My good lady wife has now been out allegedly at Tesco's for more than an hour.
Do I assume:
(a) that there is a very long queue to get into the shop; (b) that she is indulging in a wild affair in breach of her social distancing obligations? (c) that she was involved in a fight to the death for the last piece of dried pasta and, very uncharacteristically, lost? (d) all of the above?
We are now 10 years into a Tory government, only 3 governments since WW2 have lasted more than 10 years and only 1 government, the Tories in 1992, won a general election after more than 10 years in power.
So the Government should have expected things to get much tougher even without Covid 19 and a likely new and more centrist and media savvy Labour leader
At risk of being pedantic, only two governments have lasted more than ten years since World War Two. A government in our system is identified by who leads it, not which party forms it.
Except in the case of a national government a government in our system is actually defined by the party which forms it, we have not had a national government since WW2 but single party government bar 2010 to 2015 which was still a Tory led Government
That is simply not correct in law. It is in practice, of course, but constitutionally parties have no actual role in the system. A government is defined by the person who leads it, which under usual circumstances is whoever commands a majority in the Commons.
We have no written constitution, the Ministers of the Crown have all come from one party in any one government since WW2 bar 2010 to 2015 when most of them were still Tory
Even that isn’t correct, as in the 1950s the Liberal Nationals were still a separate party.
John Maclay was backed by the Tories in a straight fight against Labour in West Renfrewshire, he was only a National Liberal in name in reality a Tory and ultimately it became the National Liberal and Conservative party before merging into the Tories too
Leaving aside the trifling detail that you don’t seem to understand what they were or how they operated, it occurs to me that Gwilym Lloyd George was still officially a Liberal while Home Secretary in the mid-1950s, although he had lost the Liberal whip in 1946. So you would still be wrong.
Let it go. Trying to defend an indefensible position just makes you look silly, although I know you’re used to that.
Gwilym Lloyd George stood as a National Liberal and Conservative in 1945 and 1950 and in 1951 Churchill endorsed his candidacy
No, he did not. I think you’ve taken that off Wikipedia, and it is wrong. He stood ‘as a Liberal, supportive of the National Government.’ (Richard Toye, Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness, p. 393.) In 1951 he actually faced a Conservative candidate at Newcastle although Churchill had asked that he be given a clear run at Labour.
Now if you wish to tell me you know his political allegiance better than he did, based on reading a Wikipedia article, be my guest. Forgive me if I go with his statements and therefore to come back to the point:
1) Parties do not form governments, Prime Ministers do;
2) There have been multiparty governments in Britain since 1945;
3) This is because parties have no technical role in the House of Commons, MPs being elected as individuals.
If you don’t like those trifling facts, that is your problem. Can you stop bothering the rest of us with them though so we can get on with important subjects, including awesome punning and why pineapple should never be added to pizza?
Any evidence he did not stand on the ballot paper as a Liberal and National Conservative? No.
YES.
HIS. OWN. WORDS. WHICH. I. HAVE. QUOTED. FOR. YOU.
You just can’t bear to be proved wrong, can you? Honestly.
I find it doubly amusing you boast about your A-levels in politics and economics when you are trying to lecture an expert with a doctorate and a string of publications in this field based on a reading of an incorrect Wikipedia article.
So you have no proof he did not stand as a National Liberal and Conservative on the ballot paper.
I could not care less if you have 10 phds and authored 100 books on it unless you have clear proof.
I note you also did not dispute my other points
Hyufd - he was not described as a National Liberal, a Liberal, a Conservative or anything else on any ballot paper at any time in his career. Nor was Churchill. Or Eden. Or Macmillan. This is because parties were not added to ballot papers until the Representation of the Peoples Act 1969, which was first used in 1970.
If Gwilym Lloyd George’s own words as quoted by a Professor of History at Exeter University are not good enough for you as evidence, it’s clear nothing would be.
I have repeatedly refuted all your other points. You are like a small child zapped between the eyes by a finger pistol shouting ‘Missed!’
Those carrying out the testing at IKEA Wembley dont have the right PPE.
FFS can those organising this go off and run a brewery instead
I could imagine this been done giving the enormous pressure to increase testing numbers.
What happens when the test numbers rise and the deaths keep on increasing ?
They should really be ramping up for the antibody test, that's the one you want to do in huge numbers. I am not sure what the benefit is of testing hundreds of thousands of people to know if they actually have it. I don't think contact tracing is a thing anymore? But they've committed themselves to it, and the pressure is there for them to do it, regardless of whether or not it is the best thing to do.
How is the antibody test going to magically stop the virus spreading?
It's not, but neither is increasing testing numbers at this stage.
Yes it will. Better testing (especially if there's widespread spreading via asymptomatic individuals) will result in better isolation of those who are contagious.
Hypothetically if it was possible to very easily do an instantaneous test en-masse, like a breathalyser or a diabetics blood sugar test then you could get everyone to do a test daily and if showing positive isolate.
If people have symptoms they should be isolating anyway. As for asymptomatic carriers, how are they identified with the current test? You'd have to repeatedly test a very large fraction of the population for that to be effective at identifying all of them to reduce the spread. At this point the virus is so well established that containment is not possible.
Containment doesn't need to be possible to stop the virus spreading.
Lets take an example of the NHS. If a doctor or nurse is asymptomatic how many people could they infect?
Lets take an example of care homes. The only people going in and out of care homes now are the staff - but the staff are still having to go to the shops etc and can be exposed to the virus. An asymptomatic care staff carrier could take the virus into the care home where it could then spread like wildfire within the home.
If widespread testing were easily available then NHS and care staff etc could be tested at the start of every shift and sent home if they test positive before the get the chance to infect potentially dozens of other people.
How many daily tests are you talking about here? It sounds like huge number that may not be feasible.
The PM spoke about ramping up to 250,000 daily tests. Do that and you could test all frontline healthcare staff daily - and track and trace suspected cases.
Given the struggle to get only to 10,000, I stand by my 'may not be feasible' comment!
Its impatience that makes it seem a struggle. Only a few weeks ago we were only capable of doing 1k, there's been a ten-fold increase within a month - and Germany are running at 75k.
If we truly target this and get any capable manufacturers or laboratories in line to help then I think a further ten-fold increase within a month could be possible.
I've been following the conversation on PB about the coronavirus for a while now. There are a lot of interesting points being made.
Anyone who's interested in government policy and response to threats like this may find Nassim Nicholas Taleb's twitter useful. I've read his book "Antifragile" and his opinions go against a lot of what governments and the WHO have been saying.
Basically his view is, that statistical and epidemiological models count for jack all because what we are dealing with is an extreme "fat tail" statistical event, and therefore we cannot ascertain risk or apply data-driven policy to it.
Instead we should be looking at what is the worst case scenario, and then overkill even that in terms of policy response.
He talks about upside vs downside, and that many things not recommended by the WHO and governments, eg. wearing masks, chloroquine, and other things like that, should just be implemented without waiting for full testing, because the downside risk of just using them is minimal vs the *potential* upside if they do happen to work in the face of the enormous impending disaster.
Does he incorporate economic risk into his thinking or is it pure covid?
Does anyone know anyone who can boost the agenda for switching the air con off?
I am still wavering between thinking people need to be protected from Coronavirus, and that the healthy need a mild dose of it. However, in a hospital with vulnerable people and medical staff being repeatedly exposed, the case for it being switched off to help minimise spread is in my opinion undeniable, and it could save lives. In particular, surely switching it off would be beneficial in the new super-hospitals.
I don't know how much evidence there is for your air con theory but FWIW Japan is still going big on avoiding people talking in closed spaces with poor ventilation, and they seem to think opening a window is a big help.
Peter Hitchens is a professional contrarian. He's worth hearing, if only to ask yourself why you think he's wrong.
How much you listen to him after that point is up to you.
