constituted a "pleb".
The Tube should be 24 hours on all lines.
I said that while we shouldn't have been locked down, in hindsight, I would still in hindsight have stayed at home pre vaccines if I knew I was infected.
Now though we are post vaccines. I absolutely have no intention of remaining at home if I'm fit and healthy simply because I'm carrying a virus that people have been vaccinated against.
Carrying a virus is natural. We all carry viruses all the time as far as I know. Staying at home because of viruses when you're healthy is just paranoia and I'll have no part in that, post vaccines.
The idea that the Westminster parliament is an English parliament is risible.
However the natural consequence of your beliefs is that there comes an age where we should not provide medical treatment for people merely on the principle that they are too old and therefore not worth the money. So where do you set that age limit? 60? Retirement age? 70? 80?
The logic of your argument setting old against young and deciding that one is worthless to society and therefore disposable is absolutely the contrived euthanasia that I accused you of.
Googled link: https://www.thelancet.com/article/S0140-6736(21)02796-3/fulltext
Did it do worse than its immediate neighbours? Depends. It did better than Denmark (which has a very high population density) but worse than Norway (which has a comparatively tiny population density).
imo weighed the balances well and overall I have no doubt will experience fewer post-covid problems, undiagnosed illnesses, mental health issues.
And that's to say nothing of the freedom issue which you seem to dismiss, you of all people, as being of little or no import.
I have had it twice now, once when double jabbed and again when triple jabbed. It remains somewhat unpleasant but like you I am bloody glad I was able to avoid it until after being vaccinated.
This was much touted by Mr Cameron as a solution to devolution's anomalies.
If any of their neighbours did "better" then which neighbours harmed their kids education less than they did? Which neighbours had fewer primary school closures? Which had fewer secondary school days lost proportionately?
It's hugely ironic hearing you accusing me of knowing the value of nothing. What is the value of education in your eyes? What is the value of children's childhoods? Seemingly zero to you, only "death" matters and "life" is worthless.
All the silencing is coming one way.
Was Boris ever really interested in politics and being a politician, or was the interest just Boris “in” politics?
I'm glad you finally came down on the side of being anti-lockdown.
I of course agree that public health should be "done better" but we get what we vote for and we aren't prepared to pay more for public health. Nor, indeed, which is a shame, to reform it, which it badly needs. So I suppose we get lockdowns as the shortcut in lieu of a better public health system.
But I still don't think it worth it vs the restriction on our freedoms. I fully accept, however, that much/most of the public did and that just about all of PB thinks it is.
Deaths per 1 million population
(UK 2,724) For reference
Sweden 1,920
Denmark 1,177
Finland 983
Norway 706.
Freedom is indeed important. But the temporary (and honestly very slight) limits on freedom we suffered were really as nothing compared to the rather more serious curtailment of freedom that results from being dead.
You are asymptomatic but have tested positive for Covid.
Do you go visit your immunocompromised friend without taking precautions?
There were of course many wealthy Victorian philanthropists. But then again, they paid little or no tax.
It will be interesting to see if the vaccine will be available privately for youngsters who want to pay, as with the flu vaccine. I'd pay for a fourth dose if given the opportunity.
I am totally amazed at the number of people who avoid answering the question, or try to turn it into another question.
Maybe, and I'm just throwing it out there, they are worried about the implications of answering yes or no.
Of course not all of them were able to take a stroll around their orchards in moments of stress which might help to explain your views.
And also that Lancet paper I linked to shows excess deaths from 1 Jan 2020 to 31 Dec 2021.
UK: 126.8
Denmark 94.1
Sweden 91.2
Norway 7.2 (!)
Finland 80.8
France 124.2
Germany 120.5
Spain 186.7
This came up recently in my extended family. My granddad's sister died and her son tested positive immediately before the funeral. He informed everyone invited to the funeral that he was positive and would be attending his mother's funeral, so they could make an informed decision as to whether they wanted to attend or not.
My granddad and his wife chose not to attend as a result. That is their choice. He was annoyed that he "couldn't" attend his sisters funeral and thought that her son should have chosen not to go to go, but respectfully I completely agreed with her son. Yes there are many immunocompromised people at funerals in general, like my granddad (92) but it's their choice whether to attend or not. No reason her son should miss his own mother's funeral just because he's positive.
Churchill managed as PM twice, and if you read Johnson's book "Monty: His Part in My Victory", oh sorry wrong author, I mean the similarly comedic "The Churchill Factor" you will understand where Johnson's ambitions lie.
I doubt Johnson is particularly money minded. Currency is for plebs. If he runs out of cash there is always someone there to pick up the tab. Yes a wedge here and there would be nice, but surpassing Churchill as Britain's greatest modern Prime Minister is the prize I suspect.
P.S. Yes, and I am a bit snippy. Lots of utter nonsense from certain posters on here today. Time to do some work!
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/films/1945to1951/filmpage_dsg.htm
For me, Covid was a heap of missed opportunities with a small scattering of un-missed ones. Opportunity to introduce travel restrictions to and from China. Opportunity to introduce border restrictions. Opportunity to introduce meaningful border restrictions when we did so. Opportunity to introduce limited face covering use early on when it was clear common sense that aerosol was spreading the disease. Opportunity to encourage a healthier diet and lifestyle to increase covid robustness and speed recovery, with a vast unused repository of blood test data from hospitalised sufferers sitting unused. I mean I could continue but what would be the point - it's in the past.
A period where distancing between people was enforced via stay at home order plus WFH plus closure of shops and hospitality. Objective - stop Covid overwhelming the NHS and running riot in the community.
