Okay M. Barnier. If you won't agree a deal then we leave transition without one.
Does anyone think that isn't what's going to happen now?
Like most, I want to see a trade deal agreed that looks like Canada or Korea, but IMO there's too much space between the two positions.
Barnier appears to be acting as if he's still negotiating with 2019 Theresa May, who doesn't have a majority to tell the EU to go screw themselves if they overplay their hand.
Neither side wants a deal enough to get one. We would all be much better off preparing for the consequences of that rather than going through the ridiculous charade of talks.
My hope is that the June crunch point makes everyone sit up and realise they have six months to get it sorted. And yes, preparations for no-deal in parallel.
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
As I read yesterday people are largely ok with lockdown cos they are sat in the garden not working. In my case I had two Zoom meetings in the front garden over the last few days as I just couldn't take another day effectively self-isolating in the dining room working all day whilst nice sunshine is out the window and my kids are outside the door. Its not so much the "lockdown" thats prison as evidently I haven't locked down as much as many, its that work is home is work and the borders no longer have meaning when you can see and hear life going on elsewhere but can't participate as stuck in a room every day.
And thats me with a decently spacious house and easy access to fresh air. Being stuck in a room in a house share or a sealed flat or something similar must be hell. Which is why it seems clear that so many have decided the lock down is over for them...
Imperial model had an update on various effects, it also spits out raw numbers now. Here's current estimates on Rt:
Austria 0.79 Belgium 1.09 Denmark 0.71 France 0.89 Germany 0.78 Greece 0.38 Italy 0.64 Netherlands 0.62 Norway 0.71 Portugal 0.72 Spain 0.69 Sweden 1.27 Switzerland 0.67 United_Kingdom 0.68
Do you think the numbers above bear any resemblance with the reality on the ground? They estimate a lower Rt for the UK than for Germany, while in reality the UK has consistently registered more than twice the number of new infections over the the last couple of weeks. That doesn't seem to reconcile.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Perhaps they realise that there isn't a one size fits all solution for different societies and cultures, and interpreting stats in another country to reflect one's hopes for one's own country isn't very useful.
Why would that stop them hoping that Sweden have got it right?
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Perhaps they realise that there isn't a one size fits all solution for different societies and cultures, and interpreting stats in another country to reflect one's hopes for one's own country isn't very useful.
The Swedish strategy is highly dependent on widespread trust of the state and strong social cohesion. It is interesting that a few months ago a theme developed that high levels of immigration meant that both trust and cohesion in Sweden were rapidly breaking down. This was a particularly popular argument on the American conspiracist right and among its fellow travellers elsewhere. They are now lauding Sweden as the example to follow.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
I feel sorry for them. The calculation would have been that other countries would try the same and do it differently enough to show that they were, in fact, the in between solution. This created by mass civil obedience and utilising their already acknowledged relative standoffishness. Now they find themselves out on a limb, the ‘liberty or death’ brigade pushing them every step of the way and exposed in a way that they would not have wished for. Even a small step away will be seen as a national humiliation now.
Look elsewhere for the real opposite to lockdown. Where is there? I don’t know enough about Brazil but know that it’s what Bolsanaro wants. Has Belarus done anything because their numbers seem to be rising even though they previously claimed that Covid19 didn’t exist in their country? These are the ‘liberty or death’ nations that are the test cases,
Okay M. Barnier. If you won't agree a deal then we leave transition without one.
Charming to see someone happy to play ducks and drakes with my partner’s life at a distance of several thousand miles.
Fuck off.
You should reflect on how glibly you advocate putting others’ lives in peril. If you don’t like it being pointed out to you, I suggest you stop doing it.
Okay M. Barnier. If you won't agree a deal then we leave transition without one.
Does anyone think that isn't what's going to happen now?
Like most, I want to see a trade deal agreed that looks like Canada or Korea, but IMO there's too much space between the two positions.
Barnier appears to be acting as if he's still negotiating with 2019 Theresa May, who doesn't have a majority to tell the EU to go screw themselves if they overplay their hand.
Neither side wants a deal enough to get one. We would all be much better off preparing for the consequences of that rather than going through the ridiculous charade of talks.
My hope is that the June crunch point makes everyone sit up and realise they have six months to get it sorted. And yes, preparations for no-deal in parallel.
I hope I am wrong but I think that there is almost zero chance of that happening. We need to be building the no deal infrastructure now.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
The desire to be proved right on a subject they feel strongly about is very intense in people. In ALL people. It is strong enough to override matters of life and death so long as those living and dying are stats rather than known personally. You will be no exception.
I don't really feel strongly about it, I don't know what the best strategy is. I know which one I want to work though
I think the whole Sweden thing is a proxy argument for Big State vs Liberty for a lot of people, and Leave vs Remain for a lot of others. The fact it was Boris' original plan means there is big premium in it failing for his haters, they can't say he didn't lock down quickly enough if Sweden is proved right
No doubt there is some of that going on. I think there are 2 strands to lockdown opposition. (1) Yes it's required but it should be voluntary. The libertarian thing. (2) It was not required. It overvalues elderly lives at the expense of the economy. We had a recent header from @Stocky arguing this, with minority but not negligible support from posters.
Sweden is pretty much (1). They are much closer to us than they are to laissez faire. So if their approach "works" - defined as sickness and death not materially greater than us - I'm not sure it proves much, regardless of where you stand on our lockdown. It will just mean that Swedes were able to distance themselves effectively having been told to do so but left largely to their own devices.
And btw I thought you DID feel quite strongly about it.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
Why are those countries, I assume you mean Denmark and Norway, the best available comparators? We don't compare Spain with Portugal.
We are following the completely independent and scientific advice of a bunch of scientists and a Government SPAD who think he is a genius.
Who could possibly have any issue with that?
You really must stop believing everything you read in the grauniad. SAGE meetings are invariably attended by non scientists, as you will see from minutes of their last 3 incarnations
It has not been common practice for scientific advisory bodies to be attended by persons who are not scientists, politicians or civil servants - and who have the apparent power to arrange the dismissal of officials.
Cummings is not a sensible person to have attending a body which is supposed to be providing the best independent scientific advice to the government.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
Sweden's death rate, ceteris paribus should be less than Denmark and greater than Norway.
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
There is indeed some validity in that point. There is also a dollop of an introvert/extroverts split. The world in general being organised by and for extroverts. Introverts are relishing a bit of having it a little their own way. Plus. A small minority of a few who think their right to do what they like when they like trumps other people's rights not to be sick.
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
Better than being "lonely, worried about finances" and ill with coronavirus. Emotional arguments don't work on the virus.
Why wouldn’t it be true? Parliament has supremacy. Statutes are the supreme law of the land.
I Tony Blair am King for life, and only a 100% vote in Parliament can change this.
I mean, yes, that’s the nature of our political system. That’s the danger of not having a consensus-built codified constitution to begin with. Although perhaps the Queen would refuse to give royal assent in such circumstances.
Pass a law to make unlawful for her to refuse royal assent
Which however can't become law until she, er, gives royal assent.....
Indeed. I am quite confident, however, that if a monarch ever does refuse royal assent again (say with an act to make us a republic), parliament would declare itself able to proceed or retroactively make it impossible for a monarch to refuse. A way would be found.
Last time a monarch decide to ignore parliament when making the law we had a civil war
The civil war was not the last time a monarch refused royal assent for something. I don't think the complexities of the causes of that war, or that its aims to start out with do not quite match what many people think its aims were, need be gotten in to as a result.
A monarch has not refused royal assent for over 300 years.
The last time was 1707 when Queen Anne refused to assent to send the militia to Scotland
I am aware. Which, you'll note, is not the civil war against Charles I.
On the day she was due to sign it news emerged of a possible French invasion and fearing the Scots militia would be disloyal her ministers advised her not to sign, so in effect the act no longer had the support of the government and parliament anyway
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Perhaps they realise that there isn't a one size fits all solution for different societies and cultures, and interpreting stats in another country to reflect one's hopes for one's own country isn't very useful.
Why would that stop them hoping that Sweden have got it right?
In glittery unicorns and sparkly rainbows world I hope all countries have to some degree got it 'right', unfortunately that's not going to be the case. I don't see why I should go along with various liberty or death loons and agree that a Swedish death rate much higher than those of their comparable neighbours means that they're getting it right.
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
Better than being "lonely, worried about finances" and ill with coronavirus. Emotional arguments don't work on the virus.
Except they do. People will just break the lockdown, as they are doing now. If you’re depressed and lonely, you are not going to care about a virus you haven’t caught yet.
We are following the completely independent and scientific advice of a bunch of scientists and a Government SPAD who think he is a genius.
Who could possibly have any issue with that?
You really must stop believing everything you read in the grauniad. SAGE meetings are invariably attended by non scientists, as you will see from minutes of their last 3 incarnations
It has not been common practice for scientific advisory bodies to be attended by persons who are not scientists, politicians or civil servants - and who have the apparent power to arrange the dismissal of officials.
Cummings is not a sensible person to have attending a body which is supposed to be providing the best independent scientific advice to the government.
There were 23 attendees. You reckon Cummings could have proposed something bat-shit crazy and it wouldn't have got out?
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Perhaps they realise that there isn't a one size fits all solution for different societies and cultures, and interpreting stats in another country to reflect one's hopes for one's own country isn't very useful.
Why would that stop them hoping that Sweden have got it right?
In glittery unicorns and sparkly rainbows world I hope all countries have to some degree got it 'right', unfortunately that's not going to be the case. I don't see why I should go along with various liberty or death loons and agree that a Swedish death rate much higher than those of their comparable neighbours means that they're getting it right.
What makes Denmark and Norway comparable with Sweden other than geographic location?
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
Why are those countries, I assume you mean Denmark and Norway, the best available comparators? We don't compare Spain with Portugal.
Population density, culture, customs. Denmark is probably the closest comparator for Sweden. Comparing the UK and South Africa wouldn't be very helpful.
