France Govt: Here's free face masks Italy Govt: Here's free face masks Germany Govt: Here's free face masks UK Govt: Here's the BBC website to tell you how to make your own
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
Yes, what worries me about releasing us from lockdown now is this... I dont see how we are any better off than we were 2 months ago, and we have ruined the economy. Am I less likely to catch Covid tomorrow than I was in March?
Yes. The increase in testing capacity should make it easier to identify those with the virus and prevent them from passing it on.
This will be even better if/when they sort out the contact tracing app and the manual contact tracing to work with the testing.
They have gone very quiet on the app. Me thinks big trouble in little China.
Yes.
I'm sure they'll get there in the end. We can probably just re-skin one built for another country if we have to, eventually.
It'll confuse the punters when 你好 comes up on the launch screen.
I would imagine that "North London lawyer" will be trotted out regularly as it has been by some of the Tory footsoldiers on this forum. As a South Londoner I have no real problem with the use of North London as a kind of lazy shorthand for all that's wrong with the world, with its evocation of Harold Pinter and Polly Toynbee comparing notes on their Tuscan second homes over a bottle of Chablis and a vegetarian lasagne, although of course in reality North London is home to some of the most deprived parts of the country and has probably hosted more food banks than dinner parties. I guess "North London" has come to serve the same purpose as "New York" in US politics, firing up the ever-present sense of cultural inferiority of the lower middle classes (with a barely-acknowledged side-order of casual anti-Semitism) in order to persuade them to vote against their own interests. "Lawyer" is hard to argue with as far as insults go,of course. They are all twats.
OT, just watched last week's PMQ at long last. Johnson was hopeless and Starmer pulled him apart. If that happens every week and it gets coverage most people are going to wake up to the fact that it might not be a good idea to have a low on detail game show host as a PM. The Tories are going to find it difficult to undermine Starmer IMO, unless they find something that sticks that is currently unknown. A lot of PB Johnson fanbois on here have tried to suggest he is boring, which is hardly going to shift the needle much, even if it were true. One on here yesterday tried to suggest that "being forensic" was a bad thing. Maybe he ought to look at the forensic ability of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. Both would have run rings around The Clown. Johnson's advisors are going to have to do a lot better, and Johnson himself would be well advised to start looking at using some heavyweights to support him rather than surrounding himself with hopeless sycophants.
As always, one of Boris' greatest assets is his critics' unswerving dedication to underestimating him...
You are just too tribally blind to see what most other people can see. Starmer is going to do this to Johnson week in week out for the next 4 years.
Coronavirus won't last 4 years. More jovial times will return.
Johnson, a pm for more jovial times.
That's a political epitaph, not a selling point.
No. You're deliberately misreading what I wrote.
The PM is managing very challenging circumstances and when PMQs is so sombre it's easy for a LOTO to ask challenging questions to which he knows there is no good answer. Especially when thousands are dying.
When we are in normal times and in a background of an economic recovery PMQs will be very different. Completely different.
Is that when we can expect to see Tories on the GMB sofa again?
Since Starmer not only read from the document he was holding but specifically said that he was quoting from it, it was both glib and dim of Johnson to have denied it was accurate. He is going to have to sharpen up.
I do not see how Starmer shifts Labour's big structural problem, which is the loss of its WWC support in the North and Midlands, and the loss of Scotland and, increasingly, Wales. He is another North London middle class lawyer representing an inner London seat and several of his DPP decisions are not exactly the type to endear him to these lost voters. I can see him strengthening Labour's position in well heeled / mixed urban areas with socially conscious voters who were scared of Corbyn's tax policies and Labour will probably pick up seats in the commuter belt but the risk is he accelerates declines in some of the more WWC areas.
Demographically we are becoming like the US, skilled white working class and lower middle class voters and voters in rural areas and small towns vote Tory/GOP, the poorest voters and ethnic minorities in big cities vote Labour/Democrat.
As in the US it is now suburban higher earning voters who are the key swing voters
Also the least educated voters support the Tories whilst Graduates vote Labour or other parties.
That's always been the case. Better educated people tend to be more left wing. Certainly the extreme right attracts the less educated and intelligent people.
I'm quite new here, is this the sort of tripe I'll have to get used to?
That particular trope is quite fun because it explains why lefties get so very, very angry when they get landslided by those they consider to be their intellectual inferiors.
The fun thing about demographics is that it involves sweeping generalisations that would be condemned as sexist, racist or, erm, degree-ist in any other context outside of a shoe shop. Blacks vote for Biden; WWC support Trump; that sort of thing. This may be what throws up so many betting opportunities -- it is far too crude.
I've posted a three links to voting intention surveys after the last 3 GEs, 2015, Graduates appeared to be spilt equally between Lab and Tory. Bigger shift to Labour in 2017. Narrower Lab lead in 2019.
What the surveys don't show is how graduates in private and public sector employment split.
I do not see how Starmer shifts Labour's big structural problem, which is the loss of its WWC support in the North and Midlands, and the loss of Scotland and, increasingly, Wales. He is another North London middle class lawyer representing an inner London seat and several of his DPP decisions are not exactly the type to endear him to these lost voters. I can see him strengthening Labour's position in well heeled / mixed urban areas with socially conscious voters who were scared of Corbyn's tax policies and Labour will probably pick up seats in the commuter belt but the risk is he accelerates declines in some of the more WWC areas.
Demographically we are becoming like the US, skilled white working class and lower middle class voters and voters in rural areas and small towns vote Tory/GOP, the poorest voters and ethnic minorities in big cities vote Labour/Democrat.
As in the US it is now suburban higher earning voters who are the key swing voters
Also the least educated voters support the Tories whilst Graduates vote Labour or other parties.
That's always been the case. Better educated people tend to be more left wing. Certainly the extreme right attracts the less educated and intelligent people.
I'm quite new here, is this the sort of tripe I'll have to get used to?
That particular trope is quite fun because it explains why lefties get so very, very angry when they get landslided by those they consider to be their intellectual inferiors.
I rarely get angry with the people but they do often disappoint me. Sometimes terribly so.
My guess is that the vast majority of people won't be able to tell the difference between an app that works and one that doesn't, so they can go ahead with the rollout of an app that doesn't work and hope to rollout an auto-updating patch to fix it later.
Boris Johnson being unaware of his own government's guidance shows he is not master of his brief. That is probably as damaging as the specific negligence Sir Keir highlighted.
To be fair, Johnson not knowing his arse from his elbow was kind of factored into the equation. Where I think the Tories are struggling is that so much of their political strategy seems to have been based on Jeremy Corbyn being Labour leader. They just assumed that he would be or that Labour would choose someone equally as useless. They have time to reclaibrate, but they are going to have to. Johnson cannot wing it against Starmer. But Starmer does have his own points of vulnerability. Attacks on him as a too clever by half, PC fanatic might work for the Tories, for example.
In normal times I thought SKS might struggle a little to establish himself. There's not a lot of pizazz which seems to be a requirement in politics these days. However these aren't normal times, and straight bat factual takedowns of the insane clown posse seems to be doing the job
It all goes in cycles. There will come a time when people want serious and intelligent, rather than flippant and half-baked. I am very comfortable with SKS as Labour leader. I did not vote for him, but I am glad he won.
I voted for Nandy. Most Labour posters on here voted for Nandy. Every Labour member who I personally know voted for Nandy.
Yet Starmer won by a mile and Nandy came last. Quite odd.
PB is unrepresentative even within parties; no real surprise. We only had one poster who was a Tory Boris supporter (prior to his getting the job) and he sticks out like a.
Since Starmer not only read from the document he was holding but specifically said that he was quoting from it, it was both glib and dim of Johnson to have denied it was accurate. He is going to have to sharpen up.
Expect most wont care unfortunately its factored in.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
Yes, what worries me about releasing us from lockdown now is this... I dont see how we are any better off than we were 2 months ago, and we have ruined the economy. Am I less likely to catch Covid tomorrow than I was in March?
