Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
Hmm. That was the reason given I agree. But pro-lockdown advocates have altered their position methinks, and have the ear of the government.
I think there is disagreement in the cabinet between two camps: "herd immunity only to the extent that NHS can cope" and "aim for containment so that death rate is as low as possible".
On balance, I think that the second camp is winning. Having said that the change in the wording of Raab`s Exit Condition 5 suggests otherwise.
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Surely freedom of movement will end, it is a specific EU thing and we're longer in it. The existence of "settled status" shows that. Allowing people from other countries to live and work here under various conditions is simply immigration policy. I'm happy with allowing anyone to come here if they can work and not be a burden on the state, are prepared to avoid committing crimes and learn English (or Welsh etc) .
It will only end when we exit transition.
Yes I realise that but it's in less than 8 months. Stsrmer won't be in power. So he won't be able to make it continue. He could argue we could attempt to reaccession to it I suppose.
Yes, so we shall be out of EU/out of free movement. If Starmer wants to go into the next election with a pledge for us to allow uncontrolled immigration from EU countries then it will be interesting to see how that policy pans out!
Will be more interesting to see the impact when the jingoists realise that immigration has not dropped and it is all of the kind of foreigners that the morons did not want coming to the country.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
The entire point of the apple and google approach was that it's virtually unavoidable, it would be enabled automatically and the data was there.
Unless apple is being very generous the iOS version won't work as iOS does a lot of things to apps running in the background to minimise battery consumption and believe me I can easily go into a lot more detail if required.
As one example, there is a reason why iOS softphones usually use Apple alerts for call notification.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
This kind of trope is immensely irritating but, worse, thoroughly disingenuous. You know as well as I do that everyone knew about the impending pandemic spread by the beginning of March. The reason this Government chose not to act is that for a critical fortnight an alternative meme prevailed: that of 'herd immunity.'
In the absence of a vaccine, herd immunity is still the only viable option. All that’s changed is how we get there.
Or we just live with the risk.
"Herd immunity" isn't a meaningful concept outwith a vaccine programme. In an otherwise unmitigated Covid-19 epidemic it means an above 80% infection rate.
So the question is how do you get there without serious cases overloading health care services.
You control infections by isolating people who potentially have the disease from those that don't. Lockdown is a very blunt way of doing this. There are other more targeted ways of separating the sheep from the goats, as Korea and some other countries have demonstrated, quite successfully so far.
That is why we need to be smart about this. There was a time and place to argue for a Swedish style lack of a lockdown but that hasn't happened, so given we have locked down we should do it properly. I'm more interested in seeing how places like South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand etc are coping than the USA.
From where we are now it makes sense to keep up with the lockdown for another couple of week IMO while rolling out the new tests until the cases are under control and then ease off the lockdown with a massive track and trace service.
If we can do that we can hopefully get back to normalish by June and have some summer. If we ease off now we will likely end up with this dragging on all year.
Agreed. There are signs that the government might actually understand this.
We need an echo chamber possibly PB 2 for remainers to whine their heads off in perpetuity. I voted remain but i get it that we are leaving/have left. Whining about brexit achieves nothing.
I'll let you into a wee secret, neither does whining about whining about Brexit.
Its not a wee secret. Its remainers who lost whining about it. Brexiteers are very happy with the outcome.
Most of the angry whining seems to be from the gullible folk that voted for it, and it seems to take the form of swivel-eyed incredulity that the rest of us haven't changed our minds about what is fundamentally a charter for the small of brain. Quite sweet really that they still believe they are winners. It is a pyrrhic victory for all of them with the exception of some hedge fund owners, a load of right wing journos and Boris the Clown, and even he will be severely bitten on his ample arse and some point, and when it happens I will laugh and laugh.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
The issues with such an app are these:-
1. What is done with the information collected? 2. Who has access to it and what can they use it for? Not just information-sharing within the public sector but whether it is sold to private companies for private gain. 3. What are the controls on its use and how can we trust them? 4. How long is the information is held for and is it deleted once no longer needed? 5. The security of the app ie ensuring that it does not make hacking of other personal information / systems easier.
Similar issues arise with the Coronavirus Regulations - very oppressive legislation, passed in days. We need to keep a very close eye on them to make sure that they are repealed at the earliest possible time. Power grabs by authorities have a tendency to stay far beyond their sell by date, if we are not careful.
It might help if we didn't have an executive which is able to amend old laws without parliament having a say. According to David Allen Green, as this was an amendment to some 1984 regulations parliament didn't have to be consulted. He's also concerned about the executive subssequently re-wording this law without consulting parliament ('mission creep'.)
I'm content with tracking if it has to be passed by both houses and is only valid for 3 months. Parliament must renew it every 3 months if an emergency lasts.
However, as I don't travel around with a mobile I'm not a candidate for this app. I'd rather have an antibody test, please.
Maybe the authorities will try to present this as an NHS initiative. I still don't trust them.
"Ministers were made “fully aware” by intelligence agencies that China had covered up the true scale of the Covid-19 outbreak, it was claimed on Sunday night, raising questions over Britain’s decision to delay the lockdown.
The Government in Westminster was told “not to believe Beijing’s claims” from the outset and to treat the information coming out of China with scepticism, The Telegraph understands. A senior, former MI6 official said the intelligence agencies knew what was “really happening” in China and passed that information to ministers." (£)
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Surely freedom of movement will end, it is a specific EU thing and we're longer in it. The existence of "settled status" shows that. Allowing people from other countries to live and work here under various conditions is simply immigration policy. I'm happy with allowing anyone to come here if they can work and not be a burden on the state, are prepared to avoid committing crimes and learn English (or Welsh etc) .
It will only end when we exit transition.
Yes I realise that but it's in less than 8 months. Stsrmer won't be in power. So he won't be able to make it continue. He could argue we could attempt to reaccession to it I suppose.
Yes, so we shall be out of EU/out of free movement. If Starmer wants to go into the next election with a pledge for us to allow uncontrolled immigration from EU countries then it will be interesting to see how that policy pans out!
Will be more interesting to see the impact when the jingoists realise that immigration has not dropped and it is all of the kind of foreigners that the morons did not want coming to the country.
You mean non-EU immigrants? Points system I think, but I`m not sure where we are with this.
The person in the bottom window needs to do a DSE Assessment. Very bad posture using their computer.
Actually, that's something that I'm sure many employers have quietly forgotten. It will bite them in the backside when a load of WFHers put in claims for RSI and back problems in 6 months time.
From the look of it, they might have a spy cam in the room next door...
Phase 3 – further easing of lockdown with a progression towards a more normal level of activity within the Bailiwick
Phase 4 – more economic activity, including the reopening of non-essential shops, hotels, hairdressers and beauticians, but with social distancing and hygiene measures
Phase 5 – bars and nightclubs allowed to open, and possibly travel between the islands of the Bailiwick
Phase 6 – borders with the UK, Europe and elsewhere reopen
The idea is that at each phase the impact will be carefully evaluated before moving onto the next, and the health data could even dictate that a step backwards is necessary.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
His total surrender to EU demands in order to get Brexit will also haunt him at some point. They can only fool the sheeple for a time.
Funny this absurd meme by Remainers that his new deal was supposedly both "worse" from their perspective and "a surrender" while Leavers are happy with it.
If it was such a surrender then presumably it would be a better deal from the Remainers perspective yet I've not seen any Remainers say it was better due to all the "surrender". Its almost like you're talking bollocks out of both sides of your mouth.
We will see if you are so smug next year when we are on WTO and things get grimmer. Boris will only have covid excuse for so long.
How will we be on WTO next year when we surrendered to the EU according to your previous comment?
Boris agreed to the EU leaving terms, he is desperate for hard Brexit and so we will be on WTO next year, it is simple to understand. Moronic thinking that EU 27 countries desperately need England is pretty stupid all round.
