Close in Texas. Interesting. Biden is POTUS on these numbers surely? Can they be sustained once the worst of Trump's virus performance starts to be forgotten?
If there was an election nationally tomorrow Biden would win on those numbers certainly.
It will likely narrow but interestingly Biden is now polling better in Michigan and Pennsylvania than he is nationally, so it is possible Biden could win the Electoral College but Trump win the popular vote, a reverse of 2016
Trump is 4.6 on Betfair (or 7/2) to win the popular vote. I won't be following you in on that bet.
I think this says a lot more about Corbyn than Starmer. But it is a huge change for Labour to have a leader who does not automatically repel the majority of voters ... twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1256720377604161537
Not being under constant attack from his own party or even the opposition parties probably helps a bit too.
Starmer has been attacked relentlessly by the far left since he took over. They think he has it all wrong on his opposition strategy. Only 5% of Labour voters disapprove, though. They are all on Twitter and they all donate money to Rachel from Swindon!
If that wasn't the advice then nobody has told my parents, their friends or my over 70 year old neighbours who have all been in total lockdown for weeks.
Over 70s without medical conditions = clinically vulnerable = essential trips only
Over 70s with medial conditions = extremely clinically vulnerable = shielding = no trips
Not over 70 so not been paying full attention but still confused.
Is the only difference for over 70s vs under 70 that the over 70s shouldnt be working? Because we are all on essential trips only regardless of age.
If you are under 70 and don't have a medical condition tha makes you clinically vulnerable, government guidance includes e.g. exercise,
Indeed, though Leavers still give Starmer a net negative
And what do “Remainers” give Boris?
I’ll tell you the answer: it doesn’t matter. Move on.
Absolutely there's no such thing as leave or remain anymore. I did think we should remain, then I changed my mind and voted to leave, then we left. Now I neither think we should leave nor remain since we have nothing to leave or remain anymore.
I think this says a lot more about Corbyn than Starmer. But it is a huge change for Labour to have a leader who does not automatically repel the majority of voters ... twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1256720377604161537
Not being under constant attack from his own party or even the opposition parties probably helps a bit too.
Just maybe he is not deserving of such attacks as his predecessor.
OT update. Am now - finally - "enjoying" Apple TV via a Firefox browser on my work laptop. Hasn't stopped playing. Yet...
Seriously Apple users, why would you tie yourselves to *this*? Can only use their overpriced tat. Devices built where you have to buy an overpriced adaptor to keep using all your peripherals. Where they keep changing the connector so you have to buy them again. Where the battery is built to fail and if it doesn't the software turns the device into a snail so you WILL buy again. Buy again. Again. Again.
If China turns into an international pariah, how will Apple get around it? I know that a company as Short of Cash as they are won't be able to make their devices outside of semi-slave labour factories in China, might be a problem...
I mean Apple TV+ has always been primarily for those in the Apple ecosystem. I watch it on an Apple TV or my iPad and it works great.
I don’t think Apple are bothered if those who watch it in Firefox on an old Toshiba laptop can no longer do so.
PB has a long tradition of non-Apple users wasting thousands of pixels boring on about their weird Apple obsession.
It's a core issue.
I would get out more, but I can't because we're locked down.
I`m an I.T. dunce to be sure, but the Apple-lovers v Apple-haters thing has long interested me from a human nature perspective. I found this definition of an Apple Fanboy:
"A single-layered thinking drone originally thought to exist in only small numbers. To help them assimilate into the real world, a computer with only simple functions so that the drones don't get confused was created. Eventually, more products were produced after it was discovered that the number or drones are in the millions. While scientists have been unable to find ways to increase brain performance in this species, a corporation named "Apple" has had financial success in at least convincing that the drone specimen is vastly superior to that of everything else. A specimen of "Apple fanboy" of this species will act partially retarded. "
In our households we all use Apple products. This was an expensive decision, made long ago; a decision that I have to justify repeatedly to my I.T. professional who is despairing of us. All I can say is "well, they work and we can understand them and they look nice". I know.
I worked with Macs in the late eighties, they were very much the non corporate choice, edgier than IBM machines and far superior graphics, which I needed for what I was working on. It’s weird how these comments make them seen like the ‘drone’ choice when the opposite was the case. I remember my 300 dpi laser printer was about four grand and the Mac SE was about three (or was it the other way round?).
For me it's fairly simple.
Apple early on tried to pretend that a monochrome postcard sized screen was better than a 14" colour screen.
Treating potential customer like idiots. Add that to the walled garden and the emphasis on prettiness over performance, and it is Apple defenestrated permanently. That is still the status for me.
Apple make the best mass-market mobile chips on the planet. Fact. “Prettiness over performance” is just “fanboy” nonsense.
Perfectly happy with my 9 year old iMac......most PCs lasted 3 years, 4 at a push.
I’ve got two Macs, plus a PC.
I bought an iMac in 2007, which is still working albeit rather slowly and the screen has failed. So I hooked that up to my TV and use it for playing Youtube and Amazon Prime content, which it does perfectly competently.
I also, because I’d had a Mac for so long, bought a Mac Mini for photos and pdf editing (which comes as standard, rather than a PC where you have to buy Adobe) - an important consideration given I have many thousands of photos for documents which I use in my research.
However, for work reasons I also had a PC, which I tended to use as my day to day workhorse. Had, because as I said at the time the bloody thing died on me on Easter Monday and it has taken weeks to work out the problem and get a fix (finally arrived yesterday).
So I have been very grateful for my Mac Mini just about having sufficient functionality to keep online lessons going. Even if I did make an error by upgrading to Catalina, which is shit.
Close in Texas. Interesting. Biden is POTUS on these numbers surely? Can they be sustained once the worst of Trump's virus performance starts to be forgotten?
Do we know we have reached the apotheosis of his amorality? The pinnacle of his petulance? Or is the worst yet to come? I fear we may be nowhere near that point, as he tries to open up ahead of an unwilling public as the economy collapses
I think this says a lot more about Corbyn than Starmer. But it is a huge change for Labour to have a leader who does not automatically repel the majority of voters ... twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1256720377604161537
Not being under constant attack from his own party or even the opposition parties probably helps a bit too.
Just maybe he is not deserving of such attacks as his predecessor.
Although he has not yet given reason to be deserving of support.
Indeed, though Leavers still give Starmer a net negative
And what do “Remainers” give Boris?
I’ll tell you the answer: it doesn’t matter. Move on.
Absolutely there's no such thing as leave or remain anymore. I did think we should remain, then I changed my mind and voted to leave, then we left. Now I neither think we should leave nor remain since we have nothing to leave or remain anymore.
You like to think rationally (or thats how you come across to me anyways, for better or worse).
Plenty of others think much more emotionally, and want their team (leave/remain, tory/labour, religion, culture, whatever) to come out on top. For many of them leave vs remain will be an issue for at least another decade.
Rationalising it away wont resolve it. I prefer rational to emotional politics (although both have a part to play) myself but the realist in me means I accept that leave/remain will stay part of the battle lines regardless.
A cursory look through the media gives the explanation for the figures above.
Almost nothing on the enormous economic damage we are doing to our country, and the extremely hard times we face ahead.
I suspect many Britons think lock down is almost a consequence free policy. When they choose to go back to work, their job and their living standards will be waiting there for them.
The enormous propaganda effort to emphasise the threat of this virus, backed by the media, has also vastly exaggerated the danger of this disease to healthy people. I suspect your average Briton's image of it is a gross distortion of the truth. It is a disease that, cruelly, overwhelmingly kills aged people who are sick and frail.
What evidence do you have that containing the virus with a weeks-long lockdown is doing more economic damage than letting it run rampant?
Once again the 1920 pandemic wiped over 20% off our GDP on nominal figures and meant we didn't reach the same GDP on nominal figures for two decades until WWII started.
I think we will do better economically this time than we did this time a century ago. What say you?
Look at the anecdotes on here already starting to filter through. The school friend who may be in severe financial trouble. The schools that are allegedly shutting never to re open.
People think lockdown is a consequence free policy. The government pays them to take a three month holiday then we pick up where we left off, just like that.
Slowly the reality will kick in. That many businesses will not be coming back and there will be no jobs to come back to. That it will not be 80% of your nice fat salary to sit at home, it will be eighty quid a week on universal credit with unemployment running at at least 10% and quite possibly a great deal more.
The death that is not being mentioned nearly enough is the death of economic activity. Even if we did pick up in June or July where we left off - which will not be happening due to social distancing - the damage is already done. And it is growing by the day.
I agree with you that some of this damage was inevitable. However, the furlough scheme has given people a false sense of security and may end up causing more damage by making it possible, even inevitable, that the lockdown will be needlessly prolonged as long as it remains popular.
At the moment people are being insulated from the economic consequences. For how long do you think that is sustainable?
My wife and I, regular watchers of the Press Conferences, frequently ask each other how this Government has found the Magic Money Tree which, when, a few years ago, they were refusing rises to NHS staff they asserted did not exist. I think we're going to give up these conferences incidentally. I'm planning to re-read my Terry Pratchett Discworld books. Much better fantasy.
Very simple
Pay rises are an annual and permanent commitment
Furlough is - hopefully - a temporary measure that can be funded in due course by a one off tax
Point taken, but it's not just furlough, is it?
Yes, but most of the pandemic costs are one off in nature. The consequences could be recurring (eg higher unemployment)
There should be a separate discussion once we are out of this about what is the right level of resilience to build into the system. Higher resilience comes with higher costs and therefore higher taxes.
I would hope that they would be separate but I suspect that they will be conflated by those who want to raise taxes in any event
It's not going to just be unemployment, its going to be the loss of a significant chunk of the tax base. Rebalancing will be necessary, there is no doubt about that.
OT update. Am now - finally - "enjoying" Apple TV via a Firefox browser on my work laptop. Hasn't stopped playing. Yet...
Seriously Apple users, why would you tie yourselves to *this*? Can only use their overpriced tat. Devices built where you have to buy an overpriced adaptor to keep using all your peripherals. Where they keep changing the connector so you have to buy them again. Where the battery is built to fail and if it doesn't the software turns the device into a snail so you WILL buy again. Buy again. Again. Again.
If China turns into an international pariah, how will Apple get around it? I know that a company as Short of Cash as they are won't be able to make their devices outside of semi-slave labour factories in China, might be a problem...
I mean Apple TV+ has always been primarily for those in the Apple ecosystem. I watch it on an Apple TV or my iPad and it works great.
I don’t think Apple are bothered if those who watch it in Firefox on an old Toshiba laptop can no longer do so.
PB has a long tradition of non-Apple users wasting thousands of pixels boring on about their weird Apple obsession.