The other thing I missed from 5 is more testing - sufficient testing (and effective isolation for those infected) can also reduce infections (and particularly deaths if concentrated on those in contact with the most vulnerable). So potentially many deaths can be pushed far into the future with more testing, hopefully beyond the point of a vaccine or effective treatment. If so, the original lockdown really prevents coronavirus deaths, rather than just delaying them.
France Govt: Here's free face masks Italy Govt: Here's free face masks Germany Govt: Here's free face masks UK Govt: Here's the BBC website to tell you how to make your own
The UK government has shat the bed on masks, and on other things
But they can't be held responsible for the utter stupidity of the people. Less than 10% wearing masks? What's wrong with them. You can make your own in 5 minutes
Why aren't TFL ordering masks and handing them out ?
My guess is that the vast majority of people won't be able to tell the difference between an app that works and one that doesn't, so they can go ahead with the rollout of an app that doesn't work and hope to rollout an auto-updating patch to fix it later.
I would imagine that "North London lawyer" will be trotted out regularly as it has been by some of the Tory footsoldiers on this forum. As a South Londoner I have no real problem with the use of North London as a kind of lazy shorthand for all that's wrong with the world, with its evocation of Harold Pinter and Polly Toynbee comparing notes on their Tuscan second homes over a bottle of Chablis and a vegetarian lasagne, although of course in reality North London is home to some of the most deprived parts of the country and has probably hosted more food banks than dinner parties. I guess "North London" has come to serve the same purpose as "New York" in US politics, firing up the ever-present sense of cultural inferiority of the lower middle classes (with a barely-acknowledged side-order of casual anti-Semitism) in order to persuade them to vote against their own interests. "Lawyer" is hard to argue with as far as insults go,of course. They are all twats.
Hampstead intellectuals was the preferred term of contempt a while back.
Loving the love in for Starmer in the recent headers and posts.
Omitting the obvious point in the header that Labour's single attack at every election I have ever seen is '24 hrs to save the NHS'. How is that attack line going to work now?
PMQs really don't make much difference. The person asking the question should always win. From social media (and on here) Miliband stuffed Cameron every time. Then Corbyn did him over. Then Corbyn hammered May. Then Corbyn outclassed Johnson. So I was told every Wednesday and people who are probably too embarrassed to recall it, stated regularly on PB. How did that end up?
Everyone loves a lawyer trying to win on a technicality in the midst of a pandemic...don't they?
Starmer isn't Corbyn, for that, most are grateful. But most of those claiming him as the new messiah, didn't vote Conservative. In reality, he is the guy that lost Brexit for Remainers.
I would imagine that "North London lawyer" will be trotted out regularly as it has been by some of the Tory footsoldiers on this forum. As a South Londoner I have no real problem with the use of North London as a kind of lazy shorthand for all that's wrong with the world, with its evocation of Harold Pinter and Polly Toynbee comparing notes on their Tuscan second homes over a bottle of Chablis and a vegetarian lasagne, although of course in reality North London is home to some of the most deprived parts of the country and has probably hosted more food banks than dinner parties. I guess "North London" has come to serve the same purpose as "New York" in US politics, firing up the ever-present sense of cultural inferiority of the lower middle classes (with a barely-acknowledged side-order of casual anti-Semitism) in order to persuade them to vote against their own interests. "Lawyer" is hard to argue with as far as insults go,of course. They are all twats.
See the "It's Grim Up North London" serial cartoon in that extreme right wing magazine ..... Private Eye
Since Starmer not only read from the document he was holding but specifically said that he was quoting from it, it was both glib and dim of Johnson to have denied it was accurate. He is going to have to sharpen up.
Expect most wont care unfortunately its factored in.
It should matter but wont IMO
Johnson isn’t going to be able to do well in this job by just winging everything, as he has done heretofore.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
Since Starmer not only read from the document he was holding but specifically said that he was quoting from it, it was both glib and dim of Johnson to have denied it was accurate. He is going to have to sharpen up.
Expect most wont care unfortunately its factored in.
It should matter but wont IMO
It will do if Boris carries on like this for four years.
France Govt: Here's free face masks Italy Govt: Here's free face masks Germany Govt: Here's free face masks UK Govt: Here's the BBC website to tell you how to make your own
Last week: "masks don't work; you'll rub your eye; and anyway we need them for doctors and nurses" Today: "you should wear masks anywhere with a roof"
Even if commuters got the memo about the tyre-squealing u-turn, was there time to buy or make a mask, even if you knew how?
My guess is that the vast majority of people won't be able to tell the difference between an app that works and one that doesn't, so they can go ahead with the rollout of an app that doesn't work and hope to rollout an auto-updating patch to fix it later.
I’ve had the app for almost a week, and it hasn’t caused any problems, perhaps drained the battery a bit faster than usual, and says that it is working, although it isn’t otherwise obvious. It isn’t clear whether installing the app is enough or whether you have it running (active) when out and about, and there was nothing in the instructions that said you have to keep the app loaded.
Since the contact data is held on individual devices until you give permission for it to be shared after you get the symptoms, it isn’t obvious what information the government can be getting, beyond the number of downloads, to indicate whether or how it is working, except for what must be a very rare incidence of it triggering.
The infamous "PB Tories" would be far better off admitting that Boris lost this one, and needs to up his game, than waste hours of our shortened lives looking for tiny small print that means his gaffe wasn't quite so bad. Ludicrous
I think PB Labour are in denial about the polls.
Those are meaningless right now. Who in their right mind is thinking about who to vote for at the next election?
PMQs is surely meaningless right now then. No one watches it and we're 5 years from an election.
I would not say meaningless. It's a niche habit, watching PMQs, but the people who do watch it tend to be opinionated and influential amongst their peers. So for example, there could be a group of guys hanging out (once that is allowed again) and only one might have seen Starmer and Johnson jousting, but he will pass on his view of it to the wider gathering, possibly even show it to them on his phone. In this way, perceptions formed by PMQs - e.g. Johnson the bumbler, Starmer sharp as a tack - spread far beyond what you might expect from the bare viewing figures.
Opinionated people do not tend to be influential amongst their peers, especially if they bang on about politics, showing videos of PMQs on a lads night out.
Instead opinionated people think they are influential. Unfortunately for them, it is more likely they have the opposite effect.
Boris Johnson being unaware of his own government's guidance shows he is not master of his brief. That is probably as damaging as the specific negligence Sir Keir highlighted.
To be fair, Johnson not knowing his arse from his elbow was kind of factored into the equation. Where I think the Tories are struggling is that so much of their political strategy seems to have been based on Jeremy Corbyn being Labour leader. They just assumed that he would be or that Labour would choose someone equally as useless. They have time to reclaibrate, but they are going to have to. Johnson cannot wing it against Starmer. But Starmer does have his own points of vulnerability. Attacks on him as a too clever by half, PC fanatic might work for the Tories, for example.
In normal times I thought SKS might struggle a little to establish himself. There's not a lot of pizazz which seems to be a requirement in politics these days. However these aren't normal times, and straight bat factual takedowns of the insane clown posse seems to be doing the job
It all goes in cycles. There will come a time when people want serious and intelligent, rather than flippant and half-baked. I am very comfortable with SKS as Labour leader. I did not vote for him, but I am glad he won.
I voted for Nandy. Most Labour posters on here voted for Nandy. Every Labour member who I personally know voted for Nandy.
Yet Starmer won by a mile and Nandy came last. Quite odd.
PB is unrepresentative even within parties; no real surprise. We only had one poster who was a Tory Boris supporter (prior to his getting the job) and he sticks out like a.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
Loving the love in for Starmer in the recent headers and posts.
Omitting the obvious point in the header that Labour's single attack at every election I have ever seen is '24 hrs to save the NHS'. How is that attack line going to work now?
PMQs really don't make much difference. The person asking the question should always win. From social media (and on here) Miliband stuffed Cameron every time. Then Corbyn did him over. Then Corbyn hammered May. Then Corbyn outclassed Johnson. So I was told every Wednesday and people who are probably too embarrassed to recall it, stated regularly on PB. How did that end up?
Everyone loves a lawyer trying to win on a technicality in the midst of a pandemic...don't they?
Starmer isn't Corbyn, for that, most are grateful. But most of those claiming him as the new messiah, didn't vote Conservative. In reality, he is the guy that lost Brexit for Remainers.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
OT, just watched last week's PMQ at long last. Johnson was hopeless and Starmer pulled him apart. If that happens every week and it gets coverage most people are going to wake up to the fact that it might not be a good idea to have a low on detail game show host as a PM. The Tories are going to find it difficult to undermine Starmer IMO, unless they find something that sticks that is currently unknown. A lot of PB Johnson fanbois on here have tried to suggest he is boring, which is hardly going to shift the needle much, even if it were true. One on here yesterday tried to suggest that "being forensic" was a bad thing. Maybe he ought to look at the forensic ability of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. Both would have run rings around The Clown. Johnson's advisors are going to have to do a lot better, and Johnson himself would be well advised to start looking at using some heavyweights to support him rather than surrounding himself with hopeless sycophants.
As always, one of Boris' greatest assets is his critics' unswerving dedication to underestimating him...
You are just too tribally blind to see what most other people can see. Starmer is going to do this to Johnson week in week out for the next 4 years.
Coronavirus won't last 4 years. More jovial times will return.
Johnson, a pm for more jovial times.
That's a political epitaph, not a selling point.
No. You're deliberately misreading what I wrote.
The PM is managing very challenging circumstances and when PMQs is so sombre it's easy for a LOTO to ask challenging questions to which he knows there is no good answer. Especially when thousands are dying.
When we are in normal times and in a background of an economic recovery PMQs will be very different. Completely different.
Is that when we can expect to see Tories on the GMB sofa again?
I've got no idea. Never watched GMB, don't particularly care about it.
But probably the Ministers will be less busy then yes. They're working pretty flat out at the minute and are regularly on the news channels.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
I would imagine that "North London lawyer" will be trotted out regularly as it has been by some of the Tory footsoldiers on this forum. As a South Londoner I have no real problem with the use of North London as a kind of lazy shorthand for all that's wrong with the world, with its evocation of Harold Pinter and Polly Toynbee comparing notes on their Tuscan second homes over a bottle of Chablis and a vegetarian lasagne, although of course in reality North London is home to some of the most deprived parts of the country and has probably hosted more food banks than dinner parties. I guess "North London" has come to serve the same purpose as "New York" in US politics, firing up the ever-present sense of cultural inferiority of the lower middle classes (with a barely-acknowledged side-order of casual anti-Semitism) in order to persuade them to vote against their own interests. "Lawyer" is hard to argue with as far as insults go,of course. They are all twats.
Ah, the unabashed chippiness of the modern ineloquent Tory. Angry at lawyers (and no doubt other professional folk) because they are cleverer than he. Don't worry the modern Populist Tory Party has a few lawyers of their own. One is Dominic Raab. Though how he managed to pass his law finals is indeed astonishing. I guess you perhaps approve of him because unlike most lawyers he comes across as lightweight and stupid; two necessary criteria to be a member of the Clown's inner circle.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
On your last point: all any health service in the world can do is push deaths into the future. Doing it for 30 minutes is probably a waste of everyone’s time. Doing it for 30 years is why we have things like chemotherapy.
I do not see how Starmer shifts Labour's big structural problem, which is the loss of its WWC support in the North and Midlands, and the loss of Scotland and, increasingly, Wales. He is another North London middle class lawyer representing an inner London seat and several of his DPP decisions are not exactly the type to endear him to these lost voters. I can see him strengthening Labour's position in well heeled / mixed urban areas with socially conscious voters who were scared of Corbyn's tax policies and Labour will probably pick up seats in the commuter belt but the risk is he accelerates declines in some of the more WWC areas.
Demographically we are becoming like the US, skilled white working class and lower middle class voters and voters in rural areas and small towns vote Tory/GOP, the poorest voters and ethnic minorities in big cities vote Labour/Democrat.
As in the US it is now suburban higher earning voters who are the key swing voters
Also the least educated voters support the Tories whilst Graduates vote Labour or other parties.
That's always been the case. Better educated people tend to be more left wing. Certainly the extreme right attracts the less educated and intelligent people.
I'm quite new here, is this the sort of tripe I'll have to get used to?
Think of that as the entreé. The main course is usually less digestible
Loving the love in for Starmer in the recent headers and posts.
Omitting the obvious point in the header that Labour's single attack at every election I have ever seen is '24 hrs to save the NHS'. How is that attack line going to work now?
PMQs really don't make much difference. The person asking the question should always win. From social media (and on here) Miliband stuffed Cameron every time. Then Corbyn did him over. Then Corbyn hammered May. Then Corbyn outclassed Johnson. So I was told every Wednesday and people who are probably too embarrassed to recall it, stated regularly on PB. How did that end up?
Everyone loves a lawyer trying to win on a technicality in the midst of a pandemic...don't they?
Starmer isn't Corbyn, for that, most are grateful. But most of those claiming him as the new messiah, didn't vote Conservative. In reality, he is the guy that lost Brexit for Remainers.
I think thats true TBF
Other way round. The Prime Minister should always win.
My guess is that the vast majority of people won't be able to tell the difference between an app that works and one that doesn't, so they can go ahead with the rollout of an app that doesn't work and hope to rollout an auto-updating patch to fix it later.
Actually thinking about the question implicitly posed in the header, the Tories should, in horse racing terms, let Starmer dictate the pace rather than be held up perhaps? I imagine he is better at having someone to take on than having to come up with ideas himself
France Govt: Here's free face masks Italy Govt: Here's free face masks Germany Govt: Here's free face masks UK Govt: Here's the BBC website to tell you how to make your own
The UK government has shat the bed on masks, and on other things
But they can't be held responsible for the utter stupidity of the people. Less than 10% wearing masks? What's wrong with them. You can make your own in 5 minutes
Why aren't TFL ordering masks and handing them out ?
Because that would require some original thinking and initiative taking.
Far easier to wait until told to do so and then demand more 'clarity'.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
I thought it was only around 20%?
It`s a lot better than the approx 10% (maybe less) that we have got.
There are only two ways out of this: containment or herd immunity (vaccination is a form of herd immunity). I`ve always been in the latter camp and still am. We`ve got to learn to live with a new threat, which is going nowhere.
Interesting to see Foxy post this morning that he`s also beginning to think that the virus is endemic.
Johnson is going to have to find a way of abolishing PMQs. He just cannot handle the relentless scrutiny that Starmer brings to it.
Boris can go back to the pre-Blair arrangement of two short PMQs sessions. This would restrict Starmer's ability to develop an argument, and the other leaders would have only one question each.
Boris could also go further back to before Mrs Thatcher's power grab and refer questions to departmental ministers. This is hard to square with centralisation of power at Number 10 but who cares about that?
Boris is bad at PMQs.
He cannot even get the basics right like consulting the folder lovingly prepared for him with all the answers the civil service can think of, and all the answers his political team came up with.
Boris should invite his old school chum Dave round for some socially-distanced Zoom advice on how to prepare for and answer PMQs. Here it could even be relevant they both went to Eton because they might have been taught the same study techniques by the same teachers.
Otherwise it will have to be paternity leave in half-hour chunks every Wednesday, and eventually the Speaker will smell a rat.
I do not see how Starmer shifts Labour's big structural problem, which is the loss of its WWC support in the North and Midlands, and the loss of Scotland and, increasingly, Wales. He is another North London middle class lawyer representing an inner London seat and several of his DPP decisions are not exactly the type to endear him to these lost voters. I can see him strengthening Labour's position in well heeled / mixed urban areas with socially conscious voters who were scared of Corbyn's tax policies and Labour will probably pick up seats in the commuter belt but the risk is he accelerates declines in some of the more WWC areas.
Demographically we are becoming like the US, skilled white working class and lower middle class voters and voters in rural areas and small towns vote Tory/GOP, the poorest voters and ethnic minorities in big cities vote Labour/Democrat.
As in the US it is now suburban higher earning voters who are the key swing voters
Also the least educated voters support the Tories whilst Graduates vote Labour or other parties.
That's always been the case. Better educated people tend to be more left wing. Certainly the extreme right attracts the less educated and intelligent people.
Better educated in this case means having spent more time with the state paying for them (or, recently, convinced that the state should be paying for them). The state also employs a lot of graduates. Not really surprising therefore that they think a big state is a good idea; it is for them (or perhaps I should say us, being a state employed graduate myself).
I would imagine that "North London lawyer" will be trotted out regularly as it has been by some of the Tory footsoldiers on this forum. As a South Londoner I have no real problem with the use of North London as a kind of lazy shorthand for all that's wrong with the world, with its evocation of Harold Pinter and Polly Toynbee comparing notes on their Tuscan second homes over a bottle of Chablis and a vegetarian lasagne, although of course in reality North London is home to some of the most deprived parts of the country and has probably hosted more food banks than dinner parties. I guess "North London" has come to serve the same purpose as "New York" in US politics, firing up the ever-present sense of cultural inferiority of the lower middle classes (with a barely-acknowledged side-order of casual anti-Semitism) in order to persuade them to vote against their own interests. "Lawyer" is hard to argue with as far as insults go,of course. They are all twats.
See the "It's Grim Up North London" serial cartoon in that extreme right wing magazine ..... Private Eye
It's Grip Up North London is hilarious, but it is funny precisely because it is a caricature based on a tiny kernel of truth. I wouldn't characterise Private Eye as left or right wing, its default position is a kind of juvenile attack on authority from a position of extreme privilege. I find about 99% of it completely unfunny, to be honest. I am more of a Frankie Boyle kind of person.
My guess is that the vast majority of people won't be able to tell the difference between an app that works and one that doesn't, so they can go ahead with the rollout of an app that doesn't work and hope to rollout an auto-updating patch to fix it later.
Bozo has put Baroness Harding, wife of Tory MP, in charge. Those in the tech world remember her as the CEO of TalkTalk at the time when it was cyber attacked and lost tens of thousands of customers their data, and confessed she didn't know it wasn't properly encrypted. So this is the equation: IT project+ NHS + government + Harding =?
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
I thought it was only around 20%?
It`s a lot better than the approx 10% (maybe less) that we have got.
There are only two ways out of this: containment or herd immunity (vaccination is a form of herd immunity). I`ve always been in the latter camp and still am. We`ve got to learn to live with a new threat, which is going nowhere.
Interesting to see Foxy post this morning that he`s also beginning to think that the virus is endemic.
Both still a looooong way from what is required though. Agree that this thing is going to be around for the long-term without a vaccine.
My guess is that the vast majority of people won't be able to tell the difference between an app that works and one that doesn't, so they can go ahead with the rollout of an app that doesn't work and hope to rollout an auto-updating patch to fix it later.
I’ve had the app for almost a week, and it hasn’t caused any problems, perhaps drained the battery a bit faster than usual, and says that it is working, although it isn’t otherwise obvious. It isn’t clear whether installing the app is enough or whether you have it running (active) when out and about, and there was nothing in the instructions that said you have to keep the app loaded.
Since the contact data is held on individual devices until you give permission for it to be shared after you get the symptoms, it isn’t obvious what information the government can be getting, beyond the number of downloads, to indicate whether or how it is working, except for what must be a very rare incidence of it triggering.
I don't suppose there's a simple way of seeing the bluetooth IDs of phones you've come into contact with.
Aside from stacking your phone with another that has the app for 15 minutes and then one of you telling it that you have been diagnosed, I don't suppose there's any way of testing it yourself.
My guess is that the vast majority of people won't be able to tell the difference between an app that works and one that doesn't, so they can go ahead with the rollout of an app that doesn't work and hope to rollout an auto-updating patch to fix it later.
Bozo has put Baroness Harding, wife of Tory MP, in charge. Those in the tech world remember her as the CEO of TalkTalk at the time when it was cyber attacked and lost tens of thousands of customers their data, and confessed she didn't know it wasn't properly encrypted. So this is the equation: IT project+ NHS + government + Harding =?
Are the details of database encryption usually dealt with by CEOs?
If most people wear a mask then the others would want to.
The government needs to let people know what the plan is. If it is eradication, then wearing masks would make sense. If not, then I don't see much point so long as the NHS can cope with the number of cases.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
I thought it was only around 20%?
It`s a lot better than the approx 10% (maybe less) that we have got.
There are only two ways out of this: containment or herd immunity (vaccination is a form of herd immunity). I`ve always been in the latter camp and still am. We`ve got to learn to live with a new threat, which is going nowhere.
Interesting to see Foxy post this morning that he`s also beginning to think that the virus is endemic.
Both still a looooong way from what is required though. Agree that this thing is going to be around for the long-term without a vaccine.
Needs someone more mathmatically gifted than me to work this through - but if no herd immunity and R = 1 then 100 infections, go 100/100/100/100/100.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
Presumably, given what we're being constantly told are our failings, so do we. Unless it's all being contained in Care homes...
I would imagine that "North London lawyer" will be trotted out regularly as it has been by some of the Tory footsoldiers on this forum. As a South Londoner I have no real problem with the use of North London as a kind of lazy shorthand for all that's wrong with the world, with its evocation of Harold Pinter and Polly Toynbee comparing notes on their Tuscan second homes over a bottle of Chablis and a vegetarian lasagne, although of course in reality North London is home to some of the most deprived parts of the country and has probably hosted more food banks than dinner parties. I guess "North London" has come to serve the same purpose as "New York" in US politics, firing up the ever-present sense of cultural inferiority of the lower middle classes (with a barely-acknowledged side-order of casual anti-Semitism) in order to persuade them to vote against their own interests. "Lawyer" is hard to argue with as far as insults go,of course. They are all twats.
See the "It's Grim Up North London" serial cartoon in that extreme right wing magazine ..... Private Eye
It's Grip Up North London is hilarious, but it is funny precisely because it is a caricature based on a tiny kernel of truth. I wouldn't characterise Private Eye as left or right wing, its default position is a kind of juvenile attack on authority from a position of extreme privilege. I find about 99% of it completely unfunny, to be honest. I am more of a Frankie Boyle kind of person.
It doesn't have to be accurate as long as it is believed and it is.
Its Cameron's 'kitchen suppers' and EdM' 'ordinary folk' of Dartmouth Park and its:
This doesn't sound good. Seems the Pillar 2 testing (Deloitte etc), making up 2/3 of all tests now, isn't being reported. That means cases and deaths identified with CV are under--reported. Also GPs and others who need to know if people have had an infection don't have that information.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
On your last point: all any health service in the world can do is push deaths into the future. Doing it for 30 minutes is probably a waste of everyone’s time. Doing it for 30 years is why we have things like chemotherapy.
Indeed, I should have been more specific. The difference is that lockdown alone (in the absence of vaccine, improved treatment, better testing and isolation) only extends life by a time period similar to that of the lockdown (a little longer depending on how long it takes after a lockdown for infections to rise to pre-lockdown levels). Other unpleasant treatments are intended to extend life well beyond the treatment length.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
Presumably, given what we're being constantly told are our failings, so do we. Unless it's all being contained in Care homes...
Or the mortality rate is drastically lower in Sweden, but that seems unlikely.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
I thought it was only around 20%?
It`s a lot better than the approx 10% (maybe less) that we have got.
There are only two ways out of this: containment or herd immunity (vaccination is a form of herd immunity). I`ve always been in the latter camp and still am. We`ve got to learn to live with a new threat, which is going nowhere.
