Also, in general if you do come up with something that is valuable, that is when you start to employ people who are software engineers, to well, software engineer.
We'd do that NOW, in fact they have done to an extent, but do you really think anyone, say last October, was thinking "we really need to urgently review and refactor our pandemic modelling software"? I don't, it wasn't considered valuable to any degree back then.
I only know a few of the modelling team at Imperial (though those I do come from a top-notch technical academic background) but I'm aware that LSHTM has for over a decade been deliberately hiring in software engineers from industry - some to learn epidemiology and retrain as academics, others not on the academic track so I assume there mostly for programming support. Seems sensible to me. In general terms I wonder if 22 is the optimal age to start a PhD, by which point you've been in the education system for 17 years flat. Might be worth going out and getting some Big Wide World experience for a couple of years! Certainly could go back with different perspectives and skills that way. (Though once you've got used to a certain industry salary, a return to the student lifestyle may not be so attractive!)
If anyone has a copy of this week's Economist [May2nd-8th] can they please look at the illustration on page 25. It bears an uncanny resemblance to the cartoon by Marf published here on 4th May:
If we are going to see an easing of the lockdown from next week how long do you suppose until the first of the 80+ local council vacancies are filled with by-elections? Which will be first and what will the actual impact of CV19 be on those elections?
Adam Kucharski (at the London School) claimed in a tweet a while back that the media hype about government turning policy around rapidly in response to the famous Imperial Report 9 ("Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand") was overblown, as LSHTM had been feeding very similar input in to the government as a result of their modelling at around the same time.
Yes, I've been following them. I rather prefer their less flashy approach to the science. Doing it quietly right. I share your implied distaste for the PR-first approach of the Imperial crew. I must admit a little schadenfreude at the recent headlines
(The eagle-eyed may note Christl Donnelly being quoted a lot in pieces about her colleague Ferguson at present! And recall the Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta for her criticism of the Imperial team's modelling assumptions earlier in the epidemic, a bit - or rather, a heck of a lot - of history there...)
More than commonly known, indeed! Perhaps it will make a fun novel one day.
--AS
The media narrative has disingenuous by omission from the start. Pretty much every report only refers to Ferguson's model that spat out the disaster scenario, as if nobody had modelled anything before that, hence going for "herd immunity", then White Knight Ferguson turned up and they U-Turned.
When in fact, we know from early January work was being done and those early models used early Chinese data, and it was when more up to date stuff in particular the Italian data, then the 8x capacity horror showed up.
I don't think that true.
The infectivity rates, hospitalisation rates and need for ICU in the initial case series from Wuhan published at the end of Jan, are still pretty accurate. Amazingly so for such early data on an emerging disease.
It wasn't the science that changed, that is just spin. Either the politics did or our scientists were worse than those in Europe working on the same data. My money is on the politics changing.
Also, in general if you do come up with something that is valuable, that is when you start to employ people who are software engineers, to well, software engineer.
We'd do that NOW, in fact they have done to an extent, but do you really think anyone, say last October, was thinking "we really need to urgently review and refactor our pandemic modelling software"? I don't, it wasn't considered valuable to any degree back then.
I only know a few of the modelling team at Imperial (though those I do come from a top-notch technical academic background) but I'm aware that LSHTM has for over a decade been deliberately hiring in software engineers from industry - some to learn epidemiology and retrain as academics, others not on the academic track so I assume there mostly for programming support. Seems sensible to me. In general terms I wonder if 22 is the optimal age to start a PhD, by which point you've been in the education system for 17 years flat. Might be worth going out and getting some Big Wide World experience for a couple of years! Certainly could go back with different perspectives and skills that way. (Though once you've got used to a certain industry salary, a return to the student lifestyle may not be so attractive!)
This is one reason that the likes of Google are able to poach academics. Not just the salary and the lack of distractions (if you consider teaching and examining to be such), but the excellent software engineers on tap.
If we are going to see an easing of the lockdown from next week how long do you suppose until the first of the 80+ local council vacancies are filled with by-elections? Which will be first and what will the actual impact of CV19 be on those elections?
Might be worth going out and getting some Big Wide World experience for a couple of years! Certainly could go back with different perspectives and skills that way. (Though once you've got used to a certain industry salary, a return to the student lifestyle may not be so attractive!)
That's the real issue. If you are great software engineer are you going to work for FAANG for a load of money, or a pittance at a university? If we want our academics to have really great tools to use so that they can provide good advice to the government we are going to have to pay for them.
Adam Kucharski (at the London School) claimed in a tweet a while back that the media hype about government turning policy around rapidly in response to the famous Imperial Report 9 ("Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand") was overblown, as LSHTM had been feeding very similar input in to the government as a result of their modelling at around the same time.
Yes, I've been following them. I rather prefer their less flashy approach to the science. Doing it quietly right. I share your implied distaste for the PR-first approach of the Imperial crew. I must admit a little schadenfreude at the recent headlines
(The eagle-eyed may note Christl Donnelly being quoted a lot in pieces about her colleague Ferguson at present! And recall the Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta for her criticism of the Imperial team's modelling assumptions earlier in the epidemic, a bit - or rather, a heck of a lot - of history there...)
More than commonly known, indeed! Perhaps it will make a fun novel one day.
--AS
The media narrative has disingenuous by omission from the start. Pretty much every report only refers to Ferguson's model that spat out the disaster scenario, as if nobody had modelled anything before that, hence going for "herd immunity", then White Knight Ferguson turned up and they U-Turned.
When in fact, we know from early January work was being done and those early models used early Chinese data, and it was when more up to date stuff in particular the Italian data, then the 8x capacity horror showed up.
I don't think that true.
The infectivity rates, hospitalisation rates and need for ICU in the initial case series from Wuhan published at the end of Jan, are still pretty accurate. Amazingly so for such early data on an emerging disease.
It wasn't the science that changed, that is just spin. Either the politics did or our scientists were worse than those in Europe working on the same data. My money is on the politics changing.
We will find out in the end. If Ferguson, or the others working on the modelling, produced earlier models that produced similar results, they will have been discussed at SAGE and ultimately they will see the light of day at some point.
The hospitalization / ICU rates might have been roughly accurate, but the shear volumes weren't (UK SAGE government at one meeting said believed at least 10x that*). Without looking into the Ferguson model, I have no idea how that parameter feeds in.
* no idea again if Ferguson used this and at what point, or if it was after, or no communication of this.
If we are going to see an easing of the lockdown from next week how long do you suppose until the first of the 80+ local council vacancies are filled with by-elections? Which will be first and what will the actual impact of CV19 be on those elections?
Not for the foreseeable future. I'm not completely convinced that the big round of elections due next May (devolved parliaments, mayoralties and the rest) will take place on time. Nobody will even be thinking about trying to rearrange local council by-elections.
Adam Kucharski (at the London School) claimed in a tweet a while back that the media hype about government turning policy around rapidly in response to the famous Imperial Report 9 ("Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand") was overblown, as LSHTM had been feeding very similar input in to the government as a result of their modelling at around the same time.
Yes, I've been following them. I rather prefer their less flashy approach to the science. Doing it quietly right. I share your implied distaste for the PR-first approach of the Imperial crew. I must admit a little schadenfreude at the recent headlines
(The eagle-eyed may note Christl Donnelly being quoted a lot in pieces about her colleague Ferguson at present! And recall the Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta for her criticism of the Imperial team's modelling assumptions earlier in the epidemic, a bit - or rather, a heck of a lot - of history there...)
More than commonly known, indeed! Perhaps it will make a fun novel one day.
--AS
The media narrative has disingenuous by omission from the start. Pretty much every report only refers to Ferguson's model that spat out the disaster scenario, as if nobody had modelled anything before that, hence going for "herd immunity", then White Knight Ferguson turned up and they U-Turned.
When in fact, we know from early January work was being done and those early models used early Chinese data, and it was when more up to date stuff in particular the Italian data, then the 8x capacity horror showed up.
I don't think that true.
The infectivity rates, hospitalisation rates and need for ICU in the initial case series from Wuhan published at the end of Jan, are still pretty accurate. Amazingly so for such early data on an emerging disease.
It wasn't the science that changed, that is just spin. Either the politics did or our scientists were worse than those in Europe working on the same data. My money is on the politics changing.
We will find out in the end. If Ferguson, or the others working on the modelling, produced earlier models that produced similar results, they will have been discussed at SAGE and ultimately they will see the light of day at some point.
The hospitalization / ICU rates might have been roughly accurate, but the shear volumes weren't. Without looking into the Ferguson model, I have no idea how that parameter feeds in.
Adam Kucharski (at the London School) claimed in a tweet a while back that the media hype about government turning policy around rapidly in response to the famous Imperial Report 9 ("Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand") was overblown, as LSHTM had been feeding very similar input in to the government as a result of their modelling at around the same time.
Yes, I've been following them. I rather prefer their less flashy approach to the science. Doing it quietly right. I share your implied distaste for the PR-first approach of the Imperial crew. I must admit a little schadenfreude at the recent headlines
(The eagle-eyed may note Christl Donnelly being quoted a lot in pieces about her colleague Ferguson at present! And recall the Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta for her criticism of the Imperial team's modelling assumptions earlier in the epidemic, a bit - or rather, a heck of a lot - of history there...)
More than commonly known, indeed! Perhaps it will make a fun novel one day.
--AS
The media narrative has disingenuous by omission from the start. Pretty much every report only refers to Ferguson's model that spat out the disaster scenario, as if nobody had modelled anything before that, hence going for "herd immunity", then White Knight Ferguson turned up and they U-Turned.
When in fact, we know from early January work was being done and those early models used early Chinese data, and it was when more up to date stuff in particular the Italian data, then the 8x capacity horror showed up.
I don't think that true.
The infectivity rates, hospitalisation rates and need for ICU in the initial case series from Wuhan published at the end of Jan, are still pretty accurate. Amazingly so for such early data on an emerging disease.
It wasn't the science that changed, that is just spin. Either the politics did or our scientists were worse than those in Europe working on the same data. My money is on the politics changing.
We will find out in the end. If Ferguson, or the others working on the modelling, produced earlier models that produced similar results, they will have been discussed at SAGE and ultimately they will see the light of day at some point.
The hospitalization / ICU rates might have been roughly accurate, but the shear volumes weren't. Without looking into the Ferguson model, I have no idea how that parameter feeds in.
I am not sure what that has got to do with Ferguson and other modelling starting in Janurary. AFAIK, nobody has released an earlier paper (or results) from Ferguson that says what the "infamous" one does.
As I say, it could be the case, from very early on it was saying incoming disaster, 8x capacity disaster looming, but nothing has been released (nor has Ferguson said anything even hinting at that he was screaming at the government car crashing was coming from very early on).
Adam Kucharski (at the London School) claimed in a tweet a while back that the media hype about government turning policy around rapidly in response to the famous Imperial Report 9 ("Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand") was overblown, as LSHTM had been feeding very similar input in to the government as a result of their modelling at around the same time.
Yes, I've been following them. I rather prefer their less flashy approach to the science. Doing it quietly right. I share your implied distaste for the PR-first approach of the Imperial crew. I must admit a little schadenfreude at the recent headlines
(The eagle-eyed may note Christl Donnelly being quoted a lot in pieces about her colleague Ferguson at present! And recall the Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta for her criticism of the Imperial team's modelling assumptions earlier in the epidemic, a bit - or rather, a heck of a lot - of history there...)
More than commonly known, indeed! Perhaps it will make a fun novel one day.
--AS
The media narrative has disingenuous by omission from the start. Pretty much every report only refers to Ferguson's model that spat out the disaster scenario, as if nobody had modelled anything before that, hence going for "herd immunity", then White Knight Ferguson turned up and they U-Turned.
When in fact, we know from early January work was being done and those early models used early Chinese data, and it was when more up to date stuff in particular the Italian data, then the 8x capacity horror showed up.
I don't think that true.
The infectivity rates, hospitalisation rates and need for ICU in the initial case series from Wuhan published at the end of Jan, are still pretty accurate. Amazingly so for such early data on an emerging disease.
It wasn't the science that changed, that is just spin. Either the politics did or our scientists were worse than those in Europe working on the same data. My money is on the politics changing.
We will find out in the end. If Ferguson, or the others working on the modelling, produced earlier models that produced similar results, they will have been discussed at SAGE and ultimately they will see the light of day at some point.
The hospitalization / ICU rates might have been roughly accurate, but the shear volumes weren't (UK SAGE government at one meeting said believed at least 10x that*). Without looking into the Ferguson model, I have no idea how that parameter feeds in.
* no idea again if Ferguson used this and at what point, or if it was after, or no communication of this.
Adam Kucharski (at the London School) claimed in a tweet a while back that the media hype about government turning policy around rapidly in response to the famous Imperial Report 9 ("Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand") was overblown, as LSHTM had been feeding very similar input in to the government as a result of their modelling at around the same time.
Yes, I've been following them. I rather prefer their less flashy approach to the science. Doing it quietly right. I share your implied distaste for the PR-first approach of the Imperial crew. I must admit a little schadenfreude at the recent headlines
(The eagle-eyed may note Christl Donnelly being quoted a lot in pieces about her colleague Ferguson at present! And recall the Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta for her criticism of the Imperial team's modelling assumptions earlier in the epidemic, a bit - or rather, a heck of a lot - of history there...)
More than commonly known, indeed! Perhaps it will make a fun novel one day.
--AS
The media narrative has disingenuous by omission from the start. Pretty much every report only refers to Ferguson's model that spat out the disaster scenario, as if nobody had modelled anything before that, hence going for "herd immunity", then White Knight Ferguson turned up and they U-Turned.
When in fact, we know from early January work was being done and those early models used early Chinese data, and it was when more up to date stuff in particular the Italian data, then the 8x capacity horror showed up.
I don't think that true.
The infectivity rates, hospitalisation rates and need for ICU in the initial case series from Wuhan published at the end of Jan, are still pretty accurate. Amazingly so for such early data on an emerging disease.
It wasn't the science that changed, that is just spin. Either the politics did or our scientists were worse than those in Europe working on the same data. My money is on the politics changing.
We will find out in the end. If Ferguson, or the others working on the modelling, produced earlier models that produced similar results, they will have been discussed at SAGE and ultimately they will see the light of day at some point.
The hospitalization / ICU rates might have been roughly accurate, but the shear volumes weren't. Without looking into the Ferguson model, I have no idea how that parameter feeds in.
I am not sure what that has got to do with Ferguson and other modelling starting in Janurary. AFAIK, nobody has released an earlier paper from Ferguson that says what the "infamous" one does.
As I say, it could be the case, from very early on it was saying incoming disaster, 8x capacity disaster looming, but nothing has been released (nor has Ferguson said anything).
The article makes it clear that it was a political decision rather than a scientific one, with several supporting quotes.
Calculating the numbers from the transmission rates, hospitalisation rates etc in the Chinese paper in Jan is all you need for predicting exponential spread (unless severe control measures are used).
It is intrinsic to exponential growth that numbers will be huge if control measures are delayed. The difference between 3,000 and 30,000 cases is a matter of a couple of weeks if uncontrolled.
I simply do not see what data from Italy was different to the early published Chinese data. The only major new information was that unlike SARS, containment in Asia was not going to be possible.
Adam Kucharski (at the London School) claimed in a tweet a while back that the media hype about government turning policy around rapidly in response to the famous Imperial Report 9 ("Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand") was overblown, as LSHTM had been feeding very similar input in to the government as a result of their modelling at around the same time.
Yes, I've been following them. I rather prefer their less flashy approach to the science. Doing it quietly right. I share your implied distaste for the PR-first approach of the Imperial crew. I must admit a little schadenfreude at the recent headlines
(The eagle-eyed may note Christl Donnelly being quoted a lot in pieces about her colleague Ferguson at present! And recall the Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta for her criticism of the Imperial team's modelling assumptions earlier in the epidemic, a bit - or rather, a heck of a lot - of history there...)
More than commonly known, indeed! Perhaps it will make a fun novel one day.
--AS
The media narrative has disingenuous by omission from the start. Pretty much every report only refers to Ferguson's model that spat out the disaster scenario, as if nobody had modelled anything before that, hence going for "herd immunity", then White Knight Ferguson turned up and they U-Turned.
When in fact, we know from early January work was being done and those early models used early Chinese data, and it was when more up to date stuff in particular the Italian data, then the 8x capacity horror showed up.
I don't think that true.
