Betting post: I`ve posted a few times over the last few weeks and months that Trump`s narcicism means that he doesn`t fight battles he thinks he won`t win. His ego can`t take defeat. I`m still not convinced he`ll run. And I believe that if he does he will lose - and lose badly. That was my position before the virus and think it even more so now. Accordingly, I`ve been laying Trump all over the shop both to win the GE and to be the Rep nominee.
I now see that Trump himself is starting to question things. See links below, which are articles written in the last few hours.
That's because Japan is hardly bothering to test anyone. We're now doing almost 100k tests a day; it's inevitable that the case numbers are going up. It just pushes the implied mortality rate down.
It's actually very inconvenient for the government that they're looking bad at the moment. It's very convenient for other countries whose data gathering is significantly worse that they'll only take the rap for their actions after the event. It's just simply not credible that all the basket cases in Southern Europe have suddenly managed to get their act together on statistical reporting, just at the moment it was least in their interests to do so.
There was a time when it wasn't totally bonkers to think that maybe Japan had a lot of hidden infection that hadn't shown up because of lack of testing, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were some shenanigans specific to *Tokyo*, which had bizarrely low numbers before the Olympic cancellation and an unexplained spike in flu deaths not seen in its commuter belt. However, we'd long since have seen these undetected cases show up in hospitals. We'd also have seen the number of cases grow as the number of tests has been (belatedly) increasing, but the opposite is happening.
Japan doesn't have a UK-level covid19 epidemic. It just doesn't.
I know you live there and all, but apart from the masks and shops being shut I doubt I'd know there was a pandemic in the UK if I didn't read the news. It's not as though people are routinely collapsing in the street.
Anyway, my point is that it's still just about plausible that it's there under the surface and eventually will come out. I think it's likely that for cultural reasons, Japan would see lower transmission rates than (say) Italy, but not enough to kill it on its own. There are some very odd stories floating around: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52466834
We just don't know. In general, experience tells me that Japan is better on data quality than most of Southern Europe, but then again I have no direct experience with its national reporting. They could easily have fallen into the trap of massaging figures downwards to try and prevent people panicking. It's just going to be impossible to compare countries until the epidemic is long passed.
Germany's federal government and states on Thursday postponed a decision on fully reopening schools and kindergartens and resuming Bundesliga soccer matches, Focus Online news magazine reported, citing sources involved in the discussions.
Clearly worried about the R-figure.
Absolutely and why they switched back to stay at home unless you have to go out the other day.
If this had been the UK government, Piers Morgan would currently be screaming about incomponence indecisive U-turns....
The reality is I think we will see some stop start everywhere.
Problem is I can't see how they're going to get away from it. We saw how it was growing before. Any relaxation is going to get it going again to a lesser or greater degree.
That's where (or ought to be where) testing, track&trace, and isolation/quarantine comes in. S Korea made it work with no more than 20k tests a day. We (supposedly) now have five times that.
We also now have empty Nightingale hospitals, hotels etc. which gives the capacity to isolate.
If we had a halfway decent system to use that testing capacity it ought to be entirely possible.
The contact tracing app is the missing ingredient. Let's hope it works.
Neither were available to the government when we started the lockdown.
The next sensible phase would be to use certain centres for Covid cases only and allow other hospitals to return to elective surgery, while carrying out v careful screening on all patients that enter. The alternative is that people dying from Covid could soon be overtaken by those who have waited too long for a stent or other such non-emergency life saving surgery
Betting post: I`ve posted a few times over the last few weeks and months that Trump`s narcicism means that he doesn`t fight battles he thinks he won`t win. His ego can`t take defeat. I`m still not convinced he`ll run. And I believe that if he does he will lose - and lose badly. That was my position before the virus and think it even more so now. Accordingly, I`ve been laying Trump all over the shop both to win the GE and to be the Rep nominee.
I now see that Trump himself is starting to question things. See links below, which are articles written in the last few hours.
Germany's federal government and states on Thursday postponed a decision on fully reopening schools and kindergartens and resuming Bundesliga soccer matches, Focus Online news magazine reported, citing sources involved in the discussions.
Clearly worried about the R-figure.
Absolutely and why they switched back to stay at home unless you have to go out the other day.
If this had been the UK government, Piers Morgan would currently be screaming about incomponence indecisive U-turns....
The reality is I think we will see some stop start everywhere.
Problem is I can't see how they're going to get away from it. We saw how it was growing before. Any relaxation is going to get it going again to a lesser or greater degree.
That's where (or ought to be where) testing, track&trace, and isolation/quarantine comes in. S Korea made it work with no more than 20k tests a day. We (supposedly) now have five times that.
We also now have empty Nightingale hospitals, hotels etc. which gives the capacity to isolate.
If we had a halfway decent system to use that testing capacity it ought to be entirely possible.
The contact tracing app is the missing ingredient. Let's hope it works.
It is also significant that it has taken until now to generate sufficient testing capacity and it took several weeks to produce the Nightingale capacity. Neither were available to the government when we started the lockdown.
We are certainly in a massively better place now than we were a few weeks back. Kudos to the Govt. for that. The Royal Hindsight Commission will decide how much of this we should have had in place on 1st January, but at least by 1st May testing and ICU capacity is now in place. The stories behind the scenes of the heads that needed to be knocked together to get us here will be fascinating. The "different ways of working" will be legion.
"Amash carries none of that baggage. Like his progressive congressional counterpart, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the libertarian is young, idealistic and looks like the multi-ethnic future of America."
Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has said it will take up to six months to refund passengers for flights cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Virgin is 100 days.
The EU are in the process of waving the 14 day refund law thereby using the ordinary holidaymaker as the sacrificial lamb for these companies
It is an utter disgrace and abuse of power by the EU
I hope consumer groups challenge this dreadful decision
I am fortunate that BA have refunded my £2,000 flight charge for our May trip but even that was extremely difficult to obtain through BA own evasion
And of course O'Leary wants to take six months as he is looking for the EU to shaft the ordinary holidaymakers
It is shameful
Interesting that you had issues with BA BigG. Looks like at some point soon I`m going to have to tackle BA over £2,500 flights which look unlikely to happen in July. Any tips? Did you get the refund via BA or via your credit card company?
Any advice much appreciated.
I did tackle BA when we went into lockdown by e mail as it impossible to get any sense any other way. However, they only offered me a voucher as their flight was still scheduled on the 12th May to Vancouver, return on the 25th May. A week or so ago I received an e mail from BA confirming they had cancelled both flights and referred me to my booking app.
The app only allows for you to apply for a voucher and it is very difficult to actually see where you apply for a refund which is the law at present, unless of course the EU do pass this change which you need to watch. I e mailed BA again and tried their customer services on the phone for over a couple of days and in the end, and after a one and a quarter hour wait, I did get through to a BA customer service rep working from her home in Bolton who processed the refund and was very helpful. Within 48 hours of my phone call with BA my full refund of £2,034.76 was back in my credit card account
I had e mailed Nationwide at the same time I was having difficulty with BA re my credit card and they were very efficient contacting me within a couple of days confirming their responsibility under the credit card act and to keep in touch over progress with BA
I would suggest to yourself and indeed anyone going on holiday over the next few months to keep an eye on when the flights etc are actually cancelled and the minute the cancellation takes place contact the company preferably by phone, or otherwise e mail and simultaneously contact your credit card issuer and seek to use the Section 75 credit card scheme, and maybe even more importantly if the EU really do pass this dreadful attack on European holidaymakers, to cover for any loss
On the BA app you can seek out the flight status by keying in your destination and flight date and it will show if the flight is still active
And the UK Government gave a bailout to Hungarian airline Wizz Air just after refusing even a commercial loan to Virgin Atlantic.
(Wizz Air also happens to have the strongest financial position of any airline in Europe and could survive without any flights for 22 months, but can make a profit on the "soft loan" they got)
Germany's federal government and states on Thursday postponed a decision on fully reopening schools and kindergartens and resuming Bundesliga soccer matches, Focus Online news magazine reported, citing sources involved in the discussions.
Clearly worried about the R-figure.
Absolutely and why they switched back to stay at home unless you have to go out the other day.
If this had been the UK government, Piers Morgan would currently be screaming about incomponence indecisive U-turns....
The reality is I think we will see some stop start everywhere.
Problem is I can't see how they're going to get away from it. We saw how it was growing before. Any relaxation is going to get it going again to a lesser or greater degree.
That's where (or ought to be where) testing, track&trace, and isolation/quarantine comes in. S Korea made it work with no more than 20k tests a day. We (supposedly) now have five times that.
We also now have empty Nightingale hospitals, hotels etc. which gives the capacity to isolate.
If we had a halfway decent system to use that testing capacity it ought to be entirely possible.
The contact tracing app is the missing ingredient. Let's hope it works.
It is also significant that it has taken until now to generate sufficient testing capacity and it took several weeks to produce the Nightingale capacity. Neither were available to the government when we started the lockdown.
We are certainly in a massively better place now than we were a few weeks back. Kudos to the Govt. for that. The Royal Hindsight Commission will decide how much of this we should have had in place on 1st January, but at least by 1st May testing and ICU capacity is now in place. The stories behind the scenes of the heads that needed to be knocked together to get us here will be fascinating. The "different ways of working" will be legion.
Where are those EU ventilators BTW?
I am sure that there is a very high powered committee representing a vast plethora of interests working on it whilst we speak.
A terrible idea that could happen is legalising, and taxing, marijuana
It's everywhere already, go for a walk and you'll find people smoking it. It smells much stronger than 20 years ago as well.
It seems that 90% of 15-25 year old males are smoking it, I dread to think about all the mental health problems resulting in a decade or so.
It's currently believed 17.3% of 16-24 year olds have used cannabis "in the last year".
Drug use overall hit a low a few years ago, and has risen since - but is yet to come anywhere near all time highs (which I believe was 2001-2).
Kids these days don't know how to have fun...
I am always amused in the gym (those places we used to go to work out), when I hear the "kids" talk about being on a cut / eating super clean / not drinking, so they are in tip-top condition for their upcoming 2 week bender in Ayia Napa.
You're rewriting history - hindsight has nothing to do with it. It was blindingly obvious even at the time that the lockdown was too late and lax. That was why so many people were desperate for the government to take action and why people began to take action themselves when the government failed to act. When you're dealing with potential exponential growth, rapid action at the start makes a critical difference.
There is a basic principle here: when you don't understand what's happening, do whatever you can to reduce the chances of the worst outcome. It almost beggars belief that the government dithered for so long.
With respect this is just nonsense. At the time the best advice was that control of the virus by trace and isolate was doomed to fail. The object therefore was to flatten the curve, an object that has been achieved. Now, with the experience of SK, it is thought that it might be possible to control the virus this way long term. Whether that in fact proves to be the case remains to be seen but it is rewriting history to suggest that was an option that was suggested as being open to the government at the time.
The cost of the lockdown runs to tens of billions a week. We must be locked down for as short a period as possible compatible with our primary objective of not allowing the NHS to be overwhelmed. In Scotland the lock down undoubtedly came at least 2 weeks, possibly 3 weeks too early. The extra capacity created in the NHS has not been used. Other people whose treatment was deferred will die as a result of that wasted capacity. The number of cases remains small and the costs of the lockdown wholly disproportionate. As I understand it the same could be said for the SW. When to lockdown was a difficult decision which had to be taken when a part of the country, London in this case, was reaching breaking point so far as the NHS was concerned.
I disagree that the primary objective of the lockdown should be to avoid the health service being overwhelmed. Also the government's original "flatten the curve" policy was misconceived (they don't talk about it now).
The primary objective of the lockdown should be to get control over the epidemic infection rate and keep total infections down, The second objective is to buy time so other more targeted and less damaging methods of control can be brought in. including test, trace and quarantine. Not overwhelming the health service is necessary but is dealt with by this primary purpose of infection rate control. None of this is new; it was discussed at the time, including by myself. Asian countries were already successfully following this policy.
By acting late, ineffectively and not using the time to prepare, the government has given itself less room for manoeuvre to ease off lockdown, with the result that many more people will die and the lockdown will be longer and more economically and socially damaging than it need to have been.
We are where we are and we have to deal with the situation as it is, but we also need to be aware that are choices now are limited by those mistakes previously made.
A terrible idea that could happen is legalising, and taxing, marijuana
It's everywhere already, go for a walk and you'll find people smoking it. It smells much stronger than 20 years ago as well.
It seems that 90% of 15-25 year old males are smoking it, I dread to think about all the mental health problems resulting in a decade or so.
Well part of the issue is that not all weed is the same.
You get mild stuff, through to damn hard stuff.
If it was legalised would it 'all' be legalised. I doubt it. So the hard skunk stuff would be there still.
It'll be like 'legalising' alcohol, but the only thing you can buy is Mild Ale.
Or is it different in other countries?
Why not legalise it but regulate it like alcohol?
If you want beer you can drink beer. If you want spirits you can buy spirits. If you want ludicrously strong spirits like Overproof Rum you can buy it.
But the key with regulation is knowledge. The strength is listed, you know what you are buying and you can know the risks. Better than the only thing being available is moonshine spirits that you don't know the strength of and could contain added toxins.
- VAT exemptions should, as @Cyclefree suggests, be phased out. It makes zero sense for children's clothes to be regarded as 'essential' and VAT free, when adult clothes aren't. Removing exemptions would mean a lower rate to raise the same (or probably more) revenue, and with less distortion and less incentive to evade the tax.
It does make sense that children's clothes and adults clothes are different. Children grow up and need new clothes, while good and not-disposable adults clothes can last.
My children need new clothes every year - and every few months for babies. A 3 month old and a 2 year old can not wear the same clothes. But I own and wear many clothes I bought years ago. Heck my eldest (six years old) has been through about a dozen different age groups of clothes from "tiny baby" to "six" while I am still wearing some clothes I bought before she was born.
I've still got clothes I bought before my boss was born!
I've still got clothes bought before I was born.
It really is time though to let go of that blue towelling romper suit....
Germany's federal government and states on Thursday postponed a decision on fully reopening schools and kindergartens and resuming Bundesliga soccer matches, Focus Online news magazine reported, citing sources involved in the discussions.
Clearly worried about the R-figure.
Absolutely and why they switched back to stay at home unless you have to go out the other day.
If this had been the UK government, Piers Morgan would currently be screaming about incomponence indecisive U-turns....
The reality is I think we will see some stop start everywhere.
Problem is I can't see how they're going to get away from it. We saw how it was growing before. Any relaxation is going to get it going again to a lesser or greater degree.
That's where (or ought to be where) testing, track&trace, and isolation/quarantine comes in. S Korea made it work with no more than 20k tests a day. We (supposedly) now have five times that.
We also now have empty Nightingale hospitals, hotels etc. which gives the capacity to isolate.
If we had a halfway decent system to use that testing capacity it ought to be entirely possible.
The contact tracing app is the missing ingredient. Let's hope it works.
Neither were available to the government when we started the lockdown.
The next sensible phase would be to use certain centres for Covid cases only and allow other hospitals to return to elective surgery, while carrying out v careful screening on all patients that enter. The alternative is that people dying from Covid could soon be overtaken by those who have waited too long for a stent or other such non-emergency life saving surgery
I agree if we have enough staff to cover both. Not sure about that.
Chinese ventilators that ministers heralded as vital to the NHS’s efforts to tackle Covid-19 were badly built, unsuitable for use in hospitals and potentially dangerous for patients, it has emerged.
A well-placed NHS source said the incident highlighted problems that had occurred with a range of medical supplies and equipment ordered from China during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some other stuff ordered from China recently, especially personal protective equipment, has also turned out to be either of a lesser quality than what we need or to be the wrong thing altogether, like T-shirts instead of long-sleeved surgical gowns” they said.
Just taking the piss. Flog the west any old shit, because they will be too busy to worry about any come back.
The problem is, in the Uk in particular, procurement has been about buy the cheapest possible. The Chinese have ripped off patents for medical devices left right and centre, as they have in other areas, and their companies have been rewarded with sales of low quality equipment. The one thing that has prevented it being even worse has been the requirements of CE marking and FDA regulations.
Chinese ventilators that ministers heralded as vital to the NHS’s efforts to tackle Covid-19 were badly built, unsuitable for use in hospitals and potentially dangerous for patients, it has emerged.
A well-placed NHS source said the incident highlighted problems that had occurred with a range of medical supplies and equipment ordered from China during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some other stuff ordered from China recently, especially personal protective equipment, has also turned out to be either of a lesser quality than what we need or to be the wrong thing altogether, like T-shirts instead of long-sleeved surgical gowns” they said.
Betting post: I`ve posted a few times over the last few weeks and months that Trump`s narcicism means that he doesn`t fight battles he thinks he won`t win. His ego can`t take defeat. I`m still not convinced he`ll run. And I believe that if he does he will lose - and lose badly. That was my position before the virus and think it even more so now. Accordingly, I`ve been laying Trump all over the shop both to win the GE and to be the Rep nominee.
I now see that Trump himself is starting to question things. See links below, which are articles written in the last few hours.
Winning party: lay Republicans at 2.04 Republican nominee: lay Trump at 1.07 Nominee combo: lay Trump/Biden at 1.20 Next President: lay Trump at 2.12
I wouldn`t put anyone off taking any of these, but my favourite lay at the moment is the bottom market on this list.
He didn't think he'd win in 2016
I`m not sure. I thought he`d win in 2016 and did very well! I was in Florida the week before the election - in an up-market cosmopolitan area that I would have had as nailed-on Dem. There were Trump posters and placards in gardens everywhere. I think it hinges on internal party polling.
Chinese ventilators that ministers heralded as vital to the NHS’s efforts to tackle Covid-19 were badly built, unsuitable for use in hospitals and potentially dangerous for patients, it has emerged.
A well-placed NHS source said the incident highlighted problems that had occurred with a range of medical supplies and equipment ordered from China during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some other stuff ordered from China recently, especially personal protective equipment, has also turned out to be either of a lesser quality than what we need or to be the wrong thing altogether, like T-shirts instead of long-sleeved surgical gowns” they said.
Oh and just to congratulate the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. Took a lot of stick but he made it. 100k tests. Tick.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
And the UK Government gave a bailout to Hungarian airline Wizz Air just after refusing even a commercial loan to Virgin Atlantic.
(Wizz Air also happens to have the strongest financial position of any airline in Europe and could survive without any flights for 22 months, but can make a profit on the "soft loan" they got)
This line from that article seems rather relevant: The UK Government will make a profit on this loan
Germany's federal government and states on Thursday postponed a decision on fully reopening schools and kindergartens and resuming Bundesliga soccer matches, Focus Online news magazine reported, citing sources involved in the discussions.
Clearly worried about the R-figure.
Absolutely and why they switched back to stay at home unless you have to go out the other day.
If this had been the UK government, Piers Morgan would currently be screaming about incomponence indecisive U-turns....
The reality is I think we will see some stop start everywhere.
Problem is I can't see how they're going to get away from it. We saw how it was growing before. Any relaxation is going to get it going again to a lesser or greater degree.
That's where (or ought to be where) testing, track&trace, and isolation/quarantine comes in. S Korea made it work with no more than 20k tests a day. We (supposedly) now have five times that.
We also now have empty Nightingale hospitals, hotels etc. which gives the capacity to isolate.
If we had a halfway decent system to use that testing capacity it ought to be entirely possible.
The contact tracing app is the missing ingredient. Let's hope it works.
It is also significant that it has taken until now to generate sufficient testing capacity and it took several weeks to produce the Nightingale capacity. Neither were available to the government when we started the lockdown.
We are certainly in a massively better place now than we were a few weeks back. Kudos to the Govt. for that. The Royal Hindsight Commission will decide how much of this we should have had in place on 1st January, but at least by 1st May testing and ICU capacity is now in place. The stories behind the scenes of the heads that needed to be knocked together to get us here will be fascinating. The "different ways of working" will be legion.
Where are those EU ventilators BTW?
I am sure that there is a very high powered committee representing a vast plethora of interests working on it whilst we speak.
I spoke to a German colleague - he has a brother taking part in the "Naked Doctor" protest about PPE.
He is not impressed with the EU order thing. Given he lives a rock throw from a Wurth facility...
You're rewriting history - hindsight has nothing to do with it. It was blindingly obvious even at the time that the lockdown was too late and lax. That was why so many people were desperate for the government to take action and why people began to take action themselves when the government failed to act. When you're dealing with potential exponential growth, rapid action at the start makes a critical difference.
There is a basic principle here: when you don't understand what's happening, do whatever you can to reduce the chances of the worst outcome. It almost beggars belief that the government dithered for so long.
With respect this is just nonsense. At the time the best advice was that control of the virus by trace and isolate was doomed to fail. The object therefore was to flatten the curve, an object that has been achieved. Now, with the experience of SK, it is thought that it might be possible to control the virus this way long term. Whether that in fact proves to be the case remains to be seen but it is rewriting history to suggest that was an option that was suggested as being open to the government at the time.
The cost of the lockdown runs to tens of billions a week. We must be locked down for as short a period as possible compatible with our primary objective of not allowing the NHS to be overwhelmed. In Scotland the lock down undoubtedly came at least 2 weeks, possibly 3 weeks too early. The extra capacity created in the NHS has not been used. Other people whose treatment was deferred will die as a result of that wasted capacity. The number of cases remains small and the costs of the lockdown wholly disproportionate. As I understand it the same could be said for the SW. When to lockdown was a difficult decision which had to be taken when a part of the country, London in this case, was reaching breaking point so far as the NHS was concerned.
I disagree that the primary objective of the lockdown should be to avoid the health service being overwhelmed. Also the government's original "flatten the curve" policy was misconceived (they don't talk about it now).
The primary objective of the lockdown should be to get control over the epidemic infection rate and keep total infections down, The second objective is to buy time so other more targeted and less damaging methods of control can be brought in. including test, trace and quarantine. Not overwhelming the health service is necessary but is dealt with by this primary purpose of infection rate control. None of this is new; it was discussed at the time, including by myself. Asian countries were already successfully following this policy.
By acting late, ineffectively and not using the time to prepare, the government has given itself less room for manoeuvre to ease off lockdown, with the result that many more people will die and the lockdown will be longer and more economically and socially damaging than it need to have been.
We are where we are and we have to deal with the situation as it is, but we also need to be aware that are choices now are limited by those mistakes previously made.
Oh and just to congratulate the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. Took a lot of stick but he made it. 100k tests. Tick.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
Why do you think that a public inquiry is inevitable? 80 majority an all.
'nihilists' is one word for them. I can think of others...
Really? What word do you apply to people who refuse to vote for somebody they believe to be a senile rapist?
Wait, which one's the senile rapist?
Well, it's not proven in either case, but I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to conclude both of them. And Biden's cognitive decline seems worse than Trump's, which makes me wonder why all the liberals who were going on about Trump's lack of intelligence being so important for the last four years would pick Biden.
You're rewriting history - hindsight has nothing to do with it. It was blindingly obvious even at the time that the lockdown was too late and lax. That was why so many people were desperate for the government to take action and why people began to take action themselves when the government failed to act. When you're dealing with potential exponential growth, rapid action at the start makes a critical difference.
There is a basic principle here: when you don't understand what's happening, do whatever you can to reduce the chances of the worst outcome. It almost beggars belief that the government dithered for so long.
With respect this is just nonsense. At the time the best advice was that control of the virus by trace and isolate was doomed to fail. The object therefore was to flatten the curve, an object that has been achieved. Now, with the experience of SK, it is thought that it might be possible to control the virus this way long term. Whether that in fact proves to be the case remains to be seen but it is rewriting history to suggest that was an option that was suggested as being open to the government at the time.
The cost of the lockdown runs to tens of billions a week. We must be locked down for as short a period as possible compatible with our primary objective of not allowing the NHS to be overwhelmed. In Scotland the lock down undoubtedly came at least 2 weeks, possibly 3 weeks too early. The extra capacity created in the NHS has not been used. Other people whose treatment was deferred will die as a result of that wasted capacity. The number of cases remains small and the costs of the lockdown wholly disproportionate. As I understand it the same could be said for the SW. When to lockdown was a difficult decision which had to be taken when a part of the country, London in this case, was reaching breaking point so far as the NHS was concerned.
I disagree that the primary objective of the lockdown should be to avoid the health service being overwhelmed. Also the government's original "flatten the curve" policy was misconceived (they don't talk about it now).
The primary objective of the lockdown should be to get control over the epidemic infection rate and keep total infections down, The second objective is to buy time so other more targeted and less damaging methods of control can be brought in. including test, trace and quarantine. Not overwhelming the health service is necessary but is dealt with by this primary purpose of infection rate control. None of this is new; it was discussed at the time, including by myself. Asian countries were already successfully following this policy.
By acting late, ineffectively and not using the time to prepare, the government has given itself less room for manoeuvre to ease off lockdown, with the result that many more people will die and the lockdown will be longer and more economically and socially damaging than it need to have been.
We are where we are and we have to deal with the situation as it is, but we also need to be aware that are choices now are limited by those mistakes previously made.
The government still talks about flattening the curve daily. The advice was that what SK was trying wouldn't work. The time won has been used to almost miraculous effect. I am genuinely astonished how fast the NHS and the Treasury have moved. You can certainly make the point we did not start in the right place and that the existing plans should have looked more closely at what south Asian countries achieved with previous pandemics like SARS but that was the advice the government had.
Oh and just to congratulate the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. Took a lot of stick but he made it. 100k tests. Tick.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
If the government / Hancock is totally billy bullshitting about the amounts it will soon leak and it would massively discredit the government stats on everything related to CV. It would make claims that lockdown was a few days late or shortage of PPE look like a minor bumps in the round.
I think there are valid criticisms / improvements i.e. the test turn around need to be less than 24hrs for front line workers and we need to more to a system where such workers can get one done basically straight away (while the plebs can queue).
And the UK Government gave a bailout to Hungarian airline Wizz Air just after refusing even a commercial loan to Virgin Atlantic.