Interesting to see Foxy post this morning that he`s also beginning to think that the virus is endemic.
Both still a looooong way from what is required though. Agree that this thing is going to be around for the long-term without a vaccine.
Needs someone more mathmatically gifted than me to work this through - but if no herd immunity and R = 1 then 100 infections, go 100/100/100/100/100.
If 20% immune, then 100/80/64/51/41 etc
I posted some numbers the other day. IIRC at 26% immune, with an R number of 1.35 or less would lead to a stable/falling rate of infection.
I *believe* that this is what Sweden is aiming for - suppress R with a "light" lockdown, at which point any immunity will help suppress the disease.
My guess is that the vast majority of people won't be able to tell the difference between an app that works and one that doesn't, so they can go ahead with the rollout of an app that doesn't work and hope to rollout an auto-updating patch to fix it later.
Bozo has put Baroness Harding, wife of Tory MP, in charge. Those in the tech world remember her as the CEO of TalkTalk at the time when it was cyber attacked and lost tens of thousands of customers their data, and confessed she didn't know it wasn't properly encrypted. So this is the equation: IT project+ NHS + government + Harding =?
Are the details of database encryption usually dealt with by CEOs?
This app is pretty much DOA as far as I'm concerned, but I don't think putting someone in charge of it who has once been at the helm of a company that had a serious data breach is necessarily one of the bad things about it. On balance it's probably a good thing.
Only in Stockholm. Most of the rest of the country will be barely above zero.
To get to 20% nationally they'd need 10k deaths, 3x what they have. Either that or they'd need to shield the elderly, but nobody has managed that anywhere - if infections are in the wider population, it gets to the elderly eventually.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
Presumably, given what we're being constantly told are our failings, so do we. Unless it's all being contained in Care homes...
We`ll have less than Sweden, more than, say, Italy (who locked down harder). Within UK, R is lower in London than outside - and that is due to being hit harder and consequently having more immunity.
If most people wear a mask then the others would want to.
The government needs to let people know what the plan is. If it is eradication, then wearing masks would make sense. If not, then I don't see much point so long as the NHS can cope with the number of cases.
Is there a plan ?
It can't be eradication or they would have quarantine on entry to the country.
I suspect they want things to be kept under reasonable control while seeing what happens in other countries.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
I thought it was only around 20%?
It`s a lot better than the approx 10% (maybe less) that we have got.
There are only two ways out of this: containment or herd immunity (vaccination is a form of herd immunity). I`ve always been in the latter camp and still am. We`ve got to learn to live with a new threat, which is going nowhere.
Interesting to see Foxy post this morning that he`s also beginning to think that the virus is endemic.
Both still a looooong way from what is required though. Agree that this thing is going to be around for the long-term without a vaccine.
Needs someone more mathmatically gifted than me to work this through - but if no herd immunity and R = 1 then 100 infections, go 100/100/100/100/100.
If 20% immune, then 100/80/64/51/41 etc
I posted some numbers the other day. IIRC at 26% immune, with an R number of 1.35 or less would lead to a stable/falling rate of infection.
I *believe* that this is what Sweden is aiming for - suppress R with a "light" lockdown, at which point any immunity will help suppress the disease.
Which is what I thought we were doing - lockdown sufficiently to protect the NHS and get some immunity in the population. But then it became about containment.
I would imagine that "North London lawyer" will be trotted out regularly as it has been by some of the Tory footsoldiers on this forum. As a South Londoner I have no real problem with the use of North London as a kind of lazy shorthand for all that's wrong with the world, with its evocation of Harold Pinter and Polly Toynbee comparing notes on their Tuscan second homes over a bottle of Chablis and a vegetarian lasagne, although of course in reality North London is home to some of the most deprived parts of the country and has probably hosted more food banks than dinner parties. I guess "North London" has come to serve the same purpose as "New York" in US politics, firing up the ever-present sense of cultural inferiority of the lower middle classes (with a barely-acknowledged side-order of casual anti-Semitism) in order to persuade them to vote against their own interests. "Lawyer" is hard to argue with as far as insults go,of course. They are all twats.
See the "It's Grim Up North London" serial cartoon in that extreme right wing magazine ..... Private Eye
It's Grip Up North London is hilarious, but it is funny precisely because it is a caricature based on a tiny kernel of truth. I wouldn't characterise Private Eye as left or right wing, its default position is a kind of juvenile attack on authority from a position of extreme privilege. I find about 99% of it completely unfunny, to be honest. I am more of a Frankie Boyle kind of person.
It doesn't have to be accurate as long as it is believed and it is.
Its Cameron's 'kitchen suppers' and EdM' 'ordinary folk' of Dartmouth Park and its:
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
I thought it was only around 20%?
It`s a lot better than the approx 10% (maybe less) that we have got.
There are only two ways out of this: containment or herd immunity (vaccination is a form of herd immunity). I`ve always been in the latter camp and still am. We`ve got to learn to live with a new threat, which is going nowhere.
Interesting to see Foxy post this morning that he`s also beginning to think that the virus is endemic.
Both still a looooong way from what is required though. Agree that this thing is going to be around for the long-term without a vaccine.
Needs someone more mathmatically gifted than me to work this through - but if no herd immunity and R = 1 then 100 infections, go 100/100/100/100/100.
If 20% immune, then 100/80/64/51/41 etc
I posted some numbers the other day. IIRC at 26% immune, with an R number of 1.35 or less would lead to a stable/falling rate of infection.
I *believe* that this is what Sweden is aiming for - suppress R with a "light" lockdown, at which point any immunity will help suppress the disease.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
I basically agree with all that (I'm not sure you're saying anything controversial)
In brief, it is too soon to tell with Sweden.
Yep, just replying to the 'big ouch' comment. It's not a big ouch unless you're expecting Sweden to have a big decline in cases or deaths at this point. They'll probably keep bobbing along at similar levels, unless behaviours change one way or another.
And, importantly, they`ll have significant herd immunity by now.
I thought it was only around 20%?
It`s a lot better than the approx 10% (maybe less) that we have got.
There are only two ways out of this: containment or herd immunity (vaccination is a form of herd immunity). I`ve always been in the latter camp and still am. We`ve got to learn to live with a new threat, which is going nowhere.
Interesting to see Foxy post this morning that he`s also beginning to think that the virus is endemic.
Both still a looooong way from what is required though. Agree that this thing is going to be around for the long-term without a vaccine.
Needs someone more mathmatically gifted than me to work this through - but if no herd immunity and R = 1 then 100 infections, go 100/100/100/100/100.
If 20% immune, then 100/80/64/51/41 etc
It's more like, with 20% immune and all else being equal, you can keep R bobbing along around 1 with slightly less severe measures / behaviours (and as Selebian says, in Sweden we are talking mainly about behaviours). It is not that at 59% you have no herd immunity then BANG at 60% you do.
I do not see how Starmer shifts Labour's big structural problem, which is the loss of its WWC support in the North and Midlands, and the loss of Scotland and, increasingly, Wales. He is another North London middle class lawyer representing an inner London seat and several of his DPP decisions are not exactly the type to endear him to these lost voters. I can see him strengthening Labour's position in well heeled / mixed urban areas with socially conscious voters who were scared of Corbyn's tax policies and Labour will probably pick up seats in the commuter belt but the risk is he accelerates declines in some of the more WWC areas.
Demographically we are becoming like the US, skilled white working class and lower middle class voters and voters in rural areas and small towns vote Tory/GOP, the poorest voters and ethnic minorities in big cities vote Labour/Democrat.
As in the US it is now suburban higher earning voters who are the key swing voters
Also the least educated voters support the Tories whilst Graduates vote Labour or other parties.
That's always been the case. Better educated people tend to be more left wing. Certainly the extreme right attracts the less educated and intelligent people.
I'm quite new here, is this the sort of tripe I'll have to get used to?