This was necessary and it did work.
What we can certainly debate is stuff like -
Did it start too late?
Did it go on too long?
Was the balance right between law and guidance?
Were the rules too complex and intrusive?
Should schools have been kept open?
Was the care home regime inhumane?
Etc
But let us not pretend there was a viable big picture alternative to what we did, ie an option to just "trust the people" and the government do nothing. We had to enforce distancing to hamper the spread of the bug at critical times - this was Lockdown and it *was* necessary. I can't see how anybody can argue otherwise without retrospectively changing the facts of the pandemic.
And that you wouldn't visit if you were symptomatic.
https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3991144/#Comment_3991144
Are you Johnny Strabler?
You are in any case missing the point which is that Swedes follow advice, Brits need laws. Just the way it is.
The premise you put forth of a choice between lockdown and death is utterly spurious.
Evidence mounts every month that lockdowns actually caused the deaths of people who were at no risk from covid whatever, so much so even the Telegraph admitted the other day the cure may have been more deadly than the disease.
And the deletion of EVEL means that that isn't even an offer, not least because the SNP don't vote on English laws*.
*Except in aberrant cases, which EVEL eliminates - or would if the Tories hadn't cancelled it to give themselves the kind of girevance you are so assiduously repeating.
As it turns out, MrsC and myself are eligible because The Lad is eligible and we're his carers. We'll be getting it, but I will wait to make sure that those in greater need get their opportunity first (we're certainly not turning it down, but I'd feel bad if we jumped the queue in front of those who are older and more vulnerable).
Rather than make it illegal for people to visit each other's houses I would have made that very strong public health advice. I would have been aiming for the same effect, but I think the emphasis on what was legal throughout the pandemic was not helpful, as it encouraged people to focus on the minutiae of the rules, rather than on the spirit - prior to vaccination mixing between households indoors would lead to spread of the virus and should be reduced as much as possible.
I find it odd that every single opponent of lockdown seems to always come down to minimising the need to reduce indoor mixing to reduce the spread of the virus, by minimising the risk posed by the virus, rather than addressing the question of law versus advice.
JCVI advises that for the 2022 autumn booster programme, the following groups should be offered a COVID-19 booster vaccine:
residents in a care home for older adults and staff working in care homes for older adults
frontline health and social care workers
all adults aged 50 years and over
persons aged 5 to 49 years in a clinical risk group, as set out in the Green Book, chapter 14a, tables 3 and 4
persons aged 5 to 49 years who are household contacts of people with immunosuppression
persons aged 16 to 49 years who are carers, as set out in the Green Book, chapter 14a, table 3
Then let people do what they want. Once the health service is not going to collapse.
Middle Child and The Lad are still uninfected (so far). And we can be pretty sure that that's not us being unaware of it with regards to The Lad, as he was testing every day for school for quite a long time.
Then again, Middle Child has been effectively self-isolating for years (we see her emerge from her room briefly for food), and any bug that bites The Lad simply dies.
Plus he got jabbed, double-jabbed, and boosted first of all of us (he's severely autistic, so counts as Category 6)
In an article that sparked all of this because it was a pile of crap and based on "We don't like lockdowns so the excess deaths must have been lockdowns."
Whilst a far better analysis with far more work came up with the actual answer.
Think zucchini vs cappuccino
So definitely /k/ in bruschetta (at least in Italian).
Blue on blue will end for a bit Sept 5th so may kickstart a recovery in polling and then a bump to bounce, depending on CoL response or failure
Not sure how you deal with that under your scenario short of allowing the elderly and more vulnerable to carry guns and shoot any Bart clones that came near them. A policy I think I would have had some sympathy with.
Yet you still peddle the myth that Sweden did worse than Denmark. Despite the fact it measurably did better than Denmark on that metric.
That is knowing the value of nothing. Unless you assign a value to education, you are deeming education and everything else worthless in the face of COVID death tables.
I would rather take a more rounded overview than just league tables of COVID fatalities and I value education highly. Higher than you it seems.
Because its demonstrably true now, that lockdowns kill people who would have survived covid.
There's a growing body of evidence that installing HEPA filters and/or far-UV treatment might effectively turn indoor environments into the same as outdoor ones.
We're (continually) missing the opportunity to trial this in order to work out a genuine cost-benefit calculation.
Edit - but to clarify. Why when feeling fine would i test myself for a minor respiratory bug? I dont test myself for the flu.
I have been non-dead for the past eight odd years, because of having been tested for a disease when I felt fine. I would also think it merely good manners to test myself for a communicable disease before going to see someone at high risk of dying of it.
So that's self-interest and morality, right there. Want any more?
https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1562019059570556929 &
https://www.next-kraftwerke.com/knowledge/market-coupling
Being outside this with our own generation could have been a huge Brexit benefit. We'd have probably been saving money within the scheme as it is - though the high (But not as high) prices would have been blamed on the EU.
The SNP would vote on English laws in return for indyref2, guaranteed
Bringing up the other side of the ledger really is uncomfortable for you, isn't it Andy?
Lockdowns kill people who would have survived covid. Suicides, missed medical diagnoses, upsurges in obesity due to inactivity, poverty caused by incurring crushing debt paying people to do nothing. Many more have their life chances ruined.
Deal with it.
LAB: 43% (+2)
CON: 31% (-3)
LDEM: 13% (+1)
GRN: 5% (-)
via @RedfieldWilton, 21 Aug
The Giardino Bardini, 3 seconds ago
I love the EU. I’m glad we’re right next to it but not ruled by it
That caused me a good deal of consternation until I worked out the website was wrong.