The infectivity rates, hospitalisation rates and need for ICU in the initial case series from Wuhan published at the end of Jan, are still pretty accurate. Amazingly so for such early data on an emerging disease.
It wasn't the science that changed, that is just spin. Either the politics did or our scientists were worse than those in Europe working on the same data. My money is on the politics changing.
I have said this a million times here....but once the cat was out the bag so to speak...the Chinese have shared their medical data....
The problem is those first few weeks in early December in China...but they were contending with a new virus....
Then, we had all of February....all of fucking February...and I repeat that again....all of February to do something (not hindsight....but all of fucking February).....
The article makes it clear that it was a political decision rather than a scientific one, with several supporting quotes.
Calculating the numbers from the transmission rates, hospitalisation rates etc in the Chinese paper in Jan is all you need for predicting exponential spread (unless severe control measures are used).
It is intrinsic to exponential growth that numbers will be huge if control measures are delayed. The difference between 3,000 and 30,000 cases is a matter of a couple of weeks if uncontrolled.
I simply do not see what data from Italy was different to the early published Chinese data. The only major new information was that unlike SARS, containment in Asia was not going to be possible.
The quotes are Rory Stewart, who hasn't seen the SAGE evidence and isn't a scientist. I should add I don't disagree with him. I was on here calling for the lockdown to happen earlier.
BUT, my original point is the media narrative omits that Ferguson and others had been producing models for the government from way back in January. They report on the infamous paper as if he had just appeared out of nowhere, that government basically had nobody like him doing this work.
The reality is they were working all the time for the government on this. We don't know what the earlier models said, but at the moment there is no evidence that the models presented to SAGE by Ferguson and Co made the same claims as the infamous one. I believe this was paper 9(?) that he had written.
We will ultimately find out if Ferguson and Co were screaming from the rooftops in February and the government said no need to panic and ignored them.
There may well have been some incorrect assumptions early on e.g. tranmission rate is higher in Wuhan because of extreme population density. Hospitalization rate higher because of poorer overall health and higher smoking rates.
We know the University of Washington model uses an empirical formula based on the China data and it pumps out utter horse shit.
I just read the thread of tweets on this Matt cartoon link. It reminds me why I never got on Twitter, and how much it demeans those who do. Major public figures and thinkers reduced to swapping idiotic snarky comments like teenagers.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
Adam Kucharski (at the London School) claimed in a tweet a while back that the media hype about government turning policy around rapidly in response to the famous Imperial Report 9 ("Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID-19 mortality and healthcare demand") was overblown, as LSHTM had been feeding very similar input in to the government as a result of their modelling at around the same time.
Yes, I've been following them. I rather prefer their less flashy approach to the science. Doing it quietly right. I share your implied distaste for the PR-first approach of the Imperial crew. I must admit a little schadenfreude at the recent headlines
(The eagle-eyed may note Christl Donnelly being quoted a lot in pieces about her colleague Ferguson at present! And recall the Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta for her criticism of the Imperial team's modelling assumptions earlier in the epidemic, a bit - or rather, a heck of a lot - of history there...)
More than commonly known, indeed! Perhaps it will make a fun novel one day.
--AS
The media narrative has disingenuous by omission from the start. Pretty much every report only refers to Ferguson's model that spat out the disaster scenario, as if nobody had modelled anything before that, hence going for "herd immunity", then White Knight Ferguson turned up and they U-Turned.
When in fact, we know from early January work was being done and those early models used early Chinese data, and it was when more up to date stuff in particular the Italian data, then the 8x capacity horror showed up.
I don't think that true.
The infectivity rates, hospitalisation rates and need for ICU in the initial case series from Wuhan published at the end of Jan, are still pretty accurate. Amazingly so for such early data on an emerging disease.
It wasn't the science that changed, that is just spin. Either the politics did or our scientists were worse than those in Europe working on the same data. My money is on the politics changing.
I have said this a million times here....but once the cat was out the bag so to speak...the Chinese have shared their medical data....
The problem is those first few weeks in early December in China...but they were contending with a new virus....
Then, we had all of February....all of fucking February...and I repeat that again....all of February to do something (not hindsight....but all of fucking February).....
February 2020...what was Boris doing?
By the end of February things were definitely getting a bit weird, though I did go to the footy on 9th March.
Either lockdown early (especially foreign travel) or miss the boat and get the double whammy of disease and economic mess. Johnson didn't have his eye on the ball, for sure.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The way you go on you would think the UK suffered orders of magnitude worse than any other country. That's simply not true.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The article makes it clear that it was a political decision rather than a scientific one, with several supporting quotes.
Calculating the numbers from the transmission rates, hospitalisation rates etc in the Chinese paper in Jan is all you need for predicting exponential spread (unless severe control measures are used).
It is intrinsic to exponential growth that numbers will be huge if control measures are delayed. The difference between 3,000 and 30,000 cases is a matter of a couple of weeks if uncontrolled.
I simply do not see what data from Italy was different to the early published Chinese data. The only major new information was that unlike SARS, containment in Asia was not going to be possible.
The quotes are Rory Stewart, who hasn't seen the SAGE evidence and isn't a scientist. I should add I don't disagree with him. I was on here calling for the lockdown to happen earlier.
BUT, my original point is the media narrative omits that Ferguson and others had been producing models for the government from way back in January. They report the infamous paper as if he had just appeared out of nowhere, that government basically had nobody like him doing this work.
The reality is they were working all the time for the government on this. We don't know what the earlier models said, but at the moment there is no evidence that the models presented to SAGE by Ferguson and Co made the same claims as the infamous one.
We will ultimately find out if Ferguson and Co were screaming from the rooftops in February and the government said no need to panic and ignored them.
Right. I remember a quote from Ferguson at the time (of the scary paper) that it was the hospitalization & ICU rates of younger patients that changed with data from Italy that changed the analysis -- but this isn't evidence, of course. I think we will find the truth at the inevitable public inquiry. There will be a paper trail.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The way you go on you would think the UK suffered orders of magnitude worse than any other country. That's simply not true.
We had the big advantage of being an island and squandered it.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
Fucked it up good and proper.
Hard to avoid that conclusion.
February 2020 will be forever known as the UK's wasted month.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The way you go on you would think the UK suffered orders of magnitude worse than any other country. That's simply not true.
Some countries have done really badly...like the UK...and some have done OK.....
This Tory Govt's handling of this has been shocking....but they are a bunch of Neo-liberals who have zilch belief in the capacity of the state to achieve anything other than spend people's taxes....
The lockdown has already devastated cashflows. Even with the furlough scheme, businesses have many fixed costs and far less (if any) income coming in.
Yet if businesses do open up, demand is likely to be low. Partly because people are afraid to go out, partly because they are afraid to spend money.
That means that when we do re-open, it is incredibly unlikely 100% of those furloughed staff will be needed. Perhaps 70% at best. And I'm guessing a whole lot less, at least for the next few months.
In one of my whatsapp groups, my friends laughed at me because I'm still working when they are all enjoying a free holiday on £2500 a month.
So I said, at least it proves my employer knows I'm absolutely necessary to the business. How many of you can say the same? How many of you think you will have jobs to go back to when this ends?
That shut them up.
And there is the problem. When we restart the economy, it will be slow. It may take a year or more to return to previous levels of demand.
Furlough has lulled most people into a false sense of security. Once the rug is pulled out from underneath them, that's when the fun begins.
Oh yeah. Middle class supposedly comfortable people trying to claim UC like all those skivers and scroungers they read about in the Daily Mail. Finding that it isn't the dossers cakewalk made out to be...
Yep, exactly.
Most of the people who are about to find out UC is £74 a week probably never thought they were the sort of person who'd be claiming benefits.
They had all the education, all the skills - transferable skills too - and of course all the contacts. They never expected to be out of work for more than a couple of weeks in their life, if they ever expected it at all.
A lot of people are about to find out how the other half lives very soon. And it won't be pretty. Or it will be delicious. Depending on your point of view.
A lot of people won't qualify for the £74 a week as their partner will be earning just enough for them not to qualify.
There would normally still be an entitlement for 6 months based on National Insurance Contributions.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The way you go on you would think the UK suffered orders of magnitude worse than any other country. That's simply not true.
We had the big advantage of being an island and squandered it.
But our politicians do not have an island mentality.
Firstly they're globalists and secondly they fly everywhere whether that's from Doncaster to Darlington ** or from London to Paris.
