At noon in the Commons LAB leader Keir Starmer will face Johnson in the first PMQs since the story about the Cummings lockdown trip to Durham broke. This could be quite tricky for Johnson who has struggled when faced with the former DPP now Leader of the Opposition.
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Architect of Sweden’s no-lockdown policy admits too many have died
The architect of Sweden’s controversial no-lockdown policy has for the first time conceded the Scandinavian country should have imposed more restrictions to avoid having such a high death toll.
Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, agreed with the interviewer on Sveriges Radio that too many people had died in the country, which currently has the highest per capita death rate in the world.
“If we would encounter the same disease, with exactly what we know about it today, I think we would land midway between what Sweden did and what the rest of the world did,” Mr Tegnell said in the interview broadcast on Wednesday morning.
Mr Tegnell’s admission is striking as for months he has criticised other countries’ lockdowns and insisted that Sweden’s approach was more sustainable despite heavy international scrutiny of its stubbornly high death toll.
The public mood in Sweden appears to have shifted somewhat since neighbouring Norway and Denmark last week opened their borders to each other but not their close neighbour.
Sweden has a per capita death rate that is currently the highest in the world and has recorded 10 times the deaths relative to its population size than Norway.
Mr Tegnell said in the interview: “There is quite obviously a potential for improvement in what we have done in Sweden. It would be good to know exactly what to close down to better prevent the spread of the virus.”
https://twitter.com/albertonardelli/status/1268058437516177408?s=21
Lawyer politicians are the best.
In this story about how Australia responded (much more proactively and effectively) to the pandemic, it specifically references their having had access to the Imperial modelling:
https://www.afr.com/policy/health-and-education/tough-decisions-tears-and-agility-behind-australia-s-covid-19-success-20200529-p54xp1
Though I'll grant that Lincoln, widely acknowledged as the greatest US President, was indeed a lawyer.
If Boris excels at winging it, then no one does whinging it like Starmer.
However, I still want HMG to succeed and I remain a conservative party member
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-contact-tracing-mistake-jeremy-farrar-welcome-trust-sage-a9516066.html
...A leading British scientist who sits on the panel advising the government on coronavirus has admitted the UK made a mistake in dropping its test, track and trace policy in March.
Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust and member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies, made the comment in an interview on the BBC's Newsnight on Thursday evening.
Asked whether the government had made a mistake by choosing to stop the policy, he replied: “I think in retrospect it was, yes.”
“We must learn the lessons of why this epidemic got out of control in February and March. And we must not allow that mistake to be happening in May, June and July.”...
Though you're right I think in not being able to come up with an example of one who has said explicitly that "too many have died".
Thatcher and Ken Clarke.
I suspect Londoners are realising we're not quite out of this yet. Starmer's line signals he's in tune with this.
Might watch PMQs for once.
Why, thank you. Here's another: if Starmer can't land a decisive blow today after the entire Blob has assaulted the Government non-stop for the better part of two weeks, then he may never be able to do so.
I wonder if he's feeling the pressure...
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-southkorea-qr-code/south-korea-mandates-qr-codes-to-log-customers-after-nightclub-coronavirus-outbreak-idUKKBN239075
...The decision to mandate QR codes to register visitors’ identities came after authorities struggled to trace people who had visited a number of nightclubs and bars at the centre of a virus outbreak last month after much of the information on handwritten visitor logs was found to be false or incomplete.
Starting June 10, visitors to nightclubs, bars, karaoke clubs, daytime discos, indoor gyms that hold group exercises, and indoor standing concert halls, will be required to use any of a number of commercially available apps to generate a one-time, personalized QR code that can be scanned at the door.
Local governments may also designate other high-risk facilities such as libraries, hospitals, restaurants or churches.
The person’s information will be logged in a database kept by the Social Security Information Service for four weeks, before it is automatically deleted, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare....
Even the PB Tories aren't particularly partisan these days.
You and your adjacent arse-cheek the Correct Horse takes sycophancy to a whole new level of embarrassing.
