On topic, I see why Mike has gone for this at 180-1. However, I don't think the chances of Cuomo as nominee are much better than that in reality.
My reading is that Cuomo has to come out swinging against Trump on this. He's in charge of the worst affected state, and frankly has to position himself as the hard working governor, let down by central government. Crudely, he does have to play something of a blame game (which is easier in New York, where Trump is unpopular anyway) and is making a virtue of necessity.
More broadly and nationally, the jury is out on Trump's handling, and indeed polls indicate narrow approval of his response. It's very possible that will go south very quickly (other than the large number of workers immediately laid off, the economic impact hasn't YET hit for a lot of Americans, and the US remains a couple of weeks behind most of Europe in terms of death rates). But people do give some space to leaders in these crises - they will give the strategy a chance to work, and the outcome could be at the less bad end of the range of possibilities (which is still awful but nevertheless).
So I think Biden is right not to go all in on this at this stage. He's sowing the seeds with TV ads, but it wouldn't be wise to bet the farm on making the election a referendum on Trump's handling of Covid-19... not yet, anyway.
Cuomo won't be nominee now, however Biden could pick him as his running mate
Biden has committed to a lady running mate iirc.
He could say the coronavirus crisis requires a proven leader on tackling it to join the ticket, regardless of gender
Or he could just forget that he promised a female running mate...
Incidentally, what is the process if Biden/Sanders dies, or withdraws as nominee between the convention and the election? Does the VP candidate then get promoted and name a new running mate?
No, we go back to the party establishment deciding the nominee at a special convention behind closed doors, as happened before the mid 1970s
No, my question was after the convention. Surely it could not reconvene?
It would have to if the nominee died before the general election as the nominee has to have a majority of party delegates at the convention
Slightly shocked to read that 855 nursing home residents in Madrid are amongst those who have died (21% of the total in Spain). That really suggests that once this gets into a nursing home the fatality rate will be extremely high.
A similar thing happened in Seattle with a nursing home.
And there's one in Georgia that's gotten hit too, I believe.
I don't think there's anything in the Chancellor's announcement for people who have their own one-person company and pay themselves mainly by dividends, is there? Normally they'll be paying themselves only the minimum to build up NI contribution years (£5.8K, IIRC).
I think that's wrong. It's based on profits, which are calculated before dividends are taken?
Self employment profits not limited company profits. If you are a director of your own ltd company you will get nothing from the announcement today and probably nothing from the announcement the other day.
To get anything from the previous announcement, the director would have to successfully argue that they have furloughed themselves! and if they succeed in this claim they would then only get 80% of the salary they pay to themself (not dividends).
In small businesses with a few directors, which have basically shut down, I would expect all but the MD to be furloughed.
Here's an idea I've heard:
Limited company run by owner who is sole employee - who takes significant salary as well as dividends.
Owner / employee furloughs himself; gets 80% of salary refunded.
In order for company to continue operating (albeit at reduced level) - put adult son on payroll at £12k per year so if any business is done can say orders processed by son.
I don't think there's anything in the Chancellor's announcement for people who have their own one-person company and pay themselves mainly by dividends, is there? Normally they'll be paying themselves only the minimum to build up NI contribution years (£5.8K, IIRC).
They were acting perfectly legally and responding exactly to the strong incentives put in place by successive governments. Blame the governments for the wonky tax system, not them for being tilted by it.
Shall I cut an onion ? They won’t starve.
Some of them earn very little.
It is clearly difficult to devise a comprehensive scheme that covers 100 % of cases. There are other welfare options for those in dire need as the Chancellor made clear.
Gambling on Betfair is tax free (in the sense that you don’t pay any to the govt. I do pay 40% flat rate to Betfair) so I’m not eligible for anything, and I can’t work.
To double down, the missus is on maternity leave so gets less than if she was at work and not working!!
If those are the final scores on the doors, we will have got incredibly lightly. But having not read the paper, I feel this is all still very early days, we haven't yet got to the stage where the NHS system is right up against the absolute limit. If / when that happens, is when we could see an explosion in deaths depending on if they keep it going or it collapses.
I think it will go from more lockdown to less lockdown in a few weeks. It won't be removed entirely. The purpose of lockdown is to slow infection rates. Once you have stabilised those you can gradually remove restrictions on a controlled risk basis. This depends on identifying a largely virus-free population that can go about its business with residual constraints.
The degree to which you remove restrictions and how quickly depends on your risk appetite.
Data collected gathered via the NHS's 111 telephone service is to be mixed with other sources to help predict where ventilators, hospital beds, and medical staff will be most in need.
The goal is to help health chiefs model the consequences of moving resources to best tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
Three US tech firms are aiding the effort - Amazon, Microsoft and Palantir - as well as London-based Faculty AI.
Good news but to be churlish, it is a shame it could not be an all-British effort. We will never have a British hyperscale cloud provider, for instance, while the government persists in patronising American giants.
I would be shocked if we don't hear DeepMind* haven't got something to bring to the party. They have been working with medical data for a bit, I am sure what is a substantial team of some incredible talent could be used for something.
* Yes I know they are owned by Google.
You only need a simple mind to see that the picture is opaque because we don't know which data we really have. The analysis is very simple if you happen to have that piece of information.
You can guess as to this - German's may be a little more healthy than Italians - let's go with 10% say - but that will dictate your findings far more than the data will.
An algorithm - daft or god-like - will spit out numbers, but if you know beforehand that the input is messed up then it's dangerous turf.
What happens also if the algorithm says 'your all dead'? Do you publish?
The largesse to get us through this will shatter the public finances both in terms of deficit and debt. Economic activity will return and the tax receipts will pick up but for now we are living with lots of additional spending plus commitments and very little coming in on the income side of the sheet.
