So who will be the last PBer to venture out of their home?
I'm here for the long haul.
I was out 3 times one day. Don't think there's a day I haven't been out the house. All either essential or exercise and within Gov't guidance.
Same for me. Shopping, walking for exercise (I generally take the dog too), and occasionally going to work for those bits which can't be done from home.
Germans estimating Rt back at 0.75, so the apparent bounce was seemingly just noise. Probably quite important for our policy-makers.
Probably not. It's given them a great excuse for doing nothing a week Thursday, which is exactly what they wanted to do anyway.
SAGE needs balancing with other risk, behavioural, social and economic advisors.
I am expecting Boris to announce on 7 May:
Opening of smaller non-essential shops and of course garden centres subject to social distancing measures
A relaxation to social distancing within houses to allow family members in different residences to meet
To apply from 11 May.
Partial reopening of schools 1 June
Restaurants, gyms and possibly pubs with restrictions 22 June
Relaxation of restrictions 12 July
These are all at three week intervals and will be subject to ongoing assessment against the 5 tests
I don't think non essential shops will happen - the whole point of the lockdown at the moment is we only go out if we have a reason to. Non essential changes that entirely.
I suspect first step of easing will be, announced on 7th May, tips open if you have to go to them, from May 21st.
Schools - not this school year.
In person education, retail shopping, gyms, team sport, anything else that involves human interaction is over. They will never reopen. Human life as we knew it is finished.
Vaccine or treatment - no bug has ever beaten us yet. We're a resilient lot.
A little naive. How have those vaccines and treatments for SARS worked out? We have played our last (legal) games of football. Been to our last concerts, plays, nightclubs. Held our last traditional weddings and parties. The enormity of it is too much to bear.
I really worry that you are in such a stressful place.
Please try not to concentrate on the negatives as lockdown will ease over the coming months and while changes will happen in our lives we will adapt as we always do
My daughter is very upset today as a work colleague and friend of many years working in another local office took his life yesterday. These are serious times for mental health issues and keep posting and taking part on this forum
You are very important and I send my best wishes to you
Thanks but please don’t worry. I am but an anonymous poster on a message board! I could even be a bot.
I do not know you but I do care and can only express my hope that you can overcome your thoughts and see that life is worth living.
You are not anonymous
Thank you
We live in difficult and very trying times. The burdens which now weigh on us are heavy and the light at the end of this tunnel is yet but flickering. But we do not carry gas masks around with us - nor do we face the daily uncertainty as to whether we will be forced to spend this night in a public shelter - or one which has been constructed in our gardens. We are having to forgo many luxuries which we have come to take for granted - but that loss and sacrifice will enable us to better appreciate them again when these clouds part - as they will. You are clearly a person blessed with gifts which enable you to enrich the lives of those who know you. I have long felt that the greatest privilege that any of us can have is to be able to help lift the burden from others - from another soul. I sense that you can do that well.
I think I've realised what has bothered me most about the government response. The absolute lack of engagement with industry until the very last moment. There has been almost no engagement with the tech industry for data modelling, app building and logistics.
The UK has one of the largest tech industries on a per capita basis and we're not leveraging it anywhere near enough, in fact the government is actively ignoring it. We needed to have the best predictive modellers from the sector on day zero, we needed to go to Google and tell them we were sequestering their best ML guys for a few months. Not use outdated models from people who make bad assumptions.
We should have gone to Apple and got them to build an app for contact tracing, Google for the Android version. All of these tech companies have been falling over themselves to be seen to help the cause all over the world. They just need to be asked.
Instead we have a top down approach which hasn't worked at all. We're behind the rest of the world on testing, contact tracing, we don't have an accurate projection of where we're going to end up. I'm 99% sure that we don't have an accurate patient outcome prediction model. When someone gets a test we should already know by their app who they have come in contact with, the likelihood of a positive result and how severe their condition is going to be of they have it.
It's absolutely galling that we have some of the best and most dedicated healthcare professionals in the world led by the most incompetent management to exist. Once this is over it's time for the government to clean house at the NHS.
The bit at the end doesn’t really follow; you’ve just described a government several steps behind in a number of categories (and I agree with you). Is that government then the one to be ‘cleaning house’ at the NHS ? Ought it not to be sorting its own act out first ?
The top down approach is classic NHS thinking, blocking out the private sector is classic NHS thinking. These managers run the NHS like a communist fiefdom, it needs to be fixed. The government is also at huge fault here and I hope Hancock gets the boot as well as some of the advisory committee who have provided the poor advice, but that's secondary to the managers who will scream privatisation the minute the government brings in the right people from the private sector.
As I noted in my comment edit, that also appears to be the way this government thinks, too.
The Treasury has had a great crisis. I am really struggling to think of a more innovative and bolder policy than furloughing in the last 30 years. The last time so much of the world followed our lead on economic policy was probably the privatisations of the early 80’s.
Whether it will be enough only time will tell but they have thrown the kitchen sink at this.
So Mr Raab what do you say to a sacked BA worker today?
Well persisting with lockdown measures means the economy is going to be completely smashed to pieces for years to come so the the chances of re-employment at a decent standard are very low for a long period ahead.
We forecast that for the foreseeable future you'll be having a totally rotten life on meagre benefits due to our enormous debt, with poorer public services.
Now, back to those PPE supply problems Piers Morgan is so concerned about.
Don't be an idiot. Countries all across the entire globe have stopped air travel, the BA workers would have been laid off with or without a domestic lockdown.
