The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, another ex MP of the 2015 vintage, was also struck off as a solicitor for financial irregularities at her former firm.
I thought she was just fined and censured?
She was up twice: According to Wiki On 15 January 2019, she was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal (SSDT) and fined £3,000.[9] The Tribunal found that Ahmed-Sheikh and fellow solicitor Alan Mickel had shown "disregard for the rules" in running a trust and had a conflict of interest when they borrowed money from it to help their ailing firm.[10] In addition to their fines, the pair also had to pay the expenses of the Law Society of Scotland, which had brought the case forward.[11]
In September 2021, the SSDT found her guilty for a second time when she was ruled to have committed "recklessness by omission" during her tenure as the designated cashroom partner at Hamilton Burns, which went into administration in 2017. Ahmed-Sheikh admitted six other breaches of financial rules too but was cleared of any suggestion of dishonesty or a lack of integrity.[12]"
The second time she was restricted in her practising certificate for 2 years if she ever applied to come back to practice but by then she had not had a practising certificate for 6 years. So yes, probably a slight overstatement to say she was struck off.
They "borrowed" money from a trust they were administering???
That's pretty high on the "don't do" list, I would have thought. Just below, "don't murder the beneficiaries."
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
I think it would have been better if the British government had imposed stricter restrictions* earlier, but also that that removed them a lot earlier. There were a subset of restrictions that made a great deal of difference, and imposed very little burden on freedom. And there were lots that has terrible costs for very few benefits.
* I hate the lockdown word, and I would have stopped far, far short of the extreme lockdown the UK saw
What the UK saw, was not “extreme lockdown” by international standards. I was under lockdown for a month, where that word meant needing permission from the police in advance, to leave one’s own home to visit supermarkets and pharmacies.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
The 2015 SNP cohort has some really roasters in them.
That’s what 2/3 ended up in jail/criminal records.
At least one is a pervert.
Some fecked off to other parties.
There’s some that make Richard Burgon look like Einstein.
2/3 of the 2015 SNP cohort ended up in jail/with criminal records? That seems rather a lot.
I presume it as meant as 2 or 3.
Just in terms of who was elected in 2019, we’ve had:
Margaret Ferrier Neale Hanvey: suspended for antisemitism, re-admitted, defected to Alba Kenny MacAskill: defected to Alba Patrick Grady: suspended for sexual harassment, re-admitted
So one community service for a minor offence, rest nothing criminal. Can you give us comparable English parties records or will that take you a few weeks to compile.
Natalie McGarry got a jail sentence.
Different cohort. We've jumped around a bit in the discussion. Theuniondivvie was talking about SNP MPs first elected in 2015, and I was talking about all SNP MPs elected in 2019.
I was talking about the 2015 cohort and she was an MP from 2015 to 2017 although most of that time she sat as an independent.
The record of the 2015 cohort is indeed poor but in fairness that was when there was a huge and probably unexpected wave of success for the SNP with them winning seats they probably didn't even dream about. I suspect that a lot of their candidates were thought to be paper candidates before the election and found themselves as MPs without being looked at particularly closely. Other parties have got caught out in a similar way in wave elections.
There seems to be basic unfairness, and maybe sexism too.
Margaret Ferrier gets a four week sanction for a foolish, but not dishonest, breach of the COVID rules. Boris Johnson who instituted systematic breaches and lied about it continuously including to parliament gets the best lawyer our taxpayer money can buy and so far has resisted any sanction. Another woman, Allegra Stratton, who had a bit part at most, is the only person to have resigned over these breaches.
I agree Margaret Ferrier has been treated very harshly ... and may end up losing her job.
She deliberately travelled from Scotland to London by train when she knew she should have been isolating because she was probably infectious, right?
There seems to be basic unfairness, and maybe sexism too.
Margaret Ferrier gets a four week sanction for a foolish, but not dishonest, breach of the COVID rules. Boris Johnson who instituted systematic breaches and lied about it continuously including to parliament gets the best lawyer our taxpayer money can buy and so far has resisted any sanction. Another woman, Allegra Stratton, who had a bit part at most, is the only person to have resigned over these breaches.
I agree Margaret Ferrier has been treated very harshly ... and may end up losing her job.
If you caught Covid off her on her train journey from Scotland to London and back, you might not think she was treated harshly.
Especially if you then died of it.
One of my biggest bug bears of the entire Covid social madness was people 'blaming' others for catching covid.
It was always 'in the supermarket' or 'from our careless neighbours'
Not, as is most likely, from their own families.
Indeed. I heard the supermarket one far too often: the key flaw in the logic was that one had to be in the supermarket oneself to catch anything in the supermarket. Yet this obvious catch-22 appeared to pass most people by.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
If you assume that the first and second lockdowns were unavoidable, then that conclusion is axiomatic.
I think what will do for Boris is his lack of remorse and his stubborn adherence to the lies.
He was given a chance by the Committee. Harman specifically gave him that chance before it retired.
He didn't take it.
I expect it to cost him his seat.
If he had stood up in Parliament and said something along the lines of "We were exhausted, we're sorry, we had heavy responsibilities, that does not excuse what happened" then he would still be PM IMHO. He certainly wouldn't be in the current bother. It's the cover up that kills you.
Lol. If he'd said that Harman wouldn't have bothered with evidence hearings, she'd have imposed a 10 day suspension months ago.
Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, another ex MP of the 2015 vintage, was also struck off as a solicitor for financial irregularities at her former firm.
I thought she was just fined and censured?
She was up twice: According to Wiki On 15 January 2019, she was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal (SSDT) and fined £3,000.[9] The Tribunal found that Ahmed-Sheikh and fellow solicitor Alan Mickel had shown "disregard for the rules" in running a trust and had a conflict of interest when they borrowed money from it to help their ailing firm.[10] In addition to their fines, the pair also had to pay the expenses of the Law Society of Scotland, which had brought the case forward.[11]
In September 2021, the SSDT found her guilty for a second time when she was ruled to have committed "recklessness by omission" during her tenure as the designated cashroom partner at Hamilton Burns, which went into administration in 2017. Ahmed-Sheikh admitted six other breaches of financial rules too but was cleared of any suggestion of dishonesty or a lack of integrity.[12]"
The second time she was restricted in her practising certificate for 2 years if she ever applied to come back to practice but by then she had not had a practising certificate for 6 years. So yes, probably a slight overstatement to say she was struck off.
They "borrowed" money from a trust they were administering???
That's pretty high on the "don't do" list, I would have thought. Just below, "don't murder the beneficiaries."
It was particularly egregious that the firm was already at the point they couldn't borrow money from anyone else and went into a seriously insolvent administration in 2017.
And you certainly never murder beneficiaries before they have written a will appointing your firm executors.
I think that the arguments about "lockdown" are predicated on a false premise - that lockdown is the only means of controlling virus spread. I think it's important to remember - particularly for the next pandemic - that lockdown is a response to the failure of all the other methods of preventing virus spread - test, trace & isolate, improved hygiene, ventilation and filtration, etc.
We should spend a lot more time talking about how to improve the other methods of controlling virus spread, and a lot less time discussing whether the government should impose a legal lockdown on top of the de facto self-lockdown most people imposed on themselves in response to a deadly virus that was clearly spreading out of control.
And this is where my personal bugbear comes in - I spent a lot of time in mid-to-late 2020 banging on about "identifying the low-hanging fruit" - the measures that had the most bang (reduction) for the least buck (impact on us).
And time and again, we never got to find out. I think school closures were probably unnecessary in lockdowns 1 and 2, but with Alpha spreading as it did, the spread only slowed and reversed after schools were closed between January and early March 2021. But if we'd sorted things out sooner and with better and clearer sight on what gave us what, maybe even that shutdown could have been averted.
Even now, I believe that if we'd gone for Tier Three in more places when the tiered system was in, we might have averted both of the latter lockdowns and any school closures. At the time, we were locally calling for going from Tier 2 to Tier 3 (local politicians of all parties), whilst the local Tory MPs pressed for us to go down to Tier 1. Two weeks later, we were in the November lockdown.
Ventilation and filtration were a key area that weren't followed up on, and all the research I've seen in them since points to a widespread rollout of HEPA filters being really effective. I'd like detailed research to be done, because if something like a working Test & Trace plus Tier One-style restrictions plus HEPA (with no school closures) equates to the full-on lockdown-plus-school-closures of the winter lockdown (which some of the research I looked at indicates would be about the equivalence), to me it's a no brainer.
There seems to be basic unfairness, and maybe sexism too.
Margaret Ferrier gets a four week sanction for a foolish, but not dishonest, breach of the COVID rules. Boris Johnson who instituted systematic breaches and lied about it continuously including to parliament gets the best lawyer our taxpayer money can buy and so far has resisted any sanction. Another woman, Allegra Stratton, who had a bit part at most, is the only person to have resigned over these breaches.
I agree Margaret Ferrier has been treated very harshly ... and may end up losing her job.
Don't forget we in Wales were "banged up" for months. South Wales police would interrogate me as to where I lived when walking the dogs half a mile from home. It was, and it should be a big deal. We were all scared stiff that if we interacted with wrong 'uns it could be "Goodnight Vienna".
Likewise Johnson, although his defence that he is so blindingly stupid as to tell a lie deliberately, is genius quality obfuscation.
Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, another ex MP of the 2015 vintage, was also struck off as a solicitor for financial irregularities at her former firm.
I thought she was just fined and censured?
She was up twice: According to Wiki On 15 January 2019, she was found guilty of professional misconduct by the Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal (SSDT) and fined £3,000.[9] The Tribunal found that Ahmed-Sheikh and fellow solicitor Alan Mickel had shown "disregard for the rules" in running a trust and had a conflict of interest when they borrowed money from it to help their ailing firm.[10] In addition to their fines, the pair also had to pay the expenses of the Law Society of Scotland, which had brought the case forward.[11]
In September 2021, the SSDT found her guilty for a second time when she was ruled to have committed "recklessness by omission" during her tenure as the designated cashroom partner at Hamilton Burns, which went into administration in 2017. Ahmed-Sheikh admitted six other breaches of financial rules too but was cleared of any suggestion of dishonesty or a lack of integrity.[12]"
The second time she was restricted in her practising certificate for 2 years if she ever applied to come back to practice but by then she had not had a practising certificate for 6 years. So yes, probably a slight overstatement to say she was struck off.
They "borrowed" money from a trust they were administering???
That's pretty high on the "don't do" list, I would have thought. Just below, "don't murder the beneficiaries."
There seems to be basic unfairness, and maybe sexism too.
