There have been some (very few) stupid comments on social media about the country getting what it deserves. Usually from young and very ill informed Eurofanatics who don't seem to be able to grasp how serious this is. They don't seem to be able to make the connection between stupid old people who voted for Brexit and stole our futures and their own grandparents who are equally at risk.
I genuinely hope they are never forced to face that reality.
7.4 During a pandemic, the Government will encourage those who are well to carry on with their normal daily lives for as long and as far as that is possible, whilst taking basic precautions to protect themselves from infection and lessen the risk of spreading influenza to others (see Chapter 4). The UK Government does not plan to close borders, stop mass gatherings or impose controls on public transport during any pandemic.
Slowing the pandemic curve, Asian versus Western style.
But they are stupid and do daft things like wearing masks.
What chart are you looking at? I see the UK doing better than S Korea, and worse than Japan/HK/Singapore. And Italy only slightly worse than S Korea.
Also the Japanese line seems to have what I would describe as the equivalent of an asterisk next to it.
The one in the FT that I quoted.
I noted that Asian countries are doing better than Western ones. South Korea is an obvious outlier because they had a crazy sect which spread it rapidly throughout the country. But they've got it under control now.
Are you actually contesting the point that Asian countries are doing better than Western ones? lol only on pb.
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
My guess at least with China is they will rush to create a vaccine, force everybody to have it and also go into overdrive to be prepared when it comes back again.
They are already rolling out AI backed app that tells citizens if they have been in close contact with a positive case and automatically assesses if they should be quarantining themselves.
With tech, they always follow the model of rip off the IP, rapid prototype, find that it breaks / doesn't work, fix it, evolve. So again they will hope in 10 months time this app (and the fact they can enforce it) will be very good at stopping it going widespread.
The advantage of an authoritarian state is if your app is crap, you won't have 100s of tweets wailing about it. They will simply be removed.
Theres a name from the past. Got paid £10.8m to leave News International after the phone hacking scandal. Now same role in its direct successor NewsUK. All right for some.
I don't share the opprobrium. He has a unique opportunity to raise healthcare, which has been a central issue for him all his political life, as a national issue and particularly at the Sunday debate, although I hope he bows out sooner rather than later if results don't go his way.
I also think in an election called tomorrow, or sometime over the next couple of months of crisis, either candidate would probably beat Trump. If things have settled down by the autumn, obviously, that's not so clear, which is why I'd prefer him to bow out in a week or two if he doesn't stage a comeback.
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
I think the 80% is probably high.
Why? Because we may well have a cure (or something that severely limits the virus's infection capability, like Tamiflu does with influenza), or a vaccine.
And even if we don't get those things, there are fewer and fewer people who can catch the disease each time around. Once 50% of people have had it, it's effectively 50% less likely to spread as you need to have twice the contact to come into the same number of vulnerable people.
But yes, the humps is right. And it's the right way to deal with. It allows health services not to be overloaded. It gives us time to improve our capability to deal with the virus.
There is a meaningful economic hit. Lots of people die. But it's not an existential threat.
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
My guess at least with China is they will rush to create a vaccine, force everybody to have it and also go into overdrive to be prepared when it comes back again.
They are already rolling out AI backed app that tells citizens if they have been in close contact with a positive case and automatically assesses if they should be quarantining themselves.
They always follow the model of rapid prototype, break it, fix it, evolve. So again they will hope in 10 months time this app (and the fact they can enforce it) will be very good at stopping it going widespread.
Future outbreaks may see less bursts because everyone will remember the first wave. Early action as soon as cases arise means less need for drastic actions down the line.
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
My guess at least with China is they will rush to create a vaccine, force everybody to have it and also go into overdrive to be prepared when it comes back again.
They are already rolling out AI backed app that tells citizens if they have been in close contact with a positive case and automatically assesses if they should be quarantining themselves.
With tech, they always follow the model of rip off the IP, rapid prototype, find that it breaks / doesn't work, fix it, evolve. So again they will hope in 10 months time this app (and the fact they can enforce it) will be very good at stopping it going widespread.