As a non-Apple user I usually don't bother. The only reason I have this time is to watch an Apple TV only show. Have to laugh though - the reason why people with an Apple obsession get obsessed with anyone saying anything negative against the blessed fruit is because its obviously our fault for not being on board
I think this says a lot more about Corbyn than Starmer. But it is a huge change for Labour to have a leader who does not automatically repel the majority of voters ... twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1256720377604161537
Not being under constant attack from his own party or even the opposition parties probably helps a bit too.
Just maybe he is not deserving of such attacks as his predecessor.
Although he has not yet given reason to be deserving of support.
Perhaps but not being anti-Semetic, not tolerating anti-Semetism and being able to respond to an answer rather than simply proceeding with the next question on the sheet are all modest positives.
OT update. Am now - finally - "enjoying" Apple TV via a Firefox browser on my work laptop. Hasn't stopped playing. Yet...
Seriously Apple users, why would you tie yourselves to *this*? Can only use their overpriced tat. Devices built where you have to buy an overpriced adaptor to keep using all your peripherals. Where they keep changing the connector so you have to buy them again. Where the battery is built to fail and if it doesn't the software turns the device into a snail so you WILL buy again. Buy again. Again. Again.
If China turns into an international pariah, how will Apple get around it? I know that a company as Short of Cash as they are won't be able to make their devices outside of semi-slave labour factories in China, might be a problem...
I mean Apple TV+ has always been primarily for those in the Apple ecosystem. I watch it on an Apple TV or my iPad and it works great.
I don’t think Apple are bothered if those who watch it in Firefox on an old Toshiba laptop can no longer do so.
PB has a long tradition of non-Apple users wasting thousands of pixels boring on about their weird Apple obsession.
It's a core issue.
I would get out more, but I can't because we're locked down.
I`m an I.T. dunce to be sure, but the Apple-lovers v Apple-haters thing has long interested me from a human nature perspective. I found this definition of an Apple Fanboy:
"A single-layered thinking drone originally thought to exist in only small numbers. To help them assimilate into the real world, a computer with only simple functions so that the drones don't get confused was created. Eventually, more products were produced after it was discovered that the number or drones are in the millions. While scientists have been unable to find ways to increase brain performance in this species, a corporation named "Apple" has had financial success in at least convincing that the drone specimen is vastly superior to that of everything else. A specimen of "Apple fanboy" of this species will act partially retarded. "
In our households we all use Apple products. This was an expensive decision, made long ago; a decision that I have to justify repeatedly to my I.T. professional who is despairing of us. All I can say is "well, they work and we can understand them and they look nice". I know.
I worked with Macs in the late eighties, they were very much the non corporate choice, edgier than IBM machines and far superior graphics, which I needed for what I was working on. It’s weird how these comments make them seen like the ‘drone’ choice when the opposite was the case. I remember my 300 dpi laser printer was about four grand and the Mac SE was about three (or was it the other way round?).
For me it's fairly simple.
Apple early on tried to pretend that a monochrome postcard sized screen was better than a 14" colour screen.
Treating potential customer like idiots. Add that to the walled garden and the emphasis on prettiness over performance, and it is Apple defenestrated permanently. That is still the status for me.
Apple make the best mass-market mobile chips on the planet. Fact. “Prettiness over performance” is just “fanboy” nonsense.
Perfectly happy with my 9 year old iMac......most PCs lasted 3 years, 4 at a push.
I’ve got two Macs, plus a PC.
I bought an iMac in 2007, which is still working albeit rather slowly and the screen has failed. So I hooked that up to my TV and use it for playing Youtube and Amazon Prime content, which it does perfectly competently.
I also, because I’d had a Mac for so long, bought a Mac Mini for photos and pdf editing (which comes as standard, rather than a PC where you have to buy Adobe) - an important consideration given I have many thousands of photos for documents which I use in my research.
However, for work reasons I also had a PC, which I tended to use as my day to day workhorse. Had, because as I said at the time the bloody thing died on me on Easter Monday and it has taken weeks to work out the problem and get a fix (finally arrived yesterday).
So I have been very grateful for my Mac Mini just about having sufficient functionality to keep online lessons going. Even if I did make an error by upgrading to Catalina, which is shit.
Does anyone know how to contact HMRC to report a company abusing the furlough by asking employees to answer emails and speak to clients.
Thereby helping to ensure they've got jobs to come back to
Then unfurlough the employee if they are business critical. This is just taxpayer subsidisation of wages.
Correct, but these are unprecedented times. Plenty of people will be doing all they can in the hope they have a job to come back to, as pointed out earlier others are decorating and drinking wine in a state of ignorant bliss.
And with the greatest respect snitching on people with good intentions isn't helpful
As I said, if the system is being abused by furloughed staff so working on proposal documents or on second level support - that's an unfair advantage that should be stamped out on.
Personally, you seem to be defending what to me is indefensible.
Yes, the friend has been asked to attend business strategy meetings on Zoom as well. I could kind of live with the emails because they said it was just a few times so far but when they were asked to attend business strategy meetings it was too much. They don't mind going back to work, but doesn't know how to say it to the company because they're used to not paying the wage now but getting the work done.
That's why I want to report the company, this isn't right and the friend said it was not just them, it's a large number of mid level people and below that have been put on the scheme and the juniors are said to be putting in almost full days sometimes.
In comparison to my company I get a check in from the senior once a week and we get invited to the Friday evening zoom social for the team. I have no access to my emails, no access to the VPN and my GCP profile has been set to inactive.
Does anyone know how to contact HMRC to report a company abusing the furlough by asking employees to answer emails and speak to clients.
Thereby helping to ensure they've got jobs to come back to
Then unfurlough the employee if they are business critical. This is just taxpayer subsidisation of wages.
Correct, but these are unprecedented times. Plenty of people will be doing all they can in the hope they have a job to come back to, as pointed out earlier others are decorating and drinking wine in a state of ignorant bliss.
And with the greatest respect snitching on people with good intentions isn't helpful
As I said, if the system is being abused by furloughed staff so working on proposal documents or on second level support - that's an unfair advantage that should be stamped out on.
Personally, you seem to be defending what to me is indefensible.
Yes, the friend has been asked to attend business strategy meetings on Zoom as well. I could kind of live with the emails because they said it was just a few times so far but when they were asked to attend business strategy meetings it was too much. They don't mind going back to work, but doesn't know how to say it to the company because they're used to not paying the wage now but getting the work done.
That's why I want to report the company, this isn't right and the friend said it was not just them, it's a large number of mid level people and below that have been put on the scheme and the juniors are said to be putting in almost full days sometimes.
In comparison to my company I get a check in from the senior once a week and we get invited to the Friday evening zoom social for the team. I have no access to my emails, no access to the VPN and my GCP profile has been set to inactive.
What you describe, if correct, is fraud.
While the police might well not be interested, the Revenue certainly would.
A cursory look through the media gives the explanation for the figures above.
Almost nothing on the enormous economic damage we are doing to our country, and the extremely hard times we face ahead.
I suspect many Britons think lock down is almost a consequence free policy. When they choose to go back to work, their job and their living standards will be waiting there for them.
The enormous propaganda effort to emphasise the threat of this virus, backed by the media, has also vastly exaggerated the danger of this disease to healthy people. I suspect your average Briton's image of it is a gross distortion of the truth. It is a disease that, cruelly, overwhelmingly kills aged people who are sick and frail.
What evidence do you have that containing the virus with a weeks-long lockdown is doing more economic damage than letting it run rampant?
Once again the 1920 pandemic wiped over 20% off our GDP on nominal figures and meant we didn't reach the same GDP on nominal figures for two decades until WWII started.
I think we will do better economically this time than we did this time a century ago. What say you?
Look at the anecdotes on here already starting to filter through. The school friend who may be in severe financial trouble. The schools that are allegedly shutting never to re open.
People think lockdown is a consequence free policy. The government pays them to take a three month holiday then we pick up where we left off, just like that.
Slowly the reality will kick in. That many businesses will not be coming back and there will be no jobs to come back to. That it will not be 80% of your nice fat salary to sit at home, it will be eighty quid a week on universal credit with unemployment running at at least 10% and quite possibly a great deal more.
The death that is not being mentioned nearly enough is the death of economic activity. Even if we did pick up in June or July where we left off - which will not be happening due to social distancing - the damage is already done. And it is growing by the day.
I agree with you that some of this damage was inevitable. However, the furlough scheme has given people a false sense of security and may end up causing more damage by making it possible, even inevitable, that the lockdown will be needlessly prolonged as long as it remains popular.
At the moment people are being insulated from the economic consequences. For how long do you think that is sustainable?
My wife and I, regular watchers of the Press Conferences, frequently ask each other how this Government has found the Magic Money Tree which, when, a few years ago, they were refusing rises to NHS staff they asserted did not exist. I think we're going to give up these conferences incidentally. I'm planning to re-read my Terry Pratchett Discworld books. Much better fantasy.
Very simple
Pay rises are an annual and permanent commitment
Furlough is - hopefully - a temporary measure that can be funded in due course by a one off tax
Point taken, but it's not just furlough, is it?
Yes, but most of the pandemic costs are one off in nature. The consequences could be recurring (eg higher unemployment)
There should be a separate discussion once we are out of this about what is the right level of resilience to build into the system. Higher resilience comes with higher costs and therefore higher taxes.
I would hope that they would be separate but I suspect that they will be conflated by those who want to raise taxes in any event
That levy on houses policy of yours, I've thought about it and it's an absolute must. Whatever the overall package is, this has to be in there. For me, a one-off to raise a game-changing sum, then to take its place as an annual tax at a much gentler %, set to be affordable and sustainable long term.
Does anyone know how to contact HMRC to report a company abusing the furlough by asking employees to answer emails and speak to clients.
Thereby helping to ensure they've got jobs to come back to
Then unfurlough the employee if they are business critical. This is just taxpayer subsidisation of wages.
Correct, but these are unprecedented times. Plenty of people will be doing all they can in the hope they have a job to come back to, as pointed out earlier others are decorating and drinking wine in a state of ignorant bliss.
And with the greatest respect snitching on people with good intentions isn't helpful
As I said, if the system is being abused by furloughed staff so working on proposal documents or on second level support - that's an unfair advantage that should be stamped out on.
Personally, you seem to be defending what to me is indefensible.
Yes, the friend has been asked to attend business strategy meetings on Zoom as well. I could kind of live with the emails because they said it was just a few times so far but when they were asked to attend business strategy meetings it was too much. They don't mind going back to work, but doesn't know how to say it to the company because they're used to not paying the wage now but getting the work done.
That's why I want to report the company, this isn't right and the friend said it was not just them, it's a large number of mid level people and below that have been put on the scheme and the juniors are said to be putting in almost full days sometimes.
In comparison to my company I get a check in from the senior once a week and we get invited to the Friday evening zoom social for the team. I have no access to my emails, no access to the VPN and my GCP profile has been set to inactive.
What you describe, if correct, is fraud.
While the police might well not be interested, the Revenue certainly would.