Labour are just not breaking through the narrative. I'm beginning to think the comments on here about KS missing open goals are bang on
To become PM Starmer really needs to see Remainers or soft Brexit, pro single market Leavers who voted Tory to keep Corbyn out last year come over to him or at least shift to the LDs from that point
Could you ever see yourself voting for Sir Keir, Richard, if he appointed (say) Miss Reeves as ShadChan?
A surprising feature on PB is how many of the rampant government apologists don't understand that it is the LOTO's role to oppose, especially when there is plenty to call out.
It's equally ridiculous that people who pay a fortune for live sport get a fraction of games televised while people that steam it online get them all.
Completely perverse and I hope this is a watershed moment.
I've learned something new today. After checking Wiki to make ABSOLUTELY sure SSC was born in Auld Reekie, I discover he has a brother, Neil, also an actor. You can see the family resemblance.
https://tinyurl.com/yd8qlv8l
That's probably fair comment, but Sir Keir first has to sort out the abject mess in the party, to professionalise it and make it ready for government.
That will take a year – at least.
If you were were a Labourite I dare say you'd be fairly content with that for now – Corbyn gone and the idiots being slowly unpicked from the party machine.
As an example, there is a trade off between numbers of deaths and having been allowed out of our homes in April and May for exercise. If you put it direct to the public in a one line opinion poll, I wouldnt be surprised if the majority wouldnt trade a single death for that benefit, which is clearly the wrong answer.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52904433
...Anthony Costello, a professor of Global Health at UCL and former WHO director, told Victoria Derbyshire the Test and Trace system was unlikely to be picking up more than 30% of coronavirus cases and may be missing at least two-thirds of contacts.
"That's why your nurse has not had any calls. It is not fit for purpose yet. The worrying thing is can it ever be fit for purpose? Why was it set up like this? You need speed and you need trust," he said.
He added that the system should instead revolve around local GPs and that the current system risked giving people a false sense of security.
The NHS Test and Trace scheme in England is intended to map a person's networks and close contacts once they have received a positive coronavirus diagnosis.
It is being run in part by the private outsourcing company Serco and is led by the chair of NHS Improvement and former TalkTalk chief executive Baroness Dido Harding....
Perhaps a better model would be to show just one game live at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon?
Offtopic, but I discovered something useful, Telegraph paywall is purely client side (haven't looked into whether javascript, css or combination, but viewing page source reveals the full article text). I'd always assumed the server only provided the short introduction, but I was wrong.
It's a more difficult call when the lower leagues are going to be absolutely desperate to get a crowd in, as will happen next season.
Eventually it will happen, as you say the only people watching live Prem League in the UK at 3pm are the TV pirates - when the rest of the world is watching any match they choose. The internet can't be held back indefinitely.
Fri 19.45
Sat 12.30
Sat 17.30
Sat 19.30
Sun 12.00
Sun 14.00
Sun 16.00
Sun 18.00
Sun 20.00
Mon 20.00
Besides that ship has already sailed now that it is insanely easy to illegally stream games online and that genie is not going back into its bottle.
The World Health Organization and a number of national governments have changed their Covid-19 policies and treatments on the basis of flawed data from a little-known US healthcare analytics company, also calling into question the integrity of key studies published in some of the world’s most prestigious medical journals.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/covid-19-surgisphere-who-world-health-organization-hydroxychloroquine
Governments and WHO changed Covid-19 policy based on suspect data from tiny US company
Surgisphere, whose employees appear to include a sci-fi writer and adult content model, provided database behind Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine hydroxychloroquine studies
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/03/covid-19-surgisphere-who-world-health-organization-hydroxychloroquine?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Fair enough – thanks for the reply.
I am not convinced we have done worse than Italy, France or Spain - we have done worse than Germany. Germany should have been expected to have done the best of those 5 nations but the gap is much bigger than expectations.
Weirdly 324 people were talking about this on Twitter!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqsgzAyfAEo