Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I might do something similar.
Timetabling is so easy.
I know for a fact that our timetabler (me) will not be in school for about three months, so if you want to volunteer your services...
I don't know how you manage it.
I’m not entirely sure myself to be honest: it’s always a bit of a surprise when it works. When it doesn’t work I end up having to teach Y11 on a Friday afternoon.
For me, it’s bottom set Year 9 that are my bete noire. Or perhaps, supervising the sixth form study centre in the graveyard shift.
Teaching Year 10 RS at 2pm on Friday in the days when it was a compulsory subject started out as hard work, until I found a section on the curriculum that basically boiled down to various aspects of sex.
Well, I definitely didn't. Or at least almost definitely didn't. Because if I did, then where the hell are all the people who died after I gave it to them hiding?
It was weird, though, since I've had loads of colds (15 years of being immunosuppressed will do that) and have never had problems breathing like that. And suddenly a few months later there's a global pandemic with that as one of the most obvious symptoms. I know a few other people who caught the same bug around the same time.
I am definitely not a Chinese mole. Nor have I been eating anything I shouldn't. Like moles.
Perhaps you ate something worse than live bat, did you eat a pizza with a pineapple on it?
No. I did try eating a Radiohead, but I didn't like it, so didn't finish.
Am I doing this inside joke thing right?
Edit:on a serious note, was the "live" bat thing a joke, or has that actually been suggested somewhere?
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I might do something similar.
Timetabling is so easy.
I know for a fact that our timetabler (me) will not be in school for about three months, so if you want to volunteer your services...
I don't know how you manage it.
I’m not entirely sure myself to be honest: it’s always a bit of a surprise when it works. When it doesn’t work I end up having to teach Y11 on a Friday afternoon.
I'm struggling with two kids, how do you manage it for schools with like 1,000 plus kids.
I think 'Playstation lessons' will be on the timetable next week.
If they were older I would suggest some YouTube channels that do science or history stuff quite well, but I have no experience of teaching children that young.
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I might do something similar.
Timetabling is so easy.
I know for a fact that our timetabler (me) will not be in school for about three months, so if you want to volunteer your services...
I don't know how you manage it.
I’m not entirely sure myself to be honest: it’s always a bit of a surprise when it works. When it doesn’t work I end up having to teach Y11 on a Friday afternoon.
I'm struggling with two kids, how do you manage it for schools with like 1,000 plus kids.
I think 'Playstation lessons' will be on the timetable next week.
If you mute the TV and put the subtitles on your kids are reading...
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I might do something similar.
Timetabling is so easy.
I know for a fact that our timetabler (me) will not be in school for about three months, so if you want to volunteer your services...
I don't know how you manage it.
I’m not entirely sure myself to be honest: it’s always a bit of a surprise when it works. When it doesn’t work I end up having to teach Y11 on a Friday afternoon.
I'm struggling with two kids, how do you manage it for schools with like 1,000 plus kids.
I think 'Playstation lessons' will be on the timetable next week.
If they were older I would suggest some YouTube channels that do science or history stuff quite well, but I have no experience of teaching children that young.
We've had some YouTube lessons, they like their physics and chemistry.
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I might do something similar.
Timetabling is so easy.
I know for a fact that our timetabler (me) will not be in school for about three months, so if you want to volunteer your services...
I don't know how you manage it.
I’m not entirely sure myself to be honest: it’s always a bit of a surprise when it works. When it doesn’t work I end up having to teach Y11 on a Friday afternoon.
I'm struggling with two kids, how do you manage it for schools with like 1,000 plus kids.
I think 'Playstation lessons' will be on the timetable next week.
If you mute the TV and put the subtitles on your kids are reading...
RCS100 - Thanks for finetuning my mortality figures - I haven't got the hang of adding previous quotes to this current one, yet. I just get annoyed when I see people misusing statistics to downplay the catastrophic effect of COVID 19. Thousands of people died of flu last year, but in the vast majority of cases, flu was listed on the death certificate as a secondary or contributory cause of death instead of 'old age' and listed as such. Hence the high numbers of flu deaths.
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I might do something similar.
Timetabling is so easy.
I know for a fact that our timetabler (me) will not be in school for about three months, so if you want to volunteer your services...
I don't know how you manage it.
I’m not entirely sure myself to be honest: it’s always a bit of a surprise when it works. When it doesn’t work I end up having to teach Y11 on a Friday afternoon.
For me, it’s bottom set Year 9 that are my bete noire. Or perhaps, supervising the sixth form study centre in the graveyard shift.
Teaching Year 10 RS at 2pm on Friday in the days when it was a compulsory subject started out as hard work, until I found a section on the curriculum that basically boiled down to various aspects of sex.
If the timetable works then it somehow happens that I don’t teach on a Friday afternoon. Actually this year all of my classes are great. It’s a real shame I won’t be seeing the exam groups again.
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I might do something similar.
Timetabling is so easy.
I know for a fact that our timetabler (me) will not be in school for about three months, so if you want to volunteer your services...
I don't know how you manage it.
I’m not entirely sure myself to be honest: it’s always a bit of a surprise when it works. When it doesn’t work I end up having to teach Y11 on a Friday afternoon.
I'm struggling with two kids, how do you manage it for schools with like 1,000 plus kids.
Teachers are Saints. I Love my children. Doesn't mean I want to spend all day 5 days a week with the little sods cherubs never mind a thousand of other people's...
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I might do something similar.
Timetabling is so easy.
I know for a fact that our timetabler (me) will not be in school for about three months, so if you want to volunteer your services...
I don't know how you manage it.
I’m not entirely sure myself to be honest: it’s always a bit of a surprise when it works. When it doesn’t work I end up having to teach Y11 on a Friday afternoon.
I'm struggling with two kids, how do you manage it for schools with like 1,000 plus kids.
I think 'Playstation lessons' will be on the timetable next week.
If they were older I would suggest some YouTube channels that do science or history stuff quite well, but I have no experience of teaching children that young.
We've had some YouTube lessons, they like their physics and chemistry.
Then try SciShow. Vet a few before hand to check you think they are suitable, but they are quite fun.
Are they old enough for Time Team? You can get most of the old episodes on YouTube.
So I wonder which journalist gets the dickhead of the day badge for the most stupid question in relation to this lock down? I bet they have spent all day crafting the most ridiculous scenarios to ask the government if it is permitted or not.
Seems like quite a strange thing to get angry about.
There are plenty of questions people have asked which have been reasonable, and been met with useful answers: e.g. children with separated parents, car MOTs etc.
And in some cases your common-sense answer is clearly wrong: e.g. if someone living in a town has a choice between getting their daily exercise in their local streets, where social distancing might be difficult, or on an empty country path a short drive away, the latter is obviously preferable *provided* they turn around and come home if the country path turns out not to be so empty after all.
Kay Burley to Michael Gove
"If I am a freelance journalist driving my car down the motorway on a non-essential journey am I going to be pulled over by the police?"
Is that a good use of a government interview, or is it better to focus on things that matter?
Is watching Sky news a good use of your time ? I think you've answered that one.
I wonder about PB too.. the amount of crap that is spouted...
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I might do something similar.
Timetabling is so easy.
I know for a fact that our timetabler (me) will not be in school for about three months, so if you want to volunteer your services...
I don't know how you manage it.
I’m not entirely sure myself to be honest: it’s always a bit of a surprise when it works. When it doesn’t work I end up having to teach Y11 on a Friday afternoon.
For me, it’s bottom set Year 9 that are my bete noire. Or perhaps, supervising the sixth form study centre in the graveyard shift.
Teaching Year 10 RS at 2pm on Friday in the days when it was a compulsory subject started out as hard work, until I found a section on the curriculum that basically boiled down to various aspects of sex.
If the timetable works then it somehow happens that I don’t teach on a Friday afternoon. Actually this year all of my classes are great. It’s a real shame I won’t be seeing the exam groups again.
My first year in teaching I was on a maternity cover for someone with a 0.9 contract. Her afternoon off every week was Friday.
For me, 0.9 was of course a full contract.
Boy, was I unpopular when I sat back with a cup of tea on Friday afternoon and waved the other staff off to lessons.
But actually, I found the best sort of frees were Monday morning first up, as it takes all the pressure off planning over the weekend.
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I might do something similar.
Timetabling is so easy.
I know for a fact that our timetabler (me) will not be in school for about three months, so if you want to volunteer your services...
I don't know how you manage it.
I’m not entirely sure myself to be honest: it’s always a bit of a surprise when it works. When it doesn’t work I end up having to teach Y11 on a Friday afternoon.
For me, it’s bottom set Year 9 that are my bete noire. Or perhaps, supervising the sixth form study centre in the graveyard shift.
Teaching Year 10 RS at 2pm on Friday in the days when it was a compulsory subject started out as hard work, until I found a section on the curriculum that basically boiled down to various aspects of sex.
If the timetable works then it somehow happens that I don’t teach on a Friday afternoon. Actually this year all of my classes are great. It’s a real shame I won’t be seeing the exam groups again.
My first year in teaching I was on a maternity cover for someone with a 0.9 contract. Her afternoon off every week was Friday.
For me, 0.9 was of course a full contract.
Boy, was I unpopular when I sat back with a cup of tea on Friday afternoon and waved the other staff off to lessons.
But actually, I found the best sort of frees were Monday morning first up, as it takes all the pressure off planning over the weekend.