Peter Hitchens is actually a very useful measuring instrument. To measure something it helps to have a fixed point above which it is not possible to go. In his case what he makes it easy to measure is how reactionary a person or an idea is. Because Peter is above all a reactionary. Always and forever, he is. He is not consistently right or left wing, he is 100% purest reactionary. Or if you prefer he is the antithesis of a progressive. This is his essence. I say this as observation not as insult or compliment. One cannot be more reactionary or less progressive than Peter Hitchens. It is as much of a law as the boiling point of water at sea level.
So how to use him? Piece of cake. Any idea you are discussing, you ask yourself "Would Peter like this notion?" Answer yes - it's a reactionary notion. No debate, it is. Any person you are conversing with, ask that person "How often do you agree with Peter Hitchens on a scale of 1 to 10?". Fantastic, this, because the answer - where they are on the PH scale - provides an exact quantification of how reactionary they are. PH10 being the maximum and something rarely if ever achieved. Not even the man himself is a PH10.
He's also performed a useful public service by collating a more-or-less exhaustive list of all "experts" in the world who agree with him. By so doing, he effectively nullifies his own appeal by authority, by illustrating just how many experts there are who agree that he's wrong.
On the subject of PH (or more precisely pH) I've just seen a facebook post claiming that the virus has a pH of 5.5-8.5, and therefore you can kill it by eating lots of alkaline foods. Like avocados. Which have a pH of 15.6. Apparently.
Well, Waitrose avocados are Essentially pH7. It is only Sainsbury's avocados that are Basic.
Those carrying out the testing at IKEA Wembley dont have the right PPE.
FFS can those organising this go off and run a brewery instead
I could imagine this been done giving the enormous pressure to increase testing numbers.
What happens when the test numbers rise and the deaths keep on increasing ?
They should really be ramping up for the antibody test, that's the one you want to do in huge numbers. I am not sure what the benefit is of testing hundreds of thousands of people to know if they actually have it. I don't think contact tracing is a thing anymore? But they've committed themselves to it, and the pressure is there for them to do it, regardless of whether or not it is the best thing to do.
How is the antibody test going to magically stop the virus spreading?
It's not, but neither is increasing testing numbers at this stage.
Yes it will. Better testing (especially if there's widespread spreading via asymptomatic individuals) will result in better isolation of those who are contagious.
Hypothetically if it was possible to very easily do an instantaneous test en-masse, like a breathalyser or a diabetics blood sugar test then you could get everyone to do a test daily and if showing positive isolate.
If people have symptoms they should be isolating anyway. As for asymptomatic carriers, how are they identified with the current test? You'd have to repeatedly test a very large fraction of the population for that to be effective at identifying all of them to reduce the spread. At this point the virus is so well established that containment is not possible.
Containment doesn't need to be possible to stop the virus spreading.
Lets take an example of the NHS. If a doctor or nurse is asymptomatic how many people could they infect?
Lets take an example of care homes. The only people going in and out of care homes now are the staff - but the staff are still having to go to the shops etc and can be exposed to the virus. An asymptomatic care staff carrier could take the virus into the care home where it could then spread like wildfire within the home.
If widespread testing were easily available then NHS and care staff etc could be tested at the start of every shift and sent home if they test positive before the get the chance to infect potentially dozens of other people.
How many daily tests are you talking about here? It sounds like huge number that may not be feasible.
The PM spoke about ramping up to 250,000 daily tests. Do that and you could test all frontline healthcare staff daily - and track and trace suspected cases.
Given the struggle to get only to 10,000, I stand by my 'may not be feasible' comment!
Its impatience that makes it seem a struggle. Only a few weeks ago we were only capable of doing 1k, there's been a ten-fold increase within a month - and Germany are running at 75k.
If we truly target this and get any capable manufacturers or laboratories in line to help then I think a further ten-fold increase within a month could be possible.
I think I'm just a pessimist at heart. Hopefully they get their act together on both fronts - testing of frontline workers, and the antibody test for epidemiological studies.
My good lady wife has now been out allegedly at Tesco's for more than an hour.
Do I assume:
(a) that there is a very long queue to get into the shop; (b) that she is indulging in a wild affair in breach of her social distancing obligations? (c) that she was involved in a fight to the death for the last piece of dried pasta and, very uncharacteristically, lost? (d) all of the above?
Well she will no doubt claim (a) or (c).
Women though - you need eyes in the back of your head.
My good lady wife has now been out allegedly at Tesco's for more than an hour.
Do I assume:
(a) that there is a very long queue to get into the shop; (b) that she is indulging in a wild affair in breach of her social distancing obligations? (c) that she was involved in a fight to the death for the last piece of dried pasta and, very uncharacteristically, lost? (d) all of the above?
(a) & (b), obviously
She probably got chatting with someone while in the queue...
My good lady wife has now been out allegedly at Tesco's for more than an hour.
Do I assume:
(a) that there is a very long queue to get into the shop; (b) that she is indulging in a wild affair in breach of her social distancing obligations? (c) that she was involved in a fight to the death for the last piece of dried pasta and, very uncharacteristically, lost? (d) all of the above?
(a) & (b),
Our local Coop is not practising social distancing. TheParish Council know but are powerless. We are avoiding if like tge plague it might become
Those carrying out the testing at IKEA Wembley dont have the right PPE.
FFS can those organising this go off and run a brewery instead
I could imagine this been done giving the enormous pressure to increase testing numbers.
What happens when the test numbers rise and the deaths keep on increasing ?
They should really be ramping up for the antibody test, that's the one you want to do in huge numbers. I am not sure what the benefit is of testing hundreds of thousands of people to know if they actually have it. I don't think contact tracing is a thing anymore? But they've committed themselves to it, and the pressure is there for them to do it, regardless of whether or not it is the best thing to do.
How is the antibody test going to magically stop the virus spreading?
It's not, but neither is increasing testing numbers at this stage.
Yes it will. Better testing (especially if there's widespread spreading via asymptomatic individuals) will result in better isolation of those who are contagious.
Hypothetically if it was possible to very easily do an instantaneous test en-masse, like a breathalyser or a diabetics blood sugar test then you could get everyone to do a test daily and if showing positive isolate.
If people have symptoms they should be isolating anyway. As for asymptomatic carriers, how are they identified with the current test? You'd have to repeatedly test a very large fraction of the population for that to be effective at identifying all of them to reduce the spread. At this point the virus is so well established that containment is not possible.
Containment doesn't need to be possible to stop the virus spreading.
Lets take an example of the NHS. If a doctor or nurse is asymptomatic how many people could they infect?
Lets take an example of care homes. The only people going in and out of care homes now are the staff - but the staff are still having to go to the shops etc and can be exposed to the virus. An asymptomatic care staff carrier could take the virus into the care home where it could then spread like wildfire within the home.
If widespread testing were easily available then NHS and care staff etc could be tested at the start of every shift and sent home if they test positive before the get the chance to infect potentially dozens of other people.
How many daily tests are you talking about here? It sounds like huge number that may not be feasible.
The PM spoke about ramping up to 250,000 daily tests. Do that and you could test all frontline healthcare staff daily - and track and trace suspected cases.
Given the struggle to get only to 10,000, I stand by my 'may not be feasible' comment!
250K was specifically using an accurate antibody test - when that is available.
Does anyone know anyone who can boost the agenda for switching the air con off?
I am still wavering between thinking people need to be protected from Coronavirus, and that the healthy need a mild dose of it. However, in a hospital with vulnerable people and medical staff being repeatedly exposed, the case for it being switched off to help minimise spread is in my opinion undeniable, and it could save lives. In particular, surely switching it off would be beneficial in the new super-hospitals.
I don't know how much evidence there is for your air con theory but FWIW Japan is still going big on avoiding people talking in closed spaces with poor ventilation, and they seem to think opening a window is a big help..
I don't think it's anything to do with air conditioning per se. Rather any fan regularly circulating air around a confined space is going to distribute any aerosol to everyone int he room.
Does hospital aircon include micro filtration of circulating air ? I would have though so in ICUs ?
