No way for the Gov't to make any sort of school return compulsory now, even if they wanted to. Perhaps even in September - "Doing best for my family" etc...
My youngest going back a week on Tues. He can’t wait.
“Has been" is in the present perfect tense, referring to an action that began at some time in the past and is still in progress. So he’s still here!
I’m sorry, I’ve been doing that grammar Nazi thing again haven’t I! It’s my most unappealing habit (of many!)
The thing that is still in progress here is Richard's life, not his PBship.
Compare He lives in Australia (still happening). He has lived in Australia (not happening any more but he is still living). He lived in Australia (not happening any more and he could be dead).
If you add a length of time it's different:
He has lived in Australia for 10 years (and still does).
All those straining at the leash to get back to normal right now should reflect that - in terms of active cases - we are currently at about 8 March on that graph.
“Has been" is in the present perfect tense, referring to an action that began at some time in the past and is still in progress. So he’s still here!
I’m sorry, I’ve been doing that grammar Nazi thing again haven’t I! It’s my most unappealing habit (of many!)
The thing that is still in progress here is Richard's life, not his PBship.
Compare He lives in Australia (still happening). He has lived in Australia (not happening any more but he is still living). He lived in Australia (not happening any more and he could be dead).
If you add a length of time it's different:
He has lived in Australia for 10 years (and still does).
The time has been That, when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end. But now they rise again With twenty mortal murders on their crowns And push us from our stools. This is more strange Than such a murder is.
All those straining at the leash to get back to normal right now should reflect that - in terms of active cases - we are currently at about 8 March on that graph.
I guess there's also a lag, but yeah, this is the ridiculous thing about it: The best case for ending the lockdown is that there are now few enough cases that you can end it but have a bunch of restrictions on the most high-risk activities plus aggressive contact tracing and travel restrictions, and that'll be enough to keep it under control.
But you could have done that in early March, at the same daily number of cases, most of the people who died would still be alive, and you wouldn't have needed the lockdown.
What ever happened to a good old fashioned apology?
Can I use an analogy. Dominic Cummings has done something wrong. But it's a detention level offence, not an expelling one. He acted with understandable intentions, but he did break the rules set by the government to which he is a senior advisor.
If he'd said "I did what I thought was best for my family. I realise that this meant I overstepped the rules that were in place and given my position I was wrong to do that, and I apologise", then I think we could and should move on.
But we live in an environment where no-one (in a position of authority) ever admits to error. Instead, we have angry denials that anything was done that was wrong.
That kind of stinks. He did break the rules. He shouldn't have been shuttling between London, Durham and that other place. He should apologise for breaking the rules and we should move on.
Instead we get the combative "fight them on the beaches" attitude.
Man up Dominic, and admit what you did was wrong. Apologise for it.
That's what we'd expect our children to do. It seems the least we can ask from our government.
An apology is borderline ok for breaking lockdown when responsible for it.
An apology is clearly insufficient for breaking quarantine which is the more serious part of it. Most people are equating his actions to that of the Scottish CMO or Ferguson, but Cummings actions were far more dangerous as his chance of being contagious would be at least 10x (maybe much much more) than the CMO or Ferguson.
Would be pretty confusing to have Vermin Supreme and Trump on the same ballot paper.
Isn't Joe Exotic running for the job from prison ?
Apparently one of the delegates proposed a motion to have him added directly to the second-to-last ballot despite not being present in the earlier rounds, but the chair ruled it out of order.
Interesting evening. Just been talking to three mates, all of whom work for the NHS. One of them is a ward doctor.
All three say end the lockdown for everyone fit and healthy under 60 – and shield vulnerable groups.
This sort of risk segmentation strikes me as the best approach.
Good to hear. I've been saying the same thing for about 6 weeks. Young and healthy people apparently have more chance of being struck by lightning than dying from the virus.
That is an interesting finding, but what is the source?
In part it may be the age structure of the population, with more youngsters and fewer elderly, but I think this could only explain a 2-3 times mortality.
All 3 countries cited do have quite high rates of inadequately treated diabetes and blood pressure etc.
The other difference is availability of medical treatment. The hospitalisation rate of youngsters here is significant, but they are much more likely to respond to treatment. If that treatment is not available then mortality in the young might be higher here too.
the Scottish medical woman did apologise but it didn't do her any good. The press have been doing a reasoanble impression of seven-year-olds up after their bedtime for the last three months. They have this strange idea they are stalwart representatives of the oppressed instead of being middle-class thickos without the brains to do something constructive - which they are.
Of course, Cummings should have gone, but no doubt, had he not been a Spad, he'd have been a journalist. Two arses of the same cheek, as Mr G woukd nearly says.
Interesting evening. Just been talking to three mates, all of whom work for the NHS. One of them is a ward doctor.
All three say end the lockdown for everyone fit and healthy under 60 – and shield vulnerable groups.