(Wizz Air also happens to have the strongest financial position of any airline in Europe and could survive without any flights for 22 months, but can make a profit on the "soft loan" they got)
Virgin Atlantic have refused to be transparent, repeatedly about their structure. Given the way that they seem to make a loss onshore, while paying over the odds for services provided by offshore companies....
You are making an assumption here that tax is all that incentivises people to forgo income.
for example My job my take home pay is Y, for a shelf stacker it is X The extra money I get paid (Y-X) incentivises me to keep in my job and not quit and become a shelf stacker.
However my job also involves unpaid overtime, stress, support rota's, longer commutes probably as most shelf stackers will live closer to work. If the value Y-X becomes small enough that I don't think the extra pay is worth all that extra angst I definitely go sod this I will go shelf stacking instead. Your progressive taxation lowers the value of Y-X as I will be paying a larger portion of tax than currently thus lowering the value of Y and possibly raising the value of X.
No, it's the other way round. The proposal I described is designed to reduce the perverse incentive not to take the increased pay, which you get at the moment because of various tax band effects (and benefits as well). At no point in the system I'm describing would you be heavily penalised for earning extra pay.
Betting post: I`ve posted a few times over the last few weeks and months that Trump`s narcicism means that he doesn`t fight battles he thinks he won`t win. His ego can`t take defeat. I`m still not convinced he`ll run. And I believe that if he does he will lose - and lose badly. That was my position before the virus and think it even more so now. Accordingly, I`ve been laying Trump all over the shop both to win the GE and to be the Rep nominee.
I now see that Trump himself is starting to question things. See links below, which are articles written in the last few hours.
Winning party: lay Republicans at 2.04 Republican nominee: lay Trump at 1.07 Nominee combo: lay Trump/Biden at 1.20 Next President: lay Trump at 2.12
I wouldn`t put anyone off taking any of these, but my favourite lay at the moment is the bottom market on this list.
He didn't think he'd win in 2016
I`m not sure. I thought he`d win in 2016 and did very well! I was in Florida the week before the election - and an up-market cosmopolitan area that I would have had as nailed-on Dem. There were Trump posters and placards in gardens everywhere. I think it hinges on internal party polling.
Sheepish saying this but I also backed him to win in 2016. Not that I truly thought he would but the odds - approx 4/1 IIRC - looked too high with the Brexit debacle over here being still such a fresh memory.
PS:
That's me, you and @Alistair in the Trump Toast club now.
And the UK Government gave a bailout to Hungarian airline Wizz Air just after refusing even a commercial loan to Virgin Atlantic.
(Wizz Air also happens to have the strongest financial position of any airline in Europe and could survive without any flights for 22 months, but can make a profit on the "soft loan" they got)
Virgin Atlantic have refused to be transparent, repeatedly about their structure. Given the way that they seem to make a loss onshore, while paying over the odds for services provided by offshore companies....
Virgin are reaping what they have sowed. I know nobody who has sympathy for them.
The Cheltenham Festival could have helped to "accelerate the spread" of coronavirus, a former government chief scientific adviser said.
Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007, said it was "the best possible way to accelerate the spread of the virus".
I'm sure it did. I'm also sure that the Central Line was a better conductor. Then perhaps the Northern Line, then the District & Circle. Then Brighton and District U-21 league qualifier, then...then...oh and Cheltenham is certainly in the mix.
I have little doubt the tubes were big conductors and Cheltenham maybe as well as the football
It is absurd to conflate the two though. There is a distinction in that one was essential to people to travelling to work, whereas large scale mass gatherings were not essential to peoples' daily lives. That is why events such as Cheltenham stand out as totemic evidence of unnecessary delay. Prior to 20th March the Government had left it to those organising such events to decide whether or not to cancel them, and too many organisers decided that they could not afford to cancel.
As far as I understand it is only Cheltenham and Liverpools match that is controversial and we have yet to see conclusive evidence they were. It is probable but at present not proven. Let us wait for the evidence.
I do have an open mind on this one
I don't think you need a rigorous scientific proof in order to draw conclusions on this one. There were 10 days between the start of Cheltenham on 10th March and when the Government finally banned such mass gatherings, yet from the start of March PHE had already acknowledged publically that the spread of the virus throughout the UK was highly likely. Germany acted far earlier, introducing their ban on such events on 10th March which strengthened earlier advice to cancel.
To be honest you may be right but the news coming out of Germany this morning is not good. I prefer to keep an open mind and see how this plays out over the months and even years ahead. Mistakes have been made but of course it is easy, with hindsight, to say x,y,z should have been done when you know an outcome
You're rewriting history - hindsight has nothing to do with it. It was blindingly obvious even at the time that the lockdown was too late and lax. That was why so many people were desperate for the government to take action and why people began to take action themselves when the government failed to act. When you're dealing with potential exponential growth, rapid action at the start makes a critical difference.
There is a basic principle here: when you don't understand what's happening, do whatever you can to reduce the chances of the worst outcome. It almost beggars belief that the government dithered for so long.
The Cheltenham Festival could have helped to "accelerate the spread" of coronavirus, a former government chief scientific adviser said.
Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007, said it was "the best possible way to accelerate the spread of the virus".
I'm sure it did. I'm also sure that the Central Line was a better conductor. Then perhaps the Northern Line, then the District & Circle. Then Brighton and District U-21 league qualifier, then...then...oh and Cheltenham is certainly in the mix.
I have little doubt the tubes were big conductors and Cheltenham maybe as well as the football
It is absurd to conflate the two though. There is a distinction in that one was essential to people to travelling to work, whereas large scale mass gatherings were not essential to peoples' daily lives. That is why events such as Cheltenham stand out as totemic evidence of unnecessary delay. Prior to 20th March the Government had left it to those organising such events to decide whether or not to cancel them, and too many organisers decided that they could not afford to cancel.
As far as I understand it is only Cheltenham and Liverpools match that is controversial and we have yet to see conclusive evidence they were. It is probable but at present not proven. Let us wait for the evidence.
I do have an open mind on this one
I don't think you need a rigorous scientific proof in order to draw conclusions on this one. There were 10 days between the start of Cheltenham on 10th March and when the Government finally banned such mass gatherings, yet from the start of March PHE had already acknowledged publically that the spread of the virus throughout the UK was highly likely. Germany acted far earlier, introducing their ban on such events on 10th March which strengthened earlier advice to cancel.
To be honest you may be right but the news coming out of Germany this morning is not good. I prefer to keep an open mind and see how this plays out over the months and even years ahead. Mistakes have been made but of course it is easy, with hindsight, to say x,y,z should have been done when you know an outcome
You're rewriting history - hindsight has nothing to do with it. It was blindingly obvious even at the time that the lockdown was too late and lax. That was why so many people were desperate for the government to take action and why people began to take action themselves when the government failed to act. When you're dealing with potential exponential growth, rapid action at the start makes a critical difference.
There is a basic principle here: when you don't understand what's happening, do whatever you can to reduce the chances of the worst outcome. It almost beggars belief that the government dithered for so long.
With respect this is just nonsense. At the time the best advice was that control of the virus by trace and isolate was doomed to fail. The object therefore was to flatten the curve, an object that has been achieved. Now, with the experience of SK, it is thought that it might be possible to control the virus this way long term. Whether that in fact proves to be the case remains to be seen but it is rewriting history to suggest that was an option that was suggested as being open to the government at the time.
The cost of the lockdown runs to tens of billions a week. We must be locked down for as short a period as possible compatible with our primary objective of not allowing the NHS to be overwhelmed. In Scotland the lock down undoubtedly came at least 2 weeks, possibly 3 weeks too early. The extra capacity created in the NHS has not been used. Other people whose treatment was deferred will die as a result of that wasted capacity. The number of cases remains small and the costs of the lockdown wholly disproportionate. As I understand it the same could be said for the SW. When to lockdown was a difficult decision which had to be taken when a part of the country, London in this case, was reaching breaking point so far as the NHS was concerned.
Well said.
Some people are acting as if the only acceptable death number is zero or as close to zero as possible. The objective was to not overwhelm the NHS and flatten the curve - and the curve has been flattened and the NHS was never overwhelmed.
The lockdown came at the right point for London and was probably too early for the rest of the UK but it makes sense not to repeat the Italian mistake of locking down one region only then seeing people flee from there to the rest of the nation. So it made sense sadly to lock down too early in the rest of the UK otherwise we'd have been flooded with Londoners bringing the plague with them.
I'm sorry, but the nature of exponential mathematics means your argument is cobblers. The earlier you impose restrictions that reduce R, the less time you have to impose them for, as it takes less time to reduce the number of infections from a lower base.
A terrible idea that could happen is legalising, and taxing, marijuana
My opinion is that legalising it is better than keeping it illegal at least with regulation you can control the potency.
But only if you're prepared to dish out serious punishment for possession of illegal drugs.
If legalised drugs are sold "not for profit" then you surely kill the illegal versions and , metaphorically, those involved therewith.
That assumes the proposal is to legalise all drugs. I'm not sure anyone wants to legalise heroin, though I might be wrong.
Where is there an assumption of legalisation being all embracing? I specifically related the consequence to whatever drug is legalised. What you legalise is a different debate.
'nihilists' is one word for them. I can think of others...
Really? What word do you apply to people who refuse to vote for somebody they believe to be a senile rapist?
Wait, which one's the senile rapist?
Well, it's not proven in either case, but I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to conclude both of them. And Biden's cognitive decline seems worse than Trump's, which makes me wonder why all the liberals who were going on about Trump's lack of intelligence being so important for the last four years would pick Biden.
Biden isn't as sharp as he was but there's no sign that he's losing his mind, it's a totally different kind of thing to Trump.
You notice it less with Trump because you get used to him being confused and incoherent but the decline is really dramatic if you look at a clip from when he was younger and realise that he used to be able to express coherent thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-w47wgdhso
All those vegan's smashing the doors down to get the infamous sausage roll....
Bakery chain Greggs has said its planned branch re-openings next week will now begin behind closed doors. The sausage roll supplier is fearful of "the risk that excessive numbers of customers" may turn up.
How can you re-open 'behind closed doors?' do you just look at the steak bake through the window?
Take-away / delivery I guess?
One of our pubs is operating it's food service as a takeaway, and very, very good it is, too.
Oh and just to congratulate the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. Took a lot of stick but he made it. 100k tests. Tick.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
If the government / Hancock is totally billy bullshitting about the amounts it will soon leak and it would massively discredit the government stats on everything related to CV. It would make claims that lockdown was a few days late or shortage of PPE look like a minor bumps in the round.
I think there are valid criticisms / improvements i.e. the test turn around need to be less than 24hrs for front line workers and we need to more to a system where such workers can get one done basically straight away (while the plebs can queue).
It is a classic example of a stretch goal.
It's interesting to listen to the rather blurry criticism of the strategy - see BBC reports etc - from inside the system. It sounds rather as if the approach that the system would prefer would be a carefully designed testing structure, then order the right testing facilities to match. All very waterfall.
The public administartion organisations in this country love waterfall planing.
The other approach is to say - if we have a too many tests, LOL. So we just keep increasing testing capacity. Who gets tested can be changed relatively quickly,
I would also presume that it was a case of "setup new facility x. Debug it. Create y facilities to the same formula". That kind of rollout can end up looking quite... exponential.
'nihilists' is one word for them. I can think of others...
Really? What word do you apply to people who refuse to vote for somebody they believe to be a senile rapist?
Wait, which one's the senile rapist?
Well, it's not proven in either case, but I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to conclude both of them. And Biden's cognitive decline seems worse than Trump's, which makes me wonder why all the liberals who were going on about Trump's lack of intelligence being so important for the last four years would pick Biden.
Biden isn't as sharp as he was but there's no sign that he's losing his mind, it's a totally different kind of thing to Trump.
You notice it less with Trump because you get used to him being confused and incoherent but the decline is really dramatic if you look at a clip from when he was younger and realise that he used to be able to express coherent thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-w47wgdhso
Iain Dale put up an interview on his podcast a few weeks ago that he did with Trump before Trump got into politics. It was extraordinary. He sounded very different then. (I still didn`t like him obvs.)
Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has said it will take up to six months to refund passengers for flights cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Virgin is 100 days.
The EU are in the process of waving the 14 day refund law thereby using the ordinary holidaymaker as the sacrificial lamb for these companies
It is an utter disgrace and abuse of power by the EU
I hope consumer groups challenge this dreadful decision
I am fortunate that BA have refunded my £2,000 flight charge for our May trip but even that was extremely difficult to obtain through BA own evasion
And of course O'Leary wants to take six months as he is looking for the EU to shaft the ordinary holidaymakers
It is shameful
Interesting that you had issues with BA BigG. Looks like at some point soon I`m going to have to tackle BA over £2,500 flights which look unlikely to happen in July. Any tips? Did you get the refund via BA or via your credit card company?
Any advice much appreciated.
I did tackle BA when we went into lockdown by e mail as it impossible to get any sense any other way. However, they only offered me a voucher as their flight was still scheduled on the 12th May to Vancouver, return on the 25th May. A week or so ago I received an e mail from BA confirming they had cancelled both flights and referred me to my booking app.
The app only allows for you to apply for a voucher and it is very difficult to actually see where you apply for a refund which is the law at present, unless of course the EU do pass this change which you need to watch. I e mailed BA again and tried their customer services on the phone for over a couple of days and in the end, and after a one and a quarter hour wait, I did get through to a BA customer service rep working from her home in Bolton who processed the refund and was very helpful. Within 48 hours of my phone call with BA my full refund of £2,034.76 was back in my credit card account
I had e mailed Nationwide at the same time I was having difficulty with BA re my credit card and they were very efficient contacting me within a couple of days confirming their responsibility under the credit card act and to keep in touch over progress with BA
I would suggest to yourself and indeed anyone going on holiday over the next few months to keep an eye on when the flights etc are actually cancelled and the minute the cancellation takes place contact the company preferably by phone, or otherwise e mail and simultaneously contact your credit card issuer and seek to use the Section 75 credit card scheme, and maybe even more importantly if the EU really do pass this dreadful attack on European holidaymakers, to cover for any loss
On the BA app you can seek out the flight status by keying in your destination and flight date and it will show if the flight is still active
I hope this helps
BA ignored my brother's request for a refund on his London to Heathrow flights booked for 12 May and replaced it with an alternative flight.
Chinese ventilators that ministers heralded as vital to the NHS’s efforts to tackle Covid-19 were badly built, unsuitable for use in hospitals and potentially dangerous for patients, it has emerged.
A well-placed NHS source said the incident highlighted problems that had occurred with a range of medical supplies and equipment ordered from China during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some other stuff ordered from China recently, especially personal protective equipment, has also turned out to be either of a lesser quality than what we need or to be the wrong thing altogether, like T-shirts instead of long-sleeved surgical gowns” they said.
Just taking the piss. Flog the west any old shit, because they will be too busy to worry about any come back.
I wouldn't take it personally. By all accounts anyone who tries to buy stuff from Chinese suppliers without knowing who they're buying from and how to make sure they get their money's worth is going to get robbed, Western, Chinese or otherwise.
Chinese ventilators that ministers heralded as vital to the NHS’s efforts to tackle Covid-19 were badly built, unsuitable for use in hospitals and potentially dangerous for patients, it has emerged.
A well-placed NHS source said the incident highlighted problems that had occurred with a range of medical supplies and equipment ordered from China during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some other stuff ordered from China recently, especially personal protective equipment, has also turned out to be either of a lesser quality than what we need or to be the wrong thing altogether, like T-shirts instead of long-sleeved surgical gowns” they said.
Just taking the piss. Flog the west any old shit, because they will be too busy to worry about any come back.
The problem is, in the Uk in particular, procurement has been about buy the cheapest possible. The Chinese have ripped off patents for medical devices left right and centre, as they have in other areas, and their companies have been rewarded with sales of low quality equipment. The one thing that has prevented it being even worse has been the requirements of CE marking and FDA regulations.
Chinese have always ripped off patents on everything. Way back I worked with James Mackie exporting jute machinery and the Chinese even copied the patent plaque on the machine.
Oh and just to congratulate the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. Took a lot of stick but he made it. 100k tests. Tick.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
If the government / Hancock is totally billy bullshitting about the amounts it will soon leak and it would massively discredit the government stats on everything related to CV. It would make claims that lockdown was a few days late or shortage of PPE look like a minor bumps in the round.
I think there are valid criticisms / improvements i.e. the test turn around need to be less than 24hrs for front line workers and we need to more to a system where such workers can get one done basically straight away (while the plebs can queue).
Fair enough. You are better informed than me on this issue. I track 5 PB posters on matters virus and you are one of them. Awesome responsibility, this, I realize, so I probably shouldn't have said.
'nihilists' is one word for them. I can think of others...
Really? What word do you apply to people who refuse to vote for somebody they believe to be a senile rapist?
Wait, which one's the senile rapist?
Well, it's not proven in either case, but I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to conclude both of them. And Biden's cognitive decline seems worse than Trump's, which makes me wonder why all the liberals who were going on about Trump's lack of intelligence being so important for the last four years would pick Biden.
Biden isn't as sharp as he was but there's no sign that he's losing his mind, it's a totally different kind of thing to Trump.
You notice it less with Trump because you get used to him being confused and incoherent but the decline is really dramatic if you look at a clip from when he was younger and realise that he used to be able to express coherent thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-w47wgdhso
Wow its a different person.
Biden I think it is clear he's losing his mind. And with the rape allegations surrounding him with Reade too . . . he is not a good candidate at all.
Oh and just to congratulate the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. Took a lot of stick but he made it. 100k tests. Tick.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
Why do you think that a public inquiry is inevitable? 80 majority an all.
And in a year. We will be a long way from resolving the issues in a year
Iain Dale put up an interview on his podcast a few weeks ago that he did with Trump before Trump got into politics. It was extraordinary. He sounded very different then. (I still didn`t like him obvs.)
Yup, it's kind of jarring to hear him having a lot of the same phrases and verbal tics, but deploying them to say normal, coherent things without the brain worms.
All but the top is paywalled, but enough to get the gist here.
I was worrying about a French trade border shutdown come January with them not wanting intensive border management during a second pandemic wave. I read about some trilateral UK/Ireland/France deal to assure trade flows during COVID last week. The only explanation that such a thing would not be taken as read is that HMG shared that worry, and are looking at No Deal.
Oh and just to congratulate the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. Took a lot of stick but he made it. 100k tests. Tick.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
If the government / Hancock is totally billy bullshitting about the amounts it will soon leak and it would massively discredit the government stats on everything related to CV. It would make claims that lockdown was a few days late or shortage of PPE look like a minor bumps in the round.
I think there are valid criticisms / improvements i.e. the test turn around need to be less than 24hrs for front line workers and we need to more to a system where such workers can get one done basically straight away (while the plebs can queue).
It is a classic example of a stretch goal.
It's interesting to listen to the rather blurry criticism of the strategy - see BBC reports etc - from inside the system. It sounds rather as if the approach that the system would prefer would be a carefully designed testing structure, then order the right testing facilities to match. All very waterfall.
The public administartion organisations in this country love waterfall planing.
The other approach is to say - if we have a too many tests, LOL. So we just keep increasing testing capacity. Who gets tested can be changed relatively quickly,
I would also presume that it was a case of "setup new facility x. Debug it. Create y facilities to the same formula". That kind of rollout can end up looking quite... exponential.
Too many people still don't understand exponential growth even now. Hence people expected the testing to go up on a linear scale.
You're rewriting history - hindsight has nothing to do with it. It was blindingly obvious even at the time that the lockdown was too late and lax. That was why so many people were desperate for the government to take action and why people began to take action themselves when the government failed to act. When you're dealing with potential exponential growth, rapid action at the start makes a critical difference.
There is a basic principle here: when you don't understand what's happening, do whatever you can to reduce the chances of the worst outcome. It almost beggars belief that the government dithered for so long.
With respect this is just nonsense. At the time the best advice was that control of the virus by trace and isolate was doomed to fail. The object therefore was to flatten the curve, an object that has been achieved. Now, with the experience of SK, it is thought that it might be possible to control the virus this way long term. Whether that in fact proves to be the case remains to be seen but it is rewriting history to suggest that was an option that was suggested as being open to the government at the time.
The cost of the lockdown runs to tens of billions a week. We must be locked down for as short a period as possible compatible with our primary objective of not allowing the NHS to be overwhelmed. In Scotland the lock down undoubtedly came at least 2 weeks, possibly 3 weeks too early. The extra capacity created in the NHS has not been used. Other people whose treatment was deferred will die as a result of that wasted capacity. The number of cases remains small and the costs of the lockdown wholly disproportionate. As I understand it the same could be said for the SW. When to lockdown was a difficult decision which had to be taken when a part of the country, London in this case, was reaching breaking point so far as the NHS was concerned.
I disagree that the primary objective of the lockdown should be to avoid the health service being overwhelmed. Also the government's original "flatten the curve" policy was misconceived (they don't talk about it now).
The primary objective of the lockdown should be to get control over the epidemic infection rate and keep total infections down, The second objective is to buy time so other more targeted and less damaging methods of control can be brought in. including test, trace and quarantine. Not overwhelming the health service is necessary but is dealt with by this primary purpose of infection rate control. None of this is new; it was discussed at the time, including by myself. Asian countries were already successfully following this policy.
By acting late, ineffectively and not using the time to prepare, the government has given itself less room for manoeuvre to ease off lockdown, with the result that many more people will die and the lockdown will be longer and more economically and socially damaging than it need to have been.
We are where we are and we have to deal with the situation as it is, but we also need to be aware that are choices now are limited by those mistakes previously made.
The government still talks about flattening the curve daily. The advice was that what SK was trying wouldn't work. The time won has been used to almost miraculous effect. I am genuinely astonished how fast the NHS and the Treasury have moved. You can certainly make the point we did not start in the right place and that the existing plans should have looked more closely at what south Asian countries achieved with previous pandemics like SARS but that was the advice the government had.
I agree the government has done a number of good things recently - although note most are in line with what's happening elsewhere. But there's no getting away from the UK's very high Covid-19 death and infection rates. This not only means a lot of personal tragedy but also in policy terms, it severely restricts the governments' options and possibility of significantly easing lockdown in the short term. As I say, we are where we are and we have to deal with it.
A terrible idea that could happen is legalising, and taxing, marijuana
It's everywhere already, go for a walk and you'll find people smoking it. It smells much stronger than 20 years ago as well.
It seems that 90% of 15-25 year old males are smoking it, I dread to think about all the mental health problems resulting in a decade or so.
It's currently believed 17.3% of 16-24 year olds have used cannabis "in the last year".
Drug use overall hit a low a few years ago, and has risen since - but is yet to come anywhere near all time highs (which I believe was 2001-2).
Kids these days don't know how to have fun...
I am always amused in the gym (those places we used to go to work out), when I hear the "kids" talk about being on a cut / eating super clean / not drinking, so they are in tip-top condition for their upcoming 2 week bender in Ayia Napa.
And the UK Government gave a bailout to Hungarian airline Wizz Air just after refusing even a commercial loan to Virgin Atlantic.
(Wizz Air also happens to have the strongest financial position of any airline in Europe and could survive without any flights for 22 months, but can make a profit on the "soft loan" they got)
This line from that article seems rather relevant: The UK Government will make a profit on this loan
Betting post: I`ve posted a few times over the last few weeks and months that Trump`s narcicism means that he doesn`t fight battles he thinks he won`t win. His ego can`t take defeat. I`m still not convinced he`ll run. And I believe that if he does he will lose - and lose badly. That was my position before the virus and think it even more so now. Accordingly, I`ve been laying Trump all over the shop both to win the GE and to be the Rep nominee.
I now see that Trump himself is starting to question things. See links below, which are articles written in the last few hours.
Winning party: lay Republicans at 2.04 Republican nominee: lay Trump at 1.07 Nominee combo: lay Trump/Biden at 1.20 Next President: lay Trump at 2.12
I wouldn`t put anyone off taking any of these, but my favourite lay at the moment is the bottom market on this list.
I am using the winning party market. I'm far more cautious than I would otherwise be as I fear the GOP using Coronavirus as cover for a massive voter disenfranchisement push but otherwise I'm with you. Trump is fucked.
The Cheltenham Festival could have helped to "accelerate the spread" of coronavirus, a former government chief scientific adviser said.
Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007, said it was "the best possible way to accelerate the spread of the virus".
I'm sure it did. I'm also sure that the Central Line was a better conductor. Then perhaps the Northern Line, then the District & Circle. Then Brighton and District U-21 league qualifier, then...then...oh and Cheltenham is certainly in the mix.
I have little doubt the tubes were big conductors and Cheltenham maybe as well as the football
It is absurd to conflate the two though. There is a distinction in that one was essential to people to travelling to work, whereas large scale mass gatherings were not essential to peoples' daily lives. That is why events such as Cheltenham stand out as totemic evidence of unnecessary delay. Prior to 20th March the Government had left it to those organising such events to decide whether or not to cancel them, and too many organisers decided that they could not afford to cancel.
As far as I understand it is only Cheltenham and Liverpools match that is controversial and we have yet to see conclusive evidence they were. It is probable but at present not proven. Let us wait for the evidence.
I do have an open mind on this one
I don't think you need a rigorous scientific proof in order to draw conclusions on this one. There were 10 days between the start of Cheltenham on 10th March and when the Government finally banned such mass gatherings, yet from the start of March PHE had already acknowledged publically that the spread of the virus throughout the UK was highly likely. Germany acted far earlier, introducing their ban on such events on 10th March which strengthened earlier advice to cancel.
To be honest you may be right but the news coming out of Germany this morning is not good. I prefer to keep an open mind and see how this plays out over the months and even years ahead. Mistakes have been made but of course it is easy, with hindsight, to say x,y,z should have been done when you know an outcome
You're rewriting history - hindsight has nothing to do with it. It was blindingly obvious even at the time that the lockdown was too late and lax. That was why so many people were desperate for the government to take action and why people began to take action themselves when the government failed to act. When you're dealing with potential exponential growth, rapid action at the start makes a critical difference.
