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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » A knighthood for Colonel Tom Moore?
During this pandemic one of the most uplifting moments has been the now promoted Colonel Tom Moore raising millions for the NHS at age of 99 now 100. He’s been an inspiration to us all as evidenced by the thirty million plus pounds raised and him becoming the oldest person to feature in a UK number one single.
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On what basis and with what expertise does he predict no vaccine and lots of mutations? Or is this just more uninformed fearmongering?
There is plenty of justified fear without adding baseless stuff to it.
@TheScreamingEagles ?
Actually Starmer is +17 on average so far, Ed was +12 at this stage
Skybet apparently have the best odds.
It is based on talks with those who work in the sector.
You know the vaccine trial protocols, there's a fear that if we do get a vaccine we rush it out and there's complications down the line.
He's also basing it on disreputable leaders running key countries in this pandemic, the worry that China won't give us the full details lest it damages China.
Trump is working on what's best for him and his electoral chances which is an awful place for us all to be in.
People can be overweight not because of not wanting to live, but simply due to enjoying life a bit too much. Enjoying food too much.
BMI 40 may not be good for you, but that equates to about 18 stone for the average man - a lot and an unhealthy amount sure but not absurdly overweight to the point of can't live.
It's also very easy to get big and a bloody damned sight harder to get it back off again. I speak from experience in this matter.
Obesity, like poverty (with which it is commonly associated,) is typically a result of misfortune rather than moral deficiency.
https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present
The Brown to Miliband comparisons are probably inelegant as you're comparing the PM at the end of thirteen years of Labour government and the GFC to a new LOTO.
Plus Miliband also had a boost because of a significant chunk of Lib Dems were appalled their party had gone into coalition with the Blue meanies and were about to increase tuition fees.
Its as if you have never heard of a patient deteriorating before. He wasn't on death's door when he went into the hospital, he was while he was in ICU. Do you really struggle to comprehend the difference?
My favourite was the guy who did a whole presentation on SpaceX - on the basis that since they hadn't moved production to China, they would be rapidly outcompeted and wiped out - this was a few years ago,
When I talked to the guy, it became apparent he had never heard of ITAR*. Or knew much about the relative states of rocketry industry in China, the US and Europe.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Traffic_in_Arms_Regulations - The short version is that if you are an American company and you *think* about transferring rocket manufacturing tech to a third country, you will be in Club Fed in minutes. Interestingly this is one law that gets savagely enforced on everyone.
Still value I think.
1. Starmer's positive +18 rating comes in spite of Labour being -18 behind in the polls. so a net difference of +36.
2. Miliband's personal ratings imploded after his first month. Just 2 months into his leadership, Miliband was polling -9 on YouGov's "well/badly" question, at a point when Labour and the Conservatives were tied in the polls.
Starmer is in my view a much more solid performer than Miliband, both in the HoC and in the media, and it is hard to see his ratings collapsing to anything like the same extent as Miliband's.
The Oxford vaccine is based on a well-characterized adenovirus backbone, known to be safe in relative terms, and has worked well in monkeys. That is no guarantee that it will work in humans, but is very promising. There are tens of other vaccine programmes underway around the world.
You'd have to be extremely pessimistic, given what is know about the virus' proteins, to believe that the global scientific community will fail at all 3 of vaccine, antivirals, and treatments. China does have a role to play in this, given the size of their scientific community and their prowess in genomics, but the world is no longer reliant on them for data or samples.
I always forget if it's hyperplastic or hypertropic obesity, but when children are overfed they create more adipocytes (fat cells) which then permanently increase their baseline 'fatness', which is not their fault and rather difficult to do much about.
That said, eating more and exercising less, all else being equal, makes one fat. It's not a wild variable unrelated to human behaviour for most people.
Weight gain typically has less to do with an excess of joie de vivre and rather more to do with ingrained bad habits, commonly made worse by ill health, depression and other stress factors.
Anyway, in the last twelve months, I had a hernia op, then a frozen shoulder partly as a result of the op and the lack of movement and steroid injection hasn't helped my BMI. It was around 35 (about 29 or so pre-op) and I'm trying to get it down but the last couple of months have been relatively pain free and now I'm not getting as much exercise!
So, no, I'm not happy. I've been keeping things together but the last few days my mental state has been crumbling.
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.
EG I know a number of former Rugby players who became obese once they stopped playing Rugby. Suddenly burning a lot fewer calories while continuing to eat the same as you were before can lead to major weight gains that then becomes difficult to shift. If you replace the exercise you were doing with an activity that involves consuming calories (eg going to the pub to watch sport instead of competing yourself) then that can add fuel to the fire.
Same for people who worked in a highly anaerobic job who then goes to a sedentary job.
Can't do my gym trips of course, but i'm having at least half an hours walk a day. Sometimes an hour.