The advantage of an authoritarian state is if your app is crap, you won't have 100s of tweets wailing about it. They will simply be removed.
Its a very different model from the one Europe is using. It was clear from Merkel's unguarded comments they are on the same page as us. I suspect that their success in stopping SARS has given the Asians belief that other outcomes are possible.
I have so many friends in the hospitality industry who are just going to be destroyed by this.
2-3 months with almost no income? Maybe longer?
Nightmare
Government has to effectively nationalise all this type of business. We cannot come out of this and find there is not a single local pub, cafe or hotel left.
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
I think the 80% is probably high.
Why? Because we may well have a cure (or something that severely limits the virus's infection capability, like Tamiflu does with influenza), or a vaccine.
And even if we don't get those things, there are fewer and fewer people who can catch the disease each time around. Once 50% of people have had it, it's effectively 50% less likely to spread as you need to have twice the contact to come into the same number of vulnerable people.
But yes, the humps is right. And it's the right way to deal with. It allows health services not to be overloaded. It gives us time to improve our capability to deal with the virus.
There is a meaningful economic hit. Lots of people die. But it's not an existential threat.
This is why I think we are making a mistake not following the Asian models (and there are several variants). There is an element of fatalism in our approach that they do not share. And if we get a vaccine next year they will have been right and we will have been wrong.
I have so many friends in the hospitality industry who are just going to be destroyed by this.
2-3 months with almost no income? Maybe longer?
Nightmare
Government has to effectively nationalise all this type of business. We cannot come out of this and find there is not a single local pub, cafe or hotel left.
People will innovate. It's what services like Deliveroo and Justeat were invented for. They didn't shut in the war, and whatever people say, that was a bit more serious than this.
Not altogether surprising. There wasn't much in it about paying back the debt and stopping all this borrowing which they had promised to sort out by some years ago. I don't know how borrowing all this ocean of money at practically nil rates is going to end in a bust up of some sort, but surely it will, even if The Economist (last week) can prove it is all fine with graphics to prove it.
He was a bit quiet on the smaller state too. Given how much Heseltine hates the current lot running the Tories it's odd that they are running his economic policies.
On the other hand Labour must be really enjoying Boris and co. get all the credit for enacting Labour policy on borrow and spend.
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Interesting thread on the budget. This, like all other budgets, is ultimately a political statement. Rightly or wrongly the Conservative Party has abandoned all fiscal restraint, which is quite an astonishing thing to say.
Their own estimates when they prepared the changes were that about 66% of existing contractors were legitimately outside IR35 and 34% inside. The aim was (quite rightly) to catch the 34%.
So 34% of contractors were basically taking the piss out of the system ? No wonder the Gov't changed it. Laws aren't made up for the law abiding majority...
No they weren't. That was HMRC's estimate but every time they took cases to court they lost. That was the main driver behind the change. If the law won't back you then find someone you can threaten who will do it instead. In this case it was the clients themselves.
Spot on. HMRC made an absolute pig's ear of it initially, getting their backside kicked repeatedly in the courts. As you say, they have now turned their guns on to clients in the hope that enough of them will be skittish enough to bring the contractors inside. As someone implied up thread, there are enough moneyed clients out their with overly risk-averse compliance departments who are now doing the taxman's dirty work for him. Trouble is, there are also lots of firms just over the turnover/employee threshold for whom such capitulation would be ruinous. HMRC has won the latest battle, but the war is far from over!
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
I think the 80% is probably high.
Why? Because we may well have a cure (or something that severely limits the virus's infection capability, like Tamiflu does with influenza), or a vaccine.
And even if we don't get those things, there are fewer and fewer people who can catch the disease each time around. Once 50% of people have had it, it's effectively 50% less likely to spread as you need to have twice the contact to come into the same number of vulnerable people.
But yes, the humps is right. And it's the right way to deal with. It allows health services not to be overloaded. It gives us time to improve our capability to deal with the virus.
There is a meaningful economic hit. Lots of people die. But it's not an existential threat.
I think the 80% after 4 years is i) the upper bound, ii) assuming there is no vaccine I cant see a cure helping much pecause that implies people will still get ill, and iii) is relevant to cities. In rural areas there will be places with very few postives and a few villages with everyone infected.
