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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » COVID-19: With England faring the worst in Europe Boris’s TV address raises more questions than it answers
According to euromomo's latest update on excess deaths England is the only country in Europe with “extremely high excess mortality". Most EU countries now down to “normal" levels, with exception of Netherlands, Belgium & Sweden pic.twitter.com/OOibmuPBIy
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https://twitter.com/HarryChenPhD1/status/1259537456338219009
The only real measure is axtual excess deaths per million of the population. We won't have the final picture of this until the end of August at the earliest for all of Europe.
That's not to say that the UK will do well in that measure either, I still think it will be among the worst in Europe.
However, the hospital deaths data by death date is painting a much more promising picture than people currently think is happening in the country. We're on for around 150 deaths per day within the next few days.
Additionally the care home breakout should be fairly quick to isolate and contain so hopefully now that carehomes properly aware and tests are being done the spread will stop and the death rate in care homes will come down drastically within a week or so.
Summing up - I think we're about 7-10 days away from the daily deaths being routinely around 200 for all settings and falling. I think that's what prompted today's messaging change.
The Emma Kennedy thing is weird. Her first tweet simply misrepresented what Boris said (missed out the 'if at all possible'), then she got in a huge flap about her untrue statement, then she vanished up her own wazoo about it rather than backing down.
How do these ivory-brained London Celeb-types think they deserve a platform?
(Don't answer that)
https://twitter.com/WYPF_Chairman/status/1259582027038326787?s=20
If Arsenal concede a controversial penalty, does it really move the debate along if I post tweets from everyone on Arsenal Fan TV calling the ref a wanker? It just tells people I support Arsenal and are upset we lost
It would be far, far more interesting if the tweet showed an unexpected view from someone we expect to be a boilerplate hater, but that's never the case. So I respect people's right to trash the monotonous, repetitive, vacuous posting of said tweets
But usually when such a question is asked it's because people assume, for some reason, that we'd have had nothing but milk and honey compared to the reality.
Second excess deaths tells you little if you had a below average death rate in the first place
It doesn't feel that way to me, but I'm interested in what other people think. Am I missing something?
I just took this as "don't get complacent now".
I fear because of this we won't see as high usage & people using them incorrectly.
I have no idea where we go from here. It seems the Government have decidto be as opaque as possible and will allow individuals and companies to draw their own conclusions.
It is an abdication of responsibility and a possible recipe for social and workplace disorder. I am depressed about the future for the first time.
This document tomorrow needs to be clear and needs to be explained properly.
We see this sort of division and victim-blaming with all sorts of other things (e.g.unemployment, rape, chronic illnesses, etc), so I do think it can work. I just don't see Johnson casting off responsibility in the way Trump has done.
It may be that it does not sufficiently explain matters but its release would suggest any such failure would be a competence issue not a deliberate effort to be opaque.
The PM, in a speech watched by c 20 million chose to be opaque, because his need to be loved overrides his duty to lead.
The document may be crystal but very few will read it.
And the message, which is interpret this how you like is out there now.
To some extent that's even happening now with Sturgeon's determinedly pushing (even tweeting) the STAY AT HOME message, to emphasise that Scotland is not yet ready for a more nuanced message, while her government is also encouraging people to go outside and get more exercise... which is surely a more nuanced message, if not flatly contradictory with the supposedly vital importance of "staying at home". Exercise has been an inherent issue with "stay at home" all along, but it's certainly only going to get worse now. Not saying this as a piece of Nicola-knocking, more to point out that the days of the "stay at home" slogan have always been numbered, the messaging is going to have to start embracing greyer areas sooner rather than later, and I'm not sure it will make much difference whether that's today or in the next week or two.
Has the data for Italy and Spain even been collated yet?
If the media spent less time fighting the Brexit wars and a bit more time learning about this one, we might be better informed.
You may not like the answers, but that is leadership. Thatcher would have, Churchill too. Blair on Iraq. No one doubted where they stood. And they were content to be judged, and pilloried on it.
The total number of cases linked to nightclubs in Itaewon in Seoul, visited by a 29-year-old patient earlier this month, increased to 54 as of noon Sunday in Seoul, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control & Prevention’s Director-General Jung Eun-kyeong. Authorities are estimating between 6,000 to 7,000 could have been exposed to the virus from clubs between April 29 and May 6.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-09/south-korea-faces-new-flare-up-in-virus-cases-tied-to-nightclubs
We aren't going back to normal life until there is a vaccine
And the US have 2 different machines that do tests in 15 mins.
However clearly South Korean authorities have managed to track and trace those who met this patient at the nightclubs
One issue is that they were gay clubs and the south koreans shall we say arent exactly enlightened when it comes to these things.
Perhaps this is too cynical and Monday's Commons statement will be more informative.