Having all workers (including those of pension age) pay NI is eminently reasonable but we can expect at some point both higher taxes and spending cuts as the Government seeks to re-balance the books.
It'll be interesting to see how popular Rishi Sunak is once those policies kick in.
I don't think there's anything in the Chancellor's announcement for people who have their own one-person company and pay themselves mainly by dividends, is there? Normally they'll be paying themselves only the minimum to build up NI contribution years (£5.8K, IIRC).
I think that's wrong. It's based on profits, which are calculated before dividends are taken?
Self employment profits not limited company profits. If you are a director of your own ltd company you will get nothing from the announcement today and probably nothing from the announcement the other day.
To get anything from the previous announcement, the director would have to successfully argue that they have furloughed themselves! and if they succeed in this claim they would then only get 80% of the salary they pay to themself (not dividends).
I guess the logic is that dividends are associated with income from capital not labour. The tax system has weakened that association but it is still there to an extent. The schemes are all designed to support labour.
As for sole directors furloughing the details will be key. It may be that you could furlough for 6 weeks, work 1 week to fulfil obligations, then furlough for 6 weeks again. I think furloughing all office holders for a ltd company for an ongoing long period would be tricky to justify unless the rules specifically allow it.
I am kind of resigned to not getting anything from the State in this crisis and am not sure I am that unhappy about that. I run a limited company and do have one proper employee other than me who I will keep on and will hopefully be able to pay via the 80% rule.
But for myself I have always considered being a contractor to be one of those situations where you take the rough with the smooth. I put money away in the good times so that if work dries up - as it does on occasion for reasons entirely unrelated to pandemics - I can still survive. Right now I have 3 contracts in place, two of which will end in the next few weeks (as the work is all done so completely unrelated to Covid) and one which I hope will continue through the summer. I had 3 other contracts due to start in April and all have been postponed or cancelled.
But if work does dry up I will just hunker down and enjoy the fact I can genuinely have some time off without feeling guilty about not getting on with work. It will be the first time I have been able to do that since 2013. I see absolutely no reason to complain if the Government decides I am not in need of support.
I think it will go from more lockdown to less lockdown in a few weeks. It won't be removed entirely. The purpose of lockdown is to slow infection rates. Once you have stabilised those you can gradually remove restrictions on a controlled risk basis. This depends on identifying a largely virus-free population that can go about its business with residual constraints.
The degree to which you remove restrictions and how quickly depends on your risk appetite.
It seems quite possible that there will be fewer deaths this year than on average in the UK doesn’t it?
Maybe, but this is clearly not sensible research. Maximum daily deaths of 260. It'll be something like assuming x then the maximum deaths with that x were 260.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has exempted churches from coronavirus lockdowns by classifying religious activity as an essential service, heeding requests from evangelical leaders.
Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist elected with massive support from evangelical voters in 2018 because of his conservative social views, has said publicly that churches should remain open because they are “the last shelter” for many people.
His executive decree, published in the official gazette on Thursday, contradicts measures taken by state governors and city mayors to ban religious assemblies.
Confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil have quadrupled in less than a week to 2,433, according to health ministry data released on Wednesday, with 57 deaths.
On topic, I see why Mike has gone for this at 180-1. However, I don't think the chances of Cuomo as nominee are much better than that in reality.
My reading is that Cuomo has to come out swinging against Trump on this. He's in charge of the worst affected state, and frankly has to position himself as the hard working governor, let down by central government. Crudely, he does have to play something of a blame game (which is easier in New York, where Trump is unpopular anyway) and is making a virtue of necessity.
More broadly and nationally, the jury is out on Trump's handling, and indeed polls indicate narrow approval of his response. It's very possible that will go south very quickly (other than the large number of workers immediately laid off, the economic impact hasn't YET hit for a lot of Americans, and the US remains a couple of weeks behind most of Europe in terms of death rates). But people do give some space to leaders in these crises - they will give the strategy a chance to work, and the outcome could be at the less bad end of the range of possibilities (which is still awful but nevertheless).
So I think Biden is right not to go all in on this at this stage. He's sowing the seeds with TV ads, but it wouldn't be wise to bet the farm on making the election a referendum on Trump's handling of Covid-19... not yet, anyway.
Cuomo won't be nominee now, however Biden could pick him as his running mate
Biden has committed to a lady running mate iirc.
He could say the coronavirus crisis requires a proven leader on tackling it to join the ticket, regardless of gender
Or he could just forget that he promised a female running mate...
Incidentally, what is the process if Biden/Sanders dies, or withdraws as nominee between the convention and the election? Does the VP candidate then get promoted and name a new running mate?
No, we go back to the party establishment deciding the nominee at a special convention behind closed doors, as happened before the mid 1970s
I think it depends on when exactly it happens.
If (say) Biden passed in the immediate aftermath of the convention, then I think the DNC would try and put something together behind closed doors.
On the other hand, if it happened two months later, after nomination papers had been filed in a number of states, then I don't think they'd have any choice but to back the VP candidate. Simply, the VP candidate would be on the ballot, and anyone picked anew would not be.
The largesse to get us through this will shatter the public finances both in terms of deficit and debt. Economic activity will return and the tax receipts will pick up but for now we are living with lots of additional spending plus commitments and very little coming in on the income side of the sheet.
Having all workers (including those of pension age) pay NI is eminently reasonable but we can expect at some point both higher taxes and spending cuts as the Government seeks to re-balance the books.
It'll be interesting to see how popular Rishi Sunak is once those policies kick in.