How about a Fixed Term Parliament Repeal Act within which it is provided that 'every rule of law affected by the FTPA 2011 shall have effect as if that Act had never been passed'. ? Parliament being sovereign, would not traditional conventions take hold again (i.e. be seen simply as having been in abeyance since 2011)?
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
Why are those countries, I assume you mean Denmark and Norway, the best available comparators? We don't compare Spain with Portugal.
What would be a better comparator for Sweden than Norway/Finnland? Ecuador? Myanmar? Nigeria?
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
Sweden's death rate, ceteris paribus should be less than Denmark and greater than Norway.
Sweden's death rate (per capita) is 3.5x Denmark, 6x Norway, 7x Finnland.
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
Better than being "lonely, worried about finances" and ill with coronavirus. Emotional arguments don't work on the virus.
Except they do. People will just break the lockdown, as they are doing now. If you’re depressed and lonely, you are not going to care about a virus you haven’t caught yet.
Exactly. I hit another midweek down spot, contacted my mate who is also struggling, organised a walk together. Was the first time all of this started that either of us had seen anyone other than our family at home or people in shops. And what of all those people in relationships that only work with a lot of space?
"You might catch the virus" vs "going absolutely crazy about to do something drastic now". Yes, emotional arguments don't work on the virus. But what about every other thing that affects us? They haven't all just gone away because CV19.
Do we need to start thinking about this as the 21st Century equivalent of TB or Polio or Smallpox? Be careful what you do or where you go as you could get infected. But go live your life.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
There are going to be significant long-term mental health benefits in not confining people to their homes, for younger people especially. I do not envy teachers here the task of having to deal with children who have been stuck in a confined space for weeks on end with parents who do not get on with each other or who cannot be arsed to make them do schoolwork or who do not have access to the internet etc.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Perhaps they realise that there isn't a one size fits all solution for different societies and cultures, and interpreting stats in another country to reflect one's hopes for one's own country isn't very useful.
Why would that stop them hoping that Sweden have got it right?
In glittery unicorns and sparkly rainbows world I hope all countries have to some degree got it 'right', unfortunately that's not going to be the case. I don't see why I should go along with various liberty or death loons and agree that a Swedish death rate much higher than those of their comparable neighbours means that they're getting it right.
What makes Denmark and Norway comparable with Sweden other than geographic location?
Which are you're favoured and appropriate comparators for Sweden?
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
Why are those countries, I assume you mean Denmark and Norway, the best available comparators? We don't compare Spain with Portugal.
What would be a better comparator for Sweden than Norway/Finnland? Ecuador? Myanmar? Nigeria?
I only asked why they are the best comparators. If geographic location is the reason, then fair enough.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Perhaps they realise that there isn't a one size fits all solution for different societies and cultures, and interpreting stats in another country to reflect one's hopes for one's own country isn't very useful.
Why would that stop them hoping that Sweden have got it right?
In glittery unicorns and sparkly rainbows world I hope all countries have to some degree got it 'right', unfortunately that's not going to be the case. I don't see why I should go along with various liberty or death loons and agree that a Swedish death rate much higher than those of their comparable neighbours means that they're getting it right.
What makes Denmark and Norway comparable with Sweden other than geographic location?
Which are you're favoured and appropriate comparators for Sweden?
I’m not trying to have an argument, actually. I’m asking a question because I’m interested in the answer
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
Better than being "lonely, worried about finances" and ill with coronavirus. Emotional arguments don't work on the virus.
Except they do. People will just break the lockdown, as they are doing now. If you’re depressed and lonely, you are not going to care about a virus you haven’t caught yet.
Exactly. I hit another midweek down spot, contacted my mate who is also struggling, organised a walk together. Was the first time all of this started that either of us had seen anyone other than our family at home or people in shops. And what of all those people in relationships that only work with a lot of space?
"You might catch the virus" vs "going absolutely crazy about to do something drastic now". Yes, emotional arguments don't work on the virus. But what about every other thing that affects us? They haven't all just gone away because CV19.
Do we need to start thinking about this as the 21st Century equivalent of TB or Polio or Smallpox? Be careful what you do or where you go as you could get infected. But go live your life.
Yeah I must admit I’ve been on a walk with one friend too who was equally fed up and lonely. It was honestly the best day of the last 5 weeks.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Perhaps they realise that there isn't a one size fits all solution for different societies and cultures, and interpreting stats in another country to reflect one's hopes for one's own country isn't very useful.
Why would that stop them hoping that Sweden have got it right?
In glittery unicorns and sparkly rainbows world I hope all countries have to some degree got it 'right', unfortunately that's not going to be the case. I don't see why I should go along with various liberty or death loons and agree that a Swedish death rate much higher than those of their comparable neighbours means that they're getting it right.
What makes Denmark and Norway comparable with Sweden other than geographic location?
Which are you're favoured and appropriate comparators for Sweden?
I’m not trying to have an argument, actually. I’m asking a question because I’m interested in the answer
The outbreaks in a Norway and Sweden seem to have started at near exactly the same time, for a start.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
There are going to be significant long-term mental health benefits in not confining people to their homes, for younger people especially. I do not envy teachers here the task of having to deal with children who have been stuck in a confined space for weeks on end with parents who do not get on with each other or who cannot be arsed to make them do schoolwork or who do not have access to the internet etc.
Weeks? We'll be talking about many months before this is all over. It's an educational mass catastrophe. There are already mutterings to the effect that years 10 and 12 may have lost so much time by the end of all this that they all have to be kept back to repeat the year. Although God alone knows how the secondaries are meant suddenly to accommodate nine instead of seven age cohorts (which would also mean one year in which the universities had no first year undergrads and then two further years in which they had twice the normal number to contend with.) It's a gargantuan mess and no mistake.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
There are going to be significant long-term mental health benefits in not confining people to their homes, for younger people especially. I do not envy teachers here the task of having to deal with children who have been stuck in a confined space for weeks on end with parents who do not get on with each other or who cannot be arsed to make them do schoolwork or who do not have access to the internet etc.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
There are going to be significant long-term mental health benefits in not confining people to their homes, for younger people especially. I do not envy teachers here the task of having to deal with children who have been stuck in a confined space for weeks on end with parents who do not get on with each other or who cannot be arsed to make them do schoolwork or who do not have access to the internet etc.
Yes, but I'm not sure it's any different there than it is here. If anything Sweden may need to have a voluntary lockdown for longer than we have a mandatory one.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
Why are those countries, I assume you mean Denmark and Norway, the best available comparators? We don't compare Spain with Portugal.
What would be a better comparator for Sweden than Norway/Finnland? Ecuador? Myanmar? Nigeria?
I only asked why they are the best comparators. If geographic location is the reason, then fair enough.
If there are climate/seasonal effects on the rate of propagation (which seems at the very least possible), then comparing close neighbours eliminates another confounding variable.
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
Imperial model had an update on various effects, it also spits out raw numbers now. Here's current estimates on Rt:
Austria 0.79 Belgium 1.09 Denmark 0.71 France 0.89 Germany 0.78 Greece 0.38 Italy 0.64 Netherlands 0.62 Norway 0.71 Portugal 0.72 Spain 0.69 Sweden 1.27 Switzerland 0.67 United_Kingdom 0.68
Do you think the numbers above bear any resemblance with the reality on the ground? They estimate a lower Rt for the UK than for Germany, while in reality the UK has consistently registered more than twice the number of new infections over the the last couple of weeks. That doesn't seem to reconcile.
Assuming we can drop R from above 3 to below 1 as seems to have happened, then surely current infections are surely more related to previous R than current R?
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
Sweden's death rate, ceteris paribus should be less than Denmark and greater than Norway.
Sweden's death rate (per capita) is 3.5x Denmark, 6x Norway, 7x Finnland.
Denmark is 87.87% urbanised, 134 people per km^2, Copenhagen proper 6800/km^2, Copenhagen metro area 2.4 million/5.806 million total pop
Sweden is 87.43% urbanised, has 24 people/km^2, Stockholm proper 4800/km^2, Stockholm metro area 2.2 million/10.23 million.
Stockholm metro area is much larger than Copenhagen - around 3 times the size. Sweden should be essentially a slightly easier version of Denmark to deal with in terms of this virus.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Why are you interpreting it like that?
From my point of view, I'm frustrated by people who have been desperately trying to find "evidence" to support what they have decided has to be true: that the lockdown is wrong and must be released (regardless of what the outcome would actually be).
The Sweden situation is their latest cause celebre. We've had that there aren't really that many deaths (which has fallen by the wayside), that those who died would somehow have died anyway (likewise fallen by the wayside), that countries that lockdown don't gain any control (still pushed by some diehards, but dropping off), and the "hey, look at Sweden - they're free from any restrictions and we could do that too" crowd.
The latter carefully ignoring the differences between countries (Sweden's social culture makes for a lower R0 level to start with, the population distribution further reduces R0 in large areas of the country) and have previously been ignoring that they do, in fact, have quite a lot of restrictions - albeit less than us.
They've gone out of their way to misrepresent data (such as that graph made up by someone to pretend that the death rates in Sweden and the UK had followed an identical trajectory, which was easily shown as false based on looking up the real data), to loudly trumpet weekend days of low reporting as PROOF it has turned the corner, and to ignore reporting delays in all countries to try to compare the most recent incomplete data to PROVE they've peaked.
I don't have joy in Swedish deaths. I'm sorry for them. I'd love it to be possible to get back in the air, for example (First World problems: I'm a microlight pilot, this last winter was horrible for flying, and since the lockdown started, it's been ideal weather).
But all their rationale has been shown as flawed and can be compared to real life outcomes, the death toll in Stockholm is horrifying and still climbing, and the "Stop the lockdown - Sweden proves it's possible" crowd will, if listened to, cause widespread (lonely and lingering) deaths. Which is why they frustrate me.
If Rt is down at 0.68 here, then we can look at slightly lifting some restrictions when the death rate has fallen further. We just need to work out what we can lift, and those trying to "prove" whatever they can by misrepresenting facts are getting in the way and muddying the waters on what we can do.