Our aim is to make it 80% in 4 years and not 80% in 6 months!
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Probably not. Don't see Johnson getting involved in any doomed military adventures.
There have been some (very few) stupid comments on social media about the country getting what it deserves. Usually from young and very ill informed Eurofanatics who don't seem to be able to grasp how serious this is. They don't seem to be able to make the connection between stupid old people who voted for Brexit and stole our futures and their own grandparents who are equally at risk.
I genuinely hope they are never forced to face that reality.
The peiple I have seen on my facebook newsfeed making snide comments about this serving the country right for Brexit are neither young nor stupid. Middle aged, middle class mothers. C of E vicars. Oxford graduates. All in their forties.
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Slowing the pandemic curve, Asian versus Western style.
But they are stupid and do daft things like wearing masks.
What chart are you looking at? I see the UK doing better than S Korea, and worse than Japan/HK/Singapore. And Italy only slightly worse than S Korea.
Also the Japanese line seems to have what I would describe as the equivalent of an asterisk next to it.
The one in the FT that I quoted.
I noted that Asian countries are doing better than Western ones. South Korea is an obvious outlier because they had a crazy sect which spread it rapidly throughout the country. But they've got it under control now.
Are you actually contesting the point that Asian countries are doing better than Western ones? lol only on pb.
It was a rhetorical question, and try looking at it again with your pre-existing prejudices turned off.
Excluding the US, which is fairly obviously heading in an horrendous direction, almost all the countries are pretty tightly grouped. There are three obvious outliers below, of which one is Western (Italy), one is Eastern (S Korea), and one is neither (Iran).
Japan might be an outlier on the other side, but also they might just not be testing enough. Neither HK nor Singapore is directly comparable to the UK/France/Germany etc, for the usual obvious reasons.
So, yes, there's not a lot of evidence for your assertion. At least not from the exhibit you provided.
And you almost breath a sigh of relief that its not worse.
As I had a hunch earlier today, bad as that is, it's not quite as bad as it could be.
IF I'm not mistaken that's the biggest leap yet in deaths and cases in one day?
BUT I haven't crunched the numbers yet
As Chameleon mentioned, a 3k or so rise would have been at the worst end of predictions. The rate of increase of deaths also needs careful looking at. With the seriousness of this, every part of the statistics may have implications for all of us.
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Bozza must be the most leftwing Tory PM of all time.
I have so many friends in the hospitality industry who are just going to be destroyed by this.
2-3 months with almost no income? Maybe longer?
Nightmare
Government has to effectively nationalise all this type of business. We cannot come out of this and find there is not a single local pub, cafe or hotel left.
People will innovate. It's what services like Deliveroo and Justeat were invented for. They didn't shut in the war, and whatever people say, that was a bit more serious than this.
People weren't forbidden to go to pubs, bars, restaurants, hotels and sundry places of entertainment during the War. We can only hope that the Government doesn't feel obliged to implement Italian measures.
I have so many friends in the hospitality industry who are just going to be destroyed by this.
2-3 months with almost no income? Maybe longer?
Nightmare
Government has to effectively nationalise all this type of business. We cannot come out of this and find there is not a single local pub, cafe or hotel left.
People will innovate. It's what services like Deliveroo and Justeat were invented for. They didn't shut in the war, and whatever people say, that was a bit more serious than this.
Just for fun:
Total military and civilian deaths in the UK in WW2: ~447,000
Anticipated UK deaths if coronavirus infects 70% and kills 2%: ~920,000
Of course 70% is very high. But that's what Ms Merkel expects for Germany.
It would appear our ideas of fun are widely different.
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
I think the 80% is probably high.
Why? Because we may well have a cure (or something that severely limits the virus's infection capability, like Tamiflu does with influenza), or a vaccine.
And even if we don't get those things, there are fewer and fewer people who can catch the disease each time around. Once 50% of people have had it, it's effectively 50% less likely to spread as you need to have twice the contact to come into the same number of vulnerable people.