While it seems most Governments are opting for some form of movement restriction to alleviate and depress new cases of the virus, there still seem those who argue for a different route.
If you want to call it the "herd immunity" approach, that's fine but as I understand it the theory is to isolate the elderly and the vulnerable but for the virus to be allowed to run through the rest of the population on the basis the vast majority will emerge unscathed and immune.
That argument also suggests the wider economy would suffer less in terms of disruption - there would still be an impact but not severe.
The argument against the lock-down approach is it causes unnecessary and unwarranted economic damage - basically we're going to have, in economic terms, three weeks of Bank Holidays, if not Christmas Days in terms of output and productivity. We will all be home living off our resources - food and financial.
The argument therefore turns on where you value economic growth against human life or lives and that will be in the eye of the beholder. If we are all simply economic drones whose single purpose is to increase GDP I get that but I'm not sure that where I am philosophically.
While recognising we are all mortal and the Grim Reaper waits for us all at the end of our journey, I'm not convinced a few premature deaths is a good price to pay for a slightly lower GDP figure in the first quarter of 2021/22 but that would be an argument for the banning of smoking, drinking, gambling and a whole range of other activities.
Thus, it comes back to more fundamentals - do we opt to choose to live as we wish accepting the risks or do we choose to accept a temporary dislocation to our lives and our prosperity to maintain our health in the hope of returning to what we know in short order?
I am not sure the anti-lockdown argument is simply about the economy. There is a school of thought that the issue with a lockdown is that it doesn't actually solve the problem, just defers it. This means that you have to keep the lockdown in place permanently until a vaccine is found which could be years.
Whilst this makes sense to me on a basic level I don't know enough about the subject to be able to say if it is correct or not. Certainly the news from Singapore where cases are starting to increase again is worrying.
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I am predicting that once children are back at school an absolute wanker of a Telegraph or Guardian columnist is going to write an article entitled "After spending the last 6 months doing 8 hour a day of 1-on-1 tutoring with my child I am shocked to discover they are now far in advance of the curriculum. How could schools have been failing our children for so long?"
A few thoughts: Our nursery shut up shop today. Once the initial one key worker and you feel you still need it tightened to two key workers neither of whom can operate from home, which is fair and in line with other government actions, the numbers fell to near zero.
Secondly, my wife, who is in the pharmaceutical supply chain, though not currently doing anything of relevance, does seem to be facing a plant shutdown due to some of the shift operators being in vulnerable groups and some self-isolating. Whether some are waiting the lead is moot. To your both things together, I'm not sure the nurseries are shutting down in a coordinated way, rather I suspect these are individual decisions by individual business owners. Will this leave enough cover for key workers? I don't know the answer. Equally the shutdown of plant that contributes to the wider pharmaceutical industry and could host COVID relevant synthesis isn't great. The third example is from Spain, the partial collapse of the Care Home system with horrible consequences. This is a wide area that may need further government intervention, perhaps in the form of a de facto Ministry of Works.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
RCS100 - Thanks for finetuning my mortality figures - I haven't got the hang of adding previous quotes to this current one, yet. I just get annoyed when I see people misusing statistics to downplay the catastrophic effect of COVID 19. Thousands of people died of flu last year, but in the vast majority of cases, flu was listed on the death certificate as a secondary or contributory cause of death instead of 'old age' and listed as such. Hence the high numbers of flu deaths.
And by the same logic, the high numbers of Corona deaths.
The current deadline for submitting the next Boundary Commission reports is 1 October 2023.
As well as the other changes (see below) which all look sensible this deadline surely should be brought forward to say June 2023 otherwise it is dangerously close to the most likely date of the next GE (ie May 2024).
Note the other changes are:
- Back to 650 MPs - Tolerance from electoral quota remains 5% - Boundary reviews to be done every 8 years (after the next one) - Implementation by Order in Council to be automatic (ie no Commons + Lords vote to implement reports once submitted by Boundary Commissions)
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I am predicting that once children are back at school an absolute wanker of a Telegraph or Guardian columnist is going to write an article entitled "After spending the last 6 months doing 8 hour a day of 1-on-1 tutoring with my child I am shocked to discover they are now far in advance of the curriculum. How could schools have been failing our children for so long?"
In the mean time the poor teachers who now have to pick up the pieces with a pupil who has been superficially exposed to a huge amount of information without having enough time to properly process it and so not really learned anything will have to keep quiet. Particularly if said columnist has tried to teach any maths...
The current deadline for submitting the next Boundary Commission reports is 1 October 2023.
As well as the other changes (*) which all look sensible this deadline surely should be brought forward to say June 2023 otherwise it is dangerously close to the most likely date of the next GE (ie May 2024).
Note the other changes are:
- Back to 650 MPs - Tolerance from electoral quota remains 5% - Boundary reviews to be done every 8 years (after the next one)
Hurrah! Sense has prevailed. No need to reduce the 650 to 600. Just Cameron populist crap.
The current deadline for submitting the next Boundary Commission reports is 1 October 2023.
As well as the other changes (see below) which all look sensible this deadline surely should be brought forward to say June 2023 otherwise it is dangerously close to the most likely date of the next GE (ie May 2024).
Note the other changes are:
- Back to 650 MPs - Tolerance from electoral quota remains 5% - Boundary reviews to be done every 8 years (after the next one) - Implementation by Order in Council to be automatic (ie no Commons + Lords vote to implement reports once submitted by Boundary Commissions)
While it seems most Governments are opting for some form of movement restriction to alleviate and depress new cases of the virus, there still seem those who argue for a different route.
If you want to call it the "herd immunity" approach, that's fine but as I understand it the theory is to isolate the elderly and the vulnerable but for the virus to be allowed to run through the rest of the population on the basis the vast majority will emerge unscathed and immune.
That argument also suggests the wider economy would suffer less in terms of disruption - there would still be an impact but not severe.
The argument against the lock-down approach is it causes unnecessary and unwarranted economic damage - basically we're going to have, in economic terms, three weeks of Bank Holidays, if not Christmas Days in terms of output and productivity. We will all be home living off our resources - food and financial.
The argument therefore turns on where you value economic growth against human life or lives and that will be in the eye of the beholder. If we are all simply economic drones whose single purpose is to increase GDP I get that but I'm not sure that where I am philosophically.
While recognising we are all mortal and the Grim Reaper waits for us all at the end of our journey, I'm not convinced a few premature deaths is a good price to pay for a slightly lower GDP figure in the first quarter of 2021/22 but that would be an argument for the banning of smoking, drinking, gambling and a whole range of other activities.
Thus, it comes back to more fundamentals - do we opt to choose to live as we wish accepting the risks or do we choose to accept a temporary dislocation to our lives and our prosperity to maintain our health in the hope of returning to what we know in short order?
I am not sure the anti-lockdown argument is simply about the economy. There is a school of thought that the issue with a lockdown is that it doesn't actually solve the problem, just defers it. This means that you have to keep the lockdown in place permanently until a vaccine is found which could be years.
Whilst this makes sense to me on a basic level I don't know enough about the subject to be able to say if it is correct or not. Certainly the news from Singapore where cases are starting to increase again is worrying.
Let's imagine, for the sake of the argument, that the "isolate the vulnerable and everyone else carries on" approach were the right one. For it to work, the isolation of the vulnerable would have to actually happen. It is plain that in Britain and in many other countries, it would not have done, because too many people were ignoring the advice/rules. If you want to try this approach, you need a lockdown first, until nearly everyone is taking it seriously.
Plus there is the necessity of flattening the curve, which is necessary even if the vulnerable are taken out of the equation. That requires measures that seriously damage the economy, e.g. intermittent lockdowns.
So, while I'm still angry about the government's lack of preparation, I cannot see an argument against their broad strategy which stands up to scrutiny.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Are you the person who earlier tried to dismiss the Imperial College study on the basis of a spurious association with foot and mouth disease?
Somebody said there was no politician in the last fifty years less qualified than Trump to be POTUS.
I was mulling over the truth or otherwise of this, and came up with Goldwater, Joseph McCarthy and Wallace.
But their peak was over fifty years ago. Indeed, McCarthy has been dead for over 60 years.
However, J Strom Thurmond was still active into the 1990s and still a corrupt, creepy, racist nutcase so I suppose we could offer him up as a possible.
Well, yes, I agree. And please don't forget Michael Dukakis.
But here's the rub. Trump is the only one of those muppets who actually made it to President.
Indeed. And it is also worth noting that little of the testing done so far has been antibody testing (at least so far as I am aware) - which is what the Oxford study calls for. We're testing for people who have it, not people who had it
While it seems most Governments are opting for some form of movement restriction to alleviate and depress new cases of the virus, there still seem those who argue for a different route.
If you want to call it the "herd immunity" approach, that's fine but as I understand it the theory is to isolate the elderly and the vulnerable but for the virus to be allowed to run through the rest of the population on the basis the vast majority will emerge unscathed and immune.
That argument also suggests the wider economy would suffer less in terms of disruption - there would still be an impact but not severe.
The argument against the lock-down approach is it causes unnecessary and unwarranted economic damage - basically we're going to have, in economic terms, three weeks of Bank Holidays, if not Christmas Days in terms of output and productivity. We will all be home living off our resources - food and financial.
The argument therefore turns on where you value economic growth against human life or lives and that will be in the eye of the beholder. If we are all simply economic drones whose single purpose is to increase GDP I get that but I'm not sure that where I am philosophically.