He agreed to the EU leaving terms that he negotiated and that we liked yes. Just like the EU agreed to our leaving terms.
He didn't agree to the perpetual backstop that the EU had wanted. He didn't agree for a lack of NI democratic control that the EU had wanted. He didn't surrender.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
No, the idea ought to have been to stop infections doubling every couple of days. A week earlier, and we'd be dealing with a far smaller problem.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
The issues with such an app are these:-
1. What is done with the information collected? 2. Who has access to it and what can they use it for? Not just information-sharing within the public sector but whether it is sold to private companies for private gain. 3. What are the controls on its use and how can we trust them? 4. How long is the information is held for and is it deleted once no longer needed? 5. The security of the app ie ensuring that it does not make hacking of other personal information / systems easier.
Similar issues arise with the Coronavirus Regulations - very oppressive legislation, passed in days. We need to keep a very close eye on them to make sure that they are repealed at the earliest possible time. Power grabs by authorities have a tendency to stay far beyond their sell by date, if we are not careful.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
The entire point of the apple and google approach was that it's virtually unavoidable, it would be enabled automatically and the data was there.
Unless apple is being very generous the iOS version won't work as iOS does a lot of things to apps running in the background to minimise battery consumption and believe me I can easily go into a lot more detail if required.
As one example, there is a reason why iOS softphones usually use Apple alerts for call notification.
The google approach is certainly avoidable, you dont upgrade your operating system so don't get the new software on your phone. As most phones only update android for a year or two that cuts out most android phones
Really genuinely bemused that people are still obsessing about Brexit when you see the economic challenges we are facing in the next 12-24 months. To call any alleged effects a rounding error would be to massively overstate its significance.
This government will be measured in how it faces those horrendous challenges. So far Rishi has done well but the road ahead is the most difficult any government has faced since WW2.
Was only a matter of time before Tories started using that excuse. Brexit will cost UK far more than Covid in the long run.
Tell you what Malcolm. In 50 years or so we can do the maths and see. But my money is on you being wrong by multiple factors.
From where we are now it makes sense to keep up with the lockdown for another couple of week IMO while rolling out the new tests until the cases are under control and then ease off the lockdown with a massive track and trace service.
If we can do that we can hopefully get back to normalish by June and have some summer. If we ease off now we will likely end up with this dragging on all year.
I know people are desperate for an easy solution to this, but sometimes there are no easy solutions.
On any reasonable assessment, there are still at the very least 25,000 new cases a day in the UK. Tracing will help, but it can't come close to curbing that level of transmission.
We are not going to get back to anything like normal until either there is a vaccine or so many people have had it that it stops spreading.
25k now maybe but that is falling. If we have another couple of weeks of lockdown plus continue having a hundred thousand tests per day then that number will come down. With contact tracing and testing it should be possible to contain that then.
Is that a 100K real tests or a Hancock 100K.
Same thing.
Some here are acting as if postcards have been counted not tests. 🙄
If the scientists are saying that the real R is around 0.7 and each cycle is 4 days, then the next 24 days, until last week in May, should see real underlying cases at 1/8 of current levels. If we can drive the real R down further by the testing done this month, for instance, by tackling spread in care homes where R is likely to be greater (it is tempting to view care homes as essentially isolated and community R as the important thing but, even setting aside that you disregard the humanity of that by considering things like that in such a utilitarian way, even a locked down care home is not hermetically sealed from the community around it and can act as a reservoir of infection, and guarding the front door will suck up testing capacity).
The other thing is that releasing lock down can't be all or nothing. By June the weather will assist in keeping R below 1 (with R low, this comes into play more) even as interactions increase, but by September / October when that changes again, test, track, trace, isolate will need to be working very well indeed, and we can't rule out that we will need another adjustment on the social distancing tiller to suppress over the full 6 months of winter or until enough vaccines are onstream.
How do you know the weather assists in reducing R?
Just looking at maps. South of Spain Vs North of Spain, South of Italy Vs North of Italy and SW coasts, SW England, Hokkaido Vs Honshu, Atlantic France Vs North of France, the direction of greatest spread from main population centres,
It's less perfect for, say, Portugal where major population centres are coastal, second wave in Singapore (though hot/humid rainforesty is the second place seasonal flu thrives), Brazil.
I'm not sure on the sensitivity here (the difference between 5° and 30° weather suppresses R for seasonal flu by around 3x). The difference may well be much less for COVID, but the mechanisms of transmission are common to flu, and I'm pretty certain from the global numbers that there is some effect, even if not enough to make a large difference to a pandemic outbreak.
So it's less perfect in places where population density is high which to me says it has little to do with weather and far more to do with initial starting points and population density.
Phase 3 – further easing of lockdown with a progression towards a more normal level of activity within the Bailiwick
Phase 4 – more economic activity, including the reopening of non-essential shops, hotels, hairdressers and beauticians, but with social distancing and hygiene measures
Phase 5 – bars and nightclubs allowed to open, and possibly travel between the islands of the Bailiwick
Phase 6 – borders with the UK, Europe and elsewhere reopen
The idea is that at each phase the impact will be carefully evaluated before moving onto the next, and the health data could even dictate that a step backwards is necessary.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
The entire point of the apple and google approach was that it's virtually unavoidable, it would be enabled automatically and the data was there.
Unless apple is being very generous the iOS version won't work as iOS does a lot of things to apps running in the background to minimise battery consumption and believe me I can easily go into a lot more detail if required.
As one example, there is a reason why iOS softphones usually use Apple alerts for call notification.
The google approach is certainly avoidable, you dont upgrade your operating system so don't get the new software on your phone. As most phones only update android for a year or two that cuts out most android phones
It's all avoidable if you try hard enough - my real point is that I suspect the NHS iPhone app isn't actually going to work.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
And one really wonders how many people are going to self-isolate for a fortnight because an app tells them they have been close to someone who thinks they may have some symptoms.
This is an attempt at a magic easy solution to a problem that has no easy solutions.
Buy shares in the cheapest possible mobile phone hardwear companies. People buy one, download the app, realise they have to self-isolate and leave the phone in the sitting room while they head down the pub.
"Thailand reported the first confirmed case of coronavirus outside of China in mid-January, from a traveler from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the pandemic is thought to have begun. In those critical weeks, Thailand continued to welcome an influx of Chinese visitors. For some reason, these tourists did not set off exponential local transmission.
And when countries do all the wrong things and still end up seemingly not as battered by the virus as one would expect, go figure."
This shows all the "this country did well" guff is nonsense at the moment. Thailand should have had a mass outbreak. They had loads of infected people travelling there from Wuhan and did nothing, no social distancing no lockdowns yet they have had less than 3000 cases and just 54 deaths. There is no logic to this virus and no definitive reason why some countries have been battered and some that should have had a bad outbreak have not.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Which is why it has to be made compulsory. ie you don't legally leave your house without it. Track and trace is either effective in controlling infections or it's not. By effective, I mean avoiding both permanent lockdown and mass death. If it's not effective, ditch it and accept death or lockdown. If it is effective everyone needs to be using it.
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Sounds like Starmer is keeping the Single Market option open. His strategy seems to be 'Let's not mention Brexit". Either it will blow over or it will go pear shaped, at which point people will be looking for alternatives.
Yes, the next general election looks like continued hard Brexit and WTO terms with Boris or rejoin the single market with Starmer and the LDs and SNP
Which will be one of the reasons, "Boris" as you so lovingly refer to him as, will lose. The main reason will be that Starmer is not Corbyn or "Boris". And Bozo will be grateful, because he will have got the badge that he so longed to have, but he will no longer have to find ways to dodge the hard work
It is possible Starmer could form a Government with the LDs (and even the SNP too) but I cannot see him getting a Labour majority against Boris
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
With Priti Patel in charge that "counter-terrorism" strand could get quite interesting.
Apparently her special advisors will come from the team which handled Walter Wolfgang.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
The entire point of the apple and google approach was that it's virtually unavoidable, it would be enabled automatically and the data was there.
Unless apple is being very generous the iOS version won't work as iOS does a lot of things to apps running in the background to minimise battery consumption and believe me I can easily go into a lot more detail if required.
As one example, there is a reason why iOS softphones usually use Apple alerts for call notification.
The google approach is certainly avoidable, you dont upgrade your operating system so don't get the new software on your phone. As most phones only update android for a year or two that cuts out most android phones
It's all avoidable if you try hard enough - my real point is that I suspect the NHS iPhone app isn't actually going to work.
Not even trying. My phone is running android 5 current version is 10. I did nothing to achieve that apart from not getting a new phone
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
No, the idea ought to have been to stop infections doubling every couple of days. A week earlier, and we'd be dealing with a far smaller problem.
This is a long term war, it's no longer a one off battle as the disease isn't going to die out.
So we are currently in wave 1 but there will be future waves up to the point 60-80% have had the disease and we have herd immunity or we have a vaccine.
"Thailand reported the first confirmed case of coronavirus outside of China in mid-January, from a traveler from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the pandemic is thought to have begun. In those critical weeks, Thailand continued to welcome an influx of Chinese visitors. For some reason, these tourists did not set off exponential local transmission.
And when countries do all the wrong things and still end up seemingly not as battered by the virus as one would expect, go figure."
This shows all the "this country did well" guff is nonsense at the moment. Thailand should have had a mass outbreak. They had loads of infected people travelling there from Wuhan and did nothing, no social distancing no lockdowns yet they have had less than 3000 cases and just 54 deaths. There is no logic to this virus and no definitive reason why some countries have been battered and some that should have had a bad outbreak have not.
Yeah, just how unlucky has the USA been? Must be all those Indian burial grounds they've built on.
Another good reason for all moderate, non-headbanging Brexit-delusionaries to lend their support to SKS
Wouldn't it be better if he said it was or wasn't ending though ? I mean for clarity.
Sounds like Starmer is keeping the Single Market option open. His strategy seems to be 'Let's not mention Brexit". Either it will blow over or it will go pear shaped, at which point people will be looking for alternatives.
Yes, the next general election looks like continued hard Brexit and WTO terms with Boris or rejoin the single market with Starmer and the LDs and SNP
Which will be one of the reasons, "Boris" as you so lovingly refer to him as, will lose. The main reason will be that Starmer is not Corbyn or "Boris". And Bozo will be grateful, because he will have got the badge that he so longed to have, but he will no longer have to find ways to dodge the hard work
Meanwhile in the real world Boris has already won. If Labour wins after 14 years of Tory governments then so be it.
Sense "Boris" has become like Liverpool FC for you. In which case, fine, but you're on the hook for life. That's what true fandom is. 20 years from now, Liverpool might be wallowing in mid-table mediocrity and "Boris" might be doing a five stretch for something slippery and beyond the pale, but you - you will still have to keep churning out the love. This is the deal so I hope you are going in with eyes open.
@eek I believe GCHQ have “donated” an iOS Bluetooth vulnerability that allows an app to run in the background? Could be wrong, but that’s my understanding.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
What happens if you can’t afford a smartphone?
The government could provide you with one temporarily e.g. if on benefits
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
Having wet dreams again? If they put in such a law it would be be subject to mass disobedience. You cannot lock people up for not possessing a piece of consumer electronics. Only 55% of over 55's have a smart phone only 18% of over 65's
Mr. Meeks, thanks for telling me what my mindset is, and that of millions of other Britons.
Do I have any other opinions I need to know about, or is that it?
All the people who were insisting before the referendum that Britain could leave the EU and trade with it on the exact same terms are now insisting that you can only have Brexit if you nuke Brussels and leave it a smouldering ruin. Until they stop that path to extremism, Britain is going to continue to shrivel and decline to irrelevance.
Most people on each side of this discussion are political moderates who believe neither in 'exact same' or 'nuke Brussels'. A moderate way forward will be found because that will be the wish of the great majority both in the UK and the EU.
Slightly nuts that there's a small chance that in order to do the shopping for my parents I'll have to borrow my mum's smartphone just in case I get frisked by the rozzers.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Which is why it has to be made compulsory. ie you don't legally leave your house without it. Track and trace is either effective in controlling infections or it's not. By effective, I mean avoiding both permanent lockdown and mass death. If it's not effective, ditch it and accept death or lockdown. If it is effective everyone needs to be using it.
See my comments below. There are reasons why I won't be using it connected to the fact it won't work unless Apple are being very generous.
Which isn't 100% true, I will be installing it just to see how easy it will be to have it both installed and utterly useless at the same time.
"Thailand reported the first confirmed case of coronavirus outside of China in mid-January, from a traveler from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the pandemic is thought to have begun. In those critical weeks, Thailand continued to welcome an influx of Chinese visitors. For some reason, these tourists did not set off exponential local transmission.
And when countries do all the wrong things and still end up seemingly not as battered by the virus as one would expect, go figure."
This shows all the "this country did well" guff is nonsense at the moment. Thailand should have had a mass outbreak. They had loads of infected people travelling there from Wuhan and did nothing, no social distancing no lockdowns yet they have had less than 3000 cases and just 54 deaths. There is no logic to this virus and no definitive reason why some countries have been battered and some that should have had a bad outbreak have not.
Yeah, just how unlucky has the USA been? Must be all those Indian burial grounds they've built on.
I realise that you just want to dismiss this report but perhaps you could address why Thailand did not get a mass outbreak. They did nothing to prevent one and had loads of infected people from Wuhan go there.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
Mmm ...... giving the police more stop’n’search powers. What could possibly go wrong? If you think such a measure is (a) enforceable and (b) won’t lead to even greater problems I have a bridge to sell to you.
We need an echo chamber possibly PB 2 for remainers to whine their heads off in perpetuity. I voted remain but i get it that we are leaving/have left. Whining about brexit achieves nothing.
I'll let you into a wee secret, neither does whining about whining about Brexit.
Its not a wee secret. Its remainers who lost whining about it. Brexiteers are very happy with the outcome.
Most of the angry whining seems to be from the gullible folk that voted for it, and it seems to take the form of swivel-eyed incredulity that the rest of us haven't changed our minds about what is fundamentally a charter for the small of brain. Quite sweet really that they still believe they are winners. It is a pyrrhic victory for all of them with the exception of some hedge fund owners, a load of right wing journos and Boris the Clown, and even he will be severely bitten on his ample arse and some point, and when it happens I will laugh and laugh.
Hard to believe but I agree 100% with you Nigel. They are so thick they continue to think they have won something.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
I can think of no measure more calculated to bring a law into disrepute than its rigid enforcement.
I'm not going to give over vast amounts of data to the government about my every movement. I expect there are quite enough people who feel the same way as me to make the whole idea a complete non-starter.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Understand that instinctive reaction, but wouldn't you rather know if you've been exposed? If the app can warn you to isolate from a partner earlier, I think a lot of people will take it up.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
Tories desperate for a police state, you got your brownshirt ordered and boots polished for the glorious day. Tories have always been jealous of fascist states.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
Having wet dreams again? If they put in such a law it would be be subject to mass disobedience. You cannot lock people up for not possessing a piece of consumer electronics. Only 55% of over 55's have a smart phone only 18% of over 65's
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
The entire point of the apple and google approach was that it's virtually unavoidable, it would be enabled automatically and the data was there.
Unless apple is being very generous the iOS version won't work as iOS does a lot of things to apps running in the background to minimise battery consumption and believe me I can easily go into a lot more detail if required.
As one example, there is a reason why iOS softphones usually use Apple alerts for call notification.