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
Better than being "lonely, worried about finances" and ill with coronavirus. Emotional arguments don't work on the virus.
Except they do. People will just break the lockdown, as they are doing now. If you’re depressed and lonely, you are not going to care about a virus you haven’t caught yet.
Exactly. I hit another midweek down spot, contacted my mate who is also struggling, organised a walk together. Was the first time all of this started that either of us had seen anyone other than our family at home or people in shops. And what of all those people in relationships that only work with a lot of space?
"You might catch the virus" vs "going absolutely crazy about to do something drastic now". Yes, emotional arguments don't work on the virus. But what about every other thing that affects us? They haven't all just gone away because CV19.
Do we need to start thinking about this as the 21st Century equivalent of TB or Polio or Smallpox? Be careful what you do or where you go as you could get infected. But go live your life.
Yeah I must admit I’ve been on a walk with one friend too who was equally fed up and lonely. It was honestly the best day of the last 5 weeks.
The law explicitly permits gatherings of two, of course.
Excellent piece by David H for which as always many thanks.
I'm no constitutional or legal expert. It clearly doesn't stop an election (both the last two GEs have been held on the back of Parliamentary acclaim - the Government wanted a GE and so (inexplicably given the poll numbers) did the Opposition.
I can understand its purpose in stopping a Government with a small majority (or perhaps the leading partner in a coalition) cutting and running at a time of its choosing but beyond that I don't see its purpose.
The No Confidence mechanism is also clearly aimed at a coalition/Hung Parliament scenario. It would theoretically allow for a change of Government without an election if a new grouping of parties could command the confidence of the Commons.
IF the numbers had allowed and circumstances had changed, the LDs could, in the 2010-15 Parliament, have joined with Labour and others and defeated the Conservatives on a vote of No Confidence and then, following negotiation, there might have been a new minority Labour Government formed supported by the LDs and other minor parties.
That could still happen in the future if you had a result like 2010 or Feb 1974. It could even happen next time if Starmer's Labour Party overturns the current Conservative majority but doesn't get close to a majority on its own.
Imperial model had an update on various effects, it also spits out raw numbers now. Here's current estimates on Rt:
Austria 0.79 Belgium 1.09 Denmark 0.71 France 0.89 Germany 0.78 Greece 0.38 Italy 0.64 Netherlands 0.62 Norway 0.71 Portugal 0.72 Spain 0.69 Sweden 1.27 Switzerland 0.67 United_Kingdom 0.68
Do you think the numbers above bear any resemblance with the reality on the ground? They estimate a lower Rt for the UK than for Germany, while in reality the UK has consistently registered more than twice the number of new infections over the the last couple of weeks. That doesn't seem to reconcile.
Assuming we can drop R from above 3 to below 1 as seems to have happened, then surely current infections are surely more related to previous R than current R?
previous=incubation time of 5 days (average)
5-15 days ago: Germany new cases 2-2.5k/day; UK new cases 5-5.5k/day
The Imperial model looks like unadulterated Imperial nonsense to me.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
There are going to be significant long-term mental health benefits in not confining people to their homes, for younger people especially. I do not envy teachers here the task of having to deal with children who have been stuck in a confined space for weeks on end with parents who do not get on with each other or who cannot be arsed to make them do schoolwork or who do not have access to the internet etc.
Weeks? We'll be talking about many months before this is all over. It's an educational mass catastrophe. There are already mutterings to the effect that years 10 and 12 may have lost so much time by the end of all this that they all have to be kept back to repeat the year. Although God alone knows how the secondaries are meant suddenly to accommodate nine instead of seven age cohorts (which would also mean one year in which the universities had no first year undergrads and then two further years in which they had twice the normal number to contend with.) It's a gargantuan mess and no mistake.
Permanently change the school/university year to match the calendar year. Use whatever time may exist out of lockdown for the rest of the year to complete year ten and twelve and extend years below that. Similarly for primary but they can be more flexible. The new school year starts January 2021 with exams in October. Universities then start in January 2022 with their next cohort.
We’ll be pretty much finished by July, whatever happens but schools without the benefits that we have would likely need the extra time to catch back up. We can easily have extension work to fill that time.
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
Better than being "lonely, worried about finances" and ill with coronavirus. Emotional arguments don't work on the virus.
Except they do. People will just break the lockdown, as they are doing now. If you’re depressed and lonely, you are not going to care about a virus you haven’t caught yet.
Exactly. I hit another midweek down spot, contacted my mate who is also struggling, organised a walk together. Was the first time all of this started that either of us had seen anyone other than our family at home or people in shops. And what of all those people in relationships that only work with a lot of space?
"You might catch the virus" vs "going absolutely crazy about to do something drastic now". Yes, emotional arguments don't work on the virus. But what about every other thing that affects us? They haven't all just gone away because CV19.
Do we need to start thinking about this as the 21st Century equivalent of TB or Polio or Smallpox? Be careful what you do or where you go as you could get infected. But go live your life.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: The politicians are, of course, right to warn the public that social distancing will have to continue for a long time, but the present lockdown has to be eased. We will sooner or later reach the point where the cumulative negative health effects of lockdown itself, and of the massive increase in poverty that we have coming as a result of its economic consequences, begin to outweigh those of the disease itself.
Therefore, not only should life return to as near to normal as we can reasonably achieve, it must do so.
I continue to maintain the suspicion that the Nightingale hospitals are still being completed in order to accommodate the controlled second wave that is expected when the lockdown is eased. If large numbers of new Covid cases are sent straight to them, then at least some ordinary hospital capacity can be devoted to getting the most urgent treatments back on track. If you're wanting any number of elective procedures, from hip replacement to IVF, then I think you're basically shafted for the next couple of years, but hopefully the NHS can at least restart cancer screening and treatment, for example.
Imperial model had an update on various effects, it also spits out raw numbers now. Here's current estimates on Rt:
Austria 0.79 Belgium 1.09 Denmark 0.71 France 0.89 Germany 0.78 Greece 0.38 Italy 0.64 Netherlands 0.62 Norway 0.71 Portugal 0.72 Spain 0.69 Sweden 1.27 Switzerland 0.67 United_Kingdom 0.68
Do you think the numbers above bear any resemblance with the reality on the ground? They estimate a lower Rt for the UK than for Germany, while in reality the UK has consistently registered more than twice the number of new infections over the the last couple of weeks. That doesn't seem to reconcile.
No. Precise R. numbers are speculative at best.
Interesting, though, that Greece is so much lower.
We are following the completely independent and scientific advice of a bunch of scientists and a Government SPAD who think he is a genius.
Who could possibly have any issue with that?
You really must stop believing everything you read in the grauniad. SAGE meetings are invariably attended by non scientists, as you will see from minutes of their last 3 incarnations
It has not been common practice for scientific advisory bodies to be attended by persons who are not scientists, politicians or civil servants - and who have the apparent power to arrange the dismissal of officials.
Cummings is not a sensible person to have attending a body which is supposed to be providing the best independent scientific advice to the government.
There were 23 attendees. You reckon Cummings could have proposed something bat-shit crazy and it wouldn't have got out?
Imperial model had an update on various effects, it also spits out raw numbers now. Here's current estimates on Rt:
Austria 0.79 Belgium 1.09 Denmark 0.71 France 0.89 Germany 0.78 Greece 0.38 Italy 0.64 Netherlands 0.62 Norway 0.71 Portugal 0.72 Spain 0.69 Sweden 1.27 Switzerland 0.67 United_Kingdom 0.68
Do you think the numbers above bear any resemblance with the reality on the ground? They estimate a lower Rt for the UK than for Germany, while in reality the UK has consistently registered more than twice the number of new infections over the the last couple of weeks. That doesn't seem to reconcile.
No. Precise R. numbers are speculative at best.
Interesting, though, that Greece is so much lower.
We are following the completely independent and scientific advice of a bunch of scientists and a Government SPAD who think he is a genius.
Who could possibly have any issue with that?
You really must stop believing everything you read in the grauniad. SAGE meetings are invariably attended by non scientists, as you will see from minutes of their last 3 incarnations
It has not been common practice for scientific advisory bodies to be attended by persons who are not scientists, politicians or civil servants - and who have the apparent power to arrange the dismissal of officials.
Cummings is not a sensible person to have attending a body which is supposed to be providing the best independent scientific advice to the government.
There were 23 attendees. You reckon Cummings could have proposed something bat-shit crazy and it wouldn't have got out?
Not the point.
Quite; are hundreds of different possible ways in which meetings might be steered. Debunking one of them really is beside the point.
Despite what will be the headline of a massive jump in deaths, the -1 to -3 day figures look pretty stable from yesterday. The big jump looks all down to delayed recording of deaths.
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
Better than being "lonely, worried about finances" and ill with coronavirus. Emotional arguments don't work on the virus.
Except they do. People will just break the lockdown, as they are doing now. If you’re depressed and lonely, you are not going to care about a virus you haven’t caught yet.
Well the virus will just take advantage of any chance that is given. I don't disagree with you on what you're saying now, it was the bit about "the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden." and "It comes from a position of privilege." that prompted me to point out what might be the result.
A large number of previously unreported deaths around the 2rd April to the 8th April.
I really want to know why the reporting for these days is so late. What is going on in these trusts that are late reporting?
Its a good question...perhaps a journalist can ask it at the press conference. There are dates in todays figures with 20+ deaths recorded from over 3 weeks ago.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Why are you interpreting it like that?
The reason I interpret it that way is the likes of @Alistair, who is obviously quite a clever fellow who knows his stuff and is worth listening to, and @TheScreamingEagles, keep gloating/trolling about fools who thought Sweden's deaths from Covid-19 might have peaked on the 8th April, or trends that might have looked hopeful but weren't, as if they are such statistical data/computer coding purists that anyone not up to their standards actively offends them. Well I say again... so what if Swedish deaths didn't peak then and people hoped they had, etc?