This sort of risk segmentation strikes me as the best approach.
Good to hear. I've been saying the same thing for about 6 weeks. Young and healthy people apparently have more chance of being struck by lightning than dying from the virus.
That is an interesting finding, but what is the source?
In part it may be the age structure of the population, with more youngsters and fewer elderly, but I think this could only explain a 2-3 times mortality.
All 3 countries cited do have quite high rates of inadequately treated diabetes and blood pressure etc.
The other difference is availability of medical treatment. The hospitalisation rate of youngsters here is significant, but they are much more likely to respond to treatment. If that treatment is not available then mortality in the young might be higher here too.
Also since the infections phase happened long after Italy/Spain, after the danger of the disease was more widely known, I guess elderly people are working much harder at self-isolating?
Interesting evening. Just been talking to three mates, all of whom work for the NHS. One of them is a ward doctor.
All three say end the lockdown for everyone fit and healthy under 60 – and shield vulnerable groups.
This sort of risk segmentation strikes me as the best approach.
Good to hear. I've been saying the same thing for about 6 weeks. Young and healthy people apparently have more chance of being struck by lightning than dying from the virus.
That is an interesting finding, but what is the source?
In part it may be the age structure of the population, with more youngsters and fewer elderly, but I think this could only explain a 2-3 times mortality.
All 3 countries cited do have quite high rates of inadequately treated diabetes and blood pressure etc.
The other difference is availability of medical treatment. The hospitalisation rate of youngsters here is significant, but they are much more likely to respond to treatment. If that treatment is not available then mortality in the young might be higher here too.
Also if there is more pressure to keep the numbers down in certain countries presumably far easier to find another plausible reason why an 80 year died than a 30 year old.
To be fair, his government's lockdown regs have made that trip up and down the A1 much quicker.
Only if he does a day trip and doesn't enter their house or garden, and only meets one member of the family at a time in a public place. Durham is a long daytrip from London.
It is obvious that he doesn't believe that the rules apply to him or his family. Rules are for the plebs.
All those straining at the leash to get back to normal right now should reflect that - in terms of active cases - we are currently at about 8 March on that graph.
I guess there's also a lag, but yeah, this is the ridiculous thing about it: The best case for ending the lockdown is that there are now few enough cases that you can end it but have a bunch of restrictions on the most high-risk activities plus aggressive contact tracing and travel restrictions, and that'll be enough to keep it under control.
But you could have done that in early March, at the same daily number of cases, most of the people who died would still be alive, and you wouldn't have needed the lockdown.
You can look at it like that if you're an optimist. But I don't believe we're capable of effective contact tracing when there are still well over 100,000 active cases. I don't believe we have that capacity now, and we certainly didn't have it in early March. No country has achieved that, and given the UK's track record it seems unlikely we're going to be the first to do so.
And I don't think the anti-lockdown zealots are accepting that there will still have to be severe restrictions. Particularly on what is probably the highest-risk activity of all - socialising. I think they have a vague idea that everyone under 50 can just go back to normal and everyone else can be magically "shielded". That aspiration makes no more sense now than it did in March.
That's why I think it's a reassuring thing that so many people are actually very reluctant to go back to normal. I think their behaviour is going to change. If it weren't for that, and if everyone really did go back to normal after lockdown, we'd find ourselves back in the same mess very rapidly.
Interesting evening. Just been talking to three mates, all of whom work for the NHS. One of them is a ward doctor.
All three say end the lockdown for everyone fit and healthy under 60 – and shield vulnerable groups.
This sort of risk segmentation strikes me as the best approach.
Good to hear. I've been saying the same thing for about 6 weeks. Young and healthy people apparently have more chance of being struck by lightning than dying from the virus.
That is an interesting finding, but what is the source?
In part it may be the age structure of the population, with more youngsters and fewer elderly, but I think this could only explain a 2-3 times mortality.
All 3 countries cited do have quite high rates of inadequately treated diabetes and blood pressure etc.
The other difference is availability of medical treatment. The hospitalisation rate of youngsters here is significant, but they are much more likely to respond to treatment. If that treatment is not available then mortality in the young might be higher here too.
Also if there is more pressure to keep the numbers down in certain countries presumably far easier to find another plausible reason why an 80 year died than a 30 year old.
Silent hypoxia and death seems to be common in the elderly. There seems to be lots of that here, so I expect a lot of similar mortality there without diagnosis.
All those straining at the leash to get back to normal right now should reflect that - in terms of active cases - we are currently at about 8 March on that graph.
I guess there's also a lag, but yeah, this is the ridiculous thing about it: The best case for ending the lockdown is that there are now few enough cases that you can end it but have a bunch of restrictions on the most high-risk activities plus aggressive contact tracing and travel restrictions, and that'll be enough to keep it under control.