Or the rapid availability of (expensive, and in development) antibody prophylactics against the virus and/or a fast developed RNA vaccine (much cheaper, but likely to take longer), which could be used alongside track and trace on all contacts, or likely contacts of the infected.
Yes, the prophylactic route is potentially very interesting. From what I've read, there seems to be a very good understanding of how this virus works and some promising avenues for disrupting its effect on our bodies. That may well lead to some effective prophylactics, but presumably those would be brand new drugs and therefore take some time to get approved and into production.
Some perhaps, but a lot are being repurposed. Remdesivir is probably the most promising I think, but there are others being currently tested in a huge number of trials. There's a good reason to hope that one of them will have an effect upon the progression of the disease (especially combined with rapid testing, which could enable treatment to be received immediately following diagnosis).
That's slightly different. I was referring to the possibility of new drugs that healthy people, with no infection, would take to prevent them getting hit by the virus (or hit badly), in the same way that people take anti-malarial prophylactics. In this case it could for example be a drug with a very specific effect of interfering with the process by which the virus latches on the ACE-2 receptors.
There are some interesting ideas. What makes me sceptical is that a good percentage of those with diabetes, blood pressure and heart disease are on these drugs, yet the mortality is worse for them.
My good lady wife has now been out allegedly at Tesco's for more than an hour.
Do I assume:
(a) that there is a very long queue to get into the shop; (b) that she is indulging in a wild affair in breach of her social distancing obligations? (c) that she was involved in a fight to the death for the last piece of dried pasta and, very uncharacteristically, lost? (d) all of the above?
a and therefore b, there's not a lot to do in those queues.
Those carrying out the testing at IKEA Wembley dont have the right PPE.
FFS can those organising this go off and run a brewery instead
I could imagine this been done giving the enormous pressure to increase testing numbers.
What happens when the test numbers rise and the deaths keep on increasing ?
They should really be ramping up for the antibody test, that's the one you want to do in huge numbers. I am not sure what the benefit is of testing hundreds of thousands of people to know if they actually have it. I don't think contact tracing is a thing anymore? But they've committed themselves to it, and the pressure is there for them to do it, regardless of whether or not it is the best thing to do.
The more confirmed cases you get, the better the death rate looks (cf Germany).
In all seriousness, I can't really see a point to mass testing at this stage. We know it's widespread, and increasing tests by a factor of less than a hundred isn't going to give us any clearer a picture as to how widespread. The test isn't accurate enough to help individuals make decisions, and it's apparently throwing up false negatives rather than false positives, which makes it even less helpful.
So as far as I'm concerned they should test to the minimum level needed for front line staff and save the rest for the points in the epidemic where mass testing is helpful - for example in a few weeks, when we're trying to ascertain if the lockdown has resulted in a genuine slowdown of new infections.
Obviously they should be doing random testing to track the course of the epidemic. But you don't need mass testing for that.
If false negatives are a problem, I am still not entirely getting the point of testing NHS staff either. Perhaps the idea is that their work is so vital that the increase in the spread of the virus is acceptable, but I haven't seen that spelled out.
The PCR tests are very accurate but can be negative because the virus was not collected correctly or more likely did not survive the transfer from test to lab. This is a major issue and increases with time from test to analysis. They will never give a false positive unless the lab becomes infected. A good system would have test results within 48 hours at most. This would allow people with initial symptoms to self isolate rapidly and contact others. It would also stop them being exposed to further doses. This is crucial with NHS staff.
Sorry - I was talking about antibody tests, and I should have said "false positives", not "false negatives" - i.e. indications that people have antibodies and are immune, when they are not.
Peter Hitchens is a professional contrarian. He's worth hearing, if only to ask yourself why you think he's wrong.
How much you listen to him after that point is up to you.
Peter Hitchens is actually a very useful measuring instrument. To measure something it helps to have a fixed point above which it is not possible to go. In his case what he makes it easy to measure is how reactionary a person or an idea is. Because Peter is above all a reactionary. Always and forever, he is. He is not consistently right or left wing, he is 100% purest reactionary. Or if you prefer he is the antithesis of a progressive. This is his essence. I say this as observation not as insult or compliment. One cannot be more reactionary or less progressive than Peter Hitchens. It is as much of a law as the boiling point of water at sea level.
So how to use him? Piece of cake. Any idea you are discussing, you ask yourself "Would Peter like this notion?" Answer yes - it's a reactionary notion. No debate, it is. Any person you are conversing with, ask that person "How often do you agree with Peter Hitchens on a scale of 1 to 10?". Fantastic, this, because the answer - where they are on the PH scale - provides an exact quantification of how reactitonary they are. PH10 being the maximum and something rarely if ever achieved. Not even the man himself is a PH10.
He's also performed a useful public service by collating a more-or-less exhaustive list of all "experts" in the world who agree with him. By so doing, he effectively nullifies his own appeal by authority, by illustrating just how many experts there are who agree that he's wrong.
On the subject of PH (or more precisely pH) I've just seen a facebook post claiming that the virus has a pH of 5.5-8.5, and therefore you can kill it by eating lots of alkaline foods. Like avocados. Which have a pH of 15.6. Apparently.
That caused an immediate raised eyebrow.
If avocados are more basic than sodium hydroxide that seems an issue.
We are now 10 years into a Tory government, only 3 governments since WW2 have lasted more than 10 years and only 1 government, the Tories in 1992, won a general election after more than 10 years in power.
So the Government should have expected things to get much tougher even without Covid 19 and a likely new and more centrist and media savvy Labour leader
At risk of being pedantic, only two governments have lasted more than ten years since World War Two. A government in our system is identified by who leads it, not which party forms it.
Except in the case of a national government a government in our system is actually defined by the party which forms it, we have not had a national government since WW2 but single party government bar 2010 to 2015 which was still a Tory led Government
That is simply not correct in law. It is in practice, of course, but constitutionally parties have no actual role in the system. A government is defined by the person who leads it, which under usual circumstances is whoever commands a majority in the Commons.
We have no written constitution, the Ministers of the Crown have all come from one party in any one government since WW2 bar 2010 to 2015 when most of them were still Tory
Even that isn’t correct, as in the 1950s the Liberal Nationals were still a separate party.
John Maclay was backed by the Tories in a straight fight against Labour in West Renfrewshire, he was only a National Liberal in name in reality a Tory and ultimately it became the National Liberal and Conservative party before merging into the Tories too
Leaving aside the trifling detail that you don’t seem to understand what they were or how they operated, it occurs to me that Gwilym Lloyd George was still officially a Liberal while Home Secretary in the mid-1950s, although he had lost the Liberal whip in 1946. So you would still be wrong.
Let it go. Trying to defend an indefensible position just makes you look silly, although I know you’re used to that.
Gwilym Lloyd George stood as a National Liberal and Conservative in 1945 and 1950 and in 1951 Churchill endorsed his candidacy
No, he did not. I think you’ve taken that off Wikipedia, and it is wrong. He stood ‘as a Liberal, supportive of the National Government.’ (Richard Toye, Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness, p. 393.) In 1951 he actually faced a Conservative candidate at Newcastle although Churchill had asked that he be given a clear run at Labour.
Now if you wish to tell me you know his political allegiance better than he did, based on reading a Wikipedia article, be my guest. Forgive me if I go with his statements and therefore to come back to the point:
1) Parties do not form governments, Prime Ministers do;
2) There have been multiparty governments in Britain since 1945;
3) This is because parties have no technical role in the House of Commons, MPs being elected as individuals.
If you don’t like those trifling facts, that is your problem. Can you stop bothering the rest of us with them though so we can get on with important subjects, including awesome punning and why pineapple should never be added to pizza?
Any evidence he did not stand on the ballot paper as a Liberal and National Conservative? No.
YES.
HIS. OWN. WORDS. WHICH. I. HAVE. QUOTED. FOR. YOU.
You just can’t bear to be proved wrong, can you? Honestly.
I find it doubly amusing you boast about your A-levels in politics and economics when you are trying to lecture an expert with a doctorate and a string of publications in this field based on a reading of an incorrect Wikipedia article.
