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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Lockdown is over. What next?
Winston Churchill did not go out of his way to sell sunny optimism. During the 1930s, much to the irritation of his own party, he led the campaign to rearm the country in the face of a Nazi threat he considered – and said – was much greater and more imminent than the government would allow. On becoming prime minister, he then levelled with parliament about the sacrifices that would be needed over years, famously having “nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”. And then in 1946, having delivered on that promise, he educated a world weary of war and death that the struggles were not over; that the democratic West’s erstwhile ally, the Soviet Union, was the new enemy and needed confronting. These were not messages calculated to win favour. They were, however, necessary.
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Ironically it is our close ally and leader of the free world that is killing innocent citizens and taking potshots at journalists on live television.
Many of those calling for schools to reopen sooner, as well as those urging delays, might, if they had not been reading all the documents on gov.uk, have been surprised when the Prime Minister told us that it would apply to just a few school years, and not everyone was going back, and even then primary schools would reopen a fortnight before secondary schools (for "some face-to-face contact time", whatever that means, for years 10 and 12 only).
It is hard to see what underlies this timetable, other than a vague desire to do something. How to convince teenagers it is far too dangerous to meet their friends out of school but perfectly safe to meet the same friends at school is left as an exercise for the reader.
And now we, the little people, must read and digest all these disparate rules and then we can use our common sense as to which to follow, and hope we are not fined by police using a different interpretation. Where's that Number 10 staff card when we need it?
Someone somehow thought that as only 50 MPs can "sit" in the Commons, only 50 MPs will be allowed to vote and thus "Democracy is under threat".
The astonishing thing is that everyone who subsequently posted for the first 15 posts assumed it was true and posted accordingly!
Before anyone ever criticises any politician for repeating very simple messages endlessly, keep this in mind. This is the knowledge level of the average person. Indeed these are people with a particular interest in politics who have chosen to seek out a politics forum.
https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2380690/only-50-mps-allowed-to-vote-on-issues-democracy-under-threat#latest
It seems Sage has been responsible for the lockdown delays and mistakes, not the politicians
Sage minutes reveal how UK advisers reacted to coronavirus crisis
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/29/sage-minutes-reveal-how-uk-advisers-reacted-to-coronavirus-crisis?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Tweet
Again, I don't know what the culture is like in other countries, but we have changed immensely since 1939. We have become a "prizes for all" society. No winners. No losers (though, of course, there are). Bad things happen in life. Government have to take tough decisions. If Johnson did the decent thing and levelled with the public, the outcry from the media would be deafening. Piers Morgan for one would not be able to handle the reality.
Ultimately it all comes back to money. I think the government will delay being honest until they have to start scaling back the bailouts.
Since that being abandoned after the Imperial modelling, the government’s response has been tactical, variable, contradictory, and too late. Testing was critical (remember the drive-in centres?), then unimportant (no test even with symptoms), now it is critical again.
The first batch of returning travellers from the cruise ship were transported by men in hazmat suits and held in the Wirral for a fortnight. Thereafter people could walk into the country as they pleased, even flying in from known hotspots. Now we are introducing quarantine just as we need it least. Except there are already signs that it won’t happen, or won’t happen for very long.
Not to mention the vague, contradictory and ever shifting policy on lockdown itself, or the confused alert system where even at launch the PM couldn’t decide whether we were at level three or level four.
The one issue I have with the lead is the assumption that looser lockdown will inevitably and immediately lead to a second wave. I can’t see much evidence that anywhere that has locked down, passed its initial peak, and then unlocked has yet created a significant second wave. The upward trending areas are those that haven’t reached their first peak or never locked down in the first place.
Maybe there’s a seasonal effect, maybe more of us have had it then anyone has yet established, maybe there is some genetic or acquired base level of immunity or resistance? Or maybe a second wave simply needs more time, and some mutation - look how far apart the three waves of 1918/19 were?
I don't believe contact tracing alone will do it, given the estimate that there are still nearly 8,000 new infections per day. It needs some form of continuing social distancing. The evidence suggests it doesn't need a full lockdown.
But just returning to normal would be catastrophic. In those Sage minutes it mentions the meeting on 16 March when it decided social distancing should be introduced "as soon as possible" rather than just "soon". That meeting was told that at that time there could be "up to 10,000 new cases per day". That is only 30% higher than the current estimate - just 2 or 3 days' growth in normal life.