Agreed. The scheme is very clear that staff on furlough are not to do any paid work. They can undertake training or study but not money generating work. Those who abuse this astonishingly innovative and successful scheme should be prosecuted.
Does anyone know how to contact HMRC to report a company abusing the furlough by asking employees to answer emails and speak to clients.
Thereby helping to ensure they've got jobs to come back to
Then unfurlough the employee if they are business critical. This is just taxpayer subsidisation of wages.
Correct, but these are unprecedented times. Plenty of people will be doing all they can in the hope they have a job to come back to, as pointed out earlier others are decorating and drinking wine in a state of ignorant bliss.
And with the greatest respect snitching on people with good intentions isn't helpful
As I said, if the system is being abused by furloughed staff so working on proposal documents or on second level support - that's an unfair advantage that should be stamped out on.
Personally, you seem to be defending what to me is indefensible.
Yes, the friend has been asked to attend business strategy meetings on Zoom as well. I could kind of live with the emails because they said it was just a few times so far but when they were asked to attend business strategy meetings it was too much. They don't mind going back to work, but doesn't know how to say it to the company because they're used to not paying the wage now but getting the work done.
That's why I want to report the company, this isn't right and the friend said it was not just them, it's a large number of mid level people and below that have been put on the scheme and the juniors are said to be putting in almost full days sometimes.
In comparison to my company I get a check in from the senior once a week and we get invited to the Friday evening zoom social for the team. I have no access to my emails, no access to the VPN and my GCP profile has been set to inactive.
What you describe, if correct, is fraud.
While the police might well not be interested, the Revenue certainly would.
I actually suspect the police would be interested, it would give the appropriate police force (City of London) something to do and making an example would discourage others.
Yes, that's the issue, the general tax evasion form doesn't seem like the right place. I might give them a call tomorrow and see what steps I should take.
OT update. Am now - finally - "enjoying" Apple TV via a Firefox browser on my work laptop. Hasn't stopped playing. Yet...
Seriously Apple users, why would you tie yourselves to *this*? Can only use their overpriced tat. Devices built where you have to buy an overpriced adaptor to keep using all your peripherals. Where they keep changing the connector so you have to buy them again. Where the battery is built to fail and if it doesn't the software turns the device into a snail so you WILL buy again. Buy again. Again. Again.
If China turns into an international pariah, how will Apple get around it? I know that a company as Short of Cash as they are won't be able to make their devices outside of semi-slave labour factories in China, might be a problem...
I mean Apple TV+ has always been primarily for those in the Apple ecosystem. I watch it on an Apple TV or my iPad and it works great.
I don’t think Apple are bothered if those who watch it in Firefox on an old Toshiba laptop can no longer do so.
PB has a long tradition of non-Apple users wasting thousands of pixels boring on about their weird Apple obsession.
It's a core issue.
I would get out more, but I can't because we're locked down.
I`m an I.T. dunce to be sure, but the Apple-lovers v Apple-haters thing has long interested me from a human nature perspective. I found this definition of an Apple Fanboy:
"A single-layered thinking drone originally thought to exist in only small numbers. To help them assimilate into the real world, a computer with only simple functions so that the drones don't get confused was created. Eventually, more products were produced after it was discovered that the number or drones are in the millions. While scientists have been unable to find ways to increase brain performance in this species, a corporation named "Apple" has had financial success in at least convincing that the drone specimen is vastly superior to that of everything else. A specimen of "Apple fanboy" of this species will act partially retarded. "
In our households we all use Apple products. This was an expensive decision, made long ago; a decision that I have to justify repeatedly to my I.T. professional who is despairing of us. All I can say is "well, they work and we can understand them and they look nice". I know.
I worked with Macs in the late eighties, they were very much the non corporate choice, edgier than IBM machines and far superior graphics, which I needed for what I was working on. It’s weird how these comments make them seen like the ‘drone’ choice when the opposite was the case. I remember my 300 dpi laser printer was about four grand and the Mac SE was about three (or was it the other way round?).
For me it's fairly simple.
Apple early on tried to pretend that a monochrome postcard sized screen was better than a 14" colour screen.
Treating potential customer like idiots. Add that to the walled garden and the emphasis on prettiness over performance, and it is Apple defenestrated permanently. That is still the status for me.
Apple make the best mass-market mobile chips on the planet. Fact. “Prettiness over performance” is just “fanboy” nonsense.
Perfectly happy with my 9 year old iMac......most PCs lasted 3 years, 4 at a push.
I’ve got two Macs, plus a PC.
I bought an iMac in 2007, which is still working albeit rather slowly and the screen has failed. So I hooked that up to my TV and use it for playing Youtube and Amazon Prime content, which it does perfectly competently.
I also, because I’d had a Mac for so long, bought a Mac Mini for photos and pdf editing (which comes as standard, rather than a PC where you have to buy Adobe) - an important consideration given I have many thousands of photos for documents which I use in my research.
However, for work reasons I also had a PC, which I tended to use as my day to day workhorse. Had, because as I said at the time the bloody thing died on me on Easter Monday and it has taken weeks to work out the problem and get a fix (finally arrived yesterday).
So I have been very grateful for my Mac Mini just about having sufficient functionality to keep online lessons going. Even if I did make an error by upgrading to Catalina, which is shit.
What was the problem in the end?
The motherboard had gone, so I ordered a replacement, which arrived yesterday and I hope to set up today.
For a computer less than three years old that had not been heavily used this was unimpressive.
Does anyone know how to contact HMRC to report a company abusing the furlough by asking employees to answer emails and speak to clients.
Thereby helping to ensure they've got jobs to come back to
Then unfurlough the employee if they are business critical. This is just taxpayer subsidisation of wages.
Correct, but these are unprecedented times. Plenty of people will be doing all they can in the hope they have a job to come back to, as pointed out earlier others are decorating and drinking wine in a state of ignorant bliss.
And with the greatest respect snitching on people with good intentions isn't helpful
As I said, if the system is being abused by furloughed staff so working on proposal documents or on second level support - that's an unfair advantage that should be stamped out on.
Personally, you seem to be defending what to me is indefensible.
Yes, the friend has been asked to attend business strategy meetings on Zoom as well. I could kind of live with the emails because they said it was just a few times so far but when they were asked to attend business strategy meetings it was too much. They don't mind going back to work, but doesn't know how to say it to the company because they're used to not paying the wage now but getting the work done.
That's why I want to report the company, this isn't right and the friend said it was not just them, it's a large number of mid level people and below that have been put on the scheme and the juniors are said to be putting in almost full days sometimes.
In comparison to my company I get a check in from the senior once a week and we get invited to the Friday evening zoom social for the team. I have no access to my emails, no access to the VPN and my GCP profile has been set to inactive.
What you describe, if correct, is fraud.
While the police might well not be interested, the Revenue certainly would.
I actually suspect the police would be interested, it would give the appropriate police force (City of London) something to do and making an example would discourage others.
Not a square mile company unfortunately. Otherwise I actually would have taken that route because I know they have got a very good fraud investigation team.
I was actually thinking of going to the press with it, and getting them to independtly verify it so they can run a huge story and shame the company.
The Times article is wrong. It says that all over 70s have been instructed to shelter for twelve weeks. That's simply not true.
That is not really the point anymore. The government's advice is so unclear as to have confused the ST, Andrew Neil, various doctors and even the odd pber. Not to mention the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who trips up over the definitions in his own tweet complaining the ST misunderstood them.
It is a mess. HMG needs urgently to review its communications around Covid-19 so they are as clear as possible, so no-one dies, and so no-one is unnecessarily welded into their home.
ETA and so furloughed workers know what is and is not permitted.
Yes, that's the issue, the general tax evasion form doesn't seem like the right place. I might give them a call tomorrow and see what steps I should take.
It's the place HMRC links to and provides description fields to allow you to specify what you are reporting
Interestingly my neighbour discovered that a large number of traders had been abusing tax credits when their staff asked him how they would get more money after been furloughed on just the amount being declared to HMRC. Neither he nor I had any sympathy.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
I think this says a lot more about Corbyn than Starmer. But it is a huge change for Labour to have a leader who does not automatically repel the majority of voters ... twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1256720377604161537
Not being under constant attack from his own party or even the opposition parties probably helps a bit too.
Just maybe he is not deserving of such attacks as his predecessor.
Or the government is focused on something else just now?
The Times article is wrong. It says that all over 70s have been instructed to shelter for twelve weeks. That's simply not true.
That is not really the point anymore. The government's advice is so unclear as to have confused the ST, Andrew Neil, various doctors and even the odd pber. Not to mention the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who trips up over the definitions in his own tweet complaining the ST misunderstood them.
It is a mess. HMG needs urgently to review its communications around Covid-19 so they are as clear as possible, so no-one dies, and so no-one is unnecessarily welded into their home.
As we discussed last night, it wouldn't be unclear if one of the leading broadsheet weren't making these kind of silly mistakes. All over 70s are advised to minimise contact. Those in the most vulnerable category have been instructed by letter to shelter for twelve weeks.
Many wealthy (almost by definition ) older people willing to support lockdown and frown on those that don't but don't really want to share any (even minor) financial consequences - just listen to the moaning of 60 plus people who have booked a week in Tuscany this summer and cannot get their few hundred quid deposit back . Generally people want all the good things and none of the bad consequences. The older you get the consequences are limited to lost minor deposits on holidays (and they will demand them back!) but for the young they are losing their education, freedom and opportunity.
I understand your frustration and fear for the future but would caution that the vast majority of pensioners are far from wealthy and the lost holidays are not only deposits, but full price payments, and include many millions of families and younger people
The idea those of us in 12 weeks lockdown, unable to be with our family and hug our grandchildren, are laid back about the lockdown is far from true. My wife and I hope the lockdown will be eased gradually and responsibly and indeed we accept being in lockdown, as others are freed to start the process of regaining some normality in their lives
It is a great importance we do not set up a them against us, i.e. the old v the young as that creates division just at the time we need to be kinder to each other and show compassion to everyone who is suffering, including obviously yourself
We do feel your pain
I doubt there are millions of lost holiday payments. Most bookings are protected multiple times over, by legal rights in the event of cancellation, by their credit card companies, by travel insurance, and by ABTA/ATOL.
We are soon to be in the main holiday season when millions travel abroad on holiday and will now be near or will have paid the full price of their holiday
Sadly the EU of all organisations is about to remove the protections you refer to in an outrageous move to remove the right to a refund within 14 days of cancellation of holiday. The EU valuing and safeguarding big business at the expense of all just ordinary families wanting their summer holiday is just wrong
You may not have read my explanation to Stodge on the battle I have had with BA to get my air fare refunded when they cancelled our flights to Vancouver in May. Many companies in the travel industry will not survive due to their inability to fund the refunds and lost holiday payments will just disappear
The loss and/or delay over travel refunds this summer will be one of the biggest scandals aided and abetted by the EU
Delay is inevitable, given the cash flow crisis travel companies now have. Look at the cruise industry - hundreds of thousands of people being made to wait two months or more for their refunds, mostly Americans and Brits. Nothing to do with the EU.