Margaret Ferrier gets a four week sanction for a foolish, but not dishonest, breach of the COVID rules. Boris Johnson who instituted systematic breaches and lied about it continuously including to parliament gets the best lawyer our taxpayer money can buy and so far has resisted any sanction. Another woman, Allegra Stratton, who had a bit part at most, is the only person to have resigned over these breaches.
I agree Margaret Ferrier has been treated very harshly ... and may end up losing her job.
She deliberately travelled from Scotland to London by train when she knew she should have been isolating because she was probably infectious, right?
From London to Scotland. She wanted to go ‘home’ to isolate, and got on the train shortly after being told that she had a notifiable disease.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
There seems to be basic unfairness, and maybe sexism too.
Margaret Ferrier gets a four week sanction for a foolish, but not dishonest, breach of the COVID rules. Boris Johnson who instituted systematic breaches and lied about it continuously including to parliament gets the best lawyer our taxpayer money can buy and so far has resisted any sanction. Another woman, Allegra Stratton, who had a bit part at most, is the only person to have resigned over these breaches.
I agree Margaret Ferrier has been treated very harshly ... and may end up losing her job.
She deliberately travelled from Scotland to London by train when she knew she should have been isolating because she was probably infectious, right?
I know, it’s remarkable what some people on here will forgive.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Remember, Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
Yes. What is too often forgotten in the covid lockdown postmortem is that were several lockdowns, some with rather more justification than others, and various grades of lockdown, some more effective than others. So many people fall into a broad category of supporting some-not-all lockdowns. You can argue the toss over each one but the debate will mostly be around the margins.
The real scandal – and the one that heads really ought to have rolled for – was the disgraceful act of the Christmas Omicron lockdown-by-stealth. Government outriders – eg Chris "Everything Known About Omicron Is Bad" Whitty were sent to scare the hell out of the public in the face of the international evidence from South Africa, which was airily waved away with colonial superiority. There was no government support for closing pubs and restaurants, yet they lost all of their Christmas bookings, which hammered an industry that was already on its knees, destroying businesses and putting people on the dole.
Yet the South African medics were absolutely right: omicron was indeed mild and Whitty and friends' lurid warnings were baseless.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
I think it would have been better if the British government had imposed stricter restrictions* earlier, but also that that removed them a lot earlier. There were a subset of restrictions that made a great deal of difference, and imposed very little burden on freedom. And there were lots that has terrible costs for very few benefits.
* I hate the lockdown word, and I would have stopped far, far short of the extreme lockdown the UK saw
What the UK saw, was not “extreme lockdown” by international standards. I was under lockdown for a month, where that word meant needing permission from the police in advance, to leave one’s own home to visit supermarkets and pharmacies.
It was extreme compared to the US - even compared to a liberal, lefty, high restrictions state like California.
But I grant you that it was less extreme than Italy had at its peak, and was completely different in scope to the lockdowns in Australia/NZ or Asia (ex Japan)
There seems to be basic unfairness, and maybe sexism too.
Margaret Ferrier gets a four week sanction for a foolish, but not dishonest, breach of the COVID rules. Boris Johnson who instituted systematic breaches and lied about it continuously including to parliament gets the best lawyer our taxpayer money can buy and so far has resisted any sanction. Another woman, Allegra Stratton, who had a bit part at most, is the only person to have resigned over these breaches.
I agree Margaret Ferrier has been treated very harshly ... and may end up losing her job.
If you caught Covid off her on her train journey from Scotland to London and back, you might not think she was treated harshly.
Especially if you then died of it.
One of my biggest bug bears of the entire Covid social madness was people 'blaming' others for catching covid.
It was always 'in the supermarket' or 'from our careless neighbours'
Not, as is most likely, from their own families.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone, in real life, blame another for their case of Covid.
(I guess there is one exception to this. A friend of mine blames going to a football match for his - rather serious - case of Covid. Or, technically, he blames his daughter for forcing him to spend 30 minutes in the shop after the game.)
The entire government campaign was based around blaming you.
If you went out and subsequently killed your, or indeed any granny.
I think that the arguments about "lockdown" are predicated on a false premise - that lockdown is the only means of controlling virus spread. I think it's important to remember - particularly for the next pandemic - that lockdown is a response to the failure of all the other methods of preventing virus spread - test, trace & isolate, improved hygiene, ventilation and filtration, etc.
We should spend a lot more time talking about how to improve the other methods of controlling virus spread, and a lot less time discussing whether the government should impose a legal lockdown on top of the de facto self-lockdown most people imposed on themselves in response to a deadly virus that was clearly spreading out of control.
And this is where my personal bugbear comes in - I spent a lot of time in mid-to-late 2020 banging on about "identifying the low-hanging fruit" - the measures that had the most bang (reduction) for the least buck (impact on us).
And time and again, we never got to find out. I think school closures were probably unnecessary in lockdowns 1 and 2, but with Alpha spreading as it did, the spread only slowed and reversed after schools were closed between January and early March 2021. But if we'd sorted things out sooner and with better and clearer sight on what gave us what, maybe even that shutdown could have been averted.
Even now, I believe that if we'd gone for Tier Three in more places when the tiered system was in, we might have averted both of the latter lockdowns and any school closures. At the time, we were locally calling for going from Tier 2 to Tier 3 (local politicians of all parties), whilst the local Tory MPs pressed for us to go down to Tier 1. Two weeks later, we were in the November lockdown.
Ventilation and filtration were a key area that weren't followed up on, and all the research I've seen in them since points to a widespread rollout of HEPA filters being really effective. I'd like detailed research to be done, because if something like a working Test & Trace plus Tier One-style restrictions plus HEPA (with no school closures) equates to the full-on lockdown-plus-school-closures of the winter lockdown (which some of the research I looked at indicates would be about the equivalence), to me it's a no brainer.
I knew that you would have more detail about this. @edmundintokyo was trying to tell us the same from Japan.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Remember, Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
That’s awesome. So much of the early Ukranian effort came from random commercial drone owners handing them over or working with the military. They’re brilliant for local surveillance, and have since been used for spotting long-range artillery and tank rounds.
There seems to be basic unfairness, and maybe sexism too.
Margaret Ferrier gets a four week sanction for a foolish, but not dishonest, breach of the COVID rules. Boris Johnson who instituted systematic breaches and lied about it continuously including to parliament gets the best lawyer our taxpayer money can buy and so far has resisted any sanction. Another woman, Allegra Stratton, who had a bit part at most, is the only person to have resigned over these breaches.
I agree Margaret Ferrier has been treated very harshly ... and may end up losing her job.
She deliberately travelled from Scotland to London by train when she knew she should have been isolating because she was probably infectious, right?
From London to Scotland. She wanted to go ‘home’ to isolate, and got on the train shortly after being told that she had a notifiable disease.
Right, but as I understood it the took the outward journey after taking a test because she was probably infectious. Then she got to London, was told the test was positive, and turned round and went straight back.
She shouldn't even have taken the first train, let alone the second.
There seems to be basic unfairness, and maybe sexism too.
Margaret Ferrier gets a four week sanction for a foolish, but not dishonest, breach of the COVID rules. Boris Johnson who instituted systematic breaches and lied about it continuously including to parliament gets the best lawyer our taxpayer money can buy and so far has resisted any sanction. Another woman, Allegra Stratton, who had a bit part at most, is the only person to have resigned over these breaches.
I agree Margaret Ferrier has been treated very harshly ... and may end up losing her job.
If you caught Covid off her on her train journey from Scotland to London and back, you might not think she was treated harshly.
Especially if you then died of it.
One of my biggest bug bears of the entire Covid social madness was people 'blaming' others for catching covid.
It was always 'in the supermarket' or 'from our careless neighbours'
Not, as is most likely, from their own families.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone, in real life, blame another for their case of Covid.
(I guess there is one exception to this. A friend of mine blames going to a football match for his - rather serious - case of Covid. Or, technically, he blames his daughter for forcing him to spend 30 minutes in the shop after the game.)
The entire government campaign was based around blaming you.
If you went out and subsequently killed your, or indeed any granny.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
There seems to be basic unfairness, and maybe sexism too.
Margaret Ferrier gets a four week sanction for a foolish, but not dishonest, breach of the COVID rules. Boris Johnson who instituted systematic breaches and lied about it continuously including to parliament gets the best lawyer our taxpayer money can buy and so far has resisted any sanction. Another woman, Allegra Stratton, who had a bit part at most, is the only person to have resigned over these breaches.
I agree Margaret Ferrier has been treated very harshly ... and may end up losing her job.
If you caught Covid off her on her train journey from Scotland to London and back, you might not think she was treated harshly.
Especially if you then died of it.
One of my biggest bug bears of the entire Covid social madness was people 'blaming' others for catching covid.
It was always 'in the supermarket' or 'from our careless neighbours'
Not, as is most likely, from their own families.
I don't think I've ever heard anyone, in real life, blame another for their case of Covid.
(I guess there is one exception to this. A friend of mine blames going to a football match for his - rather serious - case of Covid. Or, technically, he blames his daughter for forcing him to spend 30 minutes in the shop after the game.)
The entire government campaign was based around blaming you.
If you went out and subsequently killed your, or indeed any granny.
No it wasn't your fault because you don't live here.
It was the good citizens of the UK who for whatever reason, perhaps government duress, perhaps fear, perhaps government induced fear, perhaps something else, embraced lockdowns and more often than not wanted longer, harsher ones.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
I think it would have been better if the British government had imposed stricter restrictions* earlier, but also that that removed them a lot earlier. There were a subset of restrictions that made a great deal of difference, and imposed very little burden on freedom. And there were lots that has terrible costs for very few benefits.
* I hate the lockdown word, and I would have stopped far, far short of the extreme lockdown the UK saw
What the UK saw, was not “extreme lockdown” by international standards. I was under lockdown for a month, where that word meant needing permission from the police in advance, to leave one’s own home to visit supermarkets and pharmacies.
Not allowing people to leave the house except for certain reasons, not allowing people to visit relatives or attend their funerals, not allowing people to leave the country except for certain reasons, closing schools - these are all pretty extreme measures. Some countries had even more extreme measures, but plenty had less.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
From a purely mathematical point of view, I don't think that's true.
If R is 2 with no restrictions, and 0.8 with them, and restrictions are only removed when the case load falls below a certain level, then the earlier you get restrictions on, the less total time is spent in lockdown.
There seems to be basic unfairness, and maybe sexism too.
Margaret Ferrier gets a four week sanction for a foolish, but not dishonest, breach of the COVID rules. Boris Johnson who instituted systematic breaches and lied about it continuously including to parliament gets the best lawyer our taxpayer money can buy and so far has resisted any sanction. Another woman, Allegra Stratton, who had a bit part at most, is the only person to have resigned over these breaches.
I agree Margaret Ferrier has been treated very harshly ... and may end up losing her job.