There is a basic principle here: when you don't understand what's happening, do whatever you can to reduce the chances of the worst outcome. It almost beggars belief that the government dithered for so long.
With respect this is just nonsense. At the time the best advice was that control of the virus by trace and isolate was doomed to fail. The object therefore was to flatten the curve, an object that has been achieved. Now, with the experience of SK, it is thought that it might be possible to control the virus this way long term. Whether that in fact proves to be the case remains to be seen but it is rewriting history to suggest that was an option that was suggested as being open to the government at the time. ..
What was open to the government was locking down a week earlier. And all the evidence is that the sooner the lockdown, the shorter time it might have had to last. If all the evidence was that 'track and trace was doomed to fail' then locking down ought to have happened immediately. the reason it didn't was the flirtation with herd immunity.
Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has said it will take up to six months to refund passengers for flights cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Virgin is 100 days.
The EU are in the process of waving the 14 day refund law thereby using the ordinary holidaymaker as the sacrificial lamb for these companies
It is an utter disgrace and abuse of power by the EU
I hope consumer groups challenge this dreadful decision
I am fortunate that BA have refunded my £2,000 flight charge for our May trip but even that was extremely difficult to obtain through BA own evasion
And of course O'Leary wants to take six months as he is looking for the EU to shaft the ordinary holidaymakers
It is shameful
Interesting that you had issues with BA BigG. Looks like at some point soon I`m going to have to tackle BA over £2,500 flights which look unlikely to happen in July. Any tips? Did you get the refund via BA or via your credit card company?
Any advice much appreciated.
I did tackle BA when we went into lockdown by e mail as it impossible to get any sense any other way. However, they only offered me a voucher as their flight was still scheduled on the 12th May to Vancouver, return on the 25th May. A week or so ago I received an e mail from BA confirming they had cancelled both flights and referred me to my booking app.
The app only allows for you to apply for a voucher and it is very difficult to actually see where you apply for a refund which is the law at present, unless of course the EU do pass this change which you need to watch. I e mailed BA again and tried their customer services on the phone for over a couple of days and in the end, and after a one and a quarter hour wait, I did get through to a BA customer service rep working from her home in Bolton who processed the refund and was very helpful. Within 48 hours of my phone call with BA my full refund of £2,034.76 was back in my credit card account
I had e mailed Nationwide at the same time I was having difficulty with BA re my credit card and they were very efficient contacting me within a couple of days confirming their responsibility under the credit card act and to keep in touch over progress with BA
I would suggest to yourself and indeed anyone going on holiday over the next few months to keep an eye on when the flights etc are actually cancelled and the minute the cancellation takes place contact the company preferably by phone, or otherwise e mail and simultaneously contact your credit card issuer and seek to use the Section 75 credit card scheme, and maybe even more importantly if the EU really do pass this dreadful attack on European holidaymakers, to cover for any loss
On the BA app you can seek out the flight status by keying in your destination and flight date and it will show if the flight is still active
I hope this helps
BA ignored my brother's request for a refund on his London to Heathrow flights booked for 12 May and replaced it with an alternative flight.
Spot the flaw:
Oh dear. He needs to get his refund and tell his credit card company
You are making an assumption here that tax is all that incentivises people to forgo income.
for example My job my take home pay is Y, for a shelf stacker it is X The extra money I get paid (Y-X) incentivises me to keep in my job and not quit and become a shelf stacker.
However my job also involves unpaid overtime, stress, support rota's, longer commutes probably as most shelf stackers will live closer to work. If the value Y-X becomes small enough that I don't think the extra pay is worth all that extra angst I definitely go sod this I will go shelf stacking instead. Your progressive taxation lowers the value of Y-X as I will be paying a larger portion of tax than currently thus lowering the value of Y and possibly raising the value of X.
No, it's the other way round. The proposal I described is designed to reduce the perverse incentive not to take the increased pay, which you get at the moment because of various tax band effects (and benefits as well). At no point in the system I'm describing would you be heavily penalised for earning extra pay.
You miss my point entirely, I am not talking about not taking extra pay I am talking about the effect on take home pay differentials let me illustrate with some figures
A earns 20k he pays currently 20% tax of 29pounds a week and takes home 332 B earns 40k he pays currently 20% tax of 106pounds a week and takes home 529
B considers that the extra 197£ a week is reasonable compensation for the unpaid overtime , the commute costs, the stress and the support rota
under your system A now pays for example 5% and b pays 35%
A now pays tax of 7£ a week and takes home 354£ b now pays tax of 185$ a week and takes home 450£
Now B is wondering if the 96 pounds extra is worth it for the unpaid overtime , the commute costs, the stress and the support rota
'nihilists' is one word for them. I can think of others...
Really? What word do you apply to people who refuse to vote for somebody they believe to be a senile rapist?
Wait, which one's the senile rapist?
Well, it's not proven in either case, but I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to conclude both of them. And Biden's cognitive decline seems worse than Trump's, which makes me wonder why all the liberals who were going on about Trump's lack of intelligence being so important for the last four years would pick Biden.
Biden isn't as sharp as he was but there's no sign that he's losing his mind, it's a totally different kind of thing to Trump.
You notice it less with Trump because you get used to him being confused and incoherent but the decline is really dramatic if you look at a clip from when he was younger and realise that he used to be able to express coherent thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-w47wgdhso
Wow its a different person.
Biden I think it is clear he's losing his mind. And with the rape allegations surrounding him with Reade too . . . he is not a good candidate at all.
Disagree, his memory's going a bit but his mind's still there. And they were always going to put up a rape accuser against any man who ran.
And the UK Government gave a bailout to Hungarian airline Wizz Air just after refusing even a commercial loan to Virgin Atlantic.
(Wizz Air also happens to have the strongest financial position of any airline in Europe and could survive without any flights for 22 months, but can make a profit on the "soft loan" they got)
This line from that article seems rather relevant: The UK Government will make a profit on this loan
And would do so on all loans made at 0.6%
Not quite, they would do so only to companies they can be assured would repay the loan - which given you said that "Wizz Air also happens to have the strong financial position of any airline in Europe" etc seems to apply to them. Seems like a win/win that loan, they make money, we make money, there doesn't seem to be risk.
If another company took a loan at 0.6% but there was a 1% default risk then that would be a bad deal.
All those vegan's smashing the doors down to get the infamous sausage roll....
Bakery chain Greggs has said its planned branch re-openings next week will now begin behind closed doors. The sausage roll supplier is fearful of "the risk that excessive numbers of customers" may turn up.
How can you re-open 'behind closed doors?' do you just look at the steak bake through the window?
Take-away / delivery I guess?
One of our pubs is operating it's food service as a takeaway, and very, very good it is, too.
We treated ourselves on Tuesday to the legendary fish and chips from the Cott Inn at Dartington - currently still flying the big banner proclaiming it "The Best Pub in Britain". Just pulling in to the car park and smelling the food was a joy. Very organised, we had a time slot of 6.50, food was 10 minutes late but we could live with that. Ferocioulsy hot, we ate them in the car, looking out over Totnes.
It was about the happiest the wife has been in 8 weeks....
Oh and just to congratulate the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. Took a lot of stick but he made it. 100k tests. Tick.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
Why do you think that a public inquiry is inevitable? 80 majority an all.
Because it's just so big and we are heading for such a bad outcome - probably the worst in Europe. Surely some sort of formal "lessons learned" process will happen and be conducted in public? Don't know about the timing though.
A terrible idea that could happen is legalising, and taxing, marijuana
My opinion is that legalising it is better than keeping it illegal at least with regulation you can control the potency.
But only if you're prepared to dish out serious punishment for possession of illegal drugs.
If legalised drugs are sold "not for profit" then you surely kill the illegal versions and , metaphorically, those involved therewith.
Why on earth would legalised drugs be sold not for profit?
They should be sold for profit by a regulated company like Diageo.
The reality is who buys moonshine from a gangster when they can get a bottle of vodka (skunk) or beer (soft marijuana) from a shop?
Your first sentence - it depends on what your motivation is for producing a legal version. Do you want to kill the illegal version or do you want to make a profit? You pays your money ......
Not sure about your last sentence either, but if that's your experience it doesn't necessarily have wider ramifications.
'nihilists' is one word for them. I can think of others...
Really? What word do you apply to people who refuse to vote for somebody they believe to be a senile rapist?
Wait, which one's the senile rapist?
Well, it's not proven in either case, but I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to conclude both of them. And Biden's cognitive decline seems worse than Trump's, which makes me wonder why all the liberals who were going on about Trump's lack of intelligence being so important for the last four years would pick Biden.
Biden isn't as sharp as he was but there's no sign that he's losing his mind, it's a totally different kind of thing to Trump.
You notice it less with Trump because you get used to him being confused and incoherent but the decline is really dramatic if you look at a clip from when he was younger and realise that he used to be able to express coherent thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-w47wgdhso
Wow its a different person.
Biden I think it is clear he's losing his mind. And with the rape allegations surrounding him with Reade too . . . he is not a good candidate at all.
Disagree, his memory's going a bit but his mind's still there. And they were always going to put up a rape accuser against any man who ran.
Considering Reade's accusations have some media statements in the early nineties it seems more concerning than just something that was always going to happen.
Chinese ventilators that ministers heralded as vital to the NHS’s efforts to tackle Covid-19 were badly built, unsuitable for use in hospitals and potentially dangerous for patients, it has emerged.
A well-placed NHS source said the incident highlighted problems that had occurred with a range of medical supplies and equipment ordered from China during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some other stuff ordered from China recently, especially personal protective equipment, has also turned out to be either of a lesser quality than what we need or to be the wrong thing altogether, like T-shirts instead of long-sleeved surgical gowns” they said.
Betting post: I`ve posted a few times over the last few weeks and months that Trump`s narcicism means that he doesn`t fight battles he thinks he won`t win. His ego can`t take defeat. I`m still not convinced he`ll run. And I believe that if he does he will lose - and lose badly. That was my position before the virus and think it even more so now. Accordingly, I`ve been laying Trump all over the shop both to win the GE and to be the Rep nominee.
I now see that Trump himself is starting to question things. See links below, which are articles written in the last few hours.
Winning party: lay Republicans at 2.04 Republican nominee: lay Trump at 1.07 Nominee combo: lay Trump/Biden at 1.20 Next President: lay Trump at 2.12
I wouldn`t put anyone off taking any of these, but my favourite lay at the moment is the bottom market on this list.
I am using the winning party market. I'm far more cautious than I would otherwise be as I fear the GOP using Coronavirus as cover for a massive voter disenfranchisement push but otherwise I'm with you. Trump is fucked.
Why lay (at 2.04) on winning party market when you can lay Trump specifically (at 2.12) and have two chances of winning? You are running the risk of Trump pulling out and the Reps going on to win with a different nominee.
A terrible idea that could happen is legalising, and taxing, marijuana
My opinion is that legalising it is better than keeping it illegal at least with regulation you can control the potency.
But only if you're prepared to dish out serious punishment for possession of illegal drugs.
If legalised drugs are sold "not for profit" then you surely kill the illegal versions and , metaphorically, those involved therewith.
Why on earth would legalised drugs be sold not for profit?
They should be sold for profit by a regulated company like Diageo.
The reality is who buys moonshine from a gangster when they can get a bottle of vodka (skunk) or beer (soft marijuana) from a shop?
Your first sentence - it depends on what your motivation is for producing a legal version. Do you want to kill the illegal version or do you want to make a profit? You pays your money ......
Not sure about your last sentence either, but if that's your experience it doesn't necessarily have wider ramifications.
I want to do both. And for-profit companies work smarter and better than not-for-profit ones. Profit is not a bad thing.
How much illegal moonshine alcohol do you buy from gangsters? I've personally always bought beer, wine and spirits that were legally produced as opposed to illegal unregulated gangster moonshine.
You are making an assumption here that tax is all that incentivises people to forgo income.
for example My job my take home pay is Y, for a shelf stacker it is X The extra money I get paid (Y-X) incentivises me to keep in my job and not quit and become a shelf stacker.
However my job also involves unpaid overtime, stress, support rota's, longer commutes probably as most shelf stackers will live closer to work. If the value Y-X becomes small enough that I don't think the extra pay is worth all that extra angst I definitely go sod this I will go shelf stacking instead. Your progressive taxation lowers the value of Y-X as I will be paying a larger portion of tax than currently thus lowering the value of Y and possibly raising the value of X.
No, it's the other way round. The proposal I described is designed to reduce the perverse incentive not to take the increased pay, which you get at the moment because of various tax band effects (and benefits as well). At no point in the system I'm describing would you be heavily penalised for earning extra pay.