The importance of exercise in maintaining a healthy weight is overstated, and it really needs to be approached as something that is beneficial in its own right for maintaining physical and mental wellbeing. Yes, it can and does help by allowing a bit more flexibility in the way of calorific treats, but I'd say the relative importance of a good diet versus plenty of exercise, both to losing excess weight and maintaining health weight, is around about 4:1.
I've no issue with Tom Moore getting a knighthood - who could have? There are and have been thousands of heroes and heroines in this crisis and some have unfortunately paid the ultimate price.
All deserve recognition and respect not just once a week on a Thursday but beyond all this.
As for contradictory, confusing and conflicting signals, I posted yesterday a photo of the Sky news ticker which showed 105,937 people had been tested for coronavirus. If you saw this from a distance you might assume that was the truth and 105,937 people had been tested.
In fact, 63,667 people were tested. I can be generous and describe it as an honest mistake by Sky News but they should not be making those kind of basic mistakes - the cynic might suggest they are peddling a pro-Government line but that should be absurdly cynical, wouldn't it?
Contradictory signals and conflicting communication are far from helpful and if the aim is to allow Ministers to cover their individual backsides, that needs to be exposed (sounds a bit rude).
It's understandable in the initial response there might have been some inconsistencies but we are well past that now and it should be clear what the rules are for the over-70s. Exposing the contradiction isn't nit-picking or partisan attempts to undermine the Government but a reasonable attempt to try to get some clarity.
As we come out of lockdown we will need large amounts of clarity as to what can and can't happen - someone ought to write a thread about that.
Well, I've been taken in over the years by quite a lot of bulls**t, especially those too dependent on govt grants - unlike former university funding, they come with strings attached - or with a commercial axe to grind. A journalist in need of a story may not always be selective and sceptical enough.
If big pharma didn't have a stranglehold over so many national healthcare systems more treatments with the ability to do some good in this crisis would be in use, e.g. IV vitamin C, vitamin D supplements (in the UK we should almost all be taking the latter, espec. those with brown or black skin).
Also we wouldn't be eating 50-100% junk food. Tom Watson ex-MP changed his diet. He recovered his health and cured his diabetes. As a result, he'll have a pretty strong immune system. That's what we all need; a vaccine if it's ever developed is just an extra layer of protection.
Fruit and veg aren't terribly expensive. People choose what they eat, and how active they are.
Somewhat ironically, given this conversation, I'd like to gain a little weight.
I'm on. DYOR.
Mrs Eek weighs more than me and always has done, yet she eats less than I do but cannot shift weight with the easy that I do. It's often just down to genes.
Multivitamins are on sale in every pharmacy (well before this all started). Mega dose yourself with vitamin C etc for a couple of quid.
You can buy Vitamin D sperately, off the shelf - 20,000iu per pill, if you really want. That's the one where they seriously recommend not taking more than 1 per week.
But I bet if you surveyed who eats it, it will be skewed towards richer people. Is about education and choice.
i.e. If your political opponents get a big, simple to understand claim out there (i.e. that the UK has the highest number of deaths in Europe and the 2nd highest in the world), then it doesn't really matter if people start to argue about the fine detail, that is whether it might be only £250m a week or whether we might be in fact 3rd if you count the figures consistently or on a per capita basis (with Belgium coming into the frame). Everyone's still focusing on precisely the issue you don't want them to focus on.
Despite the Government's attempts to downplay comparisons based on published figures, it doesn't seem that complicated. There are 5 countries in the world whose total deaths are way higher than anywhere else by a factor of more than 3: the US, Italy, UK, Spain, France. So because no other country is even close to the ball park, we can concentrate on them. The US is way out in front due to its size. We should already be above Italy, because while like us it counts all deaths which were tested, Italy has conducted twice the number of tests as the UK. We should be behind Spain, because Spain does not count deaths outside of hospitals, although we're still closing the gap and might yet overtake them. France has a wider definition than the UK, so we should be further ahead of them.
So in absolute terms, we're 3rd with a possibility of reaching 2nd, and will be there for the forseeable future. When we do eventually get excess deaths figures, you can expect much the same, for what we've seen so far for the UK certainly suggests that the community deaths based on testing alone are way understated.
He was the top guy on this from a tier 1 bank. I'm just some guy who reads stuff....
It really makes you think about the way the world works.
I miss my chinese takeaway and my cooked breakfast but my body doesn't.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8282061/Grant-Shapps-says-foreign-arrivals-FINALLY-quarantined-coronavirus-risk.html
A good bottle of wine with cheese and biscuits can be a very pleasant way to spend an evening while consuming way too many calories.
The weight only stayed off when I worked on my diet first, and then returned to the gym once the first stone had already come off.
If you ever compare how long it takes to burn the calories contained in something like a chocolate bar, I don't think you would ever even bother with all those burpies, press-ups, sit-ups, etc.
"Professor Neil Ferguson is a theoretical physicist by training."
Belgium/Netherlands/UK/Spain are all about the same on this method, in per capita terms. France maybe about 40% less - they were never quite as bad as the rest of us, just earlier at counting all deaths as you say.
There will be people who've had the same fortunate experience as you due to lockdown, though I'm afraid there may be many more who pile the weight on through being more sedentary and (critically) in close proximity to the fridge and the kitchen cupboards all day when furloughed or working from home.
My friend in Alberta says that people over there have started calling the Plague Covid-15, because that's how many pounds they think the average adult will have packed on by the time this is over. And I'm quite sure that there was a news report recently, featuring a spokesperson from Sport England or some similar such organisation, despairing that all of their good work promoting more active lifestyles will be undone by the lockdown: good habits can be very hard to acquire and very easy to lose.
It really isn't that uncommon for people to diverse their interests, in fact my experience of academia, there is often not enough multi-discplinary work.
Since locking down I've been trying to deliberately lose weight via changing my diet and have been cutting out almost all most processed carbs and processed meals with a diet bordering on a "keto" diet, though I hate fads. I didn't deliberately go for keto, I just cut out the processed carbs that my diabetic father was told he couldn't eat and that's what I ended up left with. So far its working better than I expected plus my appetite has vanished. I'm no longer hungry anything like the amount I used to be and am sometimes getting to 2pm and thinking "I should probably eat something". Whether that's due to my dietary changes or lack of exercise compared to what I had I'm not sure.
Whether it would be possible to keep up with this post-lockdown I don't know but if it wasn't for lockdown I'd have probably never had the time or inclination to learn more about cooking and diets than I'd ever paid attention to in the past. I've set myself a target of losing a third of my pre-lockdown body weight by November.
Going back to my opening paragraph, it seems there's next to no agreement online as to what is healthy and what is not. EG I'm currently eating 3-5 eggs a day and information online seems to be inconsistent depending upon where you read as to whether that is either very healthy or very dangerous.
A 10K run, on the other hand, burns (if the estimates from my GPS training app are to be believed) somewhere around 850 calories, given my weight, which is a meaningful contribution.
I can therefore get away with chocolate biscuits - just not eating whole boxes of them at a time, like I used to.
Prof Michael Levitt
https://unherd.com/thepost/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-the-covid-19-epidemic-was-never-exponential/
I've been 11 stone for ever...I can drink, eat and do whatever I want.....I often binge crisps (like 6 packs of walkers or a full box of Pringles) and biscuits and Bombay mix, washing it down with wine...and then have munchies in the middle of the night when I down a can of coke and raid the Bombay mix again and attack the sweet jar.....
I've never deliberately chosen anything based on calories...though do drink semi skinned milk
I wasn't passing judgment, it was just something that I had not heard in all the acres of coverage.
In terms of specific foods and nutrients, if in doubt refer to the NHS website. Some foods should only be consumed in limited amounts (there are detailed recommendations for fish, for example,) but no consumption limit is given for eggs.
A friend of mine has just emailed a CV19 update. He says he's OK, spending lots of time in the garden, and he's fortunate he's got a nice organ to fiddle with.
He did mention a piano as well, but it is not the phrasing I would have chosen.*
*OK, that's a lie. It IS the phrasing I would have chosen, but only to start an awesome thread of double entendres.
https://twitter.com/DangerMindsBlog/status/1256962443269623810?s=20
That said, personal experience suggests that there aren't that many people who are genuinely able to get away with eating whatever they like without consequence.
Ah, who am I kidding.
It's bloody annoying the golf courses are all shut. OK, social distancing and all that, but TBH there's never been the slightest danger of me hitting a shot anywhere near other people unless they're coming down the opposite nine.
My GP referred me to a cardiologist after taking my BP and pulse.....on the stress test they gave up trying to get any heart rate higher, and the Cardiologist told me I am unique....she sees someone like me every year....
Genes.....I can also down a pint in less than 2 seconds, though haven't tried for some time....but I'm unbeaten (lifetime)...it got me so many free pints when I was younger to amaze people, and because big burly blokes took me on for a bet....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52394835
Grant Shapps has come up with the helpful suggestion of staggering working hours. Whether he genuinely believes there is a "rush hour" any more I don't know but in my part of London the underground is busy from 6am to 9am heading into town.
MY guesstimate is the tube could run at 15% of normal passenger levels and that would allow reasonable social distancing but a lot more people use it. Re-opening construction sites will increase passenger numbers let alone other sectors which can't be governed by home working.
Currently on National Rail trains are running up and down the lines empty or nearly empty so there is capacity available but looking at the trains coming into Waterloo or Victoria of a morning and you see the social distancing issues.
London buses are now free and I'm told some of them are running pretty full as it is a useful way of those who either don't care about or believe they have no choice but to break the lock down are using them. Car traffic is around 40% of normal but has crept up slightly in the past week.
Diarrhea
Nausea
Vomiting
Heartburn
Abdominal cramps
Headache
Insomnia"
https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/vitamin-c/faq-20058030