Page 22 of the Sunday Times points out that the Wuhan death toll increased by exactly 50% (to the nearest whole number) from 2,579 to 3,869 which seems rather suspicious.
Chinese reported figures are suspicious, who'd have thought that?
We (the UK) are not counting countless thousands dying in care homes...so pot calling kettle springs to mind....
Those are included in the ONS figures. Are you really comparing the two?
do they update their slides based on ONS or do they just show the public the hospital numbers. Majority of the great unwashed will never have heard of the ONS so one hopes they are not being economical with the facts.
The slide is presenting hospital deaths, and I don't think they have ever claimed otherwise. Laughably, some journalists had no idea that the ONS was responsible for publishing mortality data. They've been doing it for decades now.
The only stats that are ever going to make sense, are of total deaths against a baseline, say a ten year average adjusted for population. There's way too much ambiguity over causes of death, especially when making international comparisons.
No stats are perfect (there will be a reduction in industrial, traffic and gang-related fatalities, and possibly an increase in suicide and domestic violence), but the number of "excess deaths" this year is probably the best metric we have.
So nearly 22,000 tests yesterday but Capacity is now approaching 40,000. Time for all those NHS staff treating Covid 19 patients to get their tests whether or not they are symptomatic
More frontline symptomatic is the next expansion.
A small research project by Stanford using antibody testing concluded that California's true COVID exposure is 50-100 x the reported positives from testing. I take that as good news - it means we'll get to herd immunity quicker and that, even if the implication is that the R0 is higher than previously calculated, that the social distancing is working despite that higher R0
Yet we never reach herd immunity if the worries from the WHO yesterday turn out to be accurate.
Missed it. Is that the worry that asymptomatic and paucisymptomatic persons are not developing high antibody titres?
Can you please stop peddling this herd immunity, wishful thinking nonsense.....it's a vaccine, or a gamechanging anti-viral, or massive testing and contact tracing that gets us out of this....
What do you think a vaccine gives - a clue, it's herd immunity.
Only if enough people take it.
Of course. Though there is also the technique of ring vaccination for controlling local outbreaks.
The WHO caveats are pretty generic ones. As far as this particular virus is concerned, it is quite likely that a vaccine which provides effective protection for some years will be developed. Though it’s probably true that the first vaccines available (likely the RNA ones) might be only partly effective.
I caught the Oxford Prof on Marr earlier, talking about the vaccine she and her team are working on. Impressed with her. She gave me some confidence. Also explained how they go about testing. They get a large group of people and divide them into 2 equal groups. A gets the vax and B gets placebo. Then they tell those people to go out and live their lives but check in if they get sick. Whereby each one who does get sick gets tested for you know what. The bingo outcome? A good number DO get sick and all of them are in B. If so, full steam ahead with mass production and rollout.
But here's the thing. This is me, now, not her. I think they test this way because it is unethical to deliberately infect large numbers of people with the virus. They must "get it" naturally. And preferably quickly, given time is of the essence. You don't want it taking six months. So the ideal vax testing conditions are when the virus is rife and there is no social distancing. You want these testees going into pubs and gyms and all the rest of it. Conversely, therefore, if by the time the vax is ready for testing we have successfully squashed the virus with lockdown (and still have lockdown), what we have also done is made it harder to test the vax, and thus delayed its ultimate delivery.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
It's all a bit early to be conducting a full inquiry into all of this, but at this stage one does wonder if both the politicians and the scientists may simply have underestimated the threat posed by Covid-19?
In that scenario, one can reconcile two notions: that the Prime Minister and the wider Government were not lazy or wantonly negligent (the defence that the PM does not always chair COBRA seems valid,) but that they committed a serious error of judgement nonetheless.
If they thought that what was coming was the equivalent of a particularly bad flu season then it's no wonder that the Health Secretary was left in charge, since AIUI the preparations for such a thing had already been made. Johnson's involvement may only have become a lot more hands on only once they realised that the situation was developing not necessarily to Britain's advantage.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
It's all a bit early to be conducting a full inquiry into all of this, but at this stage one does wonder if both the politicians and the scientists may simply have underestimated the threat posed by Covid-19?
In that scenario, one can reconcile two notions: that the Prime Minister and the wider Government were not lazy or wantonly negligent (the defence that the PM does not always chair COBRA seems valid,) but that they committed a serious error of judgement nonetheless.
If they thought that what was coming was the equivalent of a particularly bad flu season then it's no wonder that the Health Secretary was left in charge, since AIUI the preparations for such a thing had already been made. Johnson's involvement may only have become a lot more hands on only once they realised that the situation was developing not necessarily to Britain's advantage.
It's never too early or too inappropriate for Meeks to criticise Boris.
Boris Johnson missed five consecutive emergency meetings
Can any of the PMs normal defenders give their best shot at defending why?
Big G? RobD?
Johnson joins an important lunar new year dragon eyes ritual on the day of a Cobra meeting is not an acceptable answer.
Thanks in advance
The firestorm against Boris is plainly out of control and I reject the hysteria around the Sunday Times story. The Cobra meetings in February were taken by the health secretary as the advice was not at that stage at the level it rose to in early march when Boris took control.
Of course the attacks are coming from a remain element and are vociferous as they hope to use this crisis to abort brexit and Boris stands in the way. This same group does not comment of on the requestioning of our PPE supplies from a French manufacturing company in 'an everyone for themselves move'
I expect to get a slew of attacks for making a case for Boris and I do accept mistakes have been made, but any future enquiry will have to ascertain if and by how much Boris overlooked or disregarded the scientific advise
Furthermore, Cobra meetings are attended by the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland representing the SNP, Labour and the DUP, and they have acted in lockstep with HMG and there is no criticism coming from them
You asked for a defence and this is a respectful response
Even today the polls idicate HMG retains the support of voters
Early days. This has a long way to play yet...
Boris Johnson and the Government ARE culpable of handling this crisis exceptionally poorly. The PPE debacle and the lack of testing are examples of this. And the sh*t hasn't really hit the fan yet!
As I said earlier, this is a time we desperately need great leadership. Instead we have the disingenuous buffoon heading a hapless Government.
It could have been an awful lot worse. We could have had Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Richard Burgon in charge.
They would probably be saying that the most important issue right now is the plight of the Palestinians, and the need to maintain relations with China and Russia while being a full part of the 10 trillion Euro EU bailout scheme.
My hospital now has 26 of 32 ventilators in use and has had 63 deaths in last 3 weeks
High point was 13/4/20 when only 1 vent was spare
The pre Covid Vent capacity was 22 so still using some of boosted Capacity
These people who obsess about ending the already looser than some countries "lockdown" have their priorities completely wrong.
We defintely need to start treating more non Covid patients who must he suffering now
There's a big problem heading the NHS's way later this summer and into the Autumn. Backlog of elective surgery. Cancellation of "non-urgent" operations that WILL have to be recategorized as urgent in six months time. Huge numbers of doctors and nurses who will have basically gone months without a holiday needing to be given time off. Oh, and the standard winter crisis.
Oh, and COVID-19 second wave...
Where can they go on holiday..everywhere will still be shut
Page 22 of the Sunday Times points out that the Wuhan death toll increased by exactly 50% (to the nearest whole number) from 2,579 to 3,869 which seems rather suspicious.
Chinese reported figures are suspicious, who'd have thought that?
We (the UK) are not counting countless thousands dying in care homes...so pot calling kettle springs to mind....
Those are included in the ONS figures. Are you really comparing the two?
do they update their slides based on ONS or do they just show the public the hospital numbers. Majority of the great unwashed will never have heard of the ONS so one hopes they are not being economical with the facts.
The slide is presenting hospital deaths, and I don't think they have ever claimed otherwise. Laughably, some journalists had no idea that the ONS was responsible for publishing mortality data. They've been doing it for decades now.
The only stats that are ever going to make sense, are of total deaths against a baseline, say a ten year average adjusted for population. There's way too much ambiguity over causes of death, especially when making international comparisons.
No stats are perfect (there will be a reduction in industrial, traffic and gang-related fatalities, and possibly an increase in suicide and domestic violence), but the number of "excess deaths" this year is probably the best metric we have.
To be fair, I seem to recall either Vallance or Whitty making this very point at a previous presser - i.e. that the most useful figures in the end will be the total mortality statistics irrespective of cause. The difference between this year and the long-term trend is likely to be attributable primarily to Covid, *AND* this should capture deaths caused by people suffering from other serious complaints or delayed treatments not going to hospital because of Covid, as well as those for which the illness was a direct contributory factor.
Boris Johnson missed five consecutive emergency meetings
Can any of the PMs normal defenders give their best shot at defending why?
Big G? RobD?
Johnson joins an important lunar new year dragon eyes ritual on the day of a Cobra meeting is not an acceptable answer.
Thanks in advance
The firestorm against Boris is plainly out of control and I reject the hysteria around the Sunday Times story. The Cobra meetings in February were taken by the health secretary as the advice was not at that stage at the level it rose to in early march when Boris took control.
Of course the attacks are coming from a remain element and are vociferous as they hope to use this crisis to abort brexit and Boris stands in the way. This same group does not comment of on the requestioning of our PPE supplies from a French manufacturing company in 'an everyone for themselves move'
I expect to get a slew of attacks for making a case for Boris and I do accept mistakes have been made, but any future enquiry will have to ascertain if and by how much Boris overlooked or disregarded the scientific advise
Furthermore, Cobra meetings are attended by the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland representing the SNP, Labour and the DUP, and they have acted in lockstep with HMG and there is no criticism coming from them
You asked for a defence and this is a respectful response
Even today the polls idicate HMG retains the support of voters
Early days. This has a long way to play yet...
Boris Johnson and the Government ARE culpable of handling this crisis exceptionally poorly. The PPE debacle and the lack of testing are examples of this. And the sh*t hasn't really hit the fan yet!
As I said earlier, this is a time we desperately need great leadership. Instead we have the disingenuous buffoon heading a hapless Government.
It could have been an awful lot worse. We could have had Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Richard Burgon in charge.
They would probably be saying that the most important issue right now is the plight of the Palestinians, and the need to maintain relations with China and Russia while being a full part of the 10 trillion Euro EU bailout scheme.
Not to mention that the Labour Party Conference would have to vote in favour of any action taken in response to the virus.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it was low to medium risk. That's the failure.
The free school meal vouchers are redeemable in store not Online. We live 12 miles from the nearest supermarket taking part. An unnecessary journey by car, or an attempt to find public transport? There are many parents round here finding this out. What is the Education Secretary doing about this?
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
It's all a bit early to be conducting a full inquiry into all of this, but at this stage one does wonder if both the politicians and the scientists may simply have underestimated the threat posed by Covid-19?
In that scenario, one can reconcile two notions: that the Prime Minister and the wider Government were not lazy or wantonly negligent (the defence that the PM does not always chair COBRA seems valid,) but that they committed a serious error of judgement nonetheless.
If they thought that what was coming was the equivalent of a particularly bad flu season then it's no wonder that the Health Secretary was left in charge, since AIUI the preparations for such a thing had already been made. Johnson's involvement may only have become a lot more hands on only once they realised that the situation was developing not necessarily to Britain's advantage.
It's never too early or too inappropriate for Meeks to criticise Boris.