She deliberately travelled from Scotland to London by train when she knew she should have been isolating because she was probably infectious, right?
From London to Scotland. She wanted to go ‘home’ to isolate, and got on the train shortly after being told that she had a notifiable disease.
Right, but as I understood it the took the outward journey after taking a test because she was probably infectious. Then she got to London, was told the test was positive, and turned round and went straight back.
She shouldn't even have taken the first train, let alone the second.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
Sorry, I don't follow your logic. If you lockdown later, you spend more time in lockdown because it takes longer to get back to lower case numbers.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
From a purely mathematical point of view, I don't think that's true.
If R is 2 with no restrictions, and 0.8 with them, and restrictions are only removed when the case load falls below a certain level, then the earlier you get restrictions on, the less total time is spent in lockdown.
Less time is spent in that lockdown, but then spread starts again earlier and so you go back above your threshold for imposing the next lockdown earlier. Once you've been through the cycle a few times it's a wash.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Well, it is, because - to my frustration - lockdown was pretty popular. Hence SKS calling for longer, harsher lockdowns in pretty much all scenarios. Hence the NEU resisting the reopening of schools. It was politically difficult to end them.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Well, it is, because - to my frustration - lockdown was pretty popular. Hence SKS calling for longer, harsher lockdowns in pretty much all scenarios. Hence the NEU resisting the reopening of schools. It was politically difficult to end them.
And think him an absolute tosser as we all do, we now know, via the Hancock messages, that it was government policy to scare people and keep them scared so that they would want ever harsher and longer lockdowns.
Wasn't it 14% of people wanted nightclubs to stay closed forever.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
If you assume that the first and second lockdowns were unavoidable, then that conclusion is axiomatic.
If the question is how much should we blame Johnson, I think we can all agree that Johnson should be blamed. Either you're blaming him for imposing any lockdown or you're blaming him for imposing a lockdown in a bad way for doing it too late. I think we should revel in this rare case of consensus on PB.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Remember, Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
Anything the govt proposed in terms of action on COVID SKS proposed more extreme measures.
The Johnson variant, Remember that embarrasing comment from SKS.
The press and many media commentators also demanded the govt take stronger action too.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
Sorry, I don't follow your logic. If you lockdown later, you spend more time in lockdown because it takes longer to get back to lower case numbers.
That's true only for a single lockdown.
But Britain had three. If lockdown one had started earlier, and ended earlier, then lockdown two would have had* to start earlier, and so you would have ended up having more lockdowns, maybe five or six or more, each individually shorter, but adding up to the same time in lockdown overall.
This is because, mathematically with our simple model, you can get the infection rate in the final week by multiplying the infection rate in week 0 by R for every week - and it makes no difference which order the weeks with low R or high R are in.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
From a purely mathematical point of view, I don't think that's true.
If R is 2 with no restrictions, and 0.8 with them, and restrictions are only removed when the case load falls below a certain level, then the earlier you get restrictions on, the less total time is spent in lockdown.
Less time is spent in that lockdown, but then spread starts again earlier and so you go back above your threshold for imposing the next lockdown earlier. Once you've been through the cycle a few times it's a wash.
No. Because cases are always kept lower.
The amount of spread is proportional to the number of cases. If you keep cases lower, there is less spread.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Just looked it up - second lockdown was 5th Nov; third lockdown was 5th Jan. Shown roughly on the diagram below.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
Sorry, I don't follow your logic. If you lockdown later, you spend more time in lockdown because it takes longer to get back to lower case numbers.
That's true only for a single lockdown.
But Britain had three. If lockdown one had started earlier, and ended earlier, then lockdown two would have had* to start earlier, and so you would have ended up having more lockdowns, maybe five or six or more, each individually shorter, but adding up to the same time in lockdown overall.
This is because, mathematically with our simple model, you can get the infection rate in the final week by multiplying the infection rate in week 0 by R for every week - and it makes no difference which order the weeks with low R or high R are in.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
And many modellers probably ascribed a zero value to the momentous decision to lock down an entire country and all the implications and consequences of this to our society and its constituents.
Fuckers on here let alone those less well-educated were crying out for more and longer lockdowns which would, famously, allow them more time for charming walks around their apple orchards.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
From a purely mathematical point of view, I don't think that's true.
If R is 2 with no restrictions, and 0.8 with them, and restrictions are only removed when the case load falls below a certain level, then the earlier you get restrictions on, the less total time is spent in lockdown.
Less time is spent in that lockdown, but then spread starts again earlier and so you go back above your threshold for imposing the next lockdown earlier. Once you've been through the cycle a few times it's a wash.
No. Because cases are always kept lower.
The amount of spread is proportional to the number of cases. If you keep cases lower, there is less spread.
No, because the spread is exponential, so the way it compounds is independent of the initial level of cases.
You do have the advantage of a lower burden of cases overall, but you don't spend less time in lockdown.
That’s awesome. So much of the early Ukranian effort came from random commercial drone owners handing them over or working with the military. They’re brilliant for local surveillance, and have since been used for spotting long-range artillery and tank rounds.
The Russians have apparently, rather late in the game, decided that they have to preserve what remain of their tanks. There has however been a notable uptick in the numbers of Russian artillery claimed destroyed. In to double figures most days lately. This amount of eyes in the skies will surely make them more vulnerable.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
Maybe there shouldn't have been any lockdowns, except for people in vulnerable categories.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
Yes. What is too often forgotten in the covid lockdown postmortem is that were several lockdowns, some with rather more justification than others, and various grades of lockdown, some more effective than others. So many people fall into a broad category of supporting some-not-all lockdowns. You can argue the toss over each one but the debate will mostly be around the margins.
The real scandal – and the one that heads really ought to have rolled for – was the disgraceful act of the Christmas Omicron lockdown-by-stealth. Government outriders – eg Chris "Everything Known About Omicron Is Bad" Whitty were sent to scare the hell out of the public in the face of the international evidence from South Africa, which was airily waved away with colonial superiority. There was no government support for closing pubs and restaurants, yet they lost all of their Christmas bookings, which hammered an industry that was already on its knees, destroying businesses and putting people on the dole.
Yet the South African medics were absolutely right: omicron was indeed mild and Whitty and friends' lurid warnings were baseless.
A national shame.
Omicron was mild-er, but not really mild. Roughly same lethality in a naive population as original wild type IIRC. What made the difference when it hit the UK was the "wall of immunity [to serious illness]" that we had built up through vaccination and prior infection. Burn-Murdoch in the FT was really good on this point.
Agreed re UK arrogance towards S Africa in this period though, and the doom-mongering.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
That's not my recollection. Boris was resisting locking down until the government modellers told him otherwise; then he changed his tune immediately. And to be fair, we knew very little back then (including that the models were highly dubious!). I can forgive him following the modellers back then.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
From a purely mathematical point of view, I don't think that's true.
If R is 2 with no restrictions, and 0.8 with them, and restrictions are only removed when the case load falls below a certain level, then the earlier you get restrictions on, the less total time is spent in lockdown.
Less time is spent in that lockdown, but then spread starts again earlier and so you go back above your threshold for imposing the next lockdown earlier. Once you've been through the cycle a few times it's a wash.
No. Because cases are always kept lower.
The amount of spread is proportional to the number of cases. If you keep cases lower, there is less spread.
No, because the spread is exponential, so the way it compounds is independent of the initial level of cases.
You do have the advantage of a lower burden of cases overall, but you don't spend less time in lockdown.
I love trying to get my head round the - valid, I agree - logic of this. It often runs counter to gut instinct.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
Maybe there shouldn't have been any lockdowns, except for people in vulnerable categories.
The first lockdown was probably politically unavoidable given the way the media reacted to Italy, irrespective of what the government had done.
A proper government, however, would have taken the attitude "as short as possible" and, in particular, wouldn't have contributed to the scaremongering.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Remember, Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
Anything the govt proposed in terms of action on COVID SKS proposed more extreme measures.
The Johnson variant, Remember that embarrasing comment from SKS.
The press and many media commentators also demanded the govt take stronger action too.
The UK government response was, by international standards, relatively libertarian.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
Sorry, I don't follow your logic. If you lockdown later, you spend more time in lockdown because it takes longer to get back to lower case numbers.
That's true only for a single lockdown.
But Britain had three. If lockdown one had started earlier, and ended earlier, then lockdown two would have had* to start earlier, and so you would have ended up having more lockdowns, maybe five or six or more, each individually shorter, but adding up to the same time in lockdown overall.
This is because, mathematically with our simple model, you can get the infection rate in the final week by multiplying the infection rate in week 0 by R for every week - and it makes no difference which order the weeks with low R or high R are in.
* Assuming all else equal.
No. That's nonsense.
I don't have time to write out the mathematical proof for you, but I can assure you that it's not nonsense. It's a feature of exponential spread.
Maybe I'll try to convince you later if I have time and your haven't worked out of for yourself by then.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
And many modellers probably ascribed a zero value to the momentous decision to lock down an entire country and all the implications and consequences of this to our society and its constituents.
Fuckers on here let alone those less well-educated were crying out for more and longer lockdowns which would, famously, allow them more time for charming walks around their apple orchards.
Modellers model. They were asked to model how the disease was expected to spread and how it would spread under different scenarios (e.g. lockdown or not).
Politicians decide policy. It was the politicians job to weigh up the different risks, the different costs, of different actions.
It wasn't the (SPI-M) modellers' job to consider the other consequences to society and its constituents. That is not what they were asked to do. They modelled disease spread in response to Government's questions. Government weighed up the many different factors and chose a path.
Certain people, generally on the right, have this strange fantasy that the modellers were in control. They weren't. Johnson and his Government made the decisions.
The 2015 SNP cohort has some really roasters in them.
That’s what 2/3 ended up in jail/criminal records.
At least one is a pervert.
Some fecked off to other parties.
There’s some that make Richard Burgon look like Einstein.
2/3 of the 2015 SNP cohort ended up in jail/with criminal records? That seems rather a lot.
I presume it as meant as 2 or 3.
Just in terms of who was elected in 2019, we’ve had:
Margaret Ferrier Neale Hanvey: suspended for antisemitism, re-admitted, defected to Alba Kenny MacAskill: defected to Alba Patrick Grady: suspended for sexual harassment, re-admitted
So one community service for a minor offence, rest nothing criminal. Can you give us comparable English parties records or will that take you a few weeks to compile.
In terms of MPs who got into some sort of trouble, the SNP MPs elected in 2019 have a proportionally high rate of difficulties, although not as high as Plaid Cymru. However, no, there's not a lot of criminality in those elected in 2019 cohort. Theuniondivvie's comments were about the 2015 cohort, I should note. I was just going off on a tangent.