In fact without a domestic lockdown causing a domestic furlough scheme its likely all airlines would have sacked even more workers already.
OK I'll put that question to YOU since I'm such an idiot.
What would YOU say to a sacked BA worker today?
retrain in another industry? when Lockdown is needlessly destroying jobs in all walks of life?
These poor people must be in a world of sh8t. No jobs in their industry. No jobs anywhere else either.
This is the case in millions of jobs worldwide
Oh just accept it then right?
you can't get a job in your own industry, you can;t retrain because colleges are locked down, your prospects of a job in another industry are close to zero for years to come because lockdown has smashed every industry, you can;t even meet someone face to face to try to convince them you might be worth employing.
This is your future. An enforced breadline existence you cannot get out of. For years. While some academic argues whether R is at one or not.
That is what millions of moderate and low paid workers in our country face. How long do you or anybody else think we can keep the lid on that? whether Corona deaths are at twenty, fifty or even 100,000?
Who said the lockdown would last years? 🙄
There would be more economic devastation without a lockdown as you'd have had just as much economic devastation as people take their own actions to avoid risk but with zero government support.
The government borrowing for a once-in-a-century pandemic can easier pay for people's wages than the companies that would have gone bust otherwise. We'd have millions unemployed by now not ten thousand in one industry without a lockdown.
The lockdown wont last indefinitely, but the effects of it will last a very long time. 2008 lasted a very long time, and this is much much worse than 2008. The worst slump in centuries according to a BoE policymaker.
Centuries when our country has been ravaged by disease much worse than Corona yet somehow kept going. Kept growing. How can that be if your link between economic growth and disease is correct?
It clearly isn't.
Can you evidence that?
It’s been a while since I looked but I think there was little growth between the Black Death and the Industrial Revolution
Remarkable that European civilisation did survive* the circa 50% fatality rate of the Black Death though.
(*Albeit with significant changes)
Just a few decades of flagellation, witch burning and persecuting minorities, and then economic growth took off big time...
The Treasury has had a great crisis. I am really struggling to think of a more innovative and bolder policy than furloughing in the last 30 years. The last time so much of the world followed our lead on economic policy was probably the privatisations of the early 80’s.
Whether it will be enough only time will tell but they have thrown the kitchen sink at this.
Agreed. As I said yesterday, the single most impressive thing was the pace of decision making and implementation. The policies have flaws, as has been discussed here (and no doubt more will be discussed), and the way ahead is exceedingly unclear - but their first response, unlike that of the government as a whole, was decisive and effective.
I think I've realised what has bothered me most about the government response. The absolute lack of engagement with industry until the very last moment. There has been almost no engagement with the tech industry for data modelling, app building and logistics.
The UK has one of the largest tech industries on a per capita basis and we're not leveraging it anywhere near enough, in fact the government is actively ignoring it. We needed to have the best predictive modellers from the sector on day zero, we needed to go to Google and tell them we were sequestering their best ML guys for a few months. Not use outdated models from people who make bad assumptions.
We should have gone to Apple and got them to build an app for contact tracing, Google for the Android version. All of these tech companies have been falling over themselves to be seen to help the cause all over the world. They just need to be asked.
Instead we have a top down approach which hasn't worked at all. We're behind the rest of the world on testing, contact tracing, we don't have an accurate projection of where we're going to end up. I'm 99% sure that we don't have an accurate patient outcome prediction model. When someone gets a test we should already know by their app who they have come in contact with, the likelihood of a positive result and how severe their condition is going to be of they have it.
It's absolutely galling that we have some of the best and most dedicated healthcare professionals in the world led by the most incompetent management to exist. Once this is over it's time for the government to clean house at the NHS.
The bit at the end doesn’t really follow; you’ve just described a government several steps behind in a number of categories (and I agree with you). Is that government then the one to be ‘cleaning house’ at the NHS ? Ought it not to be sorting its own act out first ?
The top down approach is classic NHS thinking, blocking out the private sector is classic NHS thinking. These managers run the NHS like a communist fiefdom, it needs to be fixed. The government is also at huge fault here and I hope Hancock gets the boot as well as some of the advisory committee who have provided the poor advice, but that's secondary to the managers who will scream privatisation the minute the government brings in the right people from the private sector.
As I noted in my comment edit, that also appears to be the way this government thinks, too.
I think they fear backlash from those managers. Even looking at the latest initiative on data modelling, it's completely inadequate and they've decided to fish from a tiny pool of virology and epidemiology modellers (most of whom will be in the public sector) instead of a much wider group of data modellers from industry.
On the government approach, completely agreed. We, as the Conservative party, have sadly fallen into the trap of thinking "government knows best" when this clearly isn't the case. The private sector has much more expertise in specific areas of this crisis, none of which have been leveraged correctly so far other than manufacturing and building temporary hospitals.
I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how many people have or have had the covid-19 virus - not the cases reported but an estimate of the proportion of reported cases to unreported cases.
ICL estimate is 4.16%, or 2.8 million - albeit with huge errorbars (1.99m-3.98m)
If we take ONS excess mortality, 27k for England & Wales as of ~Apr13th, scale to UK population and look at estimated infections on that date, it comes out with a mortality rate of 1.7%. That does seem a lot too high.
Although given how CV-19 rips through nursing homes, killing the residents, it is far from impossible.
Indeed, it's presumably all to do with how the profile of those dying is heavily skewed towards the older cohorts. In crude terms, if the illness killed nobody under the age of 65, then a mortality rate of a little less than 10% amongst the over-65s would be sufficient to result in mortality of 1.7% amongst the population as a whole.