But yes, the humps is right. And it's the right way to deal with. It allows health services not to be overloaded. It gives us time to improve our capability to deal with the virus.
There is a meaningful economic hit. Lots of people die. But it's not an existential threat.
I think the 80% after 4 years is i) the upper bound, ii) assuming there is no vaccine I cant see a cure helping much pecause that implies people will still get ill, and iii) is relevant to cities. In rural areas there will be places with very few postives and a few villages with everyone infected.
Our aim is to make it 80% in 4 years and not 80% in 6 months!
A cure does matter, though. At Christmas, my daughter got Influenza, and then I did. But because I got tamiflu pretty much immediately, the infection stopped at me. According to my doctor, within 24 hours of taking tamiflu, you cease being infectious. So, if you have lots of testing and the ability to cure before the symptoms get serious, you are able to slow the effect markedly.
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Johnson isn't a social democrat. He's a populist of the Berlusconi school - sort of on topic. FWIW the current unsustainable Italian debt mountain is largely due to Berlusconi.
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
I think the 80% is probably high.
Why? Because we may well have a cure (or something that severely limits the virus's infection capability, like Tamiflu does with influenza), or a vaccine.
And even if we don't get those things, there are fewer and fewer people who can catch the disease each time around. Once 50% of people have had it, it's effectively 50% less likely to spread as you need to have twice the contact to come into the same number of vulnerable people.
But yes, the humps is right. And it's the right way to deal with. It allows health services not to be overloaded. It gives us time to improve our capability to deal with the virus.
There is a meaningful economic hit. Lots of people die. But it's not an existential threat.
This is why I think we are making a mistake not following the Asian models (and there are several variants). There is an element of fatalism in our approach that they do not share. And if we get a vaccine next year they will have been right and we will have been wrong.
It's not just fatalism. It's arrogance. They seem to arrogantly believe that they can allow the number of infections to rise, but that they will retain control over how quickly they rise, instead of losing control as Italy has done. It's astonishingly reckless and I fear we will come to regret it.
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Bozza must be the most leftwing Tory PM of all time.
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
I think the 80% is probably high.
Why? Because we may well have a cure (or something that severely limits the virus's infection capability, like Tamiflu does with influenza), or a vaccine.
And even if we don't get those things, there are fewer and fewer people who can catch the disease each time around. Once 50% of people have had it, it's effectively 50% less likely to spread as you need to have twice the contact to come into the same number of vulnerable people.
But yes, the humps is right. And it's the right way to deal with. It allows health services not to be overloaded. It gives us time to improve our capability to deal with the virus.
There is a meaningful economic hit. Lots of people die. But it's not an existential threat.
Obviously the 80% figure is based on an estimate of the effective reproduction number of the virus, called R. The number of new cases produced by each case, in the absence of any existing immunity. Your 50% argument is the reason why it's 80%, not 100%. The fraction that will remain uninfected is 1/R. This is all very basic epidemiology modelling.
Apparently that 80% figure is based on an assumption that R=5, which seems extremely large. I don't know where it comes from. The estimate for R0 in the WHO-China Joint Mission report is 2-2.5. But of course even that is the _basic_ number, not the _effective_ number. That is, it's the number in the absence of any intervention to change people's natural behaviour. In China, the epidemic has been effectively stopped because the effective number was reduced to less than 1. The same seems to have been done in South Korea.
It's a matter of policy whether we try to do the same here, or whether we just go for "herd immunity" by allowing the majority of the population to contract the infection. That would "get it over with," with significant but relatively small fatality among the working-age population, but at the cost of a huge number of elderly people dying. But anyway, it seems to have been decided that we're going to do that, rather than follow the Chinese/Korean route.
So... Coronavirus prevention is a little bit like a sales funnel. (Bear with me.)
A traditional sales funnel for an app looks like this:
We run an advert that reaches 1,000,000 people. Which results in 10,000 (1%) of people going to our website. Which results in 100 adding our product to their shopping cart. Which results in 10 people getting to the credit card screen. And 1 person actually purchasing the product.