In terms of criminality among MPs elected to the 2019 Westminster Parliament...
Imran Ahmad Khan (Con): 18 months Claudia Webbe (Lab): 10 weeks, suspended Ferrier (SNP): community service
Jonathan Edwards (PC): accepted a caution Tom Tugendhat (Con): banned from driving
Boris Johnson (Con): accepted a fine Rishi Sunak (Con): accepted a fine, accepted another fine Penny Mordaunt (Con): speeding ticket Mike Hill (Lab): paid compensation to employee following an employment tribunal Nadhim Zahawi (Con): tax penalty
Anyone think of any others?
The fragrant Jamie Wallace (Con)? Although he fled the one vehicle crash scene dressed as a lady, no alcohol had apparently been consumed. Fined £2,500 and a six month ban.
I think what will do for Boris is his lack of remorse and his stubborn adherence to the lies.
He was given a chance by the Committee. Harman specifically gave him that chance before it retired.
He didn't take it.
I expect it to cost him his seat.
If he had stood up in Parliament and said something along the lines of "We were exhausted, we're sorry, we had heavy responsibilities, that does not excuse what happened" then he would still be PM IMHO. He certainly wouldn't be in the current bother. It's the cover up that kills you.
Lol. If he'd said that Harman wouldn't have bothered with evidence hearings, she'd have imposed a 10 day suspension months ago.
The hearings are about misleading Parliament so there would have been no hearings. And suspensions are for Parliament to decide, not the committee, let along just Harman.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
From a purely mathematical point of view, I don't think that's true.
If R is 2 with no restrictions, and 0.8 with them, and restrictions are only removed when the case load falls below a certain level, then the earlier you get restrictions on, the less total time is spent in lockdown.
Less time is spent in that lockdown, but then spread starts again earlier and so you go back above your threshold for imposing the next lockdown earlier. Once you've been through the cycle a few times it's a wash.
No. Because cases are always kept lower.
The amount of spread is proportional to the number of cases. If you keep cases lower, there is less spread.
No, because the spread is exponential, so the way it compounds is independent of the initial level of cases.
You do have the advantage of a lower burden of cases overall, but you don't spend less time in lockdown.
Because the spread is exponential, the way it compounds is very dependent on the initial level of cases. That's what being exponential means!
That’s awesome. So much of the early Ukranian effort came from random commercial drone owners handing them over or working with the military. They’re brilliant for local surveillance, and have since been used for spotting long-range artillery and tank rounds.
The Russians have apparently, rather late in the game, decided that they have to preserve what remain of their tanks. There has however been a notable uptick in the numbers of Russian artillery claimed destroyed. In to double figures most days lately. This amount of eyes in the skies will surely make them more vulnerable.
You mean that we noticed them pulling T-62s out of museums. I stand by my earlier prediction, that they’ll be pulling T-34s off WWII memorials by the summer.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Well, it is, because - to my frustration - lockdown was pretty popular. Hence SKS calling for longer, harsher lockdowns in pretty much all scenarios. Hence the NEU resisting the reopening of schools. It was politically difficult to end them.
And think him an absolute tosser as we all do, we now know, via the Hancock messages, that it was government policy to scare people and keep them scared so that they would want ever harsher and longer lockdowns.
Wasn't it 14% of people wanted nightclubs to stay closed forever.
Indeed – although my memory was it was a higher percentage than that!
One element that isn't considered is that the higher the background level of cases, the faster and more likelihood the virus evolves. Every infection is an opportunity to evolve; each one is very very very unlikely, but multiply up enough and you get certainty.
The higher the level, the faster you get variants like Alpha and Delta (and Omicron which - as mentioned - wasn't inherently much less dangerous than the original strain (but was less dangerous than the Delta strain), but ran into our immune wall). And the more variants you get.
A lower level could have escaped Alpha. We'd still have been hit by Delta in summer of 2021, but the faster-spreading Alpha (which was too infectious to be held by the November lockdown level) could theoretically have been avoided.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
Maybe there shouldn't have been any lockdowns, except for people in vulnerable categories.
Define vulnerable. Derek Draper says hello!
Edit. PS You and the two clowns who have liked your post hang your heads in shame!
Claims from one side, so obvious bias, but if it's near the truth, then it's fairly staggering:
"Defense Ministry: Russian, Ukrainian losses in east 10 to 1 some days.
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said on Telegram that there are days in Ukraine's east where the ratio of Russian and Ukrainian losses is "as high as 10 to 1.""
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
From a purely mathematical point of view, I don't think that's true.
If R is 2 with no restrictions, and 0.8 with them, and restrictions are only removed when the case load falls below a certain level, then the earlier you get restrictions on, the less total time is spent in lockdown.
Less time is spent in that lockdown, but then spread starts again earlier and so you go back above your threshold for imposing the next lockdown earlier. Once you've been through the cycle a few times it's a wash.
No. Because cases are always kept lower.
The amount of spread is proportional to the number of cases. If you keep cases lower, there is less spread.
No, because the spread is exponential, so the way it compounds is independent of the initial level of cases.
You do have the advantage of a lower burden of cases overall, but you don't spend less time in lockdown.
Because the spread is exponential, the way it compounds is very dependent on the initial level of cases. That's what being exponential means!
I'm assuming that the R value is independent of the level of cases.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Remember, Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
Anything the govt proposed in terms of action on COVID SKS proposed more extreme measures.
The Johnson variant, Remember that embarrasing comment from SKS.
The press and many media commentators also demanded the govt take stronger action too.
The UK government response was, by international standards, relatively libertarian.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
I agree - but - in the case of the UK government, they quickly went both mad and fairly useless. Briefly, the government can be blamed for: - The deliberate scaremongering/police overreach etc. - Not questioning transparently rubbish modelling - Not considering the cost of lockdown
I agree that the UK was far from alone in this. Very few governments come out of this with much credit. OTOH, government wasn't awful at everything, and the vaccine rollout was impressive.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
And many modellers probably ascribed a zero value to the momentous decision to lock down an entire country and all the implications and consequences of this to our society and its constituents.
Fuckers on here let alone those less well-educated were crying out for more and longer lockdowns which would, famously, allow them more time for charming walks around their apple orchards.
Modellers model. They were asked to model how the disease was expected to spread and how it would spread under different scenarios (e.g. lockdown or not).
Politicians decide policy. It was the politicians job to weigh up the different risks, the different costs, of different actions.
It wasn't the (SPI-M) modellers' job to consider the other consequences to society and its constituents. That is not what they were asked to do. They modelled disease spread in response to Government's questions. Government weighed up the many different factors and chose a path.
Certain people, generally on the right, have this strange fantasy that the modellers were in control. They weren't. Johnson and his Government made the decisions.
As Driver has said, the real trigger was the pictures coming out of Italy.
Strangely enough, looking back, the famous Imperial College model was significantly too optimistic, modelling a lower rate of spread (R of 2.4 vs R of 3) and a lower IFR (0.6% versus 1.0-1.3%) than actually occurred.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
From a purely mathematical point of view, I don't think that's true.
If R is 2 with no restrictions, and 0.8 with them, and restrictions are only removed when the case load falls below a certain level, then the earlier you get restrictions on, the less total time is spent in lockdown.
Less time is spent in that lockdown, but then spread starts again earlier and so you go back above your threshold for imposing the next lockdown earlier. Once you've been through the cycle a few times it's a wash.
Excel says you are wrong.
Seriously, go to Excel or Google Sheets and use my Rs and whatever you want as the trigger points for implementing and removing restrictions.
You will find that the earlier you implement restrictions, the less time you spend with them, because declines are more gradual than rises.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
That's not my recollection. Boris was resisting locking down until the government modellers told him otherwise; then he changed his tune immediately. And to be fair, we knew very little back then (including that the models were highly dubious!). I can forgive him following the modellers back then.
The ongoing COVID-19 Inquiry will, I'm sure, provide great detail on all of this in due course.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Remember, Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
Anything the govt proposed in terms of action on COVID SKS proposed more extreme measures.
The Johnson variant, Remember that embarrasing comment from SKS.
The press and many media commentators also demanded the govt take stronger action too.
The UK government response was, by international standards, relatively libertarian.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
Did any other countries have a rule whereby you had to put on your mask when stood up but not while sat down?
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
From a purely mathematical point of view, I don't think that's true.
If R is 2 with no restrictions, and 0.8 with them, and restrictions are only removed when the case load falls below a certain level, then the earlier you get restrictions on, the less total time is spent in lockdown.
Less time is spent in that lockdown, but then spread starts again earlier and so you go back above your threshold for imposing the next lockdown earlier. Once you've been through the cycle a few times it's a wash.
No. Because cases are always kept lower.
The amount of spread is proportional to the number of cases. If you keep cases lower, there is less spread.
No, because the spread is exponential, so the way it compounds is independent of the initial level of cases.
You do have the advantage of a lower burden of cases overall, but you don't spend less time in lockdown.
Because the spread is exponential, the way it compounds is very dependent on the initial level of cases. That's what being exponential means!
The k-factor (superspreadability) is also crucial. If the initial number of cases is low enough, it'll actually fail to spread at all.
That's what happens with the vast majority of coronavirus spillovers (https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(23)00064-4/fulltext) [Of 693 people screened between July 2017 and February 2020, 12.1% were seropositive for sarbecoviruses. Individuals were significantly more likely to have been exposed to sarbecoviruses if their main livelihood involved working in extractive industries (logging, hunting, or harvesting of forest products; OR = 2.71, P = 0.019) or had been hunting / slaughtering bats (OR = 6.09, P = 0.020). Exposure to a range of bat and pangolin sarbecoviruses were identified.]
But these successful cross-infections from animals to humans damp out because you need a big superspreader event or two or three in close succession. Then you're away.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Remember, Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
Anything the govt proposed in terms of action on COVID SKS proposed more extreme measures.
The Johnson variant, Remember that embarrasing comment from SKS.
The press and many media commentators also demanded the govt take stronger action too.
The UK government response was, by international standards, relatively libertarian.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
I agree - but - in the case of the UK government, they quickly went both mad and fairly useless. Briefly, the government can be blamed for: - The deliberate scaremongering/police overreach etc. - Not questioning transparently rubbish modelling - Not considering the cost of lockdown
I agree that the UK was far from alone in this. Very few governments come out of this with much credit. OTOH, government wasn't awful at everything, and the vaccine rollout was impressive.
Who can forget the two blondes nicked in Derbyshire for having a cup of coffee while hiking?
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
That's not my recollection. Boris was resisting locking down until the government modellers told him otherwise; then he changed his tune immediately. And to be fair, we knew very little back then (including that the models were highly dubious!). I can forgive him following the modellers back then.
The ongoing COVID-19 Inquiry will, I'm sure, provide great detail on all of this in due course.