Your last point was interesting in that Governments avoid difficult decisions to avoid losing their popularity. Is there an argument to say there should be a moratorium on General Elections in order that this Government having bailed us out, make the difficult and unpopular choices to pay for it?
The largesse to get us through this will shatter the public finances both in terms of deficit and debt. Economic activity will return and the tax receipts will pick up but for now we are living with lots of additional spending plus commitments and very little coming in on the income side of the sheet.
Having all workers (including those of pension age) pay NI is eminently reasonable but we can expect at some point both higher taxes and spending cuts as the Government seeks to re-balance the books.
It'll be interesting to see how popular Rishi Sunak is once those policies kick in.
The cost of Sunak's schemes will be a tiny fraction of the Universal Basic Income suggestion.
Impossible to give a precise estimate but seems quite likely that if this only goes on for 3 months the cost (of Sunak's schemes) will only be around £50bn, maybe less.
However the above is only the direct cost - as the economy suffers there will be a much wider cost to the public finances.
It's the same as 2008 - when contrary to the public's impression, the big cost wasn't the "bailout".
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
It seems quite possible that there will be fewer deaths this year than on average in the UK doesn’t it?
Rather unlikely, I think. As well as many deaths due to unrecognised COVID19 in otherwise unwell patients, the pressure on hospitals will mean suboptimal care for many ordinary conditions.
The largesse to get us through this will shatter the public finances both in terms of deficit and debt. Economic activity will return and the tax receipts will pick up but for now we are living with lots of additional spending plus commitments and very little coming in on the income side of the sheet.
Having all workers (including those of pension age) pay NI is eminently reasonable but we can expect at some point both higher taxes and spending cuts as the Government seeks to re-balance the books.
It'll be interesting to see how popular Rishi Sunak is once those policies kick in.
The cost of Sunak's schemes will be a tiny fraction of the Universal Basic Income suggestion.
Impossible to give a precise estimate but seems quite likely that if this only goes on for 3 months the cost (of Sunak's schemes) will only be around £50bn, maybe less.
However the above is only the direct cost - as the economy suffers there will be a much wider cost to the public finances.
It's the same as 2008 - when contrary to the public's impression, the big cost wasn't the "bailout".
The hit to tax revenues will be significant
With such a high tax allowance, the proportionate hit to the treasury is well above the hit to the economy
It seems quite possible that there will be fewer deaths this year than on average in the UK doesn’t it?
I would say no: that does not include all those people who won’t get treatment they need for something else because the hospitals have shut down for all but the worst cases. I’ll probably be OK, but I have missed a routine cystoscopy to see if I have cancer again, and the last round of treatment I was expecting in May is not going to happen now. Tens or even hundreds of thousands may be in a similar position and it doesn’t take a large percentage of them dying to change the overall casualty rate for this. I don’t see any alternative by the way: any other approach would probably be worse.
The cost of Sunak's schemes will be a tiny fraction of the Universal Basic Income suggestion.
Impossible to give a precise estimate but seems quite likely that if this only goes on for 3 months the cost (of Sunak's schemes) will only be around £50bn, maybe less.
However the above is only the direct cost - as the economy suffers there will be a much wider cost to the public finances.
It's the same as 2008 - when contrary to the public's impression, the big cost wasn't the "bailout".
I don't believe I advocated or even mentioned UBI - perhaps you misunderstood my argument.
£50 billion isn't trivial even if an optimistic estimate and the damage to the public finances will be considerable if hopefully short term. The output, productivity and other numbers for March and April are going to be awful - we know that and will drag on both Q4 19/20 and Q1 20/21 GDP numbers which I suspect will be uninspiring.
The question for me is in what way will the extra debt and deficit be mitigated - one approach (and there's a hint of this) is stealthy tax rises and another will be less stealthy spending cuts. I suspect Councils will not like the 21/22 spending round and especially if the virus threatens a second round.
I suspect some will look at the economic impact of current events and say we cannot afford lock-down or self-isolation a second time (there are some who argue we can't afford it a first time).
It seems quite possible that there will be fewer deaths this year than on average in the UK doesn’t it?
Rather unlikely, I think. As well as many deaths due to unrecognised COVID19 in otherwise unwell patients, the pressure on hospitals will mean suboptimal care for many ordinary conditions.
Which is a much more succinct way of saying what I was trying to say!
It seems quite possible that there will be fewer deaths this year than on average in the UK doesn’t it?
I would say no: that does not include all those people who won’t get treatment they need for something else because the hospitals have shut down for all but the worst cases. I’ll probably be OK, but I have missed a routine cystoscopy to see if I have cancer again, and the last round of treatment I was expecting in May is not going to happen now. Tens or even hundreds of thousands may be in a similar position and it doesn’t take a large percentage of them dying to change the overall casualty rate for this. I don’t see any alternative by the way: any other approach would probably be worse.
Yes, my Dad was meant to have a biopsy to check his cancer was still gone next week, and that’s been cancelled/postponed.
The logic for the almost already higher case numbers resulting in proportionately significantly fewer US deaths isn’t obvious here.
You can say that again. This is an unsettlingly weird set of figures, it is weird that they are introduced into the debate via a Jeremy Vine tweet, and it does not help that the author's primary interests are these
"I am usually working on the development of microinstruments for space and terrestrial applications. I currently have several projects:
Development of silicon microseismometers for Mars, now operating on the surface on NASA's InSight mission Analysing the seismic data returned from InSight Developing gravity sensing for the Earth."
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
Yesterday. The motivation is no doubt suspect, particularly in relation to why no decrease (not that the case for a decrease was rock solid) and not wanting backbenchers of all kinds cause trouble, but there are actually relatively sound grounds for not giving them a vote on any changes, since the current situation is the MPs set the criteria and process, then refuse to implement it later because it's politically awkward, and boundaries get increasingly out of date based on increasingly out of date information.