While recognising we are all mortal and the Grim Reaper waits for us all at the end of our journey, I'm not convinced a few premature deaths is a good price to pay for a slightly lower GDP figure in the first quarter of 2021/22 but that would be an argument for the banning of smoking, drinking, gambling and a whole range of other activities.
Thus, it comes back to more fundamentals - do we opt to choose to live as we wish accepting the risks or do we choose to accept a temporary dislocation to our lives and our prosperity to maintain our health in the hope of returning to what we know in short order?
I said it in the wee hours - if a government is prepared to lock us indoors for this, they should permanently ban the sale of cigarettes while they’re at it
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Are you the person who earlier tried to dismiss the Imperial College study on the basis of a spurious association with foot and mouth disease?
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Maybe I am being thick (and my brain is a fog at the moment), but...
If the 'Oxford hidden' cases are doubling at the same rate as the 'actual, tested' cases i.e 2 x every 2 -3 days, then the 50% mark could have been hit relatively recently.
The current deadline for submitting the next Boundary Commission reports is 1 October 2023.
As well as the other changes (see below) which all look sensible this deadline surely should be brought forward to say June 2023 otherwise it is dangerously close to the most likely date of the next GE (ie May 2024).
Note the other changes are:
- Back to 650 MPs - Tolerance from electoral quota remains 5% - Boundary reviews to be done every 8 years (after the next one) - Implementation by Order in Council to be automatic (ie no Commons + Lords vote to implement reports once submitted by Boundary Commissions)
That will leave my MP very exposed.
Good.
I hope your MP is not of the ilk of Michael Fabricant.
Is it just me, 5 times today I convinced myself I had the virus.
Just had a stiff G&T, and I defo do not have it, yet.
Great idea. Just make sure you have tonic with a decent amount of quinine in it (HCQ is a synthetic quinine)
Anyone know the tonic with the biggest dose? You can buy quinine online and make your own tonic syrup. Also, what's the easiest (legal) source of opiates for a persistent unproductive cough? Boots tend to refuse to stock entirely legal cough suppressants.
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I am predicting that once children are back at school an absolute wanker of a Telegraph or Guardian columnist is going to write an article entitled "After spending the last 6 months doing 8 hour a day of 1-on-1 tutoring with my child I am shocked to discover they are now far in advance of the curriculum. How could schools have been failing our children for so long?"
Looks like US numbers may be very, very bad today.
Per Worldometer already 8,000 cases and 114 deaths so far today with many hours to go before daily cut-off - and numbers often go up a lot in the evening UK time.
Previous highest numbers were yesterday - 10,000 cases and 140 deaths.
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I am predicting that once children are back at school an absolute wanker of a Telegraph or Guardian columnist is going to write an article entitled "After spending the last 6 months doing 8 hour a day of 1-on-1 tutoring with my child I am shocked to discover they are now far in advance of the curriculum. How could schools have been failing our children for so long?"
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Maybe I am being thick (and my brain is a fog at the moment), but...
If the 'Oxford hidden' cases are doubling at the same rate as the 'actual, tested' cases i.e 2 x every 2 -3 days, then the 50% mark could have been hit relatively recently.
The current deadline for submitting the next Boundary Commission reports is 1 October 2023.
As well as the other changes (see below) which all look sensible this deadline surely should be brought forward to say June 2023 otherwise it is dangerously close to the most likely date of the next GE (ie May 2024).
Note the other changes are:
- Back to 650 MPs - Tolerance from electoral quota remains 5% - Boundary reviews to be done every 8 years (after the next one) - Implementation by Order in Council to be automatic (ie no Commons + Lords vote to implement reports once submitted by Boundary Commissions)
That will leave my MP very exposed.
Good.
I hope your MP is not of the ilk of Michael Fabricant.
Is it just me, 5 times today I convinced myself I had the virus.
Just had a stiff G&T, and I defo do not have it, yet.
Ditto. I'm never the bravest and this is certainly messing with me. When I go out to buy food I imagine the deadly virus lingering on every surface and floating in the air. I have to touch things when I'm out and I can't hold my breath for the time it takes me to do a shop. So I feel in great peril. Waitrose is my Stalingrad.
While it seems most Governments are opting for some form of movement restriction to alleviate and depress new cases of the virus, there still seem those who argue for a different route.
If you want to call it the "herd immunity" approach, that's fine but as I understand it the theory is to isolate the elderly and the vulnerable but for the virus to be allowed to run through the rest of the population on the basis the vast majority will emerge unscathed and immune.
That argument also suggests the wider economy would suffer less in terms of disruption - there would still be an impact but not severe.
The argument against the lock-down approach is it causes unnecessary and unwarranted economic damage - basically we're going to have, in economic terms, three weeks of Bank Holidays, if not Christmas Days in terms of output and productivity. We will all be home living off our resources - food and financial.
The argument therefore turns on where you value economic growth against human life or lives and that will be in the eye of the beholder. If we are all simply economic drones whose single purpose is to increase GDP I get that but I'm not sure that where I am philosophically.
While recognising we are all mortal and the Grim Reaper waits for us all at the end of our journey, I'm not convinced a few premature deaths is a good price to pay for a slightly lower GDP figure in the first quarter of 2021/22 but that would be an argument for the banning of smoking, drinking, gambling and a whole range of other activities.
Thus, it comes back to more fundamentals - do we opt to choose to live as we wish accepting the risks or do we choose to accept a temporary dislocation to our lives and our prosperity to maintain our health in the hope of returning to what we know in short order?
I said it in the wee hours - if a government is prepared to lock us indoors for this, they should permanently ban the sale of cigarettes while they’re at it
Given that we face a serious respiratory infection, why not ban the sale of tobacco and vaping kit now? Overnight.
Somebody said there was no politician in the last fifty years less qualified than Trump to be POTUS.
I was mulling over the truth or otherwise of this, and came up with Goldwater, Joseph McCarthy and Wallace.
But their peak was over fifty years ago. Indeed, McCarthy has been dead for over 60 years.
However, J Strom Thurmond was still active into the 1990s and still a corrupt, creepy, racist nutcase so I suppose we could offer him up as a possible.
Well, yes, I agree. And please don't forget Michael Dukakis.
But here's the rub. Trump is the only one of those muppets who actually made it to President.
Yes, I see your point.
If we go back looking for a worse president, who are we looking at? Harding perhaps? Or Pierce?
Is it just me, 5 times today I convinced myself I had the virus.
Just had a stiff G&T, and I defo do not have it, yet.
Ditto. I'm never the bravest and this is certainly messing with me. When I go out to buy food I imagine the deadly virus lingering on every surface and floating in the air. I have to touch things when I'm out and I can't hold my breath for the time it takes me to do a shop. So I feel in great peril. Waitrose is my Stalingrad.
Have you tried blowing a hole in the wall with at panzerfaust?
The current deadline for submitting the next Boundary Commission reports is 1 October 2023.
As well as the other changes (see below) which all look sensible this deadline surely should be brought forward to say June 2023 otherwise it is dangerously close to the most likely date of the next GE (ie May 2024).
Note the other changes are:
- Back to 650 MPs - Tolerance from electoral quota remains 5% - Boundary reviews to be done every 8 years (after the next one) - Implementation by Order in Council to be automatic (ie no Commons + Lords vote to implement reports once submitted by Boundary Commissions)
That will leave my MP very exposed.
Good.
I hope your MP is not of the ilk of Michael Fabricant.
I don’t want him to be exposed.
He’s revolting enough fully clothed.
Steve Baker
He’s one I definitely want to see covered up in every possible way.
Somebody said there was no politician in the last fifty years less qualified than Trump to be POTUS.
I was mulling over the truth or otherwise of this, and came up with Goldwater, Joseph McCarthy and Wallace.
But their peak was over fifty years ago. Indeed, McCarthy has been dead for over 60 years.
However, J Strom Thurmond was still active into the 1990s and still a corrupt, creepy, racist nutcase so I suppose we could offer him up as a possible.
Well, yes, I agree. And please don't forget Michael Dukakis.
But here's the rub. Trump is the only one of those muppets who actually made it to President.
Yes, I see your point.
If we go back looking for a worse president, who are we looking at? Harding perhaps? Or Pierce?
Grant would actually have been quite good in this situation, wouldn’t he?
I said it in the wee hours - if a government is prepared to lock us indoors for this, they should permanently ban the sale of cigarettes while they’re at it
Along with alcohol as well, presumably.
So we come back to the argument of whether we want the Government to decide what's good for us - at an individual level, possibly not. At a wider societal level it becomes more difficult.
If we did nothing and allowed the virus to run through the population, there would be deaths but at a wider level we all die sooner or later. The foreshortening of some lives set against the economic dislocation of many others (we have people on here claiming their future has been "destroyed" by this) is a balance where we would all sit in different places.
Yet does not the Government have the absolute and final say on our public health in its entirety? Whatever individual bad health decisions we choose to make (in spite of the information available), the Government might argue provide providing clean water and maintaining the sewage system is in all our interests.
Somebody said there was no politician in the last fifty years less qualified than Trump to be POTUS.
I was mulling over the truth or otherwise of this, and came up with Goldwater, Joseph McCarthy and Wallace.
But their peak was over fifty years ago. Indeed, McCarthy has been dead for over 60 years.
However, J Strom Thurmond was still active into the 1990s and still a corrupt, creepy, racist nutcase so I suppose we could offer him up as a possible.