That much appears obvious, but it doesn't necessarily follow that he's wrong.
Williamson surely has to be regarded as the 2nd weakest performer at these press conferences after Patel.
He doesn't sound authoritative and he answers questions much less directly than others. Other ministers at least look as if they are (roughly) answering the question (usually).
OK, he beats Patel on numeracy - he managed to read out the numbers correctly. But other than that he's actually on a similar level to her.
I would agree.
He just said the PPE from Turkey will be here tomorrow. Has that been confirmed
If it hasn’t we’re stuffed.
Remember what happened to the planeload from Thailand bound for Germany. Trump nicked it.
And earlier today there was a news report of Macron nicking our stuff. It isn't just Trump doing that.
Reference please. Although I could believe it.
Happened early March "when the government weren't doing anything"
Macron is right. A supply side monetary response is urgently required by the EU and the EZ in particular. If it does not happen several EZ countries such as Italy and Spain will have an economic disaster of the sort not seen since Hoover. Its not just a question of whether the EU would survive such a calamity, it is a question of whether it should.
Boris Johnson missed five consecutive emergency meetings
Can any of the PMs normal defenders give their best shot at defending why?
Big G? RobD?
Johnson joins an important lunar new year dragon eyes ritual on the day of a Cobra meeting is not an acceptable answer.
Thanks in advance
The firestorm against Boris is plainly out of control and I reject the hysteria around the Sunday Times story. The Cobra meetings in February were taken by the health secretary as the advice was not at that stage at the level it rose to in early march when Boris took control.
Of course the attacks are coming from a remain element and are vociferous as they hope to use this crisis to abort brexit and Boris stands in the way. This same group does not comment of on the requestioning of our PPE supplies from a French manufacturing company in 'an everyone for themselves move'
I expect to get a slew of attacks for making a case for Boris and I do accept mistakes have been made, but any future enquiry will have to ascertain if and by how much Boris overlooked or disregarded the scientific advise
Furthermore, Cobra meetings are attended by the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland representing the SNP, Labour and the DUP, and they have acted in lockstep with HMG and there is no criticism coming from them
You asked for a defence and this is a respectful response
Even today the polls idicate HMG retains the support of voters
BigG whether Boris' enemies (Gove?) are being mendacious or otherwise it LOOKS dreadful to the hitherto supportive public.
We will see.
If we see the peak passing and some easing over the next few weeks and Boris returns, fit and well, I expect this spat will not have any effect
OK...BIG G..if we get the worst fatalities (once you count in the care sector)...the biggest GDP hit....the biggest rise isn unemployment....the longest to get out of lockdown....the worst prepared for a second wave because our testing and tracing ability is just not even in the game.....
We are looking at these low numbers in the UK...this is now likely on all counts....
And...the final touch....we are still talking about Brexit deadlines, and blaming people for criticising the Govt as remainers...
You cannot make up how terrible the Tories have been these last years...shocking...and now we have a bunch of ideological, inexperienced incompetents running the country.....bring back May please...bring back Cameron....help please...the UK is desperate for competent political leadership....
We cannot know at this stage the outcomes, nor will we for months even years , but someday an enquiry will look into all the huge variables both here and across the world and blame may or may not be made
What is important just now is safe distancing and a slow loosening of restrictions as we re stock the NHS and have all the means to fight any second wave, as well as chipping away at the outstanding elective surgery
France requestioning our legitimate order for ppe was nothing short of piracy and acting on 'we are alright jack' basis is quite disgraceful and has risked UK lives and exposed our NHS staff
Also Macron himself is questioning the viability of the EU.
I do not have an issue with a short extension to the transistion but we must not pay anymore into the EU, and even more important we must not be controlled by Brussels in our own domestic response to this crisis
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
The free school meal vouchers are redeemable in store not Online. We live 12 miles from the nearest supermarket taking part. An unnecessary journey by car, or an attempt to find public transport? There are many parents round here finding this out. What is the Education Secretary doing about this?
And more importantly what genius thought up such a scheme.
Boris Johnson missed five consecutive emergency meetings
Can any of the PMs normal defenders give their best shot at defending why?
Big G? RobD?
Johnson joins an important lunar new year dragon eyes ritual on the day of a Cobra meeting is not an acceptable answer.
Thanks in advance
The firestorm against Boris is plainly out of control and I reject the hysteria around the Sunday Times story. The Cobra meetings in February were taken by the health secretary as the advice was not at that stage at the level it rose to in early march when Boris took control.
Of course the attacks are coming from a remain element and are vociferous as they hope to use this crisis to abort brexit and Boris stands in the way. This same group does not comment of on the requestioning of our PPE supplies from a French manufacturing company in 'an everyone for themselves move'
I expect to get a slew of attacks for making a case for Boris and I do accept mistakes have been made, but any future enquiry will have to ascertain if and by how much Boris overlooked or disregarded the scientific advise
Furthermore, Cobra meetings are attended by the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland representing the SNP, Labour and the DUP, and they have acted in lockstep with HMG and there is no criticism coming from them
You asked for a defence and this is a respectful response
Even today the polls idicate HMG retains the support of voters
Early days. This has a long way to play yet...
Boris Johnson and the Government ARE culpable of handling this crisis exceptionally poorly. The PPE debacle and the lack of testing are examples of this. And the sh*t hasn't really hit the fan yet!
As I said earlier, this is a time we desperately need great leadership. Instead we have the disingenuous buffoon heading a hapless Government.
It could have been an awful lot worse. We could have had Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Richard Burgon in charge.
They would probably be saying that the most important issue right now is the plight of the Palestinians, and the need to maintain relations with China and Russia while being a full part of the 10 trillion Euro EU bailout scheme.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
That post is beneath contempt. You really are a nasty piece of work.
Boris Johnson missed five consecutive emergency meetings
Can any of the PMs normal defenders give their best shot at defending why?
Big G? RobD?
Johnson joins an important lunar new year dragon eyes ritual on the day of a Cobra meeting is not an acceptable answer.
Thanks in advance
The firestorm against Boris is plainly out of control and I reject the hysteria around the Sunday Times story. The Cobra meetings in February were taken by the health secretary as the advice was not at that stage at the level it rose to in early march when Boris took control.
Of course the attacks are coming from a remain element and are vociferous as they hope to use this crisis to abort brexit and Boris stands in the way. This same group does not comment of on the requestioning of our PPE supplies from a French manufacturing company in 'an everyone for themselves move'
I expect to get a slew of attacks for making a case for Boris and I do accept mistakes have been made, but any future enquiry will have to ascertain if and by how much Boris overlooked or disregarded the scientific advise
Furthermore, Cobra meetings are attended by the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland representing the SNP, Labour and the DUP, and they have acted in lockstep with HMG and there is no criticism coming from them
You asked for a defence and this is a respectful response
Even today the polls idicate HMG retains the support of voters
BigG whether Boris' enemies (Gove?) are being mendacious or otherwise it LOOKS dreadful to the hitherto supportive public.
We will see.
If we see the peak passing and some easing over the next few weeks and Boris returns, fit and well, I expect this spat will not have any effect
From a personal point of view I am relatively comfortable with the Government's handling of the pandemic.Survival is my goal, so for my situation the lockdown is the right approach, and although when this is all over I will be significantly to the poorer, I believe it had to be done.
I could handle the lockdown for a few years if necessary but many are struggling after three weeks. As people begin to struggle financially agitation will ferment and the Government will lose its sheen. This will be a moment of great danger. Does Boris hold his nerve or capitulate to the naysayers? Will he follow his heart or his head? Will he stick with the science or revert to populism?
Fair comment and I hope Boris holds his nerve and sticks with the science
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
He wasn't been kept up to date with what was happening during February?
Boris Johnson missed five consecutive emergency meetings
Can any of the PMs normal defenders give their best shot at defending why?
Big G? RobD?
Johnson joins an important lunar new year dragon eyes ritual on the day of a Cobra meeting is not an acceptable answer.
Thanks in advance
The firestorm against Boris is plainly out of control and I reject the hysteria around the Sunday Times story. The Cobra meetings in February were taken by the health secretary as the advice was not at that stage at the level it rose to in early march when Boris took control.
Of course the attacks are coming from a remain element and are vociferous as they hope to use this crisis to abort brexit and Boris stands in the way. This same group does not comment of on the requestioning of our PPE supplies from a French manufacturing company in 'an everyone for themselves move'
I expect to get a slew of attacks for making a case for Boris and I do accept mistakes have been made, but any future enquiry will have to ascertain if and by how much Boris overlooked or disregarded the scientific advise
Furthermore, Cobra meetings are attended by the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland representing the SNP, Labour and the DUP, and they have acted in lockstep with HMG and there is no criticism coming from them
You asked for a defence and this is a respectful response
Even today the polls idicate HMG retains the support of voters
BigG whether Boris' enemies (Gove?) are being mendacious or otherwise it LOOKS dreadful to the hitherto supportive public.
We will see.
If we see the peak passing and some easing over the next few weeks and Boris returns, fit and well, I expect this spat will not have any effect
OK...BIG G..if we get the worst fatalities (once you count in the care sector)...the biggest GDP hit....the biggest rise isn unemployment....the longest to get out of lockdown....the worst prepared for a second wave because our testing and tracing ability is just not even in the game.....
We are looking at these low numbers in the UK...this is now likely on all counts....
And...the final touch....we are still talking about Brexit deadlines, and blaming people for criticising the Govt as remainers...
You cannot make up how terrible the Tories have been these last years...shocking...and now we have a bunch of ideological, inexperienced incompetents running the country.....bring back May please...bring back Cameron....help please...the UK is desperate for competent political leadership....
We cannot know at this stage the outcomes, nor will we for months even years , but someday an enquiry will look into all the huge variables both here and across the world and blame may or may not be made
What is important just now is safe distancing and a slow loosening of restrictions as we re stock the NHS and have all the means to fight any second wave, as well as chipping away at the outstanding elective surgery
France requestioning our legitimate order for ppe was nothing short of piracy and acting on 'we are alright jack' basis is quite disgraceful and has risked UK lives and exposed our NHS staff
Also Macron himself is questioning the viability of the EU.
I do not have an issue with a short extension to the transistion but we must not pay anymore into the EU, and even more important we must not be controlled by Brussels in our own domestic response to this crisis
Quite right Mr G. There's no doubt the UK government has questions to answer regarding the response to the virus. However, the EU's performance has been lamentable.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ is quite interesting, especially the Daily Number of Lab Cases by Specimen date panel. This only includes the Pillar I data (ie from those tested after admission to hospital). The data are reported by date of specimen collected so data from ~5 days ago is close to final.
It suggests that the peak date for positive specimens was ~7 April (about 2 weeks after lockdown, which makes sense) and that during the last week the median number of positive cases per weekday will be ~3500 (with a bit of extrapolating). It will be interesting to see if the pattern continues this week and how big the drops are. But it helps put the daily positive figures in context I think.
Page 22 of the Sunday Times points out that the Wuhan death toll increased by exactly 50% (to the nearest whole number) from 2,579 to 3,869 which seems rather suspicious.
Chinese reported figures are suspicious, who'd have thought that?
We (the UK) are not counting countless thousands dying in care homes...so pot calling kettle springs to mind....