The Treasury has had a great crisis. I am really struggling to think of a more innovative and bolder policy than furloughing in the last 30 years. The last time so much of the world followed our lead on economic policy was probably the privatisations of the early 80’s.
Whether it will be enough only time will tell but they have thrown the kitchen sink at this.
Agreed. As I said yesterday, the single most impressive thing was the pace of decision making and implementation. The policies have flaws, as has been discussed here (and no doubt more will be discussed), and the way ahead is exceedingly unclear - but their first response, unlike that of the government as a whole, was decisive and effective.
I still love the fact that when it was announced Robert Peston was saying about 5 minutes before the Press Conference that the Treasury wasn't going to do anything new!
So Mr Raab what do you say to a sacked BA worker today?
Well persisting with lockdown measures means the economy is going to be completely smashed to pieces for years to come so the the chances of re-employment at a decent standard are very low for a long period ahead.
We forecast that for the foreseeable future you'll be having a totally rotten life on meagre benefits due to our enormous debt, with poorer public services.
Now, back to those PPE supply problems Piers Morgan is so concerned about.
Don't be an idiot. Countries all across the entire globe have stopped air travel, the BA workers would have been laid off with or without a domestic lockdown.
In fact without a domestic lockdown causing a domestic furlough scheme its likely all airlines would have sacked even more workers already.
OK I'll put that question to YOU since I'm such an idiot.
What would YOU say to a sacked BA worker today?
retrain in another industry? when Lockdown is needlessly destroying jobs in all walks of life?
These poor people must be in a world of sh8t. No jobs in their industry. No jobs anywhere else either.
This is the case in millions of jobs worldwide
Oh just accept it then right?
you can't get a job in your own industry, you can;t retrain because colleges are locked down, your prospects of a job in another industry are close to zero for years to come because lockdown has smashed every industry, you can;t even meet someone face to face to try to convince them you might be worth employing.
This is your future. An enforced breadline existence you cannot get out of. For years. While some academic argues whether R is at one or not.
That is what millions of moderate and low paid workers in our country face. How long do you or anybody else think we can keep the lid on that? whether Corona deaths are at twenty, fifty or even 100,000?
Who said the lockdown would last years? 🙄
There would be more economic devastation without a lockdown as you'd have had just as much economic devastation as people take their own actions to avoid risk but with zero government support.
The government borrowing for a once-in-a-century pandemic can easier pay for people's wages than the companies that would have gone bust otherwise. We'd have millions unemployed by now not ten thousand in one industry without a lockdown.
The lockdown wont last indefinitely, but the effects of it will last a very long time. 2008 lasted a very long time, and this is much much worse than 2008. The worst slump in centuries according to a BoE policymaker.
Centuries when our country has been ravaged by disease much worse than Corona yet somehow kept going. Kept growing. How can that be if your link between economic growth and disease is correct?
It clearly isn't.
Can you evidence that?
It’s been a while since I looked but I think there was little growth between the Black Death and the Industrial Revolution
Remarkable that European civilisation did survive* the circa 50% fatality rate of the Black Death though.
(*Albeit with significant changes)
Just a few decades of flagellation, witch burning and persecuting minorities, and then economic growth took off big time...
So Mr Raab what do you say to a sacked BA worker today?
Well persisting with lockdown measures means the economy is going to be completely smashed to pieces for years to come so the the chances of re-employment at a decent standard are very low for a long period ahead.
We forecast that for the foreseeable future you'll be having a totally rotten life on meagre benefits due to our enormous debt, with poorer public services.
Now, back to those PPE supply problems Piers Morgan is so concerned about.
Don't be an idiot. Countries all across the entire globe have stopped air travel, the BA workers would have been laid off with or without a domestic lockdown.
In fact without a domestic lockdown causing a domestic furlough scheme its likely all airlines would have sacked even more workers already.
OK I'll put that question to YOU since I'm such an idiot.
What would YOU say to a sacked BA worker today?
retrain in another industry? when Lockdown is needlessly destroying jobs in all walks of life?
These poor people must be in a world of sh8t. No jobs in their industry. No jobs anywhere else either.
This is the case in millions of jobs worldwide
Oh just accept it then right?
you can't get a job in your own industry, you can;t retrain because colleges are locked down, your prospects of a job in another industry are close to zero for years to come because lockdown has smashed every industry, you can;t even meet someone face to face to try to convince them you might be worth employing.
This is your future. An enforced breadline existence you cannot get out of. For years. While some academic argues whether R is at one or not.
That is what millions of moderate and low paid workers in our country face. How long do you or anybody else think we can keep the lid on that? whether Corona deaths are at twenty, fifty or even 100,000?
Who said the lockdown would last years? 🙄
There would be more economic devastation without a lockdown as you'd have had just as much economic devastation as people take their own actions to avoid risk but with zero government support.
The government borrowing for a once-in-a-century pandemic can easier pay for people's wages than the companies that would have gone bust otherwise. We'd have millions unemployed by now not ten thousand in one industry without a lockdown.
The lockdown wont last indefinitely, but the effects of it will last a very long time. 2008 lasted a very long time, and this is much much worse than 2008. The worst slump in centuries according to a BoE policymaker.
Centuries when our country has been ravaged by disease much worse than Corona yet somehow kept going. Kept growing. How can that be if your link between economic growth and disease is correct?
It clearly isn't.
Can you evidence that?
It’s been a while since I looked but I think there was little growth between the Black Death and the Industrial Revolution
Remarkable that European civilisation did survive* the circa 50% fatality rate of the Black Death though.