Great businesses work to optimise each stage of the waterfall. What can we do to change the 1% of people going to our website to 1.5%? And how do we make it easier to add the product to the cart? Can we change the credit card uptake to 20% by adding a "Buy with Paypal" option?
Small changes multiply. You optimise each bit.
And the same is true of Coronavirus. If we change the number of people washing their hands, that has an impact. If 20% of people work from home... If sporting events are cancelled... etc. etc.
Lots of small changes, working to together, has a big impact.
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Bozza must be the most leftwing Tory PM of all time.
I have been saying for some time Boris is on the liberal side of the party, and is the reason I continue to support him and the government
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
I think the 80% is probably high.
Why? Because we may well have a cure (or something that severely limits the virus's infection capability, like Tamiflu does with influenza), or a vaccine.
And even if we don't get those things, there are fewer and fewer people who can catch the disease each time around. Once 50% of people have had it, it's effectively 50% less likely to spread as you need to have twice the contact to come into the same number of vulnerable people.
But yes, the humps is right. And it's the right way to deal with. It allows health services not to be overloaded. It gives us time to improve our capability to deal with the virus.
There is a meaningful economic hit. Lots of people die. But it's not an existential threat.
I think the 80% after 4 years is i) the upper bound, ii) assuming there is no vaccine I cant see a cure helping much pecause that implies people will still get ill, and iii) is relevant to cities. In rural areas there will be places with very few postives and a few villages with everyone infected.
Our aim is to make it 80% in 4 years and not 80% in 6 months!
A cure does matter, though. At Christmas, my daughter got Influenza, and then I did. But because I got tamiflu pretty much immediately, the infection stopped at me. According to my doctor, within 24 hours of taking tamiflu, you cease being infectious. So, if you have lots of testing and the ability to cure before the symptoms get serious, you are able to slow the effect markedly.
Ok point taken. It is assuming the main infectious period is once symptoms appear not one week before, and/or that the medicine has a prophylaxis component and can be given to the whole family as soon as a daughter gets ill.
Progress. It's one of those things where if a decent minority start it, the majority will soon catch on. Like usual, the sceptics on here will be about 4 weeks behind.
The worry is that people will think that after a couple of weeks locked away they can re-emerge into a world suddenly normal again. I doubt it is widely understood that the plan is that the major epidemic happens immediately thereafter.
Very long time lurker! But according to La Repubblica: "We said that the Lombardy data was partial and today we have numbers that make the data appear as a large number, but in reality today's growth is in the trend of the past few days", continued Borrelli, underlining that there are about 600 the patients whose data were not available yesterday." This is important for interpreting the numbers from Italy - effectively, there were ~1600 new cases yesterday and 1700 cases today. In essence, the number of new cases has been growing at a linear rate over the past five days or so.
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
I think the 80% is probably high.
Why? Because we may well have a cure (or something that severely limits the virus's infection capability, like Tamiflu does with influenza), or a vaccine.
And even if we don't get those things, there are fewer and fewer people who can catch the disease each time around. Once 50% of people have had it, it's effectively 50% less likely to spread as you need to have twice the contact to come into the same number of vulnerable people.
But yes, the humps is right. And it's the right way to deal with. It allows health services not to be overloaded. It gives us time to improve our capability to deal with the virus.
There is a meaningful economic hit. Lots of people die. But it's not an existential threat.
This is why I think we are making a mistake not following the Asian models (and there are several variants). There is an element of fatalism in our approach that they do not share. And if we get a vaccine next year they will have been right and we will have been wrong.
It's not just fatalism. It's arrogance. They seem to arrogantly believe that they can allow the number of infections to rise, but that they will retain control over how quickly they rise, instead of losing control as Italy has done. It's astonishingly reckless and I fear we will come to regret it.
I think that's unfair. They are doing their best in a very difficult position and they may prove to be right. But @rcs1000 is right that this is about a cure. And the longer we have to find what works the more people live. I think we could be buying more time than we are.
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Bozza must be the most leftwing Tory PM of all time.
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Bozza must be the most leftwing Tory PM of all time.
The word you're looking for is "populist".