You miss my point entirely, I am not talking about not taking extra pay I am talking about the effect on take home pay differentials let me illustrate with some figures
A earns 20k he pays currently 20% tax of 29pounds a week and takes home 332 B earns 40k he pays currently 20% tax of 106pounds a week and takes home 529
B considers that the extra 197£ a week is reasonable compensation for the unpaid overtime , the commute costs, the stress and the support rota
under your system A now pays for example 5% and b pays 35%
A now pays tax of 7£ a week and takes home 354£ b now pays tax of 185$ a week and takes home 450£
Now B is wondering if the 96 pounds extra is worth it for the unpaid overtime , the commute costs, the stress and the support rota
No, your figure of 35% at £40K is far, far too high. I haven't done the full sums (and of course it could be calibrated at whatever rate the Chancellor wanted), but I'd guess it would probably be around 15% at that level.
The Cheltenham Festival could have helped to "accelerate the spread" of coronavirus, a former government chief scientific adviser said.
Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007, said it was "the best possible way to accelerate the spread of the virus".
I'm sure it did. I'm also sure that the Central Line was a better conductor. Then perhaps the Northern Line, then the District & Circle. Then Brighton and District U-21 league qualifier, then...then...oh and Cheltenham is certainly in the mix.
I have little doubt the tubes were big conductors and Cheltenham maybe as well as the football
It is absurd to conflate the two though. There is a distinction in that one was essential to people to travelling to work, whereas large scale mass gatherings were not essential to peoples' daily lives. That is why events such as Cheltenham stand out as totemic evidence of unnecessary delay. Prior to 20th March the Government had left it to those organising such events to decide whether or not to cancel them, and too many organisers decided that they could not afford to cancel.
As far as I understand it is only Cheltenham and Liverpools match that is controversial and we have yet to see conclusive evidence they were. It is probable but at present not proven. Let us wait for the evidence.
I do have an open mind on this one
I don't think you need a rigorous scientific proof in order to draw conclusions on this one. There were 10 days between the start of Cheltenham on 10th March and when the Government finally banned such mass gatherings, yet from the start of March PHE had already acknowledged publically that the spread of the virus throughout the UK was highly likely. Germany acted far earlier, introducing their ban on such events on 10th March which strengthened earlier advice to cancel.
To be honest you may be right but the news coming out of Germany this morning is not good. I prefer to keep an open mind and see how this plays out over the months and even years ahead. Mistakes have been made but of course it is easy, with hindsight, to say x,y,z should have been done when you know an outcome
You're rewriting history - hindsight has nothing to do with it. It was blindingly obvious even at the time that the lockdown was too late and lax. That was why so many people were desperate for the government to take action and why people began to take action themselves when the government failed to act. When you're dealing with potential exponential growth, rapid action at the start makes a critical difference.
There is a basic principle here: when you don't understand what's happening, do whatever you can to reduce the chances of the worst outcome. It almost beggars belief that the government dithered for so long.
With respect this is just nonsense. At the time the best advice was that control of the virus by trace and isolate was doomed to fail. The object therefore was to flatten the curve, an object that has been achieved. Now, with the experience of SK, it is thought that it might be possible to control the virus this way long term. Whether that in fact proves to be the case remains to be seen but it is rewriting history to suggest that was an option that was suggested as being open to the government at the time. ..
What was open to the government was locking down a week earlier. And all the evidence is that the sooner the lockdown, the shorter time it might have had to last. If all the evidence was that 'track and trace was doomed to fail' then locking down ought to have happened immediately. the reason it didn't was the flirtation with herd immunity.
I am really not sure how you can say that when yesterday we had 6k new cases. If a lockdown stopped the spread completely then maybe but it clearly doesn't just as the government models said it wouldn't. What I think we need to focus a lot more attention on is where those 6k people got infected, where are the weak points and what can we do about them if we come out of lockdown.
Betting post: I`ve posted a few times over the last few weeks and months that Trump`s narcicism means that he doesn`t fight battles he thinks he won`t win. His ego can`t take defeat. I`m still not convinced he`ll run. And I believe that if he does he will lose - and lose badly. That was my position before the virus and think it even more so now. Accordingly, I`ve been laying Trump all over the shop both to win the GE and to be the Rep nominee.
I now see that Trump himself is starting to question things. See links below, which are articles written in the last few hours.
Winning party: lay Republicans at 2.04 Republican nominee: lay Trump at 1.07 Nominee combo: lay Trump/Biden at 1.20 Next President: lay Trump at 2.12
I wouldn`t put anyone off taking any of these, but my favourite lay at the moment is the bottom market on this list.
I am using the winning party market. I'm far more cautious than I would otherwise be as I fear the GOP using Coronavirus as cover for a massive voter disenfranchisement push but otherwise I'm with you. Trump is fucked.
I haven't noticed it mentioned here, although it may have been, but a Texas poll put Biden a point up. MOE of course, but pointing to a big problem for Trump.
Chinese ventilators that ministers heralded as vital to the NHS’s efforts to tackle Covid-19 were badly built, unsuitable for use in hospitals and potentially dangerous for patients, it has emerged.
A well-placed NHS source said the incident highlighted problems that had occurred with a range of medical supplies and equipment ordered from China during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some other stuff ordered from China recently, especially personal protective equipment, has also turned out to be either of a lesser quality than what we need or to be the wrong thing altogether, like T-shirts instead of long-sleeved surgical gowns” they said.
'nihilists' is one word for them. I can think of others...
Really? What word do you apply to people who refuse to vote for somebody they believe to be a senile rapist?
Wait, which one's the senile rapist?
Well, it's not proven in either case, but I'd say it's perfectly reasonable to conclude both of them. And Biden's cognitive decline seems worse than Trump's, which makes me wonder why all the liberals who were going on about Trump's lack of intelligence being so important for the last four years would pick Biden.
Biden isn't as sharp as he was but there's no sign that he's losing his mind, it's a totally different kind of thing to Trump.
You notice it less with Trump because you get used to him being confused and incoherent but the decline is really dramatic if you look at a clip from when he was younger and realise that he used to be able to express coherent thoughts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-w47wgdhso
Wow its a different person.
Biden I think it is clear he's losing his mind. And with the rape allegations surrounding him with Reade too . . . he is not a good candidate at all.
Disagree, his memory's going a bit but his mind's still there. And they were always going to put up a rape accuser against any man who ran.
Considering Reade's accusations have some media statements in the early nineties it seems more concerning than just something that was always going to happen.
You are making an assumption here that tax is all that incentivises people to forgo income.
for example My job my take home pay is Y, for a shelf stacker it is X The extra money I get paid (Y-X) incentivises me to keep in my job and not quit and become a shelf stacker.
However my job also involves unpaid overtime, stress, support rota's, longer commutes probably as most shelf stackers will live closer to work. If the value Y-X becomes small enough that I don't think the extra pay is worth all that extra angst I definitely go sod this I will go shelf stacking instead. Your progressive taxation lowers the value of Y-X as I will be paying a larger portion of tax than currently thus lowering the value of Y and possibly raising the value of X.
No, it's the other way round. The proposal I described is designed to reduce the perverse incentive not to take the increased pay, which you get at the moment because of various tax band effects (and benefits as well). At no point in the system I'm describing would you be heavily penalised for earning extra pay.
You miss my point entirely, I am not talking about not taking extra pay I am talking about the effect on take home pay differentials let me illustrate with some figures
A earns 20k he pays currently 20% tax of 29pounds a week and takes home 332 B earns 40k he pays currently 20% tax of 106pounds a week and takes home 529
B considers that the extra 197£ a week is reasonable compensation for the unpaid overtime , the commute costs, the stress and the support rota
under your system A now pays for example 5% and b pays 35%
A now pays tax of 7£ a week and takes home 354£ b now pays tax of 185$ a week and takes home 450£
Now B is wondering if the 96 pounds extra is worth it for the unpaid overtime , the commute costs, the stress and the support rota
No, your figure of 35% at £40K is far, far too high. I haven't done the full sums (and of course it could be calibrated at whatever rate the Chancellor wanted), but I'd guess it would probably be around 15% at that level.
You think at a level which is 80% of the value when you start paying higher rate tax that they would be paying less than the current basic rate? I can't see where you get that idea from as it would result in less money coming into the treasury. Dont forget 40k a year is in top 25% of earners in the country
Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has said it will take up to six months to refund passengers for flights cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Virgin is 100 days.
The EU are in the process of waving the 14 day refund law thereby using the ordinary holidaymaker as the sacrificial lamb for these companies
It is an utter disgrace and abuse of power by the EU
I hope consumer groups challenge this dreadful decision
I am fortunate that BA have refunded my £2,000 flight charge for our May trip but even that was extremely difficult to obtain through BA own evasion
And of course O'Leary wants to take six months as he is looking for the EU to shaft the ordinary holidaymakers
It is shameful
Interesting that you had issues with BA BigG. Looks like at some point soon I`m going to have to tackle BA over £2,500 flights which look unlikely to happen in July. Any tips? Did you get the refund via BA or via your credit card company?
Any advice much appreciated.
I did tackle BA when we went into lockdown by e mail as it impossible to get any sense any other way. However, they only offered me a voucher as their flight was still scheduled on the 12th May to Vancouver, return on the 25th May. A week or so ago I received an e mail from BA confirming they had cancelled both flights and referred me to my booking app.
The app only allows for you to apply for a voucher and it is very difficult to actually see where you apply for a refund which is the law at present, unless of course the EU do pass this change which you need to watch. I e mailed BA again and tried their customer services on the phone for over a couple of days and in the end, and after a one and a quarter hour wait, I did get through to a BA customer service rep working from her home in Bolton who processed the refund and was very helpful. Within 48 hours of my phone call with BA my full refund of £2,034.76 was back in my credit card account
I had e mailed Nationwide at the same time I was having difficulty with BA re my credit card and they were very efficient contacting me within a couple of days confirming their responsibility under the credit card act and to keep in touch over progress with BA
I would suggest to yourself and indeed anyone going on holiday over the next few months to keep an eye on when the flights etc are actually cancelled and the minute the cancellation takes place contact the company preferably by phone, or otherwise e mail and simultaneously contact your credit card issuer and seek to use the Section 75 credit card scheme, and maybe even more importantly if the EU really do pass this dreadful attack on European holidaymakers, to cover for any loss
On the BA app you can seek out the flight status by keying in your destination and flight date and it will show if the flight is still active
I hope this helps
I had an absolute nightmare with Aeroflot. In the end I called their SPb office, spoke to somebody claiming to be a supervisor and told them I would paypal them 500€ if they processed my refund. Russian corruption is very efficient.
Oh and just to congratulate the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. Took a lot of stick but he made it. 100k tests. Tick.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
Question 1 - are you suggesting they are making the numbers up? I think you'll need evidence to support this. As with most deadlines, the work is finished immediately prior to the deadline. That indicates that effort was well managed.
A terrible idea that could happen is legalising, and taxing, marijuana
My opinion is that legalising it is better than keeping it illegal at least with regulation you can control the potency.
But only if you're prepared to dish out serious punishment for possession of illegal drugs.
If legalised drugs are sold "not for profit" then you surely kill the illegal versions and , metaphorically, those involved therewith.
Why on earth would legalised drugs be sold not for profit?
They should be sold for profit by a regulated company like Diageo.
The reality is who buys moonshine from a gangster when they can get a bottle of vodka (skunk) or beer (soft marijuana) from a shop?
Your first sentence - it depends on what your motivation is for producing a legal version. Do you want to kill the illegal version or do you want to make a profit? You pays your money ......
Not sure about your last sentence either, but if that's your experience it doesn't necessarily have wider ramifications.
I want to do both. And for-profit companies work smarter and better than not-for-profit ones. Profit is not a bad thing.
How much illegal moonshine alcohol do you buy from gangsters? I've personally always bought beer, wine and spirits that were legally produced as opposed to illegal unregulated gangster moonshine.
There's still big business in dodgy vodka and the like.
SUCCESSFUL MANUFACTURING OF CLINICAL-GRADE SARS-CoV-2 SPECIFIC T CELLS FOR ADOPTIVE CELL THERAPY (not my CAPS... but nonetheless, interesting.) https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20077487v1 Background Adoptive therapy with SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells for COVID-19 has not been reported. The feasibility of rapid clinical-grade manufacturing of virus-specific T cells from convalescent donors has not been demonstrated for this or prior pandemics. Methods One unit of whole blood was collected from each convalescent donor following standard blood bank practices. After the plasma was separated and stored separately, the leukocytes were stimulated using overlapping peptides of SARS-CoV-2, covering the immunodominant sequence domains of the S protein and the complete sequence of the N and M proteins. Thereafter, functionally reactive cells were enriched overnight using an automated device capturing IFNγ-secreting cells. Findings From 1x10[9] leukocytes, 0.56 to 1.16x10[6] IFNγ+ T cells were produced from each of the first two donors. Most of the T cells (64% to 71%) were IFNγ+, with preferential enrichment of CD56+ T cells, effector memory T cells, and effector memory RA+ T cells. TCRVβ spectratyping revealed oligoclonal distribution, with over-representation of subfamilies including Vβ3, Vβ16 and Vβ17. With just two donors, the probability that a recipient in the same ethnic group would share at least one donor HLA allele or one haplotype could be as high as >90% and >30%, respectively. Interpretations This study is limited by small number of donors and absence of recipient data; however, crucial first proof-of-principle data are provided demonstrating the feasibility of clinical-grade production of SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells for urgent clinical use, conceivably with plasma therapy concurrently. Our data showing that virus-specific T cells can be detected easily after brief stimulation with SARS-CoV-2 specific peptides suggest that a parallel diagnostic assay can be developed alongside serology testing....
Chinese ventilators that ministers heralded as vital to the NHS’s efforts to tackle Covid-19 were badly built, unsuitable for use in hospitals and potentially dangerous for patients, it has emerged.
A well-placed NHS source said the incident highlighted problems that had occurred with a range of medical supplies and equipment ordered from China during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some other stuff ordered from China recently, especially personal protective equipment, has also turned out to be either of a lesser quality than what we need or to be the wrong thing altogether, like T-shirts instead of long-sleeved surgical gowns” they said.
Chinese ventilators that ministers heralded as vital to the NHS’s efforts to tackle Covid-19 were badly built, unsuitable for use in hospitals and potentially dangerous for patients, it has emerged.
A well-placed NHS source said the incident highlighted problems that had occurred with a range of medical supplies and equipment ordered from China during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some other stuff ordered from China recently, especially personal protective equipment, has also turned out to be either of a lesser quality than what we need or to be the wrong thing altogether, like T-shirts instead of long-sleeved surgical gowns” they said.
A terrible idea that could happen is legalising, and taxing, marijuana
My opinion is that legalising it is better than keeping it illegal at least with regulation you can control the potency.
But only if you're prepared to dish out serious punishment for possession of illegal drugs.
If legalised drugs are sold "not for profit" then you surely kill the illegal versions and , metaphorically, those involved therewith.
Why on earth would legalised drugs be sold not for profit?
They should be sold for profit by a regulated company like Diageo.
The reality is who buys moonshine from a gangster when they can get a bottle of vodka (skunk) or beer (soft marijuana) from a shop?
Your first sentence - it depends on what your motivation is for producing a legal version. Do you want to kill the illegal version or do you want to make a profit? You pays your money ......
Not sure about your last sentence either, but if that's your experience it doesn't necessarily have wider ramifications.
I want to do both. And for-profit companies work smarter and better than not-for-profit ones. Profit is not a bad thing.
How much illegal moonshine alcohol do you buy from gangsters? I've personally always bought beer, wine and spirits that were legally produced as opposed to illegal unregulated gangster moonshine.
There's still big business in dodgy vodka and the like.
Is the proportion of vodka made and sold by criminal gangs higher or lower than the proportion of vodka made and sold by lawful regulated business like Diageo?
Is the proportion of vodka made and sold by criminal gangs higher or lower than the proportion of marijuana made and sold by criminal gangs?
A terrible idea that could happen is legalising, and taxing, marijuana
My opinion is that legalising it is better than keeping it illegal at least with regulation you can control the potency.
But only if you're prepared to dish out serious punishment for possession of illegal drugs.
If legalised drugs are sold "not for profit" then you surely kill the illegal versions and , metaphorically, those involved therewith.
Why on earth would legalised drugs be sold not for profit?
They should be sold for profit by a regulated company like Diageo.
The reality is who buys moonshine from a gangster when they can get a bottle of vodka (skunk) or beer (soft marijuana) from a shop?
Your first sentence - it depends on what your motivation is for producing a legal version. Do you want to kill the illegal version or do you want to make a profit? You pays your money ......
Not sure about your last sentence either, but if that's your experience it doesn't necessarily have wider ramifications.
I want to do both. And for-profit companies work smarter and better than not-for-profit ones. Profit is not a bad thing.
How much illegal moonshine alcohol do you buy from gangsters? I've personally always bought beer, wine and spirits that were legally produced as opposed to illegal unregulated gangster moonshine.
I believe in profit motivation as much as you seem to. I was merely suggesting that prioritising motivation was a determining factor in profit or not. There is also a grey aspect - how much profit?
I have never knowingly bought anything from a gangster - pure as the driven snow in that respect.
Oh and just to congratulate the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. Took a lot of stick but he made it. 100k tests. Tick.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
If the government / Hancock is totally billy bullshitting about the amounts it will soon leak and it would massively discredit the government stats on everything related to CV. It would make claims that lockdown was a few days late or shortage of PPE look like a minor bumps in the round.
I think there are valid criticisms / improvements i.e. the test turn around need to be less than 24hrs for front line workers and we need to more to a system where such workers can get one done basically straight away (while the plebs can queue).
It is a classic example of a stretch goal.
It's interesting to listen to the rather blurry criticism of the strategy - see BBC reports etc - from inside the system. It sounds rather as if the approach that the system would prefer would be a carefully designed testing structure, then order the right testing facilities to match. All very waterfall.
The public administartion organisations in this country love waterfall planing.
The other approach is to say - if we have a too many tests, LOL. So we just keep increasing testing capacity. Who gets tested can be changed relatively quickly,
I would also presume that it was a case of "setup new facility x. Debug it. Create y facilities to the same formula". That kind of rollout can end up looking quite... exponential.
I notice the Guardian had a good moan about private companies been involved....you know like how Germany does it...but funny they didn't mention that.
Also interesting paper on the Australian (pre)pandemic response:
Early analysis of the Australian COVID-19 epidemic https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.25.20080127v1.full.pdf ...Australia took an early and precautionary approach to COVID-19. On 1 February, when China was the only country reporting uncontained transmission, Australian authorities restricted all travel from mainland China to Australia, in order to reduce the risk of importation of the virus. Only Australian citizens and residents (and their dependants) were permitted to travel from China to Australia. These individuals were advised to self-quarantine for 14 days from their date of arrival Further border measures, including enhanced testing and provision of additional advice, were placed on arrivals from other countries, based on a risk-assessment tool developed in early February...
Chinese ventilators that ministers heralded as vital to the NHS’s efforts to tackle Covid-19 were badly built, unsuitable for use in hospitals and potentially dangerous for patients, it has emerged.
A well-placed NHS source said the incident highlighted problems that had occurred with a range of medical supplies and equipment ordered from China during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some other stuff ordered from China recently, especially personal protective equipment, has also turned out to be either of a lesser quality than what we need or to be the wrong thing altogether, like T-shirts instead of long-sleeved surgical gowns” they said.
Just taking the piss. Flog the west any old shit, because they will be too busy to worry about any come back.
I wouldn't take it personally. By all accounts anyone who tries to buy stuff from Chinese suppliers without knowing who they're buying from and how to make sure they get their money's worth is going to get robbed, Western, Chinese or otherwise.
Its not China to blame for the fact that eveyone is reliant on supplies from China
Rather its those countries that have been prepared to cease making stuff and import it from the place they can get it cheapest.
This is how the market works though you would have thought PB Tories would be familiar with Capitalism
Oh and just to congratulate the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock. Took a lot of stick but he made it. 100k tests. Tick.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
If the government / Hancock is totally billy bullshitting about the amounts it will soon leak and it would massively discredit the government stats on everything related to CV. It would make claims that lockdown was a few days late or shortage of PPE look like a minor bumps in the round.
I think there are valid criticisms / improvements i.e. the test turn around need to be less than 24hrs for front line workers and we need to more to a system where such workers can get one done basically straight away (while the plebs can queue).
It is a classic example of a stretch goal.
It's interesting to listen to the rather blurry criticism of the strategy - see BBC reports etc - from inside the system. It sounds rather as if the approach that the system would prefer would be a carefully designed testing structure, then order the right testing facilities to match. All very waterfall.
The public administartion organisations in this country love waterfall planing.
The other approach is to say - if we have a too many tests, LOL. So we just keep increasing testing capacity. Who gets tested can be changed relatively quickly,
I would also presume that it was a case of "setup new facility x. Debug it. Create y facilities to the same formula". That kind of rollout can end up looking quite... exponential.
I notice the Guardian had a good moan about private companies been involved....you know like how Germany does it...but funny they didn't mention that.
Unbelievable. The private sector is the reason Germany was so successful at testing.
The Cheltenham Festival could have helped to "accelerate the spread" of coronavirus, a former government chief scientific adviser said.
Sir David King, the government's chief scientific adviser from 2000 to 2007, said it was "the best possible way to accelerate the spread of the virus".
I'm sure it did. I'm also sure that the Central Line was a better conductor. Then perhaps the Northern Line, then the District & Circle. Then Brighton and District U-21 league qualifier, then...then...oh and Cheltenham is certainly in the mix.
I have little doubt the tubes were big conductors and Cheltenham maybe as well as the football
It is absurd to conflate the two though. There is a distinction in that one was essential to people to travelling to work, whereas large scale mass gatherings were not essential to peoples' daily lives. That is why events such as Cheltenham stand out as totemic evidence of unnecessary delay. Prior to 20th March the Government had left it to those organising such events to decide whether or not to cancel them, and too many organisers decided that they could not afford to cancel.
As far as I understand it is only Cheltenham and Liverpools match that is controversial and we have yet to see conclusive evidence they were. It is probable but at present not proven. Let us wait for the evidence.
I do have an open mind on this one
I don't think you need a rigorous scientific proof in order to draw conclusions on this one. There were 10 days between the start of Cheltenham on 10th March and when the Government finally banned such mass gatherings, yet from the start of March PHE had already acknowledged publically that the spread of the virus throughout the UK was highly likely. Germany acted far earlier, introducing their ban on such events on 10th March which strengthened earlier advice to cancel.
To be honest you may be right but the news coming out of Germany this morning is not good. I prefer to keep an open mind and see how this plays out over the months and even years ahead. Mistakes have been made but of course it is easy, with hindsight, to say x,y,z should have been done when you know an outcome
You're rewriting history - hindsight has nothing to do with it. It was blindingly obvious even at the time that the lockdown was too late and lax. That was why so many people were desperate for the government to take action and why people began to take action themselves when the government failed to act. When you're dealing with potential exponential growth, rapid action at the start makes a critical difference.
There is a basic principle here: when you don't understand what's happening, do whatever you can to reduce the chances of the worst outcome. It almost beggars belief that the government dithered for so long.
With respect this is just nonsense. At the time the best advice was that control of the virus by trace and isolate was doomed to fail. The object therefore was to flatten the curve, an object that has been achieved. Now, with the experience of SK, it is thought that it might be possible to control the virus this way long term. Whether that in fact proves to be the case remains to be seen but it is rewriting history to suggest that was an option that was suggested as being open to the government at the time. ..
What was open to the government was locking down a week earlier. And all the evidence is that the sooner the lockdown, the shorter time it might have had to last. If all the evidence was that 'track and trace was doomed to fail' then locking down ought to have happened immediately. the reason it didn't was the flirtation with herd immunity.
I am really not sure how you can say that when yesterday we had 6k new cases. If a lockdown stopped the spread completely then maybe but it clearly doesn't just as the government models said it wouldn't. What I think we need to focus a lot more attention on is where those 6k people got infected, where are the weak points and what can we do about them if we come out of lockdown.
The weak point is probably the fact that large numbers of people are still working as normal. Some are essential. But others aren't really. I see quite a.bit of construction work going on.A vast amount of deliveries, and there has been no social distancing enforced or even enabled at my brother's sorting office where postal workers assemble before firing off in all directions to visit most of the houses in the country. I haven't witnessed any enforcement of the rules and some ignoring them flagrantly. Truth is that we didn't lockdown in any real sense. It is no surprise we have thousands of daily new infections This was a political choice which one may approve of or not. But it was a strategy that never was going to stamp this thing out.
You are making an assumption here that tax is all that incentivises people to forgo income.
for example My job my take home pay is Y, for a shelf stacker it is X The extra money I get paid (Y-X) incentivises me to keep in my job and not quit and become a shelf stacker.
However my job also involves unpaid overtime, stress, support rota's, longer commutes probably as most shelf stackers will live closer to work. If the value Y-X becomes small enough that I don't think the extra pay is worth all that extra angst I definitely go sod this I will go shelf stacking instead. Your progressive taxation lowers the value of Y-X as I will be paying a larger portion of tax than currently thus lowering the value of Y and possibly raising the value of X.
No, it's the other way round. The proposal I described is designed to reduce the perverse incentive not to take the increased pay, which you get at the moment because of various tax band effects (and benefits as well). At no point in the system I'm describing would you be heavily penalised for earning extra pay.
You miss my point entirely, I am not talking about not taking extra pay I am talking about the effect on take home pay differentials let me illustrate with some figures
A earns 20k he pays currently 20% tax of 29pounds a week and takes home 332 B earns 40k he pays currently 20% tax of 106pounds a week and takes home 529
B considers that the extra 197£ a week is reasonable compensation for the unpaid overtime , the commute costs, the stress and the support rota
under your system A now pays for example 5% and b pays 35%
A now pays tax of 7£ a week and takes home 354£ b now pays tax of 185$ a week and takes home 450£
Now B is wondering if the 96 pounds extra is worth it for the unpaid overtime , the commute costs, the stress and the support rota
No, your figure of 35% at £40K is far, far too high. I haven't done the full sums (and of course it could be calibrated at whatever rate the Chancellor wanted), but I'd guess it would probably be around 15% at that level.