(*Albeit with significant changes)
Just a few decades of flagellation, witch burning and persecuting minorities, and then economic growth took off big time...
OK, PB fountain of knowledge, I need help with a quiz question:
Who was the last (major party) losing candidate, at a U.S. Presidential election, to fail to be elected (or take office), on more than the one occasion?
The one that amazes me each time is just how many Electoral College votes Richard Nixon got.....including as VP and losing Pres. candidate in 1960.
Do you mean people who actually got the party nomination? because loads of no- hopers try to enter the primaries every four years, some of them have about 10 goes at it. They usually can't raise enough money to be deemed 'major candidates' and so can't get on the ticket in the early states.
Nixon was the Veep in 1952 (442 EC votes) and 1956 (457). He was the losing candidate in 1960 (219), and the succesful candidate for Pres in 1968 (301) and 1972 (520).
OK, PB fountain of knowledge, I need help with a quiz question:
Who was the last (major party) losing candidate, at a U.S. Presidential election, to fail to be elected (or take office), on more than the one occasion?
The one that amazes me each time is just how many Electoral College votes Richard Nixon got.....including as VP and losing Pres. candidate in 1960.
Do you mean people who actually got the party nomination? because loads of no- hopers try to enter the primaries every four years, some of them have about 10 goes at it. They usually can't raise enough money to be deemed 'major candidates' and so can't get on the ticket in the early states.
Nixon was the Veep in 1952 (442 EC votes) and 1956 (457). He was the losing candidate in 1960 (219), and the succesful candidate for Pres in 1968 (301) and 1972 (520).
One of the most successful politicians of all time electorally and all he'll remember for is being a crook and a name forever tarnished with infamy.
I think I've realised what has bothered me most about the government response. The absolute lack of engagement with industry until the very last moment. There has been almost no engagement with the tech industry for data modelling, app building and logistics.
The UK has one of the largest tech industries on a per capita basis and we're not leveraging it anywhere near enough, in fact the government is actively ignoring it. We needed to have the best predictive modellers from the sector on day zero, we needed to go to Google and tell them we were sequestering their best ML guys for a few months. Not use outdated models from people who make bad assumptions.
We should have gone to Apple and got them to build an app for contact tracing, Google for the Android version. All of these tech companies have been falling over themselves to be seen to help the cause all over the world. They just need to be asked.
Instead we have a top down approach which hasn't worked at all. We're behind the rest of the world on testing, contact tracing, we don't have an accurate projection of where we're going to end up. I'm 99% sure that we don't have an accurate patient outcome prediction model. When someone gets a test we should already know by their app who they have come in contact with, the likelihood of a positive result and how severe their condition is going to be of they have it.
It's absolutely galling that we have some of the best and most dedicated healthcare professionals in the world led by the most incompetent management to exist. Once this is over it's time for the government to clean house at the NHS.
One of the curiosities is that, if you believe the hype, this is exactly the scenario that the Cummings model of government is all about. Exactly one purpose, with everything else subordinate. Lots of leeway (if we're honest) to cut corners on democratic niceties. Massive potential to leverage Big Tech. And yet- it's not happened. If the mumblings about the tracing app are to be believed, it's not really happening either.
I know Dom C was sick with the sickness. But there are plenty of diddy Doms aren't there? And it's been fluffed, hasn't it?
Yep. Or, to look at it another way, Dom's had the misfortune to meet his moment and be found out.
The Treasury has had a great crisis. I am really struggling to think of a more innovative and bolder policy than furloughing in the last 30 years. The last time so much of the world followed our lead on economic policy was probably the privatisations of the early 80’s.
Whether it will be enough only time will tell but they have thrown the kitchen sink at this.
Agreed. As I said yesterday, the single most impressive thing was the pace of decision making and implementation. The policies have flaws, as has been discussed here (and no doubt more will be discussed), and the way ahead is exceedingly unclear - but their first response, unlike that of the government as a whole, was decisive and effective.
I liked the Saj but I honestly doubt if they would have moved quite so quickly under his leadership. Rishi is bright and quick. Boris got lucky there.
So Mr Raab what do you say to a sacked BA worker today?
Well persisting with lockdown measures means the economy is going to be completely smashed to pieces for years to come so the the chances of re-employment at a decent standard are very low for a long period ahead.
We forecast that for the foreseeable future you'll be having a totally rotten life on meagre benefits due to our enormous debt, with poorer public services.
Now, back to those PPE supply problems Piers Morgan is so concerned about.
Don't be an idiot. Countries all across the entire globe have stopped air travel, the BA workers would have been laid off with or without a domestic lockdown.
In fact without a domestic lockdown causing a domestic furlough scheme its likely all airlines would have sacked even more workers already.
OK I'll put that question to YOU since I'm such an idiot.
What would YOU say to a sacked BA worker today?
retrain in another industry? when Lockdown is needlessly destroying jobs in all walks of life?
These poor people must be in a world of sh8t. No jobs in their industry. No jobs anywhere else either.
This is the case in millions of jobs worldwide
Oh just accept it then right?
you can't get a job in your own industry, you can;t retrain because colleges are locked down, your prospects of a job in another industry are close to zero for years to come because lockdown has smashed every industry, you can;t even meet someone face to face to try to convince them you might be worth employing.
This is your future. An enforced breadline existence you cannot get out of. For years. While some academic argues whether R is at one or not.
