The Daily Telegraph seems to be turning on their erstwhile polemicist and back of fag packet leader writer. Headlines: "Only a Government team devoid of women could have drafted a plan so full of holes" and just now: "Keir Starmer just took Boris Johnson apart like a Duplo train set "
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.
This is the document, which I quoted from earlier.
...Unless required to be in hospital (see Annex B ), patients must not remain in an NHS bed. 1.3 Based on these criteria, acute and community hospitals must discharge all patients as soon as they are clinically safe to do so. Transfer from the ward should happen within one hour of that decision being made to a designated discharge area. Discharge from hospital should happen as soon after that as possible, normally within 2 hours. 1.4 Implementing these Service Requirements is expected to free up to at least 15,000 beds by Friday 27th March 2020, with discharge flows maintained after that. Acute and community hospitals must keep a list of all those suitable for discharge and report on the number and percentage of patients on the list who have left the hospital and the number of delayed discharges through the daily situation report....
Countering Starmer is difficult? Nah. Look at all these rich veins of electoral material:
1. Cultural. Starmer is the archetypal metropolitan elite Remainer, and his beliefs on a host of cultural issues are diametrically-opposed to electorally-important swathes of the country. He also wants to give all EU citizens the right to vote in General Elections, diluting the franchise enjoyed by existing citizens and granting the left a permanent electoral boost. Weaponise as usual.
2. Economics. Starmer hasn't specifically withdrawn a single one of Corbyn's loony policies, and will find it very difficult within his party to move away from the addiction to outright theft that motivates all their other actions. Contrary to what some on here believe, an economic crisis will make people _more_ desperate to hang on to their assets, not less. Attack, attack, attack.
3. Personal. Starmer is a boring charisma vacuum, a Mogadon Man. He's a sleeping aid, not a Prime Minister. Attack, attack, a ... snooze.
4. Party. The utter lunatics who tried desperately to propel Corbyn, McDonnell, and Abbott into power are all still snarling and gnashing away behind Mr. Boring. The far left, the communists, the anti-patriots, the Britain-haters, there'll all still there - put Starmer into power, and you put them into power. This may be Labour's most dangerous aspect.
So devising a political attack strategy is really not hard at all. I could do it in my sleep ... after listening to Sir Keith talk for a few minutes
I'm loving the complacency from the PB Tories.
Out of interest why do you think it's so hilarious to call Starmer Sir Keith?
Complacency? I just set out a detailed roadmap for how to destroy Starmer politically, which is a task of the utmost importance.
The complacent ones are those who think a good PMQs means that Starmer is nailed on for next PM and we should just give up and go home.
Nope, not going to go it - not now, not ever.
I can't see anyone claiming Starmer is "nailed on" for next PM. Who is saying that?
Your so-called roadmap is nothing more than a catalogue of your own tribal prejudices. If all those things you say are true then there wouldn't be a snowball's chance in hell of Starmer winning an election.
The fact is Starmer is exposing all of Johnson's weaknesses and that is what rattling his more thoughtful fans.
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.
This is the bit I don't understand. London has a lower R. London also has most travel and is most densely populated. London deaths have dropped like a stone, lower than many other regions.
'Consequently having more immunity' - London is being talked of as having 10% immunity. According to the boffins, that isn't remotely close enough to have an effect. Yet something is. Is the 10% figure wrong? Have Londoners taken lockdown more serious (I'd say not)
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.
I'm sure nothing like that has ever happened on either New or Old Bond Street.
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...
When they ask window or aisle? they are asking if you would like to pay extra to have the glass
Modifying ventilation on aircraft would be somewhere between impossible and very, very hard. Short of installing plastic sheeted containment, as used on med vac flights.
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.
This is the document, which I quoted from earlier.
...Unless required to be in hospital (see Annex B ), patients must not remain in an NHS bed. 1.3 Based on these criteria, acute and community hospitals must discharge all patients as soon as they are clinically safe to do so. Transfer from the ward should happen within one hour of that decision being made to a designated discharge area. Discharge from hospital should happen as soon after that as possible, normally within 2 hours. 1.4 Implementing these Service Requirements is expected to free up to at least 15,000 beds by Friday 27th March 2020, with discharge flows maintained after that. Acute and community hospitals must keep a list of all those suitable for discharge and report on the number and percentage of patients on the list who have left the hospital and the number of delayed discharges through the daily situation report....
surely ''clinically safe to do so'' is the key phrase here. It sounds very much like COVID got into care homes because of clinical decisions in hospitals and not ministerial directives.
... 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.
The massive worldwide smallpox drive took 30 years. If we get a coronavirus vaccine by tomorrow, I doubt it will be eliminated by Xmas.
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?
Ah see, so it rings true to you. Yes, it could be him. But maybe more useful - for illustrating universality - is to point to examples from great works of fiction. Michael Corleone springs to mind. Or of course Radar from MASH.
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.
This is the bit I don't understand. London has a lower R. London also has most travel and is most densely populated. London deaths have dropped like a stone, lower than many other regions.
'Consequently having more immunity' - London is being talked of as having 10% immunity. According to the boffins, that isn't remotely close enough to have an effect. Yet something is. Is the 10% figure wrong? Have Londoners taken lockdown more serious (I'd say not)
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
It works in the same way as Sir Keir's alleged gotcha - it's technically true.
It was a perfectly reasonable question. Was the advice that there was nothing to worry about appropriate at the time?
At what time? The PHE advice on the 25th February explicitly said that is applied 'for the current position in the UK where there is currently no transmission of COVID-19 in the community.'
By the 12th March, that was - in Covid-19 terms - a very old document. The situation had changed dramatically in the interim, and much other advice had been given. If his criticism is that PHE should have been marked the document as 'withdrawn' earlier, then he is arguably right. But it's a entirely synthetic lawyerly point, purely designed (and successfully) to trap Boris into saying something which could be presented as a gotcha. This may impress some people.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
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?
You would need to ask other IT company CEOs, though put it this way, I am told by a reliable source that the IT "community" was spitting about it when it was announced - she is not at all respected by her peers.
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.
This is the document, which I quoted from earlier.
...Unless required to be in hospital (see Annex B ), patients must not remain in an NHS bed. 1.3 Based on these criteria, acute and community hospitals must discharge all patients as soon as they are clinically safe to do so. Transfer from the ward should happen within one hour of that decision being made to a designated discharge area. Discharge from hospital should happen as soon after that as possible, normally within 2 hours. 1.4 Implementing these Service Requirements is expected to free up to at least 15,000 beds by Friday 27th March 2020, with discharge flows maintained after that. Acute and community hospitals must keep a list of all those suitable for discharge and report on the number and percentage of patients on the list who have left the hospital and the number of delayed discharges through the daily situation report....
surely ''clinically safe to do so'' is the key phrase here. It sounds very much like COVID got into care homes because of clinical decisions in hospitals and not ministerial directives.
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.
If he's quiet, there is no way he's a modern lefty.
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.
The Tories actually won graduates in 2015 and Romney won graduates in the US in 2012.
However Boris and Trump are doing much better with working class voters than Cameron and Romney did
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.