** Boris did fly from Doncaster to Darlington during the election campaign.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
Fucked it up good and proper.
Yàaaaawn
What the hell is that kind of reply? Seriously comrade.
There are no good options now. People are fed up of lockdown....but the virus is still out there. The economy is shattered, and there is no safe pathway out. Our economy post de-industrialisation has been about people spending money on services...tell me how that will happen.....
The only hope is a vaccine...and what do we do until then?
The Govt did too little...too late...and now we are stuck where we are....
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
Fucked it up good and proper.
Yàaaaawn
What the hell is that kind of reply? Seriously comrade.
There are no good options now. People are fed up of lockdown....but the virus is still out there. The economy is shattered, and there is no safe pathway out. Our economy post de-industrialisation has been about people spending money on services...tell me how that will happen.....
The only hope is a vaccine...and what do we do until then?
The Govt did too little...too late...and now we are stuck where we are....
So yawn ahead.....
Well at least we should get some economic rebalancing and a bit less consumerism.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
Fucked it up good and proper.
Yàaaaawn
What the hell is that kind of reply? Seriously comrade.
There are no good options now. People are fed up of lockdown....but the virus is still out there. The economy is shattered, and there is no safe pathway out. Our economy post de-industrialisation has been about people spending money on services...tell me how that will happen.....
The only hope is a vaccine...and what do we do until then?
The Govt did too little...too late...and now we are stuck where we are....
So yawn ahead.....
Your oh so predictable and continual negativity is just ridiculous.
The article makes it clear that it was a political decision rather than a scientific one, with several supporting quotes.
Calculating the numbers from the transmission rates, hospitalisation rates etc in the Chinese paper in Jan is all you need for predicting exponential spread (unless severe control measures are used).
It is intrinsic to exponential growth that numbers will be huge if control measures are delayed. The difference between 3,000 and 30,000 cases is a matter of a couple of weeks if uncontrolled.
I simply do not see what data from Italy was different to the early published Chinese data. The only major new information was that unlike SARS, containment in Asia was not going to be possible.
The quotes are Rory Stewart, who hasn't seen the SAGE evidence and isn't a scientist. I should add I don't disagree with him. I was on here calling for the lockdown to happen earlier.
BUT, my original point is the media narrative omits that Ferguson and others had been producing models for the government from way back in January. They report on the infamous paper as if he had just appeared out of nowhere, that government basically had nobody like him doing this work.
The reality is they were working all the time for the government on this. We don't know what the earlier models said, but at the moment there is no evidence that the models presented to SAGE by Ferguson and Co made the same claims as the infamous one. I believe this was paper 9(?) that he had written.
We will ultimately find out if Ferguson and Co were screaming from the rooftops in February and the government said no need to panic and ignored them.
Reports 1-8 (starting in Jan) were on a variety of other matters: estimates of prevalence in Wuhan, transmissibility, phylogenetic analysis, fatality rates, symptom progression and so on. Report 9 (March 16) was the "blockbuster" in that it was the first report the group published that modelled what could happen in the UK, and what could be done to stop it.
What this misses though is that clearly UK forecasts had been looked at before the middle of March! But a lot of scientific advice is not going into published reports, but rather being fed in to government in other ways. A few weeks back a contact of mine told me about some pretty nifty work being done using Bayesian ensemble techniques to improve forecast quality of local Covid healthcare demand, by some of the researchers at a university I won't name. Presumably this will all get written up at some point and turned into a research paper, but although that uni has publicised a lot of their Covid research output, this is one they haven't stuck online yet. The forecasts are being sent to the appropriate government agency they're collaborating with, regardless.
My guess would be that the very early modelling results would have been treated extremely tentatively, given the degree of uncertainty about the extent to which Chinese data would apply in the UK, and I doubt anyone wanted to wave their preliminary results in the air and make a target of themselves, with reputations and credibility on the line. I wonder if an important factor in Italy being such a wake-up call is that the country is more obviously "like us", and results obtained from updating with the Italian data suddenly felt a lot more "real".
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The way you go on you would think the UK suffered orders of magnitude worse than any other country. That's simply not true.
We had the big advantage of being an island and squandered it.
We also had the best pandemic planning in the world....isolate and quarantine..... We knew what to do, how to do it and when to do it....and then
And then...... for some weeks we ignored it and then did what...allowed Atletico Madrid to bring 1000's of fans into Liverpool.....
We could be looking now at some workable plan to open up the country...sector by sector....
Instead we are looking into the abyss of hopelessness.....and economic catastrophe....
This is the thing that will kill the Supermarkets compared to wholesalers and subscriptions.
It is literally unbelievable that even with a 2 week lead time on my order supermarkets are out of stock of what I ordered.
A rational person would ask how that is at all possible and how any customer could find that acceptable.
And the answer is supermarkets operate and hideously complex logistics chain which is simply incapable of holding stock for a future order.
3. You order something for delivery in 2 weeks - that is NOT a demand order to the manufacturer. You just booked a pick slot for 2 weeks time, with the order to the in store team only generated on that day. Why might the product you want be out of stock? See points 1 and 2
Indeed, while people are using supermarkets for purchasing perishable items things going out of stock on day of pick and deliver is fine, understandable and forgiveable. To be can't set aside an aubergine for two weeks.
But when non perishable items fail to be delivered, say the Packing Tape we had in the order, that starts generating levels of angst and anger amongst consumers such as myself.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The way you go on you would think the UK suffered orders of magnitude worse than any other country. That's simply not true.
We had the big advantage of being an island and squandered it.
We also had the best pandemic planning in the world....isolate and quarantine..... We knew what to do, how to do it and when to do it....and then
And then...... for some weeks we ignored it and then did what...allowed Atletico Madrid to bring 1000's of fans into Liverpool.....
We could be looking now at some workable plan to open up the country...sector by sector....
Instead we are looking into the abyss of hopelessness.....and economic catastrophe....
It will be such a relief when the Covid deniers go back to being plain old climate change deniers.
Reading through that Haimes twitter account is a living lesson in denialism organised chronologically
1) There is no problem 2) The problem is minor 3) The problem will not be as bad as another problem 4) The problem will go away soon 5) Unique factors have contrived to make the problem look worse than it is but it isn't that bad 6) The measures being taken to contract the problem are worse than the problem itself
The article makes it clear that it was a political decision rather than a scientific one, with several supporting quotes.
Calculating the numbers from the transmission rates, hospitalisation rates etc in the Chinese paper in Jan is all you need for predicting exponential spread (unless severe control measures are used).
It is intrinsic to exponential growth that numbers will be huge if control measures are delayed. The difference between 3,000 and 30,000 cases is a matter of a couple of weeks if uncontrolled.
I simply do not see what data from Italy was different to the early published Chinese data. The only major new information was that unlike SARS, containment in Asia was not going to be possible.
The quotes are Rory Stewart, who hasn't seen the SAGE evidence and isn't a scientist. I should add I don't disagree with him. I was on here calling for the lockdown to happen earlier.
BUT, my original point is the media narrative omits that Ferguson and others had been producing models for the government from way back in January. They report on the infamous paper as if he had just appeared out of nowhere, that government basically had nobody like him doing this work.
The reality is they were working all the time for the government on this. We don't know what the earlier models said, but at the moment there is no evidence that the models presented to SAGE by Ferguson and Co made the same claims as the infamous one. I believe this was paper 9(?) that he had written.
We will ultimately find out if Ferguson and Co were screaming from the rooftops in February and the government said no need to panic and ignored them.
Reports 1-8 (starting in Jan) were on a variety of other matters: estimates of prevalence in Wuhan, transmissibility, phylogenetic analysis, fatality rates, symptom progression and so on. Report 9 (March 16) was the "blockbuster" in that it was the first report the group published that modelled what could happen in the UK, and what could be done to stop it.
What this misses though is that clearly UK forecasts had been looked at before the middle of March! But a lot of scientific advice is not going into published reports, but rather being fed in to government in other ways. A few weeks back a contact of mine told me about some pretty nifty work being done using Bayesian ensemble techniques to improve forecast quality of local Covid healthcare demand, by some of the researchers at a university I won't name. Presumably this will all get written up at some point and turned into a research paper, but although that uni has publicised a lot of their Covid research output, this is one they haven't stuck online yet. The forecasts are being sent to the appropriate government agency they're collaborating with, regardless.
My guess would be that the very early modelling results would have been treated extremely tentatively, given the degree of uncertainty about the extent to which Chinese data would apply in the UK, and I doubt anyone wanted to wave their preliminary results in the air and make a target of themselves, with reputations and credibility on the line. I wonder if an important factor in Italy being such a wake-up call is that the country is more obviously "like us", and results obtained from updating with the Italian data suddenly felt a lot more "real".
Just found an interview with Ferguson from mid February, and talks about that although 18% need hospital treatment, he believes the number of people in Wuhan having being infected 20x the number of official positive number (but doesn't say the same for the number of deaths) and talks about it being common in "flus" that 20-30% are asymptotic.
My interpretation is at that point he believed somewhat in the iceberg theory for this, that there were way more people infected, of which a large proportion are asymptotic, and so the hospitalization rate is inflated.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was also "adjustments" for supposedly healthier Westerners, less densely populated, less smoking, less air pollution.
At what point do we stop celebrating VE Day? We are not Germany’s enemies after all. We were talking about this over dinner and my missus said why not celebrate it as ‘the end of the war’ without mentioning ‘victory’ and maybe Germany could join in, making it a celebration of peace.
Nationally though furlough is likely to continue for some time, even at a reduced rate as the Government continues to pursue watered down social democracy
We have been sourcing meat, fruit, veg and other items via wholesalers who would normally deliver to the restaurant trade but have found a lucrative opening in the home delivery market.
Our second meat order arrived today - prompt and looks excellent quality. Mostly but not wholly British as well.
Throw in subscription delivery services and I see the supermarkets losing their high value customers once this is all over.
The wholesalers will be able to keep home deliveries, their customers will love the price/quality over the supermarkets. They'll never have substitution issues as the wholesalers deal in actual stock and don't have the supermarkets fragile JIT structures.
The well heeled middle class never need to bother a supermarket again.
I'd say the elderly didn't previously take up home delivery as shopping filled time in the retirement calendar.
They may not bother to return.
I am 66 and i won't be going into a big supermarket anytime soon Click and collect or home delivery for us from now on until we feel safe ir have been vaccinated...
Seems an utter waste of time attending a supermarket if you can order online at the best of times.
Agreed. I prefer the current model - queue outside then shop in a near empty store - to the normal system where you are fighting for space in the wine aisle then have to queue up for a decade behind people buying several metric tonnes of packaged crap.
At what point do we stop celebrating VE Day? We are not Germany’s enemies after all. We were talking about this over dinner and my missus said why not celebrate it as ‘the end of the war’ without mentioning ‘victory’ and maybe Germany could join in, making it a celebration of peace.
I think Merkel was involved in quite a few of the recent commemorations. Nice gesture to have them in the tent though.
Nationally though furlough is likely to continue for some time, even at a reduced rate as the Government continues to pursue watered down social democracy
We have been sourcing meat, fruit, veg and other items via wholesalers who would normally deliver to the restaurant trade but have found a lucrative opening in the home delivery market.
Our second meat order arrived today - prompt and looks excellent quality. Mostly but not wholly British as well.
Throw in subscription delivery services and I see the supermarkets losing their high value customers once this is all over.
The wholesalers will be able to keep home deliveries, their customers will love the price/quality over the supermarkets. They'll never have substitution issues as the wholesalers deal in actual stock and don't have the supermarkets fragile JIT structures.
The well heeled middle class never need to bother a supermarket again.
I'd say the elderly didn't previously take up home delivery as shopping filled time in the retirement calendar.
They may not bother to return.
I am 66 and i won't be going into a big supermarket anytime soon Click and collect or home delivery for us from now on until we feel safe ir have been vaccinated...
Seems an utter waste of time attending a supermarket if you can order online at the best of times.
Agreed. I prefer the current model - queue outside then shop in a near empty store - to the normal system where you are fighting for space in the wine aisle then have to queue up for a decade behind people buying several metric tonnes of packaged crap.
When things get back to (new) normal you could always try Waitrose instead of Asda
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The way you go on you would think the UK suffered orders of magnitude worse than any other country. That's simply not true.
We had the big advantage of being an island and squandered it.
Yes, the best option would have been to close the border to countries where the virus was known to be spreading, and/or people who had been to those countries.
Nationally though furlough is likely to continue for some time, even at a reduced rate as the Government continues to pursue watered down social democracy
We have been sourcing meat, fruit, veg and other items via wholesalers who would normally deliver to the restaurant trade but have found a lucrative opening in the home delivery market.
Our second meat order arrived today - prompt and looks excellent quality. Mostly but not wholly British as well.
Throw in subscription delivery services and I see the supermarkets losing their high value customers once this is all over.
The wholesalers will be able to keep home deliveries, their customers will love the price/quality over the supermarkets. They'll never have substitution issues as the wholesalers deal in actual stock and don't have the supermarkets fragile JIT structures.
The well heeled middle class never need to bother a supermarket again.
I'd say the elderly didn't previously take up home delivery as shopping filled time in the retirement calendar.
They may not bother to return.
I am 66 and i won't be going into a big supermarket anytime soon Click and collect or home delivery for us from now on until we feel safe ir have been vaccinated...
Seems an utter waste of time attending a supermarket if you can order online at the best of times.
Agreed. I prefer the current model - queue outside then shop in a near empty store - to the normal system where you are fighting for space in the wine aisle then have to queue up for a decade behind people buying several metric tonnes of packaged crap.
When things get back to (new) normal you could always try Waitrose instead of Asda
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The way you go on you would think the UK suffered orders of magnitude worse than any other country. That's simply not true.
We had the big advantage of being an island and squandered it.
Yes, the best option would have been to close the border to countries where the virus was known to be spreading, and/or people who had been to those countries.
Paradoxically, it was Brexit and the desire to demonstrate that we were still open for business that prevented any option like that from being considered.
At what point do we stop celebrating VE Day? We are not Germany’s enemies after all. We were talking about this over dinner and my missus said why not celebrate it as ‘the end of the war’ without mentioning ‘victory’ and maybe Germany could join in, making it a celebration of peace.
Very good idea. I suspect it will be another 20 or 30 years before the 'Blitz Spirit' becomes an historical idea rather than something a large proportion of the country believe is embedded their genes. Sadly.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The way you go on you would think the UK suffered orders of magnitude worse than any other country. That's simply not true.
We had the big advantage of being an island and squandered it.
Yes, the best option would have been to close the border to countries where the virus was known to be spreading, and/or people who had been to those countries.
Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Right up until the second week of March suggesting shutting the borders would have been shouted down as xenophobic by people on here and in politics. Now the closure of borders is all the rage and "why didn't they do it sooner??"
At what point do we stop celebrating VE Day? We are not Germany’s enemies after all. We were talking about this over dinner and my missus said why not celebrate it as ‘the end of the war’ without mentioning ‘victory’ and maybe Germany could join in, making it a celebration of peace.
Never, it's become part of the Homeric mythology of the UK which is now heavily into self mythologising. Can you imagine Victorian London going mental on 18/06/90?
If you want your Big Mac fix and don't mind queuing half the night for the privilege so be it but will parents be more interested in the health of their children (and themselves) than in doing their patriotic duty? It may well be given how subservient we were going into lockdown, Johnson and Cummings think we will be equally subservient coming out of it - we'll see.
What was the Parent Teachers Association group for the UK (now called Parentkind) had a survey out to all PTA’s and it had been promoted by the DfE. Results published fully tomorrow but, as per the BBC news, out of a quarter of a million responses 90% of parents would not be happy sending their children to school after lockdown ends. I’ve kept saying this and maybe it might get through now, government can’t afford to announce something that will be so comprehensively ignored. The lack of trust that stems from the late lockdown and the attempt at vaccine free herd immunity is palpable.
So what do those parents want to do instead ?
If your children are at home you can't go to work, hence your furlough / wfh may continue.
It could also be that some parents are fond of their children and do not want them to die from exotic bat viruses; unlikely after being locked down wiv da kids for three weeks but not impossible.
I mean I've no idea but weren't schools the very last thing to be closed down? They were happily playing in the playground while @eadric was crapping himself under the kitchen table. How many CV19 deaths of children have there been?
From the fateful herd immunity speech onwards attendance numbers in schools cratered, by the end half, less than half or so. Before that very nervy and concerned, pretty much everything cancelled outside of class time, a bare bones operation.