That particular trope is quite fun because it explains why lefties get so very, very angry when they get landslided by those they consider to be their intellectual inferiors.
I rarely get angry with the people but they do often disappoint me. Sometimes terribly so.
Didn't Marx say: "I am a socialist not because I love the poor, but because I hate them."
I find that wearing a mask steams up my specs so I can't see. I blame the Tories
Immerse your specs in soapy water then wipe them dry before putting the mask on. The soap reduces the surface tension of the water so tiny droplets do not form.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
On your last point: all any health service in the world can do is push deaths into the future. Doing it for 30 minutes is probably a waste of everyone’s time. Doing it for 30 years is why we have things like chemotherapy.
Indeed, I should have been more specific. The difference is that lockdown alone (in the absence of vaccine, improved treatment, better testing and isolation) only extends life by a time period similar to that of the lockdown (a little longer depending on how long it takes after a lockdown for infections to rise to pre-lockdown levels). Other unpleasant treatments are intended to extend life well beyond the treatment length.
I don't think that's the purpose of lockdown. Lockdown is a temporary measure that allows you to control the epidemic and buys you time to implement more targeted measures that test, track and separate the infected from the healthy. The fact the UK and some other governments have totally screwed this up doesn't mean lockdown can't be effective for its intended purpose, as some other more competent governments have demonstrated.
If Hancock is going to go over anything, it'll be this advice/directive. This is the true scandal, not testing numbers or bits of dodgy PPE that weren't actually critically needed.
I have backed Boris to exit at prices from 10s to 22s from Now until Sep 2021.
It is sad in a way that he has waited all this time to be PM only to have it snatched from him by a cruel illness. But he is not the Boris we knew and that is the Boris that people wanted. Not this subdued one (who lies in the HoC possibly because he no longer has the verve or energy to bat things like that away).
On the other hand, while still not wishing this illness on anyone, it is difficult to feel sorry for an opportunist solipsistic twat when the thing they managed to wangle for themselves evaporates before they can enjoy it.
The infamous "PB Tories" would be far better off admitting that Boris lost this one, and needs to up his game, than waste hours of our shortened lives looking for tiny small print that means his gaffe wasn't quite so bad. Ludicrous
I think PB Labour are in denial about the polls.
Those are meaningless right now. Who in their right mind is thinking about who to vote for at the next election?
PMQs is surely meaningless right now then. No one watches it and we're 5 years from an election.
I would not say meaningless. It's a niche habit, watching PMQs, but the people who do watch it tend to be opinionated and influential amongst their peers. So for example, there could be a group of guys hanging out (once that is allowed again) and only one might have seen Starmer and Johnson jousting, but he will pass on his view of it to the wider gathering, possibly even show it to them on his phone. In this way, perceptions formed by PMQs - e.g. Johnson the bumbler, Starmer sharp as a tack - spread far beyond what you might expect from the bare viewing figures.
Opinionated people do not tend to be influential amongst their peers, especially if they bang on about politics, showing videos of PMQs on a lads night out.
Instead opinionated people think they are influential. Unfortunately for them, it is more likely they have the opposite effect.
I didn't mean they would bang on about PMQs on a lads night out. I didn't mean being noisy at all, quite the opposite. Often there is a quiet intellectual in a male friendship group and he will exert an influence much greater than a superficial observer would assume. The others will rib him, try to provoke, all of that, but in truth they value and look up to him. So when he speaks - e.g. to opine either way on Keir Starmer - it carries more weight than the banter they usually fling around.
I have backed Boris to exit at prices from 10s to 22s from Now until Sep 2021.
It is sad in a way that he has waited all this time to be PM only to have it snatched from him by a cruel illness. But he is not the Boris we knew and that is the Boris that people wanted. Not this subdued one (who lies in the HoC possibly because he no longer has the verve or energy to bat things like that away).
On the other hand, while still not wishing this illness on anyone, it is difficult to feel sorry for an opportunist solipsistic twat when the thing they managed to wangle for themselves evaporates before they can enjoy it.
The infamous "PB Tories" would be far better off admitting that Boris lost this one, and needs to up his game, than waste hours of our shortened lives looking for tiny small print that means his gaffe wasn't quite so bad. Ludicrous
I think PB Labour are in denial about the polls.
Those are meaningless right now. Who in their right mind is thinking about who to vote for at the next election?
PMQs is surely meaningless right now then. No one watches it and we're 5 years from an election.
I would not say meaningless. It's a niche habit, watching PMQs, but the people who do watch it tend to be opinionated and influential amongst their peers. So for example, there could be a group of guys hanging out (once that is allowed again) and only one might have seen Starmer and Johnson jousting, but he will pass on his view of it to the wider gathering, possibly even show it to them on his phone. In this way, perceptions formed by PMQs - e.g. Johnson the bumbler, Starmer sharp as a tack - spread far beyond what you might expect from the bare viewing figures.
Opinionated people do not tend to be influential amongst their peers, especially if they bang on about politics, showing videos of PMQs on a lads night out.
Instead opinionated people think they are influential. Unfortunately for them, it is more likely they have the opposite effect.
I didn't mean they would bang on about PMQs on a lads night out. I didn't mean being noisy at all, quite the opposite. Often there is a quiet intellectual in a male friendship group and he will exert an influence much greater than a superficial observer would assume. The others will rib him, try to provoke, all of that, but in truth they value and look up to him. So when he speaks - e.g. to opine either way on Keir Starmer - it carries more weight than the banter they usually fling around.
I know that guy. His name isn't Ulabanik by any chance?
I find that wearing a mask steams up my specs so I can't see. I blame the Tories
Immerse your specs in soapy water then wipe them dry before putting the mask on. The soap reduces the surface tension of the water so tiny droplets do not form.
same as washing your goggles out with washing up liquid before diving. (Spittle also works of course.)
I would imagine that "North London lawyer" will be trotted out regularly as it has been by some of the Tory footsoldiers on this forum. As a South Londoner I have no real problem with the use of North London as a kind of lazy shorthand for all that's wrong with the world, with its evocation of Harold Pinter and Polly Toynbee comparing notes on their Tuscan second homes over a bottle of Chablis and a vegetarian lasagne, although of course in reality North London is home to some of the most deprived parts of the country and has probably hosted more food banks than dinner parties. I guess "North London" has come to serve the same purpose as "New York" in US politics, firing up the ever-present sense of cultural inferiority of the lower middle classes (with a barely-acknowledged side-order of casual anti-Semitism) in order to persuade them to vote against their own interests. "Lawyer" is hard to argue with as far as insults go,of course. They are all twats.
See the "It's Grim Up North London" serial cartoon in that extreme right wing magazine ..... Private Eye
It's Grip Up North London is hilarious, but it is funny precisely because it is a caricature based on a tiny kernel of truth. I wouldn't characterise Private Eye as left or right wing, its default position is a kind of juvenile attack on authority from a position of extreme privilege. I find about 99% of it completely unfunny, to be honest. I am more of a Frankie Boyle kind of person.
I would say that it is something quintessentially British in the serious-point-wrapped-in-juvenile-humour.
The upset that some on the Left have felt when they attack the left is affirmation of their value - if everyone complains, you are doing something right.
As someone who has been wined and dined in that part of town, there is a comic truth in this stuff. A personal story, of such folk.....
I was invited to an art exhibition at a gallery. On arrival, two gigantic doormen were engaged in moving on a homeless person. I entered and was given a brochure. Printed on the kind of paper and using the kind of inks that involved the maximum amount of resources. I was also given a glass of champagne, bottle carefully presented to show the big name label and the year.
The brochure spent some pages declaring its hatred for capitalism and environmental damage. It did so in terms that J. Corbyn would have found a bit sharp.
The art was all priced at above £30K. One piece in particular caught me eye. Someone had printed the famous Che picture on a canvas in false colour. Then cut out the eyes. and placed behind the canvas a couple of discs with writing patterns driven by an electric motor, The whole entitled "A Permanent State of Revolution". Priced well into 6 figures.