Looking further it seems some aggregate reporting is happening, but not reporting linked to individuals. So the test labs will say, we did X tests today, of which Y were positive. But if someone dies there's no way of telling whether they were tested , so they won't be reported as a CV19 death.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
Apparently he prefers people not to. Unlike Alan Sugar who even has his twitter handle as Lord_Sugar
The Daily Telegraph seems to be turning on their erstwhile polemicist and back of fag packet leader writer. Headlines: "Only a Government team devoid of women could have drafted a plan so full of holes" and just now: "Keir Starmer just took Boris Johnson apart like a Duplo train set "
Aren't Priti Patel and Liz Truss 'women'? Or is there some reason why the Telegraph didn't note their existence.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
perhaps we should just call him learned Counsel. Or better, Coun-sel.
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.
This is the bit I don't understand. London has a lower R. London also has most travel and is most densely populated. London deaths have dropped like a stone, lower than many other regions.
'Consequently having more immunity' - London is being talked of as having 10% immunity. According to the boffins, that isn't remotely close enough to have an effect. Yet something is. Is the 10% figure wrong? Have Londoners taken lockdown more serious (I'd say not)
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
The Daily Telegraph seems to be turning on their erstwhile polemicist and back of fag packet leader writer. Headlines: "Only a Government team devoid of women could have drafted a plan so full of holes" and just now: "Keir Starmer just took Boris Johnson apart like a Duplo train set "
Aren't Priti Patel and Liz Truss 'women'? Or is there some reason why the Telegraph didn't note their existence.
I think the inference is that they are ignored by the Misogynist-in-Chief. I guess that also goes for the rest of his cabinet, as lightweight though they are, they might ask him a difficult question.
There is a grim game going on in which the NHS are saints and government is the sinner.
How long will it be before Boris and Co capitalise on the fact that medical judgements are a matter for the saintly NHS, not wicked government officials?
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
Maybe Boris should nominate himself for a knighthood to even things up.
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.
This is the bit I don't understand. London has a lower R. London also has most travel and is most densely populated. London deaths have dropped like a stone, lower than many other regions.
'Consequently having more immunity' - London is being talked of as having 10% immunity. According to the boffins, that isn't remotely close enough to have an effect. Yet something is. Is the 10% figure wrong? Have Londoners taken lockdown more serious (I'd say not)
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Thanks you for that. They seem to me to be very important figures.
One other complication is the length of immunity. It could last only a year or two. If so, over time those that contracted the virus early will lose it before a goodly number of us obtain it.
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.
The Tories actually won graduates in 2015 and Romney won graduates in the US in 2012.
However Boris and Trump are doing much better with working class voters than Cameron and Romney did
There is a grim game going on in which the NHS are saints and government is the sinner.
How long will it be before Boris and Co capitalise on the fact that medical judgements are a matter for the saintly NHS, not wicked government officials?
Because the government is ultimately responsible, and accountable for the NHS. They can't hide behind the medics or the scientists. As Mrs T said: Advisors advise, ministers decide. Nowadays of course, it is that one particular psychopathic advisor advises, decides, and tells Bozo to waffle through a live TV broadcast.
There is a grim game going on in which the NHS are saints and government is the sinner.
How long will it be before Boris and Co capitalise on the fact that medical judgements are a matter for the saintly NHS, not wicked government officials?
Except that in this case that is not what appears to have happened.
There was an extremely strong directive from government (which I've quoted from and linked to above), issued on the 19th March, requiring the discharge of around 15,000 patients within a week.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
On the other hand all the dental surgeons at the surgery I go to want to be called “Dr”.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
perhaps we should just call him learned Counsel. Or better, Coun-sel.
It is incorrect to call him Mr Starmer, too formal to call him Starmer, too matey to call him Keir and too long to call him the Rt Honourable and Learned etc. So Sir Keir will have to serve.
Countering Starmer is difficult? Nah. Look at all these rich veins of electoral material:
1. Cultural. Starmer is the archetypal metropolitan elite Remainer, and his beliefs on a host of cultural issues are diametrically-opposed to electorally-important swathes of the country. He also wants to give all EU citizens the right to vote in General Elections, diluting the franchise enjoyed by existing citizens and granting the left a permanent electoral boost. Weaponise as usual.
2. Economics. Starmer hasn't specifically withdrawn a single one of Corbyn's loony policies, and will find it very difficult within his party to move away from the addiction to outright theft that motivates all their other actions. Contrary to what some on here believe, an economic crisis will make people _more_ desperate to hang on to their assets, not less. Attack, attack, attack.
3. Personal. Starmer is a boring charisma vacuum, a Mogadon Man. He's a sleeping aid, not a Prime Minister. Attack, attack, a ... snooze.
4. Party. The utter lunatics who tried desperately to propel Corbyn, McDonnell, and Abbott into power are all still snarling and gnashing away behind Mr. Boring. The far left, the communists, the anti-patriots, the Britain-haters, there'll all still there - put Starmer into power, and you put them into power. This may be Labour's most dangerous aspect.
So devising a political attack strategy is really not hard at all. I could do it in my sleep ... after listening to Sir Keith talk for a few minutes
I'm loving the complacency from the PB Tories.
Out of interest why do you think it's so hilarious to call Starmer Sir Keith?
Complacency? I just set out a detailed roadmap for how to destroy Starmer politically, which is a task of the utmost importance.
The complacent ones are those who think a good PMQs means that Starmer is nailed on for next PM and we should just give up and go home.
Nope, not going to go it - not now, not ever.
I can't see anyone claiming Starmer is "nailed on" for next PM. Who is saying that?
Your so-called roadmap is nothing more than a catalogue of your own tribal prejudices. If all those things you say are true then there wouldn't be a snowball's chance in hell of Starmer winning an election.
The fact is Starmer is exposing all of Johnson's weaknesses and that is what rattling his more thoughtful fans.
Ok, I get it - Labour had their first good day in about 3 years, so their supporters are happy. But one swallow doesn't make a spring.
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.
Glad to see this post because it's been on my mind. I would (instinctively and therefore probably wrongly) say that if full mass immunity comes at 60%, then half of the effect comes at approx 45%. And a quarter at approx 30%. And below 15% very little.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
Apparently he prefers people not to. Unlike Alan Sugar who even has his twitter handle as Lord_Sugar
Nicky Morgan's name on Twitter is "Bns Morgan" so that she can fit in the coronavirus hashtag within the character limit.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
perhaps we should just call him learned Counsel. Or better, Coun-sel.
It is incorrect to call him Mr Starmer, too formal to call him Starmer, too matey to call him Keir and too long to call him the Rt Honourable and Learned etc. So Sir Keir will have to serve.
The care home situation is bad... but isn't it bad everywhere that's had Covid bad? In Canada its 88% of Covid deaths isn't it?
If a disease comes along that kills the old and vulnerable and is transmitted in enclosed, densely populated areas, it's not a surprise that care homes are the epicentre
There is a grim game going on in which the NHS are saints and government is the sinner.
How long will it be before Boris and Co capitalise on the fact that medical judgements are a matter for the saintly NHS, not wicked government officials?
Except that in this case that is not what appears to have happened.
There was an extremely strong directive from government (which I've quoted from and linked to above), issued on the 19th March, requiring the discharge of around 15,000 patients within a week.
The room for medical judgment was limited.
And Boris and Co. can hardly turn on an organisation they have canonised anyway.
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?
No. Making sure the CTO or whoever had proper security teams with external audits and penetration tests might be within the CEO's remit though.
It works in the same way as Sir Keir's alleged gotcha - it's technically true.
It was a perfectly reasonable question. Was the advice that there was nothing to worry about appropriate at the time?
At what time? The PHE advice on the 25th February explicitly said that is applied 'for the current position in the UK where there is currently no transmission of COVID-19 in the community.'