The google approach is certainly avoidable, you dont upgrade your operating system so don't get the new software on your phone. As most phones only update android for a year or two that cuts out most android phones
It's all avoidable if you try hard enough - my real point is that I suspect the NHS iPhone app isn't actually going to work.
Mr. Meeks, thanks for telling me what my mindset is, and that of millions of other Britons.
Do I have any other opinions I need to know about, or is that it?
All the people who were insisting before the referendum that Britain could leave the EU and trade with it on the exact same terms are now insisting that you can only have Brexit if you nuke Brussels and leave it a smouldering ruin. Until they stop that path to extremism, Britain is going to continue to shrivel and decline to irrelevance.
Most people on each side of this discussion are political moderates who believe neither in 'exact same' or 'nuke Brussels'. A moderate way forward will be found because that will be the wish of the great majority both in the UK and the EU.
So far the extremists have won every battle. That doesn't seem like changing, in large part because the self-proclaimed moderate Leavers have at every stage preferred self-radicalising over confronting their more extremist fellow-travellers.
Can they link the app to smartwatch bluetooth ? My phone is often in my car/home but my watch is almost always on when I leave the house and the battery lasts miles longer even with bluetooth.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
And one really wonders how many people are going to self-isolate for a fortnight because an app tells them they have been close to someone who thinks they may have some symptoms.
This is an attempt at a magic easy solution to a problem that has no easy solutions.
Buy shares in the cheapest possible mobile phone hardwear companies. People buy one, download the app, realise they have to self-isolate and leave the phone in the sitting room while they head down the pub.
Just about all the cheap mobile phone manufacturers are Chinese, so that may be a non-starter!
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Understand that instinctive reaction, but wouldn't you rather know if you've been exposed? If the app can warn you to isolate from a partner earlier, I think a lot of people will take it up.
a short surcease of liberty is acceptable. Allowing one that leads to long term surveillance isn't. Besides it seems the efficacy of contact tracing by blue tooth is in question which is why singapore is now doing this: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/04/safe_entry_singapore_visitor_logging/ Lets not start down this route
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
I can think of no measure more calculated to bring a law into disrepute than its rigid enforcement.
I'm not going to give over vast amounts of data to the government about my every movement. I expect there are quite enough people who feel the same way as me to make the whole idea a complete non-starter.
Don't know about this. I think people will see an app they download as a small price to pay.
All the evidence so far is that people are okay with restrictions on freedom if they think it saves lives.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Understand that instinctive reaction, but wouldn't you rather know if you've been exposed? If the app can warn you to isolate from a partner earlier, I think a lot of people will take it up.
The current cabinet contains two members who had to resign in disgrace for being national security risks coupled with the rozzers being utter bellends with their powers you can see why app will do more harm than good.
Especially with Johnson selling us all out to Huawei.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Understand that instinctive reaction, but wouldn't you rather know if you've been exposed? If the app can warn you to isolate from a partner earlier, I think a lot of people will take it up.
No, I will not accept giving so much power to the government. This would be a completely unconscionable power grab.
Really genuinely bemused that people are still obsessing about Brexit when you see the economic challenges we are facing in the next 12-24 months. To call any alleged effects a rounding error would be to massively overstate its significance.
This government will be measured in how it faces those horrendous challenges. So far Rishi has done well but the road ahead is the most difficult any government has faced since WW2.
Brexit is a state of mind. It's a state of mind that says insularity is to be preferred to cooperation, that blind certainty is to be preferred to nuance, that prejudice is to be pandered to rather than confronted.
The government is going to add yet more disruption and chaos at the end of a terrible year because there are more votes in fomenting the worst instincts of the public rather than in bringing it together. It may result in further hardship, economic disorder and even deaths, but that's ok because Leavers have this visceral hatred of the EU, which means that even a pandemic cannot be allowed to deny them this gratifcation.
Brexit will have a much longer lasting chronic effect on Britain than Covid-19 for as long as Leavers keep progressively self-radicalising.
People will always find reasons for distrusting or opposing the government. I suspect that your obsession is very much a minority interest but no doubt there are more who feel that way too. I also expect that our ongoing relationship with the EU will be far, far less apocalyptic than you seem to believe. I just regret the displacement activity that is still being engaged in about Brexit when we have far more important things to worry about.
In July, or whenever the furlough scheme is wound up we may well have 1m redundancies. In addition to that at least another million who did not have employment rights will lose their work. My guess is that roughly half of our cafes, bars and restaurants will not reopen under their current management. More than a couple of million will find themselves unable to repay their mortgage or car loan. There is going to be an overwhelming wave of insolvency both corporate and personal. The default rate on the government guaranteed loans is going to be very high. The tax base is going to fall by many tens of billions. Get a grip.
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
The entire point of the apple and google approach was that it's virtually unavoidable, it would be enabled automatically and the data was there.
Unless apple is being very generous the iOS version won't work as iOS does a lot of things to apps running in the background to minimise battery consumption and believe me I can easily go into a lot more detail if required.
As one example, there is a reason why iOS softphones usually use Apple alerts for call notification.
The google approach is certainly avoidable, you dont upgrade your operating system so don't get the new software on your phone. As most phones only update android for a year or two that cuts out most android phones
It's all avoidable if you try hard enough - my real point is that I suspect the NHS iPhone app isn't actually going to work.
There will be 100K in the post soon I bet.
You do realise the posted tests are being returned and processed? That is the point of them?
I'd have thought given how spread out some Scottish towns and villages can be you'd be particularly welcoming a remote testing solution like this, but for some reason I can't comprehend you seem to be dead set against trying a solution that could work for Scotland. Why is that?
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
Hindsight is 20/20. If we had locked down earlier it may not have been necessary and we might not have been prepared for a lockdown with the furlough scheme etc
It is not hindsight to be calling for the government to be called to account. The PM was asleep on the job, in a self-congratulatory coma following his "get Brexit done" "success".
He will no doubt try to hide from his culpability for having possibly the highest death rate in Europe with his usual bullshit bluster and bonhomie, and using the PPE-less doctorsannurses as political human shields, but ultimately the public will wake up to how shit and lazy he really is.
Belgium, Spain and Italy all have a higher death rate per head than the UK
Shortly we will overtake Italy and have the most deaths of any country in Europe - that is the headline what is going to stick in peoples' minds, not relative death rates or different counting procedures.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Understand that instinctive reaction, but wouldn't you rather know if you've been exposed? If the app can warn you to isolate from a partner earlier, I think a lot of people will take it up.
a short surcease of liberty is acceptable. Allowing one that leads to long term surveillance isn't. Besides it seems the efficacy of contact tracing by blue tooth is in question which is why singapore is now doing this: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/04/safe_entry_singapore_visitor_logging/ Lets not start down this route
Cant i just delete the app when the crisis lifts? Can't the legislation have a sunset clause? Feels like it is possible to do this in a safe way, although I certainly have concerns, especially if Priti Patel is involved....
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Understand that instinctive reaction, but wouldn't you rather know if you've been exposed? If the app can warn you to isolate from a partner earlier, I think a lot of people will take it up.
No, I will not accept giving so much power to the government. This would be a completely unconscionable power grab.
Power grab?
Its no more of a power grab than them being able to triangulate my position from my mobile phone's signal. An app that I can install and uninstall at will and can take out with me when I want to and not when I don't want to seems a very bizarre kind of power grab.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Understand that instinctive reaction, but wouldn't you rather know if you've been exposed? If the app can warn you to isolate from a partner earlier, I think a lot of people will take it up.
The current cabinet contains two members who had to resign in disgrace for being national security risks coupled with the rozzers being utter bellends with their powers you can see why app will do more harm than good.
Especially with Johnson selling us all out to Huawei.