Those are included in the ONS figures. Are you really comparing the two?
do they update their slides based on ONS or do they just show the public the hospital numbers. Majority of the great unwashed will never have heard of the ONS so one hopes they are not being economical with the facts.
The slide is presenting hospital deaths, and I don't think they have ever claimed otherwise. Laughably, some journalists had no idea that the ONS was responsible for publishing mortality data. They've been doing it for decades now.
The only stats that are ever going to make sense, are of total deaths against a baseline, say a ten year average adjusted for population. There's way too much ambiguity over causes of death, especially when making international comparisons.
No stats are perfect (there will be a reduction in industrial, traffic and gang-related fatalities, and possibly an increase in suicide and domestic violence), but the number of "excess deaths" this year is probably the best metric we have.
Absolutely right. Nothing else makes any sense.
We know, give or take a percent or two, that without CV-19 there would be approximately 560-565,000 deaths in England and Wales in 2020. We know this because the number pf deaths has been increasing at 1.5 to 2.0% per year, and we know how many deaths there were in 2018 and 2019.
At the end of this year we can look at the over all death number and see CV-19's impact. This will also catch, of course, excess deaths caused by people not getting medical attention for other issues because of CV-19.
My guess, and it's just a guess, is that ther number will be between 610,000 and 660,000. It's a wide range, because there's a wide range of outcomes.
This is a huge spike in the death rate, that will cause historians pause for centuries.
But it's also nothing like either of the World Wars.
Boris Johnson missed five consecutive emergency meetings
Can any of the PMs normal defenders give their best shot at defending why?
Big G? RobD?
Johnson joins an important lunar new year dragon eyes ritual on the day of a Cobra meeting is not an acceptable answer.
Thanks in advance
The firestorm against Boris is plainly out of control and I reject the hysteria around the Sunday Times story. The Cobra meetings in February were taken by the health secretary as the advice was not at that stage at the level it rose to in early march when Boris took control.
Of course the attacks are coming from a remain element and are vociferous as they hope to use this crisis to abort brexit and Boris stands in the way. This same group does not comment of on the requestioning of our PPE supplies from a French manufacturing company in 'an everyone for themselves move'
I expect to get a slew of attacks for making a case for Boris and I do accept mistakes have been made, but any future enquiry will have to ascertain if and by how much Boris overlooked or disregarded the scientific advise
Furthermore, Cobra meetings are attended by the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland representing the SNP, Labour and the DUP, and they have acted in lockstep with HMG and there is no criticism coming from them
You asked for a defence and this is a respectful response
Even today the polls idicate HMG retains the support of voters
Early days. This has a long way to play yet...
Boris Johnson and the Government ARE culpable of handling this crisis exceptionally poorly. The PPE debacle and the lack of testing are examples of this. And the sh*t hasn't really hit the fan yet!
As I said earlier, this is a time we desperately need great leadership. Instead we have the disingenuous buffoon heading a hapless Government.
It could have been an awful lot worse. We could have had Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Richard Burgon in charge.
They would probably be saying that the most important issue right now is the plight of the Palestinians, and the need to maintain relations with China and Russia while being a full part of the 10 trillion Euro EU bailout scheme.
If only there was a 10 trillion EU bailout scheme to be a part of. Totally and dangerously inept.
Page 22 of the Sunday Times points out that the Wuhan death toll increased by exactly 50% (to the nearest whole number) from 2,579 to 3,869 which seems rather suspicious.
Chinese reported figures are suspicious, who'd have thought that?
We (the UK) are not counting countless thousands dying in care homes...so pot calling kettle springs to mind....
Those are included in the ONS figures. Are you really comparing the two?
do they update their slides based on ONS or do they just show the public the hospital numbers. Majority of the great unwashed will never have heard of the ONS so one hopes they are not being economical with the facts.
Not like you Malc, to give 'people like that' the benefit of the doubt. You feeling well?
OKC, I have done a bit of gardening , am sitting in the sun , had a few beers I am in mellow mood so being very generous. What a beautiful day it is. greenery all around, birds chirping , it is great to be alive.
Lovely day here too Malc. Only one problem, my wife and her friends have discovered Zoom.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
That accusations fails from the 3rd March on. It fails before on the science
And can you comment on Macron highjacking our ppe putting at risk our doctors and nurses in an act of pure selfishness and against all the meaning of the EU
And on your attack over EU ventilators can you name any EU country to have received any, the number and if they will ever arrive
Macron is right. A supply side monetary response is urgently required by the EU and the EZ in particular. If it does not happen several EZ countries such as Italy and Spain will have an economic disaster of the sort not seen since Hoover. Its not just a question of whether the EU would survive such a calamity, it is a question of whether it should.
Its back to the fundamental problem of the EU - too much, too fast.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom. Which reinforced the notion that Germany was carrying the weight in Europe. In reality, the Euro helped Germany immensely at the expense of other parts of Europe.
In those other parts, the leaders talked of reform. But did not rebuild their economic systems to the German model. Because to even start, would to have been thrown from office, with ignominy. Who now remembers the Professor of economics in Athens, who was pitched out of his job, for suggesting in the boom years that the deficit the government was running was a bad idea? Motorcycle boy said he deserved it (and the death threats) at the time... no apology later.
Either the EU converages to carry out the fiscal transfers required, or they do nothing, or they split.
Boris Johnson missed five consecutive emergency meetings
Can any of the PMs normal defenders give their best shot at defending why?
Big G? RobD?
Johnson joins an important lunar new year dragon eyes ritual on the day of a Cobra meeting is not an acceptable answer.
Thanks in advance
The firestorm against Boris is plainly out of control and I reject the hysteria around the Sunday Times story. The Cobra meetings in February were taken by the health secretary as the advice was not at that stage at the level it rose to in early march when Boris took control.
Of course the attacks are coming from a remain element and are vociferous as they hope to use this crisis to abort brexit and Boris stands in the way. This same group does not comment of on the requestioning of our PPE supplies from a French manufacturing company in 'an everyone for themselves move'
I expect to get a slew of attacks for making a case for Boris and I do accept mistakes have been made, but any future enquiry will have to ascertain if and by how much Boris overlooked or disregarded the scientific advise
Furthermore, Cobra meetings are attended by the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland representing the SNP, Labour and the DUP, and they have acted in lockstep with HMG and there is no criticism coming from them
You asked for a defence and this is a respectful response
Even today the polls idicate HMG retains the support of voters
Early days. This has a long way to play yet...
Boris Johnson and the Government ARE culpable of handling this crisis exceptionally poorly. The PPE debacle and the lack of testing are examples of this. And the sh*t hasn't really hit the fan yet!
As I said earlier, this is a time we desperately need great leadership. Instead we have the disingenuous buffoon heading a hapless Government.
I doubt there is a politician in this country that could have done better unless they ignored the advice and accept far worse criticism when errors came to light
To undermine Boris you have to undermine the science recommended to him
Making shit decisions , when he could bother to attend meetings, and then trying to blame it on scientists does not cut it. He is in charge , he should consider all the evidence, not just a few handpicked Tory lickspittle victims set up to take blame if it all went wrong, and then he decides and gets the glory or the brickbats.
Boris Johnson missed five consecutive emergency meetings
Can any of the PMs normal defenders give their best shot at defending why?
Big G? RobD?
Johnson joins an important lunar new year dragon eyes ritual on the day of a Cobra meeting is not an acceptable answer.
Thanks in advance
The firestorm against Boris is plainly out of control and I reject the hysteria around the Sunday Times story. The Cobra meetings in February were taken by the health secretary as the advice was not at that stage at the level it rose to in early march when Boris took control.
Of course the attacks are coming from a remain element and are vociferous as they hope to use this crisis to abort brexit and Boris stands in the way. This same group does not comment of on the requestioning of our PPE supplies from a French manufacturing company in 'an everyone for themselves move'
I expect to get a slew of attacks for making a case for Boris and I do accept mistakes have been made, but any future enquiry will have to ascertain if and by how much Boris overlooked or disregarded the scientific advise
Furthermore, Cobra meetings are attended by the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland representing the SNP, Labour and the DUP, and they have acted in lockstep with HMG and there is no criticism coming from them
You asked for a defence and this is a respectful response
Even today the polls idicate HMG retains the support of voters
BigG whether Boris' enemies (Gove?) are being mendacious or otherwise it LOOKS dreadful to the hitherto supportive public.
We will see.
If we see the peak passing and some easing over the next few weeks and Boris returns, fit and well, I expect this spat will not have any effect
OK...BIG G..if we get the worst fatalities (once you count in the care sector)...the biggest GDP hit....the biggest rise isn unemployment....the longest to get out of lockdown....the worst prepared for a second wave because our testing and tracing ability is just not even in the game.....
We are looking at these low numbers in the UK...this is now likely on all counts....
And...the final touch....we are still talking about Brexit deadlines, and blaming people for criticising the Govt as remainers...
You cannot make up how terrible the Tories have been these last years...shocking...and now we have a bunch of ideological, inexperienced incompetents running the country.....bring back May please...bring back Cameron....help please...the UK is desperate for competent political leadership....
We cannot know at this stage the outcomes, nor will we for months even years , but someday an enquiry will look into all the huge variables both here and across the world and blame may or may not be made
What is important just now is safe distancing and a slow loosening of restrictions as we re stock the NHS and have all the means to fight any second wave, as well as chipping away at the outstanding elective surgery
France requestioning our legitimate order for ppe was nothing short of piracy and acting on 'we are alright jack' basis is quite disgraceful and has risked UK lives and exposed our NHS staff
Also Macron himself is questioning the viability of the EU.
I do not have an issue with a short extension to the transistion but we must not pay anymore into the EU, and even more important we must not be controlled by Brussels in our own domestic response to this crisis
This. Curious how the French action has largely passed unremarked. And how the humanitarian sending of masks to China in early February has been criticised.
It's almost like foreign governments can do no wrong, and the UK government can do no right.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
Given that she'd have been about half way through her pregnancy in February, I doubt there would have been much shagging going on!
So nearly 22,000 tests yesterday but Capacity is now approaching 40,000. Time for all those NHS staff treating Covid 19 patients to get their tests whether or not they are symptomatic
More frontline symptomatic is the next expansion.
A small research project by Stanford using antibody testing concluded that California's true COVID exposure is 50-100 x the reported positives from testing. I take that as good news - it means we'll get to herd immunity quicker and that, even if the implication is that the R0 is higher than previously calculated, that the social distancing is working despite that higher R0
Yet we never reach herd immunity if the worries from the WHO yesterday turn out to be accurate.
Missed it. Is that the worry that asymptomatic and paucisymptomatic persons are not developing high antibody titres?
Can you please stop peddling this herd immunity, wishful thinking nonsense.....it's a vaccine, or a gamechanging anti-viral, or massive testing and contact tracing that gets us out of this....
What do you think a vaccine gives - a clue, it's herd immunity.
Only if enough people take it.
Of course. Though there is also the technique of ring vaccination for controlling local outbreaks.
The WHO caveats are pretty generic ones. As far as this particular virus is concerned, it is quite likely that a vaccine which provides effective protection for some years will be developed. Though it’s probably true that the first vaccines available (likely the RNA ones) might be only partly effective.