However, given the multiple protections I highlighted downthread, it is very unlikely that much of the losses will end up with the holidaymakers.
Actually they will be victims in all of this
Firstly, insurers are refusing to pay out as they maintain it is not an insurable event
Secondly, airlines, travel companies and others are offering travel vouchers just at the time they are facing bankruptcy and rendering the vouchers worthless against their legal duty to refund
Third, you cannot easily dismiss the appalling behaviour of the EU as they remove the right to a 14 day refund in an act of highway robbery against families and holidaymakers across the EU and in so doing also removes the rights of UK consumers to obtain a 14 day refund on cancellation of their cruise
I would just say that it would be refreshing if those who support the EU actually condemned them rather than made excuses. It is not excusable
Mr G are you sure you are right on this; looks to me, from a quick scan of the EU regs that while there have been changes, they increase consumer protection. In any event it would be amazing if the EU reduced consumer protection; goes against the grain of everything else they have done.
There is a cohort of EU countries led by Germany wanting the 14 day refund rule abolished to protect their airlines and travel industry. I understand the EU do intend confirming it and I would say to anyone at risk over their refund to get it now and also alert their credit card company
There is a very real danger the EU are about to put millions of their citizens in financial difficulty over their holiday plans
How can they be put into "financial difficulty"? Even in the worst case (which won't happen) they only lose money they would have spent (edit/indeed, had already spent) on a holiday anyway; a holiday they now aren't taking.
They would not have risked their money if it was not protected in the event of cancellation
Boris should fix it then , plenty of wittering on about sovereignty and how the great UK would look after itself after BREXIT, get on with it.
"I'm not an expert on immunology or virology but based on other studies I have read about, it wouldn't surprise me (@TimT will know more about this) if some of these samples are still being put through novel testing or investigative processes in 50 years' time. Sounds extreme, but eg people studying pathogen mutation sometimes withdraw material that has been kept in very long-term storage for that kind of time"
Firstly, I am not an expert in immunology or virology, either, but in biological risk management. That said, I do follow cutting edge biotechnology developments, research and applications for their implications for biosafety, biosecurity and health security.
Before his role in the Fauchier/Kawaoka gain of function controversy, Yoshi Kawaoka synthetically recreated the 1918 Spanish flu to study which of its genes were necessary to enable it to replicate in the lungs (and hence, like COVID, to cause deadly primary pneumonia), and which proteins these genes code for in order to start the hunt for anti-virals that could target these proteins, From a 2008 report on this research:
"For the most part, substituting single genes from the 1918 virus onto the template of a much more benign contemporary virus yielded agents that could only replicate in the upper respiratory tract. One exception, however, included a complex of three genes that, acting in concert with another key gene, allowed the virus to efficiently colonize lung cells and make RNA polymerase, a protein necessary for the virus to reproduce."
In 2017, a Canadian team synthetically recreated the extinct horse pox virus, ostensibly to help find a better human smallpox vaccine. One of the lead researchers in this project sits on the WHO committee that overseas smallpox research.
The basic argument of all this research is that the more we know the genomics of pathogens and close relative non-pathogens, the more we can understand, scan for, and prepare for the emergence of new deadly diseases. And the more we can understand on a molecular level how these viruses bind and fuse with host cells, hijack the cell's protein and genetic machinery, hide from the host's immune system, or cause damaging host reactions like the cytokine storm, the more we are able to develop vaccines, antivirals, and treatments for the symptoms.
But none of this work is without risk, be it natural (increasing the exposure of humans to animal viruses), accidental (letting an isolated virus escape from the lab), or deliberate (misuse of the knowledge and technology for malicious intent).
Ironically, much of the work that has come under such scrutiny in recent years has received funding from the US NIAID, including Kawaoka's, Fauchier's and the Wuhan lab. And the head of NIAID is none other than current American folk hero, Dr Anthony Fauci. (PS I am a personal fan, but I do love the irony.)
A cursory look through the media gives the explanation for the figures above.
Almost nothing on the enormous economic damage we are doing to our country, and the extremely hard times we face ahead.
I suspect many Britons think lock down is almost a consequence free policy. When they choose to go back to work, their job and their living standards will be waiting there for them.
The enormous propaganda effort to emphasise the threat of this virus, backed by the media, has also vastly exaggerated the danger of this disease to healthy people. I suspect your average Briton's image of it is a gross distortion of the truth. It is a disease that, cruelly, overwhelmingly kills aged people who are sick and frail.
What evidence do you have that containing the virus with a weeks-long lockdown is doing more economic damage than letting it run rampant?
Once again the 1920 pandemic wiped over 20% off our GDP on nominal figures and meant we didn't reach the same GDP on nominal figures for two decades until WWII started.
I think we will do better economically this time than we did this time a century ago. What say you?
Look at the anecdotes on here already starting to filter through. The school friend who may be in severe financial trouble. The schools that are allegedly shutting never to re open.
People think lockdown is a consequence free policy. The government pays them to take a three month holiday then we pick up where we left off, just like that.
Slowly the reality will kick in. That many businesses will not be coming back and there will be no jobs to come back to. That it will not be 80% of your nice fat salary to sit at home, it will be eighty quid a week on universal credit with unemployment running at at least 10% and quite possibly a great deal more.
The death that is not being mentioned nearly enough is the death of economic activity. Even if we did pick up in June or July where we left off - which will not be happening due to social distancing - the damage is already done. And it is growing by the day.
I agree with you that some of this damage was inevitable. However, the furlough scheme has given people a false sense of security and may end up causing more damage by making it possible, even inevitable, that the lockdown will be needlessly prolonged as long as it remains popular.
At the moment people are being insulated from the economic consequences. For how long do you think that is sustainable?
My wife and I, regular watchers of the Press Conferences, frequently ask each other how this Government has found the Magic Money Tree which, when, a few years ago, they were refusing rises to NHS staff they asserted did not exist. I think we're going to give up these conferences incidentally. I'm planning to re-read my Terry Pratchett Discworld books. Much better fantasy.
Very simple
Pay rises are an annual and permanent commitment
Furlough is - hopefully - a temporary measure that can be funded in due course by a one off tax
Point taken, but it's not just furlough, is it?
Yes, but most of the pandemic costs are one off in nature. The consequences could be recurring (eg higher unemployment)
There should be a separate discussion once we are out of this about what is the right level of resilience to build into the system. Higher resilience comes with higher costs and therefore higher taxes.
I would hope that they would be separate but I suspect that they will be conflated by those who want to raise taxes in any event
It's not going to just be unemployment, its going to be the loss of a significant chunk of the tax base. Rebalancing will be necessary, there is no doubt about that.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
The Times article is wrong. It says that all over 70s have been instructed to shelter for twelve weeks. That's simply not true.
That is not really the point anymore. The government's advice is so unclear as to have confused the ST, Andrew Neil, various doctors and even the odd pber. Not to mention the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who trips up over the definitions in his own tweet complaining the ST misunderstood them.
It is a mess. HMG needs urgently to review its communications around Covid-19 so they are as clear as possible, so no-one dies, and so no-one is unnecessarily welded into their home.
ETA and so furloughed workers know what is and is not permitted.
The over 70s, plus those with medical conditions (some of whom are otherwise pretty fit and healthy) are being advised they are higher risk, and should be practising social distancing rigorously. The implication is that this is for our own safety, not just to prevent transmission. So as and when things start to reopen, this group presumably should not be going to the gym, down the pub, having a haircut, doing parkrun, even if when these things are allowed to reopen. So more advice is certainly needed. Similarly it seems that there are people who are not in the higher risk group who might actually be of higher risk from Covid - the overweight, pre-diabetics, and possibly smokers. The guidance also says "diabetics" and I am not sure if Type 2s realise this includes them. Well if you're fat and smoke there's something you can do about it.
Many wealthy (almost by definition ) older people willing to support lockdown and frown on those that don't but don't really want to share any (even minor) financial consequences - just listen to the moaning of 60 plus people who have booked a week in Tuscany this summer and cannot get their few hundred quid deposit back . Generally people want all the good things and none of the bad consequences. The older you get the consequences are limited to lost minor deposits on holidays (and they will demand them back!) but for the young they are losing their education, freedom and opportunity.
I understand your frustration and fear for the future but would caution that the vast majority of pensioners are far from wealthy and the lost holidays are not only deposits, but full price payments, and include many millions of families and younger people
The idea those of us in 12 weeks lockdown, unable to be with our family and hug our grandchildren, are laid back about the lockdown is far from true. My wife and I hope the lockdown will be eased gradually and responsibly and indeed we accept being in lockdown, as others are freed to start the process of regaining some normality in their lives
It is a great importance we do not set up a them against us, i.e. the old v the young as that creates division just at the time we need to be kinder to each other and show compassion to everyone who is suffering, including obviously yourself
We do feel your pain
I doubt there are millions of lost holiday payments. Most bookings are protected multiple times over, by legal rights in the event of cancellation, by their credit card companies, by travel insurance, and by ABTA/ATOL.
We are soon to be in the main holiday season when millions travel abroad on holiday and will now be near or will have paid the full price of their holiday
Sadly the EU of all organisations is about to remove the protections you refer to in an outrageous move to remove the right to a refund within 14 days of cancellation of holiday. The EU valuing and safeguarding big business at the expense of all just ordinary families wanting their summer holiday is just wrong
You may not have read my explanation to Stodge on the battle I have had with BA to get my air fare refunded when they cancelled our flights to Vancouver in May. Many companies in the travel industry will not survive due to their inability to fund the refunds and lost holiday payments will just disappear
The loss and/or delay over travel refunds this summer will be one of the biggest scandals aided and abetted by the EU
Delay is inevitable, given the cash flow crisis travel companies now have. Look at the cruise industry - hundreds of thousands of people being made to wait two months or more for their refunds, mostly Americans and Brits. Nothing to do with the EU.
However, given the multiple protections I highlighted downthread, it is very unlikely that much of the losses will end up with the holidaymakers.
Actually they will be victims in all of this
Firstly, insurers are refusing to pay out as they maintain it is not an insurable amount
Secondly, airlines, travel companies and others are offering travel vouchers just at the time they are facing bankruptcy and rendering the vouchers worthless
Third, you cannot easily dismiss the appalling behaviour of the EU as they remove the right to a 14 day refund in an act of highway robbery against families and holidaymakers across the EU and in so doing removes the rights of UK consumers to obtain a 14 daybrefund on cancellation of their cruise
I would just say that it would be refreshing if those who support the EU actually condemned them rather than made excuses. It is not excusable
Your first comment doesn't make any sense - an insurance company should be paying out to the point of bankruptcy unless they have legal get out clauses.