Yes. I think rewriting things with talk of the left winning the argument and similar one avoids the simpler explanation that politicians rarely let ideology get in the way of things as much as they suggest it would, and for one like Boris this is a sensible approach.
For some reason I find it weird that the BBC homepage headline is 'Sunak pumps billions into economy...' rather than 'Government pumps billions...' etc etc. I mean, he is chancellor and he's announced it, but its not not it was his decision alone.
Italy numbers today are really important, if sub 2k then it's pretty good news. If 3k+ then very bad.
I fear that they are going to be bad. The indication yesterday was that the numbers were not in fact complete, bad as they were.
Containment only really started in Italy a day or two ago. Early days to say it has or hasn't worked.
There was a virologist on yesterday morning. His assumption was still that about 80% of us were going to get this, maybe over as long as 4 years. It put the containment into perspective. What China and SK have done is bring the spread now to a virtual stop by aggressive action. But the virus is still there. When the containment slides it will, if that virologist is right, pick up again. In this scenario the Chinese etc are not so much flattening the curve as creating a series of humps.
This seems to be the government's assumption too. Talking of having 20% of our workforce off "at any one time" as the Chancellor did today indicates more than 6m people of working age either infected or contained to prevent spread. This is vastly bigger than anything seen in any country to date in terms of cases if not lock down. Italy currently has 168 cases per million. The government are indicating scenarios when that might be in the low hundreds of thousands.
My imagination fails me at that point. When you see what has happened in Italy at the current level of infection I cannot imagine 10 or 100 times more. I just don't believe it but it may be because I just don't want to.
I think the 80% is probably high.
Why? Because we may well have a cure (or something that severely limits the virus's infection capability, like Tamiflu does with influenza), or a vaccine.
And even if we don't get those things, there are fewer and fewer people who can catch the disease each time around. Once 50% of people have had it, it's effectively 50% less likely to spread as you need to have twice the contact to come into the same number of vulnerable people.
But yes, the humps is right. And it's the right way to deal with. It allows health services not to be overloaded. It gives us time to improve our capability to deal with the virus.
There is a meaningful economic hit. Lots of people die. But it's not an existential threat.
This is why I think we are making a mistake not following the Asian models (and there are several variants). There is an element of fatalism in our approach that they do not share. And if we get a vaccine next year they will have been right and we will have been wrong.
It's not just fatalism. It's arrogance. They seem to arrogantly believe that they can allow the number of infections to rise, but that they will retain control over how quickly they rise, instead of losing control as Italy has done. It's astonishingly reckless and I fear we will come to regret it.
I think that's unfair. They are doing their best in a very difficult position and they may prove to be right. But @rcs1000 is right that this is about a cure. And the longer we have to find what works the more people live. I think we could be buying more time than we are.
Some of it is arrogance. For this see the insider briefing from a 'senior government source' saying how awfully stupid the Italians were for banning flights from China etc. We are smarter over here of course. Blah blah.
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Bozza must be the most leftwing Tory PM of all time.
The word you're looking for is "populist".
It is quite an extraordinary government. There has never been anything like it before in the UK. Both intensely ideological and, as you say, populist.
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Bozza must be the most leftwing Tory PM of all time.
The word you're looking for is "populist".
Sky explained the dismissive word 'populist' as a government listening to the electorate and reflecting their wishes in their policies
Currently infected 10590 (+1531) including 1,028 in intensive care (+151) Deaths: 827(+196) Healed 1045 (+41)
In resolved cases a death rate of 44%. Even of all found cases the rate is over 7%. This is markedly different from China.
But what percentage of the cases do you think they are finding?
That is the uncertainty. Chinese figures outside Wuhan seem almost too good to be true. Italy's infection rate is already nearly 4x that of China's and climbing fast. Were the Chinese steps really that effective?
Very long time lurker! But according to La Repubblica: "We said that the Lombardy data was partial and today we have numbers that make the data appear as a large number, but in reality today's growth is in the trend of the past few days", continued Borrelli, underlining that there are about 600 the patients whose data were not available yesterday." This is important for interpreting the numbers from Italy - effectively, there were ~1600 new cases yesterday and 1700 cases today. In essence, the number of new cases has been growing at a linear rate over the past five days or so.