As I left, the security guards were assisting a policeman in shoving the homeless guy into a van.
... Interesting to see Foxy post this morning that he`s also beginning to think that the virus is endemic.
Both still a looooong way from what is required though. Agree that this thing is going to be around for the long-term without a vaccine.
Just an observation that we had a vaccine for smallpox for 200 years(ish) before it was eradicated.
Was the vaccine universally adopted at the start of those 200 years?
Of course not. The world was a very different place back then with no production facilities or pharmacuteical companies. Smallpox killed about 500K per year in Europe/UK back than.
When a mass vaccination program was organised (1950), the disease declined significantly in 10 years. Another 20 years elapsed before it was eliminated in 1980.
Yes. we had a vaccine for 150 years before we got moving.
The point is that a vaccine's existance does not eliminate a disease
... Interesting to see Foxy post this morning that he`s also beginning to think that the virus is endemic.
Both still a looooong way from what is required though. Agree that this thing is going to be around for the long-term without a vaccine.
Just an observation that we had a vaccine for smallpox for 200 years(ish) before it was eradicated.
Was the vaccine universally adopted at the start of those 200 years?
Of course not. The world was a very different place back then with no production facilities or pharmacuteical companies. Smallpox killed about 500K per year in Europe/UK back than.
When a mass vaccination program was organised (1950), the disease declined significantly in 10 years. Another 20 years elapsed before it was eliminated in 1980.
Yes. we had a vaccine for 150 years before we got moving.
The point is that a vaccine's existance does not eliminate a disease
But when applied universally it does. I don't doubt for a second that there will be a massive worldwide effort on this front.
I find that wearing a mask steams up my specs so I can't see. I blame the Tories
Immerse your specs in soapy water then wipe them dry before putting the mask on. The soap reduces the surface tension of the water so tiny droplets do not form.
same as washing your goggles out with washing up liquid before diving. (Spittle also works of course.)
If you prefer that are also anti-fogging sprays.
Though, if your mask is ejecting air towards your glasses, it is not fitting correctly.
I do not see how Starmer shifts Labour's big structural problem, which is the loss of its WWC support in the North and Midlands, and the loss of Scotland and, increasingly, Wales. He is another North London middle class lawyer representing an inner London seat and several of his DPP decisions are not exactly the type to endear him to these lost voters. I can see him strengthening Labour's position in well heeled / mixed urban areas with socially conscious voters who were scared of Corbyn's tax policies and Labour will probably pick up seats in the commuter belt but the risk is he accelerates declines in some of the more WWC areas.
Demographically we are becoming like the US, skilled white working class and lower middle class voters and voters in rural areas and small towns vote Tory/GOP, the poorest voters and ethnic minorities in big cities vote Labour/Democrat.
As in the US it is now suburban higher earning voters who are the key swing voters
Also the least educated voters support the Tories whilst Graduates vote Labour or other parties.
That's always been the case. Better educated people tend to be more left wing. Certainly the extreme right attracts the less educated and intelligent people.
I'm quite new here, is this the sort of tripe I'll have to get used to?
That particular trope is quite fun because it explains why lefties get so very, very angry when they get landslided by those they consider to be their intellectual inferiors.
I rarely get angry with the people but they do often disappoint me. Sometimes terribly so.
Didn't Marx say: "I am a socialist not because I love the poor, but because I hate them."
Well if he didn't he should have done. Because that's right. The presence of the poor in a world of plenty is offensive to the ordered mind. It irritates. Thus the situation must be rectified.
1. Sweden should be worse (at this point) than countries that enforced lockdown -> seems to be the case, compared to near neighbours anyway. If not, then it would suggest (with hindsight, though at the time still sensible, I think) that full lockdown was over-reaction.
2. With normal behaviour, things in Sweden should be pretty horrendous, according to what we think we understand (i.e life as normal R ~ 3). They're not.
3. This is probably due to Swedes not being stupid and changing behaviour more than the fairly minimal legal restrictions and so getting R somewhere close to 1 (transport data do show major changes in behaviour)
4. Raises the question, would we (UK) still have levelled off (if not declined) without the full lockdown? We don't know. Depends on discipline and we probably had more initial cases (more through travel for business etc) so would have levelled off at a higher level. Even if we had levelled off at 8 April rather than starting decline, the extra deaths in this wave would be in the tens of thousands.
5. If health services are not overwhelmed without a lockdown then lockdown alone just pushes deaths into the future by delaying infection. But those deaths might be avoided completely if there is a vaccine or effective treatment before they happen. So its too early to judge whether Sweden will have more deaths in the end than if full lockdown had been enforced.
On your last point: all any health service in the world can do is push deaths into the future. Doing it for 30 minutes is probably a waste of everyone’s time. Doing it for 30 years is why we have things like chemotherapy.
Indeed, I should have been more specific. The difference is that lockdown alone (in the absence of vaccine, improved treatment, better testing and isolation) only extends life by a time period similar to that of the lockdown (a little longer depending on how long it takes after a lockdown for infections to rise to pre-lockdown levels). Other unpleasant treatments are intended to extend life well beyond the treatment length.
I don't think that's the purpose of lockdown. Lockdown is a temporary measure that allows you to control the epidemic and buys you time to implement more targeted measures that test, track and separate the infected from the healthy. The fact the UK and some other governments have totally screwed this up doesn't mean lockdown can't be effective for its intended purpose, as some other more competent governments have demonstrated.
Agree absolutely (I clearly wasn't sufficiently clear)
I would imagine that "North London lawyer" will be trotted out regularly as it has been by some of the Tory footsoldiers on this forum. As a South Londoner I have no real problem with the use of North London as a kind of lazy shorthand for all that's wrong with the world, with its evocation of Harold Pinter and Polly Toynbee comparing notes on their Tuscan second homes over a bottle of Chablis and a vegetarian lasagne, although of course in reality North London is home to some of the most deprived parts of the country and has probably hosted more food banks than dinner parties. I guess "North London" has come to serve the same purpose as "New York" in US politics, firing up the ever-present sense of cultural inferiority of the lower middle classes (with a barely-acknowledged side-order of casual anti-Semitism) in order to persuade them to vote against their own interests. "Lawyer" is hard to argue with as far as insults go,of course. They are all twats.
I do not see how Starmer shifts Labour's big structural problem, which is the loss of its WWC support in the North and Midlands, and the loss of Scotland and, increasingly, Wales. He is another North London middle class lawyer representing an inner London seat and several of his DPP decisions are not exactly the type to endear him to these lost voters. I can see him strengthening Labour's position in well heeled / mixed urban areas with socially conscious voters who were scared of Corbyn's tax policies and Labour will probably pick up seats in the commuter belt but the risk is he accelerates declines in some of the more WWC areas.
Demographically we are becoming like the US, skilled white working class and lower middle class voters and voters in rural areas and small towns vote Tory/GOP, the poorest voters and ethnic minorities in big cities vote Labour/Democrat.
As in the US it is now suburban higher earning voters who are the key swing voters
Also the least educated voters support the Tories whilst Graduates vote Labour or other parties.
That's always been the case. Better educated people tend to be more left wing. Certainly the extreme right attracts the less educated and intelligent people.
I'm quite new here, is this the sort of tripe I'll have to get used to?
That particular trope is quite fun because it explains why lefties get so very, very angry when they get landslided by those they consider to be their intellectual inferiors.
I rarely get angry with the people but they do often disappoint me. Sometimes terribly so.
Didn't Marx say: "I am a socialist not because I love the poor, but because I hate them."
Well if he didn't he should have done. Because that's right. The presence of the poor in a world of plenty is offensive to the ordered mind. It irritates. Thus the situation must be rectified.
Yeah that's just the angle he was coming at it from.
This doesn't sound good. Seems the Pillar 2 testing (Deloitte etc), making up 2/3 of all tests now, isn't being reported. That means cases and deaths identified with CV are under--reported. Also GPs and others who need to know if people have had an infection don't have that information.