My son is doing really well homeschooling but is missing his friends. He’s keen to get back, as are lots of children. And, as Topping says, children are an extremely low risk group.
Oh dear, remember that delayed PPE that we flew over from Turkey?
It was dubbed ‘Air Jenrick’ - a Royal Air Force plane left waiting in a Turkish airport for a vital shipment of medical gowns.
The UK’s severe shortage of PPE had descended into farce, with officials scrambling to secure equipment needed to keep frontline NHS workers safe.
Today the Telegraph can reveal that the mission ended in disaster.
Every one of the 400,000 gowns brought back from Turkey last month has been impounded in a warehouse outside Heathrow Airport after inspectors found the gear was “useless” and fell short of UK standards, senior sources said.
At what point do we stop celebrating VE Day? We are not Germany’s enemies after all. We were talking about this over dinner and my missus said why not celebrate it as ‘the end of the war’ without mentioning ‘victory’ and maybe Germany could join in, making it a celebration of peace.
Never, it's become part of the Homeric mythology of the UK which is now heavily into self mythologising. Can you imagine Victorian London going mental on 18/06/90?
The history book on the shelf Is not celebrating itself
Yes, the best option would have been to close the border to countries where the virus was known to be spreading, and/or people who had been to those countries.
And in that context, we are starting to hear some bizarre autarkic rhetoric, when barriers are going up, and when there is a risk that new diseases such as coronavirus will trigger a panic and a desire for market segregation that go beyond what is medically rational to the point of doing real and unnecessary economic damage, then at that moment humanity needs some government somewhere that is willing at least to make the case powerfully for freedom of exchange, some country ready to take off its Clark Kent spectacles and leap into the phone booth and emerge with its cloak flowing as the supercharged champion, of the right of the populations of the earth to buy and sell freely among each other.
And here in Greenwich in the first week of February 2020, I can tell you in all humility that the UK is ready for that role.
Oh dear, remember that delayed PPE that we flew over from Turkey?
It was dubbed ‘Air Jenrick’ - a Royal Air Force plane left waiting in a Turkish airport for a vital shipment of medical gowns.
The UK’s severe shortage of PPE had descended into farce, with officials scrambling to secure equipment needed to keep frontline NHS workers safe.
Today the Telegraph can reveal that the mission ended in disaster.
Every one of the 400,000 gowns brought back from Turkey last month has been impounded in a warehouse outside Heathrow Airport after inspectors found the gear was “useless” and fell short of UK standards, senior sources said.
At what point do we stop celebrating VE Day? We are not Germany’s enemies after all. We were talking about this over dinner and my missus said why not celebrate it as ‘the end of the war’ without mentioning ‘victory’ and maybe Germany could join in, making it a celebration of peace.
Never, it's become part of the Homeric mythology of the UK which is now heavily into self mythologising. Can you imagine Victorian London going mental on 18/06/90?
When is VE Day actually ever 'celebrated' in any big way? It's only being particularly marked this year because it's the 75th anniversary. It's probably the last time there will be a landmark anniversary with actual veterans still around (if the next one's the 100th), so why not mark it?
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The way you go on you would think the UK suffered orders of magnitude worse than any other country. That's simply not true.
We had the big advantage of being an island and squandered it.
We also had the best pandemic planning in the world....isolate and quarantine..... We knew what to do, how to do it and when to do it....and then
And then...... for some weeks we ignored it and then did what...allowed Atletico Madrid to bring 1000's of fans into Liverpool.....
We could be looking now at some workable plan to open up the country...sector by sector....
Instead we are looking into the abyss of hopelessness.....and economic catastrophe....
The pandemic plan was herd immunity, wasn't it?
Witty's said he'd only consider that via vaccine to the select committee. I know C4 and a few other media orgs ran with it in early March but I dismissed the idea as so bonkers (GIven it is a novel virus) the Gov't surely wouldn't consider it.
Oh dear, remember that delayed PPE that we flew over from Turkey?
It was dubbed ‘Air Jenrick’ - a Royal Air Force plane left waiting in a Turkish airport for a vital shipment of medical gowns.
The UK’s severe shortage of PPE had descended into farce, with officials scrambling to secure equipment needed to keep frontline NHS workers safe.
Today the Telegraph can reveal that the mission ended in disaster.
Every one of the 400,000 gowns brought back from Turkey last month has been impounded in a warehouse outside Heathrow Airport after inspectors found the gear was “useless” and fell short of UK standards, senior sources said.
I was amazed by the level of coverage for that one shipment, despite the fact it only constituted a day or so supply. The fact that the NHS doesn't seem to have run out of them at any point during this crisis suggests there were many more additional shipments coming in unreported.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The way you go on you would think the UK suffered orders of magnitude worse than any other country. That's simply not true.
We had the big advantage of being an island and squandered it.
We also had the best pandemic planning in the world....isolate and quarantine..... We knew what to do, how to do it and when to do it....and then
And then...... for some weeks we ignored it and then did what...allowed Atletico Madrid to bring 1000's of fans into Liverpool.....
We could be looking now at some workable plan to open up the country...sector by sector....
Instead we are looking into the abyss of hopelessness.....and economic catastrophe....
The pandemic plan was herd immunity, wasn't it?
Witty's said he'd only consider that via vaccine to the select committee. I know C4 and a few other media orgs ran with it in early March but I dismissed the idea as so bonkers (GIven it is a novel virus) the Gov't surely wouldn't consider it.
Yeah, but I was referring to the pandemic plan that tyson mentioned that was based on influenza. I had thought the plan was for herd immunity.
At what point do we stop celebrating VE Day? We are not Germany’s enemies after all. We were talking about this over dinner and my missus said why not celebrate it as ‘the end of the war’ without mentioning ‘victory’ and maybe Germany could join in, making it a celebration of peace.
My village still has silhouettes of soldiers on all the roads in. Reading 1918-2018 Never Forget So some time yet.
Nationally though furlough is likely to continue for some time, even at a reduced rate as the Government continues to pursue watered down social democracy
We have been sourcing meat, fruit, veg and other items via wholesalers who would normally deliver to the restaurant trade but have found a lucrative opening in the home delivery market.
Our second meat order arrived today - prompt and looks excellent quality. Mostly but not wholly British as well.
Throw in subscription delivery services and I see the supermarkets losing their high value customers once this is all over.
The wholesalers will be able to keep home deliveries, their customers will love the price/quality over the supermarkets. They'll never have substitution issues as the wholesalers deal in actual stock and don't have the supermarkets fragile JIT structures.
The well heeled middle class never need to bother a supermarket again.
I'd say the elderly didn't previously take up home delivery as shopping filled time in the retirement calendar.
They may not bother to return.
I am 66 and i won't be going into a big supermarket anytime soon Click and collect or home delivery for us from now on until we feel safe ir have been vaccinated...
Seems an utter waste of time attending a supermarket if you can order online at the best of times.
Agreed. I prefer the current model - queue outside then shop in a near empty store - to the normal system where you are fighting for space in the wine aisle then have to queue up for a decade behind people buying several metric tonnes of packaged crap.
When things get back to (new) normal you could always try Waitrose instead of Asda
I prefer Waitrose but go to Sainsbury’s usually as Waitrose is a mile further away and I don’t own a car. My local Waitrose is also at the bottom of a huge hill which isn’t good with a full pack of shopping on my bike!
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
Fucked it up good and proper.
Yàaaaawn
What the hell is that kind of reply? Seriously comrade.
There are no good options now. People are fed up of lockdown....but the virus is still out there. The economy is shattered, and there is no safe pathway out. Our economy post de-industrialisation has been about people spending money on services...tell me how that will happen.....
The only hope is a vaccine...and what do we do until then?
The Govt did too little...too late...and now we are stuck where we are....
So yawn ahead.....
Well at least we should get some economic rebalancing and a bit less consumerism.
You mean we'll all be poorer and have less to spend. It's a view, but probably not a vote winner.
I have never understood what people's problem with consumerism is. What is the problem with people spending money on things that make them happy?
We're about to find out just how miserable we all are when nobody goes out or spends any money...
At what point do we stop celebrating VE Day? We are not Germany’s enemies after all. We were talking about this over dinner and my missus said why not celebrate it as ‘the end of the war’ without mentioning ‘victory’ and maybe Germany could join in, making it a celebration of peace.
We still commemorate the end of WW1 of course.