That is what millions of moderate and low paid workers in our country face. How long do you or anybody else think we can keep the lid on that? whether Corona deaths are at twenty, fifty or even 100,000?
Who said the lockdown would last years? 🙄
There would be more economic devastation without a lockdown as you'd have had just as much economic devastation as people take their own actions to avoid risk but with zero government support.
The government borrowing for a once-in-a-century pandemic can easier pay for people's wages than the companies that would have gone bust otherwise. We'd have millions unemployed by now not ten thousand in one industry without a lockdown.
The lockdown wont last indefinitely, but the effects of it will last a very long time. 2008 lasted a very long time, and this is much much worse than 2008. The worst slump in centuries according to a BoE policymaker.
Centuries when our country has been ravaged by disease much worse than Corona yet somehow kept going. Kept growing. How can that be if your link between economic growth and disease is correct?
It clearly isn't.
Can you evidence that?
It’s been a while since I looked but I think there was little growth between the Black Death and the Industrial Revolution
Remarkable that European civilisation did survive* the circa 50% fatality rate of the Black Death though.
(*Albeit with significant changes)
Just a few decades of flagellation, witch burning and persecuting minorities, and then economic growth took off big time...
Conclusion: the witch burning etc was effective?
Not on its own. The persecution of scapegoats is essential.
I think I've realised what has bothered me most about the government response. The absolute lack of engagement with industry until the very last moment. There has been almost no engagement with the tech industry for data modelling, app building and logistics.
The UK has one of the largest tech industries on a per capita basis and we're not leveraging it anywhere near enough, in fact the government is actively ignoring it. We needed to have the best predictive modellers from the sector on day zero, we needed to go to Google and tell them we were sequestering their best ML guys for a few months. Not use outdated models from people who make bad assumptions.
We should have gone to Apple and got them to build an app for contact tracing, Google for the Android version. All of these tech companies have been falling over themselves to be seen to help the cause all over the world. They just need to be asked.
Instead we have a top down approach which hasn't worked at all. We're behind the rest of the world on testing, contact tracing, we don't have an accurate projection of where we're going to end up. I'm 99% sure that we don't have an accurate patient outcome prediction model. When someone gets a test we should already know by their app who they have come in contact with, the likelihood of a positive result and how severe their condition is going to be of they have it.
It's absolutely galling that we have some of the best and most dedicated healthcare professionals in the world led by the most incompetent management to exist. Once this is over it's time for the government to clean house at the NHS.
The bit at the end doesn’t really follow; you’ve just described a government several steps behind in a number of categories (and I agree with you). Is that government then the one to be ‘cleaning house’ at the NHS ? Ought it not to be sorting its own act out first ?
The top down approach is classic NHS thinking, blocking out the private sector is classic NHS thinking. These managers run the NHS like a communist fiefdom, it needs to be fixed. The government is also at huge fault here and I hope Hancock gets the boot as well as some of the advisory committee who have provided the poor advice, but that's secondary to the managers who will scream privatisation the minute the government brings in the right people from the private sector.
As I noted in my comment edit, that also appears to be the way this government thinks, too.
I think they fear backlash from those managers. Even looking at the latest initiative on data modelling, it's completely inadequate and they've decided to fish from a tiny pool of virology and epidemiology modellers (most of whom will be in the public sector) instead of a much wider group of data modellers from industry.
On the government approach, completely agreed. We, as the Conservative party, have sadly fallen into the trap of thinking "government knows best" when this clearly isn't the case. The private sector has much more expertise in specific areas of this crisis, none of which have been leveraged correctly so far other than manufacturing and building temporary hospitals.
I think there's definitely some truth in this, but I also think it might be somewhat overstating the powers of industry-based modellers. While I wouldn't dispute that there are some seriously talented people doing incredible things, I'm not sure how many of them have ever done anything where they can be proved wrong in real time
My personal corner of industry typically gives us about a year to explain why our models were inaccurate, and even then we often have to blame management decisions being at odds with the assumptions they fed us. And that's from models we've been playing with for a decade or more in some cases. Given (say) six months), I'm sure we could build something valuable, but from a standing start in February, right now, we'd still be learning all the mistakes the lifelong epidemiologists learned when they were still doing their postgrads.
So Mr Raab what do you say to a sacked BA worker today?
Well persisting with lockdown measures means the economy is going to be completely smashed to pieces for years to come so the the chances of re-employment at a decent standard are very low for a long period ahead.
We forecast that for the foreseeable future you'll be having a totally rotten life on meagre benefits due to our enormous debt, with poorer public services.
Now, back to those PPE supply problems Piers Morgan is so concerned about.
Don't be an idiot. Countries all across the entire globe have stopped air travel, the BA workers would have been laid off with or without a domestic lockdown.
In fact without a domestic lockdown causing a domestic furlough scheme its likely all airlines would have sacked even more workers already.
OK I'll put that question to YOU since I'm such an idiot.
What would YOU say to a sacked BA worker today?
retrain in another industry? when Lockdown is needlessly destroying jobs in all walks of life?
These poor people must be in a world of sh8t. No jobs in their industry. No jobs anywhere else either.
This is the case in millions of jobs worldwide
Oh just accept it then right?
you can't get a job in your own industry, you can;t retrain because colleges are locked down, your prospects of a job in another industry are close to zero for years to come because lockdown has smashed every industry, you can;t even meet someone face to face to try to convince them you might be worth employing.
This is your future. An enforced breadline existence you cannot get out of. For years. While some academic argues whether R is at one or not.
That is what millions of moderate and low paid workers in our country face. How long do you or anybody else think we can keep the lid on that? whether Corona deaths are at twenty, fifty or even 100,000?
Who said the lockdown would last years? 🙄
There would be more economic devastation without a lockdown as you'd have had just as much economic devastation as people take their own actions to avoid risk but with zero government support.
The government borrowing for a once-in-a-century pandemic can easier pay for people's wages than the companies that would have gone bust otherwise. We'd have millions unemployed by now not ten thousand in one industry without a lockdown.
The lockdown wont last indefinitely, but the effects of it will last a very long time. 2008 lasted a very long time, and this is much much worse than 2008. The worst slump in centuries according to a BoE policymaker.
Centuries when our country has been ravaged by disease much worse than Corona yet somehow kept going. Kept growing. How can that be if your link between economic growth and disease is correct?
It clearly isn't.
Can you evidence that?
It’s been a while since I looked but I think there was little growth between the Black Death and the Industrial Revolution
Remarkable that European civilisation did survive* the circa 50% fatality rate of the Black Death though.
(*Albeit with significant changes)
Just a few decades of flagellation, witch burning and persecuting minorities, and then economic growth took off big time...
Was it only decades? I thought it took a couple of centuries to wrestle the mugger down.
Also remarkable: While doing so, we simultaneously managed to depopulate the Americas with a form of inadvertant biological warfare. Mad world.
Yeah, the difference between meeting it on friday and on the following monday is absolutely minimal in terms of clinical benefit. But of course the media love this sort of crap.
I think I've realised what has bothered me most about the government response. The absolute lack of engagement with industry until the very last moment. There has been almost no engagement with the tech industry for data modelling, app building and logistics.
The UK has one of the largest tech industries on a per capita basis and we're not leveraging it anywhere near enough, in fact the government is actively ignoring it. We needed to have the best predictive modellers from the sector on day zero, we needed to go to Google and tell them we were sequestering their best ML guys for a few months. Not use outdated models from people who make bad assumptions.
We should have gone to Apple and got them to build an app for contact tracing, Google for the Android version. All of these tech companies have been falling over themselves to be seen to help the cause all over the world. They just need to be asked.
Instead we have a top down approach which hasn't worked at all. We're behind the rest of the world on testing, contact tracing, we don't have an accurate projection of where we're going to end up. I'm 99% sure that we don't have an accurate patient outcome prediction model. When someone gets a test we should already know by their app who they have come in contact with, the likelihood of a positive result and how severe their condition is going to be of they have it.
It's absolutely galling that we have some of the best and most dedicated healthcare professionals in the world led by the most incompetent management to exist. Once this is over it's time for the government to clean house at the NHS.
I completely agree. I am so fed up with going to hospital appointments and being told my appointment has been postponed. Them a couple of days later a letter arrives postponing it. With young children arranging childcare for these appointments is not easy. The management of the NHS is a shambles and I would like them to be excluded from the claps.
OK, PB fountain of knowledge, I need help with a quiz question:
Who was the last (major party) losing candidate, at a U.S. Presidential election, to fail to be elected (or take office), on more than the one occasion?
The one that amazes me each time is just how many Electoral College votes Richard Nixon got.....including as VP and losing Pres. candidate in 1960.
Do you mean people who actually got the party nomination? because loads of no- hopers try to enter the primaries every four years, some of them have about 10 goes at it. They usually can't raise enough money to be deemed 'major candidates' and so can't get on the ticket in the early states.
Nixon was the Veep in 1952 (442 EC votes) and 1956 (457). He was the losing candidate in 1960 (219), and the succesful candidate for Pres in 1968 (301) and 1972 (520).
The question he's asking was who was the last person to be a losing candidate for one of the two major parties more than once.
If it's only confined to people who won their party's nomination and ignoring people who only sought nominations, then the answer is Adlai Ewing Stevenson II.
He was nominated for president at both the 1952 and 1956 conventions of the Democratic party and he lost both times to Dwight David Eisenhower of the Republican party.
Germans estimating Rt back at 0.75, so the apparent bounce was seemingly just noise. Probably quite important for our policy-makers.
Probably not. It's given them a great excuse for doing nothing a week Thursday, which is exactly what they wanted to do anyway.
SAGE needs balancing with other risk, behavioural, social and economic advisors.
I am expecting Boris to announce on 7 May:
Opening of smaller non-essential shops and of course garden centres subject to social distancing measures
A relaxation to social distancing within houses to allow family members in different residences to meet
To apply from 11 May.
Partial reopening of schools 1 June
Restaurants, gyms and possibly pubs with restrictions 22 June
Relaxation of restrictions 12 July
These are all at three week intervals and will be subject to ongoing assessment against the 5 tests
I don't think non essential shops will happen - the whole point of the lockdown at the moment is we only go out if we have a reason to. Non essential changes that entirely.
I suspect first step of easing will be, announced on 7th May, tips open if you have to go to them, from May 21st.
Schools - not this school year.
What's "essential" ?
B&Q has entirely reopened, and Burger King, KFC, Nandos and McDonalds are reopening more restaurants every day.
It's already flipped from 'non essential' to 'can we effectively conduct retail business with social distancing where people come occasionally but don't take the piss'.
The whole "essential retail" thing has been misunderstood from the outset. If the intention was that we would only be able to buy that which was necessary to sustain life then we'd have had some of the more zealous police forces being allowed to do what they always wanted, i.e. to rifle through people's shopping and make them throw away their Easter eggs and booze. Indeed, the supermarkets would've been given lists of permissible and banned produce and asked to remove the latter from their shelves.
In point of fact, retail was stripped back to a product of what was necessary *and* what the Government thought it could get away with leaving open. Within that list, of course, the permitted retailers have been allowed to continue to sell whatever they please. There's never been anything to stop you from buying garden plants, birthday cards, Champagne, carpet slippers or anything else that you please from the local Tesco extra.
Thus, of course the Government is going to allow anyone to trade that they think they can get away with, within the overall objective of stopping the virus from getting out of control again. In theory, there's nothing wrong with allowing people to go and browse for jewellery, Summer frocks, furniture or anything else. In practice, of course, these shops may re-open only to find that they have no customers.
OK, PB fountain of knowledge, I need help with a quiz question:
Who was the last (major party) losing candidate, at a U.S. Presidential election, to fail to be elected (or take office), on more than the one occasion?
The one that amazes me each time is just how many Electoral College votes Richard Nixon got.....including as VP and losing Pres. candidate in 1960.
Do you mean people who actually got the party nomination? because loads of no- hopers try to enter the primaries every four years, some of them have about 10 goes at it. They usually can't raise enough money to be deemed 'major candidates' and so can't get on the ticket in the early states.
Nixon was the Veep in 1952 (442 EC votes) and 1956 (457). He was the losing candidate in 1960 (219), and the succesful candidate for Pres in 1968 (301) and 1972 (520).
One of the most successful politicians of all time electorally and all he'll remember for is being a crook and a name forever tarnished with infamy.
His reputation is worthy of his actions while president.
Humanity has indeed hitherto found a way to continue but I fear our luck has run out.
There's zero chance that we'll sit here for the rest of eternity waiting for a vaccine because sooner or later someone will try to take advantage of the situation to accrue more power. Whereas the 1918 pandemic contributed to the end of WW1, perhaps WW3 will get us out of lockdown.
OK, PB fountain of knowledge, I need help with a quiz question:
Who was the last (major party) losing candidate, at a U.S. Presidential election, to fail to be elected (or take office), on more than the one occasion?
The one that amazes me each time is just how many Electoral College votes Richard Nixon got.....including as VP and losing Pres. candidate in 1960.
Do you mean people who actually got the party nomination? because loads of no- hopers try to enter the primaries every four years, some of them have about 10 goes at it. They usually can't raise enough money to be deemed 'major candidates' and so can't get on the ticket in the early states.
Nixon was the Veep in 1952 (442 EC votes) and 1956 (457). He was the losing candidate in 1960 (219), and the succesful candidate for Pres in 1968 (301) and 1972 (520).
One of the most successful politicians of all time electorally and all he'll remember for is being a crook and a name forever tarnished with infamy.
His reputation is worthy of his actions while president.
Adelai Stephenson in 52 and 56. Came seriously close to taking it off Kennedy in 60 too.
Broad thrust: the EU is asking for a portion of our national resources *and* an unequal treaty in that we would remain in step with their changing laws but they would not have to reciprocate. They seem unprepared to give way on either of these fundamental points, so what's the point of extending further and continuing to pay in? 'Let's fund our NHS instead'.
Just heard from another of my wife's friends, this time in Munich (a perk of being a TOEFL teacher is getting friendships with former students all over the world) that after shops re-opened there recently, cases have shot back up again and they may have to go back to a lockdown.
I think human life as we know it is at an end. We will be living like this for years, maybe forever. I am questioning seriously whether I can live out my life in this enforced isolation.
No chance.
Isolation while we flatten the curve and build up NHS capacity, testing and tracking/tracing capacity and PPE capacity makes sense.
Once capacity is up there is zero reason to maintain the lockdown.
That’s not what the Government is saying. They say there has to be no chance of a second wave. That will never happen. Living in this half existence forever is simply not worth it. It’s not even living, it’s existing. There is no hope.
They're saying there has to be no chance of a second wave that will overwhelm the NHS.
Once we have flattened the curve, upgraded NHS capacity, upgraded testing capacity, upgraded testing and tracking/tracity capacity and upgraded PPE capacity then there would be no chance of that.
That small change to point 5 of the PowerPoint slide was flatly contradicted by Raab today. Listening to him today convinced me that is really no reason to continue. It’s over.
That change to point 5 matches what Raab always said.
You are a member of the Conservative Party. I’m have no interest in spinning what he said. This is going to last for years, maybe for the rest of our lives. Frankly I am not going to spend decades like this. If you think this is living that’s your problem.
Courage, mon brave.
Let's imagine a worst case scenario from a science point of view. There's no usable vaccine, infection only gives some immunity. What would we do?
Now, I'm not an expert. I teach physics for a living. But the outlines of the new worst-case life are pretty clear.
We keep taking hygiene seriously. Because in the last few decades, frankly, we got decadent about it.
We do lots (and I mean lots) of testing. We know that can be done. If it's a matter of survival, we can do more; it's just a question of resources.
We do lots of contact tracing. Even if it's not perfect and doesn't catch every infection chain, it will break a lot of them, which wasn't happening in the UK in February.
We keep the ability to throw up a Nightingale wherever and whenever we need one.
We work out what a good death is for those who die from this. What's the network of hospices like, to what extent can we safely let the dying see relatives?
And then... we take a deep breath... we thank our lucky stars to be alive in a prosperous place at a prosperous time, because here and now followed by a depression is still pretty peachy in the grand scheme of things, and we get on with rebuilding the rest of our lives.
Lockdown now is worth doing, to stop more people dying while we work out what the hell is going on. It's going to go on longer than many would want, because working out takes time. But it's not forever.