I have posted loads of graphs on Sweden, I am quite fascinated by what is going on and people's attempts to make sense of it, and some of them are the ones you have identified as misleading. But I don't see the people making those graphs as wilfuly trying to mislead, actually - they are probably having a go at trying to figure stuff out that is puzzling the world, and if they make amateurish mistake sometimes... so what? The corrections educate us all. Better than just swallowing one line and not querying it. I thought scientific experiment, of which I am a bit of a dunce, was about testing things out in an attempt to find the truth rather than ego and agenda?
I think the people posting those graphs are desperately hoping that they're true.
We all, especially these days, fall into the trap of rationalisation. Choosing the answer we want to be right and then searching for corroboration (and minimising any evidence that disproves it).
You, actually, are one who doesn't seem to fall into that trap - I've seen you post evidence from all sides.
There are, though, those (especially on Twitter) who are unwilfully misleading (to coin a term). They're trying to figure out a route to the destination they want to be at, and are - like all humans - willing to gloss over cracks in their own arguments.
I'm an engineer, so I'm very sensitive to that. Even in myself (as I said, I'm one who wants there to be a quicker route out of this, so I'm very twitchy when I see things presented that I want to agree with (I first ask myself: "How am I fooling myself?"), because it was drilled into me that the day you fall into that trap is the day you're responsible for people dying. (The Challenger Launch decision was a key training aid for us. "Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat," was the phrase the people at the time used to pressure them into saying "Go" for launch. I'm trying to avoid taking my engineering hat off, because that's when I fool myself and people could die)
Despite what will be the headline of a massive jump in deaths, the -1 to -3 day figures look pretty stable from yesterday. The big jump looks all down to delayed recording of deaths.
Depressing to see deaths rise thee days in a row, whatever the statistical reason
Unfortunately, we only have to look at still high numbersof new confirmed positive cases and brace ourselves for many more weeks of significant deaths.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
There are going to be significant long-term mental health benefits in not confining people to their homes, for younger people especially. I do not envy teachers here the task of having to deal with children who have been stuck in a confined space for weeks on end with parents who do not get on with each other or who cannot be arsed to make them do schoolwork or who do not have access to the internet etc.
Weeks? We'll be talking about many months before this is all over. It's an educational mass catastrophe. There are already mutterings to the effect that years 10 and 12 may have lost so much time by the end of all this that they all have to be kept back to repeat the year. Although God alone knows how the secondaries are meant suddenly to accommodate nine instead of seven age cohorts (which would also mean one year in which the universities had no first year undergrads and then two further years in which they had twice the normal number to contend with.) It's a gargantuan mess and no mistake.
Yep - it is going to be a shit-show. And that's just kids. There are many peopl e living in cramped conditions entirely alone or with people they don't like, cut-off from friemds and family. It is going to be a huge challenge to deal with the consequences of this.
Also if anybody reads this from the government...probably good idea to do a better job of hiding your links, as any muppet can get these stats before they are officially published...
A large number of previously unreported deaths around the 2rd April to the 8th April.
I really want to know why the reporting for these days is so late. What is going on in these trusts that are late reporting?
Its a good question...perhaps a journalist can ask it at the press conference. There are dates in todays figures with 20+ deaths recorded from over 3 weeks ago.
Not all journalists are despicable individuals with an agenda. I have seen and heard journalists asking exactly that question without getting an answer that was in any way appropriate.
It is perfectly legitimate for a government advisor to be present and even direct SAGE meetings.
But then the line has to be that we have listened to the advice and our policy is X. It can't be we're following the scientific advice. (What would the scientific advice be on smoking?)
Plus in all of this we (still) have Dom at the controls. Which matters because it's bad enough (but again perfectly legitimate) to have him running the show in normal times when there actually is a prime minister. But it's a lot worse when, as now, we don't have a prime minister.
If you want unbiased scientific advice you don't have a political fixer 'direct'ing the committe giving it.
Oh, so he's now 'directing' the entire committee?
Cummings must be quite a man brainwashing them. Maybe he's the Master.
And of course the other problem is perception. Even if Cummings is behaving impeccably at SAGE - if the truth is benign as per my first para - how can we know this. We can't.
But why would we, and why should we? Unless the entirety of government and government briefings was open and public, that would be case for any government, and any advisor/SPAD.
It ultimately boils down to 'we don't like this guy, and we don't like his influence', but his job is to advise, and therefore have influence on the PM, and that would be true for anyone.
Yes it's defensible - advisable even - on this basis.
But Cummings is not any old SPAD. We all remember Alastair Campbell and his impact on "impartial" experts.
I don't know. Tricky one. It's probably OK. You'd need to be an insider to know.
I think we have to determine whether we think the principle of a SPAD being present and participating or not is acceptable. If it is, then the fact he is 'not any old SPAD' is irrelevant as to whether it is ok. If it isn't, then him being 'not any old SPAD' is still irrelevant.
That he is more and, to many, worse than the others is a legitimate concern, but I think it is separate to this issue and there is too much blending of the concern about Cummings' influence and his position generally, and whether despite not liking that influence and position, his participation in this context was reasonable.
To me it IS about Cummings because therein lies the specific risk that people are worried about (if they are worried). The risk is that the active participation of the second most powerful person in government - a virtual in loco PM who is known to be iconoclastic and forceful - will distort the deliberations and output of a supposedly impartial group of experts in the direction of what he and Johnson want to hear. As happened on Iraq with Campbell (in loco Blair) and the intelligence officials.
I assume meetings are similarly distorted when the PM is present?
The point is about a specific situation - where the government is selling a policy on grounds that it is based on information from independent apolitical experts. The implication is that the information is free of political bias. For example, if senior intelligence officials report that Iraq has WMD, that this is not influenced by them being aware that the PM wishes it to be so.
Isn't that what they do for all crises where SAGE is involved? I don't buy the argument that Dominic Cummings is the only person capable of influencing the others on this panel to such a level that it distorts their reasoning.
It is not totally clear to me whether you understand the risk but judge it acceptably small or you do not understand the risk. If it's the first, please advise and we can stop. Because I'm not sure I disagree. If it's the second, also please advise and I will have another bash.
Presumably the furore would be even greater if the government hadn't sent anyone to the SAGE meetings? Or, even worse, sent a deputy assistant SPAD from the Department of Health (England branch).
Possibly. Certainly I can see the argument for Cummings being there. It's an efficiency argument. Then again, it's more efficient if the M&A dept of a bank talks to its trading arm. Yet there are rules to prevent this in certain circumstances - where it is deemed more important to prevent a conflict of interest, real or perceived.
The last conflict of interest problem SAGE had was with the scientists - over swine flu, 5 of them forgot to disclose links to pharma companies.
more relevantly, there are 20 odd big hitters in the room with Cummings, not by any means guaranteed to be tory by inclination, and not easily bullied. The dodgy dossier was compiled in private by nicking stuff off the internet; no one would get it past a proper committee like this one.
OK. But for me it revolves around 2 questions -
1. Is Cummings motivated to shape "the science" in a certain direction? 2. If he were, does participating in SAGE facilitate this?
If you think "no" and "no" this is a complete non-story. If you think "yes" and "yes" it's a scandal. If it's a "yes" and a "no" - either order - you will consider it a valid concern but not personally be too concerned. FWIW, which is not an enormous amount given I know little of the man or the SAGE process, I incline to this latter position.
Despite what will be the headline of a massive jump in deaths, the -1 to -3 day figures look pretty stable from yesterday. The big jump looks all down to delayed recording of deaths.
Depressing to see deaths rise thee days in a row, whatever the statistical reason
Unfortunately, we only have to look at still high numbersof new confirmed positive cases and brace ourselves for many more weeks of significant deaths.
London is well over the hump though, is what I gather?
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Perhaps they realise that there isn't a one size fits all solution for different societies and cultures, and interpreting stats in another country to reflect one's hopes for one's own country isn't very useful.
Why would that stop them hoping that Sweden have got it right?
In glittery unicorns and sparkly rainbows world I hope all countries have to some degree got it 'right', unfortunately that's not going to be the case. I don't see why I should go along with various liberty or death loons and agree that a Swedish death rate much higher than those of their comparable neighbours means that they're getting it right.
What makes Denmark and Norway comparable with Sweden other than geographic location?
Common social background and social/interpersonal habits and similar population distribution (well, Denmark has quite a few more pockets of dense population).
Areas where people hug and kiss more and with shorter personal space (eg Mediterranean areas) will have a higher "natural" R0 than areas where people are more standoffish and with higher personal space (Scandinavian countries).
In addition, Sweden's only land borders are with those three countries.
I think there's an element of projection in the "end lockdown now" stuff - people in houses with big gardens think that people in flats must be miserable, but plenty of people live in flats because they don't want big gardens. People who live in the countryside think that people in cities must be finding it unbearable to be able to have country walks, etc.
Obviously it's inconvenient for all of us, and horrible for people in particularly unpleasant circumstances, but the polls are pretty clear: most people only want lockdowns to ease when it's relatively safe. Crowded pubs, congregating at beauty spots, packed football matches - next year is soon enough.
It does mean that the virus peak was now undoubtedly the 7 days ending the 10th April in England. At least if there isn't a repeat of this late reporting.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
Why are you interpreting it like that?
The reason I interpret it that way is the likes of @Alistair, who is obviously quite a clever fellow who knows his stuff and is worth listening to, and @TheScreamingEagles, keep gloating/trolling about fools who thought Sweden's deaths from Covid-19 might have peaked on the 8th April, or trends that might have looked hopeful but weren't, as if they are such statistical data/computer coding purists that anyone not up to their standards actively offends them. Well I say again... so what if Swedish deaths didn't peak then and people hoped they had, etc?
I have posted loads of graphs on Sweden, I am quite fascinated by what is going on and people's attempts to make sense of it, and some of them are the ones you have identified as misleading. But I don't see the people making those graphs as wilfuly trying to mislead, actually - they are probably having a go at trying to figure stuff out that is puzzling the world, and if they make amateurish mistake sometimes... so what? The corrections educate us all. Better than just swallowing one line and not querying it. I thought scientific experiment, of which I am a bit of a dunce, was about testing things out in an attempt to find the truth rather than ego and agenda?
I think the people posting those graphs are desperately hoping that they're true.
We all, especially these days, fall into the trap of rationalisation. Choosing the answer we want to be right and then searching for corroboration (and minimising any evidence that disproves it).
You, actually, are one who doesn't seem to fall into that trap - I've seen you post evidence from all sides.
There are, though, those (especially on Twitter) who are unwilfully misleading (to coin a term). They're trying to figure out a route to the destination they want to be at, and are - like all humans - willing to gloss over cracks in their own arguments.
I'm an engineer, so I'm very sensitive to that. Even in myself (as I said, I'm one who wants there to be a quicker route out of this, so I'm very twitchy when I see things presented that I want to agree with (I first ask myself: "How am I fooling myself?"), because it was drilled into me that the day you fall into that trap is the day you're responsible for people dying. (The Challenger Launch decision was a key training aid for us. "Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat," was the phrase the people at the time used to pressure them into saying "Go" for launch. I'm trying to avoid taking my engineering hat off, because that's when I fool myself and people could die)
A management hat really ought not be something that inclines you to ignore inconvenient evidence. But yes, agreed.
It is perfectly legitimate for a government advisor to be present and even direct SAGE meetings.
But then the line has to be that we have listened to the advice and our policy is X. It can't be we're following the scientific advice. (What would the scientific advice be on smoking?)
Plus in all of this we (still) have Dom at the controls. Which matters because it's bad enough (but again perfectly legitimate) to have him running the show in normal times when there actually is a prime minister. But it's a lot worse when, as now, we don't have a prime minister.
If you want unbiased scientific advice you don't have a political fixer 'direct'ing the committe giving it.
Oh, so he's now 'directing' the entire committee?
Cummings must be quite a man brainwashing them. Maybe he's the Master.
And of course the other problem is perception. Even if Cummings is behaving impeccably at SAGE - if the truth is benign as per my first para - how can we know this. We can't.
But why would we, and why should we? Unless the entirety of government and government briefings was open and public, that would be case for any government, and any advisor/SPAD.
It ultimately boils down to 'we don't like this guy, and we don't like his influence', but his job is to advise, and therefore have influence on the PM, and that would be true for anyone.
Yes it's defensible - advisable even - on this basis.
But Cummings is not any old SPAD. We all remember Alastair Campbell and his impact on "impartial" experts.
I don't know. Tricky one. It's probably OK. You'd need to be an insider to know.
I think we have to determine whether we think the principle of a SPAD being present and participating or not is acceptable. If it is, then the fact he is 'not any old SPAD' is irrelevant as to whether it is ok. If it isn't, then him being 'not any old SPAD' is still irrelevant.
That he is more and, to many, worse than the others is a legitimate concern, but I think it is separate to this issue and there is too much blending of the concern about Cummings' influence and his position generally, and whether despite not liking that influence and position, his participation in this context was reasonable.
To me it IS about Cummings because therein lies the specific risk that people are worried about (if they are worried). The risk is that the active participation of the second most powerful person in government - a virtual in loco PM who is known to be iconoclastic and forceful - will distort the deliberations and output of a supposedly impartial group of experts in the direction of what he and Johnson want to hear. As happened on Iraq with Campbell (in loco Blair) and the intelligence officials.
I assume meetings are similarly distorted when the PM is present?
The point is about a specific situation - where the government is selling a policy on grounds that it is based on information from independent apolitical experts. The implication is that the information is free of political bias. For example, if senior intelligence officials report that Iraq has WMD, that this is not influenced by them being aware that the PM wishes it to be so.
Isn't that what they do for all crises where SAGE is involved? I don't buy the argument that Dominic Cummings is the only person capable of influencing the others on this panel to such a level that it distorts their reasoning.
It is not totally clear to me whether you understand the risk but judge it acceptably small or you do not understand the risk. If it's the first, please advise and we can stop. Because I'm not sure I disagree. If it's the second, also please advise and I will have another bash.
Presumably the furore would be even greater if the government hadn't sent anyone to the SAGE meetings? Or, even worse, sent a deputy assistant SPAD from the Department of Health (England branch).
Possibly. Certainly I can see the argument for Cummings being there. It's an efficiency argument. Then again, it's more efficient if the M&A dept of a bank talks to its trading arm. Yet there are rules to prevent this in certain circumstances - where it is deemed more important to prevent a conflict of interest, real or perceived.
The last conflict of interest problem SAGE had was with the scientists - over swine flu, 5 of them forgot to disclose links to pharma companies.
more relevantly, there are 20 odd big hitters in the room with Cummings, not by any means guaranteed to be tory by inclination, and not easily bullied. The dodgy dossier was compiled in private by nicking stuff off the internet; no one would get it past a proper committee like this one.
OK. But for me it revolves around 2 questions -
1. Is Cummings motivated to shape "the science" in a certain direction? 2. If he were, does participating in SAGE facilitate this?
If you think "no" and "no" this is a complete non-story. If you think "yes" and "yes" it's a scandal. If it's a "yes" and a "no" - either order - you will consider it a valid concern but not personally be too concerned. FWIW, which is not an enormous amount given I know little of the man or the SAGE process, I incline to this latter position.
I don’t think the issue anywhere near as binary as that.
1. Does seem like their data is not as hopeful as their epidemiologist claims
2. They mostly talk, with each other, in flawless English. Rarely Swedish. Remarkable
My ex was Swedish. When I asked her why her English was so good, I expected her to say “Because Swedish education is so fantastic”... but it was down to the tv shows all being in English w Swedish subtitles
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
Is this right? Sweden has not gained a (relative) economic advantage by "locking down" less than the rest?
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
There are going to be significant long-term mental health benefits in not confining people to their homes, for younger people especially. I do not envy teachers here the task of having to deal with children who have been stuck in a confined space for weeks on end with parents who do not get on with each other or who cannot be arsed to make them do schoolwork or who do not have access to the internet etc.
Weeks? We'll be talking about many months before this is all over. It's an educational mass catastrophe. There are already mutterings to the effect that years 10 and 12 may have lost so much time by the end of all this that they all have to be kept back to repeat the year. Although God alone knows how the secondaries are meant suddenly to accommodate nine instead of seven age cohorts (which would also mean one year in which the universities had no first year undergrads and then two further years in which they had twice the normal number to contend with.) It's a gargantuan mess and no mistake.
Permanently change the school/university year to match the calendar year. Use whatever time may exist out of lockdown for the rest of the year to complete year ten and twelve and extend years below that. Similarly for primary but they can be more flexible. The new school year starts January 2021 with exams in October. Universities then start in January 2022 with their next cohort.
We’ll be pretty much finished by July, whatever happens but schools without the benefits that we have would likely need the extra time to catch back up. We can easily have extension work to fill that time.
It might work, although it does rest on the (heroic?) assumption that there will be any significant resumption of schooling this calendar year.
Given some of the objections that have already been raised - to the extreme difficulty of introducing social distancing to schools, for example, and the risk of kids mixing and then taking the illness back home with them - how long do we think that the schools might end up being shut for? We also have the small matter of the teaching unions already starting to make noises about the requirement for PPE.
It seems to me that the Department for Education will have a huge enough task on its hands equipping every teacher in the land with goggles and a constant supply of, at the minimum, medical-grade masks and nitrile gloves and/or hand sanitiser. If similar kit is also needed for all the children then we might as well give up now.
1. Does seem like their data is not as hopeful as their epidemiologist claims
2. They mostly talk, with each other, in flawless English. Rarely Swedish. Remarkable
My ex was Swedish. When I asked her why her English was so good, I expected her to say “Because Swedish education is so fantastic”... but it was down to the tv shows all being in English w Swedish subtitles
Comedies especially don't work if you have to rely on the subtitles, the gag is lost and also the timing is out.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
Is this right? Sweden has not gained a (relative) economic advantage by "locking down" less than the rest?
Yes, it's the difference between a 27% economic contraction and a 31% contraction. It's a disaster either way.
Ferguson saying not practical to go with a under x year old to live normal life and try and shield the vulnerable type strategy. Too many vulnerable people need to interact with the outside world and younger people. Even if you managed to shield 80% of them, would still get 100,000 deaths.
1. Does seem like their data is not as hopeful as their epidemiologist claims
2. They mostly talk, with each other, in flawless English. Rarely Swedish. Remarkable
My ex was Swedish. When I asked her why her English was so good, I expected her to say “Because Swedish education is so fantastic”... but it was down to the tv shows all being in English w Swedish subtitles
Comedies especially don't work if you have to rely on the subtitles, the gag is lost and also the timing is out.
I would like to emphasise I am taking no joy in Swedish deaths, not do I think the people pushing the "Swedish peak was on the 8th" are fools.
Quite the contrary.
I think, at this point they are both clever and very deliberate in what they are doing.
My wife is on the Shielding list. That means the whole family is in total lockdown. I would love nothing more than for it to turn out to be a massive fuss and over reaction.
But I can't wish it true by bending the numbers to an imaginary polynomial curve.
As an aside, if (and it's a big IF) those Rt estimates are correct, then the degree to which we could lift some restrictions will be very dependent on how many people have already been infected - because herd immunity levels (and thus the point below which infections don't take off like a rocket) mean that Rt levels slightly above 1 are sustainable.
And knowing the degree by which people are now immune (if at all) is pretty crucial.
If 5% are immune, we can sustain an Rt of 1.05 If 9% are immune, Rt of 1.10 is sustainable If 13% are immune, an Rt of 1.15 If 17% are immune, an Rt of 1.20 If 20% are immune, an Rt of 1.25 is sustainable.
(well, keeping it below that number will make the infection toll keep decreasing. The closer it is to the threshold, the longer it will take to dwindle.
If we have, under current restrictions, an Rt of 0.68, then a partial lifting of restrictions such that interpersonal contacts are up by 50% would keep us below 1.05. An increase of 70% keeps us at around 1.15.
And so on.
Which means that every few days we stay in the current lockdown keeps the diminishment at maximum rate and gets the starting point down such that if we misjudge it, we have more leeway to rectify the matter, and means that the slowed rate of diminishment doesn't cause as many extra deaths as it could. And means that the sustainable Rt we could manage is a little higher and the freedoms we can re-initiate are a little more.
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
Better than being "lonely, worried about finances" and ill with coronavirus. Emotional arguments don't work on the virus.
Except they do. People will just break the lockdown, as they are doing now. If you’re depressed and lonely, you are not going to care about a virus you haven’t caught yet.
Exactly. I hit another midweek down spot, contacted my mate who is also struggling, organised a walk together. Was the first time all of this started that either of us had seen anyone other than our family at home or people in shops. And what of all those people in relationships that only work with a lot of space?
"You might catch the virus" vs "going absolutely crazy about to do something drastic now". Yes, emotional arguments don't work on the virus. But what about every other thing that affects us? They haven't all just gone away because CV19.
Do we need to start thinking about this as the 21st Century equivalent of TB or Polio or Smallpox? Be careful what you do or where you go as you could get infected. But go live your life.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: The politicians are, of course, right to warn the public that social distancing will have to continue for a long time, but the present lockdown has to be eased. We will sooner or later reach the point where the cumulative negative health effects of lockdown itself, and of the massive increase in poverty that we have coming as a result of its economic consequences, begin to outweigh those of the disease itself.
Therefore, not only should life return to as near to normal as we can reasonably achieve, it must do so.
I continue to maintain the suspicion that the Nightingale hospitals are still being completed in order to accommodate the controlled second wave that is expected when the lockdown is eased. If large numbers of new Covid cases are sent straight to them, then at least some ordinary hospital capacity can be devoted to getting the most urgent treatments back on track. If you're wanting any number of elective procedures, from hip replacement to IVF, then I think you're basically shafted for the next couple of years, but hopefully the NHS can at least restart cancer screening and treatment, for example.
Of course unless the Government is actively dishonest then life will certainly not return to anything approaching 'normal'. The majority of people are not going to return to pubs, clubs, cafes, cinemas or anything else that is non essential unless they are confident they will not contract the virus. The only possible way that, short of a vaccine, the Government can hope for a return to normal wold be to lie about the dangers.
I am sure you are right that a formal lockdown may well end but that won't save businesses and, if we then see a spike in cases as a result of ending the lockdown it will be political suicide for anyone who agreed to it.
Ferguson just shot down Guardian story....."a number of political figures have attended these meetings as observers, but have not interfered in anyway".
Made a big point of saying he basically only interacts with the likes of Witty and Vallance, who are apolitical.
I would like to emphasise I am taking no joy in Swedish deaths, not do I think the propel pushing the "Swedish peak was on the 8th" are fools.
Quite the contrary.
I think, at this point they are both clever and very deliberate in what they are doing.
My wife is on the Shielding list. That means the whole family is in total lockdown. I would love nothing more than for it to turn out to be a massive fuss and over reaction.
But I can't wish it true by bending the numbers to an imaginary polynomial curve.
Allison Pearson, Peter Hitchens and Dan Hodges can't stand the lockdown though. Can you not wish Sweden's numbers were better for them ?
As with all of the horrors that come from America, that is what Americans want because that is what they vote for. They choose to run their society that way, isn't that their choice no mater how barbarous it may seem? We can hardly complain about the lunacy of others considering our own hard Brexit no trade deals with anyone we won't need them we're great cos we're England madness.
We have flirted with an American style media, government and economy. Unless you’re into injecting bleach, as a matter of urgency we need to avoid any further Americanisation.
America is broken.
Yes it is. I do think though that our "American style media, government and economy" compared reasonably with the real deal. Americans voted for a self-confessed sexual predator who advocated ingesting harmful chemicals at a press conference. Britons voted for a buffoon who whilst not an intellectual titan has at least managed to get the basics right.
Johnson vs Trump isn't the fair comparison it's often made out to be.
Much as many think Trump doesn't deserve to be treated fairly, and perhaps they are right, it would reflect better on them if they didn't suggest wrongly that Trump suggested ingesting anything. He suggested 'injecting disinfectant' as part of a strange medical musing. However, that is totally different from suggesting that anyone ingest a harmful substance. Nicola was at it in her press conference yesterday too. I understand that traducing someone as awful as Trump seems like a victimless crime, but surely the real things he says are awful enough without embellishment?
I think there's an element of projection in the "end lockdown now" stuff - people in houses with big gardens think that people in flats must be miserable, but plenty of people live in flats because they don't want big gardens. People who live in the countryside think that people in cities must be finding it unbearable to be able to have country walks, etc.
Obviously it's inconvenient for all of us, and horrible for people in particularly unpleasant circumstances, but the polls are pretty clear: most people only want lockdowns to ease when it's relatively safe. Crowded pubs, congregating at beauty spots, packed football matches - next year is soon enough.
Both things can be true at once. I inhabit a flat and am coping reasonably well without outside space, though then again I (a) work in a manufacturing environment so still get to travel to work each day, and (b) make good use of my daily exercise allowance, which is aided enormously by the fact that I live in a small town and it is relatively easy both to avoid people when out running and enjoy a lot of fresh air and greenery.
If I were imprisoned in a flat in the middle of London or some such other awful place, and was either working from home or unemployed, I think I would go slowly mad. And I've got the advantage of a happy marriage - I'm not locked up with someone I loathe, or with energetic kiddies bouncing off the walls all day, or by myself.
Anyway, one would presume that the polls are being heavily influenced by fear of the virus outweighing all other considerations. If and when the effects of the lockdown lead to mass unemployment - when businesses decide things have got bad enough that there's no point in soldiering on regardless of the furlough scheme, or when the furlough scheme itself is withdrawn for whatever reason - then enthusiasm for sitting around on your arse whilst you struggle to keep the lights on and feed you and yours off Universal Credit will be short-lived.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
There are going to be significant long-term mental health benefits in not confining people to their homes, for younger people especially. I do not envy teachers here the task of having to deal with children who have been stuck in a confined space for weeks on end with parents who do not get on with each other or who cannot be arsed to make them do schoolwork or who do not have access to the internet etc.
As an aside, if (and it's a big IF) those Rt estimates are correct, then the degree to which we could lift some restrictions will be very dependent on how many people have already been infected - because herd immunity levels (and thus the point below which infections don't take off like a rocket) mean that Rt levels slightly above 1 are sustainable.
If it's any help, they also estimate infection levels for the entire pandemic .... most of whom are now hopefully immune (crossfingers knockonwood etc). Figures in closed brackets are 95% credible intervals.
Austria 0.82% [0.62%-1.11%] Belgium 12.60% [8.75%-18.04%] Denmark 0.94% [0.71%-1.26%] France 4.33% [3.20%-5.87%] Germany 0.87% [0.65%-1.19%] Greece 0.12% [0.09%-0.17%] Italy 4.27% [3.39%-5.39%] Netherlands 3.32% [2.56%-4.34%] Norway 0.57% [0.40%-0.81%] Portugal 1.05% [0.78%-1.40%] Spain 5.57% [4.36%-7.13%] Sweden 7.63% [4.60%-12.20%] Switzerland 1.99% [1.54%-2.61%] United Kingdom 4.19% [3.15%-5.64%]
I would like to emphasise I am taking no joy in Swedish deaths, not do I think the propel pushing the "Swedish peak was on the 8th" are fools.
Quite the contrary.
I think, at this point they are both clever and very deliberate in what they are doing.
My wife is on the Shielding list. That means the whole family is in total lockdown. I would love nothing more than for it to turn out to be a massive fuss and over reaction.
But I can't wish it true by bending the numbers to an imaginary polynomial curve.
Allison Pearson, Peter Hitchens and Dan Hodges can't stand the lockdown though. Can you not wish Sweden's numbers were better for them ?
If we leave the EEA then they won't even be able to fly to 'Free' Sweden.
It is perfectly legitimate for a government advisor to be present and even direct SAGE meetings.
But then the line has to be that we have listened to the advice and our policy is X. It can't be we're following the scientific advice. (What would the scientific advice be on smoking?)
Plus in all of this we (still) have Dom at the controls. Which matters because it's bad enough (but again perfectly legitimate) to have him running the show in normal times when there actually is a prime minister. But it's a lot worse when, as now, we don't have a prime minister.
If you want unbiased scientific advice you don't have a political fixer 'direct'ing the committe giving it.
Oh, so he's now 'directing' the entire committee?
Cummings must be quite a man brainwashing them. Maybe he's the Master.
And of course the other problem is perception. Even if Cummings is behaving impeccably at SAGE - if the truth is benign as per my first para - how can we know this. We can't.
But why would we, and why should we? Unless the entirety of government and government briefings was open and public, that would be case for any government, and any advisor/SPAD.
It ultimately boils down to 'we don't like this guy, and we don't like his influence', but his job is to advise, and therefore have influence on the PM, and that would be true for anyone.
Yes it's defensible - advisable even - on this basis.
But Cummings is not any old SPAD. We all remember Alastair Campbell and his impact on "impartial" experts.
I don't know. Tricky one. It's probably OK. You'd need to be an insider to know.
I think we have to determine whether we think the principle of a SPAD being present and participating or not is acceptable. If it is, then the fact he is 'not any old SPAD' is irrelevant as to whether it is ok. If it isn't, then him being 'not any old SPAD' is still irrelevant.
That he is more and, to many, worse than the others is a legitimate concern, but I think it is separate to this issue and there is too much blending of the concern about Cummings' influence and his position generally, and whether despite not liking that influence and position, his participation in this context was reasonable.
To me it IS about Cummings because therein lies the specific risk that people are worried about (if they are worried). The risk is that the active participation of the second most powerful person in government - a virtual in loco PM who is known to be iconoclastic and forceful - will distort the deliberations and output of a supposedly impartial group of experts in the direction of what he and Johnson want to hear. As happened on Iraq with Campbell (in loco Blair) and the intelligence officials.