Yes, I imagine the Guardian will take a really pro-government and pro-Boris view.
If we were late, we were late by a week or so, compared to some of our compatriots. If that. But look at the magnitude of the decision the government had to make: lockdowns were unprecedented in modern times, and the costs and risks were in both directions.
No government had had to face a crisis of the scale and magnitude of the Covid crisis since 1939.
And to take this to Labour: remember that Starmer wanted more lockdowns, and harder lockdowns. Was he correct in that?
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
If you model the spread in a simple way, with a value of R above 1 when not in lockdown and below 1 when in lockdown (as you are implicitly assuming and which I take issue with in my earlier comment), then imposing a lockdown earlier doesn't reduce the total time spent in lockdown. You yo-yo in and out of lockdown in a similar way to how you would if you waited for a higher infection level before entering lockdown and, overall, you spend the same length of time in lockdown.
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
From a purely mathematical point of view, I don't think that's true.
If R is 2 with no restrictions, and 0.8 with them, and restrictions are only removed when the case load falls below a certain level, then the earlier you get restrictions on, the less total time is spent in lockdown.
Less time is spent in that lockdown, but then spread starts again earlier and so you go back above your threshold for imposing the next lockdown earlier. Once you've been through the cycle a few times it's a wash.
Excel says you are wrong.
Seriously, go to Excel or Google Sheets and use my Rs and whatever you want as the trigger points for implementing and removing restrictions.
You will find that the earlier you implement restrictions, the less time you spend with them, because declines are more gradual than rises.
1 ~ 2 * 0.8 * 0.8 * 0.8
With those numbers you will spend three-quarters of your time in lockdown whether you impose lockdown early or late.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Remember, Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
Anything the govt proposed in terms of action on COVID SKS proposed more extreme measures.
The Johnson variant, Remember that embarrasing comment from SKS.
The press and many media commentators also demanded the govt take stronger action too.
The UK government response was, by international standards, relatively libertarian.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
Did any other countries have a rule whereby you had to put on your mask when stood up but not while sat down?
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
That's not my recollection. Boris was resisting locking down until the government modellers told him otherwise; then he changed his tune immediately. And to be fair, we knew very little back then (including that the models were highly dubious!). I can forgive him following the modellers back then.
The ongoing COVID-19 Inquiry will, I'm sure, provide great detail on all of this in due course.
One very strong memory I have from the week before first lockdown, on the Monday night, I was overnighting at work. I knew it'd be the last time for quite a while (the following day, we were officially sent home for prolonged WFH).
I was eating dinner in the local pub I always used. It was almost dead. The waitress was nearly in tears. We had a chat and she said that she knew they'd be cutting their hours hugely or letting them go because no-one was going to come in, and she had bills to pay. I said that there had to be a support package (I have never been happier to have been proven right).
When we discuss the economic cost of lockdown, we sometimes forget the economic cost of not locking down. I believe it was rcs1000 who pointed out that the total footfall in restaurants in the UK through 2020 was a bit higher than that in many states in the US who didn't lock down - because people were considerably more confident to go out in unlocked-down times in the UK.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
And many modellers probably ascribed a zero value to the momentous decision to lock down an entire country and all the implications and consequences of this to our society and its constituents.
Fuckers on here let alone those less well-educated were crying out for more and longer lockdowns which would, famously, allow them more time for charming walks around their apple orchards.
Modellers model. They were asked to model how the disease was expected to spread and how it would spread under different scenarios (e.g. lockdown or not).
Politicians decide policy. It was the politicians job to weigh up the different risks, the different costs, of different actions.
It wasn't the (SPI-M) modellers' job to consider the other consequences to society and its constituents. That is not what they were asked to do. They modelled disease spread in response to Government's questions. Government weighed up the many different factors and chose a path.
Certain people, generally on the right, have this strange fantasy that the modellers were in control. They weren't. Johnson and his Government made the decisions.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. If every day at 5pm the PM and the CMO and whoever the other guy was had come into the room and opined upon the dangers of rock climbing, within the week rock climbing would have been banned. Or cigarettes. Or cycling. Or being driven by @Dura_Ace. But they didn't and those things remain legal subject to sensible, voluntary precautions. Or advice.
I don't for one minute blame the modellers. But then don't say "modellers wanted an earlier lockdown" as though a politician wouldn't take note of that. Modellers, together with the CMO, for some time were running the country and I blame the politicians for that.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
That's not my recollection. Boris was resisting locking down until the government modellers told him otherwise; then he changed his tune immediately. And to be fair, we knew very little back then (including that the models were highly dubious!). I can forgive him following the modellers back then.
The ongoing COVID-19 Inquiry will, I'm sure, provide great detail on all of this in due course.
Although in a sense, it's a bit of a red herring as to whether it was imposed too early or too late. The key thing was precisely the square root of fuck all planning had been done for:
1) When it would be needed; 2) What effect it would have 3) How we would be able to come out of it 4) What restrictions might still be needed afterwards.
Which is how you had exams randomly cancelled at a press conference without OFQUAL being informed or consulted, for example (although to be fair given how useless they are I'm not sure what difference it would have made) and how we had the 'air bridge' that reseeded covid, followed by the attempt to reopen universities and schools as near to normal as possible that saw it go rampaging through the population again.
Those are the key lessons we need to learn. Plus simple things like quarantine for arrivals from infected areas (people say we couldn't do it. Bullshit. The Vietnamese managed it. So could we have done if we'd put our minds to it).
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Remember, Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
Anything the govt proposed in terms of action on COVID SKS proposed more extreme measures.
The Johnson variant, Remember that embarrasing comment from SKS.
The press and many media commentators also demanded the govt take stronger action too.
The UK government response was, by international standards, relatively libertarian.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
I agree - but - in the case of the UK government, they quickly went both mad and fairly useless. Briefly, the government can be blamed for: - The deliberate scaremongering/police overreach etc. - Not questioning transparently rubbish modelling - Not considering the cost of lockdown
I agree that the UK was far from alone in this. Very few governments come out of this with much credit. OTOH, government wasn't awful at everything, and the vaccine rollout was impressive.
Who can forget the two blondes nicked in Derbyshire for having a cup of coffee while hiking?
Yes there was some over zealous policing, but who can forget the current PB lockdown naysayers who wanted Steve Kinnock's nuts for delivering a socially distanced (whilst on foot) birthday cake to Neil, and all the while Johnson was partying (sorry "work eventing") like it was 1999.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
Maybe there shouldn't have been any lockdowns, except for people in vulnerable categories.
The first lockdown was probably politically unavoidable given the way the media reacted to Italy, irrespective of what the government had done.
A proper government, however, would have taken the attitude "as short as possible" and, in particular, wouldn't have contributed to the scaremongering.
As others have said in this thread, a good way of avoiding lockdowns is to reduce the spread of the virus through other means. At the beginning of a pandemic like this, before vaccines, the main tool you have to reduce spread is behaviour. You want to get the public to change their behaviour.
One way of getting people to change their behaviour is through worry. If people are worried about something, they might change their behaviour. If they're not, they probably won't. Thus, public health campaigns often focus on worry.
There is, also, a government duty to inform the public. At the beginning of a pandemic, that public duty to inform people will entail telling people scary stuff because pandemics are scary.
At the same time, we have to consider whether it is ethical to worry people unduly. Yes, I can change your behaviour if I scare the bejesus out of you, but that doesn't mean I should do that.
So, you end up with questions of whether you're appropriately informing the public, or are you inappropriately scaremongering? Different people come to different conclusions. Generally, I pay attention to the people whose conclusions are based on science and research, rather than those whose conclusions are based on reading the Daily Mail or the Spectator.
In our swine flu research, we found that you could shift behaviour without increasing worry in a couple of ways: increasing people's beliefs in the efficacy of the desired behaviours; and simply repeating messages around desired behaviours over and over. I felt that was a useful way of getting out of this conundrum of worrying over whether you are worrying people.
There are further factors that affect behaviour. In our COVID-19 research, we found that there were significant practical barriers to some behaviours, e.g. financial difficulties and having children were both associated with not self-isolating. If you do more to make behaviours easier, then again you can achieve behaviour change without increasing worry.
It also helps to promote the right behaviours! We should have been promoting mask wearing much earlier. Air filtration has also been mentioned in this discussion. I say this with hindsight, of course.
Again, we'll see what the COVID-19 Inquiry says, but maybe the Johnson Government sometimes favoured scaring people or the threat of criminal sanctions while neglecting other mechanisms for encouraging desired behaviours (removing practical barriers, encouraging social norms). I'd speculate that this is because it was a Conservative government. Conservatives tend to see behaviour change in those terms, whereas a more left-wing government might have focused more on structural factors.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
That's not my recollection. Boris was resisting locking down until the government modellers told him otherwise; then he changed his tune immediately. And to be fair, we knew very little back then (including that the models were highly dubious!). I can forgive him following the modellers back then.
The ongoing COVID-19 Inquiry will, I'm sure, provide great detail on all of this in due course.
Although in a sense, it's a bit of a red herring as to whether it was imposed too early or too late. The key thing was precisely the square root of fuck all planning had been done for:
1) When it would be needed; 2) What effect it would have 3) How we would be able to come out of it 4) What restrictions might still be needed afterwards.
Which is how you had exams randomly cancelled at a press conference without OFQUAL being informed or consulted, for example (although to be fair given how useless they are I'm not sure what difference it would have made) and how we had the 'air bridge' that reseeded covid, followed by the attempt to reopen universities and schools as near to normal as possible that saw it go rampaging through the population again.
Those are the key lessons we need to learn. Plus simple things like quarantine for arrivals from infected areas (people say we couldn't do it. Bullshit. The Vietnamese managed it. So could we have done if we'd put our minds to it).
Hang on a minute. I though Johnson got all the big decisions right.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
Maybe there shouldn't have been any lockdowns, except for people in vulnerable categories.
The first lockdown was probably politically unavoidable given the way the media reacted to Italy, irrespective of what the government had done.
A proper government, however, would have taken the attitude "as short as possible" and, in particular, wouldn't have contributed to the scaremongering.
As others have said in this thread, a good way of avoiding lockdowns is to reduce the spread of the virus through other means. At the beginning of a pandemic like this, before vaccines, the main tool you have to reduce spread is behaviour. You want to get the public to change their behaviour.
One way of getting people to change their behaviour is through worry. If people are worried about something, they might change their behaviour. If they're not, they probably won't. Thus, public health campaigns often focus on worry.
There is, also, a government duty to inform the public. At the beginning of a pandemic, that public duty to inform people will entail telling people scary stuff because pandemics are scary.