Can anyone join in this fun-fest? I don't believe that party affiliations were printed on the ballot paper until June 1970. But my Times Guide to the House of Commons 1955 has him standing as a Liberal and Conservative, including his narrow defeat in 1950.
He was a self-declared Liberal endorsed by the Conservative hierarchy. He did not have the backing of the local Tory associations in 1945, 1950 (when Labour defeated him) or 1951 (when the local party backed another candidate against him). Not sure about 1955.
Why should he? Journalists should write whatever they like, we are not behind the iron curtain
'Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.'
Beginning to resemble the global warming debate - those with differing opinions must be hounded regardless of any data.
Stocky made the case against extending the lockdown on here yesterday eloquently and although most did not agree with him, it received widespread praise.
Differing opinions are welcomed by the vast majority, ill informed ranting less so.
It's nothing like the global warming debate (the wisdom of a coronavirus lock down is not yet settled science), people paid by fossil fuel billionaires to spread misinformation have been given far too much credence for far too long in the interests of "balance" The nutters some of whom still claim that AIDS isn't caused by HIV are rightly ridiculed and ignored - hardly anybody complains (is it because they don't have a trillion dollar industry behind them that spends more on disinformation than any other?)
I don't want start a fight over global warming (disclosure: it is happening) but I think you have the science the wrong way round there. We know a feck of a lot about human beings, and about viruses, and about infection because we have access to literally billions of each, and lots of completed case studies about outcomes when the two get together. With the earth (a system as complex as the human body) we have a sample of 1 out of a population of 1, with the patient in the early stages of a hitherto unknown disease, and all we can do is model outcomes. Most of the debate about covid is a great deal more settled than that.
I don't want to start a fight about it either (disclosure: I agree) but the policies of lockdown are a huge quantum leap from anything that has ever been contemplated in terms of reduction of carbon emissions. If the effect of massive reductions in flights, traffic, manufacturing, vessel movement etc are measurable then we will surely have the definitive answer as to whether anthropomorphic global warming is a thing.
Global warming is occurring due to the accumulation of carbon emissions over time. You won't see a difference due to a temporary partial shutdown.
There will be some interesting data on some of the details - e.g. how pollution interacts directly with clouds, which will help.
IANAE but I was assured by a geologist that the effect of 9/11 on flights was measurable in the temperature of the upper atmosphere. This will exceed that globally many times over. Trees and crops are still growing, carbon is being sequestered. If it is not being replaced we should see this.
The idea of lockdowns being unknown isn't right is it? I thought plenty of places in the Western world implemented quite substantial Spanish flu lockdowns. The fact we all knew rather little about that does not mean is was unknown - those with the details know a good amount about how they operated, how they were released, how much repetition was needed, how long they lasted.
I don't get the sense that we're operating so very far outwith the standard playbook here.
I'm not sure that's right. The Spanish flu was largely ignored/covered up at the time and people were very much encouraged to carry on working. I also doubt we have anything like the measurements from that time on a global scale to see a comparison to what we have now. I certainly cannot think of anything like the current lockdown on a global scale in modern times.
He's also performed a useful public service by collating a more-or-less exhaustive list of all "experts" in the world who agree with him. By so doing, he effectively nullifies his own appeal by authority, by illustrating just how many experts there are who agree that he's wrong.
On the subject of PH (or more precisely pH) I've just seen a facebook post claiming that the virus has a pH of 5.5-8.5, and therefore you can kill it by eating lots of alkaline foods. Like avocados. Which have a pH of 15.6. Apparently.
Avocados are more reactionary than Peter Hitchens?
My good lady wife has now been out allegedly at Tesco's for more than an hour.
Do I assume:
(a) that there is a very long queue to get into the shop; (b) that she is indulging in a wild affair in breach of her social distancing obligations? (c) that she was involved in a fight to the death for the last piece of dried pasta and, very uncharacteristically, lost? (d) all of the above?
Peter Hitchens is a professional contrarian. He's worth hearing, if only to ask yourself why you think he's wrong.
How much you listen to him after that point is up to you.
Peter Hitchens is actually a very useful measuring instrument. To measure something it helps to have a fixed point above which it is not possible to go. In his case what he makes it easy to measure is how reactionary a person or an idea is. Because Peter is above all a reactionary. Always and forever, he is. He is not consistently right or left wing, he is 100% purest reactionary. Or if you prefer he is the antithesis of a progressive. This is his essence. I say this as observation not as insult or compliment. One cannot be more reactionary or less progressive than Peter Hitchens. It is as much of a law as the boiling point of water at sea level.
So how to use him? Piece of cake. Any idea you are discussing, you ask yourself "Would Peter like this notion?" Answer yes - it's a reactionary notion. No debate, it is. Any person you are conversing with, ask that person "How often do you agree with Peter Hitchens on a scale of 1 to 10?". Fantastic, this, because the answer - where they are on the PH scale - provides an exact quantification of how reactionary they are. PH10 being the maximum and something rarely if ever achieved. Not even the man himself is a PH10.
He's also performed a useful public service by collating a more-or-less exhaustive list of all "experts" in the world who agree with him. By so doing, he effectively nullifies his own appeal by authority, by illustrating just how many experts there are who agree that he's wrong.
On the subject of PH (or more precisely pH) I've just seen a facebook post claiming that the virus has a pH of 5.5-8.5, and therefore you can kill it by eating lots of alkaline foods. Like avocados. Which have a pH of 15.6. Apparently.
Is reactionary a value-judgement here? If reactionary simply means going back to a past way of doing something, by dismissing a 'reactionary' view as automatically a bad view, are you not dismissing a whole raft of potentially good ideas as bad ideas? Riding a bicycle instead of a car, organic food, patronising local high street shops in preference to supermarkets or Amazon, growing vegetables in your back garden - are all profoundly reactionary ideas. Are you saying they're all bad? Do we only have a forward gear where we fetishise the new and are prevented from ever using the past as a resource for moving forward?
Those carrying out the testing at IKEA Wembley dont have the right PPE.
FFS can those organising this go off and run a brewery instead
I could imagine this been done giving the enormous pressure to increase testing numbers.
What happens when the test numbers rise and the deaths keep on increasing ?
They should really be ramping up for the antibody test, that's the one you want to do in huge numbers. I am not sure what the benefit is of testing hundreds of thousands of people to know if they actually have it. I don't think contact tracing is a thing anymore? But they've committed themselves to it, and the pressure is there for them to do it, regardless of whether or not it is the best thing to do.
Until there are enough people confirmed to have antibodies that they can run care homes and hospitals then it would be great to be able to test care workers and frontline health workers, to know if they actually have it.
Yeah, and once you've tested someone and they have the antibodies, they don't need to be tested for the virus ever again.
Even if there were no false negatives, there's virtually no evidence about how long immunity to this virus lasts.
It only needs to last long enough for this particular viral strain to die out, or mutate into something less nasty. Which, given how effective it is at spreading, should be pretty quick (since there's only a finite number of potential hosts for it).
Unless it can use other species as hosts?
Measles hasn't died out yet, despite being far more infectious than this virus, and despite widespread vaccination!
I can see a major central London road from my window, it is normally at 5 mph and full throughout a working day and most of the evening.
Since the lockdown including today if I look I can normally but not always see at least one vehicle but the traffic is flowing very freely and Id say 90%+ down on normal.
And when I go for a run/walk I have noticed most buses have zero passengers, just the driver (admittedly those are timed to avoid whats left of rush hour).
TfL and other bus and train companies may need new subsidies before long because they are running services on almost no fare revenue.
Local govts generally will certainly need bailouts as well as businesses. Ive not been paying much attention on that front but it will need to be done if it hasnt already.
Or they massively increase council tax
Those have just been set and aiui are subject to caps on increases? Business rates are decimated, as is transport income. They will need bailouts from the centre.
Government could just end the caps this year, let councils take the flack for tax rises not just central government
No, it is not possible. The maths of this situation are that the costs are going to be paid back over the next 20-30 years. People in work would not be able to pay the council tax rise that would be needed, let alone those who have lost their jobs or were struggling before.