“Following the science” was always politics, not science. Now it is looking as if they would have been better doing proper politics from the beginning.
Meeting hears the first evidence “of local transmission unlinked to individuals who have travelled from China, in Japan, Republic of Korea and Iran”. It is also told there is some evidence from China and Hong Kong “that social distancing measures have had some impact in limiting the outbreak”.
By that time the Chinese restrictions had been in place for about four weeks, and the number of new cases had dropped to about 20% of its peak (on 4 February) in Hubei province, and about 5% in the rest of the mainland.
It's as though they just hadn't been looking at the numbers.
The timing of lockdown lifting is a tactical not a strategic question - we were always going to do it, and it will always carry risks. Similarly, ‘eradicating’ Covid was never a possibility (once it took off in multiple countries outside China) without a vaccine.
I don’t agree there’s no strategy here - I don’t even really see how it’s possible to believe that. I do believe the tactics are being deployed with an eye on the politics not just the science.
I think the saddest thing about the current moment is how lockdown lifting will affect different people so differently (it must be such a worrying prospect if you are In a vulnerable category) - and that the economic devastation coming is getting such scant focus. In two months that will be dominating views of Boris and of govt handling of the crisis.
The pattern appears to be a single peak with a long fat tail. I reckon that we will see 100 deaths per day for some months. Social Distancing and effective contact tracing are going to be needed to keep the numbers manageable.
I cannot see Social Distancing working universally now, so many individuals will stay away from areas that do not enforce it. I have my doubts as to the contact tracing will work. Most HSC workers will be off work for a fortnight most months.
Tracing locations to identify spread sites is scientifically good, but I wonder about the legal implications. If the Dog and Duck, or hospital outpatients, is the site of a fatal transmission, then expect legal scrutiny on how effective the SD rules were applied.
It's never too early for a bit of HMG exculpation.
It is clear from these minutes Sage treated the disease as flu in the early weeks and are responsible for the slow reaction.
Boris, Nicola, Drakesford and Foster followed this advice and it is time to accept that Sage have many questions to answer. The one thing I admire about Nicola is that she admits they got it wrong on Nike conference in Edinburgh, lockdown and care homes. It would have been good if Boris had done the same
A 19 year old has been killed in Detroit after someone drove up in a SUV and started firing into the crowd
It is sickening and the US seem to be on the verge of a full civil war
They are the actual Sage minutes and are stark and revealing
Nothing in this excites me.
It is a disaster but these minutes are shocking in the way Sage reacted and advised HMG
I urge everyone to read these minutes carefully as it paints a picture of advice that was closely followed by the politicians and was wrong
YouGov
Brits on who has handled the coronavirus outbreak better between England and Scotland:
England: 14%
Scotland: 44%
Also it explains why Nicola, as well as Boris, acted in the early weeks
https://twitter.com/Digbylj/status/1266479787314483200?s=20
None of them would have gone against this advice, nor would you.
This Country is nothing like the US nor will it be
https://twitter.com/redhistorian/status/1266001778740527107?s=09
Do you accept Sage advice as per these minutes was based on flu and was wrong, thereby causing the delay in lockdown
https://twitter.com/gcluley/status/1266492985417650179?s=20
Agree. We are heading towards managed self-segregation, in which the public will be left to judge the balance of risk and reward for itself. Except, of course, for those stuck in hospitals and care homes, who will be at the mercy of the measures (which appear commonly to be wholly ineffectual) deployed to try to protect them. The spectrum of approaches will run from twentysomethings who've now left the family home mixing freely and doing pretty much what they like, through to terrified octogenarians who may well die of old age without ever having left their homes again, with the rest of us floating around at various points in between.
The calculation in Government must be that a certain ongoing death rate can and must be tolerated because another two, three or six months of April-style lockdown is unenforceable, and would lead to total economic collapse even if it could be made to stick. It might well work, although if you are in one of the more vulnerable groups then you're going to be forced, at some point, to consider whether you want to spend the rest of your life imprisoned in a brick box, or if you're going to have to start taking calculated risks for the sake of your sanity.