I caught the Oxford Prof on Marr earlier, talking about the vaccine she and her team are working on. Impressed with her. She gave me some confidence. Also explained how they go about testing. They get a large group of people and divide them into 2 equal groups. A gets the vax and B gets placebo. Then they tell those people to go out and live their lives but check in if they get sick. Whereby each one who does get sick gets tested for you know what. The bingo outcome? A good number DO get sick and all of them are in B. If so, full steam ahead with mass production and rollout.
But here's the thing. This is me, now, not her. I think they test this way because it is unethical to deliberately infect large numbers of people with the virus. They must "get it" naturally. And preferably quickly, given time is of the essence. You don't want it taking six months. So the ideal vax testing conditions are when the virus is rife and there is no social distancing. You want these testees going into pubs and gyms and all the rest of it. Conversely, therefore, if by the time the vax is ready for testing we have successfully squashed the virus with lockdown (and still have lockdown), what we have also done is made it harder to test the vax, and thus delayed its ultimate delivery.
Yes - trying to get giving someone a potentially fatal disease to try out a vaccine past an ethics committee in the West. Strangely doctors have an aversion to such behaviour.
Don't worry. The Chinese will test it for you. They even have millions of people to be volunteered for the trials - nicely located and easy to track.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
But our experts are the best in the world, why would he need to see what other experts are saying?
As I said previously, it's a no win situation. The government was (and still is) getting horrendous advice from its experts. Follow the advice and be damned or ignore it and be damned.
The experts said it was low to medium risk while Boris wasn't attending meetings and getting summaries. I think it was a bad decision and it's clear Hancock was and is completely out of his depth so Boris being there would probably have been helpful. However, and you'll disagree I'm sure, it was categorised as a low to medium risk, you can't expect the PM to be in the room for all low to medium risk strategy meetings.
Page 22 of the Sunday Times points out that the Wuhan death toll increased by exactly 50% (to the nearest whole number) from 2,579 to 3,869 which seems rather suspicious.
Chinese reported figures are suspicious, who'd have thought that?
We (the UK) are not counting countless thousands dying in care homes...so pot calling kettle springs to mind....
Those are included in the ONS figures. Are you really comparing the two?
do they update their slides based on ONS or do they just show the public the hospital numbers. Majority of the great unwashed will never have heard of the ONS so one hopes they are not being economical with the facts.
The slide is presenting hospital deaths, and I don't think they have ever claimed otherwise. Laughably, some journalists had no idea that the ONS was responsible for publishing mortality data. They've been doing it for decades now.
The only stats that are ever going to make sense, are of total deaths against a baseline, say a ten year average adjusted for population. There's way too much ambiguity over causes of death, especially when making international comparisons.
No stats are perfect (there will be a reduction in industrial, traffic and gang-related fatalities, and possibly an increase in suicide and domestic violence), but the number of "excess deaths" this year is probably the best metric we have.
Exactly so.
I did enjoy EiT's lectures on why "Britain should be more like Japan" as Japan is starting to turn out to be more like Britain.
School leaders have called for an end to “irresponsible speculation” over dates for schools in England to reopen, as ministers were forced to reject suggestions that many pupils would be back in classrooms next month.
The Sunday Times claimed that “senior ministers” had backed a plan for schools to partially reopen on three possible dates: immediately after the current lockdown is scheduled to end on 11 May; after the half-term holiday on 1 June; or at the start of the school year in September.
Thank you. I had a momentary panic that my GCSE and A-level classes might be told to take exams without any revision, which would not have been pleasant for them. I say that not forgetting I have been furious at the decision to cancel exams.
To quote CS Forester:
Order, counter-order, disorder.
I believe the 11 May part of the story was specifically denied.
Given the schools were shut, what other options were there to abandoning the exams?
Genuine question.
I can't see an answer that works - getting kit in place to provide online lessons for every child in every state school will take a serious amount of time.
The disruption would massively impact results.
But that’s the point. Schools are not shut. I am back at work tomorrow.
If they could be kept open to babysit the children of key workers, they could have been kept open for exam classes.
At any rate, the option could have been left open until now, rather than being closed off so early.
If kept open for GCSE and A level student, what percentage of the school attending population would be going to school?
Again, a genuine request for knowledge.
Am I correct, that the percentage of children currently in school is a single digit percentage of the normal number?
Well, yes, because the rest of them have been banned from attending.
There was no noticeable impact on attendance among pupils until that happened.
We did have some problems with staffing but they could have been overcome if just 11, 12 and 13 had been in school.
I'm trying to get an understanding of the relative levels - say we have 5% in school at the moment. vs what % if we added in GCSE and A level years?
At the moment the figure I’ve seen is 2% attendance on average. Given that year eleven is 16% of a school and year thirteen, pitching a low figure, would be 10%, you are talking about over a quarter of pupils being in school.
Then again, in my comfortably off middle class school the attendance had already tumbled to 50% the week before lockdown as parents voted with their feet. Given the comments we are getting from pastoral updates there is no great desire from the vast majority of parents to reverse that. In an inner city comprehensive? Maybe less so. Cue the inevitable headlines - ‘well off parents keep their children safe including (insert name of minister x and health official y) whilst the rest of us gamble with our lives’.
And the private schools all moving to online lessons...
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom.
What boom? German economic growth mostly lagged behind the rest of the Eurozone (as well as the UK) in the period from its introduction until the financial crisis.
Schools reopening discussions do seem to gloss over the key point that the unit of infection is, for all practical purposes, the household rather than the individual. If kids are less likely to die (albeit still have a noticeable chance of being sick as a dog and may or may not carry health effects forwards throughout life), what about the rest of their households? Will we have a scenario where only teachers under 45 in perfect health and fitness (and with everyone in their household under 45 and in perfect health and fitness) teach only schoolchildren with perfect health and fitness (if you have diabetes, or an impaired immune system, or asthma, or you’re rather chunky, you’d better stay home), who are themselves from households with no-one over 45, and no-one with any health issues (like diabetes, asthma, recovery from kidney stones, under treatment for anything, and God forbid any of the 31% of the population who are obese).
Because if that’s not true, the dear little virus vectors will take out loads of households. Just need one household infected in the catchment area, and if the kids don’t keep good social distancing at school (And if you’re going to rely on 100% obedience to social distancing amongst a demographic who believe themselves at minimum risk and with maximum likelihood of either rebelliousness or discipline issues, God help you), it’ll be everywhere in that catchment area within days.
What did you make of the Swedish prof on unherd?
Is that the one who's gambling that the actual death rate is sub-0.1%?
Let's hope he's right. In the words of Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark.: "... very dangerous. You go first."
My real thoughts? In essence - it's so hard to see a solution to the problem, because we don't actually know the shape of the problem yet. As Kahnemann and Twersky say - the human mind hates uncertainty, and we're surrounded by it at the moment, and in a huge and encompassing life-or-death situation.
We need more information on R0, on the true IFR and asymptomatic rate, on the prospects of long-term effects (any neurological and respiratory long-running effects), on the alternative ways of reducing Rt, on whether immunity is granted from exposure-and-survival (and how long that immunity might be), on the realistic prospects of vaccination, on what we can and can't sustain in changes to ways of living and ways of working. Without that, the problem space is huge - and the plausible answers to all of those questions are so wide-ranging that the potential scenarios cover huge swathes of possibilities.
At the moment, the lockdown is buying us time to find out more on all of these, and decreasing R0 to non-explosive levels. A total lockdown is unsustainable long-term (although we're not as locked down as Spain or France, for example, and nowhere near as locked down as was Wuhan; Sweden is less locked down than us, although they're still looking bad in comparison with, say, Norway and Finland. But what levels of lockdown will be needed (Like pulsing restrictions off-and-on over time, for example), what alternatives are possible (contact tracing and antibody tests) are also things we need to work out in that time.
And, of course, the risks of premature abandonment of lockdown without a proper working alternative. I mean, I don't like the lockdown level we've got going on for 3 months, but I can accept it. I'd like even less if we held it for two months, relaxed it too soon, and scurried around to lock down harder and longer, say for four or five months on top of that, and that seems rather too possible.
We can't get a realistic solution until we know what the problem actually is, and what remedies may be of use.
It's surreal, because for the vast majority, it's sort of a "cozy catastrophe." We're at home, with home comforts, with our families, TV and internet, most people with food, and so on - yet we're in the middle of a widespread natural disaster.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
Plenty of my political friends highlighting the long Sunday Times piece (a newspaper they would usually rather shove down the lavatory).
For all I know the government is making a total pig's ear of the pandemic - but as I keep saying we are in such unusual territory and we won't know for quite some time what the final result will be.
What annoys me is how NONE of these people ask themselves how we ended up with such a government. With a frivolous prime minister and 'hooligan' advisers, a feeble cabinet and a mess of an opposition. Obviously the referendum didn't help but the self indulgence of Corbyn and those around him is something they will never admit. Their best argument is to blame the blairities, the media or even worse the voters. Endless outrage at the government but never anything very constructive.
Boris Johnson missed five consecutive emergency meetings
Can any of the PMs normal defenders give their best shot at defending why?
Big G? RobD?
Johnson joins an important lunar new year dragon eyes ritual on the day of a Cobra meeting is not an acceptable answer.
Thanks in advance
The firestorm against Boris is plainly out of control and I reject the hysteria around the Sunday Times story. The Cobra meetings in February were taken by the health secretary as the advice was not at that stage at the level it rose to in early march when Boris took control.
Of course the attacks are coming from a remain element and are vociferous as they hope to use this crisis to abort brexit and Boris stands in the way. This same group does not comment of on the requestioning of our PPE supplies from a French manufacturing company in 'an everyone for themselves move'
I expect to get a slew of attacks for making a case for Boris and I do accept mistakes have been made, but any future enquiry will have to ascertain if and by how much Boris overlooked or disregarded the scientific advise
Furthermore, Cobra meetings are attended by the first ministers of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland representing the SNP, Labour and the DUP, and they have acted in lockstep with HMG and there is no criticism coming from them
You asked for a defence and this is a respectful response
Even today the polls idicate HMG retains the support of voters
Early days. This has a long way to play yet...
Boris Johnson and the Government ARE culpable of handling this crisis exceptionally poorly. The PPE debacle and the lack of testing are examples of this. And the sh*t hasn't really hit the fan yet!
As I said earlier, this is a time we desperately need great leadership. Instead we have the disingenuous buffoon heading a hapless Government.
It could have been an awful lot worse. We could have had Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, Diane Abbott and Richard Burgon in charge.
They would probably be saying that the most important issue right now is the plight of the Palestinians, and the need to maintain relations with China and Russia while being a full part of the 10 trillion Euro EU bailout scheme.
If only there was a 10 trillion EU bailout scheme to be a part of. Totally and dangerously inept.
I know it's been said a lot of times by people (like me) who don't like the EU, but this crisis has proved the lack of EU demos - leading to every country hoarding supplies for themselves, and the unwillingness of the ECB (Germany and the Netherlands) to pool risk that is essential to the running of the single currency.
Macron is right. A supply side monetary response is urgently required by the EU and the EZ in particular. If it does not happen several EZ countries such as Italy and Spain will have an economic disaster of the sort not seen since Hoover. Its not just a question of whether the EU would survive such a calamity, it is a question of whether it should.