Fortunately the people at the Treasury are not so wedded to ideology as some, and will look at it pragmatically and mathematically.
So they can just pay the massive hike in income tax and VAT instead?
You don't understand either politics or economics at all.
There won't be a massive hike in tax.
No need to be patronising or rude, I have A grade A levels in both politics and economics. If central government had to bail out out all local councils then income tax and VAT would have to rise whether sharply in the short term or stretched out longer term
There's no if about it, central government will have to and it will be stretched out long term - but there won't be massive tax rises to pay for it.
If they have to bail out every council there will be tax rises
Unlikely though I note the subtle drop of the word "massive". We will be trying to get the economy off the floor - you don't do that with tax rises.
If you are bailing out councils tax rises will have to come over the short term or long term, the money will not come from nowhere
Money does come from nowhere. That's how money works in an economy unlike a household.
No it doesn't, unless production increases to match the money supply you get rapidly rising inflation
Unless production increases to match the demand caused by the increase in money supply then you get inflation. But the money has been created out of thin air by banks. That's how it comes into existence. It isn't mined like gold.
Those carrying out the testing at IKEA Wembley dont have the right PPE.
FFS can those organising this go off and run a brewery instead
I could imagine this been done giving the enormous pressure to increase testing numbers.
What happens when the test numbers rise and the deaths keep on increasing ?
They should really be ramping up for the antibody test, that's the one you want to do in huge numbers. I am not sure what the benefit is of testing hundreds of thousands of people to know if they actually have it. I don't think contact tracing is a thing anymore? But they've committed themselves to it, and the pressure is there for them to do it, regardless of whether or not it is the best thing to do.
How is the antibody test going to magically stop the virus spreading?
It's not, but neither is increasing testing numbers at this stage.
accurately determining who has had the disease would make a substantial difference in several ways - firstly in hospitals. Having antibodies to the disease and having had x days of no symptoms means -
1) You have had the disease 2) You are now immune 3) You can't catch the disease and silently pass it to anyone.
Can you clarify 3) (above). I agree with the first half of your sentence, but the second? Surely such a person can pick the virus by touching a surface, deposit it on another surface and then someone who is not immune can get affected?
We are now 10 years into a Tory government, only 3 governments since WW2 have lasted more than 10 years and only 1 government, the Tories in 1992, won a general election after more than 10 years in power.
So the Government should have expected things to get much tougher even without Covid 19 and a likely new and more centrist and media savvy Labour leader
At risk of being pedantic, only two governments have lasted more than ten years since World War Two. A government in our system is identified by who leads it, not which party forms it.
Except in the case of a national government a government in our system is actually defined by the party which forms it, we have not had a national government since WW2 but single party government bar 2010 to 2015 which was still a Tory led Government
That is simply not correct in law. It is in practice, of course, but constitutionally parties have no actual role in the system. A government is defined by the person who leads it, which under usual circumstances is whoever commands a majority in the Commons.
We have no written constitution, the Ministers of the Crown have all come from one party in any one government since WW2 bar 2010 to 2015 when most of them were still Tory
Even that isn’t correct, as in the 1950s the Liberal Nationals were still a separate party.
John Maclay was backed by the Tories in a straight fight against Labour in West Renfrewshire, he was only a National Liberal in name in reality a Tory and ultimately it became the National Liberal and Conservative party before merging into the Tories too
Leaving aside the trifling detail that you don’t seem to understand what they were or how they operated, it occurs to me that Gwilym Lloyd George was still officially a Liberal while Home Secretary in the mid-1950s, although he had lost the Liberal whip in 1946. So you would still be wrong.
Let it go. Trying to defend an indefensible position just makes you look silly, although I know you’re used to that.
Gwilym Lloyd George stood as a National Liberal and Conservative in 1945 and 1950 and in 1951 Churchill endorsed his candidacy
No, he did not. I think you’ve taken that off Wikipedia, and it is wrong. He stood ‘as a Liberal, supportive of the National Government.’ (Richard Toye, Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness, p. 393.) In 1951 he actually faced a Conservative candidate at Newcastle although Churchill had asked that he be given a clear run at Labour.
Now if you wish to tell me you know his political allegiance better than he did, based on reading a Wikipedia article, be my guest. Forgive me if I go with his statements and therefore to come back to the point:
1) Parties do not form governments, Prime Ministers do;
2) There have been multiparty governments in Britain since 1945;
3) This is because parties have no technical role in the House of Commons, MPs being elected as individuals.
If you don’t like those trifling facts, that is your problem. Can you stop bothering the rest of us with them though so we can get on with important subjects, including awesome punning and why pineapple should never be added to pizza?
Any evidence he did not stand on the ballot paper as a Liberal and National Conservative? No.
YES.
HIS. OWN. WORDS. WHICH. I. HAVE. QUOTED. FOR. YOU.
You just can’t bear to be proved wrong, can you? Honestly.
I find it doubly amusing you boast about your A-levels in politics and economics when you are trying to lecture an expert with a doctorate and a string of publications in this field based on a reading of an incorrect Wikipedia article.
Can anyone join in this fun-fest? I don't believe that party affiliations were printed on the ballot paper until June 1970. But my Times Guide to the House of Commons 1955 has him standing as a Liberal and Conservative, including his narrow defeat in 1950.
Thankyou, so I was correct then at least in terms of the party colours who campaigned on
But not as a National Liberal, which by the 1950s was another meaningless 'grouping' within the Conservative Party. Interestingly (sic), Dr Charles Hill was also elected for Luton as a Liberal and Conservative.
Technically, it was still a separate party. Although in practice you’re right.
Wasn’t Heseltine originally a National Liberal as well, when he was very young?
Peter Hitchens is a professional contrarian. He's worth hearing, if only to ask yourself why you think he's wrong.
How much you listen to him after that point is up to you.
Peter Hitchens is actually a very useful measuring instrument. To measure something it helps to have a fixed point above which it is not possible to go. In his case what he makes it easy to measure is how reactionary a person or an idea is. Because Peter is above all a reactionary. Always and forever, he is. He is not consistently right or left wing, he is 100% purest reactionary. Or if you prefer he is the antithesis of a progressive. This is his essence. I say this as observation not as insult or compliment. One cannot be more reactionary or less progressive than Peter Hitchens. It is as much of a law as the boiling point of water at sea level.
So how to use him? Piece of cake. Any idea you are discussing, you ask yourself "Would Peter like this notion?" Answer yes - it's a reactionary notion. No debate, it is. Any person you are conversing with, ask that person "How often do you agree with Peter Hitchens on a scale of 1 to 10?". Fantastic, this, because the answer - where they are on the PH scale - provides an exact quantification of how reactitonary they are. PH10 being the maximum and something rarely if ever achieved. Not even the man himself is a PH10.
He's also performed a useful public service by collating a more-or-less exhaustive list of all "experts" in the world who agree with him. By so doing, he effectively nullifies his own appeal by authority, by illustrating just how many experts there are who agree that he's wrong.
On the subject of PH (or more precisely pH) I've just seen a facebook post claiming that the virus has a pH of 5.5-8.5, and therefore you can kill it by eating lots of alkaline foods. Like avocados. Which have a pH of 15.6. Apparently.
That caused an immediate raised eyebrow.
If avocados are more basic than sodium hydroxide that seems an issue.
That would suggest that avocados are quite useful in disposing of corpses.
i considered him, syd little and bobby ball before i plumped for paul gascoigne.
sad though.
Gazza is shacked up with some woman he met in Spain. As long she keeps him in drink he won't be going across the door. @Paristonda (Johnson) and @Pulpstar (Weinstein) are still in the breakaway as we approach the flamme rouge.
I've been following the conversation on PB about the coronavirus for a while now. There are a lot of interesting points being made.
Anyone who's interested in government policy and response to threats like this may find Nassim Nicholas Taleb's twitter useful. I've read his book "Antifragile" and his opinions go against a lot of what governments and the WHO have been saying.