When there are really big issues, testing taking too long, the app not
working, still not got the tracing team hired, how are we actually going to enforce quarantine for new arrivals.
At work there will be virtually nobody over 70 there anyway.
Grandparents may have to isolate for longer or with strict social distancing but so be it
https://twitter.com/Joyce_Karam/status/1259615241501052928
What we should be seeing everywhere is
JOIN A UNION NOW [Click here]
Plenty of people, at least eventually, understood "STAY AT HOME" to mean "you don't have to stay at home 24/7 unless you're shielding, going to work is okay if you can't WFH, occasionally to the shops for supplies and - up to once daily - for exercise" even though the latter points all muddle the former. The more critical commentators were pointing out the contradiction between "stay at home" and "daily outdoor exercise" from the start.
If we are going to accept more people are going to be spending more time outside home though, then the messaging really needs to adapt to that and focus more on just what those people should be doing once they are outside.
Hopefully from HMG's point of view, "STAY ALERT" doesn't just emphasise that it's too early for complacency, but also provides a suitably omni-purpose skeleton onto which whatever meaning they wish to flesh it out with can be grafted via message repetition. Whether that's sticking to the two-metre rule, don't mingle with people from other households, be careful what you touch/hold, follow all safety precautions installed at work, perhaps eventually in certain circumstances "don't forget your mask/gloves"... "stay at home where possible" will certainly be part of that mix too. Just now only one part of that mix.
In that respect "stay alert" may not be too bad a choice as a slogan, it sounds like pretty heavy stuff - something we need to take seriously - and to the extent it's vacuous or lacks substance and form, that also yields the plus point that it's flexible and free to be shaped and defined as the government require. My worry is that staying at home where possible, even eschewing your right to daily outdoor exercise, is the biggest single thing you can do to control your risk and the risk you pose to others. In a similar public health context it reminds me of car safety advice. We often hear messages like "don't drive while drunk, on the phone or texting", "always check your brakes, lights and tyre pressure before a long journey", "buy a car with safety kit like autonomous emergency braking and side airbags" but we rarely hear the one piece of safety advice which will halve your risk of death or serious injury in a car crash: "rejig your lifestyle so that you halve your annual mileage".
Theodore Dalrymple"
https://www.takimag.com/article/swedens-gambit/
I'm considering quitting.
Nonetheless, and even though it still seems, as stated earlier, as if much of substance was stripped out during the week, it was an impressive performance, in style and even in content in addressing the problems we still face. Huzzah for Bozza.
Not seen many more details of how it works though, but would obviously be very useful to use at airports and for people who have unavoidable contact with many others.
Control the virus
Save Lives
OK I was wrong. It does make sense. Just not for the public. Boris's new slogan is, or should be, aimed at SAGE and the government itself. For them, it is meaningful. They must stay alert to changes in the data, to new information from abroad, from supply chains, hospitals and care homes. They must use tests, therapies, and soon vaccines to control the virus. They must change our behaviour and restructure the economy, impose and remove restrictions to control the virus. They must aim to save lives.
It might in weeks to come, as lockdown is lifted and the economy reopens, make some degree of sense to employers and similar organisations.
But for the rest of us poor saps, it remains both fatuous and vacuous. It is not that we cannot act on those directions but that they are meaningless in this context. For us, the great unwashed, the voter on the Clapham omnibus, it is drivel.
https://capx.co/as-we-lift-the-lockdown-remember-that-fortune-favours-the-rave/
Christ.
Plod is going to have a summer of fun tracking down 80s/90s style raves. Although now, GCHQ will no doubt help with tracking a mass of mobile phones to a field in Berkshire....
And of those who retweet it.
OK, I know it currently does, but hopefully she'll have been replaced by then...
And who knows, there might just be some very bored kids in Wyoming right now.
It would have been much clearer on the key message that, although certain things are being relaxed (more people back to work, more exercise), these are conditional on social distancing being maintained.
https://twitter.com/sturdyAlex/status/1259720316915417089?s=20
http://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20200511000575
A tweet with no underlying thought other than a glib attack on the PM.
Ditto the retweet.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-52612511
TL;DR version: they test fired a missile at a target before the ship that towed it into position could get out of the way and hit her instead. The Iranian military are describing this as a “collision”.
I see in these debased times that the concept of 'the buck stops here' has been transformed into 'the outbreak didn't start here'.
As far as the news is concerned, to my surprise I feel a little sorry for Boris. He wanted to be PM, he schemed and plotted to get the job, and very shortly after he finally achieved his ambition he was faced with a situation with which, I suspect, even he knows, he is totally unsuited to coping.
We enter greater uncertainty and the Government can't provide people with all the reassurance they need. Their basic need of security is threatened.