But you could have done that in early March, at the same daily number of cases, most of the people who died would still be alive, and you wouldn't have needed the lockdown.
In early March people had a completely different mindset. Many were taking zero preventative steps. Now nearly everyone has changed behaviour and maybe half the country are in a pretty strict lockdown including the most vulnerable.
In early March we had close to no testing capacity. Now we can test tens of thousands a day.
In early March our test, track and trace team was struggling to cope with a thousand cases. Now we have 25,000 ready to go so can do far more.
In early March, shops and offices had little knowledge of the challenges ahead, now they do.
We are in a completely different scenario regardless of what it looks like on a graph.
the Scottish medical woman did apologise but it didn't do her any good. The press have been doing a reasoanble impression of seven-year-olds up after their bedtime for the last three months. They have this strange idea they are stalwart representatives of the oppressed instead of being middle-class thickos without the brains to do something constructive - which they are.
Of course, Cummings should have gone, but no doubt, had he not been a Spad, he'd have been a journalist. Two arses of the same cheek, as Mr G woukd nearly says.
The 3 year old child would clearly differentiate Cummings from the Scottish lady; he would therefore almost certainly have got away with an apology.
Telegraph suggests he lied to Downing street about second visit.
No way for the Gov't to make any sort of school return compulsory now, even if they wanted to. Perhaps even in September - "Doing best for my family" etc...
My youngest going back a week on Tues. He can’t wait.
All those straining at the leash to get back to normal right now should reflect that - in terms of active cases - we are currently at about 8 March on that graph.
I guess there's also a lag, but yeah, this is the ridiculous thing about it: The best case for ending the lockdown is that there are now few enough cases that you can end it but have a bunch of restrictions on the most high-risk activities plus aggressive contact tracing and travel restrictions, and that'll be enough to keep it under control.
But you could have done that in early March, at the same daily number of cases, most of the people who died would still be alive, and you wouldn't have needed the lockdown.
In early March people had a completely different mindset. Many were taking zero preventative steps. Now nearly everyone has changed behaviour and maybe half the country are in a pretty strict lockdown including the most vulnerable.
In early March we had close to no testing capacity. Now we can test tens of thousands a day.
In early March our test, track and trace team was struggling to cope with a thousand cases. Now we have 25,000 ready to go so can do far more.
In early March, shops and offices had little knowledge of the challenges ahead, now they do.
We are in a completely different scenario regardless of what it looks like on a graph.
If you'd acted early you wouldn't have needed a huge track-and-trace team or tens of thousands of tests. There's not much point in doing huge numbers of tests if you have very small numbers of cases, because apart from your (small number of) known clusters, you'd need to do an even more immense number of tests to find a positive one.
Every country that has had leadership has followed it. The British responded when it finally came, and I don't see they wouldn't have responded to an instruction like "please cancel events and work from home where practical", especially since by early March Italy was already on fire.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
His Nobel prize was in Chemistry and "the 73-year-old has no background as an epidemiologist"
Back in March he predicted it wouldnt cause a million deaths and would be over within weeks. With recorded deaths alone already at 344k, we may well have passed that and if not certainly will do given current global levels.
He may well be onto something, there appears to be something weird about the way it spreads, but just because he has a nobel prize it doesnt stop his theory being not that much more than an educated guess.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
All those straining at the leash to get back to normal right now should reflect that - in terms of active cases - we are currently at about 8 March on that graph.
I guess there's also a lag, but yeah, this is the ridiculous thing about it: The best case for ending the lockdown is that there are now few enough cases that you can end it but have a bunch of restrictions on the most high-risk activities plus aggressive contact tracing and travel restrictions, and that'll be enough to keep it under control.
But you could have done that in early March, at the same daily number of cases, most of the people who died would still be alive, and you wouldn't have needed the lockdown.
In early March people had a completely different mindset. Many were taking zero preventative steps. Now nearly everyone has changed behaviour and maybe half the country are in a pretty strict lockdown including the most vulnerable.
In early March we had close to no testing capacity. Now we can test tens of thousands a day.
In early March our test, track and trace team was struggling to cope with a thousand cases. Now we have 25,000 ready to go so can do far more.
In early March, shops and offices had little knowledge of the challenges ahead, now they do.
We are in a completely different scenario regardless of what it looks like on a graph.
If you'd acted early you wouldn't have needed a huge track-and-trace team or tens of thousands of tests. There's not much point in doing huge numbers of tests if you have very small numbers of cases, because apart from your (small number of) known clusters, you'd need to do an even more immense number of tests to find a positive one.
Every country that has had leadership has followed it. The British responded when it finally came, and I don't see they wouldn't have responded to an instruction like "please cancel events and work from home where practical", especially since by early March Italy was already on fire.
We have the week between 16 Mar and 23 Mar to see exactly how people followed an unofficial lockdown. The majority made big changes but less severe than under full lockdown and a significant minority carried on as normal.