Basically his view is, that statistical and epidemiological models count for jack all because what we are dealing with is an extreme "fat tail" statistical event, and therefore we cannot ascertain risk or apply data-driven policy to it.
Instead we should be looking at what is the worst case scenario, and then overkill even that in terms of policy response.
He talks about upside vs downside, and that many things not recommended by the WHO and governments, eg. wearing masks, chloroquine, and other things like that, should just be implemented without waiting for full testing, because the downside risk of just using them is minimal vs the *potential* upside if they do happen to work in the face of the enormous impending disaster.
Does he incorporate economic risk into his thinking or is it pure covid?
His view has been that if we take extreme action it will prevent the need for even more extreme action in the future, but he hasn't mentioned that much recently. I think that ship has sailed now. Many of the things he mentioned lately don't have much cost, but good potential upside
Those carrying out the testing at IKEA Wembley dont have the right PPE.
FFS can those organising this go off and run a brewery instead
I could imagine this been done giving the enormous pressure to increase testing numbers.
What happens when the test numbers rise and the deaths keep on increasing ?
They should really be ramping up for the antibody test, that's the one you want to do in huge numbers. I am not sure what the benefit is of testing hundreds of thousands of people to know if they actually have it. I don't think contact tracing is a thing anymore? But they've committed themselves to it, and the pressure is there for them to do it, regardless of whether or not it is the best thing to do.
How is the antibody test going to magically stop the virus spreading?
It's not, but neither is increasing testing numbers at this stage.
accurately determining who has had the disease would make a substantial difference in several ways - firstly in hospitals. Having antibodies to the disease and having had x days of no symptoms means -
1) You have had the disease 2) You are now immune 3) You can't catch the disease and silently pass it to anyone.
Can you clarify 3) (above). I agree with the first half of your sentence, but the second? Surely such a person can pick the virus by touching a surface, deposit it on another surface and then someone who is not immune can get affected?
I believe that the levels of such transfer would be extremely low - has anyone got a link to a study of such transfer from one surface to another?
We are now 10 years into a Tory government, only 3 governments since WW2 have lasted more than 10 years and only 1 government, the Tories in 1992, won a general election after more than 10 years in power.
So the Government should have expected things to get much tougher even without Covid 19 and a likely new and more centrist and media savvy Labour leader
At risk of being pedantic, only two governments have lasted more than ten years since World War Two. A government in our system is identified by who leads it, not which party forms it.
Except in the case of a national government a government in our system is actually defined by the party which forms it, we have not had a national government since WW2 but single party government bar 2010 to 2015 which was still a Tory led Government
That is simply not correct in law. It is in practice, of course, but constitutionally parties have no actual role in the system. A government is defined by the person who leads it, which under usual circumstances is whoever commands a majority in the Commons.
We have no written constitution, the Ministers of the Crown have all come from one party in any one government since WW2 bar 2010 to 2015 when most of them were still Tory
Even that isn’t correct, as in the 1950s the Liberal Nationals were still a separate party.
John Maclay was backed by the Tories in a straight fight against Labour in West Renfrewshire, he was only a National Liberal in name in reality a Tory and ultimately it became the National Liberal and Conservative party before merging into the Tories too
Leaving aside the trifling detail that you don’t seem to understand what they were or how they operated, it occurs to me that Gwilym Lloyd George was still officially a Liberal while Home Secretary in the mid-1950s, although he had lost the Liberal whip in 1946. So you would still be wrong.
Let it go. Trying to defend an indefensible position just makes you look silly, although I know you’re used to that.
Gwilym Lloyd George stood as a National Liberal and Conservative in 1945 and 1950 and in 1951 Churchill endorsed his candidacy
No, he did not. I think you’ve taken that off Wikipedia, and it is wrong. He stood ‘as a Liberal, supportive of the National Government.’ (Richard Toye, Lloyd George and Churchill: Rivals for Greatness, p. 393.) In 1951 he actually faced a Conservative candidate at Newcastle although Churchill had asked that he be given a clear run at Labour.
Now if you wish to tell me you know his political allegiance better than he did, based on reading a Wikipedia article, be my guest. Forgive me if I go with his statements and therefore to come back to the point:
1) Parties do not form governments, Prime Ministers do;
2) There have been multiparty governments in Britain since 1945;
3) This is because parties have no technical role in the House of Commons, MPs being elected as individuals.
If you don’t like those trifling facts, that is your problem. Can you stop bothering the rest of us with them though so we can get on with important subjects, including awesome punning and why pineapple should never be added to pizza?
Any evidence he did not stand on the ballot paper as a Liberal and National Conservative? No.
YES.
HIS. OWN. WORDS. WHICH. I. HAVE. QUOTED. FOR. YOU.
You just can’t bear to be proved wrong, can you? Honestly.
I find it doubly amusing you boast about your A-levels in politics and economics when you are trying to lecture an expert with a doctorate and a string of publications in this field based on a reading of an incorrect Wikipedia article.
Can anyone join in this fun-fest? I don't believe that party affiliations were printed on the ballot paper until June 1970. But my Times Guide to the House of Commons 1955 has him standing as a Liberal and Conservative, including his narrow defeat in 1950.
Thankyou, so I was correct then at least in terms of the party colours who campaigned on
But not as a National Liberal, which by the 1950s was another meaningless 'grouping' within the Conservative Party. Interestingly (sic), Dr Charles Hill was also elected for Luton as a Liberal and Conservative.
Technically, it was still a separate party. Although in practice you’re right.
Wasn’t Heseltine originally a National Liberal as well, when he was very young?
I've been following the conversation on PB about the coronavirus for a while now. There are a lot of interesting points being made.
Anyone who's interested in government policy and response to threats like this may find Nassim Nicholas Taleb's twitter useful. I've read his book "Antifragile" and his opinions go against a lot of what governments and the WHO have been saying.
Basically his view is, that statistical and epidemiological models count for jack all because what we are dealing with is an extreme "fat tail" statistical event, and therefore we cannot ascertain risk or apply data-driven policy to it.
Instead we should be looking at what is the worst case scenario, and then overkill even that in terms of policy response.
He talks about upside vs downside, and that many things not recommended by the WHO and governments, eg. wearing masks, chloroquine, and other things like that, should just be implemented without waiting for full testing, because the downside risk of just using them is minimal vs the *potential* upside if they do happen to work in the face of the enormous impending disaster.
Does he incorporate economic risk into his thinking or is it pure covid?
His view has been that if we take extreme action it will prevent the need for even more extreme action in the future, but he hasn't mentioned that much recently. I think that ship has sailed now. Many of the things he mentioned lately don't have much cost, but good potential upside
Chloroquine may kill more people than it saves, and wearing masks may create a shortage of PPE without actually reducing transmission.
Nearly nothing is free. A lockdown the moment a novel strain of the flu might save people from dying of the flu, but kill more from disruption to society.
This is why government is hard - everything a government can do has an upside and downside. At national scale, that means people die - even from apparently innocuous decisions.
Why should he? Journalists should write whatever they like, we are not behind the iron curtain
'Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.'
Beginning to resemble the global warming debate - those with differing opinions must be hounded regardless of any data.
Stocky made the case against extending the lockdown on here yesterday eloquently and although most did not agree with him, it received widespread praise.
Differing opinions are welcomed by the vast majority, ill informed ranting less so.
It's nothing like the global warming debate (the wisdom of a coronavirus lock down is not yet settled science), people paid by fossil fuel billionaires to spread misinformation have been given far too much credence for far too long in the interests of "balance" The nutters some of whom still claim that AIDS isn't caused by HIV are rightly ridiculed and ignored - hardly anybody complains (is it because they don't have a trillion dollar industry behind them that spends more on disinformation than any other?)