Well, yes, I agree. And please don't forget Michael Dukakis.
But here's the rub. Trump is the only one of those muppets who actually made it to President.
Yes, I see your point.
If we go back looking for a worse president, who are we looking at? Harding perhaps? Or Pierce?
Grant would actually have been quite good in this situation, wouldn’t he?
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Are you the person who earlier tried to dismiss the Imperial College study on the basis of a spurious association with foot and mouth disease?
If the two institutions were instrumental in the two epidemic responses, and both responses proved disproportionate to the point of being damaging, it is prima facie evidence of an inherent institutional bias toward reckless knee jerk catastrophism.
While it seems most Governments are opting for some form of movement restriction to alleviate and depress new cases of the virus, there still seem those who argue for a different route.
If you want to call it the "herd immunity" approach, that's fine but as I understand it the theory is to isolate the elderly and the vulnerable but for the virus to be allowed to run through the rest of the population on the basis the vast majority will emerge unscathed and immune.
That argument also suggests the wider economy would suffer less in terms of disruption - there would still be an impact but not severe.
The argument against the lock-down approach is it causes unnecessary and unwarranted economic damage - basically we're going to have, in economic terms, three weeks of Bank Holidays, if not Christmas Days in terms of output and productivity. We will all be home living off our resources - food and financial.
The argument therefore turns on where you value economic growth against human life or lives and that will be in the eye of the beholder. If we are all simply economic drones whose single purpose is to increase GDP I get that but I'm not sure that where I am philosophically.
While recognising we are all mortal and the Grim Reaper waits for us all at the end of our journey, I'm not convinced a few premature deaths is a good price to pay for a slightly lower GDP figure in the first quarter of 2021/22 but that would be an argument for the banning of smoking, drinking, gambling and a whole range of other activities.
Thus, it comes back to more fundamentals - do we opt to choose to live as we wish accepting the risks or do we choose to accept a temporary dislocation to our lives and our prosperity to maintain our health in the hope of returning to what we know in short order?
I said it in the wee hours - if a government is prepared to lock us indoors for this, they should permanently ban the sale of cigarettes while they’re at it
Given that we face a serious respiratory infection, why not ban the sale of tobacco and vaping kit now? Overnight.
Somebody said there was no politician in the last fifty years less qualified than Trump to be POTUS.
I was mulling over the truth or otherwise of this, and came up with Goldwater, Joseph McCarthy and Wallace.
But their peak was over fifty years ago. Indeed, McCarthy has been dead for over 60 years.
However, J Strom Thurmond was still active into the 1990s and still a corrupt, creepy, racist nutcase so I suppose we could offer him up as a possible.
While George Wallace was certainly a racist, he was quite a popular governor of Alabama, and indeed somewhat mended his ways as time went on. He was still politically active when I lived in the States.
Trump is on his own in terms of narcissistic sociopathy.
Is it just me, 5 times today I convinced myself I had the virus.
Just had a stiff G&T, and I defo do not have it, yet.
Ditto. I'm never the bravest and this is certainly messing with me. When I go out to buy food I imagine the deadly virus lingering on every surface and floating in the air. I have to touch things when I'm out and I can't hold my breath for the time it takes me to do a shop. So I feel in great peril. Waitrose is my Stalingrad.
Stephen Fry did a short piece about the anxiety on the BBC the other day. I know a lot of my friends are really stressed with massive levels of anxiety.
The mental scarring from this will be considerable.
I know this is not (yet) anything like WW2. But that undoubtedly and inevitably scarred an entire generation. As an aside, there have been interesting studies showing that evacuee children suffered far more serious mental health problems than those who stayed at home under the bombs. Why? Because we need social bonding, social contact, hugs and love. We're mammals and it's a basic instinct - a key component of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
I've already noticed people crossing to the other side of the road in a way that would make great fodder for the Good Samaritan parable. But the amazing corollary is that accompanying the physical side-stepping is an aversion of eye contact, a loss of greeting, a lack of smile. It's as if the social distancing means we must treat everyone else as pariahs. I even thought myself today, 'Oh no there's a human being.'
I said it in the wee hours - if a government is prepared to lock us indoors for this, they should permanently ban the sale of cigarettes while they’re at it
Along with alcohol as well, presumably.
So we come back to the argument of whether we want the Government to decide what's good for us - at an individual level, possibly not. At a wider societal level it becomes more difficult.
If we did nothing and allowed the virus to run through the population, there would be deaths but at a wider level we all die sooner or later. The foreshortening of some lives set against the economic dislocation of many others (we have people on here claiming their future has been "destroyed" by this) is a balance where we would all sit in different places.
Yet does not the Government have the absolute and final say on our public health in its entirety? Whatever individual bad health decisions we choose to make (in spite of the information available), the Government might argue provide providing clean water and maintaining the sewage system is in all our interests.
I wouldn’t compare alcohol unfavourably with smoking cigarettes, no. One can be ok, beneficial even, in small doses, the other is just all bad, and bad for people around the person using it.
How much more money would the NHS have if smoking related illnesses didn’t have to be dealt with?
Is it just me, 5 times today I convinced myself I had the virus.
Just had a stiff G&T, and I defo do not have it, yet.
Great idea. Just make sure you have tonic with a decent amount of quinine in it (HCQ is a synthetic quinine)
Anyone know the tonic with the biggest dose? You can buy quinine online and make your own tonic syrup. Also, what's the easiest (legal) source of opiates for a persistent unproductive cough? Boots tend to refuse to stock entirely legal cough suppressants.
I've heard Fever Tree, but don't know if that is just rumour
I try Robitussin (anti-tussive) for that sort of cough
Is it just me, 5 times today I convinced myself I had the virus.
Just had a stiff G&T, and I defo do not have it, yet.
Ditto. I'm never the bravest and this is certainly messing with me. When I go out to buy food I imagine the deadly virus lingering on every surface and floating in the air. I have to touch things when I'm out and I can't hold my breath for the time it takes me to do a shop. So I feel in great peril. Waitrose is my Stalingrad.
Stephen Fry did a short piece about the anxiety on the BBC the other day. I know a lot of my friends are really stressed with massive levels of anxiety.
The mental scarring from this will be considerable.
I know this is not (yet) anything like WW2. But that undoubtedly and inevitably scarred an entire generation. As an aside, there have been interesting studies showing that evacuee children suffered far more serious mental health problems than those who stayed at home under the bombs. Why? Because we need social bonding, social contact, hugs and love. We're mammals and it's a basic instinct - a key component of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
I've already noticed people crossing to the other side of the road in a way that would make great fodder for the Good Samaritan parable. But the amazing corollary is that accompanying the physical side-stepping is an aversion of eye contact, a loss of greeting, a lack of smile. It's as if the social distancing means we must treat everyone else as pariahs. I even thought myself today, 'Oh no there's a human being.'
I'm making doubly sure to smile. Don't always get one in return, but perhaps they will smile at the next person.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Are you the person who earlier tried to dismiss the Imperial College study on the basis of a spurious association with foot and mouth disease?
If the two institutions were instrumental in the two epidemic responses, and both responses proved disproportionate to the point of being damaging, it is prima facie evidence of an inherent institutional bias toward reckless knee jerk catastrophism.
I am not against the Oxford report, indeed I hope it is correct, but it would be rash indeed to count on it being correct.
A non lockdown situation of letting a pandemic riot is not without economic consequences either!
While it seems most Governments are opting for some form of movement restriction to alleviate and depress new cases of the virus, there still seem those who argue for a different route.
If you want to call it the "herd immunity" approach, that's fine but as I understand it the theory is to isolate the elderly and the vulnerable but for the virus to be allowed to run through the rest of the population on the basis the vast majority will emerge unscathed and immune.
That argument also suggests the wider economy would suffer less in terms of disruption - there would still be an impact but not severe.
The argument against the lock-down approach is it causes unnecessary and unwarranted economic damage - basically we're going to have, in economic terms, three weeks of Bank Holidays, if not Christmas Days in terms of output and productivity. We will all be home living off our resources - food and financial.
The argument therefore turns on where you value economic growth against human life or lives and that will be in the eye of the beholder. If we are all simply economic drones whose single purpose is to increase GDP I get that but I'm not sure that where I am philosophically.
While recognising we are all mortal and the Grim Reaper waits for us all at the end of our journey, I'm not convinced a few premature deaths is a good price to pay for a slightly lower GDP figure in the first quarter of 2021/22 but that would be an argument for the banning of smoking, drinking, gambling and a whole range of other activities.
Thus, it comes back to more fundamentals - do we opt to choose to live as we wish accepting the risks or do we choose to accept a temporary dislocation to our lives and our prosperity to maintain our health in the hope of returning to what we know in short order?
I said it in the wee hours - if a government is prepared to lock us indoors for this, they should permanently ban the sale of cigarettes while they’re at it
Given that we face a serious respiratory infection, why not ban the sale of tobacco and vaping kit now? Overnight.
Why not?
Perhaps because the Government doesn't want to compound the lock down by crushing every other vice at the same time? Jeez, God forbid you two ever get elected...
While it seems most Governments are opting for some form of movement restriction to alleviate and depress new cases of the virus, there still seem those who argue for a different route.
If you want to call it the "herd immunity" approach, that's fine but as I understand it the theory is to isolate the elderly and the vulnerable but for the virus to be allowed to run through the rest of the population on the basis the vast majority will emerge unscathed and immune.