We were never Germany's enemy, as our behaviour after WW2 clearly showed. We were Nazism's enemy. And we still are. I think it's good to remember what our ancestors fought for in that terrible struggle and why.
The Germans can join in if they want. After all, some Germans suffered under Nazism too - not just the 5 million dead in the war. Of course it will be more complicated for them.
At what point do we stop celebrating VE Day? We are not Germany’s enemies after all. We were talking about this over dinner and my missus said why not celebrate it as ‘the end of the war’ without mentioning ‘victory’ and maybe Germany could join in, making it a celebration of peace.
My village still has silhouettes of soldiers on all the roads in. Reading 1918-2018 Never Forget So some time yet.
My son’s primary school has had a poppy mural in the entrance hall since November 2018.
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
Fucked it up good and proper.
Yàaaaawn
What the hell is that kind of reply? Seriously comrade.
There are no good options now. People are fed up of lockdown....but the virus is still out there. The economy is shattered, and there is no safe pathway out. Our economy post de-industrialisation has been about people spending money on services...tell me how that will happen.....
The only hope is a vaccine...and what do we do until then?
The Govt did too little...too late...and now we are stuck where we are....
So yawn ahead.....
Well at least we should get some economic rebalancing and a bit less consumerism.
You mean we'll all be poorer and have less to spend. It's a view, but probably not a vote winner.
I have never understood what people's problem with consumerism is. What is the problem with people spending money on things that make them happy?
We're about to find out just how miserable we all are when nobody goes out or spends any money...
Our consumerism has been funded by debt and involves exploitation of people and the environment.
And does it really bring more pleasure than cheaper and simpler activities ?
At what point do we stop celebrating VE Day? We are not Germany’s enemies after all. We were talking about this over dinner and my missus said why not celebrate it as ‘the end of the war’ without mentioning ‘victory’ and maybe Germany could join in, making it a celebration of peace.
I think there is some sort of commemoration in Germany for May 8th. Maybe more in former East Germany.
That would suggest 40 to 45% of under 70s in Stockholm have had CV-19. If true, that's extraordinary.
And to have achieved that with (relatively) low - and now declining - deaths.
If it's true, then Sweden's R is going to be well below 3 going forward, even if you removed all lockdown.
(It's really important to realise that R declines with the number of infectable people. R0 is its infection rate assuming everyone you meet can be infected. Over time, if you get to 50% with immunity, then only half the people you can meet can be infected. It cannot spread as quickly as it did. R, then, will be on a glidepath from, say, 4 when the disease is brand new, to under 1 when 60% of people have had the disease.)
When is VE Day actually ever 'celebrated' in any big way? It's only being particularly marked this year because it's the 75th anniversary. It's probably the last time there will be a landmark anniversary with actual veterans still around (if the next one's the 100th), so why not mark it?
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
The weather forecast for saturday pm and sunday is very cold with snow in the north
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
Fucked it up good and proper.
Yàaaaawn
What the hell is that kind of reply? Seriously comrade.
There are no good options now. People are fed up of lockdown....but the virus is still out there. The economy is shattered, and there is no safe pathway out. Our economy post de-industrialisation has been about people spending money on services...tell me how that will happen.....
The only hope is a vaccine...and what do we do until then?
The Govt did too little...too late...and now we are stuck where we are....
So yawn ahead.....
Well at least we should get some economic rebalancing and a bit less consumerism.
You mean we'll all be poorer and have less to spend. It's a view, but probably not a vote winner.
I have never understood what people's problem with consumerism is. What is the problem with people spending money on things that make them happy?
We're about to find out just how miserable we all are when nobody goes out or spends any money...
Our consumerism has been funded by debt and involves exploitation of people and the environment.
And does it really bring more pleasure than cheaper and simpler activities ?
You are regularly on here banging on about building more roads and public transport being a niche London thing.
Don’t hide behind the environment now to justify your austere paleoconservatism.
If you want your Big Mac fix and don't mind queuing half the night for the privilege so be it but will parents be more interested in the health of their children (and themselves) than in doing their patriotic duty? It may well be given how subservient we were going into lockdown, Johnson and Cummings think we will be equally subservient coming out of it - we'll see.
What was the Parent Teachers Association group for the UK (now called Parentkind) had a survey out to all PTA’s and it had been promoted by the DfE. Results published fully tomorrow but, as per the BBC news, out of a quarter of a million responses 90% of parents would not be happy sending their children to school after lockdown ends. I’ve kept saying this and maybe it might get through now, government can’t afford to announce something that will be so comprehensively ignored. The lack of trust that stems from the late lockdown and the attempt at vaccine free herd immunity is palpable.
So what do those parents want to do instead ?
If your children are at home you can't go to work, hence your furlough / wfh may continue.
It could also be that some parents are fond of their children and do not want them to die from exotic bat viruses; unlikely after being locked down wiv da kids for three weeks but not impossible.
I mean I've no idea but weren't schools the very last thing to be closed down? They were happily playing in the playground while @eadric was crapping himself under the kitchen table. How many CV19 deaths of children have there been?
From the fateful herd immunity speech onwards attendance numbers in schools cratered, by the end half, less than half or so. Before that very nervy and concerned, pretty much everything cancelled outside of class time, a bare bones operation.
My son is doing really well homeschooling but is missing his friends. He’s keen to get back, as are lots of children. And, as Topping says, children are an extremely low risk group.
So let him and his mates go round each other's houses then. Simple solution.
That would suggest 40 to 45% of under 70s in Stockholm have had CV-19. If true, that's extraordinary.
And to have achieved that with (relatively) low - and now declining - deaths.
If it's true, then Sweden's R is going to be well below 3 going forward, even if you removed all lockdown.
(It's really important to realise that R declines with the number of infectable people. R0 is its infection rate assuming everyone you meet can be infected. Over time, if you get to 50% with immunity, then only half the people you can meet can be infected. It cannot spread as quickly as it did. R, then, will be on a glidepath from, say, 4 when the disease is brand new, to under 1 when 60% of people have had the disease.)
Yes. People talk about British exceptionalism but Swedish exceptionalism seems to be on a different scale entirely, including Swedish diseases being better behaved.
If you want your Big Mac fix and don't mind queuing half the night for the privilege so be it but will parents be more interested in the health of their children (and themselves) than in doing their patriotic duty? It may well be given how subservient we were going into lockdown, Johnson and Cummings think we will be equally subservient coming out of it - we'll see.
What was the Parent Teachers Association group for the UK (now called Parentkind) had a survey out to all PTA’s and it had been promoted by the DfE. Results published fully tomorrow but, as per the BBC news, out of a quarter of a million responses 90% of parents would not be happy sending their children to school after lockdown ends. I’ve kept saying this and maybe it might get through now, government can’t afford to announce something that will be so comprehensively ignored. The lack of trust that stems from the late lockdown and the attempt at vaccine free herd immunity is palpable.
So what do those parents want to do instead ?
If your children are at home you can't go to work, hence your furlough / wfh may continue.
It could also be that some parents are fond of their children and do not want them to die from exotic bat viruses; unlikely after being locked down wiv da kids for three weeks but not impossible.
I mean I've no idea but weren't schools the very last thing to be closed down? They were happily playing in the playground while @eadric was crapping himself under the kitchen table. How many CV19 deaths of children have there been?
From the fateful herd immunity speech onwards attendance numbers in schools cratered, by the end half, less than half or so. Before that very nervy and concerned, pretty much everything cancelled outside of class time, a bare bones operation.
My son is doing really well homeschooling but is missing his friends. He’s keen to get back, as are lots of children. And, as Topping says, children are an extremely low risk group.
So let him and his mates go round each other's houses then. Simple solution.
Comments
https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/page/2/
Would I be alone in thinking this looks like a touch of plagiarism?
Any comments would be gratefully received.
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1257312125623517186?s=19
https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1257618652431597568?s=19
The infectivity rates, hospitalisation rates and need for ICU in the initial case series from Wuhan published at the end of Jan, are still pretty accurate. Amazingly so for such early data on an emerging disease.
It wasn't the science that changed, that is just spin. Either the politics did or our scientists were worse than those in Europe working on the same data. My money is on the politics changing.
--AS
The hospitalization / ICU rates might have been roughly accurate, but the shear volumes weren't (UK SAGE government at one meeting said believed at least 10x that*). Without looking into the Ferguson model, I have no idea how that parameter feeds in.