By the 12th March, that was - in Covid-19 terms - a very old document. The situation had changed dramatically in the interim, and much other advice had been given. If his criticism is that PHE should have been marked the document as 'withdrawn' earlier, then he is arguably right. But it's a entirely synthetic lawyerly point, purely designed (and successfully) to trap Boris into saying something which could be presented as a gotcha. This may impress some people.
Starmer specifically mentioned 12th March. If the advice was that there was no transmission of CV19, that advice was clearly wrong. He asked whether the govt was too slow to act. It is a perfectly reasonable question. It's only a "gotcha" because Johnson doesn't want to answer "yes" to that question.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
Maybe Boris should nominate himself for a knighthood to even things 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.
The Tories actually won graduates in 2015 and Romney won graduates in the US in 2012.
However Boris and Trump are doing much better with working class voters than Cameron and Romney did
Boris and Trump, both men of the people?
Hehe, yes the Billionaire son of a multi-millionaire and the upper-middle class Eton educated fop. You can fool some of the people some of the time...
It works in the same way as Sir Keir's alleged gotcha - it's technically true.
It was a perfectly reasonable question. Was the advice that there was nothing to worry about appropriate at the time?
At what time? The PHE advice on the 25th February explicitly said that is applied 'for the current position in the UK where there is currently no transmission of COVID-19 in the community.'
By the 12th March, that was - in Covid-19 terms - a very old document. The situation had changed dramatically in the interim, and much other advice had been given. If his criticism is that PHE should have been marked the document as 'withdrawn' earlier, then he is arguably right. But it's a entirely synthetic lawyerly point, purely designed (and successfully) to trap Boris into saying something which could be presented as a gotcha. This may impress some people.
That was government guidance on 12 March. I agree with you that it was very old. That was exactly Sir Keir's point. The government was asleep at the wheel.
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Understand and thanks. London deaths have gone from 180 on 8/4 to <40 on 7/5. Hospital admissions in London have fallen by - 55 per 100,000 to 11. If R is 0.5 (as has been hinted at for London), would the expected drop be what we are seeing for London?
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.
Women, who got the vote in 1928, do not tend to go on lads' nights out, and seem to be less inclined to favour Boris. On PMQs, it's obviously not important at any particular point in time, but it builds into a narrative around leadership and competence that takes a grip over time, probably more through the media (physical and social) than through individuals. But the narrative favouring Starmer is already building, and he's only had 5.5 weeks so far.
The fact that NHS hospitals discharged elderly patients diagnosed with coronavirus and sent them back into care homes is an appalling scandal. As Dominic Lawson wrote in the Sunday Times, it shames the nation. Heads must roll.
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.
Glad to see this post because it's been on my mind. I would (instinctively and therefore probably wrongly) say that if full mass immunity comes at 60%, then half of the effect comes at approx 45%. And a quarter at approx 30%. And below 15% very little.
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.
This is the bit I don't understand. London has a lower R. London also has most travel and is most densely populated. London deaths have dropped like a stone, lower than many other regions.
'Consequently having more immunity' - London is being talked of as having 10% immunity. According to the boffins, that isn't remotely close enough to have an effect. Yet something is. Is the 10% figure wrong? Have Londoners taken lockdown more serious (I'd say not)
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Thanks you for that. They seem to me to be very important figures.
One other complication is the length of immunity. It could last only a year or two. If so, over time those that contracted the virus early will lose it before a goodly number of us obtain it.
Yes, very good. Ignore my attempt. This presents it better.
The care home situation is bad... but isn't it bad everywhere that's had Covid bad? In Canada its 88% of Covid deaths isn't it?
If a disease comes along that kills the old and vulnerable and is transmitted in enclosed, densely populated areas, it's not a surprise that care homes are the epicentre
Yes, that's true. A more relevant question is whether we were successful in avoiding it from being worse (I think a majority of care homes are still unaffected) or if we failed in preventing some of the deaths that were avoidable.
The general consensus seems to be that we made it worse than it would have been by discharging old folks from hospital into care homes without testing them, but it's possible that if we hadn't discharged any of them that more of those 15,000 patients would have caught Covid-19 in the hospitals.
Perhaps what we really needed was to create a halfway house between hospital and care home, but I've no idea if that was possible in the timeframe required.
Countering Starmer is difficult? Nah. Look at all these rich veins of electoral material:
1. Cultural. Starmer is the archetypal metropolitan elite Remainer, and his beliefs on a host of cultural issues are diametrically-opposed to electorally-important swathes of the country. He also wants to give all EU citizens the right to vote in General Elections, diluting the franchise enjoyed by existing citizens and granting the left a permanent electoral boost. Weaponise as usual.
2. Economics. Starmer hasn't specifically withdrawn a single one of Corbyn's loony policies, and will find it very difficult within his party to move away from the addiction to outright theft that motivates all their other actions. Contrary to what some on here believe, an economic crisis will make people _more_ desperate to hang on to their assets, not less. Attack, attack, attack.
3. Personal. Starmer is a boring charisma vacuum, a Mogadon Man. He's a sleeping aid, not a Prime Minister. Attack, attack, a ... snooze.
4. Party. The utter lunatics who tried desperately to propel Corbyn, McDonnell, and Abbott into power are all still snarling and gnashing away behind Mr. Boring. The far left, the communists, the anti-patriots, the Britain-haters, there'll all still there - put Starmer into power, and you put them into power. This may be Labour's most dangerous aspect.
So devising a political attack strategy is really not hard at all. I could do it in my sleep ... after listening to Sir Keith talk for a few minutes
I'm loving the complacency from the PB Tories.
Out of interest why do you think it's so hilarious to call Starmer Sir Keith?
Complacency? I just set out a detailed roadmap for how to destroy Starmer politically, which is a task of the utmost importance.
The complacent ones are those who think a good PMQs means that Starmer is nailed on for next PM and we should just give up and go home.
Nope, not going to go it - not now, not ever.
I can't see anyone claiming Starmer is "nailed on" for next PM. Who is saying that?
Your so-called roadmap is nothing more than a catalogue of your own tribal prejudices. If all those things you say are true then there wouldn't be a snowball's chance in hell of Starmer winning an election.
The fact is Starmer is exposing all of Johnson's weaknesses and that is what rattling his more thoughtful fans.
Ok, I get it - Labour had their first good day in about 3 years, so their supporters are happy. But one swallow doesn't make a spring.
I am not a Labour supporter, and never have been. I think that what Johnson and his team of small brain sycophants and psychopaths have done to the Tory party is terrible, so when I see this charlatan being taken apart by a LoTO who is credible and clever, I see it as a very good day for Britain. Long may it continue (though hopefully on other issues) until the day when we see the back of Johnson and the fools he has put into positions of responsibility . Johnson has no qualities that will make him a good PM. This will become more apparent for every month he holds office
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
Apparently he prefers people not to. Unlike Alan Sugar who even has his twitter handle as Lord_Sugar
I’m sure if he told the media that then they wouldn’t insist on doing it.
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.
This is the bit I don't understand. London has a lower R. London also has most travel and is most densely populated. London deaths have dropped like a stone, lower than many other regions.
'Consequently having more immunity' - London is being talked of as having 10% immunity. According to the boffins, that isn't remotely close enough to have an effect. Yet something is. Is the 10% figure wrong? Have Londoners taken lockdown more serious (I'd say not)
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Thanks you for that. They seem to me to be very important figures.