That argument also suggests the wider economy would suffer less in terms of disruption - there would still be an impact but not severe.
The argument against the lock-down approach is it causes unnecessary and unwarranted economic damage - basically we're going to have, in economic terms, three weeks of Bank Holidays, if not Christmas Days in terms of output and productivity. We will all be home living off our resources - food and financial.
The argument therefore turns on where you value economic growth against human life or lives and that will be in the eye of the beholder. If we are all simply economic drones whose single purpose is to increase GDP I get that but I'm not sure that where I am philosophically.
While recognising we are all mortal and the Grim Reaper waits for us all at the end of our journey, I'm not convinced a few premature deaths is a good price to pay for a slightly lower GDP figure in the first quarter of 2021/22 but that would be an argument for the banning of smoking, drinking, gambling and a whole range of other activities.
Thus, it comes back to more fundamentals - do we opt to choose to live as we wish accepting the risks or do we choose to accept a temporary dislocation to our lives and our prosperity to maintain our health in the hope of returning to what we know in short order?
I said it in the wee hours - if a government is prepared to lock us indoors for this, they should permanently ban the sale of cigarettes while they’re at it
Given that we face a serious respiratory infection, why not ban the sale of tobacco and vaping kit now? Overnight.
Well some doctors in NY are calling for it! (Think there'd be a case of banning the tobacco and allowing the vaping personally, since it gives smokers a chance to switch to vaping and that seems to still give lungs a chance to recover since it isn't as bad as the ciggies.)
The New York State Academy of Family Physicians is calling for a ban of all tobacco and vaping products across statewide due to the increased risk of COVID-19 in those who use tobacco.
Based on a study by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, one factor that influences the progression of COVID-19 is a person’s history of smoking.
The study suggests that “patients who use tobacco are 14 times as likely to have COVID-19 progression.” According to The National Institute of Drug Abuse, this is because the coronavirus attacks the lungs, and people who vape or smoke tobacco are more susceptible to the virus becoming a serious threat.
“Now more than ever, it is critical for the State and medical community to take actions to prevent our youth from ever using these highly addictive, deadly products and to help our patients to reduce their risks through FDA-approved cessation and telehealth during this pandemic,” says Barbara Keber, president of the group that represents more than 6,000 family physicians and medical students in New York.
If you wanted to give some people's lungs a couple of months of recovery time so they were in better shape when they caught COVID-19, particularly in London and other urban areas, I guess you could ban all tobacco sales (would have to be zero-warning to stop folk stockpiling!) and tough restrictions on the most nasty emitting vehicles (in London at least you could presumably ramp up the price tag on the LEZ/ULEZ schemes to help achieve that without requiring a total traffic lockdown though I note they have instead temporarily suspended them to keep key workers mobile).
I said it in the wee hours - if a government is prepared to lock us indoors for this, they should permanently ban the sale of cigarettes while they’re at it
Along with alcohol as well, presumably.
So we come back to the argument of whether we want the Government to decide what's good for us - at an individual level, possibly not. At a wider societal level it becomes more difficult.
If we did nothing and allowed the virus to run through the population, there would be deaths but at a wider level we all die sooner or later. The foreshortening of some lives set against the economic dislocation of many others (we have people on here claiming their future has been "destroyed" by this) is a balance where we would all sit in different places.
Yet does not the Government have the absolute and final say on our public health in its entirety? Whatever individual bad health decisions we choose to make (in spite of the information available), the Government might argue provide providing clean water and maintaining the sewage system is in all our interests.
What would Jeremy do?
No, not Corbyn - Jeremy Bentham.
Is business as usual with 250k excess deaths a source of greater utility than the current approach?
While it seems most Governments are opting for some form of movement restriction to alleviate and depress new cases of the virus, there still seem those who argue for a different route.
If you want to call it the "herd immunity" approach, that's fine but as I understand it the theory is to isolate the elderly and the vulnerable but for the virus to be allowed to run through the rest of the population on the basis the vast majority will emerge unscathed and immune.
That argument also suggests the wider economy would suffer less in terms of disruption - there would still be an impact but not severe.
The argument against the lock-down approach is it causes unnecessary and unwarranted economic damage - basically we're going to have, in economic terms, three weeks of Bank Holidays, if not Christmas Days in terms of output and productivity. We will all be home living off our resources - food and financial.
The argument therefore turns on where you value economic growth against human life or lives and that will be in the eye of the beholder. If we are all simply economic drones whose single purpose is to increase GDP I get that but I'm not sure that where I am philosophically.
While recognising we are all mortal and the Grim Reaper waits for us all at the end of our journey, I'm not convinced a few premature deaths is a good price to pay for a slightly lower GDP figure in the first quarter of 2021/22 but that would be an argument for the banning of smoking, drinking, gambling and a whole range of other activities.
Thus, it comes back to more fundamentals - do we opt to choose to live as we wish accepting the risks or do we choose to accept a temporary dislocation to our lives and our prosperity to maintain our health in the hope of returning to what we know in short order?
I said it in the wee hours - if a government is prepared to lock us indoors for this, they should permanently ban the sale of cigarettes while they’re at it
Given that we face a serious respiratory infection, why not ban the sale of tobacco and vaping kit now? Overnight.
Why not?
I still think it might not be advantageous for you to breath in others' tobacco smoke or vapes at this time.
I said it in the wee hours - if a government is prepared to lock us indoors for this, they should permanently ban the sale of cigarettes while they’re at it
Along with alcohol as well, presumably.
So we come back to the argument of whether we want the Government to decide what's good for us - at an individual level, possibly not. At a wider societal level it becomes more difficult.
If we did nothing and allowed the virus to run through the population, there would be deaths but at a wider level we all die sooner or later. The foreshortening of some lives set against the economic dislocation of many others (we have people on here claiming their future has been "destroyed" by this) is a balance where we would all sit in different places.
Yet does not the Government have the absolute and final say on our public health in its entirety? Whatever individual bad health decisions we choose to make (in spite of the information available), the Government might argue provide providing clean water and maintaining the sewage system is in all our interests.
Banning the sale of cigarettes is a bad analogy. Banning smoking in public buildings and the workplace, where an individual's poor health decisions can kill *other people*, is a better analogy.
With alcohol, you could point to alcohol fuelled violence and drink-driving as examples of how it affects other people, but the numbers of people killed by these each year are much smaller than the numbers we're discussing here. People destroying their own health with alcohol is, again, a poor analogy.
Somebody said there was no politician in the last fifty years less qualified than Trump to be POTUS.
I was mulling over the truth or otherwise of this, and came up with Goldwater, Joseph McCarthy and Wallace.
But their peak was over fifty years ago. Indeed, McCarthy has been dead for over 60 years.
However, J Strom Thurmond was still active into the 1990s and still a corrupt, creepy, racist nutcase so I suppose we could offer him up as a possible.
Well, yes, I agree. And please don't forget Michael Dukakis.
But here's the rub. Trump is the only one of those muppets who actually made it to President.
Yes, I see your point.
If we go back looking for a worse president, who are we looking at? Harding perhaps? Or Pierce?
Grant would actually have been quite good in this situation, wouldn’t he?
Grant is unfairly maligned due to history being rewritten by the losers (i.e. The Confederates regain their political power post Grant). Yes his administration was corrupt but no more than than others of the period.
Not being a watcher of Fox News I am not too familiar with Fox presenters. Is the Steve Hilton who has got Trump so animated, our very own Steve Hilton from the Cameron years?
Whether Trump, Macron, Johnson or indeed the Mullahs of Iran, people rally round in this sort of catastrophe, particularly with the government housing money at the problem. The post mortem enquiry on what was done comes later.
While it seems most Governments are opting for some form of movement restriction to alleviate and depress new cases of the virus, there still seem those who argue for a different route.
If you want to call it the "herd immunity" approach, that's fine but as I understand it the theory is to isolate the elderly and the vulnerable but for the virus to be allowed to run through the rest of the population on the basis the vast majority will emerge unscathed and immune.
That argument also suggests the wider economy would suffer less in terms of disruption - there would still be an impact but not severe.
The argument against the lock-down approach is it causes unnecessary and unwarranted economic damage - basically we're going to have, in economic terms, three weeks of Bank Holidays, if not Christmas Days in terms of output and productivity. We will all be home living off our resources - food and financial.
The argument therefore turns on where you value economic growth against human life or lives and that will be in the eye of the beholder. If we are all simply economic drones whose single purpose is to increase GDP I get that but I'm not sure that where I am philosophically.
While recognising we are all mortal and the Grim Reaper waits for us all at the end of our journey, I'm not convinced a few premature deaths is a good price to pay for a slightly lower GDP figure in the first quarter of 2021/22 but that would be an argument for the banning of smoking, drinking, gambling and a whole range of other activities.
Thus, it comes back to more fundamentals - do we opt to choose to live as we wish accepting the risks or do we choose to accept a temporary dislocation to our lives and our prosperity to maintain our health in the hope of returning to what we know in short order?
I said it in the wee hours - if a government is prepared to lock us indoors for this, they should permanently ban the sale of cigarettes while they’re at it
Given that we face a serious respiratory infection, why not ban the sale of tobacco and vaping kit now? Overnight.
Well some doctors in NY are calling for it! (Think there'd be a case of banning the tobacco and allowing the vaping personally, since it gives smokers a chance to switch to vaping and that seems to still give lungs a chance to recover since it isn't as bad as the ciggies.)