Yes I know they are trying it on (as they all do) but I suspect the ombudsman will be giving those arguments very short shrift.
The insurers are not paying out over covid holiday cancellations and indeed mine refunded my premium less 30% adminstration fee
The EU are about to change the rules lifting the 14 day refund requirement thereby plunging holidaymakers into months of stress as they fight for refunds
As you know the process of using an Ombudsman is long and stressful and will not see a return on holiday cash for many months, even if the complainant wins their case
I cannot emphasise it enough, this years holidays are going to result in financial pain and complexity never even considered when the consumer had the 14 day refund, backed by statute
Sorry but realistically losing a holiday one could afford and would have taken but cannot does not amount to economic hardship! The person has just lost a holiday.
The vast majority will get their holidays refunded, rightly so, anyway.
Re your first paragraph suggesting millions of families can afford to lose their holiday probably costing thousands is nonsense
Your second paragraphs demonstrates how little you know over the current state of obtaining refunds in the travel industry.
I should know, I have just beennp through the whole process and it is a nightmare
How does not going on a paid holiday put you into economic hardship? I don’t get it. I imagine you might be fed up and sad, but not financially worse off.
You are financially worse off if you booked the holiday knowing it was backed by insurance and 14 day refunds if supplier cancels and then both fail in their duty to act in accordance with statue
You would not book the holiday if these safeguard were not in place.
You may as well put your money on a horse
The cost of an (already paid for) holiday is a sunk cost. You are not "financially worse off" (in a 'causing hardship' sense) if you are not refunded. In you do however receive a refund you are financially better off. You can spend the money on something else. For example, a different holiday. A holiday is a luxury. There is no requirement to spend money on one.
But then everyone's making the same point, and you are completely unable to see the wood for the trees. It's all about your statutory rights and that's it. Statutory rights that were hardly designed for the current situation. Yes some companies might be pushing the boundaries. Others are just fighting for survival. But as long as you can take the moral highground and demanding your right to refund. Me, me, me.
The thing is I have my refund from BA
It does not effect me
I am making a case for the many ordinary families who face losing the cost of their holiday when they thought they were insured
That is a reasonable ascertion as far as I am concerned
And for the benefit of doubt I agree it does not equate to financial hardship, and ifvI gave that impression I am sorry
They have your hero Boris to thank for that, if only we had been in the EU those millions would have got their money back.
I hadn't intended to set off an Apple flame war. I had intended to watch For All Mankind (which is fabulous BTW) and encountered all kinds of stupid problems trying to find a way to get streaming video to work.
The opportunity for Apple is to get people like me to buy product from them for the first time. As Disney, Netflix, BritBox etc etc are doing. So keep it simple, not make it stupid. "Ah but they didn't intend you to watch it on x" is fine if the intention is to use Apple TV as a way to make you buy their kit. But they aren't going make their money back off mega TV productions based on forced sales of Apple TV boxes...
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
I hadn't intended to set off an Apple flame war. I had intended to watch For All Mankind (which is fabulous BTW) and encountered all kinds of stupid problems trying to find a way to get streaming video to work.
The opportunity for Apple is to get people like me to buy product from them for the first time. As Disney, Netflix, BritBox etc etc are doing. So keep it simple, not make it stupid. "Ah but they didn't intend you to watch it on x" is fine if the intention is to use Apple TV as a way to make you buy their kit. But they aren't going make their money back off mega TV productions based on forced sales of Apple TV boxes...
Apple will be/are adding the Apple TV app to newer smart TVs.
The Times article is wrong. It says that all over 70s have been instructed to shelter for twelve weeks. That's simply not true.
That is not really the point anymore. The government's advice is so unclear as to have confused the ST, Andrew Neil, various doctors and even the odd pber. Not to mention the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who trips up over the definitions in his own tweet complaining the ST misunderstood them.
It is a mess. HMG needs urgently to review its communications around Covid-19 so they are as clear as possible, so no-one dies, and so no-one is unnecessarily welded into their home.
As we discussed last night, it wouldn't be unclear if one of the leading broadsheet weren't making these kind of silly mistakes. All over 70s are advised to minimise contact. Those in the most vulnerable category have been instructed by letter to shelter for twelve weeks.
Besides it makes so little difference at the minute as to be moot. Everyone is supposed to be staying at home now apart from those who need to leave, so if people are sheltering at the minute who need to just be staying at home then that is rather a distinction without a difference.
It will matter much more to be clearer once the lockdown measures start to be lifted.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
The Times article is wrong. It says that all over 70s have been instructed to shelter for twelve weeks. That's simply not true.
That is not really the point anymore. The government's advice is so unclear as to have confused the ST, Andrew Neil, various doctors and even the odd pber. Not to mention the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who trips up over the definitions in his own tweet complaining the ST misunderstood them.
It is a mess. HMG needs urgently to review its communications around Covid-19 so they are as clear as possible, so no-one dies, and so no-one is unnecessarily welded into their home.
As we discussed last night, it wouldn't be unclear if one of the leading broadsheet weren't making these kind of silly mistakes. All over 70s are advised to minimise contact. Those in the most vulnerable category have been instructed by letter to shelter for twelve weeks.
Besides it makes so little difference at the minute as to be moot. Everyone is supposed to be staying at home now apart from those who need to leave, so if people are sheltering at the minute who need to just be staying at home then that is rather a distinction without a difference.
It will matter much more to be clearer once the lockdown measures start to be lifted.
Yeah, probably hasn't hurt compliance rates. I just don't understand the logic that the government is to blame for the Times publishing a factually incorrect article that could have been found to be incorrect with a couple of minutes on Google like I did last night.
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
Measuring communication is about the percentage of the audience who understood it, not about whats fair or how it was structured. This was poor communication as it is relatively simple but many have misunderstood.
Depressing threader. Living without people around me, without interaction with others, just online, seems to me like a living death.
I do not want to catch or die of this disease. But I do not fear it oddly enough. I know, from my experience of TB, what it is like to have no breath, to be unable to speak even a few words, to be gasping for each breath and to be lying there slowly being consumed. Somehow - and this is a personal view - fear of the unknown is worse.
If social interaction is severely curtailed, it is not just the immediate providers of it who face carnage. The entire tourist, hospitality, arts, culture and heritage sectors are in trouble. Think what this means for whole areas of the country, those living there, suppliers etc. I find it hard to believe this will happen. People are social animals. Always have been, even when faced with similar challenges. Can this innate human desire be suppressed, whether through fear or diktat, for long?
I am off for a walk.
This quote seems to sum it up for me:
“It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.“
On tech: I’ve just switched to a Pixel 4. I am really liking it so far - it feels streets ahead of my old iPhone. I suppose part of that is simply that it is more up to date.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
Measuring communication is about the percentage of the audience who understood it, not about whats fair or how it was structured. This was poor communication as it is relatively simple but many have misunderstood.
I think the media have to accept their portion of blame on this. And it's a rather large portion in my opinion.
The Times article is wrong. It says that all over 70s have been instructed to shelter for twelve weeks. That's simply not true.
That is not really the point anymore. The government's advice is so unclear as to have confused the ST, Andrew Neil, various doctors and even the odd pber. Not to mention the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who trips up over the definitions in his own tweet complaining the ST misunderstood them.
It is a mess. HMG needs urgently to review its communications around Covid-19 so they are as clear as possible, so no-one dies, and so no-one is unnecessarily welded into their home.
As we discussed last night, it wouldn't be unclear if one of the leading broadsheet weren't making these kind of silly mistakes. All over 70s are advised to minimise contact. Those in the most vulnerable category have been instructed by letter to shelter for twelve weeks.
Besides it makes so little difference at the minute as to be moot. Everyone is supposed to be staying at home now apart from those who need to leave, so if people are sheltering at the minute who need to just be staying at home then that is rather a distinction without a difference.
It will matter much more to be clearer once the lockdown measures start to be lifted.
It does make a difference. Shielded people should be staying at home and not going out for any reason. Not for daily exercise. Not to go to the shops. Nada. So quite important in terms of mental and physical health, and the extent to which you need to get friends and family to support you.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
Furthermore the government said (repeatedly) that the letter would be going to everyone who needs to stay at home for 12 weeks.
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
Precaution or not he was in ICU, and I'll trust the medical professionals who thought it serious enough to warrant that over you malc, who essentially thought it was nothing but a PR hoax, even if you are more cirumspect now and merely talk about exploiting his stay there. You obviously thought at the time he was basically fine and it was mostly made up, so that puts your 'concerns' about him exploiting it now in a proper context.
He is a bellend and a chancer who will exploit anything, but you seemed awfully keen to exploit his stay in ICU by suggesting it was nothing. Is one exploitation ok and another not?
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
When the formal advice came it was different to what had been trailed the week before. Fewer people were told to shield. However this change was not pointed out explicitly, so people who had paid more attention to the first announcement will have assumed that the initial criteria applied.
I have a Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, iPad, iPhone, Apple watch, and Apple TV.
The best features of Apple is the handoff feature, makes my life so much easier.
Also my long history of Macbook ownership not one has ever suffered the blue screen of death that Windows users suffer.
Apple's aftercare service is amazing, if anything develops a fault/stops working in the first year, or even after, I go to the Meadowhall or Arndale centres and they fix it or give me a new device.
The Times article is wrong. It says that all over 70s have been instructed to shelter for twelve weeks. That's simply not true.
That is not really the point anymore. The government's advice is so unclear as to have confused the ST, Andrew Neil, various doctors and even the odd pber. Not to mention the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who trips up over the definitions in his own tweet complaining the ST misunderstood them.
It is a mess. HMG needs urgently to review its communications around Covid-19 so they are as clear as possible, so no-one dies, and so no-one is unnecessarily welded into their home.
As we discussed last night, it wouldn't be unclear if one of the leading broadsheet weren't making these kind of silly mistakes. All over 70s are advised to minimise contact. Those in the most vulnerable category have been instructed by letter to shelter for twelve weeks.
Besides it makes so little difference at the minute as to be moot. Everyone is supposed to be staying at home now apart from those who need to leave, so if people are sheltering at the minute who need to just be staying at home then that is rather a distinction without a difference.
It will matter much more to be clearer once the lockdown measures start to be lifted.
It does make a difference. Shielded people should be staying at home and not going out for any reason. Not for daily exercise. Not to go to the shops. Nada. So quite important in terms of mental and physical health, and the extent to which you need to get friends and family to support you.
Its a rather moot difference in practice.
Those who don't need to be shielded and just need to stay at home are still safer if they're being shielded at the minute. My grandparents are in their 80s and 90s, whether they've got the letter or not they are all acting as if they need to be shielded - and were from before the government announced anything. Quite right too IMO, they're being smart in doing that, why take an unnecessary risk?
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
When the formal advice came it was different to what had been trailed the week before. Fewer people were told to shield. However this change was not pointed out explicitly, so people who had paid more attention to the first announcement will have assumed that the initial criteria applied.