I assume meetings are similarly distorted when the PM is present?
The point is about a specific situation - where the government is selling a policy on grounds that it is based on information from independent apolitical experts. The implication is that the information is free of political bias. For example, if senior intelligence officials report that Iraq has WMD, that this is not influenced by them being aware that the PM wishes it to be so.
Isn't that what they do for all crises where SAGE is involved? I don't buy the argument that Dominic Cummings is the only person capable of influencing the others on this panel to such a level that it distorts their reasoning.
It is not totally clear to me whether you understand the risk but judge it acceptably small or you do not understand the risk. If it's the first, please advise and we can stop. Because I'm not sure I disagree. If it's the second, also please advise and I will have another bash.
Presumably the furore would be even greater if the government hadn't sent anyone to the SAGE meetings? Or, even worse, sent a deputy assistant SPAD from the Department of Health (England branch).
Possibly. Certainly I can see the argument for Cummings being there. It's an efficiency argument. Then again, it's more efficient if the M&A dept of a bank talks to its trading arm. Yet there are rules to prevent this in certain circumstances - where it is deemed more important to prevent a conflict of interest, real or perceived.
The last conflict of interest problem SAGE had was with the scientists - over swine flu, 5 of them forgot to disclose links to pharma companies.
more relevantly, there are 20 odd big hitters in the room with Cummings, not by any means guaranteed to be tory by inclination, and not easily bullied. The dodgy dossier was compiled in private by nicking stuff off the internet; no one would get it past a proper committee like this one.
OK. But for me it revolves around 2 questions -
1. Is Cummings motivated to shape "the science" in a certain direction? 2. If he were, does participating in SAGE facilitate this?
If you think "no" and "no" this is a complete non-story. If you think "yes" and "yes" it's a scandal. If it's a "yes" and a "no" - either order - you will consider it a valid concern but not personally be too concerned. FWIW, which is not an enormous amount given I know little of the man or the SAGE process, I incline to this latter position.
I don’t think the issue anywhere near as binary as that.
Probably not. But which other key questions (other than those two) would you ask yourself to determine whether you feel it is a problem that Cummings contributes to SAGE?
In my experience the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden. Not those who are lonely, worried about finances, and in a tiny flat with no outside space. It comes from a position of privilege.
Better than being "lonely, worried about finances" and ill with coronavirus. Emotional arguments don't work on the virus.
Except they do. People will just break the lockdown, as they are doing now. If you’re depressed and lonely, you are not going to care about a virus you haven’t caught yet.
Exactly. I hit another midweek down spot, contacted my mate who is also struggling, organised a walk together. Was the first time all of this started that either of us had seen anyone other than our family at home or people in shops. And what of all those people in relationships that only work with a lot of space?
"You might catch the virus" vs "going absolutely crazy about to do something drastic now". Yes, emotional arguments don't work on the virus. But what about every other thing that affects us? They haven't all just gone away because CV19.
Do we need to start thinking about this as the 21st Century equivalent of TB or Polio or Smallpox? Be careful what you do or where you go as you could get infected. But go live your life.
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: The politicians are, of course, right to warn the public that social distancing will have to continue for a long time, but the present lockdown has to be eased. We will sooner or later reach the point where the cumulative negative health effects of lockdown itself, and of the massive increase in poverty that we have coming as a result of its economic consequences, begin to outweigh those of the disease itself.
Therefore, not only should life return to as near to normal as we can reasonably achieve, it must do so.
I continue to maintain the suspicion that the Nightingale hospitals are still being completed in order to accommodate the controlled second wave that is expected when the lockdown is eased. If large numbers of new Covid cases are sent straight to them, then at least some ordinary hospital capacity can be devoted to getting the most urgent treatments back on track. If you're wanting any number of elective procedures, from hip replacement to IVF, then I think you're basically shafted for the next couple of years, but hopefully the NHS can at least restart cancer screening and treatment, for example.
Of course unless the Government is actively dishonest then life will certainly not return to anything approaching 'normal'. The majority of people are not going to return to pubs, clubs, cafes, cinemas or anything else that is non essential unless they are confident they will not contract the virus. The only possible way that, short of a vaccine, the Government can hope for a return to normal wold be to lie about the dangers.
I am sure you are right that a formal lockdown may well end but that won't save businesses and, if we then see a spike in cases as a result of ending the lockdown it will be political suicide for anyone who agreed to it.
That isn't true. Treatments and outcomes for Coronavirus could vastly improve, and then people would be pretty much out to get it and get immune ASAP. Improved treatments are far more likely in the short term than a vaccine. There's a great deal more emphasis on the first, perhaps wrongly.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
Is this right? Sweden has not gained a (relative) economic advantage by "locking down" less than the rest?
Yes, it's the difference between a 27% economic contraction and a 31% contraction. It's a disaster either way.
The one thing I hadn't realised until reading up on Sweden over the last few days is how much working from home they already do. If the numbers I read are to be believed, 1/3rd of Swedes already effectively work full time from home with only occasional trips to offices for specific meetings and 2/3rds do this for at least 1 or 2 days a week. It helps explain why the Swedes felt they could take the chance of not having a formal lockdown.
Regarding the seeming joy in which deaths in Sweden are greeted, I have to say I’m baffled... why doesn’t everybody hope that Sweden have got it right, and that there’s a way of dealing with covid-19 that doesn’t require such strict closure of society?
Surely people aren’t such fans of big state politics that they actively want the Swedes to fail, and to sneer at anyone rooting for them?
I, for one, have been rooting for Sweden all through this process.
Me too. I desperately want them to be right, for their own sake and mine. I just don't think they are.
They may be right for Sweden.
What is right for one country may not be right for another.
Given the fact that the fatality rate in Sweden is 6/7 times higher than in the best available comparators (their neighbours to the east and west) it really doesn't look like what they're doing is right for their own country.
The worst part is that they are still taking the same or a very similar economic hit to the nation's who have locked down. They really are in the worst of both worlds situation that we may have avoided, just enough people aren't following the voluntary lockdown measures that the R value hasn't fallen below 1 but enough people are that the economy has tanked.
There are going to be significant long-term mental health benefits in not confining people to their homes, for younger people especially. I do not envy teachers here the task of having to deal with children who have been stuck in a confined space for weeks on end with parents who do not get on with each other or who cannot be arsed to make them do schoolwork or who do not have access to the internet etc.
I think there's an element of projection in the "end lockdown now" stuff - people in houses with big gardens think that people in flats must be miserable, but plenty of people live in flats because they don't want big gardens. People who live in the countryside think that people in cities must be finding it unbearable to be able to have country walks, etc.
Obviously it's inconvenient for all of us, and horrible for people in particularly unpleasant circumstances, but the polls are pretty clear: most people only want lockdowns to ease when it's relatively safe. Crowded pubs, congregating at beauty spots, packed football matches - next year is soon enough.
Both things can be true at once. I inhabit a flat and am coping reasonably well without outside space, though then again I (a) work in a manufacturing environment so still get to travel to work each day, and (b) make good use of my daily exercise allowance, which is aided enormously by the fact that I live in a small town and it is relatively easy both to avoid people when out running and enjoy a lot of fresh air and greenery.
If I were imprisoned in a flat in the middle of London or some such other awful place, and was either working from home or unemployed, I think I would go slowly mad. And I've got the advantage of a happy marriage - I'm not locked up with someone I loathe, or with energetic kiddies bouncing off the walls all day, or by myself.
Anyway, one would presume that the polls are being heavily influenced by fear of the virus outweighing all other considerations. If and when the effects of the lockdown lead to mass unemployment - when businesses decide things have got bad enough that there's no point in soldiering on regardless of the furlough scheme, or when the furlough scheme itself is withdrawn for whatever reason - then enthusiasm for sitting around on your arse whilst you struggle to keep the lights on and feed you and yours off Universal Credit will be short-lived.
I think the difference between working from home and being unemployed is colossal (Which you allude to later in your post). Working from home, if you're set up for it in a nice house is absolubtely living the dream right now.
I would like to emphasise I am taking no joy in Swedish deaths, not do I think the people pushing the "Swedish peak was on the 8th" are fools.
Quite the contrary.
I think, at this point they are both clever and very deliberate in what they are doing.
My wife is on the Shielding list. That means the whole family is in total lockdown. I would love nothing more than for it to turn out to be a massive fuss and over reaction.
But I can't wish it true by bending the numbers to an imaginary polynomial curve.
Ditto.
Unfortunately I suspect that this virus is a bastard we’ll have several more lockdowns over the next few years.
If we exit this one too early then the death toll will be significantly higher.
Comments
And thats me with a decently spacious house and easy access to fresh air. Being stuck in a room in a house share or a sealed flat or something similar must be hell. Which is why it seems clear that so many have decided the lock down is over for them...
They estimate a lower Rt for the UK than for Germany, while in reality the UK has consistently registered more than twice the number of new infections over the the last couple of weeks. That doesn't seem to reconcile.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q09Ov-g1yYM
Look elsewhere for the real opposite to lockdown. Where is there? I don’t know enough about Brazil but know that it’s what Bolsanaro wants. Has Belarus done anything because their numbers seem to be rising even though they previously claimed that Covid19 didn’t exist in their country? These are the ‘liberty or death’ nations that are the test cases,
Sweden is pretty much (1). They are much closer to us than they are to laissez faire. So if their approach "works" - defined as sickness and death not materially greater than us - I'm not sure it proves much, regardless of where you stand on our lockdown. It will just mean that Swedes were able to distance themselves effectively having been told to do so but left largely to their own devices.
And btw I thought you DID feel quite strongly about it.
Cummings is not a sensible person to have attending a body which is supposed to be providing the best independent scientific advice to the government.
Plus. A small minority of a few who think their right to do what they like when they like trumps other people's rights not to be sick.
Consultants (of unknown reliability) reckon non covid excess deaths now running at 2000 per week.
Emotional arguments don't work on the virus.