Another major concern is that the Government may at once be too afraid of lockdown to enforce it properly, and too afraid of unshuttering the wider economy to get around to doing it in time. Thus, we end up with a steady stream of ongoing fatalities and the simultaneous destruction of the bulk of the leisure industry. If we're not going to try very hard to discourage or prevent the fit and healthy under 50s from mixing more freely, then it makes little sense to keep restaurants and cafes forcibly shut until halfway through the Summer and then make them operate under the 2m rule which will drive most of them to the wall anyway. These businesses won't be able to survive off 20% of their tables, and there won't be many takers for the alternative: a romantic dinner inside a perspex cube, with food and empty plates passed in and out on a tray, prison cell style, through a small hatch.
But I suppose this comes back to Herdson's point about the Government's complete lack of leadership on these issues. Leaving private citizens to interpret the rules for themselves a la Cummings, whilst imposing restrictions on businesses that are consistent with an entirely different approach to the epidemic, means that we face sacrificing a lot of people for the wider economic good whilst failing utterly to achieve that aim. Death and suffering in vain, inflicted for no purpose.
Politicians who make badly advised decisions remain responsible. Even if other politicians in their position would have made precisely the same misjudgement.
*if Cummings had had more common sense he would had a CYA email in place before heading north.
Sadly this crisis has been politicised and it needs an independent voice to pronounce on it
The scientists and virologists - the best in the world, we were told - reckoned it could cause 500k UK dead. Maybe just 250k. Neither number is one a Government could see unfold and hope to survive. Industry would have stopped because not enough people would have risked venturing out. Your job - or your life? Easy choice. Shops, pubs, clubs, cinemas - all would have had to close because they would have been losing vast amounts of money, as only the wreckless or Covid-survivors would be venturing out. The Government lockdown gave very considerable structure to what would have occurred ad hoc over maybe 10 days.
And they funded it. Remarkably efficiently, in my opinion, in terms of those who were covered and how quickly it was delivered. A real win for the government's handling. And it will hold the economy's hand until October. At a huge cost (although the current rates of borrowing are being utilised to mean the interest components are currently tiny sums). But there is a structure that tapers, encouraging people to get back to jobs that will largely still be there at the end of this - as long as there is some continuing creative assistance to get them through those next few weeks.
But outside of these structures put in place by our government, defeating Covid as a threat to our normal daily lives is down to people getting information they can use to work around things as they live their lives. If the Chinese study is to be believed - a caveat we now need to make - then of 318 cluster outbreaks studied, only one was outdoors (and that involving just two people). If folk can be confident that simply being outdoors greatly reduces the risk, they can dial down the paranoia that every person they meet could give them this disease.
This is where government needs hard scientific facts. One of the huge frustrations is that it is still very difficult to get reliable information on this simple ask: what activity leads to the greatest risks in getting Covid? Answer that - and we have a much better chance of doing more than just taking baby steps towards saving livelihoods.
Of course very occasionally the musical chairs result in a crap Tory leader becoming pm and having to take responsibility..
You arse is now covered, as no-one important will want to admit they were too lazy to read their emails.
Mr. Boy, care to cite examples of those things you assert are occurring here?
Had a lovely drink with friends in the garden last night. Didn’t even need to drive 30 miles to test my eyesight...
The historical legacy and origins of racism in the US are not the same as ours. So direct comparison will never be reasonable.
Nevertheless the starting point for any hope of resolving inter-community conflict is (as we showed in Northern Ireland) to tackle the underlying discrimination and unfairnesses that fuel the discontent, and to aim toward giving all communities a significant stake in society. So far there appears little recognition of such among those in power in the US.
Tax cuts for wealthy: cut in top rate of income tax
Voter suppression: trials of voter ID to deal with virtually nonexistent problem of impersonation, which has been shown to disadvantage poor and minorities
Blaming immigrants for problems: entire Leave campaign plus casual racism of Johnson
Attack on labour rights: the 1980s trade union "reforms"
Cuts to welfare state: Universal credit, benefit cap, bedroom tax, all of which have created unprecedented surge in food bank use (another US import)
Brexit: designed to dismantle European style norms of social protection and move us closer to unfettered free market policies of US
Hope this helps.
I’ve read through the Guardian account of the SAGE minutes and my main reaction was to wonder about the group’s brief at each stage.
It’s said that advisers advise and ministers decide, but that misses the point that the first decision phase is before the advice is given, when ministers decide on their need for advice.