With Local Authorities the LGBCE produce changes and they are approved in Parliament but Parliament cannot alter them, just accept or reject, and the procedure is they are laid and automatically approved unless there is a motion to reject (Lord knows if that has ever happened), so MPs would lose the techincal oversight by parliament that lesser bodies have I guess. MPs and parties will get a chance to shape proposals during consultations, it's the criteria and rules on variance etc which are important for them to set.
It is often the case that a set of actions, gradually enforced more strictly and respected increasingly by the target population produce a steady improvement in numbers until the capability for improvement (by those actions) is "used up".
For example drink driving is now mostly the kind of raging alkies who are x times over the limit - very few cases of one beer too many.
Well if the journalists actually listened to the experts, like the deputy CMO, she made it absolutely clear all those trying to compare the number of deaths between countries at this stage of the outbreak are comparing apples and oranges. It was a polite way of saying look you innumerate twats stop doing it.
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
The cost of Sunak's schemes will be a tiny fraction of the Universal Basic Income suggestion.
Impossible to give a precise estimate but seems quite likely that if this only goes on for 3 months the cost (of Sunak's schemes) will only be around £50bn, maybe less.
However the above is only the direct cost - as the economy suffers there will be a much wider cost to the public finances.
It's the same as 2008 - when contrary to the public's impression, the big cost wasn't the "bailout".
I don't believe I advocated or even mentioned UBI - perhaps you misunderstood my argument.
£50 billion isn't trivial even if an optimistic estimate and the damage to the public finances will be considerable if hopefully short term. The output, productivity and other numbers for March and April are going to be awful - we know that and will drag on both Q4 19/20 and Q1 20/21 GDP numbers which I suspect will be uninspiring.
The question for me is in what way will the extra debt and deficit be mitigated - one approach (and there's a hint of this) is stealthy tax rises and another will be less stealthy spending cuts. I suspect Councils will not like the 21/22 spending round and especially if the virus threatens a second round.
I suspect some will look at the economic impact of current events and say we cannot afford lock-down or self-isolation a second time (there are some who argue we can't afford it a first time).
The trouble with stealth tax rises is Britain was already highly taxed. The whole debate on taxes is poisoned by concentration on income tax rates as if nothing else matters. It is only a year or so since Philip Hammond announced the total tax take was at an historic high.
As to what needs to be done after Covid-19 retreats into the background, it depends what the problem looks like. There may be more urgent problems than debt and deficit. Some sectors might never recover, there might be inflation or mass unemployment, or life may just return to normal and all this will seem like a bad dream.
The cost of Sunak's schemes will be a tiny fraction of the Universal Basic Income suggestion.
Impossible to give a precise estimate but seems quite likely that if this only goes on for 3 months the cost (of Sunak's schemes) will only be around £50bn, maybe less.
However the above is only the direct cost - as the economy suffers there will be a much wider cost to the public finances.
It's the same as 2008 - when contrary to the public's impression, the big cost wasn't the "bailout".
I don't believe I advocated or even mentioned UBI - perhaps you misunderstood my argument.
£50 billion isn't trivial even if an optimistic estimate and the damage to the public finances will be considerable if hopefully short term. The output, productivity and other numbers for March and April are going to be awful - we know that and will drag on both Q4 19/20 and Q1 20/21 GDP numbers which I suspect will be uninspiring.
The question for me is in what way will the extra debt and deficit be mitigated - one approach (and there's a hint of this) is stealthy tax rises and another will be less stealthy spending cuts. I suspect Councils will not like the 21/22 spending round and especially if the virus threatens a second round.
I suspect some will look at the economic impact of current events and say we cannot afford lock-down or self-isolation a second time (there are some who argue we can't afford it a first time).
Sorry - I know you didn't mention UBI - I just mentioned it as it had been mentioned (by other posters) earlier.
My point is that the cash Sunak will pay for a few months isn't really that significant - because it's a one-off - if it's £50bn and it raises the national debt from (approx) £1.8trn to £1.85trn that really doesn't make much difference.
What matters much, much more is the impact on the annual deficit going forward - which will take a huge hit because of the broader impact on the economy. Sunak's one-off payments are a sideshow in comparison.
It seems quite possible that there will be fewer deaths this year than on average in the UK doesn’t it?
I would say no: that does not include all those people who won’t get treatment they need for something else because the hospitals have shut down for all but the worst cases. I’ll probably be OK, but I have missed a routine cystoscopy to see if I have cancer again, and the last round of treatment I was expecting in May is not going to happen now. Tens or even hundreds of thousands may be in a similar position and it doesn’t take a large percentage of them dying to change the overall casualty rate for this. I don’t see any alternative by the way: any other approach would probably be worse.
Yes, my Dad was meant to have a biopsy to check his cancer was still gone next week, and that’s been cancelled/postponed.
My diabetes work has been effectively stopped, partly to free up resources, and partly because they are higher risk and need to isolate.
There will be a lot of catch up to do when we get the all clear, just to get back to where we were.
Well if the journalists actually listened to the experts, like the deputy CMO, she made it absolutely clear all those trying to compare the number of deaths between countries at this stage of the outbreak are comparing apples and oranges. It was a polite way of saying look you innumerate twats stop doing it.
So we're no longer 14 days behind Italy, and on a worse trajectory?
The cost of Sunak's schemes will be a tiny fraction of the Universal Basic Income suggestion.
Impossible to give a precise estimate but seems quite likely that if this only goes on for 3 months the cost (of Sunak's schemes) will only be around £50bn, maybe less.
However the above is only the direct cost - as the economy suffers there will be a much wider cost to the public finances.
It's the same as 2008 - when contrary to the public's impression, the big cost wasn't the "bailout".
I don't believe I advocated or even mentioned UBI - perhaps you misunderstood my argument.
£50 billion isn't trivial even if an optimistic estimate and the damage to the public finances will be considerable if hopefully short term. The output, productivity and other numbers for March and April are going to be awful - we know that and will drag on both Q4 19/20 and Q1 20/21 GDP numbers which I suspect will be uninspiring.
The question for me is in what way will the extra debt and deficit be mitigated - one approach (and there's a hint of this) is stealthy tax rises and another will be less stealthy spending cuts. I suspect Councils will not like the 21/22 spending round and especially if the virus threatens a second round.
I suspect some will look at the economic impact of current events and say we cannot afford lock-down or self-isolation a second time (there are some who argue we can't afford it a first time).
Sorry - I know you didn't mention UBI - I just mentioned it as it had been mentioned (by other posters) earlier.
My point is that the cash Sunak will pay for a few months isn't really that significant - because it's a one-off - if it's £50bn and it raises the national debt from (approx) £1.8trn to £1.85trn that really doesn't make much difference.
What matters much, much more is the impact on the annual deficit going forward - which will take a huge hit because of the broader impact on the economy. Sunak's one-off payments are a sideshow in comparison.
That's precisely why HMG should have gone for a broader scheme that would have helped to avoid so much lasting economic damage. The priority now is avoiding as much economic damage as possible. HMG are letting the perfect be the enemy of the good by trying to avoid the economic damage in as optimal a way as possible - all they will achieve is lasting harm to the economy that will create a lasting hole in the nation's finances.
My point is that the cash Sunak will pay for a few months isn't really that significant - because it's a one-off - if it's £50bn and it raises the national debt from (approx) £1.8trn to £1.85trn that really doesn't make much difference.
What matters much, much more is the impact on the annual deficit going forward - which will take a huge hit because of the broader impact on the economy. Sunak's one-off payments are a sideshow in comparison.
I don't think we were much in disagreement. I think the borrowing numbers are going to look very bad though they may be spread over two years rather than one.
The imponderable is the bounce-back from this in terms of economic activity. Some think there will be a pent-up burst of spending and consumption unleashed - maybe - but I think there will be a residual anxiety which may take a long time to ease.
On reflection, I think we should not expect a peak but rather a plateau. This reflects the (stochastic) latency of the disease. A plateau over a week or so should likely then be followed by a fall. I think this is where we are in Italy at present.
Are you talking about a peak in total number infected, or number of positive daily tests?
The other problem, of course, in measuring where countries are is the difference in testing regimes. If a country moves to only testing people in hospital with obvious symptoms, then it'll probably see the number of tests decline, and the number of positives decline. Yet that masks underlying deterioration.
To my mind the evidence of getting CV-19 under control in a country is when you get the combination of (a) rising numbers of tests, and (b) falling number of positives.
Which is where Italy was yesterday - all time peak in numbers of administered tests, sixth highest number of positives.
Hopefully today will see another peak in number of administered tests, and the number of positives drop again.
It will also be instructive to see where we are with Lombardy and Veneto, as they are 3-4 days ahead of the rest of Italy.
The medium-term aim won't be a return to track and trace though. Suppression measures will need to continue for a long time.
Yeah, but suppression measures will be a lot less than 18 months of total lockdown.
This is a crisis that we could see coming but failed to prepare for. New cases are bound to plateau or reduce before the end of the year. Once they have come down the lockdown will be eased. This is also an economic crisis and the government will reopen part of the economy at some stage. Then it will have to start to reduce the financial support that it is giving to people and businesses who have been affected. We really need a vaccine as soon as possible and I hope the government will support this as it cannot cost as much as the shutdown.
In all probability, new cases will peak in the next three weeks.
New cases might peak but they could then plateau and not reduce to a low level so the economy will have to remain locked down. I doubt that is sustainable for more than two years at the most. The problem we have is that an effective vaccine may not be available soon enough.
One possibility is that a vaccine is made that halves the sickness caused by the virus but this would still be unacceptable to many people. Even than might not be achievable. I think we need to consider the possibility that there will be no way to suppress this virus long term. It will be interesting to see what happens in countries such as Iran, Sweden, the Netherlands and the US where a full lockdown may never be implemented. This could give us a better idea of what we are dealing with.
Not sure I understand. If we lockdown for 4-6 weeks cases should diminish to a very low level and eventually come close to fizzling out. Now, new cases will arise moving forward, but with better therapies / testing etc. we can squash down on those faster. It does not require a permanent lockdown and no epidemiologist / public health scientist would support that (and indeed they are thinking of alternative strategies).
It will be impossible to keep the population locked down for more than a few weeks, especially with summer on the way. Just imagine if we got a heatwave like 2018.
Why? You just have to do what your told.
You don't. I suspect there is a cultural difference here.
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
Has anyone commented on this? Seems a pretty sneaky thing to announce when everyones attention is elsewhere.
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
It actually benefits the opposition. Hitherto, a government with a majority could bin the BC recommendations if they didn't like the look of them. Under the new proposals they can't.
One interesting fact in France had been that 50% of icu cases had been under 60. thats not shifting to a more typical pattern, 34% of icu cases are under 60 now. Set against that a 16 year old sadly died in Paris from the virus today.
Almost 5000 recovered cases I am seeing for France now which seems quite high and encouraging. It seems like France may be spared going full Italian as the growth rate is consistently slower.