I don't want start a fight over global warming (disclosure: it is happening) but I think you have the science the wrong way round there. We know a feck of a lot about human beings, and about viruses, and about infection because we have access to literally billions of each, and lots of completed case studies about outcomes when the two get together. With the earth (a system as complex as the human body) we have a sample of 1 out of a population of 1, with the patient in the early stages of a hitherto unknown disease, and all we can do is model outcomes. Most of the debate about covid is a great deal more settled than that.
I don't want to start a fight about it either (disclosure: I agree) but the policies of lockdown are a huge quantum leap from anything that has ever been contemplated in terms of reduction of carbon emissions. If the effect of massive reductions in flights, traffic, manufacturing, vessel movement etc are measurable then we will surely have the definitive answer as to whether anthropomorphic global warming is a thing.
Global warming is occurring due to the accumulation of carbon emissions over time. You won't see a difference due to a temporary partial shutdown.
There will be some interesting data on some of the details - e.g. how pollution interacts directly with clouds, which will help.
IANAE but I was assured by a geologist that the effect of 9/11 on flights was measurable in the temperature of the upper atmosphere. This will exceed that globally many times over. Trees and crops are still growing, carbon is being sequestered. If it is not being replaced we should see this.
The idea of lockdowns being unknown isn't right is it? I thought plenty of places in the Western world implemented quite substantial Spanish flu lockdowns. The fact we all knew rather little about that does not mean is was unknown - those with the details know a good amount about how they operated, how they were released, how much repetition was needed, how long they lasted.
I don't get the sense that we're operating so very far outwith the standard playbook here.
I'm not sure that's right. The Spanish flu was largely ignored/covered up at the time and people were very much encouraged to carry on working. I also doubt we have anything like the measurements from that time on a global scale to see a comparison to what we have now. I certainly cannot think of anything like the current lockdown on a global scale in modern times.
Spanish flu spread because the work people carried on doing was fighting the Great War.
Gazza is shacked up with some woman he met in Spain. As long she keeps him in drink he won't be going across the door. @Paristonda (Johnson) and @Pulpstar (Weinstein) are still in the breakaway as we approach the flamme rouge.
Why should he? Journalists should write whatever they like, we are not behind the iron curtain
'Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.'
Beginning to resemble the global warming debate - those with differing opinions must be hounded regardless of any data.
Stocky made the case against extending the lockdown on here yesterday eloquently and although most did not agree with him, it received widespread praise.
Differing opinions are welcomed by the vast majority, ill informed ranting less so.
It's nothing like the global warming debate (the wisdom of a coronavirus lock down is not yet settled science), people paid by fossil fuel billionaires to spread misinformation have been given far too much credence for far too long in the interests of "balance" The nutters some of whom still claim that AIDS isn't caused by HIV are rightly ridiculed and ignored - hardly anybody complains (is it because they don't have a trillion dollar industry behind them that spends more on disinformation than any other?)
I don't want start a fight over global warming (disclosure: it is happening) but I think you have the science the wrong way round there. We know a feck of a lot about human beings, and about viruses, and about infection because we have access to literally billions of each, and lots of completed case studies about outcomes when the two get together. With the earth (a system as complex as the human body) we have a sample of 1 out of a population of 1, with the patient in the early stages of a hitherto unknown disease, and all we can do is model outcomes. Most of the debate about covid is a great deal more settled than that.
I don't want to start a fight about it either (disclosure: I agree) but the policies of lockdown are a huge quantum leap from anything that has ever been contemplated in terms of reduction of carbon emissions. If the effect of massive reductions in flights, traffic, manufacturing, vessel movement etc are measurable then we will surely have the definitive answer as to whether anthropomorphic global warming is a thing.
Global warming is occurring due to the accumulation of carbon emissions over time. You won't see a difference due to a temporary partial shutdown.
There will be some interesting data on some of the details - e.g. how pollution interacts directly with clouds, which will help.
IANAE but I was assured by a geologist that the effect of 9/11 on flights was measurable in the temperature of the upper atmosphere. This will exceed that globally many times over. Trees and crops are still growing, carbon is being sequestered. If it is not being replaced we should see this.
The idea of lockdowns being unknown isn't right is it? I thought plenty of places in the Western world implemented quite substantial Spanish flu lockdowns. The fact we all knew rather little about that does not mean is was unknown - those with the details know a good amount about how they operated, how they were released, how much repetition was needed, how long they lasted.
I don't get the sense that we're operating so very far outwith the standard playbook here.
I'm not sure that's right. The Spanish flu was largely ignored/covered up at the time and people were very much encouraged to carry on working. I also doubt we have anything like the measurements from that time on a global scale to see a comparison to what we have now. I certainly cannot think of anything like the current lockdown on a global scale in modern times.
Spanish flu spread because the work people carried on doing was fighting the Great War.
Was there Hispanic buying in the supermarkets at the time ?
Peter Hitchens is a professional contrarian. He's worth hearing, if only to ask yourself why you think he's wrong.
How much you listen to him after that point is up to you.
Peter Hitchens is actually a very useful measuring instrument. To measure something it helps to have a fixed point above which it is not possible to go. In his case what he makes it easy to measure is how reactionary a person or an idea is. Because Peter is above all a reactionary. Always and forever, he is. He is not consistently right or left wing, he is 100% purest reactionary. Or if you prefer he is the antithesis of a progressive. This is his essence. I say this as observation not as insult or compliment. One cannot be more reactionary or less progressive than Peter Hitchens. It is as much of a law as the boiling point of water at sea level.
So how to use him? Piece of cake. Any idea you are discussing, you ask yourself "Would Peter like this notion?" Answer yes - it's a reactionary notion. No debate, it is. Any person you are conversing with, ask that person "How often do you agree with Peter Hitchens on a scale of 1 to 10?". Fantastic, this, because the answer - where they are on the PH scale - provides an exact quantification of how reactitonary they are. PH10 being the maximum and something rarely if ever achieved. Not even the man himself is a PH10.
He's also performed a useful public service by collating a more-or-less exhaustive list of all "experts" in the world who agree with him. By so doing, he effectively nullifies his own appeal by authority, by illustrating just how many experts there are who agree that he's wrong.
On the subject of PH (or more precisely pH) I've just seen a facebook post claiming that the virus has a pH of 5.5-8.5, and therefore you can kill it by eating lots of alkaline foods. Like avocados. Which have a pH of 15.6. Apparently.
That caused an immediate raised eyebrow.
If avocados are more basic than sodium hydroxide that seems an issue.
My first problem was that the range quoted for the virus includes 7 (neutral).
The Chancellor is to announce that banks will be banned from asking small firms for personal guarantees on loans and relax other rules to ensure businesses can access the money they need. Companies trying to use the emergency loan scheme said banks had been demanding the guarantees and charging double-digit interest rates.
Good. Why on Earth would banks need security on loans that are explicitly underwritten by the government? That was the whole point of the government underwriting the loans in the first place!
Is the government underwriting the loans now? Or still just 80%?
I can understand why the banks would want security if they're exposed to 20% of the loan. Just make it 100% and the banks won't care.
What is the expected return of lending at 30% pa to a range of businesses, then getting a personal director guarantee, and a govt backstop at 80%?
Well over 20% even taking account of widespread bankruptcies and therefore unseemly profiteering from a govt scheme designed to support businesses not banks, imo.
I wouldn't have a clue. It depends upon the rates of default.
Incidentally I'd assume the expected return of that is very different to the expected return of lending without a guarantee and an 80% backstop.
If you assume 50% of companies go bust and 20% of the guarantors for the bust companies go personally bankrupt it is still a 25% expected return to the bank! Are you expecting defaults to be higher than that?
Just signed the change.org 'provide PPE to all frontline staff' petition.
I'm sure that will help. Maybe Matt will get off his bed of sick and hand over all the boxes of PPE that he has been secretly squirreling away in the hope that he could re-sell them to that fetish site that was linked to here the other day.
It's a bit like starting a petition for bad things to stop happening, and good things to happen in their place. Uncontroversial but not massively helpful.
It's utterly pathetic. Probably started by some fool who wants to appear on The One Show and have their ego stroked.