One other complication is the length of immunity. It could last only a year or two. If so, over time those that contracted the virus early will lose it before a goodly number of us obtain it.
Yes, very good. Ignore my attempt. This presents it better.
Looking at the curve on the graph, it is easy to see why scientists discounted the possibility of population immunity helping. "Moving" an R of 5 to 1 by altering the patterns of society - is there a precedent for that?
There is a grim game going on in which the NHS are saints and government is the sinner.
How long will it be before Boris and Co capitalise on the fact that medical judgements are a matter for the saintly NHS, not wicked government officials?
Except that in this case that is not what appears to have happened.
There was an extremely strong directive from government (which I've quoted from and linked to above), issued on the 19th March, requiring the discharge of around 15,000 patients within a week.
The room for medical judgment was limited.
And Boris and Co. can hardly turn on an organisation they have canonised anyway.
It was the fault of our saintly doctors....
Particularly as it doesn't appear that it was.
This is Annex B: Every patient on every general ward should be reviewed on a twice daily board round to determine the following. If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made. Requiring ITU or HDU care Requiring oxygen therapy/ NIV Requiring intravenous fluids NEWS2 less than 3 (clinical judgement required in patients with AF &/or chronic respiratory disease) Diminished level of consciousness where recovery realistic Acute functional impairment in excess of home/community care provision Last hours of life Requiring intravenous medication greater than b.d. (including analgesia) Undergone lower limb surgery within 48hrs Undergone thorax-abdominal/pelvic surgery with 72 hrs Within 24hrs of an invasive procedure (with attendant risk of acute life threatening deterioration)
"NEWS2 less than 3", as I understand it, refers to a score in the guidance about assessing Covid, or suspected Covid patients for deteriorating condition. The clear implication of this was that any such patients whose conditions were not deteriorating should be discharged.
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Understand and thanks. London deaths have gone from 180 on 8/4 to <40 on 7/5. Hospital admissions in London have fallen by - 55 per 100,000 to 11. If R is 0.5 (as has been hinted at for London), would the expected drop be what we are seeing for London?</p>
I think "immunity" is misused in the table, furthermore the R as quoted is a base r0. r_T is what it is regardless of immunity.
The r0 in the table look to me to correspond to the precise point at which r_T changes to 1 and hence starts an inexorable decline.
The base r0 of the Coronavirus is between 2.2 and 6.6 so you'll need 55 - 80% of the population to catch it before herd immunity kicks in if everyone can head round like normal. Nowhere is near this level, it's humans modifying their behaviour that is the crucial driver in driving down and keeping r_T below 1 not any sort of herd immunity effect.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
perhaps we should just call him learned Counsel. Or better, Coun-sel.
It is incorrect to call him Mr Starmer, too formal to call him Starmer, too matey to call him Keir and too long to call him the Rt Honourable and Learned etc. So Sir Keir will have to serve.
“We have here Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition” world very well.
There is a grim game going on in which the NHS are saints and government is the sinner.
How long will it be before Boris and Co capitalise on the fact that medical judgements are a matter for the saintly NHS, not wicked government officials?
Except that in this case that is not what appears to have happened.
There was an extremely strong directive from government (which I've quoted from and linked to above), issued on the 19th March, requiring the discharge of around 15,000 patients within a week.
The room for medical judgment was limited.
And Boris and Co. can hardly turn on an organisation they have canonised anyway.
It was the fault of our saintly doctors....
Particularly as it doesn't appear that it was.
This is Annex B: Every patient on every general ward should be reviewed on a twice daily board round to determine the following. If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made. Requiring ITU or HDU care Requiring oxygen therapy/ NIV Requiring intravenous fluids NEWS2 less than 3 (clinical judgement required in patients with AF &/or chronic respiratory disease) Diminished level of consciousness where recovery realistic Acute functional impairment in excess of home/community care provision Last hours of life Requiring intravenous medication greater than b.d. (including analgesia) Undergone lower limb surgery within 48hrs Undergone thorax-abdominal/pelvic surgery with 72 hrs Within 24hrs of an invasive procedure (with attendant risk of acute life threatening deterioration)
"NEWS2 less than 3", as I understand it, refers to a score in the guidance about assessing Covid, or suspected Covid patients for deteriorating condition. The clear implication of this was that any such patients whose conditions were not deteriorating should be discharged.
"I was only obeying orders".
Are doctors not capable of doing some thinking for themselves and asking the appropriate questions ?
The care home situation is bad... but isn't it bad everywhere that's had Covid bad? In Canada its 88% of Covid deaths isn't it?
If a disease comes along that kills the old and vulnerable and is transmitted in enclosed, densely populated areas, it's not a surprise that care homes are the epicentre
Yes - its been terrible across the British Isles - even in jurisdictions that have otherwise handled COVID well so far.
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.
It's an interesting question. Can we turn the obscene chasm between rich and poor into just a yawning gap without trampling on people's sine qua nons?
The fact that NHS hospitals discharged elderly patients diagnosed with coronavirus and sent them back into care homes is an appalling scandal. As Dominic Lawson wrote in the Sunday Times, it shames the nation. Heads must roll.
Countering Starmer is difficult? Nah. Look at all these rich veins of electoral material:
1. Cultural. Starmer is the archetypal metropolitan elite Remainer, and his beliefs on a host of cultural issues are diametrically-opposed to electorally-important swathes of the country. He also wants to give all EU citizens the right to vote in General Elections, diluting the franchise enjoyed by existing citizens and granting the left a permanent electoral boost. Weaponise as usual.
2. Economics. Starmer hasn't specifically withdrawn a single one of Corbyn's loony policies, and will find it very difficult within his party to move away from the addiction to outright theft that motivates all their other actions. Contrary to what some on here believe, an economic crisis will make people _more_ desperate to hang on to their assets, not less. Attack, attack, attack.
3. Personal. Starmer is a boring charisma vacuum, a Mogadon Man. He's a sleeping aid, not a Prime Minister. Attack, attack, a ... snooze.
4. Party. The utter lunatics who tried desperately to propel Corbyn, McDonnell, and Abbott into power are all still snarling and gnashing away behind Mr. Boring. The far left, the communists, the anti-patriots, the Britain-haters, there'll all still there - put Starmer into power, and you put them into power. This may be Labour's most dangerous aspect.
So devising a political attack strategy is really not hard at all. I could do it in my sleep ... after listening to Sir Keith talk for a few minutes
I'm loving the complacency from the PB Tories.
Out of interest why do you think it's so hilarious to call Starmer Sir Keith?
Complacency? I just set out a detailed roadmap for how to destroy Starmer politically, which is a task of the utmost importance.
The complacent ones are those who think a good PMQs means that Starmer is nailed on for next PM and we should just give up and go home.
Nope, not going to go it - not now, not ever.
I can't see anyone claiming Starmer is "nailed on" for next PM. Who is saying that?
Your so-called roadmap is nothing more than a catalogue of your own tribal prejudices. If all those things you say are true then there wouldn't be a snowball's chance in hell of Starmer winning an election.
The fact is Starmer is exposing all of Johnson's weaknesses and that is what rattling his more thoughtful fans.
Ok, I get it - Labour had their first good day in about 3 years, so their supporters are happy. But one swallow doesn't make a spring.