Wasn't the advice always that the most vulnerable would be the ones asked to shelter? I don't think they ever lumped all over-70s into that category.
I hadn't intended to set off an Apple flame war. I had intended to watch For All Mankind (which is fabulous BTW) and encountered all kinds of stupid problems trying to find a way to get streaming video to work.
The opportunity for Apple is to get people like me to buy product from them for the first time. As Disney, Netflix, BritBox etc etc are doing. So keep it simple, not make it stupid. "Ah but they didn't intend you to watch it on x" is fine if the intention is to use Apple TV as a way to make you buy their kit. But they aren't going make their money back off mega TV productions based on forced sales of Apple TV boxes...
Apple will be/are adding the Apple TV app to newer smart TVs.
On the Apple vs Microsoft flamewar - many IT professionals like the fact that, underneath, Mac OSX is one of the best UNIX implentations out there.
Microsoft is making a genuine attempt to out preform Mac. The removal of Balmer has set free a number of very interesting innovations. Their cloud computing offering is genuinely a good challenger to Amazon.
Apples streaming service/Apple TV is falling behind as a value for money offering. Many people are just using their Apple TV like a Chromecast - to put content from their phone onto the TV.
On topic a colleague said last week a Covid-19 tax will be introduced as a temporary measure in the same way income tax was a temporary measure to fight the Napoleonic wars.
We'll be paying this for centuries.
(He doesn't expect a vaccine and but expects lots of new mutations of Covid-19.)
I have a Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, iPad, iPhone, Apple watch, and Apple TV.
The best features of Apple is the handoff feature, makes my life so much easier.
Also my long history of Macbook ownership not one has ever suffered the blue screen of death that Windows users suffer.
Apple's aftercare service is amazing, if anything develops a fault/stops working in the first year, or even after, I go to the Meadowhall or Arndale centres and they fix it or give me a new device.
Despite the feeling that I`m being ripped off by Apple, I have to admit that: we have 4 iphones, two ipads and a Mac. 7 devices. We also have a PC. The only device that we need help from our I.T. on is the PC.
I hadn't intended to set off an Apple flame war. I had intended to watch For All Mankind (which is fabulous BTW) and encountered all kinds of stupid problems trying to find a way to get streaming video to work.
The opportunity for Apple is to get people like me to buy product from them for the first time. As Disney, Netflix, BritBox etc etc are doing. So keep it simple, not make it stupid. "Ah but they didn't intend you to watch it on x" is fine if the intention is to use Apple TV as a way to make you buy their kit. But they aren't going make their money back off mega TV productions based on forced sales of Apple TV boxes...
Apple will be/are adding the Apple TV app to newer smart TVs.
On the Apple vs Microsoft flamewar - many IT professionals like the fact that, underneath, Mac OSX is one of the best UNIX implentations out there.
Microsoft is making a genuine attempt to out preform Mac. The removal of Balmer has set free a number of very interesting innovations. Their cloud computing offering is genuinely a good challenger to Amazon.
Apples streaming service/Apple TV is falling behind as a value for money offering. Many people are just using their Apple TV like a Chromecast - to put content from their phone onto the TV.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
When the formal advice came it was different to what had been trailed the week before. Fewer people were told to shield. However this change was not pointed out explicitly, so people who had paid more attention to the first announcement will have assumed that the initial criteria applied.
Wasn't the advice always that the most vulnerable would be the ones asked to shelter? I don't think they ever lumped all over-70s into that category.
They did include all over 70s in the pre announcement, but this changed by the time it was implemented.
Vitriol after the Salmond trial is toxifying the Yes movement - Dani Garavelli
It is now almost five weeks since the end of the Alex Salmond trial, and the attempt to convince the world he was the victim of an orchestrated campaign by SNP careerists/Unionists/MI5/the Deep State is gathering momentum.
I think total victory in both cases , all being shown to be lying toerags etc is more than enough to prove it was a botched state stitch up. Be interesting when they have to have the government inquiry, when Sturgeon has to explain why she lied to parliament and Alex publishes his book and we see the evidence the state would not show. Only the blind would try to say it was not a stitch up attempt
They did include all over 70s in the pre announcement, but this changed by the time it was implemented.
Not in the briefing on the 16th:
The part about the over 70s minimising social contact is separated from the part about shielding those with the most serious health conditions. They aren't conflated in any way.
So, second, now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others and to stop all unnecessary travel.
We need people to start working from home where they possibly can. And you should avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues.
It goes without saying, we should all only use the NHS when we really need to. And please go online rather than ringing NHS 111.
Now, this advice about avoiding all unnecessary social contact, is particularly important for people over 70, for pregnant women and for those with some health conditions.
And if you ask, why are we doing this now, why now, why not earlier, or later? Why bring in this very draconian measure?
The answer is that we are asking people to do something that is difficult and disruptive of their lives.
And the right moment, as we’ve always said, is to do it when it is most effective, when we think it can make the biggest difference to slowing the spread of the disease, reducing the number of victims, reducing the number of fatalities.
And as we take these steps we should be focusing on the most vulnerable.
So third, in a few days’ time – by this coming weekend – it will be necessary to go further and to ensure that those with the most serious health conditions are largely shielded from social contact for around 12 weeks.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
When the formal advice came it was different to what had been trailed the week before. Fewer people were told to shield. However this change was not pointed out explicitly, so people who had paid more attention to the first announcement will have assumed that the initial criteria applied.
Wasn't the advice always that the most vulnerable would be the ones asked to shelter? I don't think they ever lumped all over-70s into that category.
They did include all over 70s in the pre announcement, but this changed by the time it was implemented.
Yes, I was worried it might apply to everyone who gets a flu jab on medical grounds, but for that group it became "follow social distancing especially stringently"
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
Measuring communication is about the percentage of the audience who understood it, not about whats fair or how it was structured. This was poor communication as it is relatively simple but many have misunderstood.
I think the media have to accept their portion of blame on this. And it's a rather large portion in my opinion.
Effectively, this boils down to the press arguing that they need to be regulated far more closely.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
When the formal advice came it was different to what had been trailed the week before. Fewer people were told to shield. However this change was not pointed out explicitly, so people who had paid more attention to the first announcement will have assumed that the initial criteria applied.
Wasn't the advice always that the most vulnerable would be the ones asked to shelter? I don't think they ever lumped all over-70s into that category.
They did include all over 70s in the pre announcement, but this changed by the time it was implemented.
Yes, I was worried it might apply to everyone who gets a flu jab on medical grounds, but for that group it became "follow social distancing especially stringently"
How unstringently can the rest of us follow the guidelines when they are also law?
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
Measuring communication is about the percentage of the audience who understood it, not about whats fair or how it was structured. This was poor communication as it is relatively simple but many have misunderstood.
I think the media have to accept their portion of blame on this. And it's a rather large portion in my opinion.
Effectively, this boils down to the press arguing that they need to be regulated far more closely.
Nothing so drastic, they should just do a bit of checking before things like this are published.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
When the formal advice came it was different to what had been trailed the week before. Fewer people were told to shield. However this change was not pointed out explicitly, so people who had paid more attention to the first announcement will have assumed that the initial criteria applied.
Wasn't the advice always that the most vulnerable would be the ones asked to shelter? I don't think they ever lumped all over-70s into that category.
They did include all over 70s in the pre announcement, but this changed by the time it was implemented.
Yes, I was worried it might apply to everyone who gets a flu jab on medical grounds, but for that group it became "follow social distancing especially stringently"
And the ridiculousness of basing it on influenza when we have seen how utterly different it is in its effect is still not being addressed. The lists have become a joke, bearing no real connection to the reality of this virus.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
Measuring communication is about the percentage of the audience who understood it, not about whats fair or how it was structured. This was poor communication as it is relatively simple but many have misunderstood.
I think the media have to accept their portion of blame on this. And it's a rather large portion in my opinion.
Effectively, this boils down to the press arguing that they need to be regulated far more closely.
Nothing so drastic, they should just do a bit of checking before things like this are published.
And if they repeatedly show themselves incapable or unwilling to do so?
If that wasn't the advice then nobody has told my parents, their friends or my over 70 year old neighbours who have all been in total lockdown for weeks.
Unrelated but interesting post from Steve Baker on that twitter link:
"Cummings opponents never learn that he uses controversy over numbers to keep the numbers in the news. So that the numbers are widely heard by the public."
Gives more context to the 100k tests, it does seem to work every time. Far more people will be impressed by the 100k than offended by the dodgy counting.
By the same token, in a couple of days when all the headlines are about the UK having more deaths than any other country in Europe isn't that what is going to stick in peoples' minds? It's the simple fact that more people have now died in the UK than in Italy, Spain, Germany or France that people will remember and talk about, not the sub-text that some countries count deaths differently etc etc.
OT update. Am now - finally - "enjoying" Apple TV via a Firefox browser on my work laptop. Hasn't stopped playing. Yet...
Seriously Apple users, why would you tie yourselves to *this*? Can only use their overpriced tat. Devices built where you have to buy an overpriced adaptor to keep using all your peripherals. Where they keep changing the connector so you have to buy them again. Where the battery is built to fail and if it doesn't the software turns the device into a snail so you WILL buy again. Buy again. Again. Again.
If China turns into an international pariah, how will Apple get around it? I know that a company as Short of Cash as they are won't be able to make their devices outside of semi-slave labour factories in China, might be a problem...
I mean Apple TV+ has always been primarily for those in the Apple ecosystem. I watch it on an Apple TV or my iPad and it works great.
I don’t think Apple are bothered if those who watch it in Firefox on an old Toshiba laptop can no longer do so.
PB has a long tradition of non-Apple users wasting thousands of pixels boring on about their weird Apple obsession.
It's a core issue.
I would get out more, but I can't because we're locked down.
Your punning truly takes the pip.
Losing is a peal for me.
I know. He's such a tart.
I am sure he will crumble in the face of such vociferous attack.
If that wasn't the advice then nobody has told my parents, their friends or my over 70 year old neighbours who have all been in total lockdown for weeks.
Unrelated but interesting post from Steve Baker on that twitter link:
"Cummings opponents never learn that he uses controversy over numbers to keep the numbers in the news. So that the numbers are widely heard by the public."
Gives more context to the 100k tests, it does seem to work every time. Far more people will be impressed by the 100k than offended by the dodgy counting.
By the same token, in a couple of days when all the headlines are about the UK having more deaths than any other country in Europe isn't that what is going to stick in peoples' minds? It's the simple fact that more people have now died in the UK than in Italy, Spain, Germany or France that people will remember and talk about, not the sub-text that some countries count deaths differently etc etc.
Is that now known? I thought the numbers couldn't be directly compared because of different reporting methods.
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
You have access to his medical records, I assume?
you only need a pair of eyes and a few brain cells, someone close to death does not walk out of ICU 2 days later, mugs are easily taken in.