Is reactionary a value-judgement here? If reactionary simply means going back to a past way of doing something, by dismissing a 'reactionary' view as automatically a bad view, are you not dismissing a whole raft of potentially good ideas as bad ideas? Riding a bicycle instead of a car, organic food, patronising local high street shops in preference to supermarkets or Amazon, growing vegetables in your back garden - are all profoundly reactionary ideas. Are you saying they're all bad? Do we only have a forward gear where we fetishise the new and are prevented from ever using the past as a resource for moving forward?
No, not a value judgement. I specifically refrained from that. Being reactionary is no crime.
"A health minister has claimed that testing is "not a cure" for the coronavirus outbreak, just hours after Boris Johnson said it was "how we will defeat it in the end."
Amid a mounting backlash over the Government's failure to scale up testing faster, Nadine Dorries said "no amount of tests" could alter the fact there was currently "no treatment, no cure, no vaccine.""
Spain is not quite as bleak as the media are trying to paint it, on a three day average new cases are flatlining at 8,200 approx and whilst deaths are still going up that is to be expected for a few days yet. Valencia day on day increase in new cases is 5% the lowest for a while. I see no sign of any large scale desire to break the lockdown, there are a declining number of fines etc being issued. Locally it’s becoming a highlight when the bin Larry comes round each night and the traffic has dropped by 95% on the road near me.
Just over 6k new cases today is not good. Spain seems out of the exponential growth period but it has not yet reached a peak.
Where did you get the 6k figure from? The figures on RTVE were 8,200 if you look at the graph from 25/3 then you can draw a horizontal straight line through it. I would hazard a guess and say that all being well they will have started slowly tailing off in a week.
6,120 is their exact figure. We had this issue a couple of days ago. There are clearly some discrepancies in the way that the numbers are collated.
Worldometer add the numbers from Catalunya in the evening (they are published around 10pm); these figures get folded into the daily Spain-wide updates.
Thanks. Was not aware of that. So the Spanish figures are even worse (if not becoming increasingly worse).
Don't think that is correct. All of Spain's figures for the 24 hour period are issued each morning aroun 11.30 - TTBOMK
Why should he? Journalists should write whatever they like, we are not behind the iron curtain
'Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and to remove all doubt.'
Beginning to resemble the global warming debate - those with differing opinions must be hounded regardless of any data.
Stocky made the case against extending the lockdown on here yesterday eloquently and although most did not agree with him, it received widespread praise.
Differing opinions are welcomed by the vast majority, ill informed ranting less so.
It's nothing like the global warming debate (the wisdom of a coronavirus lock down is not yet settled science), people paid by fossil fuel billionaires to spread misinformation have been given far too much credence for far too long in the interests of "balance" The nutters some of whom still claim that AIDS isn't caused by HIV are rightly ridiculed and ignored - hardly anybody complains (is it because they don't have a trillion dollar industry behind them that spends more on disinformation than any other?)
I don't want start a fight over global warming (disclosure: it is happening) but I think you have the science the wrong way round there. We know a feck of a lot about human beings, and about viruses, and about infection because we have access to literally billions of each, and lots of completed case studies about outcomes when the two get together. With the earth (a system as complex as the human body) we have a sample of 1 out of a population of 1, with the patient in the early stages of a hitherto unknown disease, and all we can do is model outcomes. Most of the debate about covid is a great deal more settled than that.
I don't want to start a fight about it either (disclosure: I agree) but the policies of lockdown are a huge quantum leap from anything that has ever been contemplated in terms of reduction of carbon emissions. If the effect of massive reductions in flights, traffic, manufacturing, vessel movement etc are measurable then we will surely have the definitive answer as to whether anthropomorphic global warming is a thing.
Global warming is occurring due to the accumulation of carbon emissions over time. You won't see a difference due to a temporary partial shutdown.
There will be some interesting data on some of the details - e.g. how pollution interacts directly with clouds, which will help.
IANAE but I was assured by a geologist that the effect of 9/11 on flights was measurable in the temperature of the upper atmosphere. This will exceed that globally many times over. Trees and crops are still growing, carbon is being sequestered. If it is not being replaced we should see this.
The idea of lockdowns being unknown isn't right is it? I thought plenty of places in the Western world implemented quite substantial Spanish flu lockdowns. The fact we all knew rather little about that does not mean is was unknown - those with the details know a good amount about how they operated, how they were released, how much repetition was needed, how long they lasted.
I don't get the sense that we're operating so very far outwith the standard playbook here.
I'm not sure that's right. The Spanish flu was largely ignored/covered up at the time and people were very much encouraged to carry on working. I also doubt we have anything like the measurements from that time on a global scale to see a comparison to what we have now. I certainly cannot think of anything like the current lockdown on a global scale in modern times.
Spanish flu spread because the work people carried on doing was fighting the Great War.
Was there Hispanic buying in the supermarkets at the time ?
Hispanic buying There was stockpiling of recruits from all over America into training bases and from there packed into troop ships, the USS Petri Dish, for month-long cruises to the holiday beaches of the Western Front. Then the war ended and demobbed soldiers took it home. Bloody Spaniards!
Sir Simon, though not his good lady wife, thinks all this will be over in three weeks. Who to believe?
My wife and I share inputs, hear the same news and read the same papers. But I am an optimist and she is a pessimist. I think we could have stuck to the Swedish model. I think the crisis will be over in three weeks. She believes it will last months. It is not much comfort that we both have scientists on our side.
The issue is that some staff want to live away from families and / or housemates to reduce risk both ways, and some housemates are worried to be living with people with extensive contact with COVID-19 patients.
Comments
If Gwilym Lloyd George’s own words as quoted by a Professor of History at Exeter University are not good enough for you as evidence, it’s clear nothing would be.
I have repeatedly refuted all your other points. You are like a small child zapped between the eyes by a finger pistol shouting ‘Missed!’
If we truly target this and get any capable manufacturers or laboratories in line to help then I think a further ten-fold increase within a month could be possible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBvFkQizTT4&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR0zcKSVRMlAkdfr9O71qNHwnAoHY1I6ZVhLQiU7VD7HZoaSUHJOMBHBBms
Women though - you need eyes in the back of your head.
Rather any fan regularly circulating air around a confined space is going to distribute any aerosol to everyone int he room.
Does hospital aircon include micro filtration of circulating air ?
I would have though so in ICUs ?
NEW THREAD
There are some interesting ideas. What makes me sceptical is that a good percentage of those with diabetes, blood pressure and heart disease are on these drugs, yet the mortality is worse for them.
If avocados are more basic than sodium hydroxide that seems an issue.
No! Not having that.
Back to the drawing board for me if that's true.
Wasn’t Heseltine originally a National Liberal as well, when he was very young?
{ Mr Reese raises one eyebrow temporarily }
Nearly nothing is free. A lockdown the moment a novel strain of the flu might save people from dying of the flu, but kill more from disruption to society.
This is why government is hard - everything a government can do has an upside and downside. At national scale, that means people die - even from apparently innocuous decisions.
"A health minister has claimed that testing is "not a cure" for the coronavirus outbreak, just hours after Boris Johnson said it was "how we will defeat it in the end."
Amid a mounting backlash over the Government's failure to scale up testing faster, Nadine Dorries said "no amount of tests" could alter the fact there was currently "no treatment, no cure, no vaccine.""
MMT is still a fantasy, you cannot increase the amount of money (in real terms) just by wishing it into existence.
Hence the inflation in Zimbabwe and Venezuela.
My wife and I share inputs, hear the same news and read the same papers. But I am an optimist and she is a pessimist. I think we could have stuck to the Swedish model. I think the crisis will be over in three weeks. She believes it will last months. It is not much comfort that we both have scientists on our side.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/02/wrong-coronavirus-world-scientists-optimism-experts
LLs offering empty rooms free to NHS Staff:
https://www.nhshomes.co.uk/
The issue is that some staff want to live away from families and / or housemates to reduce risk both ways, and some housemates are worried to be living with people with extensive contact with COVID-19 patients.
There are some biggish players involved.