Its back to the fundamental problem of the EU - too much, too fast.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom. Which reinforced the notion that Germany was carrying the weight in Europe. In reality, the Euro helped Germany immensely at the expense of other parts of Europe.
In those other parts, the leaders talked of reform. But did not rebuild their economic systems to the German model. Because to even start, would to have been thrown from office, with ignominy. Who now remembers the Professor of economics in Athens, who was pitched out of his job, for suggesting in the boom years that the deficit the government was running was a bad idea? Motorcycle boy said he deserved it (and the death threats) at the time... no apology later.
Either the EU converages to carry out the fiscal transfers required, or they do nothing, or they split.
They will do nothing for as long as possible.
There will need to be fiscal transfers if the Euro is to work long term but that is not the current urgency. What is urgent now is that there is an ECB response similar to that of the BoE and the Fed with a major QE injection to protect the economy from very severe economic damage (some is inevitable). For a single currency bloc that means Coronabonds and the ECB essentially underwriting the bond issues of member states to the extent needed to fund the fiscal response to the crisis. Germany and Holland are blocking this because they can afford a much bigger fiscal response and can borrow pretty much unlimited sums at minimal cost. Spain and Italy can't. Its really shameful.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
I thought the American news outlets would have been more focused on the response of their own government? That said, the NY Times in particular has a long tradition of bashing the UK.
Do you think Hodges tweets are so incoherent because of poor bandwidth, or has he actually lost his mind?
Reminder that earlier on in this crisis he claimed that the idea that we're two weeks behind Italy was discredited because people had been saying that for days.
That was a classic. Up there with the famous DD one -
"The Deal is terrible. We should leave without it and use the Transition Period to negotiate a better one."
In fact the Hodges effort might be better. It's more pure.
Williamson surely has to be regarded as the 2nd weakest performer at these press conferences after Patel.
He doesn't sound authoritative and he answers questions much less directly than others. Other ministers at least look as if they are (roughly) answering the question (usually).
OK, he beats Patel on numeracy - he managed to read out the numbers correctly. But other than that he's actually on a similar level to her.
You're forgetting Alok Sharma. Which is unsurprising.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
You're not playing at politics, you're performing politics. I accept completely that you think you know best but perhaps you don't
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
Plenty of my political friends highlighting the long Sunday Times piece (a newspaper they would usually rather shove down the lavatory).
For all I know the government is making a total pig's ear of the pandemic - but as I keep saying we are in such unusual territory and we won't know for quite some time what the final result will be.
What annoys me is how NONE of these people ask themselves how we ended up with such a government. With a frivolous prime minister and 'hooligan' advisers, a feeble cabinet and a mess of an opposition. Obviously the referendum didn't help but the self indulgence of Corbyn and those around him is something they will never admit. Their best argument is to blame the blairities, the media or even worse the voters. Endless outrage at the government but never anything very constructive.
She was clear and precise and Marr gave her the time she needed to be both. Lurking in the background for any company is the fear of litigation if there are side-effects some years down the line. Your only hope then is to shoot the American lawyers waiting to sue.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
You are right, political leadership does matter to people. At this stage the polling on the government's handling of the crisis suggests that the views of you and your Italian friends are not shared by the majority in the UK.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it was low to medium risk. That's the failure.
That is as may be, but I was scared of Coronavirus from mid-February and all I had to rely on was news outlets rather than a team of clearly dodgy scientists.
I will give Boris a free-pass until Friday 20th March, 4 days before lockdown. I had already summoned the two Mexican minors back to cloud base, and my circle of associates were all convinced 7pm Friday would herald lockdown. We made preparations at work for the eventuality. Here in Wales the rumour was that army leave from the barracks in Brecon had been cancelled to assist the police from that day.
I was due to collect a car from Norfolk that weekend. I checked with the Hotel on the Thursday to see if the rooms were still available. The booking was cancelled by them in anticipation that by Friday the Government would have locked us all down. The car remains in Norfolk.
We all knew days before, that Friday 20th at 7pm was the moment it would all change, but Boris bottled that!
Macron is right. A supply side monetary response is urgently required by the EU and the EZ in particular. If it does not happen several EZ countries such as Italy and Spain will have an economic disaster of the sort not seen since Hoover. Its not just a question of whether the EU would survive such a calamity, it is a question of whether it should.
Its back to the fundamental problem of the EU - too much, too fast.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom. Which reinforced the notion that Germany was carrying the weight in Europe. In reality, the Euro helped Germany immensely at the expense of other parts of Europe.
In those other parts, the leaders talked of reform. But did not rebuild their economic systems to the German model. Because to even start, would to have been thrown from office, with ignominy. Who now remembers the Professor of economics in Athens, who was pitched out of his job, for suggesting in the boom years that the deficit the government was running was a bad idea? Motorcycle boy said he deserved it (and the death threats) at the time... no apology later.
Either the EU converages to carry out the fiscal transfers required, or they do nothing, or they split.
They will do nothing for as long as possible.
There will need to be fiscal transfers if the Euro is to work long term but that is not the current urgency. What is urgent now is that there is an ECB response similar to that of the BoE and the Fed with a major QE injection to protect the economy from very severe economic damage (some is inevitable). For a single currency bloc that means Coronabonds and the ECB essentially underwriting the bond issues of member states to the extent needed to fund the fiscal response to the crisis. Germany and Holland are blocking this because they can afford a much bigger fiscal response and can borrow pretty much unlimited sums at minimal cost. Spain and Italy can't. Its really shameful.
Coronabonds are a fiscal transfer by another name - putting Germany and the other contributors on the line for the others debts.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
Our policies over coronavirus, for better or worse, have been UK wide and coordinated. Nicola Sturgeon has not sworn loyalty on Brexit, but she has followed the same advice as Boris, and indeed allowed French rugby fans to invade Edinburgh for the 6 Nations. You say you're not playing politics but somehow it feels very like you are.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom.
What boom? German economic growth mostly lagged behind the rest of the Eurozone (as well as the UK) in the period from its introduction until the financial crisis.
The German export triumph - aided by the Euro being kept low by the inclusion of the Italians, Spanish, Greeks etc...
Yes, for the German in the street it hasn't been a wild party - but that just adds to the problem.
Come on. So the right time to impose a lockdown is after the thick end of 2 million have been infected?
Thousands of lives have been lost due to government delay and inaction.
Look at Australia and New Zealand. That's the trajectory we could have been following.
Whitty and Vallance will be the whipping boys , those creepy Tories will say it was all their fault as they provided the "science", you can see it a mile off.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
You are right, political leadership does matter to people. At this stage the polling on the government's handling of the crisis suggests that the views of you and your Italian friends are not shared by the majority in the UK.
Forgive me....but I really don't give a flying fuck about opinion polls right now...I do care about how many will die in the UK, the economic hit this country takes, the length of time it takes us to recover, and the competence of our politicians to make the right decisions.....
School leaders have called for an end to “irresponsible speculation” over dates for schools in England to reopen, as ministers were forced to reject suggestions that many pupils would be back in classrooms next month.
The Sunday Times claimed that “senior ministers” had backed a plan for schools to partially reopen on three possible dates: immediately after the current lockdown is scheduled to end on 11 May; after the half-term holiday on 1 June; or at the start of the school year in September.
Thank you. I had a momentary panic that my GCSE and A-level classes might be told to take exams without any revision, which would not have been pleasant for them. I say that not forgetting I have been furious at the decision to cancel exams.
To quote CS Forester:
Order, counter-order, disorder.
I believe the 11 May part of the story was specifically denied.
Given the schools were shut, what other options were there to abandoning the exams?
Genuine question.
I can't see an answer that works - getting kit in place to provide online lessons for every child in every state school will take a serious amount of time.
The disruption would massively impact results.
But that’s the point. Schools are not shut. I am back at work tomorrow.
If they could be kept open to babysit the children of key workers, they could have been kept open for exam classes.
At any rate, the option could have been left open until now, rather than being closed off so early.
If kept open for GCSE and A level student, what percentage of the school attending population would be going to school?
Again, a genuine request for knowledge.
Am I correct, that the percentage of children currently in school is a single digit percentage of the normal number?
Well, yes, because the rest of them have been banned from attending.
There was no noticeable impact on attendance among pupils until that happened.
We did have some problems with staffing but they could have been overcome if just 11, 12 and 13 had been in school.
I'm trying to get an understanding of the relative levels - say we have 5% in school at the moment. vs what % if we added in GCSE and A level years?
At the moment the figure I’ve seen is 2% attendance on average. Given that year eleven is 16% of a school and year thirteen, pitching a low figure, would be 10%, you are talking about over a quarter of pupils being in school.
Then again, in my comfortably off middle class school the attendance had already tumbled to 50% the week before lockdown as parents voted with their feet. Given the comments we are getting from pastoral updates there is no great desire from the vast majority of parents to reverse that. In an inner city comprehensive? Maybe less so. Cue the inevitable headlines - ‘well off parents keep their children safe including (insert name of minister x and health official y) whilst the rest of us gamble with our lives’.
And the private schools all moving to online lessons...
If only "Online Lessons" was an Island in the Pacific.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
Our policies over coronavirus, for better or worse, have been UK wide and coordinated. Nicola Sturgeon has not sworn loyalty on Brexit, but she has followed the same advice as Boris, and indeed allowed French rugby fans to invade Edinburgh for the 6 Nations. You say you're not playing politics but somehow it feels very like you are.
She should be ploughing her own furrow, not meekly following Westminster orders which we know are extremely dodgy given the clowns running the show. She needs to grow a pair and where required follow our own path. PS: She made a horlicks of Brexit as well.
Plenty of my political friends highlighting the long Sunday Times piece (a newspaper they would usually rather shove down the lavatory).
For all I know the government is making a total pig's ear of the pandemic - but as I keep saying we are in such unusual territory and we won't know for quite some time what the final result will be.
What annoys me is how NONE of these people ask themselves how we ended up with such a government. With a frivolous prime minister and 'hooligan' advisers, a feeble cabinet and a mess of an opposition. Obviously the referendum didn't help but the self indulgence of Corbyn and those around him is something they will never admit. Their best argument is to blame the blairities, the media or even worse the voters. Endless outrage at the government but never anything very constructive.
Let us hope Starmer is the man for the moment.
Spoiler: he isn't.
How do you know? Some signs are more positive than others.
It may well transpire that you were absolutely right. History may also prove you wrong. Who knows?
Macron is right. A supply side monetary response is urgently required by the EU and the EZ in particular. If it does not happen several EZ countries such as Italy and Spain will have an economic disaster of the sort not seen since Hoover. Its not just a question of whether the EU would survive such a calamity, it is a question of whether it should.
Its back to the fundamental problem of the EU - too much, too fast.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom. Which reinforced the notion that Germany was carrying the weight in Europe. In reality, the Euro helped Germany immensely at the expense of other parts of Europe.
In those other parts, the leaders talked of reform. But did not rebuild their economic systems to the German model. Because to even start, would to have been thrown from office, with ignominy. Who now remembers the Professor of economics in Athens, who was pitched out of his job, for suggesting in the boom years that the deficit the government was running was a bad idea? Motorcycle boy said he deserved it (and the death threats) at the time... no apology later.