In glittery unicorns and sparkly rainbows world I hope all countries have to some degree got it 'right', unfortunately that's not going to be the case. I don't see why I should go along with various liberty or death loons and agree that a Swedish death rate much higher than those of their comparable neighbours means that they're getting it right.
If you’re depressed and lonely, you are not going to care about a virus you haven’t caught yet.
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1174245237004410880?s=19
https://twitter.com/piersmorgan/status/1253974419132887040?s=19
Comparing the UK and South Africa wouldn't be very helpful.
Parliament being sovereign, would not traditional conventions take hold again (i.e. be seen simply as having been in abeyance since 2011)?
Ecuador? Myanmar? Nigeria?
"You might catch the virus" vs "going absolutely crazy about to do something drastic now". Yes, emotional arguments don't work on the virus. But what about every other thing that affects us? They haven't all just gone away because CV19.
Do we need to start thinking about this as the 21st Century equivalent of TB or Polio or Smallpox? Be careful what you do or where you go as you could get infected. But go live your life.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tragedy-five-bodies-found-less-21880530
five apparent suicides in 24 hours on 16 April in Merseyside. The national *average* is 16 a day. May have been an outlier of course.
Sweden is 87.43% urbanised, has 24 people/km^2, Stockholm proper 4800/km^2, Stockholm metro area 2.2 million/10.23 million.
Stockholm metro area is much larger than Copenhagen - around 3 times the size. Sweden should be essentially a slightly easier version of Denmark to deal with in terms of this virus.
Excellent piece by David H for which as always many thanks.
I'm no constitutional or legal expert. It clearly doesn't stop an election (both the last two GEs have been held on the back of Parliamentary acclaim - the Government wanted a GE and so (inexplicably given the poll numbers) did the Opposition.
I can understand its purpose in stopping a Government with a small majority (or perhaps the leading partner in a coalition) cutting and running at a time of its choosing but beyond that I don't see its purpose.
The No Confidence mechanism is also clearly aimed at a coalition/Hung Parliament scenario. It would theoretically allow for a change of Government without an election if a new grouping of parties could command the confidence of the Commons.
IF the numbers had allowed and circumstances had changed, the LDs could, in the 2010-15 Parliament, have joined with Labour and others and defeated the Conservatives on a vote of No Confidence and then, following negotiation, there might have been a new minority Labour Government formed supported by the LDs and other minor parties.
That could still happen in the future if you had a result like 2010 or Feb 1974. It could even happen next time if Starmer's Labour Party overturns the current Conservative majority but doesn't get close to a majority on its own.
A large number of previously unreported deaths around the 2rd April to the 8th April.
5-15 days ago: Germany new cases 2-2.5k/day; UK new cases 5-5.5k/day
The Imperial model looks like unadulterated Imperial nonsense to me.
We’ll be pretty much finished by July, whatever happens but schools without the benefits that we have would likely need the extra time to catch back up. We can easily have extension work to fill that time.
Long answer: The politicians are, of course, right to warn the public that social distancing will have to continue for a long time, but the present lockdown has to be eased. We will sooner or later reach the point where the cumulative negative health effects of lockdown itself, and of the massive increase in poverty that we have coming as a result of its economic consequences, begin to outweigh those of the disease itself.
Therefore, not only should life return to as near to normal as we can reasonably achieve, it must do so.
I continue to maintain the suspicion that the Nightingale hospitals are still being completed in order to accommodate the controlled second wave that is expected when the lockdown is eased. If large numbers of new Covid cases are sent straight to them, then at least some ordinary hospital capacity can be devoted to getting the most urgent treatments back on track. If you're wanting any number of elective procedures, from hip replacement to IVF, then I think you're basically shafted for the next couple of years, but hopefully the NHS can at least restart cancer screening and treatment, for example.
Precise R. numbers are speculative at best.
Interesting, though, that Greece is so much lower.
I don't disagree with you on what you're saying now, it was the bit about "the biggest supporters of an extended lockdown are those with close families, big houses, large savings, and a big garden." and "It comes from a position of privilege." that prompted me to point out what might be the result.
We all, especially these days, fall into the trap of rationalisation. Choosing the answer we want to be right and then searching for corroboration (and minimising any evidence that disproves it).
You, actually, are one who doesn't seem to fall into that trap - I've seen you post evidence from all sides.
There are, though, those (especially on Twitter) who are unwilfully misleading (to coin a term). They're trying to figure out a route to the destination they want to be at, and are - like all humans - willing to gloss over cracks in their own arguments.
I'm an engineer, so I'm very sensitive to that. Even in myself (as I said, I'm one who wants there to be a quicker route out of this, so I'm very twitchy when I see things presented that I want to agree with (I first ask myself: "How am I fooling myself?"), because it was drilled into me that the day you fall into that trap is the day you're responsible for people dying.
(The Challenger Launch decision was a key training aid for us. "Take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat," was the phrase the people at the time used to pressure them into saying "Go" for launch. I'm trying to avoid taking my engineering hat off, because that's when I fool myself and people could die)
1. Is Cummings motivated to shape "the science" in a certain direction?
2. If he were, does participating in SAGE facilitate this?
If you think "no" and "no" this is a complete non-story. If you think "yes" and "yes" it's a scandal. If it's a "yes" and a "no" - either order - you will consider it a valid concern but not personally be too concerned. FWIW, which is not an enormous amount given I know little of the man or the SAGE process, I incline to this latter position.
https://www.icuregswe.org/data--resultat/covid-19-i-svensk-intensivvard/
https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/smittskydd-beredskap/overvakning-och-rapportering/sentinelovervakning/
https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/folkhalsorapportering-statistik/statistik-a-o/sjukdomsstatistik/covid-19-veckorapporter/
Areas where people hug and kiss more and with shorter personal space (eg Mediterranean areas) will have a higher "natural" R0 than areas where people are more standoffish and with higher personal space (Scandinavian countries).
In addition, Sweden's only land borders are with those three countries.
Obviously it's inconvenient for all of us, and horrible for people in particularly unpleasant circumstances, but the polls are pretty clear: most people only want lockdowns to ease when it's relatively safe. Crowded pubs, congregating at beauty spots, packed football matches - next year is soon enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q09Ov-g1yYM
Given some of the objections that have already been raised - to the extreme difficulty of introducing social distancing to schools, for example, and the risk of kids mixing and then taking the illness back home with them - how long do we think that the schools might end up being shut for? We also have the small matter of the teaching unions already starting to make noises about the requirement for PPE.
It seems to me that the Department for Education will have a huge enough task on its hands equipping every teacher in the land with goggles and a constant supply of, at the minimum, medical-grade masks and nitrile gloves and/or hand sanitiser. If similar kit is also needed for all the children then we might as well give up now.
People in Sweden who say "I don't speak English" mean "I cannot engage in rapid fire linguistic world play but I could beat you at a game of scrabble.
Quite the contrary.
I think, at this point they are both clever and very deliberate in what they are doing.
My wife is on the Shielding list. That means the whole family is in total lockdown. I would love nothing more than for it to turn out to be a massive fuss and over reaction.
But I can't wish it true by bending the numbers to an imaginary polynomial curve.
And knowing the degree by which people are now immune (if at all) is pretty crucial.
If 5% are immune, we can sustain an Rt of 1.05
If 9% are immune, Rt of 1.10 is sustainable
If 13% are immune, an Rt of 1.15
If 17% are immune, an Rt of 1.20
If 20% are immune, an Rt of 1.25 is sustainable.
(well, keeping it below that number will make the infection toll keep decreasing. The closer it is to the threshold, the longer it will take to dwindle.
If we have, under current restrictions, an Rt of 0.68, then a partial lifting of restrictions such that interpersonal contacts are up by 50% would keep us below 1.05. An increase of 70% keeps us at around 1.15.
And so on.
Which means that every few days we stay in the current lockdown keeps the diminishment at maximum rate and gets the starting point down such that if we misjudge it, we have more leeway to rectify the matter, and means that the slowed rate of diminishment doesn't cause as many extra deaths as it could. And means that the sustainable Rt we could manage is a little higher and the freedoms we can re-initiate are a little more.
I am sure you are right that a formal lockdown may well end but that won't save businesses and, if we then see a spike in cases as a result of ending the lockdown it will be political suicide for anyone who agreed to it.
Made a big point of saying he basically only interacts with the likes of Witty and Vallance, who are apolitical.
If I were imprisoned in a flat in the middle of London or some such other awful place, and was either working from home or unemployed, I think I would go slowly mad. And I've got the advantage of a happy marriage - I'm not locked up with someone I loathe, or with energetic kiddies bouncing off the walls all day, or by myself.
Anyway, one would presume that the polls are being heavily influenced by fear of the virus outweighing all other considerations. If and when the effects of the lockdown lead to mass unemployment - when businesses decide things have got bad enough that there's no point in soldiering on regardless of the furlough scheme, or when the furlough scheme itself is withdrawn for whatever reason - then enthusiasm for sitting around on your arse whilst you struggle to keep the lights on and feed you and yours off Universal Credit will be short-lived.
If it's any help, they also estimate infection levels for the entire pandemic .... most of whom are now hopefully immune (crossfingers knockonwood etc). Figures in closed brackets are 95% credible intervals.
Austria 0.82% [0.62%-1.11%]
Belgium 12.60% [8.75%-18.04%]
Denmark 0.94% [0.71%-1.26%]
France 4.33% [3.20%-5.87%]
Germany 0.87% [0.65%-1.19%]
Greece 0.12% [0.09%-0.17%]
Italy 4.27% [3.39%-5.39%]
Netherlands 3.32% [2.56%-4.34%]
Norway 0.57% [0.40%-0.81%]
Portugal 1.05% [0.78%-1.40%]
Spain 5.57% [4.36%-7.13%]
Sweden 7.63% [4.60%-12.20%]
Switzerland 1.99% [1.54%-2.61%]
United Kingdom 4.19% [3.15%-5.64%]
Unfortunately I suspect that this virus is a bastard we’ll have several more lockdowns over the next few years.
If we exit this one too early then the death toll will be significantly higher.