Worth noting that the proposed 5G setup had BT companying that they would have to *unistall* thousands of pieces of Huawei kit already in the network.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
Having wet dreams again? If they put in such a law it would be be subject to mass disobedience. You cannot lock people up for not possessing a piece of consumer electronics. Only 55% of over 55's have a smart phone only 18% of over 65's
If it is the best way to reduce the spread of Covid you can, enforced by the police.
Over 65s can stay in if they refuse to have one or only go out with permits
Yeah like you will lock up 45% of over 55's who will be off out as soon as lockdown lifts. You want to ensure there is never another tory government and foster a complete disrespect of the police then by all means try it
Really genuinely bemused that people are still obsessing about Brexit when you see the economic challenges we are facing in the next 12-24 months. To call any alleged effects a rounding error would be to massively overstate its significance.
This government will be measured in how it faces those horrendous challenges. So far Rishi has done well but the road ahead is the most difficult any government has faced since WW2.
Was only a matter of time before Tories started using that excuse. Brexit will cost UK far more than Covid in the long run.
Tell you what Malcolm. In 50 years or so we can do the maths and see. But my money is on you being wrong by multiple factors.
David, If I am here in 50 years I will not care a jot. Highly unlikely I will be around to pick up my winnings which Tory inflation will have ravaged by then.
Really genuinely bemused that people are still obsessing about Brexit when you see the economic challenges we are facing in the next 12-24 months. To call any alleged effects a rounding error would be to massively overstate its significance.
This government will be measured in how it faces those horrendous challenges. So far Rishi has done well but the road ahead is the most difficult any government has faced since WW2.
Brexit is a state of mind. It's a state of mind that says insularity is to be preferred to cooperation, that blind certainty is to be preferred to nuance, that prejudice is to be pandered to rather than confronted.
The government is going to add yet more disruption and chaos at the end of a terrible year because there are more votes in fomenting the worst instincts of the public rather than in bringing it together. It may result in further hardship, economic disorder and even deaths, but that's ok because Leavers have this visceral hatred of the EU, which means that even a pandemic cannot be allowed to deny them this gratifcation.
Brexit will have a much longer lasting chronic effect on Britain than Covid-19 for as long as Leavers keep progressively self-radicalising.
People will always find reasons for distrusting or opposing the government. I suspect that your obsession is very much a minority interest but no doubt there are more who feel that way too. I also expect that our ongoing relationship with the EU will be far, far less apocalyptic than you seem to believe. I just regret the displacement activity that is still being engaged in about Brexit when we have far more important things to worry about.
In July, or whenever the furlough scheme is wound up we may well have 1m redundancies. In addition to that at least another million who did not have employment rights will lose their work. My guess is that roughly half of our cafes, bars and restaurants will not reopen under their current management. More than a couple of million will find themselves unable to repay their mortgage or car loan. There is going to be an overwhelming wave of insolvency both corporate and personal. The default rate on the government guaranteed loans is going to be very high. The tax base is going to fall by many tens of billions. Get a grip.
The obsession is of Leavers, who constantly are looking for new ways to hate the EU. Until they get past that - they even took the opportunity in the middle of a pandemic to refuse to cooperate with the EU, because dead bodies were a small price to pay to indulge that hatred - things are not going to improve.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
What happens if you can’t afford a smartphone?
The government could provide you with one temporarily e.g. if on benefits
It would be easy and cheap to devise a simple one-use device. It would only need to access data if Bluetooth found a positive contact.
It was the Coalition which repealed the odious Identity Card Act in 2010. It was another Conservative or perhaps a Liberal Unionist called Winston Churchill who repealed the National Registration Act in 1952.
Clarence Harry Willcock's story is inspiring. He famously said "I am a Liberal and I am against that sort of thing" when challenged to produce his Identity Card. This was in December 1950, more than five years after the war ended.
IF we are going to advocate a law which will force individuals to make their movements (over missus) available to the Government let's be certain this won't be abused by this or any future Government in the name of "national security".
It's wrong - it's another step in the erosion of our civil liberties and while it may be implemented with the best of intentions, I fear the temptation to retain the power after the emergency has passed will be too strong for a centralising Government and Prime Minister.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
I can think of no measure more calculated to bring a law into disrepute than its rigid enforcement.
I'm not going to give over vast amounts of data to the government about my every movement. I expect there are quite enough people who feel the same way as me to make the whole idea a complete non-starter.
Don't know about this. I think people will see an app they download as a small price to pay.
All the evidence so far is that people are okay with restrictions on freedom if they think it saves lives.
People are ok with temporary restrictions most people also believe from past experience you give them an inch they take a mile and wont believe this is temporary while they can see lockdown has to be
"Thailand reported the first confirmed case of coronavirus outside of China in mid-January, from a traveler from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the pandemic is thought to have begun. In those critical weeks, Thailand continued to welcome an influx of Chinese visitors. For some reason, these tourists did not set off exponential local transmission.
And when countries do all the wrong things and still end up seemingly not as battered by the virus as one would expect, go figure."
This shows all the "this country did well" guff is nonsense at the moment. Thailand should have had a mass outbreak. They had loads of infected people travelling there from Wuhan and did nothing, no social distancing no lockdowns yet they have had less than 3000 cases and just 54 deaths. There is no logic to this virus and no definitive reason why some countries have been battered and some that should have had a bad outbreak have not.
Yeah, just how unlucky has the USA been? Must be all those Indian burial grounds they've built on.
I realise that you just want to dismiss this report but perhaps you could address why Thailand did not get a mass outbreak. They did nothing to prevent one and had loads of infected people from Wuhan go there.
Actually I think I was dismissing you and your half baked theory that 'there is no logic to this virus' and it's all down to luck.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Understand that instinctive reaction, but wouldn't you rather know if you've been exposed? If the app can warn you to isolate from a partner earlier, I think a lot of people will take it up.
No, I will not accept giving so much power to the government. This would be a completely unconscionable power grab.
So you would be completely against what they are doing in South Korea? - using network cellphone data to track is a major part of their system.
"Ministers were made “fully aware” by intelligence agencies that China had covered up the true scale of the Covid-19 outbreak, it was claimed on Sunday night, raising questions over Britain’s decision to delay the lockdown.
The Government in Westminster was told “not to believe Beijing’s claims” from the outset and to treat the information coming out of China with scepticism, The Telegraph understands. A senior, former MI6 official said the intelligence agencies knew what was “really happening” in China and passed that information to ministers." (£)
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Which is why it has to be made compulsory. ie you don't legally leave your house without it. Track and trace is either effective in controlling infections or it's not. By effective, I mean avoiding both permanent lockdown and mass death. If it's not effective, ditch it and accept death or lockdown. If it is effective everyone needs to be using it.
See my comments below. There are reasons why I won't be using it connected to the fact it won't work unless Apple are being very generous.
Which isn't 100% true, I will be installing it just to see how easy it will be to have it both installed and utterly useless at the same time.
If it doesn't work there's no point to it. But that's a different question from the civil liberties issues of an app that is effective in controlling infections.
On reflection, I don't think it appropriate to make the control on leaving your house or have the police enforcing this. The control should be on entering publicly accessible enclosed spaces such as shops, offices and public transport. Owners of those spaces are required to bar entry to those not showing compliance with track and trace.
Slightly nuts that there's a small chance that in order to do the shopping for my parents I'll have to borrow my mum's smartphone just in case I get frisked by the rozzers.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
Having wet dreams again? If they put in such a law it would be be subject to mass disobedience. You cannot lock people up for not possessing a piece of consumer electronics. Only 55% of over 55's have a smart phone only 18% of over 65's
If it is the best way to reduce the spread of Covid you can, enforced by the police.
Over 65s can stay in if they refuse to have one or only go out with permits
For someone who purports to be a Conservative, and who accuses others of not being one, that is some pretty rootin' tootin' non-small state, non-small government measures you are advocating, there, big boy!