The New York State Academy of Family Physicians is calling for a ban of all tobacco and vaping products across statewide due to the increased risk of COVID-19 in those who use tobacco.
Based on a study by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, one factor that influences the progression of COVID-19 is a person’s history of smoking.
The study suggests that “patients who use tobacco are 14 times as likely to have COVID-19 progression.” According to The National Institute of Drug Abuse, this is because the coronavirus attacks the lungs, and people who vape or smoke tobacco are more susceptible to the virus becoming a serious threat.
“Now more than ever, it is critical for the State and medical community to take actions to prevent our youth from ever using these highly addictive, deadly products and to help our patients to reduce their risks through FDA-approved cessation and telehealth during this pandemic,” says Barbara Keber, president of the group that represents more than 6,000 family physicians and medical students in New York.
If you wanted to give some people's lungs a couple of months of recovery time so they were in better shape when they caught COVID-19, particularly in London and other urban areas, I guess you could ban all tobacco sales (would have to be zero-warning to stop folk stockpiling!) and tough restrictions on the most nasty emitting vehicles (in London at least you could presumably ramp up the price tag on the LEZ/ULEZ schemes to help achieve that without requiring a total traffic lockdown though I note they have instead temporarily suspended them to keep key workers mobile).
I'm just going to leave this here. Nice bit of British innovation.
Is it just me, 5 times today I convinced myself I had the virus.
Just had a stiff G&T, and I defo do not have it, yet.
Ditto. I'm never the bravest and this is certainly messing with me. When I go out to buy food I imagine the deadly virus lingering on every surface and floating in the air. I have to touch things when I'm out and I can't hold my breath for the time it takes me to do a shop. So I feel in great peril. Waitrose is my Stalingrad.
Stephen Fry did a short piece about the anxiety on the BBC the other day. I know a lot of my friends are really stressed with massive levels of anxiety.
The mental scarring from this will be considerable.
I know this is not (yet) anything like WW2. But that undoubtedly and inevitably scarred an entire generation. As an aside, there have been interesting studies showing that evacuee children suffered far more serious mental health problems than those who stayed at home under the bombs. Why? Because we need social bonding, social contact, hugs and love. We're mammals and it's a basic instinct - a key component of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
I've already noticed people crossing to the other side of the road in a way that would make great fodder for the Good Samaritan parable. But the amazing corollary is that accompanying the physical side-stepping is an aversion of eye contact, a loss of greeting, a lack of smile. It's as if the social distancing means we must treat everyone else as pariahs. I even thought myself today, 'Oh no there's a human being.'
I'm making doubly sure to smile. Don't always get one in return, but perhaps they will smile at the next person.
Good for you. I like that a lot. I shall pinch it and do the same.
While it seems most Governments are opting for some form of movement restriction to alleviate and depress new cases of the virus, there still seem those who argue for a different route.
If you want to call it the "herd immunity" approach, that's fine but as I understand it the theory is to isolate the elderly and the vulnerable but for the virus to be allowed to run through the rest of the population on the basis the vast majority will emerge unscathed and immune.
That argument also suggests the wider economy would suffer less in terms of disruption - there would still be an impact but not severe.
The argument against the lock-down approach is it causes unnecessary and unwarranted economic damage - basically we're going to have, in economic terms, three weeks of Bank Holidays, if not Christmas Days in terms of output and productivity. We will all be home living off our resources - food and financial.
The argument therefore turns on where you value economic growth against human life or lives and that will be in the eye of the beholder. If we are all simply economic drones whose single purpose is to increase GDP I get that but I'm not sure that where I am philosophically.
While recognising we are all mortal and the Grim Reaper waits for us all at the end of our journey, I'm not convinced a few premature deaths is a good price to pay for a slightly lower GDP figure in the first quarter of 2021/22 but that would be an argument for the banning of smoking, drinking, gambling and a whole range of other activities.
Thus, it comes back to more fundamentals - do we opt to choose to live as we wish accepting the risks or do we choose to accept a temporary dislocation to our lives and our prosperity to maintain our health in the hope of returning to what we know in short order?
But it's not just deaths of pensioners towards the end of their lives anyway. Many people of workng age are hospitalised. Doctors and nurses get ill. People who need OPs or cancer treatment are having their treatment delayed.
At some point the hospital can't cope any more and it all goes tits up. That is what has happened in parts of Italy, and large cities in Spain and the USA are on the brink.
Forget a comparison with deaths due to seasonal flu, it is an apples and pears comparison.
Is it just me, 5 times today I convinced myself I had the virus.
Just had a stiff G&T, and I defo do not have it, yet.
Ditto. I'm never the bravest and this is certainly messing with me. When I go out to buy food I imagine the deadly virus lingering on every surface and floating in the air. I have to touch things when I'm out and I can't hold my breath for the time it takes me to do a shop. So I feel in great peril. Waitrose is my Stalingrad.
Stephen Fry did a short piece about the anxiety on the BBC the other day. I know a lot of my friends are really stressed with massive levels of anxiety.
The mental scarring from this will be considerable.
I know this is not (yet) anything like WW2. But that undoubtedly and inevitably scarred an entire generation. As an aside, there have been interesting studies showing that evacuee children suffered far more serious mental health problems than those who stayed at home under the bombs. Why? Because we need social bonding, social contact, hugs and love. We're mammals and it's a basic instinct - a key component of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
I've already noticed people crossing to the other side of the road in a way that would make great fodder for the Good Samaritan parable. But the amazing corollary is that accompanying the physical side-stepping is an aversion of eye contact, a loss of greeting, a lack of smile. It's as if the social distancing means we must treat everyone else as pariahs. I even thought myself today, 'Oh no there's a human being.'
Yes! We went for a walk yesterday and I felt a bit bad for laughing and joking as we did so! As if we were meant to be really sombre
We exaggeratedly avoided people whilst loudly mentioning it, I think that’s probably a common joke at the mo
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Actually that study is 100% science. They have come up with an hypothesis, and they are going to do experiments to test it. That is the scientific method in a nutshell.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Are you the person who earlier tried to dismiss the Imperial College study on the basis of a spurious association with foot and mouth disease?
If the two institutions were instrumental in the two epidemic responses, and both responses proved disproportionate to the point of being damaging, it is prima facie evidence of an inherent institutional bias toward reckless knee jerk catastrophism.
I have wondered this. If your job is epidemiologist, and the study of pandemic outbreaks, is it possible you are subconsciously over-inclined to model every virus as a potentially disastrous Pandemic?
The same way an oncologist in the American health system might subconsciously exaggerate the perils of a tumour (While also knowing that this is his payday)
I don’t know. I do know the French have a phrase for this
The trouble is can we afford the risk of ignoring the professional deformations of an epidemiologist, when, if the boffin is right, we are confronting a possible disaster?
The silly fuck couldn't even protect himself from Coronavirus.
Whether Trump, Macron, Johnson or indeed the Mullahs of Iran, people rally round in this sort of catastrophe, particularly with the government housing money at the problem. The post mortem enquiry on what was done comes later.
Yeah - I noticed myself having warmer feelings towards Johnson, who I generally loath, over the last few days. When this is resolved I doubt they will last.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Are you the person who earlier tried to dismiss the Imperial College study on the basis of a spurious association with foot and mouth disease?
If the two institutions were instrumental in the two epidemic responses, and both responses proved disproportionate to the point of being damaging, it is prima facie evidence of an inherent institutional bias toward reckless knee jerk catastrophism.
I have wondered this. If your job is epidemiologist, and the study of pandemic outbreaks, is it possible you are subconsciously over-inclined to model every virus as a potentially disastrous Pandemic?
The same way an oncologist in the American health system might subconsciously exaggerate the perils of a tumour (While also knowing that this is his payday)
I don’t know. I do know the French have a phrase for this
The trouble is can we afford the risk of ignoring the professional deformations of an epidemiologist, when, if the boffin is right, we are confronting a possible disaster?
The silly fuck couldn't even protect himself from Coronavirus.
Seriously? We are going to judge an epidemiologist on whether or not he contracted a disease?
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Actually that study is 100% science. They have come up with an hypothesis, and they are going to do experiments to test it. That is the scientific method in a nutshell.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Actually that study is 100% science. They have come up with an hypothesis, and they are going to do experiments to test it. That is the scientific method in a nutshell.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Actually that study is 100% science. They have come up with an hypothesis, and they are going to do experiments to test it. That is the scientific method in a nutshell.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Are you the person who earlier tried to dismiss the Imperial College study on the basis of a spurious association with foot and mouth disease?
If the two institutions were instrumental in the two epidemic responses, and both responses proved disproportionate to the point of being damaging, it is prima facie evidence of an inherent institutional bias toward reckless knee jerk catastrophism.
I have wondered this. If your job is epidemiologist, and the study of pandemic outbreaks, is it possible you are subconsciously over-inclined to model every virus as a potentially disastrous Pandemic?
The same way an oncologist in the American health system might subconsciously exaggerate the perils of a tumour (While also knowing that this is his payday)
I don’t know. I do know the French have a phrase for this
The trouble is can we afford the risk of ignoring the professional deformations of an epidemiologist, when, if the boffin is right, we are confronting a possible disaster?
By the way, having read your link, I 100% buy into that as a phenomenon. There's even a metaphysical side to it, like attracting those issues to you. Also neatly conveyed by the saying 'When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail'.
Is it just me, 5 times today I convinced myself I had the virus.