That is very interesting stuff. Note that it is claimed in his behalf that he predicted the Hubei total "with remarkable accuracy" so if got want to believe him you have to think whether you believe tbe Chinese numbers or not.
He speculates there may be preexisting immunity in a lot of people. It almost looks as if there is a cow pox equivalent in circulation. Possibly the coronaviruses which account for 30% of cases of the common cold.
Is the Democratic party having a collective brain fart? First they had Hillary 'the vagina' Clinton. "I believe in Women unless my hubby is involved". Now they have Joe 'the woman must be heard, unless I'm involved' Biden, and Oops, I'd better have a black, female VP.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
I suspect that is the sort of thing Downing street was talking about saying the stories were inaccurate.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
350 miles is a reference to the number on the side of a bus.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
350 miles is a reference to the number on the side of a bus.
I know, but it’s still annoying me.
It’s ironic of course that the real figure was £250 million a week.
Is the Democratic party having a collective brain fart? First they had Hillary 'the vagina' Clinton. "I believe in Women unless my hubby is involved". Now they have Joe 'the woman must be heard, unless I'm involved' Biden, and Oops, I'd better have a black, female VP.
Could Domestos man get a second term?
Of course he can. We have all the evidence that we need to conclude that the American electorate are completely hatstand.
Incidentally there are two other industries that I don’t think will ever recover from this:
1) The M6 Toll. It’s deserted. Why pay when the M6 has nothing on it? Can see it being nationalised later on in the year. Good news for Lichfield and Birmingham if so.
2) Coal fired electricity generation. The last such power generated was on the 10th April. We have now gone 44 days without burning any due to low demand and renewable friendly weather (very sunny and very windy). Our last power stations were due to be turned off next year. That might be brought forward.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
350 miles is a reference to the number on the side of a bus.
I know, but it’s still annoying me.
It’s ironic of course that the real figure was £250 million a week.
It was an exaggeration but given that the person responsible for the exaggeration is now the one we are using it against that's fair in love and war.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
So you are saying he only drive 262 miles from London with a contagious family when he was supposed to be quarantined, not making any pitstops so driving recklessly and he was actually responsible for communicating the scientific evidence around the quarantine to the PM?
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
So you are saying he only drive 262 miles from London with a contagious family when he was supposed to be quarantined, not making any pitstops so driving recklessly and he was actually responsible for communicating the scientific evidence around the quarantine to the PM?
No, I am saying, to channel the late, great Sir Robin Day, ‘It is important to be precise, especially in matters of detail.’
One thing, are there tests that will identify... any coronavirus (Not just the covid 19 one) antibodies in someone. Quite a few of the lockdown naysayers models seem contingent on a cowpox/smallpox effect with a coronavirus type common cold suffered where there is still immunity. A randomised time series sample of the population could be checked to see how many have any sort of corona antibodies and perhaps a modified SIR model used to work out if that "removes"/immunities enough of the population to produce herd immunity at a very low level of actual covid-19 infections. I'm open to the "other antibodies" argument but it needs testing in some fashion rather than just being spouted as a "it must be this" by those whose theories rely on it.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
That's net. 350 is the gross figure.
You'll agree it is a lot of miles though.
Well, TBF as noted by Mr Tyndall, getting a gentle revenge on me by dropping my name in the thread header, I do consider Cummings rather a gross figure.
His Nobel prize was in Chemistry and "the 73-year-old has no background as an epidemiologist"
Like mearly all the suddent experts on here on any subject you might choose to focus on.
Really? I had no idea the Nobel Prize for Chemistry was so widely awarded!
Lol you deliberately misinterpret me!! I think you know what i mean.. Cast your mind back to the apocalyptic predictions on here in the early days of the crisis.....
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
350 miles is a reference to the number on the side of a bus.
I know, but it’s still annoying me.
It’s ironic of course that the real figure was £250 million a week.
It was an exaggeration but given that the person responsible for the exaggeration is now the one we are using it against that's fair in love and war.
He was also spotted 30 miles away from where he was staying, add on the round trip for that, maybe a diversion somewhere and we are getting pretty close to 350m.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
That's net. 350 is the gross figure.
You'll agree it is a lot of miles though.
I was looking for a quibble about distance by road vs as the crow flies but on inspection the road is pretty much a straight line pointing pretty much due North. Is it Roman?
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
So you are saying he only drive 262 miles from London with a contagious family when he was supposed to be quarantined, not making any pitstops so driving recklessly and he was actually responsible for communicating the scientific evidence around the quarantine to the PM?
No, I am saying, to channel the late, great Sir Robin Day, ‘It is important to be precise, especially in matters of detail.’
How can I be expected to be precise when the people involved change their story about their movements several times a day?
"What do you do with a disease that only kills really old and ill people? Keep it out of hospitals and care homes. We have all been imprisoned for no reason at all".