At the same time, we have to consider whether it is ethical to worry people unduly. Yes, I can change your behaviour if I scare the bejesus out of you, but that doesn't mean I should do that.
So, you end up with questions of whether you're appropriately informing the public, or are you inappropriately scaremongering? Different people come to different conclusions. Generally, I pay attention to the people whose conclusions are based on science and research, rather than those whose conclusions are based on reading the Daily Mail or the Spectator.
In our swine flu research, we found that you could shift behaviour without increasing worry in a couple of ways: increasing people's beliefs in the efficacy of the desired behaviours; and simply repeating messages around desired behaviours over and over. I felt that was a useful way of getting out of this conundrum of worrying over whether you are worrying people.
There are further factors that affect behaviour. In our COVID-19 research, we found that there were significant practical barriers to some behaviours, e.g. financial difficulties and having children were both associated with not self-isolating. If you do more to make behaviours easier, then again you can achieve behaviour change without increasing worry.
It also helps to promote the right behaviours! We should have been promoting mask wearing much earlier. Air filtration has also been mentioned in this discussion. I say this with hindsight, of course.
Again, we'll see what the COVID-19 Inquiry says, but maybe the Johnson Government sometimes favoured scaring people or the threat of criminal sanctions while neglecting other mechanisms for encouraging desired behaviours (removing practical barriers, encouraging social norms). I'd speculate that this is because it was a Conservative government. Conservatives tend to see behaviour change in those terms, whereas a more left-wing government might have focused more on structural factors.
On the point of air filtration, what would your view be on installing air filters in major public settings - hospitals, of course, but also universities, schools, open plan offices and supermarkets?
It seems to me that it might be a very good way of limiting the spread of a great many viruses, but I am completely ignorant of how they work and I don't know what the cost/benefit analysis would be. Any thoughts?
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Remember, Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
Anything the govt proposed in terms of action on COVID SKS proposed more extreme measures.
The Johnson variant, Remember that embarrasing comment from SKS.
The press and many media commentators also demanded the govt take stronger action too.
The UK government response was, by international standards, relatively libertarian.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
I agree - but - in the case of the UK government, they quickly went both mad and fairly useless. Briefly, the government can be blamed for: - The deliberate scaremongering/police overreach etc. - Not questioning transparently rubbish modelling - Not considering the cost of lockdown
I agree that the UK was far from alone in this. Very few governments come out of this with much credit. OTOH, government wasn't awful at everything, and the vaccine rollout was impressive.
Who can forget the two blondes nicked in Derbyshire for having a cup of coffee while hiking?
Yes there was some over zealous policing, but who can forget the current PB lockdown naysayers who wanted Steve Kinnock's nuts for delivering a socially distanced (whilst on foot) birthday cake to Neil, and all the while Johnson was partying (sorry "work eventing") like it was 1999.
And SKS was having a few beers with his colleagues. Because the virus read all the rules and guidelines and laws and adjusted its behaviour accordingly.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
That's not my recollection. Boris was resisting locking down until the government modellers told him otherwise; then he changed his tune immediately. And to be fair, we knew very little back then (including that the models were highly dubious!). I can forgive him following the modellers back then.
The ongoing COVID-19 Inquiry will, I'm sure, provide great detail on all of this in due course.
Although in a sense, it's a bit of a red herring as to whether it was imposed too early or too late. The key thing was precisely the square root of fuck all planning had been done for:
1) When it would be needed; 2) What effect it would have 3) How we would be able to come out of it 4) What restrictions might still be needed afterwards.
Which is how you had exams randomly cancelled at a press conference without OFQUAL being informed or consulted, for example (although to be fair given how useless they are I'm not sure what difference it would have made) and how we had the 'air bridge' that reseeded covid, followed by the attempt to reopen universities and schools as near to normal as possible that saw it go rampaging through the population again.
Those are the key lessons we need to learn. Plus simple things like quarantine for arrivals from infected areas (people say we couldn't do it. Bullshit. The Vietnamese managed it. So could we have done if we'd put our minds to it).
Hang on a minute. I though Johnson got all the big decisions right.
The UK government response was, by international standards, relatively libertarian.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
Yes, tend to agree.
I was slightly surprised on Eurostar to Brussels yesterday to see that masks are still officially mandatory. Compliance (both on the train and in Brussels) was patchy, but much more than on the Tube, where they are now a rarity. I'm not sure the situation has really changed all that much, but in the UK we've got to a "shrug, let's risk it" stage faster than some countries.
Absorbing case in all sorts of ways, though of course the fact that a little girl was murdered is more important than any other feature.
The Liverpool Echo gave fantastic high quality coverage online - five star stuff; this is very rare, and of course very costly, especially as you are giving it away free.
Three interesting points: Only a phenomenally deep investigation would have got close to solving it - thousands of hours of police time; there was no one bit of evidence that would have achieved it, but about 8 areas of interest which together were compelling. And most interesting of all, the list of relevant people who did not give evidence for either side. The silences were absolutely deafening.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
Arguably, in the second lockdown at least they took a very significant gamble in ending it at the earliest possible moment, taking the decision long before it was clear single doses of vaccines to the most vulnerable could dampen the effects.
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Remember, Starmer would have locked us down for another Christmas.
Anything the govt proposed in terms of action on COVID SKS proposed more extreme measures.
The Johnson variant, Remember that embarrasing comment from SKS.
The press and many media commentators also demanded the govt take stronger action too.
The UK government response was, by international standards, relatively libertarian.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
I agree - but - in the case of the UK government, they quickly went both mad and fairly useless. Briefly, the government can be blamed for: - The deliberate scaremongering/police overreach etc. - Not questioning transparently rubbish modelling - Not considering the cost of lockdown
I agree that the UK was far from alone in this. Very few governments come out of this with much credit. OTOH, government wasn't awful at everything, and the vaccine rollout was impressive.
Who can forget the two blondes nicked in Derbyshire for having a cup of coffee while hiking?
Yes there was some over zealous policing, but who can forget the current PB lockdown naysayers who wanted Steve Kinnock's nuts for delivering a socially distanced (whilst on foot) birthday cake to Neil, and all the while Johnson was partying (sorry "work eventing") like it was 1999.
And SKS was having a few beers with his colleagues. Because the virus read all the rules and guidelines and laws and adjusted its behaviour accordingly.
No it didn't which is why in principle Johnson's caution was to be welcomed. The only issue is his "do as I say, not as I do", attitude, and those PBers who, with the benefit of hindsight are so brave they would have laughed in the face of Covid and given it a good seeing to, if only Government had allowed.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
That's not my recollection. Boris was resisting locking down until the government modellers told him otherwise; then he changed his tune immediately. And to be fair, we knew very little back then (including that the models were highly dubious!). I can forgive him following the modellers back then.
The ongoing COVID-19 Inquiry will, I'm sure, provide great detail on all of this in due course.
Yes, I imagine the Guardian will take a really pro-government and pro-Boris view.
If we were late, we were late by a week or so, compared to some of our compatriots. If that. But look at the magnitude of the decision the government had to make: lockdowns were unprecedented in modern times, and the costs and risks were in both directions.
No government had had to face a crisis of the scale and magnitude of the Covid crisis since 1939.
And to take this to Labour: remember that Starmer wanted more lockdowns, and harder lockdowns. Was he correct in that?
I think first lockdown should have happened sooner, but I also agree that it was an unprecedented situation and I have a lot of sympathy for everyone in those early stages making difficult decisions. I do not wish to heap blame on Johnson for his error around the timing of the first lockdown. I do wish to heap blame on Johnson for many later decisions!
It's hard to know exactly what Starmer would actually have done had he been PM.
The UK government response was, by international standards, relatively libertarian.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
Yes, tend to agree.
I was slightly surprised on Eurostar to Brussels yesterday to see that masks are still officially mandatory. Compliance (both on the train and in Brussels) was patchy, but much more than on the Tube, where they are now a rarity. I'm not sure the situation has really changed all that much, but in the UK we've got to a "shrug, let's risk it" stage faster than some countries.
Nick was that just because of rules in Brussels? Nothing ever going to Paris now for ages...
Absorbing case in all sorts of ways, though of course the fact that a little girl was murdered is more important than any other feature.
The Liverpool Echo gave fantastic high quality coverage online - five star stuff; this is very rare, and of course very costly, especially as you are giving it away free.
Three interesting points: Only a phenomenally deep investigation would have got close to solving it - thousands of hours of police time; there was no one bit of evidence that would have achieved it, but about 8 areas of interest which together were compelling. And most interesting of all, the list of relevant people who did not give evidence for either side. The silences were absolutely deafening.
I am hugely impressed a conviction has been secured. Your point about people not giving evidence is relevant - but in situations like this - bad guys who can call upon significant and unpleasant pressure not to give evidence - the courage of those who do give evidence is remarkable.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
Maybe there shouldn't have been any lockdowns, except for people in vulnerable categories.
The first lockdown was probably politically unavoidable given the way the media reacted to Italy, irrespective of what the government had done.
A proper government, however, would have taken the attitude "as short as possible" and, in particular, wouldn't have contributed to the scaremongering.
As others have said in this thread, a good way of avoiding lockdowns is to reduce the spread of the virus through other means. At the beginning of a pandemic like this, before vaccines, the main tool you have to reduce spread is behaviour. You want to get the public to change their behaviour.
One way of getting people to change their behaviour is through worry. If people are worried about something, they might change their behaviour. If they're not, they probably won't. Thus, public health campaigns often focus on worry.
There is, also, a government duty to inform the public. At the beginning of a pandemic, that public duty to inform people will entail telling people scary stuff because pandemics are scary.
At the same time, we have to consider whether it is ethical to worry people unduly. Yes, I can change your behaviour if I scare the bejesus out of you, but that doesn't mean I should do that.
So, you end up with questions of whether you're appropriately informing the public, or are you inappropriately scaremongering? Different people come to different conclusions. Generally, I pay attention to the people whose conclusions are based on science and research, rather than those whose conclusions are based on reading the Daily Mail or the Spectator.
In our swine flu research, we found that you could shift behaviour without increasing worry in a couple of ways: increasing people's beliefs in the efficacy of the desired behaviours; and simply repeating messages around desired behaviours over and over. I felt that was a useful way of getting out of this conundrum of worrying over whether you are worrying people.
There are further factors that affect behaviour. In our COVID-19 research, we found that there were significant practical barriers to some behaviours, e.g. financial difficulties and having children were both associated with not self-isolating. If you do more to make behaviours easier, then again you can achieve behaviour change without increasing worry.
It also helps to promote the right behaviours! We should have been promoting mask wearing much earlier. Air filtration has also been mentioned in this discussion. I say this with hindsight, of course.