It's about 20% at the moment. Anyone who pays a net rate of 35% is earning six figures.
This suggests an antibody response does occur in even mildly affected patients (and even when it doesn't, viral clearance can take place):
Neutralizing antibody response in mild COVID-19 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0325-2 This preprint reports robust induction of SARS-CoV-2-specific neutralizing antibodies in 94% of 175 patients with clinically mild COVID-19 within 2 weeks of symptom onset. Compared with young patients, middle-aged and older patients in this cohort had higher titres of neutralizing and binding antibodies. As older patients are generally considered at greater risk of severe disease, the robust humoral responses in this cohort may explain their apparent protection. Of note, 10 of 175 patients recovered without developing detectable neutralizing antibody titres, suggesting that antiviral binding antibodies and cellular immune responses can both result in convalescence. Longitudinal observations in addition to stringent clinical and immunological characterization are needed to further assess the specificity and relative contribution to protection of neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2....
Chinese ventilators that ministers heralded as vital to the NHS’s efforts to tackle Covid-19 were badly built, unsuitable for use in hospitals and potentially dangerous for patients, it has emerged.
A well-placed NHS source said the incident highlighted problems that had occurred with a range of medical supplies and equipment ordered from China during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Some other stuff ordered from China recently, especially personal protective equipment, has also turned out to be either of a lesser quality than what we need or to be the wrong thing altogether, like T-shirts instead of long-sleeved surgical gowns” they said.
Comments
I now see that Trump himself is starting to question things. See links below, which are articles written in the last few hours.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/04/trump-doesnt-understand-why-hes-losing/610924/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/30/trump-shocked-learn-he-might-not-win-reelection/
There are various ways to lay Trump with BF:
Winning party: lay Republicans at 2.04
Republican nominee: lay Trump at 1.07
Nominee combo: lay Trump/Biden at 1.20
Next President: lay Trump at 2.12
I wouldn`t put anyone off taking any of these, but my favourite lay at the moment is the bottom market on this list.
Anyway, my point is that it's still just about plausible that it's there under the surface and eventually will come out. I think it's likely that for cultural reasons, Japan would see lower transmission rates than (say) Italy, but not enough to kill it on its own. There are some very odd stories floating around:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-52466834
We just don't know. In general, experience tells me that Japan is better on data quality than most of Southern Europe, but then again I have no direct experience with its national reporting. They could easily have fallen into the trap of massaging figures downwards to try and prevent people panicking. It's just going to be impossible to compare countries until the epidemic is long passed.
Drug use overall hit a low a few years ago, and has risen since - but is yet to come anywhere near all time highs (which I believe was 2001-2).
Where are those EU ventilators BTW?
"Amash carries none of that baggage. Like his progressive congressional counterpart, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the libertarian is young, idealistic and looks like the multi-ethnic future of America."
https://spectator.us/justin-amash-candidacy-matters/
The app only allows for you to apply for a voucher and it is very difficult to actually see where you apply for a refund which is the law at present, unless of course the EU do pass this change which you need to watch. I e mailed BA again and tried their customer services on the phone for over a couple of days and in the end, and after a one and a quarter hour wait, I did get through to a BA customer service rep working from her home in Bolton who processed the refund and was very helpful. Within 48 hours of my phone call with BA my full refund of £2,034.76 was back in my credit card account
I had e mailed Nationwide at the same time I was having difficulty with BA re my credit card and they were very efficient contacting me within a couple of days confirming their responsibility under the credit card act and to keep in touch over progress with BA
I would suggest to yourself and indeed anyone going on holiday over the next few months to keep an eye on when the flights etc are actually cancelled and the minute the cancellation takes place contact the company preferably by phone, or otherwise e mail and simultaneously contact your credit card issuer and seek to use the Section 75 credit card scheme, and maybe even more importantly if the EU really do pass this dreadful attack on European holidaymakers, to cover for any loss
On the BA app you can seek out the flight status by keying in your destination and flight date and it will show if the flight is still active
I hope this helps
(Wizz Air also happens to have the strongest financial position of any airline in Europe and could survive without any flights for 22 months, but can make a profit on the "soft loan" they got)
The primary objective of the lockdown should be to get control over the epidemic infection rate and keep total infections down, The second objective is to buy time so other more targeted and less damaging methods of control can be brought in. including test, trace and quarantine. Not overwhelming the health service is necessary but is dealt with by this primary purpose of infection rate control. None of this is new; it was discussed at the time, including by myself. Asian countries were already successfully following this policy.
By acting late, ineffectively and not using the time to prepare, the government has given itself less room for manoeuvre to ease off lockdown, with the result that many more people will die and the lockdown will be longer and more economically and socially damaging than it need to have been.
We are where we are and we have to deal with the situation as it is, but we also need to be aware that are choices now are limited by those mistakes previously made.
If you want beer you can drink beer. If you want spirits you can buy spirits. If you want ludicrously strong spirits like Overproof Rum you can buy it.
But the key with regulation is knowledge. The strength is listed, you know what you are buying and you can know the risks. Better than the only thing being available is moonshine spirits that you don't know the strength of and could contain added toxins.
One could ask questions - (i) Is he marking his own homework? (ii) Was the target too hard and thus more important things have suffered because of it? (iii) Was the target too easy given it has been met? (iv) Is it not a trifle suspicious how it has been exactly met on the exact due day? (v) Just what generally was Hancock playing at with this whole "target" business? (vi) Was he - is he - using it to distract and hide something?
But let's not do this. This is not a time to be churlish. The time to be churlish will be come the inevitable public inquiry next year into all aspects of the government's response to Covid-19.
He is not impressed with the EU order thing. Given he lives a rock throw from a Wurth facility...
They should be sold for profit by a regulated company like Diageo.
The reality is who buys moonshine from a gangster when they can get a bottle of vodka (skunk) or beer (soft marijuana) from a shop?
I think there are valid criticisms / improvements i.e. the test turn around need to be less than 24hrs for front line workers and we need to more to a system where such workers can get one done basically straight away (while the plebs can queue).
PS:
That's me, you and @Alistair in the Trump Toast club now.
Great club too. All welcome!
Earlier action would have saved lives and money.
You notice it less with Trump because you get used to him being confused and incoherent but the decline is really dramatic if you look at a clip from when he was younger and realise that he used to be able to express coherent thoughts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-w47wgdhso
It's interesting to listen to the rather blurry criticism of the strategy - see BBC reports etc - from inside the system. It sounds rather as if the approach that the system would prefer would be a carefully designed testing structure, then order the right testing facilities to match. All very waterfall.
The public administartion organisations in this country love waterfall planing.
The other approach is to say - if we have a too many tests, LOL. So we just keep increasing testing capacity. Who gets tested can be changed relatively quickly,
I would also presume that it was a case of "setup new facility x. Debug it. Create y facilities to the same formula". That kind of rollout can end up looking quite... exponential.
Spot the flaw:
Biden I think it is clear he's losing his mind. And with the rape allegations surrounding him with Reade too . . . he is not a good candidate at all.
https://rep.repubblica.it/pwa/generale/2020/05/01/news/brexit_l_ultimatum_di_londra_l_ue_accetti_le_nostre_condizioni_ecco_perche_altrimenti_stop_ai_negoziati_-255319167/
All but the top is paywalled, but enough to get the gist here.
I was worrying about a French trade border shutdown come January with them not wanting intensive border management during a second pandemic wave. I read about some trilateral UK/Ireland/France deal to assure trade flows during COVID last week. The only explanation that such a thing would not be taken as read is that HMG shared that worry, and are looking at No Deal.
And all the evidence is that the sooner the lockdown, the shorter time it might have had to last.
If all the evidence was that 'track and trace was doomed to fail' then locking down ought to have happened immediately. the reason it didn't was the flirtation with herd immunity.
A earns 20k he pays currently 20% tax of 29pounds a week and takes home 332
B earns 40k he pays currently 20% tax of 106pounds a week and takes home 529
B considers that the extra 197£ a week is reasonable compensation for the unpaid overtime , the commute costs, the stress and the support rota
under your system A now pays for example 5% and b pays 35%
A now pays tax of 7£ a week and takes home 354£
b now pays tax of 185$ a week and takes home 450£
Now B is wondering if the 96 pounds extra is worth it for the unpaid overtime , the commute costs, the stress and the support rota
If another company took a loan at 0.6% but there was a 1% default risk then that would be a bad deal.
It was about the happiest the wife has been in 8 weeks....
"a financial wreck", before the virus struck.
Not sure about your last sentence either, but if that's your experience it doesn't necessarily have wider ramifications.
Whether the government realises that is doubtful.
How much illegal moonshine alcohol do you buy from gangsters? I've personally always bought beer, wine and spirits that were legally produced as opposed to illegal unregulated gangster moonshine.
MOE of course, but pointing to a big problem for Trump.
One for the journalists to ask about tonight.
Would make a change from when is the lockdown going to end.
I had an absolute nightmare with Aeroflot. In the end I called their SPb office, spoke to somebody claiming to be a supervisor and told them I would paypal them 500€ if they processed my refund. Russian corruption is very efficient.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.24.20077487v1
Background Adoptive therapy with SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells for COVID-19 has not been reported. The feasibility of rapid clinical-grade manufacturing of virus-specific T cells from convalescent donors has not been demonstrated for this or prior pandemics. Methods One unit of whole blood was collected from each convalescent donor following standard blood bank practices. After the plasma was separated and stored separately, the leukocytes were stimulated using overlapping peptides of SARS-CoV-2, covering the immunodominant sequence domains of the S protein and the complete sequence of the N and M proteins. Thereafter, functionally reactive cells were enriched overnight using an automated device capturing IFNγ-secreting cells. Findings From 1x10[9] leukocytes, 0.56 to 1.16x10[6] IFNγ+ T cells were produced from each of the first two donors. Most of the T cells (64% to 71%) were IFNγ+, with preferential enrichment of CD56+ T cells, effector memory T cells, and effector memory RA+ T cells. TCRVβ spectratyping revealed oligoclonal distribution, with over-representation of subfamilies including Vβ3, Vβ16 and Vβ17. With just two donors, the probability that a recipient in the same ethnic group would share at least one donor HLA allele or one haplotype could be as high as >90% and >30%, respectively. Interpretations This study is limited by small number of donors and absence of recipient data; however, crucial first proof-of-principle data are provided demonstrating the feasibility of clinical-grade production of SARS-CoV-2 specific T cells for urgent clinical use, conceivably with plasma therapy concurrently. Our data showing that virus-specific T cells can be detected easily after brief stimulation with SARS-CoV-2 specific peptides suggest that a parallel diagnostic assay can be developed alongside serology testing....
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/freight-transport-in-the-context-of-covid-19-joint-statement-by-the-united-kingdom-france-and-ireland
It makes Neville Chamberlain s piece of paper look like the Encyclopedia Brittanica.
Is the proportion of vodka made and sold by criminal gangs higher or lower than the proportion of marijuana made and sold by criminal gangs?
I have never knowingly bought anything from a gangster - pure as the driven snow in that respect.
Early analysis of the Australian COVID-19 epidemic
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.25.20080127v1.full.pdf
...Australia took an early and precautionary approach to COVID-19. On 1 February, when China was the only country reporting uncontained transmission, Australian authorities restricted all travel from mainland China to Australia, in order to reduce the risk of importation of the virus. Only Australian citizens and residents (and their dependants) were permitted to travel from China to Australia. These individuals were advised to self-quarantine for 14 days from their date of arrival Further border measures, including enhanced testing and provision of additional advice, were placed on arrivals from other countries, based on a risk-assessment tool developed in early February...
Rather its those countries that have been prepared to cease making stuff and import it from the place they can get it cheapest.
This is how the market works though you would have thought PB Tories would be familiar with Capitalism
Some are essential. But others aren't really. I see quite a.bit of construction work going on.A vast amount of deliveries, and there has been no social distancing enforced or even enabled at my brother's sorting office where postal workers assemble before firing off in all directions to visit most of the houses in the country. I haven't witnessed any enforcement of the rules and some ignoring them flagrantly.
Truth is that we didn't lockdown in any real sense. It is no surprise we have thousands of daily new infections
This was a political choice which one may approve of or not.
But it was a strategy that never was going to stamp this thing out.
Neutralizing antibody response in mild COVID-19
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-020-0325-2
This preprint reports robust induction of SARS-CoV-2-specific neutralizing antibodies in 94% of 175 patients with clinically mild COVID-19 within 2 weeks of symptom onset. Compared with young patients, middle-aged and older patients in this cohort had higher titres of neutralizing and binding antibodies. As older patients are generally considered at greater risk of severe disease, the robust humoral responses in this cohort may explain their apparent protection. Of note, 10 of 175 patients recovered without developing detectable neutralizing antibody titres, suggesting that antiviral binding antibodies and cellular immune responses can both result in convalescence. Longitudinal observations in addition to stringent clinical and immunological characterization are needed to further assess the specificity and relative contribution to protection of neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2....
If its not then perhaps you could tell us when new PPE factories will come into production in this country.