What I've been saying on here for a while now and getting slated for it. But common sense is too much for the pearl clutchers who want to keep us under house arrest forever, bugger the economy or our freedoms or people's jobs.
You've been slated for it because it is not just a disease that kills old people. This disease took Britains leader and some of his cabinet out of action and clogged up the heath service for all the other sick people in your country
It pretty much only affects old people and people with health conditions. Boris Johnson was probably affected because he's 17 stones and 5 feet 9 inches.
And Cummings?
Hadn't he been really ill?
No, he can’t have been, because it apparently only affects the old and ill. Anyone we may have individually known who had a hell of a time through this and/or has ongoing health problems from it is, apparently, fictitious, or unrepresentative, or merely inconvenient and should be ignored.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
That's net. 350 is the gross figure.
You'll agree it is a lot of miles though.
I was looking for a quibble about distance by road vs as the crow flies but on inspection the road is pretty much a straight line pointing pretty much due North. Is it Roman?
No, it’s nineteenth century. But much of it follows Ermine Street, which is a Roman Road.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
That's net. 350 is the gross figure.
You'll agree it is a lot of miles though.
Well, if we're talking about the round trip it's surely 524 miles. Or thereabouts, depending upon actually where one starts and finishes. If a trip to Barnard Castle is involved, would be more.
All those straining at the leash to get back to normal right now should reflect that - in terms of active cases - we are currently at about 8 March on that graph.
I guess there's also a lag, but yeah, this is the ridiculous thing about it: The best case for ending the lockdown is that there are now few enough cases that you can end it but have a bunch of restrictions on the most high-risk activities plus aggressive contact tracing and travel restrictions, and that'll be enough to keep it under control.
But you could have done that in early March, at the same daily number of cases, most of the people who died would still be alive, and you wouldn't have needed the lockdown.
In early March people had a completely different mindset. Many were taking zero preventative steps. Now nearly everyone has changed behaviour and maybe half the country are in a pretty strict lockdown including the most vulnerable.
In early March we had close to no testing capacity. Now we can test tens of thousands a day.
In early March our test, track and trace team was struggling to cope with a thousand cases. Now we have 25,000 ready to go so can do far more.
In early March, shops and offices had little knowledge of the challenges ahead, now they do.
We are in a completely different scenario regardless of what it looks like on a graph.
If you'd acted early you wouldn't have needed a huge track-and-trace team or tens of thousands of tests. There's not much point in doing huge numbers of tests if you have very small numbers of cases, because apart from your (small number of) known clusters, you'd need to do an even more immense number of tests to find a positive one.
Every country that has had leadership has followed it. The British responded when it finally came, and I don't see they wouldn't have responded to an instruction like "please cancel events and work from home where practical", especially since by early March Italy was already on fire.
We have the week between 16 Mar and 23 Mar to see exactly how people followed an unofficial lockdown. The majority made big changes but less severe than under full lockdown and a significant minority carried on as normal.
Looking at the graph and assuming a 2-week lag you're getting what looks like exponential growth until 16 Mar (-> Apr 1) then it flattens off, so the unofficial lockdown looks effective. Not as effective as the full-on thing, but you'd still be in a way, way better place if it had been done a couple of weeks earlier. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
That's net. 350 is the gross figure.
You'll agree it is a lot of miles though.
I was looking for a quibble about distance by road vs as the crow flies but on inspection the road is pretty much a straight line pointing pretty much due North. Is it Roman?
Sensibly they tried to get to Scotland as directly as possible when building the road.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
So you are saying he only drive 262 miles from London with a contagious family when he was supposed to be quarantined, not making any pitstops so driving recklessly and he was actually responsible for communicating the scientific evidence around the quarantine to the PM?
No, I am saying, to channel the late, great Sir Robin Day, ‘It is important to be precise, especially in matters of detail.’
How can I be expected to be precise when the people involved change their story about their movements several times a day?
Interesting evening. Just been talking to three mates, all of whom work for the NHS. One of them is a ward doctor.
All three say end the lockdown for everyone fit and healthy under 60 – and shield vulnerable groups.
This sort of risk segmentation strikes me as the best approach.
Good to hear. I've been saying the same thing for about 6 weeks. Young and healthy people apparently have more chance of being struck by lightning than dying from the virus.
Right, until they spread it again, then it becomes non-trivially dangerous to young people, and impossible to keep it away from old people.
I really don't understand why anyone would try to do this when other countries are having so much success with suppression.
Desperation to believe there’s no problem and everything can go back to normal again. Never underestimate the human capacity to cherrypick information that fits the narrative they want to be true and believe in it hard.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
350 miles is a reference to the number on the side of a bus.
I know, but it’s still annoying me.
It’s ironic of course that the real figure was £250 million a week.