On reflection, I think we should not expect a peak but rather a plateau. This reflects the (stochastic) latency of the disease. A plateau over a week or so should likely then be followed by a fall. I think this is where we are in Italy at present.
Are you talking about a peak in total number infected, or number of positive daily tests?
The other problem, of course, in measuring where countries are is the difference in testing regimes. If a country moves to only testing people in hospital with obvious symptoms, then it'll probably see the number of tests decline, and the number of positives decline. Yet that masks underlying deterioration.
To my mind the evidence of getting CV-19 under control in a country is when you get the combination of (a) rising numbers of tests, and (b) falling number of positives.
Which is where Italy was yesterday - all time peak in numbers of administered tests, sixth highest number of positives.
Hopefully today will see another peak in number of administered tests, and the number of positives drop again.
It will also be instructive to see where we are with Lombardy and Veneto, as they are 3-4 days ahead of the rest of Italy.
The medium-term aim won't be a return to track and trace though. Suppression measures will need to continue for a long time.
Yeah, but suppression measures will be a lot less than 18 months of total lockdown.
This is a crisis that we could see coming but failed to prepare for. New cases are bound to plateau or reduce before the end of the year. Once they have come down the lockdown will be eased. This is also an economic crisis and the government will reopen part of the economy at some stage. Then it will have to start to reduce the financial support that it is giving to people and businesses who have been affected. We really need a vaccine as soon as possible and I hope the government will support this as it cannot cost as much as the shutdown.
In all probability, new cases will peak in the next three weeks.
New cases might peak but they could then plateau and not reduce to a low level so the economy will have to remain locked down. I doubt that is sustainable for more than two years at the most. The problem we have is that an effective vaccine may not be available soon enough.
One possibility is that a vaccine is made that halves the sickness caused by the virus but this would still be unacceptable to many people. Even than might not be achievable. I think we need to consider the possibility that there will be no way to suppress this virus long term. It will be interesting to see what happens in countries such as Iran, Sweden, the Netherlands and the US where a full lockdown may never be implemented. This could give us a better idea of what we are dealing with.
Not sure I understand. If we lockdown for 4-6 weeks cases should diminish to a very low level and eventually come close to fizzling out. Now, new cases will arise moving forward, but with better therapies / testing etc. we can squash down on those faster. It does not require a permanent lockdown and no epidemiologist / public health scientist would support that (and indeed they are thinking of alternative strategies).
It will be impossible to keep the population locked down for more than a few weeks, especially with summer on the way. Just imagine if we got a heatwave like 2018.
Why? You just have to do what your told.
You don't. I suspect there is a cultural difference here.
I propose to do exactly what I am told, as I am sure does virtually everybody else. And to cheer on any legislation required to deal with the stupid, the selfish and the senile.
Re ventilators. Do we have any idea why the government haven't gone at all with the likes of Mr G-Tech and Oxford Unis scrapheap challenge versions (at least as back-ups).
The last time Mr G-Tech was interviewed he sounded very positive, that the government officials had looked at the design, asked for modifications, which he had done.
Both G-Tech and Oxford uni were talking about being able to easily make 1000s of these things.
The stats on the 25th were up to 9am, and the stats today were up to 5pm. So today's numbers must surely be for a 32 hour period.
Ah, this is wrong - the cases were updated at 9am, but the death figures 5pm the night before. So you are indeed correct, 8 hours yesterday, 24 hours today.
The very low total yesterday was always likely to be followed by a higher than expected figure today.
Today's figure is for 24 hours, yesterday's figure was for 8 hours, so yesterday's number of deaths was higher than today's relatively
What happened to the missing hours?
We're now reporting the number of deaths further in arrears, so the missing hours are between when the deaths occurred, and when they are reported. The reason given for this is that they want more time to inform that family of the deceased before they release demographic and geographic information on the deceased.
The very low total yesterday was always likely to be followed by a higher than expected figure today.
Today's figure is for 24 hours, yesterday's figure was for 8 hours, so yesterday's number of deaths was higher than today's relatively
What happened to the missing hours?
We're now reporting the number of deaths further in arrears, so the missing hours are between when the deaths occurred, and when they are reported. The reason given for this is that they want more time to inform that family of the deceased before they release demographic and geographic information on the deceased.
Yeah, I finally cottoned on to what was going on. My apologies to @eristdoof!
The stats on the 25th were up to 9am, and the stats today were up to 5pm. So today's numbers must surely be for a 32 hour period.
The stats on the 24th were up to 9am, those on the 25th were between 9am and 5pm, and those today were between 5pm and 5pm - so we're reporting deaths 16 hours later than previously.
My point is that the cash Sunak will pay for a few months isn't really that significant - because it's a one-off - if it's £50bn and it raises the national debt from (approx) £1.8trn to £1.85trn that really doesn't make much difference.
What matters much, much more is the impact on the annual deficit going forward - which will take a huge hit because of the broader impact on the economy. Sunak's one-off payments are a sideshow in comparison.
I don't think we were much in disagreement. I think the borrowing numbers are going to look very bad though they may be spread over two years rather than one.
The imponderable is the bounce-back from this in terms of economic activity. Some think there will be a pent-up burst of spending and consumption unleashed - maybe - but I think there will be a residual anxiety which may take a long time to ease.
Both are entirely possible.
An initial burst of activity as people go out to restaraunts and bars, and make deferred purchases.
Followed by a long period where people feel less optimistic, and pull their horns in.
I think it will go from more lockdown to less lockdown in a few weeks. It won't be removed entirely. The purpose of lockdown is to slow infection rates. Once you have stabilised those you can gradually remove restrictions on a controlled risk basis. This depends on identifying a largely virus-free population that can go about its business with residual constraints.