Like anyone whose job is to sell advice, the biggest problem I have is being asked for input too late, and the second biggest problem is not being given a clear account of the client’s objectives and priorities.
In this case the impression is that the committee is playing catch up - lots of statements have the form of “x has already happened so it’s too late to do y”. Where action is eventually recommended, the objective is apparently to stop NHS services being overwhelmed.
Trying to reconstruct the instructions of SAGE’s “client” in this situation, you might conclude that the group was not convened before the virus took hold in the UK with the objective of advising on how to minimise case numbers and excess deaths, but rather that it had the objective of trying to find ways to preserve “normal” life as long as possible while protecting healthcare services from collapsing.
This isn’t to say that perfect advice was given - some of the views about community transmission being low followed by those about various control measures being ineffective seem out of step with what was already being treated as consensus by many european countries who did rather better. But if the criterion against which the scientists are now being judged is minimising deaths by taking early action, it doesn’t seem that was their brief at the time.
Where can I read about the Chinese study?
Surely we need the following:
1) Continue to socially distance with other households
2) Avoid confined spaces - outside is better
3) Do not gather in large groups or crowds - risk of 'super spreader events'
4) Wear masks in public
5) Protect vulnerable members of society by being more careful in general if you come into contact with them
The complete absence of a policy of mask wearing is particularly bizarre at this stage. I understood earlier on when PPE was at critical levels, but it is surely an 'easy win' in terms of reducing R if we can make that the norm.
https://twitter.com/pmdfoster/status/1266625440543838208
Mr. Boy, thanks.
To go through them:
"tax cuts for wealthy: cut in top rate of income tax" -
this partially reversed a last ditch hike by Labour. The rate remains 5% higher than it was for almost the entirety of the Labour period. Also, when the rate itself was higher the tax take was lower. Tax policy should be governed by generating revenue, not vindictively seeking to harm the wealthy. Public good trumps private harm.
"Voter suppression: trials of voter ID to deal with virtually nonexistent problem of impersonation, which has been shown to disadvantage poor and minorities" -
there are dozens of acceptable forms of ID including requesting a special one, free of charge, from the local council. Photo ID has been used, I believe, in Northern Ireland for many years.
"Blaming immigrants for problems: entire Leave campaign plus casual racism of Johnson" - rather vague. One might as well claim all Remainers are traitors. Perhaps we can agree Johnson is a moron?
"Attack on labour rights: the 1980s trade union "reforms"" -
Unions have no right to hold the country to ransom.
"Cuts to welfare state: Universal credit, benefit cap, bedroom tax, all of which have created unprecedented surge in food bank use (another US import)" -
Universal credit is underfunded and the six week limit ridiculous. It should be changed in its execution. Simplifying the benefits system, however, is a very good thing. A benefit cap of £26,000 is absolutely fine and there's no reason the taxpayer should be throwing more than that at people who aren't working (additional money for those who are ill is another matter although I'd guess that would mostly come via NHS resources). The bedroom tax wasn't a tax, it was reduced benefits, and didn't happen in private housing for years with nobody caring? Food banks began in this country under Blair during the boom years and have risen consistently ever since. Their proliferation cannot be laid at any particular set of policies.
"Brexit: designed to dismantle European style norms of social protection and move us closer to unfettered free market policies of US" -
If we had the European norm on benefits it would mean shifting to a contribution model, and if we adopted likewise their maternity leave it would mean the current amount being cut in half.
No need to apologise though. It was a decent enough call. I made the same mistake for the same reason.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1
When Government first changed the advice to suggest that masks might be a good idea for indoor settings I wore one to Tesco. Given that it was (a) a bit of a faff (the wretched thing started falling to pieces when I tried to adjust it because it was getting uncomfortable) and (b) 95% of the rest of the customers couldn't be arsed to begin with, I did not repeat the experiment. And why would you, if hardly anybody else is bothering?
The latest survey data that appeared on the slides at yesterday's briefing suggested that "29% of adults used a face covering when outside their home." A case of people telling pollsters what they think they want to hear (or will make them look good) if ever there was one. Where is this near-third of the population that's walking around in masks? It's patently bollocks.
People won't listen to the government, so could we get some people they will listen to together to give them some advice? IDK, David Attenborough, Prince William, Judi Dench, something like that?
It has not shown up in the gov.uk slides so I was wondering if there was a more complete story behind it?