The Times article is wrong. It says that all over 70s have been instructed to shelter for twelve weeks. That's simply not true.
That is not really the point anymore. The government's advice is so unclear as to have confused the ST, Andrew Neil, various doctors and even the odd pber. Not to mention the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who trips up over the definitions in his own tweet complaining the ST misunderstood them.
It is a mess. HMG needs urgently to review its communications around Covid-19 so they are as clear as possible, so no-one dies, and so no-one is unnecessarily welded into their home.
As we discussed last night, it wouldn't be unclear if one of the leading broadsheet weren't making these kind of silly mistakes. All over 70s are advised to minimise contact. Those in the most vulnerable category have been instructed by letter to shelter for twelve weeks.
Besides it makes so little difference at the minute as to be moot. Everyone is supposed to be staying at home now apart from those who need to leave, so if people are sheltering at the minute who need to just be staying at home then that is rather a distinction without a difference.
It will matter much more to be clearer once the lockdown measures start to be lifted.
It does make a difference. Shielded people should be staying at home and not going out for any reason. Not for daily exercise. Not to go to the shops. Nada. So quite important in terms of mental and physical health, and the extent to which you need to get friends and family to support you.
Its a rather moot difference in practice.
Those who don't need to be shielded and just need to stay at home are still safer if they're being shielded at the minute. My grandparents are in their 80s and 90s, whether they've got the letter or not they are all acting as if they need to be shielded - and were from before the government announced anything. Quite right too IMO, they're being smart in doing that, why take an unnecessary risk?
Well, I'm 55, fit and otherwise healthy, but have a heart condition which entitles me to a free flu jab. Technically I'm in the same risk group as your grandparents. I'm working from home and, apart from daily exercise, going out rarely (I've been out twice in the last two weeks, once to Waitrose, once for a Covid test). However I am certainly not voluntarily shielding myself. While voluntary shielding is probably the right course of action for people of your grandparents age they can't do it for ever (don't they like going out? Don't they like their independence? Don't they need exercise too?) and there's an awful lot of people caught up in the higher-risk-but-not-shielding group who are either younger and active, but with a health condition, or are, say 71 and fit, and used to having an active retirement. Besides which I live on my own and don't have family to fall back on for human contact& life enrichment - I am used to being sociable, and going out places on my own. It can't last for ever, and something has to be done to ensure people in the higher risk categories can have some sort of life.
If that wasn't the advice then nobody has told my parents, their friends or my over 70 year old neighbours who have all been in total lockdown for weeks.
Unrelated but interesting post from Steve Baker on that twitter link:
"Cummings opponents never learn that he uses controversy over numbers to keep the numbers in the news. So that the numbers are widely heard by the public."
Gives more context to the 100k tests, it does seem to work every time. Far more people will be impressed by the 100k than offended by the dodgy counting.
By the same token, in a couple of days when all the headlines are about the UK having more deaths than any other country in Europe isn't that what is going to stick in peoples' minds? It's the simple fact that more people have now died in the UK than in Italy, Spain, Germany or France that people will remember and talk about, not the sub-text that some countries count deaths differently etc etc.
Nah. It'll look bad for a while, maybe even for a year or two. But eventually all those other countries are going to be forced to admit how many people they really lost.
What is going to be essential for any sort of "return to normal" (and it won't be) is a substantial fall in the death rate. Yesterday's figures were highly discouraging in that respect. While Italy, Spain and France have all got themselves in the 200s we are still at 739. I appreciate that this has catch up and may well be more comprehensive etc etc but we are still very high. It will be difficult for the government to make substantial moves until the rate is under 100 a day and even then.... I think its a few weeks away yet although there may be some token gestures in the meantime.
We are just a few weeks from the PM nearly dying of this virus. It's all a bit raw right now. And the longer the deaths continue the more people there will be who will know colleagues, friends, relations etc who have been killed by it. That will also have an affect. We face a very tough road ahead. There is no way back to where we were before. New normal is a tired phrase, but it is spot on here. The world has changed irrevocably.
Boris was never near dying , he had four days in hospital ward and a couple in ICU as a precaution, if he had been close to dying he would not have been walking out of there after a couple of days. His next disaster will be hard brexit with no FTA, the man is an absolute bellend, a chancer who will exploit anything and anybody
You have access to his medical records, I assume?
you only need a pair of eyes and a few brain cells, someone close to death does not walk out of ICU 2 days later, mugs are easily taken in.
@ cyclefree "Somehow - and this is a personal view - fear of the unknown is worse."
That is a feature of the human brain, not just you, Cyclefree.
There are 13 well-documented fear factors; things we fear greater than statistics would indicate to be rational: 1. situations where trust is lacking 2. situations where, to our perception, personal risks exceed more general benefits (the anti-vaxxers) 3. risks over which we feel we have no control 4. risks over which we have no choice 5. man-made risks (as opposed to natural ones like earthquakes) 6. risks with the potential to cause acute pain and suffering 7. situations where the risks are unknown or uncertain 8. risks that are sudden and catastrophic rather than chronic and slow onset (a real problem in getting people to value climate change risk highly enough to act) 9. risks we can envisage happening to ourselves (and conversely the youngs' sense of immortality) 10. new risks (over familiar risks) 11. risks which affect children 12. risks told in story form, rather than as statistics 13. risks where cost/benefit are not shared fairly (think GMOs)
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
When the formal advice came it was different to what had been trailed the week before. Fewer people were told to shield. However this change was not pointed out explicitly, so people who had paid more attention to the first announcement will have assumed that the initial criteria applied.
Wasn't the advice always that the most vulnerable would be the ones asked to shelter? I don't think they ever lumped all over-70s into that category.
They did include all over 70s in the pre announcement, but this changed by the time it was implemented.
Yes, I was worried it might apply to everyone who gets a flu jab on medical grounds, but for that group it became "follow social distancing especially stringently"
And the ridiculousness of basing it on influenza when we have seen how utterly different it is in its effect is still not being addressed. The lists have become a joke, bearing no real connection to the reality of this virus.
Research is being done, for example the growing realisation that pre-diabetics and the overweight (even people with a BMI as low as 30) can be at risk. A BMI of 40 and you're brown bread. In my case I'm hoping a cardiology appointment can give me an all-clear although how long it will take to organise one I don't know. I could probably afford to pay for a private consultation, but not for an angiogram if one is called for.
On topic a colleague said last week a Covid-19 tax will be introduced as a temporary measure in the same way income tax was a temporary measure to fight the Napoleonic wars.
We'll be paying this for centuries.
(He doesn't expect a vaccine and but expects lots of new mutations of Covid-19.)
Well, it was. It was abolished in 1816.
It just so happens that it was reintroduced in 1842.
I hadn't intended to set off an Apple flame war. I had intended to watch For All Mankind (which is fabulous BTW) and encountered all kinds of stupid problems trying to find a way to get streaming video to work.
The opportunity for Apple is to get people like me to buy product from them for the first time. As Disney, Netflix, BritBox etc etc are doing. So keep it simple, not make it stupid. "Ah but they didn't intend you to watch it on x" is fine if the intention is to use Apple TV as a way to make you buy their kit. But they aren't going make their money back off mega TV productions based on forced sales of Apple TV boxes...
Apple will be/are adding the Apple TV app to newer smart TVs.
On the Apple vs Microsoft flamewar - many IT professionals like the fact that, underneath, Mac OSX is one of the best UNIX implentations out there.
Microsoft is making a genuine attempt to out preform Mac. The removal of Balmer has set free a number of very interesting innovations. Their cloud computing offering is genuinely a good challenger to Amazon.
Apples streaming service/Apple TV is falling behind as a value for money offering. Many people are just using their Apple TV like a Chromecast - to put content from their phone onto the TV.
Could someone translate this please?
:-)
1) Mac computer operating system is actually UNIX - the operating system of professionals.
2) MIcrosoft are making better products than they used to.
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
Those are two separate sentences, and classes of people.
Yes I can see that now, but specifying the first group one week before specifying the second group has clearly caused mass confusion, hence the Sunday Times article.
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
The formatting of a BBC article is hardly the fault of the government, the same with a times article. The advice is clearly stated on HMGs website. Those who needed the specific advice to stay at home for 12 weeks were each informed individually by letter.
When the formal advice came it was different to what had been trailed the week before. Fewer people were told to shield. However this change was not pointed out explicitly, so people who had paid more attention to the first announcement will have assumed that the initial criteria applied.
Wasn't the advice always that the most vulnerable would be the ones asked to shelter? I don't think they ever lumped all over-70s into that category.
They did include all over 70s in the pre announcement, but this changed by the time it was implemented.
Yes, I was worried it might apply to everyone who gets a flu jab on medical grounds, but for that group it became "follow social distancing especially stringently"
How unstringently can the rest of us follow the guidelines when they are also law?
You can go out more often to shop. You can go to work (higher risk people should not do so even if they can't work from home). You can go out to help people who are shielding.
Late Corbyn-Early Starmer, leader ratings wise, is very similar to late Brown-early Miliband I think? I could only find Browns to end of 2009 when he was -40. Starmer and Ed both seem to be high teens positive, Starmer a bit higher on average
I wonder how much of this PPE issue is distribution related.
Just been told the local hospital is fine for most PPE now but they were running short on gloves.
So the local Iceland store donated a number of boxes to them.
So Iceland can get them?
There's no national shortage of gloves. If the hospital is running short on gloves there's probably been human error somehow in their ordering or distribution would be my guess.
The minority of people over 70 without any significant conditions are probably having their health damaged by not being able to do the amount of exercise and number of activities that they usually do which is probably precisely why they don't have the same health conditions as other over 70s. Being lockdowned as part of a blanket ban on the over 70s will be pushing them into the "significant health problems" category.
The Times article is wrong. It says that all over 70s have been instructed to shelter for twelve weeks. That's simply not true.
That is not really the point anymore. The government's advice is so unclear as to have confused the ST, Andrew Neil, various doctors and even the odd pber. Not to mention the Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, who trips up over the definitions in his own tweet complaining the ST misunderstood them.
It is a mess. HMG needs urgently to review its communications around Covid-19 so they are as clear as possible, so no-one dies, and so no-one is unnecessarily welded into their home.
As we discussed last night, it wouldn't be unclear if one of the leading broadsheet weren't making these kind of silly mistakes. All over 70s are advised to minimise contact. Those in the most vulnerable category have been instructed by letter to shelter for twelve weeks.
And the Health Secretary getting it wrong while correcting the paper? Is that the media's fault as well?
Comments
“Just as we come out of our holes and see what 25 percent unemployment looks like,” she said, “we may also see what collective rage looks like.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/02/opinion/sunday/coronavirus-prediction-laurie-garrett.html?smid=tw-share
Long way to go, of course. And this election is going to be brutal beyond imagination once Trump accepts he might lose.
I’ll tell you the answer: it doesn’t matter. Move on.