I am not a Labour supporter, and never have been. I think that what Johnson and his team of small brain sycophants and psychopaths have done to the Tory party is terrible, so when I see this charlatan being taken apart by a LoTO who is credible and clever, I see it as a very good day for Britain. Long may it continue (though hopefully on other issues) until the day when we see the back of Johnson and the fools he has put into positions of responsibility . Johnson has no qualities that will make him a good PM. This will become more apparent for every month he holds office
Forecasting that a political career will end in failure is so easy that it's become an axiom. But Boris has defied all such predictions so far, and I'm happy to stick my neck out and say that despite how bleak the situation may look on one particular day, he will continue to exceed expectations in the future - ably assisted by those like you who set them so low.
There is a grim game going on in which the NHS are saints and government is the sinner.
How long will it be before Boris and Co capitalise on the fact that medical judgements are a matter for the saintly NHS, not wicked government officials?
Except that in this case that is not what appears to have happened.
There was an extremely strong directive from government (which I've quoted from and linked to above), issued on the 19th March, requiring the discharge of around 15,000 patients within a week.
The room for medical judgment was limited.
And Boris and Co. can hardly turn on an organisation they have canonised anyway.
It was the fault of our saintly doctors....
Particularly as it doesn't appear that it was.
This is Annex B: Every patient on every general ward should be reviewed on a twice daily board round to determine the following. If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made. Requiring ITU or HDU care Requiring oxygen therapy/ NIV Requiring intravenous fluids NEWS2 less than 3 (clinical judgement required in patients with AF &/or chronic respiratory disease) Diminished level of consciousness where recovery realistic Acute functional impairment in excess of home/community care provision Last hours of life Requiring intravenous medication greater than b.d. (including analgesia) Undergone lower limb surgery within 48hrs Undergone thorax-abdominal/pelvic surgery with 72 hrs Within 24hrs of an invasive procedure (with attendant risk of acute life threatening deterioration)
"NEWS2 less than 3", as I understand it, refers to a score in the guidance about assessing Covid, or suspected Covid patients for deteriorating condition. The clear implication of this was that any such patients whose conditions were not deteriorating should be discharged.
"I was only obeying orders".
Are doctors not capable of doing some thinking for themselves and asking the appropriate questions ?
Of course they are. And of course the government should update out-of-date and wrong online guidance.
It works in the same way as Sir Keir's alleged gotcha - it's technically true.
It was a perfectly reasonable question. Was the advice that there was nothing to worry about appropriate at the time?
At what time? The PHE advice on the 25th February explicitly said that is applied 'for the current position in the UK where there is currently no transmission of COVID-19 in the community.'
By the 12th March, that was - in Covid-19 terms - a very old document. The situation had changed dramatically in the interim, and much other advice had been given. If his criticism is that PHE should have been marked the document as 'withdrawn' earlier, then he is arguably right. But it's a entirely synthetic lawyerly point, purely designed (and successfully) to trap Boris into saying something which could be presented as a gotcha. This may impress some people.
Starmer specifically mentioned 12th March. If the advice was that there was no transmission of CV19, that advice was clearly wrong. He asked whether the govt was too slow to act. It is a perfectly reasonable question. It's only a "gotcha" because Johnson doesn't want to answer "yes" to that question.
No, the advice was that AT THE TIME THE DOCUMENT WAS WRITTEN, there was no community transmission, and that FOR AS LONG AS THAT REMAINED TRUE, it was THEREFORE unlikely that anyone in a care home would be infected. So the advice wasn't wrong in respect of care homes (it might in hindsight have been wrong on the question of whether there was community transmission by Feb 25th, but that's a different point, and not one Sir Keir was making).
My problem with Sir Keir's approach is that it's all about trying to trap Boris into a gotcha, and nothing about the actual mistake - possibly scandal, although not every mistake is a scandal - which was that infected patients were being discharged from hospital into care homes. Who made that mistake, and when, and why, is something that will certainly have to be seriously investigated. Nit-picking about this document is actually irrelevant to it.
The fact that NHS hospitals discharged elderly patients diagnosed with coronavirus and sent them back into care homes is an appalling scandal. As Dominic Lawson wrote in the Sunday Times, it shames the nation. Heads must roll.
Mid-March now feels sufficiently long ago that I doubt anyone remembers, but Chris Whitty did say in one of the press conferences that the government would publish its scientific models. He even described this as (paraphrasing) "for the benefit of other countries that can learn from our modelling".
As far as I know, this was overtaken by events - the Imperial model appeared shortly afterwards, and contradicted whatever the government's previous models had said.
However, we're past that phase now. Has there been any indication that the government (or SAGE) might publish something that outlines the parameters of the strategy?
The fact that NHS hospitals discharged elderly patients diagnosed with coronavirus and sent them back into care homes is an appalling scandal. As Dominic Lawson wrote in the Sunday Times, it shames the nation. Heads must roll.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
perhaps we should just call him learned Counsel. Or better, Coun-sel.
It is incorrect to call him Mr Starmer, too formal to call him Starmer, too matey to call him Keir and too long to call him the Rt Honourable and Learned etc. So Sir Keir will have to serve.
“We have here Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition” world very well.
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Understand and thanks. London deaths have gone from 180 on 8/4 to <40 on 7/5. Hospital admissions in London have fallen by - 55 per 100,000 to 11. If R is 0.5 (as has been hinted at for London), would the expected drop be what we are seeing for London?</p>
I think "immunity" is misused in the table, furthermore the R as quoted is a base r0. r_T is what it is regardless of immunity.
The r0 in the table look to me to correspond to the precise point at which r_T changes to 1 and hence starts an inexorable decline.
The base r0 of the Coronavirus is between 2.2 and 6.6 so you'll need 55 - 80% of the population to catch it before herd immunity kicks in if everyone can head round like normal. Nowhere is near this level, it's humans modifying their behaviour that is the crucial driver in driving down and keeping r_T below 1 not any sort of herd immunity effect.
There is a risk of a circular argument here, isn't there.
Who made that mistake, and when, and why, is something that will certainly have to be seriously investigated. Nit-picking about this document is actually irrelevant to it.
This is precisely the point Starmer is skewering the Gov't on. They were asleep at the wheel.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
Apparently he prefers people not to. Unlike Alan Sugar who even has his twitter handle as Lord_Sugar
I’m sure if he told the media that then they wouldn’t insist on doing it.
Which suggests that the “apparently” is spin
For what it's worth he signed his letter earlier today as "Keir Starmer" and did not use the "Sir".
I see no reason to make any assumptions beyond his own usage.
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Understand and thanks. London deaths have gone from 180 on 8/4 to <40 on 7/5. Hospital admissions in London have fallen by - 55 per 100,000 to 11. If R is 0.5 (as has been hinted at for London), would the expected drop be what we are seeing for London?</p>
Strictly, I don't think this is quite correct. The R figure will already take the immunity into account, along with social distancing. ie if you want to reduce infections, R always needs to be less than one. What it does mean is that a bit less social distancing is needed to get to less than one.
FWIW, I’ve never come across anyone in real life who insists on their title being used. I find the media constantly using “Sir Keir” really offputting.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
Apparently he prefers people not to. Unlike Alan Sugar who even has his twitter handle as Lord_Sugar
I’m sure if he told the media that then they wouldn’t insist on doing it.
Which suggests that the “apparently” is spin
Sorry, incorrect. Look at his Twitter account - plain old Keir, no mention of Sir. Surely he or his team would ensure that this would push the 'Sir' if he/they wanted to? It's well known in Labour circles that he prefers just Keir.