"Thailand reported the first confirmed case of coronavirus outside of China in mid-January, from a traveler from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the pandemic is thought to have begun. In those critical weeks, Thailand continued to welcome an influx of Chinese visitors. For some reason, these tourists did not set off exponential local transmission.
And when countries do all the wrong things and still end up seemingly not as battered by the virus as one would expect, go figure."
This shows all the "this country did well" guff is nonsense at the moment. Thailand should have had a mass outbreak. They had loads of infected people travelling there from Wuhan and did nothing, no social distancing no lockdowns yet they have had less than 3000 cases and just 54 deaths. There is no logic to this virus and no definitive reason why some countries have been battered and some that should have had a bad outbreak have not.
Yeah, just how unlucky has the USA been? Must be all those Indian burial grounds they've built on.
I realise that you just want to dismiss this report but perhaps you could address why Thailand did not get a mass outbreak. They did nothing to prevent one and had loads of infected people from Wuhan go there.
Actually I think I was dismissing you and your half baked theory that 'there is no logic to this virus' and it's all down to luck.
Why is it my theory? It was a factually based article in the New York Times.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Understand that instinctive reaction, but wouldn't you rather know if you've been exposed? If the app can warn you to isolate from a partner earlier, I think a lot of people will take it up.
No, I will not accept giving so much power to the government. This would be a completely unconscionable power grab.
Power grab?
Its no more of a power grab than them being able to triangulate my position from my mobile phone's signal. An app that I can install and uninstall at will and can take out with me when I want to and not when I don't want to seems a very bizarre kind of power grab.
you are neglecting that some here are calling for it to be compulsory
On SK I remember linking to their public websites in February showing the journeys and times each infected person had made so that people could heck if they had been exposed or not. Come May we have absolutely nothing like this. If we are going to make trace and isolate work we need it. That means accepting that your smartphone is used to track you and that information is put into the public domain, no doubt anonymised but probably identifiable to those who know you.
Are we ready for that? I am but I am not sure.
What has this government done to make its opponents trust it?
This would be a tough sell anyway and having a government led by figures who revel in playing fast and loose with data is only going to make it harder.
I think that Brits feel that way about every government. We have a healthy distrust of authority. Remember the arguments about ID cards under Blair? The question is whether enough people can be persuaded to take part. It has to be voluntary.
Nicely ducked.
You have a government that has made great play about dividing the country between its support base and its opponents and using the apparatus of the state to drive through its policy objectives. It now wants the cooperation of its opponents in providing it with vast amounts of data.
What has it done to persuade them to trust it?
You'd have to be mental to install the app. They will 100% use it for law enforcement and counter-terrorism and there will 100% be mistakes made with data and identities.
I suspect that it will be an NHS App, rather than a government one, to avoid that tag, and treated as medical records in terms of confidentiality.
In practice I would expect that it will need to be on to access many public buildings, public transport etc.
Phase 3 – further easing of lockdown with a progression towards a more normal level of activity within the Bailiwick
Phase 4 – more economic activity, including the reopening of non-essential shops, hotels, hairdressers and beauticians, but with social distancing and hygiene measures
Phase 5 – bars and nightclubs allowed to open, and possibly travel between the islands of the Bailiwick
Phase 6 – borders with the UK, Europe and elsewhere reopen
The idea is that at each phase the impact will be carefully evaluated before moving onto the next, and the health data could even dictate that a step backwards is necessary.
Well look at that. Almost as if keeping new cases of the virus out the bailiwick is quite important.
On April 12th there were 164 active cases (164,000, UK equivalent), now there are 21. The travel restrictions (self quarantine for 14 days, inbound flights cut from 10 to 1 per day) came in on March 19 - peak of travel related cases was 2nd April - its now zero. We had a nasty run in care homes too - that's been squashed. Total deaths is 18 (14 confirmed, 4 presumed). Completed the equivalent of 3.4 million tests in UK terms.
Of course its a heck of a lot easier to manage this in an island with 0.1% of the UK's population - but the difference in the approach to travel has been striking from the start. As to ending the lockdown I suspect our neighbour Jersey is going too far too fast, and their suggestion about opening a "Channel Islands Travel Bubble" has been met with a studied silence from Guernsey politicians.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Understand that instinctive reaction, but wouldn't you rather know if you've been exposed? If the app can warn you to isolate from a partner earlier, I think a lot of people will take it up.
No, I will not accept giving so much power to the government. This would be a completely unconscionable power grab.
Power grab?
Its no more of a power grab than them being able to triangulate my position from my mobile phone's signal. An app that I can install and uninstall at will and can take out with me when I want to and not when I don't want to seems a very bizarre kind of power grab.
you are neglecting that some here are calling for it to be compulsory
It can`t be compulsory. A chunk of the UK population doesn`t own a smart phone.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
Having wet dreams again? If they put in such a law it would be be subject to mass disobedience. You cannot lock people up for not possessing a piece of consumer electronics. Only 55% of over 55's have a smart phone only 18% of over 65's
If it is the best way to reduce the spread of Covid you can, enforced by the police.
Over 65s can stay in if they refuse to have one or only go out with permits
For someone who purports to be a Conservative, and who accuses others of not being one, that is some pretty rootin' tootin' non-small state, non-small government measures you are advocating, there, big boy!
I am a Conservative not a libertarian as I have made clear several times
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
Which is why it has to be made compulsory. ie you don't legally leave your house without it. Track and trace is either effective in controlling infections or it's not. By effective, I mean avoiding both permanent lockdown and mass death. If it's not effective, ditch it and accept death or lockdown. If it is effective everyone needs to be using it.
I have no idea if the app is going to be useful but as far as compulsion is concerned there's a middle way something like: - End the lockdown a couple of days early for people with the app - Offer to send law enforcement to do spot-checks at private venues like shopping centres that make a policy of requiring the app.
In practice strong enforcement may not be very practical, but people won't really be sure in advance that it won't be, so what this does is to flip the least-bother default from "don't install" to "install", while still allowing people who are worried about it to opt out.
Too much compulsion is probably a bad idea, as if you get people really annoyed they can probably mess with it and spam it with bad data, but if you can get the apathetic as well as the tracking enthusiasts that's almost the entire population. It's a game of averages, you don't have to get *everyone*.
Slightly nuts that there's a small chance that in order to do the shopping for my parents I'll have to borrow my mum's smartphone just in case I get frisked by the rozzers.
God help me if they discover I like cake.
That drug cake is not all it's cracked up to be.
Given past history, mentioning cake will have you instantly convicted under "Taking The Pi%% Out Of Celebrities Act 1997" - the penalty for that is Cancellation.
From where we are now it makes sense to keep up with the lockdown for another couple of week IMO while rolling out the new tests until the cases are under control and then ease off the lockdown with a massive track and trace service.
If we can do that we can hopefully get back to normalish by June and have some summer. If we ease off now we will likely end up with this dragging on all year.
I know people are desperate for an easy solution to this, but sometimes there are no easy solutions.
On any reasonable assessment, there are still at the very least 25,000 new cases a day in the UK. Tracing will help, but it can't come close to curbing that level of transmission.
We are not going to get back to anything like normal until either there is a vaccine or so many people have had it that it stops spreading.
America's state-by-state approach should provide more interesting data about what works. As for us, we need more masks before we mandate them; we do not have the infrastructure for full track and trace or the wit for even rudimentary tracing (eg have you been to Cheltenham, Tesco or work in the last fortnight?); we have no useful idea how and where the virus spreads; checking new arrivals from hotspots is off the table.
So meanwhile we pray for drugs and a vaccine and that the eggheads who reckon it will die down irrespective of what a country does are correct.