Just had a stiff G&T, and I defo do not have it, yet.
Ditto. I'm never the bravest and this is certainly messing with me. When I go out to buy food I imagine the deadly virus lingering on every surface and floating in the air. I have to touch things when I'm out and I can't hold my breath for the time it takes me to do a shop. So I feel in great peril. Waitrose is my Stalingrad.
Stephen Fry did a short piece about the anxiety on the BBC the other day. I know a lot of my friends are really stressed with massive levels of anxiety.
The mental scarring from this will be considerable.
I know this is not (yet) anything like WW2. But that undoubtedly and inevitably scarred an entire generation. As an aside, there have been interesting studies showing that evacuee children suffered far more serious mental health problems than those who stayed at home under the bombs. Why? Because we need social bonding, social contact, hugs and love. We're mammals and it's a basic instinct - a key component of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
I've already noticed people crossing to the other side of the road in a way that would make great fodder for the Good Samaritan parable. But the amazing corollary is that accompanying the physical side-stepping is an aversion of eye contact, a loss of greeting, a lack of smile. It's as if the social distancing means we must treat everyone else as pariahs. I even thought myself today, 'Oh no there's a human being.'
Yes! We went for a walk yesterday and I felt a bit bad for laughing and joking as we did so! As if we were meant to be really sombre
We exaggeratedly avoided people whilst loudly mentioning it, I think that’s probably a common joke at the mo
I have the same feeling. I live next to the sea and an excellent, socially distanced, way for me to get my daily exercise would be to take my inflatable paddleboard out. Despite all logic saying it's a good idea, a bit of me feels like the highly visible self-indulgence would be wrong.
Whether Trump, Macron, Johnson or indeed the Mullahs of Iran, people rally round in this sort of catastrophe, particularly with the government housing money at the problem. The post mortem enquiry on what was done comes later.
Yeah - I noticed myself having warmer feelings towards Johnson, who I generally loath, over the last few days. When this is resolved I doubt they will last.
The whole government seems to be growing up fast, which perhaps is unsurprising even if the same effect doesn't seem to be working on Trump.
The question is, will they revert to childishness once it's over?
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Actually that study is 100% science. They have come up with an hypothesis, and they are going to do experiments to test it. That is the scientific method in a nutshell.
I think your sarcasm meter is broken...
Yes, I've given it a kick and it's working again now.
Somebody said there was no politician in the last fifty years less qualified than Trump to be POTUS.
I was mulling over the truth or otherwise of this, and came up with Goldwater, Joseph McCarthy and Wallace.
But their peak was over fifty years ago. Indeed, McCarthy has been dead for over 60 years.
However, J Strom Thurmond was still active into the 1990s and still a corrupt, creepy, racist nutcase so I suppose we could offer him up as a possible.
It was my comment and to be honest horrible though they were I think all of them would have risen to do a better job than Trump in the current crisis. McCarthy is the only one that may have given him a run for his money.
Trump's combination of ignorance and egotism is lethal right now. He has convinced his deluded core that all the media apart from Fox News are peddling "Fake News" so the idiots are going to follow him into the abyss like a bunch of lemmings
By and large in other western democracies political leaders have put aside serious political partisanship. Trump is still sowing discord and attempting to game it for political advantage.
I do wonder if at some point if Republicans in Congress will revolt when they can see where this is headed.
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Are you the person who earlier tried to dismiss the Imperial College study on the basis of a spurious association with foot and mouth disease?
If the two institutions were instrumental in the two epidemic responses, and both responses proved disproportionate to the point of being damaging, it is prima facie evidence of an inherent institutional bias toward reckless knee jerk catastrophism.
I have wondered this. If your job is epidemiologist, and the study of pandemic outbreaks, is it possible you are subconsciously over-inclined to model every virus as a potentially disastrous Pandemic?
The same way an oncologist in the American health system might subconsciously exaggerate the perils of a tumour (While also knowing that this is his payday)
I don’t know. I do know the French have a phrase for this
The trouble is can we afford the risk of ignoring the professional deformations of an epidemiologist, when, if the boffin is right, we are confronting a possible disaster?
The silly fuck couldn't even protect himself from Coronavirus.
What a peculiar interpretation...and a little bit sweary too, if you don't mind me saying so.
Once this is all over I'm making a career change, I'm going into teaching, these last two days have shown I'm an excellent teacher.
The only question is which subject I'll teach, I've shortlisted it to maths, history, languages, and the sciences.
In fact I reckon I could become a Vice-Chancellor.
I might do something similar.
Timetabling is so easy.
I know for a fact that our timetabler (me) will not be in school for about three months, so if you want to volunteer your services...
I don't know how you manage it.
I’m not entirely sure myself to be honest: it’s always a bit of a surprise when it works. When it doesn’t work I end up having to teach Y11 on a Friday afternoon.
I'm struggling with two kids, how do you manage it for schools with like 1,000 plus kids.
I think 'Playstation lessons' will be on the timetable next week.
If you mute the TV and put the subtitles on your kids are reading...
Genius.
Try making short gifs or video with playmobile figures, freeze frame action. Marc Morris has done Battle of Hastings that way.
There is something especially horrible in the fact that Italy and Spain, a lot of people's two favourite countries in the world, are currently being hardest hit by the virus. 😞
France too - the world’s most popular country for visitors.
Where we have a holiday booked for May 31st!
Hope you can go sir.
We’re booked into Majorca the previous weekend. Looking unlikely but never say never.
Somebody said there was no politician in the last fifty years less qualified than Trump to be POTUS.
I was mulling over the truth or otherwise of this, and came up with Goldwater, Joseph McCarthy and Wallace.
But their peak was over fifty years ago. Indeed, McCarthy has been dead for over 60 years.
However, J Strom Thurmond was still active into the 1990s and still a corrupt, creepy, racist nutcase so I suppose we could offer him up as a possible.
While McCarthy and the others might have been even less qualified than trump to be POTUS, at least the American voters and parties had enough sense not to vote them into the highest office.
Conservatively, that's a 10,000 to 1 shot. Much, much less likely if you require four different divisions as well (as they "achieved" and ignoring the name change of the second devision).
A very interesting article in the FT (no paywall); Oxford epidemiologists think that there might be far more undetected cases than the Imperial College modelling shows, with as much as half the UK population already infected. Could be good news if true:
How could London be suddenly getting loads of hospitalisations if 50% of people had already been infected nationwide (and presumably more than that in London) ?
The theory would be that 50% are infected, but a much smaller proportion are symptomatic, and a smaller number again bad enough to need medical care.
That alone is enough to swamp medical capacity.
The virus will keep going, it still has the other 50% of the popn to work through...
But nowhere near 50% are testing positive. It seems like wishful thinking to me unfortunately.
Indeed, and the evidence from the Seattle care home and Diamond Princess ship, suggests that there are not so many asymptomatic cases. A very much higher percentage caught it, and the ship was all tested.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Are you the person who earlier tried to dismiss the Imperial College study on the basis of a spurious association with foot and mouth disease?
If the two institutions were instrumental in the two epidemic responses, and both responses proved disproportionate to the point of being damaging, it is prima facie evidence of an inherent institutional bias toward reckless knee jerk catastrophism.
I have wondered this. If your job is epidemiologist, and the study of pandemic outbreaks, is it possible you are subconsciously over-inclined to model every virus as a potentially disastrous Pandemic?
The same way an oncologist in the American health system might subconsciously exaggerate the perils of a tumour (While also knowing that this is his payday)
I don’t know. I do know the French have a phrase for this
The trouble is can we afford the risk of ignoring the professional deformations of an epidemiologist, when, if the boffin is right, we are confronting a possible disaster?
The silly fuck couldn't even protect himself from Coronavirus.
What a peculiar interpretation...and a little bit sweary too, if you don't mind me saying so.
I agree it was. I apologise. Non sweary posts will now resume.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Actually that study is 100% science. They have come up with an hypothesis, and they are going to do experiments to test it. That is the scientific method in a nutshell.
I think your sarcasm meter is broken...
Yes, I've given it a kick and it's working again now.
Oh good, I'm glad two PBers have finally weighed in and confirmed the Oxford study is 'wishful thinking' - hopefully that once great academic institution can get past this crushing verdict and maybe at some point in the future once again make a worthwhile contribution to science.
Actually that study is 100% science. They have come up with an hypothesis, and they are going to do experiments to test it. That is the scientific method in a nutshell.
Is it just me, 5 times today I convinced myself I had the virus.
Just had a stiff G&T, and I defo do not have it, yet.
Ditto. I'm never the bravest and this is certainly messing with me. When I go out to buy food I imagine the deadly virus lingering on every surface and floating in the air. I have to touch things when I'm out and I can't hold my breath for the time it takes me to do a shop. So I feel in great peril. Waitrose is my Stalingrad.
Stephen Fry did a short piece about the anxiety on the BBC the other day. I know a lot of my friends are really stressed with massive levels of anxiety.
The mental scarring from this will be considerable.
I know this is not (yet) anything like WW2. But that undoubtedly and inevitably scarred an entire generation. As an aside, there have been interesting studies showing that evacuee children suffered far more serious mental health problems than those who stayed at home under the bombs. Why? Because we need social bonding, social contact, hugs and love. We're mammals and it's a basic instinct - a key component of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
I've already noticed people crossing to the other side of the road in a way that would make great fodder for the Good Samaritan parable. But the amazing corollary is that accompanying the physical side-stepping is an aversion of eye contact, a loss of greeting, a lack of smile. It's as if the social distancing means we must treat everyone else as pariahs. I even thought myself today, 'Oh no there's a human being.'