It’s over. Life is over. There’s no f’ing point anymore.
Step back from the edge, take a deep breath and count to ten.
There is a point and life will find a way. It always does.
Does it?
If you want assurance things that definitely make life worth living then look at Switzerland who are going to open up bars , cinemas etc in the next couple of weeks. I would also recommend not using this site much as well.There are intelligent people on here but a lot play a game with stats , etc - usually about death rates etc . Far better to watch something more hopeful as well for the mood.
A second wave will come to Switzerland (as everywhere else) and they will lockdown again, the cycle will repeat itself, until it becomes permanent.
There will, almost certainly, be several effective vaccines ready next year. Before that, there massively better testing for both those who are, and have been infected. That will enable much better control of the pandemic.
The next six months will be painful for all of us. And the recovery will take a long time, and be uncomfortable. But it will get better.
So who will be the last PBer to venture out of their home?
I'm here for the long haul.
WFH has destroyed my productivity
On one hand I can be sensationally productive. Set a task to do a research project and an absurd deadline we did 14 days work in 4. On the other hand FTW people are squabbling again on Zoom pass me a drink...
I think I've realised what has bothered me most about the government response. The absolute lack of engagement with industry until the very last moment. There has been almost no engagement with the tech industry for data modelling, app building and logistics.
The UK has one of the largest tech industries on a per capita basis and we're not leveraging it anywhere near enough, in fact the government is actively ignoring it. We needed to have the best predictive modellers from the sector on day zero, we needed to go to Google and tell them we were sequestering their best ML guys for a few months. Not use outdated models from people who make bad assumptions.
We should have gone to Apple and got them to build an app for contact tracing, Google for the Android version. All of these tech companies have been falling over themselves to be seen to help the cause all over the world. They just need to be asked.
Instead we have a top down approach which hasn't worked at all. We're behind the rest of the world on testing, contact tracing, we don't have an accurate projection of where we're going to end up. I'm 99% sure that we don't have an accurate patient outcome prediction model. When someone gets a test we should already know by their app who they have come in contact with, the likelihood of a positive result and how severe their condition is going to be of they have it.
It's absolutely galling that we have some of the best and most dedicated healthcare professionals in the world led by the most incompetent management to exist. Once this is over it's time for the government to clean house at the NHS.
One of the curiosities is that, if you believe the hype, this is exactly the scenario that the Cummings model of government is all about. Exactly one purpose, with everything else subordinate. Lots of leeway (if we're honest) to cut corners on democratic niceties. Massive potential to leverage Big Tech. And yet- it's not happened. If the mumblings about the tracing app are to be believed, it's not really happening either.
I know Dom C was sick with the sickness. But there are plenty of diddy Doms aren't there? And it's been fluffed, hasn't it?
Yep. Or, to look at it another way, Dom's had the misfortune to meet his moment and be found out.
Alternatively, he was entirely right, but thanks to our Rolls-Royce civil service he hasn't been allowed to implement most of it. That's probably nearer the truth.
Comments
But I must admit that I feel safer at home.
You are clearly a person blessed with gifts which enable you to enrich the lives of those who know you. I have long felt that the greatest privilege that any of us can have is to be able to help lift the burden from others - from another soul. I sense that you can do that well.
Whether it will be enough only time will tell but they have thrown the kitchen sink at this.
The policies have flaws, as has been discussed here (and no doubt more will be discussed), and the way ahead is exceedingly unclear - but their first response, unlike that of the government as a whole, was decisive and effective.
On the government approach, completely agreed. We, as the Conservative party, have sadly fallen into the trap of thinking "government knows best" when this clearly isn't the case. The private sector has much more expertise in specific areas of this crisis, none of which have been leveraged correctly so far other than manufacturing and building temporary hospitals.
Oh, my coat?
My personal corner of industry typically gives us about a year to explain why our models were inaccurate, and even then we often have to blame management decisions being at odds with the assumptions they fed us. And that's from models we've been playing with for a decade or more in some cases. Given (say) six months), I'm sure we could build something valuable, but from a standing start in February, right now, we'd still be learning all the mistakes the lifelong epidemiologists learned when they were still doing their postgrads.
'Unmarried men often grow into “dysfunctional” human beings and become “a problem” for society, Iain Duncan Smith has claimed.'
https://twitter.com/TheMooseOfTruth/status/1255562452974161927?s=20
Also remarkable: While doing so, we simultaneously managed to depopulate the Americas with a form of inadvertant biological warfare. Mad world.
https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1255602773581848578
https://twitter.com/afneil/status/1255397009676173312?s=19
If it's only confined to people who won their party's nomination and ignoring people who only sought nominations, then the answer is Adlai Ewing Stevenson II.
He was nominated for president at both the 1952 and 1956 conventions of the Democratic party and he lost both times to Dwight David Eisenhower of the Republican party.
Adelai Stephenson in 52 and 56. Came seriously close to taking it off Kennedy in 60 too.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/now-who-s-cherry-picking-michel-barnier-
Broad thrust: the EU is asking for a portion of our national resources *and* an unequal treaty in that we would remain in step with their changing laws but they would not have to reciprocate. They seem unprepared to give way on either of these fundamental points, so what's the point of extending further and continuing to pay in? 'Let's fund our NHS instead'.
Before that, there massively better testing for both those who are, and have been infected. That will enable much better control of the pandemic.
The next six months will be painful for all of us. And the recovery will take a long time, and be uncomfortable. But it will get better.