Good overview of vaccine prospects by Gates (his newsletter is definitely worth a free sub):
It's a good summary. A couple of points I'd add... when faced with actual infection, the body takes a week or more to produce antibodies in quantity ('seroconversion'), and this is far from ideal, as in severe cases, it appears to result in some sort of car crash with the innate immune response, which seems to contribute to the massive lung damage. A vaccine primes the immune system in advance. Significant amounts of virus specific antibody present before we encounter the virus ought to make a huge difference. Secondly, if the vaccine is designed correctly, little of the 'useless' antibody to the nucleocapsid protein (which in cases of actual infection is produced in large quantities, and contributes to inflammation) ought to be produced. It's 'useless' from a vaccine point of view, as the protein is entirely contained within the intact virus, so the antibody does nothing to neutralise the virus' ability to latch on to its target, or direct other parts of the immune system directly to attack the virus.
The attempt to contain the virus is doomed to failure. We have to allow it to spread through the healthy population in order to achieve herd immunity. People with serious health conditions should stay at home while that process is ongoing.
Out of interest do you think containment is doomed to failure in South Korea and Taiwan and places that currently look like they're succeeding without destroying their economies, or just in Britain?
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
I can think of no measure more calculated to bring a law into disrepute than its rigid enforcement.
I'm not going to give over vast amounts of data to the government about my every movement. I expect there are quite enough people who feel the same way as me to make the whole idea a complete non-starter.
Don't know about this. I think people will see an app they download as a small price to pay.
All the evidence so far is that people are okay with restrictions on freedom if they think it saves lives.
People are ok with temporary restrictions most people also believe from past experience you give them an inch they take a mile and wont believe this is temporary while they can see lockdown has to be
So once this app on your phone - do people think you can't just uninstall it when the pandemic is over?
"Ha ha! Now we know what they are doing at all - oh bugger, they've uninstalled it..."
I haven't come across anyone who will install the app. I'm certainly not going to.
I think the solution is mandatory testing at supermarkets and other venue and then separation using a Chinese style funnel system. It means we need capacity to do more than 5x the tests we can do today.
It was the Coalition which repealed the odious Identity Card Act in 2010. It was another Conservative or perhaps a Liberal Unionist called Winston Churchill who repealed the National Registration Act in 1952.
Clarence Harry Willcock's story is inspiring. He famously said "I am a Liberal and I am against that sort of thing" when challenged to produce his Identity Card. This was in December 1950, more than five years after the war ended.
IF we are going to advocate a law which will force individuals to make their movements (over missus) available to the Government let's be certain this won't be abused by this or any future Government in the name of "national security".
It's wrong - it's another step in the erosion of our civil liberties and while it may be implemented with the best of intentions, I fear the temptation to retain the power after the emergency has passed will be too strong for a centralising Government and Prime Minister.
I've always been against ID cards but I'm beginning to feel the difficulty in proving ID is becoming discriminatory for certain sections of society. Windrush was, in part, down to an inability of people to demonstrate they were someone who had the right to remain in the UK. It's easy for me. I travel and drive so I have a passport and driving licence. I live in my own house and have done so for nearly 15 years, I have bank accounts, utility bills, a mortgage, credit cards etc. Plenty of people have none of these and they're mostly from the most disadvantaged part of society.
I'm still worried about compulsion though. As a freeborn Englishman I can go as I please. So I'm conflicted.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
Having wet dreams again? If they put in such a law it would be be subject to mass disobedience. You cannot lock people up for not possessing a piece of consumer electronics. Only 55% of over 55's have a smart phone only 18% of over 65's
If it is the best way to reduce the spread of Covid you can, enforced by the police.
Over 65s can stay in if they refuse to have one or only go out with permits
Yeah like you will lock up 45% of over 55's who will be off out as soon as lockdown lifts. You want to ensure there is never another tory government and foster a complete disrespect of the police then by all means try it
As the polling shows more people are concerned about the death rate rising again post lockdown than pursuing extreme libertarianism
I can't see how a mobile phone app would be compatible with GDPR. Will be interesting to see how the government gets round this.
Not an issue
The rules allow for employers and public health authorities to process personal data without needing to gain the consent of individuals concerned, as long as it’s necessary for public health reasons.
Still, someone will be along shortly to tell us that preventing the virus from taking hold in the country was impossible and that shutting the borders wouldn't have made any difference.
I don't think shutting borders would have made much difference. We first found community transmission at the end of Feb I think. So would have needed to close borders at least two weeks earlier if not more... (Tricky when Boris was on holiday...)
With hindsight, I think we definitely could have done more to prevent the virus from taking hold - but the answer was going to lockdown earlier.
The idea of lockdown was to prevent the NHS being overwhelmed. The NHS wasn't overwhelmed.
If we had locked down 2-3 weeks earlier, we would be coming out of lockdown much earlier (certainly more than 2-3 weeks earlier).
We would also have had far fewer cases = less pressure on PPE and supplies.
That the Liverpool vs Athletico Madrid (11th March), Bath Half (15th March) and Cheltenham festivals (16th-19th March) were allowed to go ahead is an absolute disgrace.
Yes - those white males out enjoying themselves - how dare they.
You continue to behave like a complete prat. That fixture which involved 3000 fans travelling from a highly infected region is now seen as a particular spreader of the virus, which is one of the principle reasons that Liverpool is a hotspot for coronavirus deaths.
Plenty of evidence out there saying outdoor transmission is rare.
Meanwhile the tubes and trains were rammed with people being in close contact for tens of minutes in confined spaces.
But "totemic sports target" I guess gets more clicks.
I doubt that the 3000 fans travelling to Liverpool from the virus hotspot of Madrid spent much of their time outdoors - 2 hours at the game maybe and then public transport, pubs, airports, hotels, restaurants. Even at the time you really would have to be a bit dim to think that that was a good idea.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
What happens if you can’t afford a smartphone?
The government could provide you with one temporarily e.g. if on benefits
IMO serious health conditions should be the determining factor in whether or not someone is expected to stay at home, not age per se.
In the regression analysis of Britain's first 16 000 deaths, age was the principal risk even when allowing for diabetes, heart conditions, blood pressure etc.
We may not like how Sickle Cell affects Black populations or Cystic Fibrosis white people, but I am afraid disease doesn't abide by equalities legislation.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
Having wet dreams again? If they put in such a law it would be be subject to mass disobedience. You cannot lock people up for not possessing a piece of consumer electronics. Only 55% of over 55's have a smart phone only 18% of over 65's
If it is the best way to reduce the spread of Covid you can, enforced by the police.
Over 65s can stay in if they refuse to have one or only go out with permits
For someone who purports to be a Conservative, and who accuses others of not being one, that is some pretty rootin' tootin' non-small state, non-small government measures you are advocating, there, big boy!
I am a Conservative not a libertarian as I have made clear several times
Tracking people's every move with police powers to match is a deeply un-Conservative measure. Be careful, or you will forfeit your "pure Conservative" tag if you acquiesce to such a totalitarian action as this appears to be.
Anyway, if there's any attempt at compulsion in tracking my movements via my mobile phone, I'll simply leave it at home.
In which case it is possible the government could require the police to conduct stop and search with arrest for those not carrying the mobile phone with tracing app
I can think of no measure more calculated to bring a law into disrepute than its rigid enforcement.
I'm not going to give over vast amounts of data to the government about my every movement. I expect there are quite enough people who feel the same way as me to make the whole idea a complete non-starter.
Don't know about this. I think people will see an app they download as a small price to pay.
All the evidence so far is that people are okay with restrictions on freedom if they think it saves lives.
People are ok with temporary restrictions most people also believe from past experience you give them an inch they take a mile and wont believe this is temporary while they can see lockdown has to be
So once this app on your phone - do people think you can't just uninstall it when the pandemic is over?
"Ha ha! Now we know what they are doing at all - oh bugger, they've uninstalled it..."
He's uninstalled the app, quick investigate him, must have something to hide!
Comments
I think there is disagreement in the cabinet between two camps: "herd immunity only to the extent that NHS can cope" and "aim for containment so that death rate is as low as possible".