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Understand and thanks. London deaths have gone from 180 on 8/4 to <40 on 7/5. Hospital admissions in London have fallen by - 55 per 100,000 to 11. If R is 0.5 (as has been hinted at for London), would the expected drop be what we are seeing for London?</p>
I think "immunity" is misused in the table, furthermore the R as quoted is a base r0. r_T is what it is regardless of immunity.
The r0 in the table look to me to correspond to the precise point at which r_T changes to 1 and hence starts an inexorable decline.
The base r0 of the Coronavirus is between 2.2 and 6.6 so you'll need 55 - 80% of the population to catch it before herd immunity kicks in if everyone can head round like normal. Nowhere is near this level, it's humans modifying their behaviour that is the crucial driver in driving down and keeping r_T below 1 not any sort of herd immunity effect.
There is a risk of a circular argument here, isn't there.
I can't see it with my argument. I posit that human behaviour being massively modified is responsible for probably 90+% of the current transmission rate being at around 0.7 in the UK and herd immunity is less than 10% of the effect, probably less than that.
There is a grim game going on in which the NHS are saints and government is the sinner.
How long will it be before Boris and Co capitalise on the fact that medical judgements are a matter for the saintly NHS, not wicked government officials?
Except that in this case that is not what appears to have happened.
There was an extremely strong directive from government (which I've quoted from and linked to above), issued on the 19th March, requiring the discharge of around 15,000 patients within a week.
The room for medical judgment was limited.
And Boris and Co. can hardly turn on an organisation they have canonised anyway.
It was the fault of our saintly doctors....
Particularly as it doesn't appear that it was.
This is Annex B: Every patient on every general ward should be reviewed on a twice daily board round to determine the following. If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made. Requiring ITU or HDU care Requiring oxygen therapy/ NIV Requiring intravenous fluids NEWS2 less than 3 (clinical judgement required in patients with AF &/or chronic respiratory disease) Diminished level of consciousness where recovery realistic Acute functional impairment in excess of home/community care provision Last hours of life Requiring intravenous medication greater than b.d. (including analgesia) Undergone lower limb surgery within 48hrs Undergone thorax-abdominal/pelvic surgery with 72 hrs Within 24hrs of an invasive procedure (with attendant risk of acute life threatening deterioration)
"NEWS2 less than 3", as I understand it, refers to a score in the guidance about assessing Covid, or suspected Covid patients for deteriorating condition. The clear implication of this was that any such patients whose conditions were not deteriorating should be discharged.
"I was only obeying orders".
Are doctors not capable of doing some thinking for themselves and asking the appropriate questions ?
Of course they are. And of course the government should update out-of-date and wrong online guidance.
Indeed they should.
There's been a lack of dynamic leadership from the government but that doesn't excuse crass fuckups all the way down the line.
Look at the highlighted sentence:
If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made.
Consideration does not mean do something it means consider doing something and do so if it is the right thing.
So who decided in each individual case that sending infected people to care homes was the right thing to do ?
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Understand and thanks. London deaths have gone from 180 on 8/4 to <40 on 7/5. Hospital admissions in London have fallen by - 55 per 100,000 to 11. If R is 0.5 (as has been hinted at for London), would the expected drop be what we are seeing for London?</p>
Strictly, I don't think this is quite correct. The R figure will already take the immunity into account, along with social distancing. ie if you want to reduce infections, R always needs to be less than one. What it does mean is that a bit less social distancing is needed to get to less than one.
Here's the definition of R0:
"R0 tells you the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease from one person with that disease. It specifically applies to a population of people who were previously free of infection and haven’t been vaccinated."
So the R0 will be affected by behavioural changes, such as social distancing, but not by the level of immunity in the population, as by definition it is how it would spread absent immunity.
Who made that mistake, and when, and why, is something that will certainly have to be seriously investigated. Nit-picking about this document is actually irrelevant to it.
This is precisely the point Starmer is skewering the Gov't on. They were asleep at the wheel.
It would have a huge amount of weight if he could say "I told you so".
Is "R" reduced by - (i) the level of immunity - or (ii) distancing - or (iii) both?
(iii) Both, But the distancing effect for the UK as of right now is like a stampeding elephant compared to the gnat's fart of any sort of herd immunity.
The fact that NHS hospitals discharged elderly patients diagnosed with coronavirus and sent them back into care homes is an appalling scandal. As Dominic Lawson wrote in the Sunday Times, it shames the nation. Heads must roll.
Is "R" reduced by - (i) the level of immunity - or (ii) distancing - or (iii) both?
(iii) Both, But the distancing effect for the UK as of right now is like a stampeding elephant compared to the gnat's fart of any sort of herd immunity.
No, just other behaviours and preventative actions. It is by definition how it would spread without immunity.
Is "R" reduced by - (i) the level of immunity - or (ii) distancing - or (iii) both?
(iii) Both, But the distancing effect for the UK as of right now is like a stampeding elephant compared to the gnat's fart of any sort of herd immunity.
Right. And very nicely expressed.
And as time goes on, the elephant and gnat trade identities?
Who made that mistake, and when, and why, is something that will certainly have to be seriously investigated. Nit-picking about this document is actually irrelevant to it.
This is precisely the point Starmer is skewering the Gov't on. They were asleep at the wheel.
As on other things - entry to the UK, PPE, testing.
When they actually decided to do things - nightingales, ventilators and belatedly testing - the results were pretty good.
The fact that NHS hospitals discharged elderly patients diagnosed with coronavirus and sent them back into care homes is an appalling scandal. As Dominic Lawson wrote in the Sunday Times, it shames the nation. Heads must roll.
Were they diagnosed with COVID-19 or suspected and not tested?
Manslaughter by negligence or by design ?
I'm going for negligence.
Manslaughter "by design" sounds akin to murder.
Hospitals here have never done exit tests iirc Why would they do them on people going back to care homes; get a positive result and still send them back ?! It's highly unlikely. They simply never tested on exit.
Countering Starmer is difficult? Nah. Look at all these rich veins of electoral material:
1. Cultural. Starmer is the archetypal metropolitan elite Remainer, and his beliefs on a host of cultural issues are diametrically-opposed to electorally-important swathes of the country. He also wants to give all EU citizens the right to vote in General Elections, diluting the franchise enjoyed by existing citizens and granting the left a permanent electoral boost. Weaponise as usual.
2. Economics. Starmer hasn't specifically withdrawn a single one of Corbyn's loony policies, and will find it very difficult within his party to move away from the addiction to outright theft that motivates all their other actions. Contrary to what some on here believe, an economic crisis will make people _more_ desperate to hang on to their assets, not less. Attack, attack, attack.
3. Personal. Starmer is a boring charisma vacuum, a Mogadon Man. He's a sleeping aid, not a Prime Minister. Attack, attack, a ... snooze.
4. Party. The utter lunatics who tried desperately to propel Corbyn, McDonnell, and Abbott into power are all still snarling and gnashing away behind Mr. Boring. The far left, the communists, the anti-patriots, the Britain-haters, there'll all still there - put Starmer into power, and you put them into power. This may be Labour's most dangerous aspect.
So devising a political attack strategy is really not hard at all. I could do it in my sleep ... after listening to Sir Keith talk for a few minutes
I'm loving the complacency from the PB Tories.
Out of interest why do you think it's so hilarious to call Starmer Sir Keith?
Complacency? I just set out a detailed roadmap for how to destroy Starmer politically, which is a task of the utmost importance.
The complacent ones are those who think a good PMQs means that Starmer is nailed on for next PM and we should just give up and go home.
Nope, not going to go it - not now, not ever.