I bought an iMac in 2007, which is still working albeit rather slowly and the screen has failed. So I hooked that up to my TV and use it for playing Youtube and Amazon Prime content, which it does perfectly competently.
I also, because I’d had a Mac for so long, bought a Mac Mini for photos and pdf editing (which comes as standard, rather than a PC where you have to buy Adobe) - an important consideration given I have many thousands of photos for documents which I use in my research.
However, for work reasons I also had a PC, which I tended to use as my day to day workhorse. Had, because as I said at the time the bloody thing died on me on Easter Monday and it has taken weeks to work out the problem and get a fix (finally arrived yesterday).
So I have been very grateful for my Mac Mini just about having sufficient functionality to keep online lessons going. Even if I did make an error by upgrading to Catalina, which is shit.
Or is the worst yet to come?
I fear we may be nowhere near that point, as he tries to open up ahead of an unwilling public as the economy collapses
He did look about 20 years older on that tweet clapping the NHS, than he normally does on the television.
Plenty of others think much more emotionally, and want their team (leave/remain, tory/labour, religion, culture, whatever) to come out on top. For many of them leave vs remain will be an issue for at least another decade.
Rationalising it away wont resolve it. I prefer rational to emotional politics (although both have a part to play) myself but the realist in me means I accept that leave/remain will stay part of the battle lines regardless.
78% of Leavers approve of Boris, 13% disapprove.
28% of Leavers disapprove of Starmer, 23% approve.
56% of Remainers approve of Starmer, 9% disapprove.
https://www.opinium.co.uk/public-opinion-on-coronavirus-27th-april/
It matters as at the last general election Remainers disapproved of Corbyn on average, now approval of party leaders goes on Brexit lines.
The next general election will be therefore hard Brexit with Boris or single market alignment with Starmer to a large degree
That's why I want to report the company, this isn't right and the friend said it was not just them, it's a large number of mid level people and below that have been put on the scheme and the juniors are said to be putting in almost full days sometimes.
In comparison to my company I get a check in from the senior once a week and we get invited to the Friday evening zoom social for the team. I have no access to my emails, no access to the VPN and my GCP profile has been set to inactive.
While the police might well not be interested, the Revenue certainly would.
https://www.step.org/news/businesses-abuse-furlough-scheme-may-be-charged-strict-liability-offence
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8199721/HMRC-chief-urges-furloughed-employees-report-firms-asking-work.html
For a computer less than three years old that had not been heavily used this was unimpressive.
I was actually thinking of going to the press with it, and getting them to independtly verify it so they can run a huge story and shame the company.
It is a mess. HMG needs urgently to review its communications around Covid-19 so they are as clear as possible, so no-one dies, and so no-one is unnecessarily welded into their home.
ETA and so furloughed workers know what is and is not permitted.
https://www.tax.service.gov.uk/shortforms/form/TEH_IRF
Interestingly my neighbour discovered that a large number of traders had been abusing tax credits when their staff asked him how they would get more money after been furloughed on just the amount being declared to HMRC. Neither he nor I had any sympathy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51917562
"Pregnant women, people over the age of 70 and those with certain health conditions should consider the advice "particularly important", he (the PM) said.
People in at-risk groups will be asked within days to stay home for 12 weeks."
The natural assumption was that at risk groups were the above categories, yet those groups were defined differently but only by the following week.
My parents think they need to shelter for 12 weeks, presumably on that basis, and clearly they werent alone in that misunderstanding.
"I'm not an expert on immunology or virology but based on other studies I have read about, it wouldn't surprise me (@TimT will know more about this) if some of these samples are still being put through novel testing or investigative processes in 50 years' time. Sounds extreme, but eg people studying pathogen mutation sometimes withdraw material that has been kept in very long-term storage for that kind of time"
Firstly, I am not an expert in immunology or virology, either, but in biological risk management. That said, I do follow cutting edge biotechnology developments, research and applications for their implications for biosafety, biosecurity and health security.
Before his role in the Fauchier/Kawaoka gain of function controversy, Yoshi Kawaoka synthetically recreated the 1918 Spanish flu to study which of its genes were necessary to enable it to replicate in the lungs (and hence, like COVID, to cause deadly primary pneumonia), and which proteins these genes code for in order to start the hunt for anti-virals that could target these proteins, From a 2008 report on this research:
"For the most part, substituting single genes from the 1918 virus onto the template of a much more benign contemporary virus yielded agents that could only replicate in the upper respiratory tract. One exception, however, included a complex of three genes that, acting in concert with another key gene, allowed the virus to efficiently colonize lung cells and make RNA polymerase, a protein necessary for the virus to reproduce."
In 2017, a Canadian team synthetically recreated the extinct horse pox virus, ostensibly to help find a better human smallpox vaccine. One of the lead researchers in this project sits on the WHO committee that overseas smallpox research.
The basic argument of all this research is that the more we know the genomics of pathogens and close relative non-pathogens, the more we can understand, scan for, and prepare for the emergence of new deadly diseases. And the more we can understand on a molecular level how these viruses bind and fuse with host cells, hijack the cell's protein and genetic machinery, hide from the host's immune system, or cause damaging host reactions like the cytokine storm, the more we are able to develop vaccines, antivirals, and treatments for the symptoms.
But none of this work is without risk, be it natural (increasing the exposure of humans to animal viruses), accidental (letting an isolated virus escape from the lab), or deliberate (misuse of the knowledge and technology for malicious intent).
Ironically, much of the work that has come under such scrutiny in recent years has received funding from the US NIAID, including Kawaoka's, Fauchier's and the Wuhan lab. And the head of NIAID is none other than current American folk hero, Dr Anthony Fauci. (PS I am a personal fan, but I do love the irony.)
The opportunity for Apple is to get people like me to buy product from them for the first time. As Disney, Netflix, BritBox etc etc are doing. So keep it simple, not make it stupid. "Ah but they didn't intend you to watch it on x" is fine if the intention is to use Apple TV as a way to make you buy their kit. But they aren't going make their money back off mega TV productions based on forced sales of Apple TV boxes...
Little harm done by it as everyone is on lockdown now, but poor communication in explaining this from the govt (it has generally been good imo).
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/tvplus/welcome/web
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/tvplus/apdd0693a79d/1.0/web/1.0
It will matter much more to be clearer once the lockdown measures start to be lifted.
I do not want to catch or die of this disease. But I do not fear it oddly enough. I know, from my experience of TB, what it is like to have no breath, to be unable to speak even a few words, to be gasping for each breath and to be lying there slowly being consumed. Somehow - and this is a personal view - fear of the unknown is worse.
If social interaction is severely curtailed, it is not just the immediate providers of it who face carnage. The entire tourist, hospitality, arts, culture and heritage sectors are in trouble. Think what this means for whole areas of the country, those living there, suppliers etc. I find it hard to believe this will happen. People are social animals. Always have been, even when faced with similar challenges. Can this innate human desire be suppressed, whether through fear or diktat, for long?
I am off for a walk.
This quote seems to sum it up for me:
“It’s not the despair, Laura. I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand.“
He is a bellend and a chancer who will exploit anything, but you seemed awfully keen to exploit his stay in ICU by suggesting it was nothing. Is one exploitation ok and another not?
I have a Macbook Air, Macbook Pro, iPad, iPhone, Apple watch, and Apple TV.
The best features of Apple is the handoff feature, makes my life so much easier.
Also my long history of Macbook ownership not one has ever suffered the blue screen of death that Windows users suffer.
Apple's aftercare service is amazing, if anything develops a fault/stops working in the first year, or even after, I go to the Meadowhall or Arndale centres and they fix it or give me a new device.
Those who don't need to be shielded and just need to stay at home are still safer if they're being shielded at the minute. My grandparents are in their 80s and 90s, whether they've got the letter or not they are all acting as if they need to be shielded - and were from before the government announced anything. Quite right too IMO, they're being smart in doing that, why take an unnecessary risk?
Microsoft is making a genuine attempt to out preform Mac. The removal of Balmer has set free a number of very interesting innovations. Their cloud computing offering is genuinely a good challenger to Amazon.
Apples streaming service/Apple TV is falling behind as a value for money offering. Many people are just using their Apple TV like a Chromecast - to put content from their phone onto the TV.
We'll be paying this for centuries.
(He doesn't expect a vaccine and but expects lots of new mutations of Covid-19.)
The part about the over 70s minimising social contact is separated from the part about shielding those with the most serious health conditions. They aren't conflated in any way.
So, second, now is the time for everyone to stop non-essential contact with others and to stop all unnecessary travel.
We need people to start working from home where they possibly can. And you should avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues.
It goes without saying, we should all only use the NHS when we really need to. And please go online rather than ringing NHS 111.
Now, this advice about avoiding all unnecessary social contact, is particularly important for people over 70, for pregnant women and for those with some health conditions.
And if you ask, why are we doing this now, why now, why not earlier, or later? Why bring in this very draconian measure?
The answer is that we are asking people to do something that is difficult and disruptive of their lives.
And the right moment, as we’ve always said, is to do it when it is most effective, when we think it can make the biggest difference to slowing the spread of the disease, reducing the number of victims, reducing the number of fatalities.
And as we take these steps we should be focusing on the most vulnerable.
So third, in a few days’ time – by this coming weekend – it will be necessary to go further and to ensure that those with the most serious health conditions are largely shielded from social contact for around 12 weeks.
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/05/COVID-19-daily-announced-deaths-3-May-2020.xlsx
327
rolling average with the usual caveats about the last few days of data -
Auto generated spreadsheet with the summed data -
https://drive.google.com/open?id=10FibkF7qEwy2oBMnJZ8hCRV2jO1c75cx
That is a feature of the human brain, not just you, Cyclefree.
There are 13 well-documented fear factors; things we fear greater than statistics would indicate to be rational:
1. situations where trust is lacking
2. situations where, to our perception, personal risks exceed more general benefits (the anti-vaxxers)
3. risks over which we feel we have no control
4. risks over which we have no choice
5. man-made risks (as opposed to natural ones like earthquakes)
6. risks with the potential to cause acute pain and suffering
7. situations where the risks are unknown or uncertain
8. risks that are sudden and catastrophic rather than chronic and slow onset (a real problem in getting people to value climate change risk highly enough to act)
9. risks we can envisage happening to ourselves (and conversely the youngs' sense of immortality)
10. new risks (over familiar risks)
11. risks which affect children
12. risks told in story form, rather than as statistics
13. risks where cost/benefit are not shared fairly (think GMOs)
Just been told the local hospital is fine for most PPE now but they were running short on gloves.
So the local Iceland store donated a number of boxes to them.
So Iceland can get them?
It just so happens that it was reintroduced in 1842.
1) Mac computer operating system is actually UNIX - the operating system of professionals.
2) MIcrosoft are making better products than they used to.
3) Apple TV is a bit crap vs the competition.
@TheScreamingEagles ?