On balance, I think that the second camp is winning. Having said that the change in the wording of Raab`s Exit Condition 5 suggests otherwise.
Dunno.
Unless apple is being very generous the iOS version won't work as iOS does a lot of things to apps running in the background to minimise battery consumption and believe me I can easily go into a lot more detail if required.
As one example, there is a reason why iOS softphones usually use Apple alerts for call notification.
There are signs that the government might actually understand this.
I'm content with tracking if it has to be passed by both houses and is only valid for 3 months. Parliament must renew it every 3 months if an emergency lasts.
However, as I don't travel around with a mobile I'm not a candidate for this app. I'd rather have an antibody test, please.
Maybe the authorities will try to present this as an NHS initiative. I still don't trust them.
Phase 3 – further easing of lockdown with a progression towards a more normal level of activity within the Bailiwick
Phase 4 – more economic activity, including the reopening of non-essential shops, hotels, hairdressers and beauticians, but with social distancing and hygiene measures
Phase 5 – bars and nightclubs allowed to open, and possibly travel between the islands of the Bailiwick
Phase 6 – borders with the UK, Europe and elsewhere reopen
The idea is that at each phase the impact will be carefully evaluated before moving onto the next, and the health data could even dictate that a step backwards is necessary.
https://guernseypress.com/news/2020/05/04/further-easing-of-lockdown-could-be-three-weeks-away/
He didn't agree to the perpetual backstop that the EU had wanted. He didn't agree for a lack of NI democratic control that the EU had wanted. He didn't surrender.
Mrs Eek would also suggest there is a correlation between wealth and infection rates as Boro has one of the highest per capita infection rates in the country and one of the highest increases see https://www.gazettelive.co.uk/news/teesside-news/opinion-middlesbroughs-covid-19-crisis-18191771
https://twitter.com/BBC_Culture/status/1256252040612769794
"Thailand reported the first confirmed case of coronavirus outside of China in mid-January, from a traveler from Wuhan, the Chinese city where the pandemic is thought to have begun. In those critical weeks, Thailand continued to welcome an influx of Chinese visitors. For some reason, these tourists did not set off exponential local transmission.
And when countries do all the wrong things and still end up seemingly not as battered by the virus as one would expect, go figure."
This shows all the "this country did well" guff is nonsense at the moment. Thailand should have had a mass outbreak. They had loads of infected people travelling there from Wuhan and did nothing, no social distancing no lockdowns yet they have had less than 3000 cases and just 54 deaths. There is no logic to this virus and no definitive reason why some countries have been battered and some that should have had a bad outbreak have not.
So we are currently in wave 1 but there will be future waves up to the point 60-80% have had the disease and we have herd immunity or we have a vaccine.
source
https://www.statista.com/statistics/271851/smartphone-owners-in-the-united-kingdom-uk-by-age/
God help me if they discover I like cake.
Which isn't 100% true, I will be installing it just to see how easy it will be to have it both installed and utterly useless at the same time.
I'm not going to give over vast amounts of data to the government about my every movement. I expect there are quite enough people who feel the same way as me to make the whole idea a complete non-starter.
That's how it will go......
Over 65s can stay in if they refuse to have one or only go out with permits
My phone is often in my car/home but my watch is almost always on when I leave the house and the battery lasts miles longer even with bluetooth.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/04/safe_entry_singapore_visitor_logging/
Lets not start down this route
All the evidence so far is that people are okay with restrictions on freedom if they think it saves lives.
Especially with Johnson selling us all out to Huawei.
In July, or whenever the furlough scheme is wound up we may well have 1m redundancies. In addition to that at least another million who did not have employment rights will lose their work. My guess is that roughly half of our cafes, bars and restaurants will not reopen under their current management. More than a couple of million will find themselves unable to repay their mortgage or car loan. There is going to be an overwhelming wave of insolvency both corporate and personal. The default rate on the government guaranteed loans is going to be very high. The tax base is going to fall by many tens of billions. Get a grip.
I'd have thought given how spread out some Scottish towns and villages can be you'd be particularly welcoming a remote testing solution like this, but for some reason I can't comprehend you seem to be dead set against trying a solution that could work for Scotland. Why is that?
Its no more of a power grab than them being able to triangulate my position from my mobile phone's signal. An app that I can install and uninstall at will and can take out with me when I want to and not when I don't want to seems a very bizarre kind of power grab.
It was the Coalition which repealed the odious Identity Card Act in 2010. It was another Conservative or perhaps a Liberal Unionist called Winston Churchill who repealed the National Registration Act in 1952.
Clarence Harry Willcock's story is inspiring. He famously said "I am a Liberal and I am against that sort of thing" when challenged to produce his Identity Card. This was in December 1950, more than five years after the war ended.
IF we are going to advocate a law which will force individuals to make their movements (over missus) available to the Government let's be certain this won't be abused by this or any future Government in the name of "national security".
It's wrong - it's another step in the erosion of our civil liberties and while it may be implemented with the best of intentions, I fear the temptation to retain the power after the emergency has passed will be too strong for a centralising Government and Prime Minister.
When did they know the truth about Wuhan ? November ?
Why did they not warn the world ?
On reflection, I don't think it appropriate to make the control on leaving your house or have the police enforcing this. The control should be on entering publicly accessible enclosed spaces such as shops, offices and public transport. Owners of those spaces are required to bar entry to those not showing compliance with track and trace.
In practice I would expect that it will need to be on to access many public buildings, public transport etc.
https://covid19.gov.gg/test-results
Of course its a heck of a lot easier to manage this in an island with 0.1% of the UK's population - but the difference in the approach to travel has been striking from the start. As to ending the lockdown I suspect our neighbour Jersey is going too far too fast, and their suggestion about opening a "Channel Islands Travel Bubble" has been met with a studied silence from Guernsey politicians.
- End the lockdown a couple of days early for people with the app
- Offer to send law enforcement to do spot-checks at private venues like shopping centres that make a policy of requiring the app.
In practice strong enforcement may not be very practical, but people won't really be sure in advance that it won't be, so what this does is to flip the least-bother default from "don't install" to "install", while still allowing people who are worried about it to opt out.
Too much compulsion is probably a bad idea, as if you get people really annoyed they can probably mess with it and spam it with bad data, but if you can get the apathetic as well as the tracking enthusiasts that's almost the entire population. It's a game of averages, you don't have to get *everyone*.
A couple of points I'd add... when faced with actual infection, the body takes a week or more to produce antibodies in quantity ('seroconversion'), and this is far from ideal, as in severe cases, it appears to result in some sort of car crash with the innate immune response, which seems to contribute to the massive lung damage. A vaccine primes the immune system in advance. Significant amounts of virus specific antibody present before we encounter the virus ought to make a huge difference.
Secondly, if the vaccine is designed correctly, little of the 'useless' antibody to the nucleocapsid protein (which in cases of actual infection is produced in large quantities, and contributes to inflammation) ought to be produced. It's 'useless' from a vaccine point of view, as the protein is entirely contained within the intact virus, so the antibody does nothing to neutralise the virus' ability to latch on to its target, or direct other parts of the immune system directly to attack the virus.
"Ha ha! Now we know what they are doing at all - oh bugger, they've uninstalled it..."
I think the solution is mandatory testing at supermarkets and other venue and then separation using a Chinese style funnel system. It means we need capacity to do more than 5x the tests we can do today.
I'm still worried about compulsion though. As a freeborn Englishman I can go as I please. So I'm conflicted.
The rules allow for employers and public health authorities to process personal data without needing to gain the consent of individuals concerned, as long as it’s necessary for public health reasons.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2020/03/20/in-times-of-pandemic-gdpr-still-applies-eu-warns/
"Boris to hand out smart phones to scroungers"
We may not like how Sickle Cell affects Black populations or Cystic Fibrosis white people, but I am afraid disease doesn't abide by equalities legislation.