It was an exaggeration but given that the person responsible for the exaggeration is now the one we are using it against that's fair in love and war.
He was also spotted 30 miles away from where he was staying, add on the round trip for that, maybe a diversion somewhere and we are getting pretty close to 350m.
He was spotted in central Durham, unless his parent farm is 30 miles outside of Durham that isn't true, it's more like 3.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
That's net. 350 is the gross figure.
You'll agree it is a lot of miles though.
Well, if we're talking about the round trip it's surely 524 miles. Or thereabouts, depending upon actually where one starts and finishes. If a trip to Barnard Castle is involved, would be more.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
So you are saying he only drive 262 miles from London with a contagious family when he was supposed to be quarantined, not making any pitstops so driving recklessly and he was actually responsible for communicating the scientific evidence around the quarantine to the PM?
No, I am saying, to channel the late, great Sir Robin Day, ‘It is important to be precise, especially in matters of detail.’
How can I be expected to be precise when the people involved change their story about their movements several times a day?
Well, yes, I do see that, but the distance from Durham to London is a constant. I mean, it’s not as if somebody dug up a section near Wetherby and inserted an extra 20 miles, is it?
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
350 miles is a reference to the number on the side of a bus.
I know, but it’s still annoying me.
It’s ironic of course that the real figure was £250 million a week.
It was an exaggeration but given that the person responsible for the exaggeration is now the one we are using it against that's fair in love and war.
He was also spotted 30 miles away from where he was staying, add on the round trip for that, maybe a diversion somewhere and we are getting pretty close to 350m.
He was spotted in central Durham, unless his parent farm is 30 miles outside of Durham that isn't true, it's more like 3.
All those straining at the leash to get back to normal right now should reflect that - in terms of active cases - we are currently at about 8 March on that graph.
I guess there's also a lag, but yeah, this is the ridiculous thing about it: The best case for ending the lockdown is that there are now few enough cases that you can end it but have a bunch of restrictions on the most high-risk activities plus aggressive contact tracing and travel restrictions, and that'll be enough to keep it under control.
But you could have done that in early March, at the same daily number of cases, most of the people who died would still be alive, and you wouldn't have needed the lockdown.
In early March people had a completely different mindset. Many were taking zero preventative steps. Now nearly everyone has changed behaviour and maybe half the country are in a pretty strict lockdown including the most vulnerable.
In early March we had close to no testing capacity. Now we can test tens of thousands a day.
In early March our test, track and trace team was struggling to cope with a thousand cases. Now we have 25,000 ready to go so can do far more.
In early March, shops and offices had little knowledge of the challenges ahead, now they do.
We are in a completely different scenario regardless of what it looks like on a graph.
If you'd acted early you wouldn't have needed a huge track-and-trace team or tens of thousands of tests. There's not much point in doing huge numbers of tests if you have very small numbers of cases, because apart from your (small number of) known clusters, you'd need to do an even more immense number of tests to find a positive one.
Every country that has had leadership has followed it. The British responded when it finally came, and I don't see they wouldn't have responded to an instruction like "please cancel events and work from home where practical", especially since by early March Italy was already on fire.
We have the week between 16 Mar and 23 Mar to see exactly how people followed an unofficial lockdown. The majority made big changes but less severe than under full lockdown and a significant minority carried on as normal.
Looking at the graph and assuming a 2-week lag you're getting what looks like exponential growth until 16 Mar (-> Apr 1) then it flattens off, so the unofficial lockdown looks effective. Not as effective as the full-on thing, but you'd still be in a way, way better place if it had been done a couple of weeks earlier. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
Agree with all that, apart from noting it doesnt factor in the psychology. There would have been much less public support or understanding for a lockdown in early March, so it is likely to have led to a different reaction. How that would play out exactly we will never know, perhaps we would be way way better, or perhaps just better.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
So you are saying he only drive 262 miles from London with a contagious family when he was supposed to be quarantined, not making any pitstops so driving recklessly and he was actually responsible for communicating the scientific evidence around the quarantine to the PM?
No, I am saying, to channel the late, great Sir Robin Day, ‘It is important to be precise, especially in matters of detail.’
How can I be expected to be precise when the people involved change their story about their movements several times a day?
You meann the newspapers...
I rarely read newspapers and certainly havent done this weekend, so no.
One thing, are there tests that will identify... any coronavirus (Not just the covid 19 one) antibodies in someone. Quite a few of the lockdown naysayers models seem contingent on a cowpox/smallpox effect with a coronavirus type common cold suffered where there is still immunity. A randomised time series sample of the population could be checked to see how many have any sort of corona antibodies and perhaps a modified SIR model used to work out if that "removes"/immunities enough of the population to produce herd immunity at a very low level of actual covid-19 infections. I'm open to the "other antibodies" argument but it needs testing in some fashion rather than just being spouted as a "it must be this" by those whose theories rely on it.