* no idea again if Ferguson used this and at what point, or if it was after, or no communication of this.
https://twitter.com/ianboogiebrown/status/1258088247156146180?s=09
As I say, it could be the case, from very early on it was saying incoming disaster, 8x capacity disaster looming, but nothing has been released (nor has Ferguson said anything even hinting at that he was screaming at the government car crashing was coming from very early on).
Ultimately, we will find out.
Calculating the numbers from the transmission rates, hospitalisation rates etc in the Chinese paper in Jan is all you need for predicting exponential spread (unless severe control measures are used).
It is intrinsic to exponential growth that numbers will be huge if control measures are delayed. The difference between 3,000 and 30,000 cases is a matter of a couple of weeks if uncontrolled.
I simply do not see what data from Italy was different to the early published Chinese data. The only major new information was that unlike SARS, containment in Asia was not going to be possible.
I have said this a million times here....but once the cat was out the bag so to speak...the Chinese have shared their medical data....
The problem is those first few weeks in early December in China...but they were contending with a new virus....
Then, we had all of February....all of fucking February...and I repeat that again....all of February to do something (not hindsight....but all of fucking February).....
February 2020...what was Boris doing?
BUT, my original point is the media narrative omits that Ferguson and others had been producing models for the government from way back in January. They report on the infamous paper as if he had just appeared out of nowhere, that government basically had nobody like him doing this work.
The reality is they were working all the time for the government on this. We don't know what the earlier models said, but at the moment there is no evidence that the models presented to SAGE by Ferguson and Co made the same claims as the infamous one. I believe this was paper 9(?) that he had written.
We will ultimately find out if Ferguson and Co were screaming from the rooftops in February and the government said no need to panic and ignored them.
There may well have been some incorrect assumptions early on e.g. tranmission rate is higher in Wuhan because of extreme population density. Hospitalization rate higher because of poorer overall health and higher smoking rates.
We know the University of Washington model uses an empirical formula based on the China data and it pumps out utter horse shit.
I wouldn't worry too much about the weather on Friday...we are seriously fucked with a capital F follow by a guttural ucked..the incompetence of the Govt trashed us, and there are no good options now....
I am not necessarily blaming the Tories....it could have happened under a Labour Govt..but the Tories were holding the baby when this terrible calamity approached....and they really fucked it up....
Either lockdown early (especially foreign travel) or miss the boat and get the double whammy of disease and economic mess. Johnson didn't have his eye on the ball, for sure.
Presumably Britain by a long long way ?
--AS
February 2020 will be forever known as the UK's wasted month.
This Tory Govt's handling of this has been shocking....but they are a bunch of Neo-liberals who have zilch belief in the capacity of the state to achieve anything other than spend people's taxes....
Firstly they're globalists and secondly they fly everywhere whether that's from Doncaster to Darlington ** or from London to Paris.
** Boris did fly from Doncaster to Darlington during the election campaign.
What the hell is that kind of reply? Seriously comrade.
There are no good options now. People are fed up of lockdown....but the virus is still out there. The economy is shattered, and there is no safe pathway out. Our economy post de-industrialisation has been about people spending money on services...tell me how that will happen.....
The only hope is a vaccine...and what do we do until then?
The Govt did too little...too late...and now we are stuck where we are....
So yawn ahead.....
1. Face coverings in public
2. 2 week quarantine for international arrivals
Instead we have the tabloids celebrating the foolish being given a greater opportunity to risk their lives.
Stay at home and stay safe comrades.
Night all.
What this misses though is that clearly UK forecasts had been looked at before the middle of March! But a lot of scientific advice is not going into published reports, but rather being fed in to government in other ways. A few weeks back a contact of mine told me about some pretty nifty work being done using Bayesian ensemble techniques to improve forecast quality of local Covid healthcare demand, by some of the researchers at a university I won't name. Presumably this will all get written up at some point and turned into a research paper, but although that uni has publicised a lot of their Covid research output, this is one they haven't stuck online yet. The forecasts are being sent to the appropriate government agency they're collaborating with, regardless.
My guess would be that the very early modelling results would have been treated extremely tentatively, given the degree of uncertainty about the extent to which Chinese data would apply in the UK, and I doubt anyone wanted to wave their preliminary results in the air and make a target of themselves, with reputations and credibility on the line. I wonder if an important factor in Italy being such a wake-up call is that the country is more obviously "like us", and results obtained from updating with the Italian data suddenly felt a lot more "real".
We knew what to do, how to do it and when to do it....and then
And then...... for some weeks we ignored it and then did what...allowed Atletico Madrid to bring 1000's of fans into Liverpool.....
We could be looking now at some workable plan to open up the country...sector by sector....
Instead we are looking into the abyss of hopelessness.....and economic catastrophe....
But when non perishable items fail to be delivered, say the Packing Tape we had in the order, that starts generating levels of angst and anger amongst consumers such as myself.
1) There is no problem
2) The problem is minor
3) The problem will not be as bad as another problem
4) The problem will go away soon
5) Unique factors have contrived to make the problem look worse than it is but it isn't that bad
6) The measures being taken to contract the problem are worse than the problem itself
My interpretation is at that point he believed somewhat in the iceberg theory for this, that there were way more people infected, of which a large proportion are asymptotic, and so the hospitalization rate is inflated.
I wouldn't be surprised if there was also "adjustments" for supposedly healthier Westerners, less densely populated, less smoking, less air pollution.
Then of course we got Italy and it was oh shit.
Very good idea. I suspect it will be another 20 or 30 years before the 'Blitz Spirit' becomes an historical idea rather than something a large proportion of the country believe is embedded their genes. Sadly.
Can you imagine Victorian London going mental on 18/06/90?
It was dubbed ‘Air Jenrick’ - a Royal Air Force plane left waiting in a Turkish airport for a vital shipment of medical gowns.
The UK’s severe shortage of PPE had descended into farce, with officials scrambling to secure equipment needed to keep frontline NHS workers safe.
Today the Telegraph can reveal that the mission ended in disaster.
Every one of the 400,000 gowns brought back from Turkey last month has been impounded in a warehouse outside Heathrow Airport after inspectors found the gear was “useless” and fell short of UK standards, senior sources said.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/06/exclusive-gowns-delayed-ppe-shipment-turkey-impounded-failing/
Is not celebrating itself
And here in Greenwich in the first week of February 2020, I can tell you in all humility that the UK is ready for that role.
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pm-speech-in-greenwich-3-february-2020
If the UK government doesn't move to PPE production in the UK they are beyond incompetent.
I can't even start to imagine across Europe how many 10 bns have been spent on dodgy PPE / tests / equipment.
Straw dogs.
saying that in sweeten in Stockholm 30% have now had the virus, i.e. close to effective heard immunity, does anybody know where he gets this from.
I believe it is credible, but would like to know where he gets it form before I start quoting it.
https://twitter.com/NateSilver538/status/1257754339826958336?s=20
Helle Thorning-Schmidt
Alan Rusbridger
Afia Asantewaa Asare-Kyei - a human rights advocate
Pamela S. Karlan - Liberal Law Professor
...
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52558559
Is this a bit like Indepedent SAGE?
So some time yet.
I have never understood what people's problem with consumerism is. What is the problem with people spending money on things that make them happy?
We're about to find out just how miserable we all are when nobody goes out or spends any money...
We were never Germany's enemy, as our behaviour after WW2 clearly showed. We were Nazism's enemy. And we still are. I think it's good to remember what our ancestors fought for in that terrible struggle and why.
The Germans can join in if they want. After all, some Germans suffered under Nazism too - not just the 5 million dead in the war. Of course it will be more complicated for them.
And does it really bring more pleasure than cheaper and simpler activities ?
And to have achieved that with (relatively) low - and now declining - deaths.
If it's true, then Sweden's R is going to be well below 3 going forward, even if you removed all lockdown.
(It's really important to realise that R declines with the number of infectable people. R0 is its infection rate assuming everyone you meet can be infected. Over time, if you get to 50% with immunity, then only half the people you can meet can be infected. It cannot spread as quickly as it did. R, then, will be on a glidepath from, say, 4 when the disease is brand new, to under 1 when 60% of people have had the disease.)
Don’t hide behind the environment now to justify your austere paleoconservatism.
Consumerism can be environmentally friendly.