Either the EU converages to carry out the fiscal transfers required, or they do nothing, or they split.
They will do nothing for as long as possible.
There will need to be fiscal transfers if the Euro is to work long term but that is not the current urgency. What is urgent now is that there is an ECB response similar to that of the BoE and the Fed with a major QE injection to protect the economy from very severe economic damage (some is inevitable). For a single currency bloc that means Coronabonds and the ECB essentially underwriting the bond issues of member states to the extent needed to fund the fiscal response to the crisis. Germany and Holland are blocking this because they can afford a much bigger fiscal response and can borrow pretty much unlimited sums at minimal cost. Spain and Italy can't. Its really shameful.
Coronabonds are a fiscal transfer by another name - putting Germany and the other contributors on the line for the others debts.
Yup. What else did they expect when they all agreed to sign up to a single currency?
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
Our policies over coronavirus, for better or worse, have been UK wide and coordinated. Nicola Sturgeon has not sworn loyalty on Brexit, but she has followed the same advice as Boris, and indeed allowed French rugby fans to invade Edinburgh for the 6 Nations. You say you're not playing politics but somehow it feels very like you are.
She should be ploughing her own furrow, not meekly following Westminster orders which we know are extremely dodgy given the clowns running the show. She needs to grow a pair and where required follow our own path.
Has it occurred to you that she thinks the UK approach is the right one? Or do you just think Sturgeon following your own path for the sake of doing something different. Of course doing that makes one more accountable for the results.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
Ducking the hard decisions you mean and having a handy scapegoat to point to when it all goes tits up, great leadership for sure.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
This "they were just following the expert advice" argument is flawed on three fronts:
1. They were not following the weight of international advice, especially from actual experts on pandemics. They were only following advice from a very small group of people and institutions in related fields.
2. The government's experts are government appointed. I totally disagree that you can appoint somebody to a role then entirely avoid blame for mistakes they make. Responsibility is shared.
3. This idea that scientists were just going and doing science and the politicians were just hearing the results is wrong. We've already had it reported that their modelling had political assumptions underpinning it- such as lockdown not being an option. In fact, many dimensions of this are political, such as weighing the cost of lives. It's impossible to give any kind of advice on how to handle COVID19 without making many of these political decisions. Politicians are responsible for these, not scientists.
Macron is right. A supply side monetary response is urgently required by the EU and the EZ in particular. If it does not happen several EZ countries such as Italy and Spain will have an economic disaster of the sort not seen since Hoover. Its not just a question of whether the EU would survive such a calamity, it is a question of whether it should.
Its back to the fundamental problem of the EU - too much, too fast.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom. Which reinforced the notion that Germany was carrying the weight in Europe. In reality, the Euro helped Germany immensely at the expense of other parts of Europe.
In those other parts, the leaders talked of reform. But did not rebuild their economic systems to the German model. Because to even start, would to have been thrown from office, with ignominy. Who now remembers the Professor of economics in Athens, who was pitched out of his job, for suggesting in the boom years that the deficit the government was running was a bad idea? Motorcycle boy said he deserved it (and the death threats) at the time... no apology later.
Either the EU converages to carry out the fiscal transfers required, or they do nothing, or they split.
They will do nothing for as long as possible.
There will need to be fiscal transfers if the Euro is to work long term but that is not the current urgency. What is urgent now is that there is an ECB response similar to that of the BoE and the Fed with a major QE injection to protect the economy from very severe economic damage (some is inevitable). For a single currency bloc that means Coronabonds and the ECB essentially underwriting the bond issues of member states to the extent needed to fund the fiscal response to the crisis. Germany and Holland are blocking this because they can afford a much bigger fiscal response and can borrow pretty much unlimited sums at minimal cost. Spain and Italy can't. Its really shameful.
Coronabonds are a fiscal transfer by another name - putting Germany and the other contributors on the line for the others debts.
Yup. What else did they expect when they all agreed to sign up to a single currency?
The politicians lied to each other and to their electorates.
The Greek politicians said they would become good Germans. The Greek politicians told the electorate that there would be reforms. And then did nothing at the slightest sign of opposition. The Germans told their people that everyone in Europe would become fiscally responsible. And that low wage rises were making Germany competitive and strong. And that big fiscal transfers would not be needed. etc. etc.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
But our experts are the best in the world, why would he need to see what other experts are saying?
As I said previously, it's a no win situation. The government was (and still is) getting horrendous advice from its experts. Follow the advice and be damned or ignore it and be damned.
The experts said it was low to medium risk while Boris wasn't attending meetings and getting summaries. I think it was a bad decision and it's clear Hancock was and is completely out of his depth so Boris being there would probably have been helpful. However, and you'll disagree I'm sure, it was categorised as a low to medium risk, you can't expect the PM to be in the room for all low to medium risk strategy meetings.
He might actually have turned up for one of those meetings to quiz the experts himself. I don’t think that was really optional for a man who purports to lead the nation for a threat of such potential gravity.
There’s a lot of rewriting of timelines going on, On 19 February, I wrote:
“If you aren’t worried, you haven’t been paying attention.”
I’m just some bloke who blogs in my spare time. I’m no expert and I don’t think I was particularly far-sighted. I was really doing a capsule summary at that point.
The previous day, the French health minister said that the Coronavirus turning into a pandemic was both a working assumption and a credible risk.
If all the Conservative fanboys took their heads out of their fundaments, they would appreciate how shocking it is that the Prime Minister was so incurious at a critical time about a looming threat.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
It comes down to whether you accept the science you are told or overrule it
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
This "they were just following the expert advice" argument is flawed on three fronts:
1. They were not following the weight of international advice, especially from actual experts on pandemics. They were only following advice from a very small group of people and institutions in related fields.
2. The government's experts are government appointed. I totally disagree that you can appoint somebody to a role then entirely avoid blame for mistakes they make. Responsibility is shared.
3. This idea that scientists were just going and doing science and the politicians were just hearing the results is wrong. We've already had it reported that their modelling had political assumptions underpinning it- such as lockdown not being an option. In fact, many dimensions of this are political, such as weighing the cost of lives. It's impossible to give any kind of advice on how to handle COVID19 without making many of these political decisions. Politicians are responsible for these, not scientists.
And to attack the same defense of the government from another angle, it's very clear that the eventual response to the pandemic was cobbled together at the last minute. Even if you accept that it was right for the government to be treating the risk as low in January, that's when you start making contingency plans, and when you start the public messaging.
Come on. So the right time to impose a lockdown is after the thick end of 2 million have been infected?
Thousands of lives have been lost due to government delay and inaction.
Look at Australia and New Zealand. That's the trajectory we could have been following.
Whitty and Vallance will be the whipping boys , those creepy Tories will say it was all their fault as they provided the "science", you can see it a mile off.
And Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are all in the same position
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
Our policies over coronavirus, for better or worse, have been UK wide and coordinated. Nicola Sturgeon has not sworn loyalty on Brexit, but she has followed the same advice as Boris, and indeed allowed French rugby fans to invade Edinburgh for the 6 Nations. You say you're not playing politics but somehow it feels very like you are.
She should be ploughing her own furrow, not meekly following Westminster orders which we know are extremely dodgy given the clowns running the show. She needs to grow a pair and where required follow our own path. PS: She made a horlicks of Brexit as well.
I don't think she has done that, I think she's followed the same scientific advice that Boris and Co. did. All, broadly speaking, correct on the information they had at the time.
I think this is largely humbug about this 'crucial wasted time'. If the ambition was truly to keep the UK Corona-free, yes there were big mistakes made. If the ambition is to allow Corona to wash through slowly, not overwhelm the health services, and get back to some form of normality, we've done fine.
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom.
What boom? German economic growth mostly lagged behind the rest of the Eurozone (as well as the UK) in the period from its introduction until the financial crisis.
The German export triumph - aided by the Euro being kept low by the inclusion of the Italians, Spanish, Greeks etc...
Yes, for the German in the street it hasn't been a wild party - but that just adds to the problem.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
But our experts are the best in the world, why would he need to see what other experts are saying?
As I said previously, it's a no win situation. The government was (and still is) getting horrendous advice from its experts. Follow the advice and be damned or ignore it and be damned.
The experts said it was low to medium risk while Boris wasn't attending meetings and getting summaries. I think it was a bad decision and it's clear Hancock was and is completely out of his depth so Boris being there would probably have been helpful. However, and you'll disagree I'm sure, it was categorised as a low to medium risk, you can't expect the PM to be in the room for all low to medium risk strategy meetings.
Oh dear, "our experts are the best in the world", delusion does not cover it. Some thick patsies hand picked by the devious unscrupulous charlatans running the shitshow , get it all arse for tit and will be the fall guys , would you let these clowns run a bath.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
You are right, political leadership does matter to people. At this stage the polling on the government's handling of the crisis suggests that the views of you and your Italian friends are not shared by the majority in the UK.
Forgive me....but I really don't give a flying fuck about opinion polls right now...I do care about how many will die in the UK, the economic hit this country takes, the length of time it takes us to recover, and the competence of our politicians to make the right decisions.....
I expect all those polled care about all those things too, why would they not. They just don't agree with you and your Italian friends, at least for now. I'm rather surprised the Italian and American media are so obsessed with how apparently badly the UK is handling the virus. It's not exactly obvious that their own virus problems have been well handled, and in the case of Italy exactly how the economic hit can be recovered.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
But our experts are the best in the world, why would he need to see what other experts are saying?
As I said previously, it's a no win situation. The government was (and still is) getting horrendous advice from its experts. Follow the advice and be damned or ignore it and be damned.
The experts said it was low to medium risk while Boris wasn't attending meetings and getting summaries. I think it was a bad decision and it's clear Hancock was and is completely out of his depth so Boris being there would probably have been helpful. However, and you'll disagree I'm sure, it was categorised as a low to medium risk, you can't expect the PM to be in the room for all low to medium risk strategy meetings.
He might actually have turned up for one of those meetings to quiz the experts himself. I don’t think that was really optional for a man who purports to lead the nation for a threat of such potential gravity.
There’s a lot of rewriting of timelines going on, On 19 February, I wrote:
“If you aren’t worried, you haven’t been paying attention.”
I’m just some bloke who blogs in my spare time. I’m no expert and I don’t think I was particularly far-sighted. I was really doing a capsule summary at that point.
The previous day, the French health minister said that the Coronavirus turning into a pandemic was both a working assumption and a credible risk.
If all the Conservative fanboys took their heads out of their fundaments, they would appreciate how shocking it is that the Prime Minister was so incurious at a critical time about a looming threat.
There's nothing you've written that I disagree with. As I said earlier in the day, his reaction to the early stages of the crisis have shown that Boris isn't up to the task of being PM.
My point is more a political one, government gets advice, it follows the advice, the advice is bad and people die. The government will successfully shift the blame onto the experts, same as Boris will.
I've been saying for a while now that the system we have of farming out the decision making to unaccountable experts is a poor one, but apparently I'm fairly lonely in that pursuit. It turns out we haven't had enough of experts.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
Our policies over coronavirus, for better or worse, have been UK wide and coordinated. Nicola Sturgeon has not sworn loyalty on Brexit, but she has followed the same advice as Boris, and indeed allowed French rugby fans to invade Edinburgh for the 6 Nations. You say you're not playing politics but somehow it feels very like you are.