I thought nothing came out of a black hole? According to this report 'He said data was not “disappearing” and that “there was a recent technical error relating to postcode data, but this has now been fixed, and a fully corrected data flow was issued last week. This did not prevent public health bodies from undertaking contact tracing of those with positive results”.
It's a funny type of black hole where everything remains where it was. Or was it just a technical glitch that has been sorted. Journalistic hyperbole.
I do not see how Starmer shifts Labour's big structural problem, which is the loss of its WWC support in the North and Midlands, and the loss of Scotland and, increasingly, Wales. He is another North London middle class lawyer representing an inner London seat and several of his DPP decisions are not exactly the type to endear him to these lost voters. I can see him strengthening Labour's position in well heeled / mixed urban areas with socially conscious voters who were scared of Corbyn's tax policies and Labour will probably pick up seats in the commuter belt but the risk is he accelerates declines in some of the more WWC areas.
Demographically we are becoming like the US, skilled white working class and lower middle class voters and voters in rural areas and small towns vote Tory/GOP, the poorest voters and ethnic minorities in big cities vote Labour/Democrat.
As in the US it is now suburban higher earning voters who are the key swing voters
Also the least educated voters support the Tories whilst Graduates vote Labour or other parties.
That's always been the case. Better educated people tend to be more left wing. Certainly the extreme right attracts the less educated and intelligent people.
I'm quite new here, is this the sort of tripe I'll have to get used to?
That particular trope is quite fun because it explains why lefties get so very, very angry when they get landslided by those they consider to be their intellectual inferiors.
I rarely get angry with the people but they do often disappoint me. Sometimes terribly so.
Didn't Marx say: "I am a socialist not because I love the poor, but because I hate them."
Well if he didn't he should have done. Because that's right. The presence of the poor in a world of plenty is offensive to the ordered mind. It irritates. Thus the situation must be rectified.
I might suggest you read up on the various ways in which dictatorial regimes have tried to deal with the underclass.
You will laugh or throw up according to the strength of your stomach and the darkness of your sense of humour.
Trying to tidy up the poor has a long history. It is... interesting...... to see what has been tried.
Comments
Italy Govt: Here's free face masks
Germany Govt: Here's free face masks
UK Govt: Here's the BBC website to tell you how to make your own
What the surveys don't show is how graduates in private and public sector employment split.
It should matter but wont IMO
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/13/le-la-covid-coronavirus-acronym-feminine-academie-francaise-france
Omitting the obvious point in the header that Labour's single attack at every election I have ever seen is '24 hrs to save the NHS'. How is that attack line going to work now?
PMQs really don't make much difference. The person asking the question should always win. From social media (and on here) Miliband stuffed Cameron every time. Then Corbyn did him over. Then Corbyn hammered May. Then Corbyn outclassed Johnson. So I was told every Wednesday and people who are probably too embarrassed to recall it, stated regularly on PB. How did that end up?
Everyone loves a lawyer trying to win on a technicality in the midst of a pandemic...don't they?
Starmer isn't Corbyn, for that, most are grateful. But most of those claiming him as the new messiah, didn't vote Conservative. In reality, he is the guy that lost Brexit for Remainers.
It would be interesting to know regarding the 40 that died today: when did they get admitted? When did they start having symptoms?
Today: "you should wear masks anywhere with a roof"
Even if commuters got the memo about the tyre-squealing u-turn, was there time to buy or make a mask, even if you knew how?
Since the contact data is held on individual devices until you give permission for it to be shared after you get the symptoms, it isn’t obvious what information the government can be getting, beyond the number of downloads, to indicate whether or how it is working, except for what must be a very rare incidence of it triggering.
Instead opinionated people think they are influential. Unfortunately for them, it is more likely they have the opposite effect.
But probably the Ministers will be less busy then yes. They're working pretty flat out at the minute and are regularly on the news channels.
Far easier to wait until told to do so and then demand more 'clarity'.
There are only two ways out of this: containment or herd immunity (vaccination is a form of herd immunity). I`ve always been in the latter camp and still am. We`ve got to learn to live with a new threat, which is going nowhere.
Interesting to see Foxy post this morning that he`s also beginning to think that the virus is endemic.
He cannot even get the basics right like consulting the folder lovingly prepared for him with all the answers the civil service can think of, and all the answers his political team came up with.
Boris should invite his old school chum Dave round for some socially-distanced Zoom advice on how to prepare for and answer PMQs. Here it could even be relevant they both went to Eton because they might have been taught the same study techniques by the same teachers.
Otherwise it will have to be paternity leave in half-hour chunks every Wednesday, and eventually the Speaker will smell a rat.
If most people wear a mask then the others would want to.
Aside from stacking your phone with another that has the app for 15 minutes and then one of you telling it that you have been diagnosed, I don't suppose there's any way of testing it yourself.
If 20% immune, then 100/80/64/51/41 etc
Its Cameron's 'kitchen suppers' and EdM' 'ordinary folk' of Dartmouth Park and its:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPTiDNzUSik
https://twitter.com/HSJEditor/status/1260469435183357954
I *believe* that this is what Sweden is aiming for - suppress R with a "light" lockdown, at which point any immunity will help suppress the disease.
To get to 20% nationally they'd need 10k deaths, 3x what they have. Either that or they'd need to shield the elderly, but nobody has managed that anywhere - if infections are in the wider population, it gets to the elderly eventually.
It can't be eradication or they would have quarantine on entry to the country.
I suspect they want things to be kept under reasonable control while seeing what happens in other countries.
Ventilation on flights and public transport should be strengthened both with air filters and natural ventilation
Ryanair will be removing all the glass from the windows...
https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1260556783787089920
https://twitter.com/Nigel_Farage/status/1260571089303986176
I have backed Boris to exit at prices from 10s to 22s from Now until Sep 2021.
It is sad in a way that he has waited all this time to be PM only to have it snatched from him by a cruel illness. But he is not the Boris we knew and that is the Boris that people wanted. Not this subdued one (who lies in the HoC possibly because he no longer has the verve or energy to bat things like that away).
On the other hand, while still not wishing this illness on anyone, it is difficult to feel sorry for an opportunist solipsistic twat when the thing they managed to wangle for themselves evaporates before they can enjoy it.
The upset that some on the Left have felt when they attack the left is affirmation of their value - if everyone complains, you are doing something right.
As someone who has been wined and dined in that part of town, there is a comic truth in this stuff. A personal story, of such folk.....
I was invited to an art exhibition at a gallery. On arrival, two gigantic doormen were engaged in moving on a homeless person. I entered and was given a brochure. Printed on the kind of paper and using the kind of inks that involved the maximum amount of resources. I was also given a glass of champagne, bottle carefully presented to show the big name label and the year.
The brochure spent some pages declaring its hatred for capitalism and environmental damage. It did so in terms that J. Corbyn would have found a bit sharp.
The art was all priced at above £30K. One piece in particular caught me eye. Someone had printed the famous Che picture on a canvas in false colour. Then cut out the eyes. and placed behind the canvas a couple of discs with writing patterns driven by an electric motor, The whole entitled "A Permanent State of Revolution". Priced well into 6 figures.
As I left, the security guards were assisting a policeman in shoving the homeless guy into a van.
When a mass vaccination program was organised (1950), the disease declined significantly in 10 years. Another 20 years elapsed before it was eliminated in 1980.
Yes. we had a vaccine for 150 years before we got moving.
The point is that a vaccine's existance does not eliminate a disease
Though, if your mask is ejecting air towards your glasses, it is not fitting correctly.
It's a funny type of black hole where everything remains where it was. Or was it just a technical glitch that has been sorted. Journalistic hyperbole.
You will laugh or throw up according to the strength of your stomach and the darkness of your sense of humour.
Trying to tidy up the poor has a long history. It is... interesting...... to see what has been tried.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3293317/
You're welcome.