The degree to which you remove restrictions and how quickly depends on your risk appetite.
What do you mean by 'less lockdown'?
The easing of restrictions could take various forms. eg
- Businesses will be allowed to reopen on demonstrating they have effective social distancing in place. - People tested as free of the virus have restrictions removed. - Schools open part time - Small group gatherings are permitted while larger groups are still banned.
Wow that was amazing went to do the applaud thing. Every single door in sight opened and people stood there applauding. Towards the end of the minute Mrs BJs carers arrived and joined in. Most fantastic Community Spirit i have witnessed TBH
On reflection, I think we should not expect a peak but rather a plateau. This reflects the (stochastic) latency of the disease. A plateau over a week or so should likely then be followed by a fall. I think this is where we are in Italy at present.
Are you talking about a peak in total number infected, or number of positive daily tests?
The other problem, of course, in measuring where countries are is the difference in testing regimes. If a country moves to only testing people in hospital with obvious symptoms, then it'll probably see the number of tests decline, and the number of positives decline. Yet that masks underlying deterioration.
To my mind the evidence of getting CV-19 under control in a country is when you get the combination of (a) rising numbers of tests, and (b) falling number of positives.
Which is where Italy was yesterday - all time peak in numbers of administered tests, sixth highest number of positives.
Hopefully today will see another peak in number of administered tests, and the number of positives drop again.
It will also be instructive to see where we are with Lombardy and Veneto, as they are 3-4 days ahead of the rest of Italy.
The medium-term aim won't be a return to track and trace though. Suppression measures will need to continue for a long time.
Yeah, but suppression measures will be a lot less than 18 months of total lockdown.
This is a crisis that we could see coming but failed to prepare for. New cases are bound to plateau or reduce before the end of the year. Once they have come down the lockdown will be eased. This is also an economic crisis and the government will reopen part of the economy at some stage. Then it will have to start to reduce the financial support that it is giving to people and businesses who have been affected. We really need a vaccine as soon as possible and I hope the government will support this as it cannot cost as much as the shutdown.
In all probability, new cases will peak in the next three weeks.
New cases might peak but they could then plateau and not reduce to a low level so the economy will have to remain locked down. I doubt that is sustainable for more than two years at the most. The problem we have is that an effective vaccine may not be available soon enough.
One possibility is that a vaccine is made that halves the sickness caused by the virus but this would still be unacceptable to many people. Even than might not be achievable. I think we need to consider the possibility that there will be no way to suppress this virus long term. It will be interesting to see what happens in countries such as Iran, Sweden, the Netherlands and the US where a full lockdown may never be implemented. This could give us a better idea of what we are dealing with.
Not sure I understand. If we lockdown for 4-6 weeks cases should diminish to a very low level and eventually come close to fizzling out. Now, new cases will arise moving forward, but with better therapies / testing etc. we can squash down on those faster. It does not require a permanent lockdown and no epidemiologist / public health scientist would support that (and indeed they are thinking of alternative strategies).
It will be impossible to keep the population locked down for more than a few weeks, especially with summer on the way. Just imagine if we got a heatwave like 2018.
Why? You just have to do what your told.
You don't. I suspect there is a cultural difference here.
I propose to do exactly what I am told, as I am sure does virtually everybody else. And to cheer on any legislation required to deal with the stupid, the selfish and the senile.
Comments
Yep - another big jump
Limited company run by owner who is sole employee - who takes significant salary as well as dividends.
Owner / employee furloughs himself; gets 80% of salary refunded.
In order for company to continue operating (albeit at reduced level) - put adult son on payroll at £12k per year so if any business is done can say orders processed by son.
To double down, the missus is on maternity leave so gets less than if she was at work and not working!!
Oh well, live by the sword...
The degree to which you remove restrictions and how quickly depends on your risk appetite.
You can guess as to this - German's may be a little more healthy than Italians - let's go with 10% say - but that will dictate your findings far more than the data will.
An algorithm - daft or god-like - will spit out numbers, but if you know beforehand that the input is messed up then it's dangerous turf.
What happens also if the algorithm says 'your all dead'? Do you publish?
The largesse to get us through this will shatter the public finances both in terms of deficit and debt. Economic activity will return and the tax receipts will pick up but for now we are living with lots of additional spending plus commitments and very little coming in on the income side of the sheet.
Having all workers (including those of pension age) pay NI is eminently reasonable but we can expect at some point both higher taxes and spending cuts as the Government seeks to re-balance the books.
It'll be interesting to see how popular Rishi Sunak is once those policies kick in.
But for myself I have always considered being a contractor to be one of those situations where you take the rough with the smooth. I put money away in the good times so that if work dries up - as it does on occasion for reasons entirely unrelated to pandemics - I can still survive. Right now I have 3 contracts in place, two of which will end in the next few weeks (as the work is all done so completely unrelated to Covid) and one which I hope will continue through the summer. I had 3 other contracts due to start in April and all have been postponed or cancelled.
But if work does dry up I will just hunker down and enjoy the fact I can genuinely have some time off without feeling guilty about not getting on with work. It will be the first time I have been able to do that since 2013. I see absolutely no reason to complain if the Government decides I am not in need of support.
Mind you, that US upper point looks like an underestimate, given their current pace.
However that's NOT the right way to do this.
Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro has exempted churches from coronavirus lockdowns by classifying religious activity as an essential service, heeding requests from evangelical leaders.
Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist elected with massive support from evangelical voters in 2018 because of his conservative social views, has said publicly that churches should remain open because they are “the last shelter” for many people.
His executive decree, published in the official gazette on Thursday, contradicts measures taken by state governors and city mayors to ban religious assemblies.