She should be ploughing her own furrow, not meekly following Westminster orders which we know are extremely dodgy given the clowns running the show. She needs to grow a pair and where required follow our own path.
Has it occurred to you that she thinks the UK approach is the right one? Or do you just think Sturgeon following your own path for the sake of doing something different. Of course doing that makes one more accountable for the results.
I expect her to look at all the data and make her own decision , not just be a lapdog to Westminster who we know have no thought or care for SCOTLAND AND WILL ONLY BE INTERESTED IN THEIR OWN PATCH. I expect to see leadership , not just taking easy option so she can blame Boris at some later stage.
Come on. So the right time to impose a lockdown is after the thick end of 2 million have been infected?
Thousands of lives have been lost due to government delay and inaction.
Look at Australia and New Zealand. That's the trajectory we could have been following.
Whitty and Vallance will be the whipping boys , those creepy Tories will say it was all their fault as they provided the "science", you can see it a mile off.
And Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are all in the same position
Drakeford and Gethin have long been my whipping boys, before anyone thought of throwing Johnson and Hancock to the wolves.
In all fairness, at the time you defended Drakeford and Gethin, so this is one thing on which you have been consistent.
She was clear and precise and Marr gave her the time she needed to be both. Lurking in the background for any company is the fear of litigation if there are side-effects some years down the line. Your only hope then is to shoot the American lawyers waiting to sue.
If I were that company I would talk to the government and seek ... immunity.
Come on. So the right time to impose a lockdown is after the thick end of 2 million have been infected?
Thousands of lives have been lost due to government delay and inaction.
Look at Australia and New Zealand. That's the trajectory we could have been following.
Whitty and Vallance will be the whipping boys , those creepy Tories will say it was all their fault as they provided the "science", you can see it a mile off.
And Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are all in the same position
Come on. So the right time to impose a lockdown is after the thick end of 2 million have been infected?
Thousands of lives have been lost due to government delay and inaction.
Look at Australia and New Zealand. That's the trajectory we could have been following.
Whitty and Vallance will be the whipping boys , those creepy Tories will say it was all their fault as they provided the "science", you can see it a mile off.
And Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are all in the same position
Drakeford and Gethin have long been my whipping boys, before anyone thought of throwing Johnson and Hancock to the wolves.
In all fairness, at the time you defended Drakeford and Gethin, so this is one thing on which you have been consistent.
Gethin was quite good on the Welsh news on friday to be fair
Rather strange not using a cargo plane - maybe with all the passenger planes out of service, they offered a staggeringly cheap rate.
Or maybe the material doesn't like the cold in cargo bays?
The cargo bays are air conditioned just like the cabin, the temp is controllable if required. More likely is that the space in the cabin allowed a lot more low-density cargo to be carried.
It would have been a nightmare for the Captain and Dispatcher to work out the weight and balance calculations for the plane, with cargo carried in the cabin.
Cargo planes are all completely full at the moment, even the massive (and massively expensive) AN-225 is shipping medical supplies around the world.
I’m past disgust and utterly bemused at how the government’s usual apologists seem to think it acceptable for a Prime Minister to take a hands-off approach to a looming pandemic. It begs the question what they think he is there for, if not to take an interest in such serious threats to the nation.
The PM was being told by our experts that it 2as low to medium risk. That's the failure.
If the PM had torn himself away for five minutes from shagging his missus in February to read the newspapers he would have seen ample coverage of Covid-19 for himself. But he simply didn’t care to find out more.
But our experts are the best in the world, why would he need to see what other experts are saying?
As I said previously, it's a no win situation. The government was (and still is) getting horrendous advice from its experts. Follow the advice and be damned or ignore it and be damned.
The experts said it was low to medium risk while Boris wasn't attending meetings and getting summaries. I think it was a bad decision and it's clear Hancock was and is completely out of his depth so Boris being there would probably have been helpful. However, and you'll disagree I'm sure, it was categorised as a low to medium risk, you can't expect the PM to be in the room for all low to medium risk strategy meetings.
He might actually have turned up for one of those meetings to quiz the experts himself. I don’t think that was really optional for a man who purports to lead the nation for a threat of such potential gravity.
There’s a lot of rewriting of timelines going on, On 19 February, I wrote:
“If you aren’t worried, you haven’t been paying attention.”
I’m just some bloke who blogs in my spare time. I’m no expert and I don’t think I was particularly far-sighted. I was really doing a capsule summary at that point.
The previous day, the French health minister said that the Coronavirus turning into a pandemic was both a working assumption and a credible risk.
If all the Conservative fanboys took their heads out of their fundaments, they would appreciate how shocking it is that the Prime Minister was so incurious at a critical time about a looming threat.
He was planning to have the herd culled to save the Tories money, far from incurious.
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
You are right, political leadership does matter to people. At this stage the polling on the government's handling of the crisis suggests that the views of you and your Italian friends are not shared by the majority in the UK.
Forgive me....but I really don't give a flying fuck about opinion polls right now...I do care about how many will die in the UK, the economic hit this country takes, the length of time it takes us to recover, and the competence of our politicians to make the right decisions.....
I expect all those polled care about all those things too, why would they not. They just don't agree with you and your Italian friends, at least for now. I'm rather surprised the Italian and American media are so obsessed with how apparently badly the UK is handling the virus. It's not exactly obvious that their own virus problems have been well handled, and in the case of Italy exactly how the economic hit can be recovered.
The public don't follow things as closely as we do on here.
Come on. So the right time to impose a lockdown is after the thick end of 2 million have been infected?
Thousands of lives have been lost due to government delay and inaction.
Look at Australia and New Zealand. That's the trajectory we could have been following.
Whitty and Vallance will be the whipping boys , those creepy Tories will say it was all their fault as they provided the "science", you can see it a mile off.
And Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are all in the same position
Drakeford and Gethin have long been my whipping boys, before anyone thought of throwing Johnson and Hancock to the wolves.
In all fairness, at the time you defended Drakeford and Gethin, so this is one thing on which you have been consistent.
Gethin was quite good on the Welsh news on friday to be fair
Mind you I would be highly surprised if anyone could ever say that about Drakeford!
@Big_G_NorthWales Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
Our policies over coronavirus, for better or worse, have been UK wide and coordinated. Nicola Sturgeon has not sworn loyalty on Brexit, but she has followed the same advice as Boris, and indeed allowed French rugby fans to invade Edinburgh for the 6 Nations. You say you're not playing politics but somehow it feels very like you are.
I've largely kept my powder dry...apart from PPE equipment due to my personal interest....
But it now seems likely that we will come out of this crisis....with worse fatalities and poorer than our comparables...
Our economy is particularly vulnerable to......so, longer, deeper, harder....and this is just the start.....
The Press are on to it......it's not looking good. It's going to be a slo mo of John Major's ERM debacle played out over 2 years or so....
Rather strange not using a cargo plane - maybe with all the passenger planes out of service, they offered a staggeringly cheap rate.
Or maybe the material doesn't like the cold in cargo bays?
The cargo bays are air conditioned just like the cabin, the temp is controllable if required. More likely is that the space in the cabin allowed a lot more low-density cargo to be carried.
It would have been a nightmare for the Captain and Dispatcher to work out the weight and balance calculations for the plane, with cargo carried in the cabin.
Cargo planes are all completely full at the moment, even the massive (and massively expensive) AN-225 is shipping medical supplies around the world.
Once had the pleasure of getting into the cockpit of an AN-225. It is a long way up.
Come on. So the right time to impose a lockdown is after the thick end of 2 million have been infected?
Thousands of lives have been lost due to government delay and inaction.
Look at Australia and New Zealand. That's the trajectory we could have been following.
Whitty and Vallance will be the whipping boys , those creepy Tories will say it was all their fault as they provided the "science", you can see it a mile off.
And Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are all in the same position
Drakeford and Gethin have long been my whipping boys, before anyone thought of throwing Johnson and Hancock to the wolves.
In all fairness, at the time you defended Drakeford and Gethin, so this is one thing on which you have been consistent.
Gethin was quite good on the Welsh news on friday to be fair
Mind you I would be highly surprised if anyone could ever say that about Drakeford!
Locksmiths are needed to assist many victims of crime, and especially victims of domestic abuse. It's absolutely right that they are considered key workers.
Come on. So the right time to impose a lockdown is after the thick end of 2 million have been infected?
Thousands of lives have been lost due to government delay and inaction.
Look at Australia and New Zealand. That's the trajectory we could have been following.
Whitty and Vallance will be the whipping boys , those creepy Tories will say it was all their fault as they provided the "science", you can see it a mile off.
And Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are all in the same position
Drakeford and Gethin have long been my whipping boys, before anyone thought of throwing Johnson and Hancock to the wolves.
In all fairness, at the time you defended Drakeford and Gethin, so this is one thing on which you have been consistent.
Gethin was quite good on the Welsh news on friday to be fair
Ah, Vaughan Gething. Blast from the past, I was at university with him in 1996.
She was clear and precise and Marr gave her the time she needed to be both. Lurking in the background for any company is the fear of litigation if there are side-effects some years down the line. Your only hope then is to shoot the American lawyers waiting to sue.
If I were that company I would talk to the government and seek ... immunity.
I believe that, generally in the US, vaccine companies are given liability indemnity.
Comments
Thousands of lives have been lost due to government delay and inaction.
Look at Australia and New Zealand. That's the trajectory we could have been following.
No stats are perfect (there will be a reduction in industrial, traffic and gang-related fatalities, and possibly an increase in suicide and domestic violence), but the number of "excess deaths" this year is probably the best metric we have.
But here's the thing. This is me, now, not her. I think they test this way because it is unethical to deliberately infect large numbers of people with the virus. They must "get it" naturally. And preferably quickly, given time is of the essence. You don't want it taking six months. So the ideal vax testing conditions are when the virus is rife and there is no social distancing. You want these testees going into pubs and gyms and all the rest of it. Conversely, therefore, if by the time the vax is ready for testing we have successfully squashed the virus with lockdown (and still have lockdown), what we have also done is made it harder to test the vax, and thus delayed its ultimate delivery.
In that scenario, one can reconcile two notions: that the Prime Minister and the wider Government were not lazy or wantonly negligent (the defence that the PM does not always chair COBRA seems valid,) but that they committed a serious error of judgement nonetheless.
If they thought that what was coming was the equivalent of a particularly bad flu season then it's no wonder that the Health Secretary was left in charge, since AIUI the preparations for such a thing had already been made. Johnson's involvement may only have become a lot more hands on only once they realised that the situation was developing not necessarily to Britain's advantage.
They would probably be saying that the most important issue right now is the plight of the Palestinians, and the need to maintain relations with China and Russia while being a full part of the 10 trillion Euro EU bailout scheme.
This is the assertion that is going over the head of the usual Boris fanbois and sycophants on here. Makes me sick quite frankly!
An unnecessary journey by car, or an attempt to find public transport? There are many parents round here finding this out.
What is the Education Secretary doing about this?
https://www.euronews.com/2020/03/06/coronavirus-french-protective-mask-manufacturer-scraps-nhs-order-to-keep-masks-in-france
Whodathunkit? The PHE could take action without Johnson attending every single Cobr meeting?