The other trick here is just to ignore the antibody tests in places with low prevalence and concentrate on the places with reasonably high prevalence (but make sure some are pre-medical-system-meltdown) and compare the detected numbers / death numbers to that to see how many cases you're typically missing. That works because if you're not sure if your false positive rate is 0% or 5%, that will completely wreck your ability to estimate somewhere where the actual prevalence is 0.5%, but still get you in the right general ballpark somewhere where the actual prevalence is 20%.
He is saying the same things as several other scientists are now saying. We have to wait and see if he is right. Meanwhile the enormous distraction regarding Dominic Cummings is continuing. Maybe the government's critics see that they have to act now as time is running out as the epidemic is currently slowing down. There seems to be an atmosphere of complete desperation in the media regarding the situation. Ultimately they are journalists and they are creating stories which is their job. The media are not held in high regard at the moment.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
That's net. 350 is the gross figure.
You'll agree it is a lot of miles though.
Well, if we're talking about the round trip it's surely 524 miles. Or thereabouts, depending upon actually where one starts and finishes. If a trip to Barnard Castle is involved, would be more.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
I will drive 500 miles And I will drive 500 more Just to be the man who drives a thousand miles To bring Covid to your door.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
350 miles is a reference to the number on the side of a bus.
I know, but it’s still annoying me.
It’s ironic of course that the real figure was £250 million a week.
It was an exaggeration but given that the person responsible for the exaggeration is now the one we are using it against that's fair in love and war.
He was also spotted 30 miles away from where he was staying, add on the round trip for that, maybe a diversion somewhere and we are getting pretty close to 350m.
He was spotted in central Durham, unless his parent farm is 30 miles outside of Durham that isn't true, it's more like 3.
He was also spotted at Barnards Castle, 30.5m from Durham so 61m round trip.
Add on your 6m Durham round trip and ydoethur's 262 miles and we are up to 329m......
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
350 miles is a reference to the number on the side of a bus.
I know, but it’s still annoying me.
It’s ironic of course that the real figure was £250 million a week.
It was an exaggeration but given that the person responsible for the exaggeration is now the one we are using it against that's fair in love and war.
He was also spotted 30 miles away from where he was staying, add on the round trip for that, maybe a diversion somewhere and we are getting pretty close to 350m.
He was spotted in central Durham, unless his parent farm is 30 miles outside of Durham that isn't true, it's more like 3.
He was also spotted at Barnards Castle, 30.5m from Durham so 61m round trip.
Add on your 6m Durham round trip and ydoethur's 262 miles and we are up to 329m......
Surely there were some roadworks?
If you drive straight up the A1, you miss that new bit of work around Huntingdon.
Is the Democratic party having a collective brain fart? First they had Hillary 'the vagina' Clinton. "I believe in Women unless my hubby is involved". Now they have Joe 'the woman must be heard, unless I'm involved' Biden, and Oops, I'd better have a black, female VP.
Could Domestos man get a second term?
Worryingly, yes.
I think the Dems are still trying to work through how they can swap out Biden at the convention, for someone who doesn't talk total gibberish.
My wife and I brought up our children 250 miles from one set of grandparents, and the other's would not have been particularly reliable in these circumstances, BUT we had other family, and, as importantly friends, near our home. As I understand, the Cummings have. It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
350 miles.
Durham is 262 miles from London.
I will drive 500 miles And I will drive 500 more Just to be the man who drives a thousand miles To bring Covid to your door.
HOLD ON! I'M CUMMINGS! -------------------------- Don't you ever be sad Lean on me, when the rules are bad When the day comes and you're locked down With public opinion about to frown
Just hold on, I'm Cummings Hold on, Dom Cummings
I'm on my way, to Durham If you get the virus, I won't give a damn! Don't worry about the rules, 'cause I'm here No need for contrition, 'cause I'm here
Just hold on, I'm Cummings Hold on, Dom Cummings Hold on, I'm Cummings Hold on, Dom Cummings
Reach out to me for special advice, yeah Call my name, yeah, and pay the price Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
Comments
Compare
He lives in Australia (still happening).
He has lived in Australia (not happening any more but he is still living).
He lived in Australia (not happening any more and he could be dead).
If you add a length of time it's different:
He has lived in Australia for 10 years (and still does).
That, when the brains were out, the man would die,
And there an end. But now they rise again
With twenty mortal murders on their crowns
And push us from our stools. This is more strange
Than such a murder is.
But you could have done that in early March, at the same daily number of cases, most of the people who died would still be alive, and you wouldn't have needed the lockdown.
An apology is clearly insufficient for breaking quarantine which is the more serious part of it. Most people are equating his actions to that of the Scottish CMO or Ferguson, but Cummings actions were far more dangerous as his chance of being contagious would be at least 10x (maybe much much more) than the CMO or Ferguson.