Confirmed coronavirus cases in Brazil have quadrupled in less than a week to 2,433, according to health ministry data released on Wednesday, with 57 deaths.
If (say) Biden passed in the immediate aftermath of the convention, then I think the DNC would try and put something together behind closed doors.
On the other hand, if it happened two months later, after nomination papers had been filed in a number of states, then I don't think they'd have any choice but to back the VP candidate. Simply, the VP candidate would be on the ballot, and anyone picked anew would not be.
Partly offset by an uptick in suicides and domestic murder.
Your last point was interesting in that Governments avoid difficult decisions to avoid losing their popularity. Is there an argument to say there should be a moratorium on General Elections in order that this Government having bailed us out, make the difficult and unpopular choices to pay for it?
Impossible to give a precise estimate but seems quite likely that if this only goes on for 3 months the cost (of Sunak's schemes) will only be around £50bn, maybe less.
However the above is only the direct cost - as the economy suffers there will be a much wider cost to the public finances.
It's the same as 2008 - when contrary to the public's impression, the big cost wasn't the "bailout".
"MPs will no longer automatically get a vote on any future plans to redraw constituency boundaries.
The government had planned to reduce the number of MPs from 650 to 600 but announced a U-turn on Wednesday, the last day before parliamentary recess, citing the increased workload expected because of Brexit.
However, it has also emerged that among the many changes planned by the government is that any future decisions from the Boundary Commission would be implemented automatically. "
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/mar/26/mps-no-longer-to-get-automatic-vote-on-constituency-boundary-plans
With such a high tax allowance, the proportionate hit to the treasury is well above the hit to the economy
I’ll probably be OK, but I have missed a routine cystoscopy to see if I have cancer again, and the last round of treatment I was expecting in May is not going to happen now. Tens or even hundreds of thousands may be in a similar position and it doesn’t take a large percentage of them dying to change the overall casualty rate for this.
I don’t see any alternative by the way: any other approach would probably be worse.
£50 billion isn't trivial even if an optimistic estimate and the damage to the public finances will be considerable if hopefully short term. The output, productivity and other numbers for March and April are going to be awful - we know that and will drag on both Q4 19/20 and Q1 20/21 GDP numbers which I suspect will be uninspiring.
The question for me is in what way will the extra debt and deficit be mitigated - one approach (and there's a hint of this) is stealthy tax rises and another will be less stealthy spending cuts. I suspect Councils will not like the 21/22 spending round and especially if the virus threatens a second round.
I suspect some will look at the economic impact of current events and say we cannot afford lock-down or self-isolation a second time (there are some who argue we can't afford it a first time).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reported_Road_Casualties_Great_Britain
"I am usually working on the development of microinstruments for space and terrestrial applications. I currently have several projects:
Development of silicon microseismometers for Mars, now operating on the surface on NASA's InSight mission
Analysing the seismic data returned from InSight
Developing gravity sensing for the Earth."
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/people/w.t.pike
With Local Authorities the LGBCE produce changes and they are approved in Parliament but Parliament cannot alter them, just accept or reject, and the procedure is they are laid and automatically approved unless there is a motion to reject (Lord knows if that has ever happened), so MPs would lose the techincal oversight by parliament that lesser bodies have I guess. MPs and parties will get a chance to shape proposals during consultations, it's the criteria and rules on variance etc which are important for them to set.
For example drink driving is now mostly the kind of raging alkies who are x times over the limit - very few cases of one beer too many.
As to what needs to be done after Covid-19 retreats into the background, it depends what the problem looks like. There may be more urgent problems than debt and deficit. Some sectors might never recover, there might be inflation or mass unemployment, or life may just return to normal and all this will seem like a bad dream.
My point is that the cash Sunak will pay for a few months isn't really that significant - because it's a one-off - if it's £50bn and it raises the national debt from (approx) £1.8trn to £1.85trn that really doesn't make much difference.
What matters much, much more is the impact on the annual deficit going forward - which will take a huge hit because of the broader impact on the economy. Sunak's one-off payments are a sideshow in comparison.
There will be a lot of catch up to do when we get the all clear, just to get back to where we were.
https://twitter.com/brianmoore666/status/1243210076929867777?s=19
The imponderable is the bounce-back from this in terms of economic activity. Some think there will be a pent-up burst of spending and consumption unleashed - maybe - but I think there will be a residual anxiety which may take a long time to ease.
According to the Corbynistas, he is a secret Tory and need to f##k off and join them.
I was PAYE for 18/19 and self employed for 19/20, does this mean I miss out on both?
The stats on the 25th were up to 9am, and the stats today were up to 5pm. So today's numbers must surely be for a 32 hour period.
Almost 5000 recovered cases I am seeing for France now which seems quite high and encouraging. It seems like France may be spared going full Italian as the growth rate is consistently slower.
The last time Mr G-Tech was interviewed he sounded very positive, that the government officials had looked at the design, asked for modifications, which he had done.
Both G-Tech and Oxford uni were talking about being able to easily make 1000s of these things.
An initial burst of activity as people go out to restaraunts and bars, and make deferred purchases.
Followed by a long period where people feel less optimistic, and pull their horns in.
(Bad news for Aston Martin.)
ie Today's announcement is for deaths up to 5pm yesterday.
So 16 hours behind where we were before.
So there was an 8 hour day to go back 16 hours in the cycle (which has now been followed by a 24 hour day).
- Businesses will be allowed to reopen on demonstrating they have effective social distancing in place.
- People tested as free of the virus have restrictions removed.
- Schools open part time
- Small group gatherings are permitted while larger groups are still banned.
And so on.
Should overtake China in next hour or two (just 400 behind at present).