I'm making doubly sure to smile. Don't always get one in return, but perhaps they will smile at the next person.
When I smile at people, they usually gather their children in close and sometimes even call the police.
Somebody said there was no politician in the last fifty years less qualified than Trump to be POTUS.
I was mulling over the truth or otherwise of this, and came up with Goldwater, Joseph McCarthy and Wallace.
But their peak was over fifty years ago. Indeed, McCarthy has been dead for over 60 years.
However, J Strom Thurmond was still active into the 1990s and still a corrupt, creepy, racist nutcase so I suppose we could offer him up as a possible.
Trump's combination of ignorance and egotism is lethal right now. He has convinced his deluded core that all the media apart from Fox News are peddling "Fake News" so the idiots are going to follow him into the abyss like a bunch of lemmings
A great post - all of it but I've quoted just this bit. This is absolutely right. What a disaster for the country.
As for Boris, I too have begun to find myself more praising of him. He's made mistakes and was terribly slow off the mark. I actually think he suffers from low self-confidence. He was too ready to believe the early science and too ready to lean on the utterly unsuitable Dominic Cummings. I want to see more of the bold Boris. The one who appointed Rishi Sunak. The one who addressed the nation really rather well last night.
Comments
Just had a stiff G&T, and I defo do not have it, yet.
Teaching Year 10 RS at 2pm on Friday in the days when it was a compulsory subject started out as hard work, until I found a section on the curriculum that basically boiled down to various aspects of sex.
sodscherubs never mind a thousand of other people's...https://twitter.com/Cricket_Ali/status/1242429466896457729
Are they old enough for Time Team? You can get most of the old episodes on YouTube.
For me, 0.9 was of course a full contract.
Boy, was I unpopular when I sat back with a cup of tea on Friday afternoon and waved the other staff off to lessons.
But actually, I found the best sort of frees were Monday morning first up, as it takes all the pressure off planning over the weekend.
Whilst this makes sense to me on a basic level I don't know enough about the subject to be able to say if it is correct or not. Certainly the news from Singapore where cases are starting to increase again is worrying.
Our nursery shut up shop today. Once the initial one key worker and you feel you still need it tightened to two key workers neither of whom can operate from home, which is fair and in line with other government actions, the numbers fell to near zero.
Secondly, my wife, who is in the pharmaceutical supply chain, though not currently doing anything of relevance, does seem to be facing a plant shutdown due to some of the shift operators being in vulnerable groups and some self-isolating. Whether some are waiting the lead is moot.
To your both things together, I'm not sure the nurseries are shutting down in a coordinated way, rather I suspect these are individual decisions by individual business owners. Will this leave enough cover for key workers? I don't know the answer.
Equally the shutdown of plant that contributes to the wider pharmaceutical industry and could host COVID relevant synthesis isn't great.
The third example is from Spain, the partial collapse of the Care Home system with horrible consequences.
This is a wide area that may need further government intervention, perhaps in the form of a de facto Ministry of Works.
As well as the other changes (see below) which all look sensible this deadline surely should be brought forward to say June 2023 otherwise it is dangerously close to the most likely date of the next GE (ie May 2024).
Note the other changes are:
- Back to 650 MPs
- Tolerance from electoral quota remains 5%
- Boundary reviews to be done every 8 years (after the next one)
- Implementation by Order in Council to be automatic (ie no Commons + Lords vote to implement reports once submitted by Boundary Commissions)
Particularly if said columnist has tried to teach any maths...
And at last something none plague to debate.
Good.
Plus there is the necessity of flattening the curve, which is necessary even if the vulnerable are taken out of the equation. That requires measures that seriously damage the economy, e.g. intermittent lockdowns.
So, while I'm still angry about the government's lack of preparation, I cannot see an argument against their broad strategy which stands up to scrutiny.
But here's the rub. Trump is the only one of those muppets who actually made it to President.
If the 'Oxford hidden' cases are doubling at the same rate as the 'actual, tested' cases i.e 2 x every 2 -3 days, then the 50% mark could have been hit relatively recently.
I don’t want him to be exposed.
He’s revolting enough fully clothed.
Per Worldometer already 8,000 cases and 114 deaths so far today with many hours to go before daily cut-off - and numbers often go up a lot in the evening UK time.
Previous highest numbers were yesterday - 10,000 cases and 140 deaths.
Steve Baker
If we go back looking for a worse president, who are we looking at? Harding perhaps? Or Pierce?
So we come back to the argument of whether we want the Government to decide what's good for us - at an individual level, possibly not. At a wider societal level it becomes more difficult.
If we did nothing and allowed the virus to run through the population, there would be deaths but at a wider level we all die sooner or later. The foreshortening of some lives set against the economic dislocation of many others (we have people on here claiming their future has been "destroyed" by this) is a balance where we would all sit in different places.
Yet does not the Government have the absolute and final say on our public health in its entirety? Whatever individual bad health decisions we choose to make (in spite of the information available), the Government might argue provide providing clean water and maintaining the sewage system is in all our interests.
Or Buchanan, who was infamous for his dithering.
Trump is on his own in terms of narcissistic sociopathy.
The mental scarring from this will be considerable.
I know this is not (yet) anything like WW2. But that undoubtedly and inevitably scarred an entire generation. As an aside, there have been interesting studies showing that evacuee children suffered far more serious mental health problems than those who stayed at home under the bombs. Why? Because we need social bonding, social contact, hugs and love. We're mammals and it's a basic instinct - a key component of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
I've already noticed people crossing to the other side of the road in a way that would make great fodder for the Good Samaritan parable. But the amazing corollary is that accompanying the physical side-stepping is an aversion of eye contact, a loss of greeting, a lack of smile. It's as if the social distancing means we must treat everyone else as pariahs. I even thought myself today, 'Oh no there's a human being.'
How much more money would the NHS have if smoking related illnesses didn’t have to be dealt with?
I try Robitussin (anti-tussive) for that sort of cough
A non lockdown situation of letting a pandemic riot is not without economic consequences either!
Doctors call for a tobacco and vaping ban in New York during the COVID-19 pandemic
The New York State Academy of Family Physicians is calling for a ban of all tobacco and vaping products across statewide due to the increased risk of COVID-19 in those who use tobacco.
Based on a study by the U.S. National Library of Medicine, one factor that influences the progression of COVID-19 is a person’s history of smoking.
The study suggests that “patients who use tobacco are 14 times as likely to have COVID-19 progression.” According to The National Institute of Drug Abuse, this is because the coronavirus attacks the lungs, and people who vape or smoke tobacco are more susceptible to the virus becoming a serious threat.
“Now more than ever, it is critical for the State and medical community to take actions to prevent our youth from ever using these highly addictive, deadly products and to help our patients to reduce their risks through FDA-approved cessation and telehealth during this pandemic,” says Barbara Keber, president of the group that represents more than 6,000 family physicians and medical students in New York.
If you wanted to give some people's lungs a couple of months of recovery time so they were in better shape when they caught COVID-19, particularly in London and other urban areas, I guess you could ban all tobacco sales (would have to be zero-warning to stop folk stockpiling!) and tough restrictions on the most nasty emitting vehicles (in London at least you could presumably ramp up the price tag on the LEZ/ULEZ schemes to help achieve that without requiring a total traffic lockdown though I note they have instead temporarily suspended them to keep key workers mobile).
No, not Corbyn - Jeremy Bentham.
Is business as usual with 250k excess deaths a source of greater utility than the current approach?
With alcohol, you could point to alcohol fuelled violence and drink-driving as examples of how it affects other people, but the numbers of people killed by these each year are much smaller than the numbers we're discussing here. People destroying their own health with alcohol is, again, a poor analogy.
They do have the weird Mayan obsession with corn.
https://www.voke.com/
At some point the hospital can't cope any more and it all goes tits up. That is what has happened in parts of Italy, and large cities in Spain and the USA are on the brink.
Forget a comparison with deaths due to seasonal flu, it is an apples and pears comparison.
We exaggeratedly avoided people whilst loudly mentioning it, I think that’s probably a common joke at the mo
The question is, will they revert to childishness once it's over?
Trump's combination of ignorance and egotism is lethal right now. He has convinced his deluded core that all the media apart from Fox News are peddling "Fake News" so the idiots are going to follow him into the abyss like a bunch of lemmings
By and large in other western democracies political leaders have put aside serious political partisanship. Trump is still sowing discord and attempting to game it for political advantage.
I do wonder if at some point if Republicans in Congress will revolt when they can see where this is headed.
We’re booked into Majorca the previous weekend. Looking unlikely but never say never.
While McCarthy and the others might have been even less qualified than trump to be POTUS, at least the American voters and parties had enough sense not to vote them into the highest office.
https://twitter.com/totallyleeds/status/1211335664790315011?lang=en
Conservatively, that's a 10,000 to 1 shot. Much, much less likely if you require four different divisions as well (as they "achieved" and ignoring the name change of the second devision).
As for Boris, I too have begun to find myself more praising of him. He's made mistakes and was terribly slow off the mark. I actually think he suffers from low self-confidence. He was too ready to believe the early science and too ready to lean on the utterly unsuitable Dominic Cummings. I want to see more of the bold Boris. The one who appointed Rishi Sunak. The one who addressed the nation really rather well last night.