In part it may be the age structure of the population, with more youngsters and fewer elderly, but I think this could only explain a 2-3 times mortality.
All 3 countries cited do have quite high rates of inadequately treated diabetes and blood pressure etc.
The other difference is availability of medical treatment. The hospitalisation rate of youngsters here is significant, but they are much more likely to respond to treatment. If that treatment is not available then mortality in the young might be higher here too.
Of course, Cummings should have gone, but no doubt, had he not been a Spad, he'd have been a journalist. Two arses of the same cheek, as Mr G woukd nearly says.
It is obvious that he doesn't believe that the rules apply to him or his family. Rules are for the plebs.
And I don't think the anti-lockdown zealots are accepting that there will still have to be severe restrictions. Particularly on what is probably the highest-risk activity of all - socialising. I think they have a vague idea that everyone under 50 can just go back to normal and everyone else can be magically "shielded". That aspiration makes no more sense now than it did in March.
That's why I think it's a reassuring thing that so many people are actually very reluctant to go back to normal. I think their behaviour is going to change. If it weren't for that, and if everyone really did go back to normal after lockdown, we'd find ourselves back in the same mess very rapidly.
In early March we had close to no testing capacity. Now we can test tens of thousands a day.
In early March our test, track and trace team was struggling to cope with a thousand cases. Now we have 25,000 ready to go so can do far more.
In early March, shops and offices had little knowledge of the challenges ahead, now they do.
We are in a completely different scenario regardless of what it looks like on a graph.
Telegraph suggests he lied to Downing street about second visit.
Every country that has had leadership has followed it. The British responded when it finally came, and I don't see they wouldn't have responded to an instruction like "please cancel events and work from home where practical", especially since by early March Italy was already on fire.
"Telegraph suggests he lied to Downing street about second visit."
He's a bad 'un. Clearly perfect journalist material.
https://unherd.com/thepost/nobel-prize-winning-scientist-the-covid-19-epidemic-was-never-exponential/
It would not have occurred to us, I am certain, in such circumstances, to have upped and off; could have relied on friends to support us, friends too, with whom our children would have been familiar.
Nor, quite frankly, with such a contagious disease would either of us have driven 250miles.
He may well be onto something, there appears to be something weird about the way it spreads, but just because he has a nobel prize it doesnt stop his theory being not that much more than an educated guess.
He speculates there may be preexisting immunity in a lot of people. It almost looks as if there is a cow pox equivalent in circulation. Possibly the coronaviruses which account for 30% of cases of the common cold.
Could Domestos man get a second term?
He's got an 'ology. That's a lot better than the questioners at the press briefing.
It’s ironic of course that the real figure was £250 million a week.
1) The M6 Toll. It’s deserted. Why pay when the M6 has nothing on it? Can see it being nationalised later on in the year. Good news for Lichfield and Birmingham if so.
2) Coal fired electricity generation. The last such power generated was on the 10th April. We have now gone 44 days without burning any due to low demand and renewable friendly weather (very sunny and very windy). Our last power stations were due to be turned off next year. That might be brought forward.
https://twitter.com/ProfTimBale/status/1264443607114711040
You'll agree it is a lot of miles though.
A randomised time series sample of the population could be checked to see how many have any sort of corona antibodies and perhaps a modified SIR model used to work out if that "removes"/immunities enough of the population to produce herd immunity at a very low level of actual covid-19 infections.
I'm open to the "other antibodies" argument but it needs testing in some fashion rather than just being spouted as a "it must be this" by those whose theories rely on it.
Where's the popcorn?
I suspect that Shapps is not going to get much time to explain his new whizzy transport plans.
Anyone we may have individually known who had a hell of a time through this and/or has ongoing health problems from it is, apparently, fictitious, or unrepresentative, or merely inconvenient and should be ignored.
Edit; Oops. Maths!
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/
Never underestimate the human capacity to cherrypick information that fits the narrative they want to be true and believe in it hard.
And I will drive 500 more
Just to be the man who drives a thousand miles
To bring Covid to your door.
Add on your 6m Durham round trip and ydoethur's 262 miles and we are up to 329m......
Surely there were some roadworks?
I think the Dems are still trying to work through how they can swap out Biden at the convention, for someone who doesn't talk total gibberish.
--------------------------
Don't you ever be sad
Lean on me, when the rules are bad
When the day comes and you're locked down
With public opinion about to frown
Just hold on, I'm Cummings
Hold on, Dom Cummings
I'm on my way, to Durham
If you get the virus, I won't give a damn!
Don't worry about the rules, 'cause I'm here
No need for contrition, 'cause I'm here
Just hold on, I'm Cummings
Hold on, Dom Cummings
Hold on, I'm Cummings
Hold on, Dom Cummings
Reach out to me for special advice, yeah
Call my name, yeah, and pay the price
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!