I can't see anyone claiming Starmer is "nailed on" for next PM. Who is saying that?
Your so-called roadmap is nothing more than a catalogue of your own tribal prejudices. If all those things you say are true then there wouldn't be a snowball's chance in hell of Starmer winning an election.
The fact is Starmer is exposing all of Johnson's weaknesses and that is what rattling his more thoughtful fans.
Ok, I get it - Labour had their first good day in about 3 years, so their supporters are happy. But one swallow doesn't make a spring.
Except it wasn't the first day was it? It has been each PMQ that Johnson has turned up to so far.
No one is saying that it means Starmer is home and dry but anyone who can't see that Johnson has a problem here is kidding themselves. If it were just Labour sympathisers claiming that it would be OK but it very clearly isn't.that are seeing that.
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Understand and thanks. London deaths have gone from 180 on 8/4 to <40 on 7/5. Hospital admissions in London have fallen by - 55 per 100,000 to 11. If R is 0.5 (as has been hinted at for London), would the expected drop be what we are seeing for London?</p>
I think "immunity" is misused in the table, furthermore the R as quoted is a base r0. r_T is what it is regardless of immunity.
The r0 in the table look to me to correspond to the precise point at which r_T changes to 1 and hence starts an inexorable decline.
The base r0 of the Coronavirus is between 2.2 and 6.6 so you'll need 55 - 80% of the population to catch it before herd immunity kicks in if everyone can head round like normal. Nowhere is near this level, it's humans modifying their behaviour that is the crucial driver in driving down and keeping r_T below 1 not any sort of herd immunity effect.
There is a risk of a circular argument here, isn't there.
I can't see it with my argument. I posit that human behaviour being massively modified is responsible for probably 90+% of the current transmission rate being at around 0.7 in the UK and herd immunity is less than 10% of the effect, probably less than that.
No, I didn't mean with your argument. I meant if one blends the 2 concepts of immunity and distancing, one will fall into circular reasoning if one is not careful.
The fact that NHS hospitals discharged elderly patients diagnosed with coronavirus and sent them back into care homes is an appalling scandal. As Dominic Lawson wrote in the Sunday Times, it shames the nation. Heads must roll.
Were they diagnosed with COVID-19 or suspected and not tested?
Manslaughter by negligence or by design ?
I'm going for negligence.
Manslaughter "by design" sounds akin to murder.
Hospitals here have never done exit tests iirc Why would they do them on people going back to care homes; get a positive result and still send them back ?! It's highly unlikely. They simply never tested on exit.
I believe @Foxy posted a while back that his trust did; not sure when they started doing that though. The amended guidance does now require testing, I think.
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Understand and thanks. London deaths have gone from 180 on 8/4 to <40 on 7/5. Hospital admissions in London have fallen by - 55 per 100,000 to 11. If R is 0.5 (as has been hinted at for London), would the expected drop be what we are seeing for London?</p>
Strictly, I don't think this is quite correct. The R figure will already take the immunity into account, along with social distancing. ie if you want to reduce infections, R always needs to be less than one. What it does mean is that a bit less social distancing is needed to get to less than one.
Here's the definition of R0:
"R0 tells you the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease from one person with that disease. It specifically applies to a population of people who were previously free of infection and haven’t been vaccinated."
So the R0 will be affected by behavioural changes, such as social distancing, but not by the level of immunity in the population, as by definition it is how it would spread absent immunity.
So I think Charlie's interpretation is correct.
Thanks for the correction. Charlie's interpretation is right, I think.
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Understand and thanks. London deaths have gone from 180 on 8/4 to <40 on 7/5. Hospital admissions in London have fallen by - 55 per 100,000 to 11. If R is 0.5 (as has been hinted at for London), would the expected drop be what we are seeing for London?</p>
Strictly, I don't think this is quite correct. The R figure will already take the immunity into account, along with social distancing. ie if you want to reduce infections, R always needs to be less than one. What it does mean is that a bit less social distancing is needed to get to less than one.
Here's the definition of R0:
"R0 tells you the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease from one person with that disease. It specifically applies to a population of people who were previously free of infection and haven’t been vaccinated."
So the R0 will be affected by behavioural changes, such as social distancing, but not by the level of immunity in the population, as by definition it is how it would spread absent immunity.
So I think Charlie's interpretation is correct.
Ah so that's different now. That's answer (ii) per my post. Just behavioural.
But if R = 2.2 and the level of immunity is at (say) 5%, the virus will spread quicker than if R = 2.5 and the level of immunity is at (say) 30% - that MUST be right.
At 10% immunity, even if R is 1.1, the disease would decline.
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Understand and thanks. London deaths have gone from 180 on 8/4 to <40 on 7/5. Hospital admissions in London have fallen by - 55 per 100,000 to 11. If R is 0.5 (as has been hinted at for London), would the expected drop be what we are seeing for London?</p>
Strictly, I don't think this is quite correct. The R figure will already take the immunity into account, along with social distancing. ie if you want to reduce infections, R always needs to be less than one. What it does mean is that a bit less social distancing is needed to get to less than one.
Here's the definition of R0:
"R0 tells you the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease from one person with that disease. It specifically applies to a population of people who were previously free of infection and haven’t been vaccinated."
So the R0 will be affected by behavioural changes, such as social distancing, but not by the level of immunity in the population, as by definition it is how it would spread absent immunity.
So I think Charlie's interpretation is correct.
Thanks for the correction. Charlie's interpretation is right, I think.
The reproduction number (R) is often used to reflect how infectious a disease is. We will, in part, use this quantity to assess alternative interventions to control an outbreak, because R is changed by control measures. The basic reproduction number (R0) is the reproduction number when there is no immunity from past exposures or vaccination, nor any deliberate intervention in disease transmission. We refer to R as an effective reproduction number when there is some immunity or some intervention measures are in place.
The key difference is what is meant by "no deliberate intervention in disease transmission". If we are talking about R and not R0 (which might be as high as 3.5 under the Australian Dept Health definition) then perhaps my comment still stands.
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.
If he's quiet, there is no way he's a modern lefty.
Well you don't strike me as a wallflower.
And remember, the oppressed have to shout to be heard. Then they are told not to shout.
Thus are the insidious inequalities of class, race and gender perpetuated.
Comments
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/880288/COVID-19_hospital_discharge_service_requirements.pdf
...Unless required to be in hospital (see Annex B ), patients must not remain in an NHS bed.
1.3 Based on these criteria, acute and community hospitals must discharge all patients as soon as they are clinically safe to do so. Transfer from the ward should happen within one hour of that decision being made to a designated discharge area. Discharge from hospital should happen as soon after that as possible, normally within 2 hours.
1.4 Implementing these Service Requirements is expected to free up to at least 15,000 beds by Friday 27th March 2020, with discharge flows maintained after that. Acute and community hospitals must keep a list of all those suitable for discharge and report on the number and percentage of patients on the list who have left the hospital and the number of delayed discharges through the daily situation report....
Your so-called roadmap is nothing more than a catalogue of your own tribal prejudices. If all those things you say are true then there wouldn't be a snowball's chance in hell of Starmer winning an election.
The fact is Starmer is exposing all of Johnson's weaknesses and that is what rattling his more thoughtful fans.
'Consequently having more immunity' - London is being talked of as having 10% immunity. According to the boffins, that isn't remotely close enough to have an effect. Yet something is. Is the 10% figure wrong? Have Londoners taken lockdown more serious (I'd say not)
This is certainly novel jurisprudence (& I'm pretty sure it's not what the conservatives mean by originalism...):
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1260210564007112705
Rail and tube use down 93% still and up only ~10% since last week.