Thank you. That is very interesting and sheds light on the figures.
Currently infected 10590 (+1531) including 1,028 in intensive care (+151) Deaths: 827(+196) Healed 1045 (+41)
In resolved cases a death rate of 44%. Even of all found cases the rate is over 7%. This is markedly different from China.
But what percentage of the cases do you think they are finding?
That is the uncertainty. Chinese figures outside Wuhan seem almost too good to be true. Italy's infection rate is already nearly 4x that of China's and climbing fast. Were the Chinese steps really that effective?
Almost certainly the denominator in Italy is too small, but the non-exponential increase in positive tests over the past few days is at least a little hopeful perhaps
So... Coronavirus prevention is a little bit like a sales funnel. (Bear with me.)
A traditional sales funnel for an app looks like this:
We run an advert that reaches 1,000,000 people. Which results in 10,000 (1%) of people going to our website. Which results in 100 adding our product to their shopping cart. Which results in 10 people getting to the credit card screen. And 1 person actually purchasing the product.
Great businesses work to optimise each stage of the waterfall. What can we do to change the 1% of people going to our website to 1.5%? And how do we make it easier to add the product to the cart? Can we change the credit card uptake to 20% by adding a "Buy with Paypal" option?
Small changes multiply. You optimise each bit.
And the same is true of Coronavirus. If we change the number of people washing their hands, that has an impact. If 20% of people work from home... If sporting events are cancelled... etc. etc.
Lots of small changes, working to together, has a big impact.
Good post. Where have you been these last few weeks where we could have done with more of it? 😉
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Bozza must be the most leftwing Tory PM of all time.
The word you're looking for is "populist".
Sky explained the dismissive word 'populist' as a government listening to the electorate and reflecting their wishes in their policies
It can be and often is used dismissively, the EU certainly uses it that way, but it need not be exclusively critical. You've just quoted a way it can be done.
Can't blame him - everything he thought he loved about Boris has evaporated before his eyes.
Yes, those who thought they had elected a Conservative promising "Thatcherism on steroids" now discover they have elected a big spending social democrat.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
Bozza must be the most leftwing Tory PM of all time.
The word you're looking for is "populist".
Sky explained the dismissive word 'populist' as a government listening to the electorate and reflecting their wishes in their policies
I would like to eat cream cakes and drink red wine to my heart's desire, while simultaneously losing weight. A government that told the public that was possible would be hugely popular. It wouldn't mean that its policies were good ones.
Comments
https://twitter.com/vaughanbell/status/1237746951300493313?s=20
Also there’s too many variables here (actual vs reported numbers). That graph needs unpacking.
I genuinely hope they are never forced to face that reality.
But admits he is losing on 'electability' factor.
7.4 During a pandemic, the Government will encourage those who are well to carry on with their normal daily lives for as long and as far as that is possible, whilst taking basic precautions to protect themselves from infection and lessen the risk of spreading influenza to others (see Chapter 4). The UK Government does not plan to close borders, stop mass gatherings or impose controls on public transport during any pandemic.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf
Twat.
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1237788246865850368
I noted that Asian countries are doing better than Western ones. South Korea is an obvious outlier because they had a crazy sect which spread it rapidly throughout the country. But they've got it under control now.
Are you actually contesting the point that Asian countries are doing better than Western ones? lol only on pb.
They are already rolling out AI backed app that tells citizens if they have been in close contact with a positive case and automatically assesses if they should be quarantining themselves.
With tech, they always follow the model of rip off the IP, rapid prototype, find that it breaks / doesn't work, fix it, evolve. So again they will hope in 10 months time this app (and the fact they can enforce it) will be very good at stopping it going widespread.
The advantage of an authoritarian state is if your app is crap, you won't have 100s of tweets wailing about it. They will simply be removed.
I also think in an election called tomorrow, or sometime over the next couple of months of crisis, either candidate would probably beat Trump. If things have settled down by the autumn, obviously, that's not so clear, which is why I'd prefer him to bow out in a week or two if he doesn't stage a comeback.