Again, we'll see what the COVID-19 Inquiry says, but maybe the Johnson Government sometimes favoured scaring people or the threat of criminal sanctions while neglecting other mechanisms for encouraging desired behaviours (removing practical barriers, encouraging social norms). I'd speculate that this is because it was a Conservative government. Conservatives tend to see behaviour change in those terms, whereas a more left-wing government might have focused more on structural factors.
Some points here:
(a) People showed they were willing to change behaviour without lockdown - that should have been supported (b) By the government's own admission, mask wearing was about having a visible sign that you were trying to do something, not actually about doing something. Far from being promoted earlier, it should never have been promoted at all - it was dehumanising and added to the culture of fear that made restrictions harder to move away from
Obviously terrible for the Nats - hahahahaha - but interesting that it implies support for indy is relatively unchanged
45: YES 55: NO
Just like it was in the 2014 referendum, which happened nearly a decade ago. It is becoming an immutable fact of Scots politics
Off topic
Sorry to hear about DM Thomas's passing. I read a decent obit in the Graun. Lauded by Graham Greene is certainly something to cherish. Thoughts to all those who were close.
Wait, that's from a Panelbase poll from BEFORE the leadership result, and before much of the worst of the SNP scandals? Isn't it? That's what the original tweet suggests. Or am I wrong?
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat
To be honest after the multiple resignations, the persistent rumours of visits from the Plod and the bitter leadership campaign I suspect the SNP would take that. It could and should have been a lot worse. It seems that the underlying support for independence is still protecting the SNP somewhat. But the bad news is maybe not finished yet.
The SNP might hold the seat if Boris Johnson receives a lenient sentence compared to Ferrier.
If Johnson isn't kicked out, Ferrier might hold the seat...
I don't see how that happens now.
Although in purely spreading-the-virus terms what Ferrier did is far worse than anything Boris did, he was PM and gets held to a higher standard.
In terms of what Johnson did, i.e. where he was and what he did in No. 10, you’re probably correct. In terms of all the gatherings that happened in No. 10 under Johnson’s leadership, the drinking culture and the multiple parties, possibly not.
In terms of the political decisions Johnson took, e.g. being slow to call the second lockdown, definitely not!
Long term, second lockdown will cause far more deaths than it saved.
Would you like to provide some evidence, or indeed a rationale, for that statement?
Short(ish) answer: Several reasons, but two stand out: 1) My personal hobbyhorse: the catastrophic effect lockdown has had on children, particularly those who were very young in 2020. The number of children in years 1/2/3 with special educational needs is absolutely off the charts. 2) The disastrous effect of lockdown on the economy, which will make many individuals poorer and the state considerably poorer. Leaving less money to be spent on health.
Taken together, the number of life years lost as a result of lockdown will, in my view, considerably outweigh the number of life years which were saved as a result of lockdown. We don't know what this would be. We have models, but we also know from the models given for the Dec 2021 lockdown which didn't happen, and other instances, that the models were vastly, vastly overstated.
I'm not arguing that nothing should have been done. Lockdown was on a scale, rather than on/off. But the optimum solution was considerably less lockdown than actually happened.
Thanks.
We can quibble over what the negative effects of lockdown are, but I agree a shorter lockdown would obviously have reduced those negative effects.
Had Johnson called the first and second lockdowns sooner, they would have been more effective at cutting cases and could have been shorter in duration. So, it doesn't matter whether we agree or not on the precise costs of lockdown, we can agree that Johnson being slow to call lockdowns had a negative impact in terms of virus spread, in terms of deaths from COVID-19 and in terms of the various costs associated with lockdown.
Firstly, I've looked back at this exchange, and apologies for sounding a bit pompous - I didn't sound so in my head, but it can be difficult to do 'tone' on the internet!
I can see the argument that you are making. I think I probably agree that being slow to call lockdown had a negative impact in terms of virus spread - though the relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best. What might the counterfactual have been? We might equally have had a shorter, briefer peak; we might have had no difference at all. In terms of deaths from covid? Perhaps, but the relationship here gets weaker still. I'm not convinced that an earlier lockdown could or would have led to a shorter lockdown though. In modelling terms, it would have flattened the curve (if it worked), slowing rather than stopping the spread - so wouldn't have reduced the period covid was around. And I don't think the political will to lift lockdown would have been any greater. From both a mathematical or a human reading of the situation I think we would have ended up with a longer lockdown (and therefore greater costs).
And again, if all this sounds a bit pompous, I apologise. I'm sceptical about the benefits of most aspects of lockdown (in particular school closures - again, my particular hobbyhorse) - but I don't want to come across as angry man on the internet.
COVID-19 cases were growing exponentially. Lockdown stops most spread. (I am unclear why you say the "relationship between rules imposed by government and spread of the virus was weak at best".) You can come out of lockdown when cases fall below a certain threshold. If you lockdown sooner, you lockdown when cases are lower and so it takes less time for cases to fall below your threshold. Generally, if you are going to need to lockdown, it makes sense to lockdown earlier. That way you spend less time in lockdown.
Of course, you may not know that you're going to need to lockdown until later. That's the challenge!
In theory, yes. In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect. And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
COVID-19 was never running out of people to infect during these periods.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
By spring/summer 2021, yes. Not at the beginning - throughout 2020 the government let the modellers rule.
Not true. First lockdown came later than many modellers advised.
And many modellers probably ascribed a zero value to the momentous decision to lock down an entire country and all the implications and consequences of this to our society and its constituents.
Fuckers on here let alone those less well-educated were crying out for more and longer lockdowns which would, famously, allow them more time for charming walks around their apple orchards.
Modellers model. They were asked to model how the disease was expected to spread and how it would spread under different scenarios (e.g. lockdown or not).
Politicians decide policy. It was the politicians job to weigh up the different risks, the different costs, of different actions.
It wasn't the (SPI-M) modellers' job to consider the other consequences to society and its constituents. That is not what they were asked to do. They modelled disease spread in response to Government's questions. Government weighed up the many different factors and chose a path.
Certain people, generally on the right, have this strange fantasy that the modellers were in control. They weren't. Johnson and his Government made the decisions.
Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. If every day at 5pm the PM and the CMO and whoever the other guy was had come into the room and opined upon the dangers of rock climbing, within the week rock climbing would have been banned. Or cigarettes. Or cycling. Or being driven by @Dura_Ace. But they didn't and those things remain legal subject to sensible, voluntary precautions. Or advice.
I don't for one minute blame the modellers. But then don't say "modellers wanted an earlier lockdown" as though a politician wouldn't take note of that. Modellers, together with the CMO, for some time were running the country and I blame the politicians for that.
Modellers were never running the country. That's a fantasy. I was closer to all this than you. I saw Ministers, civil servants and outside advisers coming together to try and solve the myriad of problems caused by the pandemic. But it was always clear that the politicians retained power.
Comments
In practice, covid cases stopped exponentiating well before legal measures were brought in. Presumably because of either natural behaviour change or running out of people to infect.
And you can set a threshold and say 'lockdown will finish when this is reached' - but that didn't really happen. Lockdown finished when ministers thought it politically viable to do so. Which given they had spent such an effort frightening the willies out of people, didn't happen quickly.
That's pretty high on the "don't do" list, I would have thought. Just below, "don't murder the beneficiaries."
What you do achieve is a lower burden of cases overall, and therefore fewer deaths and less additional load on the health service.
The record of the 2015 cohort is indeed poor but in fairness that was when there was a huge and probably unexpected wave of success for the SNP with them winning seats they probably didn't even dream about. I suspect that a lot of their candidates were thought to be paper candidates before the election and found themselves as MPs without being looked at particularly closely. Other parties have got caught out in a similar way in wave elections.
And you certainly never murder beneficiaries before they have written a will appointing your firm executors.
And time and again, we never got to find out. I think school closures were probably unnecessary in lockdowns 1 and 2, but with Alpha spreading as it did, the spread only slowed and reversed after schools were closed between January and early March 2021. But if we'd sorted things out sooner and with better and clearer sight on what gave us what, maybe even that shutdown could have been averted.
Even now, I believe that if we'd gone for Tier Three in more places when the tiered system was in, we might have averted both of the latter lockdowns and any school closures. At the time, we were locally calling for going from Tier 2 to Tier 3 (local politicians of all parties), whilst the local Tory MPs pressed for us to go down to Tier 1. Two weeks later, we were in the November lockdown.
Ventilation and filtration were a key area that weren't followed up on, and all the research I've seen in them since points to a widespread rollout of HEPA filters being really effective. I'd like detailed research to be done, because if something like a working Test & Trace plus Tier One-style restrictions plus HEPA (with no school closures) equates to the full-on lockdown-plus-school-closures of the winter lockdown (which some of the research I looked at indicates would be about the equivalence), to me it's a no brainer.
Likewise Johnson, although his defence that he is so blindingly stupid as to tell a lie deliberately, is genius quality obfuscation.
With 1st lockdown, behaviour change was reducing spread slightly before the lockdown began, but the lockdown reduced spread much more. With 2nd lockdown, I don't recall the rate of increase falling significantly before lockdown was imposed.
Lockdown indeed finished when ministers thought it was politically viable. Ultimately, a decision that has so much impact on society in so many ways has to be a political decision. Generally, Government seemed keen to end lockdowns as soon as reasonably possible, keen to get the credit for bringing freedom to the people. The idea that Government was willingly extending lockdown more than needed isn't very credible.
https://twitter.com/TreasChest/status/1641440121441464320/photo/2
Fortunately it was a gamble that paid off.
Yes. What is too often forgotten in the covid lockdown postmortem is that were several lockdowns, some with rather more justification than others, and various grades of lockdown, some more effective than others. So many people fall into a broad category of supporting some-not-all lockdowns. You can argue the toss over each one but the debate will mostly be around the margins.
The real scandal – and the one that heads really ought to have rolled for – was the disgraceful act of the Christmas Omicron lockdown-by-stealth. Government outriders – eg Chris "Everything Known About Omicron Is Bad" Whitty were sent to scare the hell out of the public in the face of the international evidence from South Africa, which was airily waved away with colonial superiority. There was no government support for closing pubs and restaurants, yet they lost all of their Christmas bookings, which hammered an industry that was already on its knees, destroying businesses and putting people on the dole.
Yet the South African medics were absolutely right: omicron was indeed mild and Whitty and friends' lurid warnings were baseless.
A national shame.
But I grant you that it was less extreme than Italy had at its peak, and was completely different in scope to the lockdowns in Australia/NZ or Asia (ex Japan)
If you went out and subsequently killed your, or indeed any granny.
She shouldn't even have taken the first train, let alone the second.
It was the good citizens of the UK who for whatever reason, perhaps government duress, perhaps fear, perhaps government induced fear, perhaps something else, embraced lockdowns and more often than not wanted longer, harsher ones.