What is important just now is safe distancing and a slow loosening of restrictions as we re stock the NHS and have all the means to fight any second wave, as well as chipping away at the outstanding elective surgery
France requestioning our legitimate order for ppe was nothing short of piracy and acting on 'we are alright jack' basis is quite disgraceful and has risked UK lives and exposed our NHS staff
Also Macron himself is questioning the viability of the EU.
I do not have an issue with a short extension to the transistion but we must not pay anymore into the EU, and even more important we must not be controlled by Brussels in our own domestic response to this crisis
It suggests that the peak date for positive specimens was ~7 April (about 2 weeks after lockdown, which makes sense) and that during the last week the median number of positive cases per weekday will be ~3500 (with a bit of extrapolating). It will be interesting to see if the pattern continues this week and how big the drops are. But it helps put the daily positive figures in context I think.
We know, give or take a percent or two, that without CV-19 there would be approximately 560-565,000 deaths in England and Wales in 2020. We know this because the number pf deaths has been increasing at 1.5 to 2.0% per year, and we know how many deaths there were in 2018 and 2019.
At the end of this year we can look at the over all death number and see CV-19's impact. This will also catch, of course, excess deaths caused by people not getting medical attention for other issues because of CV-19.
My guess, and it's just a guess, is that ther number will be between 610,000 and 660,000. It's a wide range, because there's a wide range of outcomes.
This is a huge spike in the death rate, that will cause historians pause for centuries.
But it's also nothing like either of the World Wars.
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/1251818382296600576?s=20
And can you comment on Macron highjacking our ppe putting at risk our doctors and nurses in an act of pure selfishness and against all the meaning of the EU
And on your attack over EU ventilators can you name any EU country to have received any, the number and if they will ever arrive
The Germans were told by their leaders that their sacrificing wage increase and being frugal led the the German boom. Which reinforced the notion that Germany was carrying the weight in Europe. In reality, the Euro helped Germany immensely at the expense of other parts of Europe.
In those other parts, the leaders talked of reform. But did not rebuild their economic systems to the German model. Because to even start, would to have been thrown from office, with ignominy. Who now remembers the Professor of economics in Athens, who was pitched out of his job, for suggesting in the boom years that the deficit the government was running was a bad idea? Motorcycle boy said he deserved it (and the death threats) at the time... no apology later.
Either the EU converages to carry out the fiscal transfers required, or they do nothing, or they split.
They will do nothing for as long as possible.
It's almost like foreign governments can do no wrong, and the UK government can do no right.
Don't worry. The Chinese will test it for you. They even have millions of people to be volunteered for the trials - nicely located and easy to track.
As I said previously, it's a no win situation. The government was (and still is) getting horrendous advice from its experts. Follow the advice and be damned or ignore it and be damned.
The experts said it was low to medium risk while Boris wasn't attending meetings and getting summaries. I think it was a bad decision and it's clear Hancock was and is completely out of his depth so Boris being there would probably have been helpful. However, and you'll disagree I'm sure, it was categorised as a low to medium risk, you can't expect the PM to be in the room for all low to medium risk strategy meetings.
I did enjoy EiT's lectures on why "Britain should be more like Japan" as Japan is starting to turn out to be more like Britain.
Let's hope he's right. In the words of Sallah in Raiders of the Lost Ark.: "... very dangerous. You go first."
My real thoughts?
In essence - it's so hard to see a solution to the problem, because we don't actually know the shape of the problem yet. As Kahnemann and Twersky say - the human mind hates uncertainty, and we're surrounded by it at the moment, and in a huge and encompassing life-or-death situation.
We need more information on R0, on the true IFR and asymptomatic rate, on the prospects of long-term effects (any neurological and respiratory long-running effects), on the alternative ways of reducing Rt, on whether immunity is granted from exposure-and-survival (and how long that immunity might be), on the realistic prospects of vaccination, on what we can and can't sustain in changes to ways of living and ways of working. Without that, the problem space is huge - and the plausible answers to all of those questions are so wide-ranging that the potential scenarios cover huge swathes of possibilities.
At the moment, the lockdown is buying us time to find out more on all of these, and decreasing R0 to non-explosive levels. A total lockdown is unsustainable long-term (although we're not as locked down as Spain or France, for example, and nowhere near as locked down as was Wuhan; Sweden is less locked down than us, although they're still looking bad in comparison with, say, Norway and Finland. But what levels of lockdown will be needed (Like pulsing restrictions off-and-on over time, for example), what alternatives are possible (contact tracing and antibody tests) are also things we need to work out in that time.
And, of course, the risks of premature abandonment of lockdown without a proper working alternative. I mean, I don't like the lockdown level we've got going on for 3 months, but I can accept it. I'd like even less if we held it for two months, relaxed it too soon, and scurried around to lock down harder and longer, say for four or five months on top of that, and that seems rather too possible.
We can't get a realistic solution until we know what the problem actually is, and what remedies may be of use.
It's surreal, because for the vast majority, it's sort of a "cozy catastrophe." We're at home, with home comforts, with our families, TV and internet, most people with food, and so on - yet we're in the middle of a widespread natural disaster.
Now...all my (Italian) friends...even my mother in law, are homing in on the UK's approach as being catastrophic....this is now being played out on all Italian news....
This is what has prompted my criticism today...not in fact the Times story...but which in itself says it all....where was Boris as the greatest single issue was fast approaching?
CNN...the New York Times..Washington Post....similarly all pointing the fingers at our incompetence...
BBC World News...the same.....
Why have we managed this so appallingly?
Why were we running Cheltenham, having huge indoor concerts, Champions League Matches in March. (when Europe was closed down)..why were we not closing down our airports...even now....why is our testing capacity so poor, even though we have had labs asking to take part....?? So many mistakes...
Why have we ended up with such an inexperienced group of politicians running our Govt who only seem to have been chosen because they sweared loyalty to Brexit....??
Our economy is service led...and dependant on people feeling confident about spending money.....which this pandemic is lasered on....
The incompetence of this Govt will means that the economic impact will be worse than it should have been...but many thousands of people will have died too....
I'm not playing politics...it is just that political leadership matters to people....
For all I know the government is making a total pig's ear of the pandemic - but as I keep saying we are in such unusual territory and we won't know for quite some time what the final result will be.
What annoys me is how NONE of these people ask themselves how we ended up with such a government. With a frivolous prime minister and 'hooligan' advisers, a feeble cabinet and a mess of an opposition. Obviously the referendum didn't help but the self indulgence of Corbyn and those around him is something they will never admit. Their best argument is to blame the blairities, the media or even worse the voters. Endless outrage at the government but never anything very constructive.
Let us hope Starmer is the man for the moment.
"The Deal is terrible. We should leave without it and use the Transition Period to negotiate a better one."
In fact the Hodges effort might be better. It's more pure.
The science may or may not be correct but as long as Boris and HMG follows the science there is little else any other poltician would do, hence why Sturgeon, Drakeford and Foster are applying it to the devolved nations
"I caught the Oxford Prof on Marr earlier."
She was clear and precise and Marr gave her the time she needed to be both. Lurking in the background for any company is the fear of litigation if there are side-effects some years down the line. Your only hope then is to shoot the American lawyers waiting to sue.
I will give Boris a free-pass until Friday 20th March, 4 days before lockdown. I had already summoned the two Mexican minors back to cloud base, and my circle of associates were all convinced 7pm Friday would herald lockdown. We made preparations at work for the eventuality. Here in Wales the rumour was that army leave from the barracks in Brecon had been cancelled to assist the police from that day.
I was due to collect a car from Norfolk that weekend. I checked with the Hotel on the Thursday to see if the rooms were still available. The booking was cancelled by them in anticipation that by Friday the Government would have locked us all down. The car remains in Norfolk.
We all knew days before, that Friday 20th at 7pm was the moment it would all change, but Boris bottled that!
Yes, for the German in the street it hasn't been a wild party - but that just adds to the problem.
Oh, and our 89 year old neighbour has been busy making wild garlic pesto today.
PS: She made a horlicks of Brexit as well.
It may well transpire that you were absolutely right. History may also prove you wrong. Who knows?
Stop being so silly!
Rather strange not using a cargo plane - maybe with all the passenger planes out of service, they offered a staggeringly cheap rate.
Or maybe the material doesn't like the cold in cargo bays?
1. They were not following the weight of international advice, especially from actual experts on pandemics. They were only following advice from a very small group of people and institutions in related fields.
2. The government's experts are government appointed. I totally disagree that you can appoint somebody to a role then entirely avoid blame for mistakes they make. Responsibility is shared.
3. This idea that scientists were just going and doing science and the politicians were just hearing the results is wrong. We've already had it reported that their modelling had political assumptions underpinning it- such as lockdown not being an option. In fact, many dimensions of this are political, such as weighing the cost of lives. It's impossible to give any kind of advice on how to handle COVID19 without making many of these political decisions. Politicians are responsible for these, not scientists.
The Greek politicians said they would become good Germans.
The Greek politicians told the electorate that there would be reforms. And then did nothing at the slightest sign of opposition.
The Germans told their people that everyone in Europe would become fiscally responsible. And that low wage rises were making Germany competitive and strong. And that big fiscal transfers would not be needed.
etc.
etc.
Everyone triangulated everyone.
There’s a lot of rewriting of timelines going on, On 19 February, I wrote:
“If you aren’t worried, you haven’t been paying attention.”
I’m just some bloke who blogs in my spare time. I’m no expert and I don’t think I was particularly far-sighted. I was really doing a capsule summary at that point.
The previous day, the French health minister said that the Coronavirus turning into a pandemic was both a working assumption and a credible risk.
If all the Conservative fanboys took their heads out of their fundaments, they would appreciate how shocking it is that the Prime Minister was so incurious at a critical time about a looming threat.
I think this is largely humbug about this 'crucial wasted time'. If the ambition was truly to keep the UK Corona-free, yes there were big mistakes made. If the ambition is to allow Corona to wash through slowly, not overwhelm the health services, and get back to some form of normality, we've done fine.
My point is more a political one, government gets advice, it follows the advice, the advice is bad and people die. The government will successfully shift the blame onto the experts, same as Boris will.
I've been saying for a while now that the system we have of farming out the decision making to unaccountable experts is a poor one, but apparently I'm fairly lonely in that pursuit. It turns out we haven't had enough of experts.
I expect to see leadership , not just taking easy option so she can blame Boris at some later stage.
Drakeford and Gethin have long been my whipping boys, before anyone thought of throwing Johnson and Hancock to the wolves.
In all fairness, at the time you defended Drakeford and Gethin, so this is one thing on which you have been consistent.
It would have been a nightmare for the Captain and Dispatcher to work out the weight and balance calculations for the plane, with cargo carried in the cabin.
Cargo planes are all completely full at the moment, even the massive (and massively expensive) AN-225 is shipping medical supplies around the world.
Or is he still too ill to record the Nation a short message?
Each one of us is worth ten publics.
Some of us rather more than that - maybe twenty.
But it now seems likely that we will come out of this crisis....with worse fatalities and poorer than our comparables...
Our economy is particularly vulnerable to......so, longer, deeper, harder....and this is just the start.....
The Press are on to it......it's not looking good. It's going to be a slo mo of John Major's ERM debacle played out over 2 years or so....