Why? Because we may well have a cure (or something that severely limits the virus's infection capability, like Tamiflu does with influenza), or a vaccine.
And even if we don't get those things, there are fewer and fewer people who can catch the disease each time around. Once 50% of people have had it, it's effectively 50% less likely to spread as you need to have twice the contact to come into the same number of vulnerable people.
But yes, the humps is right. And it's the right way to deal with. It allows health services not to be overloaded. It gives us time to improve our capability to deal with the virus.
There is a meaningful economic hit. Lots of people die. But it's not an existential threat.
And you almost breath a sigh of relief that its not worse.
He was a bit quiet on the smaller state too. Given how much Heseltine hates the current lot running the Tories it's odd that they are running his economic policies.
On the other hand Labour must be really enjoying Boris and co. get all the credit for enacting Labour policy on borrow and spend.
Edit the logarithmic scales for both cases and deaths have a definite uptick now as China becomes much less dominant.
It's no surprise the Conservatives are polling 50% - everyone loves big public spending especially if there are no tax rises. Blair did something similar and he was very popular for a while.
The Conservatives have their own Tony Blair - I wonder if in 20 years time Johnson's reputation will be the same as Blair's is now.
https://twitter.com/prospect_clark/status/1237773324672958464
https://twitter.com/MirrorPolitics/status/1237791926767751174?s=20
Our aim is to make it 80% in 4 years and not 80% in 6 months!
https://twitter.com/politicshome/status/1237793048773484545
Excluding the US, which is fairly obviously heading in an horrendous direction, almost all the countries are pretty tightly grouped. There are three obvious outliers below, of which one is Western (Italy), one is Eastern (S Korea), and one is neither (Iran).
Japan might be an outlier on the other side, but also they might just not be testing enough. Neither HK nor Singapore is directly comparable to the UK/France/Germany etc, for the usual obvious reasons.
So, yes, there's not a lot of evidence for your assertion. At least not from the exhibit you provided.
Maybe Johnson and Cummings have noticed the landslides New Labour used to win.
Clever word play.
Currently infected 10590 (+1531) including 1,028 in intensive care (+151)
Deaths: 827(+196)
Healed 1045 (+41)
Edit - I said us, and then realised that EU does not mean us!
Grant Shapps was not looking at Raab, he was looking past him to the chancellor
Apparently that 80% figure is based on an assumption that R=5, which seems extremely large. I don't know where it comes from. The estimate for R0 in the WHO-China Joint Mission report is 2-2.5. But of course even that is the _basic_ number, not the _effective_ number. That is, it's the number in the absence of any intervention to change people's natural behaviour. In China, the epidemic has been effectively stopped because the effective number was reduced to less than 1. The same seems to have been done in South Korea.
It's a matter of policy whether we try to do the same here, or whether we just go for "herd immunity" by allowing the majority of the population to contract the infection. That would "get it over with," with significant but relatively small fatality among the working-age population, but at the cost of a huge number of elderly people dying. But anyway, it seems to have been decided that we're going to do that, rather than follow the Chinese/Korean route.
A traditional sales funnel for an app looks like this:
We run an advert that reaches 1,000,000 people.
Which results in 10,000 (1%) of people going to our website.
Which results in 100 adding our product to their shopping cart.
Which results in 10 people getting to the credit card screen.
And 1 person actually purchasing the product.
Great businesses work to optimise each stage of the waterfall. What can we do to change the 1% of people going to our website to 1.5%? And how do we make it easier to add the product to the cart? Can we change the credit card uptake to 20% by adding a "Buy with Paypal" option?
Small changes multiply. You optimise each bit.
And the same is true of Coronavirus. If we change the number of people washing their hands, that has an impact. If 20% of people work from home... If sporting events are cancelled... etc. etc.
Lots of small changes, working to together, has a big impact.
but around 600 were from yesterday's delay in tests from Lombardy
Ok point taken. It is assuming the main infectious period is once symptoms appear not one week before, and/or that the medicine has a prophylaxis component and can be given to the whole family as soon as a daughter gets ill.
Seriously though I assume they mean EU+EEA+UK