Not your fault at all.
If R is 2 with no restrictions, and 0.8 with them, and restrictions are only removed when the case load falls below a certain level, then the earlier you get restrictions on, the less total time is spent in lockdown.
https://news.sky.com/story/mp-margaret-ferrier-sentenced-to-270-hours-of-community-service-for-breaching-covid-rules-12696302
Wasn't it 14% of people wanted nightclubs to stay closed forever.
The Johnson variant, Remember that embarrasing comment from SKS.
The press and many media commentators also demanded the govt take stronger action too.
But Britain had three. If lockdown one had started earlier, and ended earlier, then lockdown two would have had* to start earlier, and so you would have ended up having more lockdowns, maybe five or six or more, each individually shorter, but adding up to the same time in lockdown overall.
This is because, mathematically with our simple model, you can get the infection rate in the final week by multiplying the infection rate in week 0 by R for every week - and it makes no difference which order the weeks with low R or high R are in.
* Assuming all else equal.
The amount of spread is proportional to the number of cases. If you keep cases lower, there is less spread.
Fuckers on here let alone those less well-educated were crying out for more and longer lockdowns which would, famously, allow them more time for charming walks around their apple orchards.
You do have the advantage of a lower burden of cases overall, but you don't spend less time in lockdown.
Agreed re UK arrogance towards S Africa in this period though, and the doom-mongering.
And to be fair, we knew very little back then (including that the models were highly dubious!). I can forgive him following the modellers back then.
A proper government, however, would have taken the attitude "as short as possible" and, in particular, wouldn't have contributed to the scaremongering.
I still can’t fault most goverments on the initial response, it was so far outside the experience of anyone alive, and they all acted in good faith and with the best advise they could find.
Maybe I'll try to convince you later if I have time and your haven't worked out of for yourself by then.
Politicians decide policy. It was the politicians job to weigh up the different risks, the different costs, of different actions.
It wasn't the (SPI-M) modellers' job to consider the other consequences to society and its constituents. That is not what they were asked to do. They modelled disease spread in response to Government's questions. Government weighed up the many different factors and chose a path.
Certain people, generally on the right, have this strange fantasy that the modellers were in control. They weren't. Johnson and his Government made the decisions.
Every infection is an opportunity to evolve; each one is very very very unlikely, but multiply up enough and you get certainty.
The higher the level, the faster you get variants like Alpha and Delta (and Omicron which - as mentioned - wasn't inherently much less dangerous than the original strain (but was less dangerous than the Delta strain), but ran into our immune wall). And the more variants you get.
A lower level could have escaped Alpha. We'd still have been hit by Delta in summer of 2021, but the faster-spreading Alpha (which was too infectious to be held by the November lockdown level) could theoretically have been avoided.
Edit. PS You and the two clowns who have liked your post hang your heads in shame!
"Defense Ministry: Russian, Ukrainian losses in east 10 to 1 some days.
Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said on Telegram that there are days in Ukraine's east where the ratio of Russian and Ukrainian losses is "as high as 10 to 1.""
https://twitter.com/KyivIndependent/status/1641262471179583492
- The deliberate scaremongering/police overreach etc.
- Not questioning transparently rubbish modelling
- Not considering the cost of lockdown
I agree that the UK was far from alone in this. Very few governments come out of this with much credit.
OTOH, government wasn't awful at everything, and the vaccine rollout was impressive.
Strangely enough, looking back, the famous Imperial College model was significantly too optimistic, modelling a lower rate of spread (R of 2.4 vs R of 3) and a lower IFR (0.6% versus 1.0-1.3%) than actually occurred.
Seriously, go to Excel or Google Sheets and use my Rs and whatever you want as the trigger points for implementing and removing restrictions.
You will find that the earlier you implement restrictions, the less time you spend with them, because declines are more gradual than rises.
While we wait for that, I note this Guardian article, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/mar/16/uks-response-to-covid-issues-that-a-public-inquiry-could-examine , quotes John Edmunds, who was on SAGE, as saying first lockdown was too late. That's my recollection, that Johnson was slow to hit the button on first lockdown.
That's what happens with the vast majority of coronavirus spillovers (https://www.ijidonline.com/article/S1201-9712(23)00064-4/fulltext)
[Of 693 people screened between July 2017 and February 2020, 12.1% were seropositive for sarbecoviruses. Individuals were significantly more likely to have been exposed to sarbecoviruses if their main livelihood involved working in extractive industries (logging, hunting, or harvesting of forest products; OR = 2.71, P = 0.019) or had been hunting / slaughtering bats (OR = 6.09, P = 0.020). Exposure to a range of bat and pangolin sarbecoviruses were identified.]
But these successful cross-infections from animals to humans damp out because you need a big superspreader event or two or three in close succession. Then you're away.
If we were late, we were late by a week or so, compared to some of our compatriots. If that. But look at the magnitude of the decision the government had to make: lockdowns were unprecedented in modern times, and the costs and risks were in both directions.
No government had had to face a crisis of the scale and magnitude of the Covid crisis since 1939.
And to take this to Labour: remember that Starmer wanted more lockdowns, and harder lockdowns. Was he correct in that?
With those numbers you will spend three-quarters of your time in lockdown whether you impose lockdown early or late.
I was eating dinner in the local pub I always used. It was almost dead. The waitress was nearly in tears. We had a chat and she said that she knew they'd be cutting their hours hugely or letting them go because no-one was going to come in, and she had bills to pay. I said that there had to be a support package (I have never been happier to have been proven right).
When we discuss the economic cost of lockdown, we sometimes forget the economic cost of not locking down. I believe it was rcs1000 who pointed out that the total footfall in restaurants in the UK through 2020 was a bit higher than that in many states in the US who didn't lock down - because people were considerably more confident to go out in unlocked-down times in the UK.
I don't for one minute blame the modellers. But then don't say "modellers wanted an earlier lockdown" as though a politician wouldn't take note of that. Modellers, together with the CMO, for some time were running the country and I blame the politicians for that.
1) When it would be needed;
2) What effect it would have
3) How we would be able to come out of it
4) What restrictions might still be needed afterwards.
Which is how you had exams randomly cancelled at a press conference without OFQUAL being informed or consulted, for example (although to be fair given how useless they are I'm not sure what difference it would have made) and how we had the 'air bridge' that reseeded covid, followed by the attempt to reopen universities and schools as near to normal as possible that saw it go rampaging through the population again.
Those are the key lessons we need to learn. Plus simple things like quarantine for arrivals from infected areas (people say we couldn't do it. Bullshit. The Vietnamese managed it. So could we have done if we'd put our minds to it).
One way of getting people to change their behaviour is through worry. If people are worried about something, they might change their behaviour. If they're not, they probably won't. Thus, public health campaigns often focus on worry.
There is, also, a government duty to inform the public. At the beginning of a pandemic, that public duty to inform people will entail telling people scary stuff because pandemics are scary.
At the same time, we have to consider whether it is ethical to worry people unduly. Yes, I can change your behaviour if I scare the bejesus out of you, but that doesn't mean I should do that.
So, you end up with questions of whether you're appropriately informing the public, or are you inappropriately scaremongering? Different people come to different conclusions. Generally, I pay attention to the people whose conclusions are based on science and research, rather than those whose conclusions are based on reading the Daily Mail or the Spectator.
In our swine flu research, we found that you could shift behaviour without increasing worry in a couple of ways: increasing people's beliefs in the efficacy of the desired behaviours; and simply repeating messages around desired behaviours over and over. I felt that was a useful way of getting out of this conundrum of worrying over whether you are worrying people.
There are further factors that affect behaviour. In our COVID-19 research, we found that there were significant practical barriers to some behaviours, e.g. financial difficulties and having children were both associated with not self-isolating. If you do more to make behaviours easier, then again you can achieve behaviour change without increasing worry.
It also helps to promote the right behaviours! We should have been promoting mask wearing much earlier. Air filtration has also been mentioned in this discussion. I say this with hindsight, of course.
Again, we'll see what the COVID-19 Inquiry says, but maybe the Johnson Government sometimes favoured scaring people or the threat of criminal sanctions while neglecting other mechanisms for encouraging desired behaviours (removing practical barriers, encouraging social norms). I'd speculate that this is because it was a Conservative government. Conservatives tend to see behaviour change in those terms, whereas a more left-wing government might have focused more on structural factors.
It seems to me that it might be a very good way of limiting the spread of a great many viruses, but I am completely ignorant of how they work and I don't know what the cost/benefit analysis would be. Any thoughts?
bouncecrater.Behind the headline, Scottish Labour now well within touching distance of the snp. Scottish Parliament constituency ballot:
SNP 39% (-8)
Lab 31% (+7)
Con 14% (-1)
Lib8% (+1)
Gr 6% (+2)
regional list:
SNP 32% (-7)
Labour 27% (+3)
Con17% (-)
Gr 12% (+3)
Lib8% (+1)
https://twitter.com/livvyjohn/status/1641448609509150723
I was slightly surprised on Eurostar to Brussels yesterday to see that masks are still officially mandatory. Compliance (both on the train and in Brussels) was patchy, but much more than on the Tube, where they are now a rarity. I'm not sure the situation has really changed all that much, but in the UK we've got to a "shrug, let's risk it" stage faster than some countries.
The Liverpool Echo gave fantastic high quality coverage online - five star stuff; this is very rare, and of course very costly, especially as you are giving it away free.
Three interesting points: Only a phenomenally deep investigation would have got close to solving it - thousands of hours of police time; there was no one bit of evidence that would have achieved it, but about 8 areas of interest which together were compelling. And most interesting of all, the list of relevant people who did not give evidence for either side. The silences were absolutely deafening.
Ouch !!!!
It's hard to know exactly what Starmer would actually have done had he been PM.
45: YES
55: NO
Just like it was in the 2014 referendum, which happened nearly a decade ago. It is becoming an immutable fact of Scots politics
Your point about people not giving evidence is relevant - but in situations like this - bad guys who can call upon significant and unpleasant pressure not to give evidence - the courage of those who do give evidence is remarkable.
(a) People showed they were willing to change behaviour without lockdown - that should have been supported
(b) By the government's own admission, mask wearing was about having a visible sign that you were trying to do something, not actually about doing something. Far from being promoted earlier, it should never have been promoted at all - it was dehumanising and added to the culture of fear that made restrictions harder to move away from
Sorry to hear about DM Thomas's passing. I read a decent obit in the Graun. Lauded by Graham Greene is certainly something to cherish. Thoughts to all those who were close.
So we can expect the next poll to be considerably better/worse for the Nats, depending on whether you think Humza Yousaf is a Churchillian genius comparable with Lincoln/twat