By the 12th March, that was - in Covid-19 terms - a very old document. The situation had changed dramatically in the interim, and much other advice had been given. If his criticism is that PHE should have been marked the document as 'withdrawn' earlier, then he is arguably right. But it's a entirely synthetic lawyerly point, purely designed (and successfully) to trap Boris into saying something which could be presented as a gotcha. This may impress some people.
Of course he’s earned it, but it seems to me to just create a narrative that he is different to the people he purports to represent. Presumably his media advisers have thought about it?
But why are they doing it? Not sure it gives him much gravitas?
However Boris and Trump are doing much better with working class voters than Cameron and Romney did
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
The lack of reporting also prevents effective tracing.
Aren't Priti Patel and Liz Truss 'women'? Or is there some reason why the Telegraph didn't note their existence.
Imunity R
10.00% 1.11
20.00% 1.25
30.00% 1.43
40.00% 1.67
50.00% 2.00
60.00% 2.50
70.00% 3.33
80.00% 5.00
90.00% 10.00
How long will it be before Boris and Co capitalise on the fact that medical judgements are a matter for the saintly NHS, not wicked government officials?
One other complication is the length of immunity. It could last only a year or two. If so, over time those that contracted the virus early will lose it before a goodly number of us obtain it.
There was an extremely strong directive from government (which I've quoted from and linked to above), issued on the 19th March, requiring the discharge of around 15,000 patients within a week.
The room for medical judgment was limited.
https://twitter.com/BraidenGB/status/1260583449737547776?s=20
Did anything come of the Ems and Cazza spat?
If a disease comes along that kills the old and vulnerable and is transmitted in enclosed, densely populated areas, it's not a surprise that care homes are the epicentre
It was the fault of our saintly doctors....
Just to follow up, the following is a table of levels of Immunity vs the maximum R that would be consistent with stability. So, at 10% immunity, with an R of less than 1.11, the disease would decline.
Imunity R
10.00% 1.11
20.00% 1.25
30.00% 1.43
40.00% 1.67
50.00% 2.00
60.00% 2.50
70.00% 3.33
80.00% 5.00
90.00% 10.00
Understand and thanks. London deaths have gone from 180 on 8/4 to <40 on 7/5. Hospital admissions in London have fallen by - 55 per 100,000 to 11. If R is 0.5 (as has been hinted at for London), would the expected drop be what we are seeing for London?
On PMQs, it's obviously not important at any particular point in time, but it builds into a narrative around leadership and competence that takes a grip over time, probably more through the media (physical and social) than through individuals. But the narrative favouring Starmer is already building, and he's only had 5.5 weeks so far.
https://lockdownsceptics.org/
The general consensus seems to be that we made it worse than it would have been by discharging old folks from hospital into care homes without testing them, but it's possible that if we hadn't discharged any of them that more of those 15,000 patients would have caught Covid-19 in the hospitals.
Perhaps what we really needed was to create a halfway house between hospital and care home, but I've no idea if that was possible in the timeframe required.
Which suggests that the “apparently” is spin
This is Annex B:
Every patient on every general ward should be reviewed on a twice daily board round to determine the following. If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made.
Requiring ITU or HDU care Requiring oxygen therapy/ NIV
Requiring intravenous fluids
NEWS2 less than 3
(clinical judgement required in patients with AF &/or chronic respiratory disease)
Diminished level of consciousness where recovery realistic
Acute functional impairment
in excess of home/community care provision
Last hours of life
Requiring intravenous medication greater than b.d. (including analgesia)
Undergone lower limb surgery within 48hrs
Undergone thorax-abdominal/pelvic surgery with 72 hrs
Within 24hrs of an invasive procedure
(with attendant risk of acute life threatening deterioration)
"NEWS2 less than 3", as I understand it, refers to a score in the guidance about assessing Covid, or suspected Covid patients for deteriorating condition.
The clear implication of this was that any such patients whose conditions were not deteriorating should be discharged.
The r0 in the table look to me to correspond to the precise point at which r_T changes to 1 and hence starts an inexorable decline.
The base r0 of the Coronavirus is between 2.2 and 6.6 so you'll need 55 - 80% of the population to catch it before herd immunity kicks in if everyone can head round like normal.
Nowhere is near this level, it's humans modifying their behaviour that is the crucial driver in driving down and keeping r_T below 1 not any sort of herd immunity effect.
Are doctors not capable of doing some thinking for themselves and asking the appropriate questions ?
Obviously I think we can.
My problem with Sir Keir's approach is that it's all about trying to trap Boris into a gotcha, and nothing about the actual mistake - possibly scandal, although not every mistake is a scandal - which was that infected patients were being discharged from hospital into care homes. Who made that mistake, and when, and why, is something that will certainly have to be seriously investigated. Nit-picking about this document is actually irrelevant to it.
I'm going for negligence.
As far as I know, this was overtaken by events - the Imperial model appeared shortly afterwards, and contradicted whatever the government's previous models had said.
However, we're past that phase now. Has there been any indication that the government (or SAGE) might publish something that outlines the parameters of the strategy?
I see no reason to make any assumptions beyond his own usage.
There's been a lack of dynamic leadership from the government but that doesn't excuse crass fuckups all the way down the line.
Look at the highlighted sentence:
If the answer to each question is ‘no’, active consideration for discharge to a less acute setting must be made.
Consideration does not mean do something it means consider doing something and do so if it is the right thing.
So who decided in each individual case that sending infected people to care homes was the right thing to do ?
Is "R" reduced by - (i) the level of immunity - or (ii) distancing - or (iii) both?
"R0 tells you the average number of people who will contract a contagious disease from one person with that disease. It specifically applies to a population of people who were previously free of infection and haven’t been vaccinated."
So the R0 will be affected by behavioural changes, such as social distancing, but not by the level of immunity in the population, as by definition it is how it would spread absent immunity.
So I think Charlie's interpretation is correct.
But he can't.
And as time goes on, the elephant and gnat trade identities?
When they actually decided to do things - nightingales, ventilators and belatedly testing - the results were pretty good.
Why would they do them on people going back to care homes; get a positive result and still send them back ?!
It's highly unlikely. They simply never tested on exit.
No one is saying that it means Starmer is home and dry but anyone who can't see that Johnson has a problem here is kidding themselves. If it were just Labour sympathisers claiming that it would be OK but it very clearly isn't.that are seeing that.
The amended guidance does now require testing, I think.
But if R = 2.2 and the level of immunity is at (say) 5%, the virus will spread quicker than if R = 2.5 and the level of immunity is at (say) 30% - that MUST be right.
The reproduction number (R) is often used to reflect how infectious a disease is. We will, in part, use this quantity to assess alternative interventions to control an outbreak, because R is changed by control measures. The basic reproduction number (R0) is the reproduction number when there is no immunity from past exposures or vaccination, nor any deliberate intervention in disease transmission. We refer to R as an effective reproduction number when there is some immunity or some intervention measures are in place.
The key difference is what is meant by "no deliberate intervention in disease transmission". If we are talking about R and not R0 (which might be as high as 3.5 under the Australian Dept Health definition) then perhaps my comment still stands.
And remember, the oppressed have to shout to be heard. Then they are told not to shout.
Thus are the insidious inequalities of class, race and gender perpetuated.